Last week we discovered that the Platonic Forms that found a line of descent through division are a myth. Not "myth" figuratively, as in they don't really exists, but literally, as in Plato puts a myth where the definition of the Form ought to be. Deleuze cites a couple of examples from Plato: the mythical shepherd-God is the true Statesman taking care of humanity, who defines what it means to be a Statesman; the true lover of the Phaedrus is the one who best remembers the mythical world of Forms we all contemplated before our birth. To these we might add the famous founding "myth of the metals" that justifies the structure of the Republic. In all these cases, the Ideas that are meant to ground our understanding of this world are explicitly taken out of it by conceiving them as myths.
At first glance this seems like a strange way of explaining things. Though, as I pointed out last time by comparing the Ideas to Nozick's "Invisible Hand Explanations", it may be the only non question-begging type of explanation. In fact, the modern mind shouldn't find the idea strange at all, since it's just the core idea of science (as I portrayed it a while back in the debate between Socrates and Scientist). We are completely accustomed to the concept that the world is "just" physical stuff, but that it perfectly obeys laws which are not physical stuff; we call that idea "physics" now. Notice that physicists don't think that they are inventing these laws. They see themselves as discovering them. In other words, the laws have an independent reality, and are not just concepts existing in a mind that help connect that mind to the world. When we think of the Plato's Forms, we should be thinking of something with an ontological status similar to the laws of gravitation. Whatever that status is; I'm drawing an analogy here which for the moment only succeeds in replacing one mystery with another.
But let's not get into the thorny metaphysical question of how exactly physical law is connected to the physical world. Let's focus on (what Deleuze says about) how Plato's mythical Ideas are connected to the ordinary world. You may not be entirely surprised, after our discussion of circles and centers, to discover that the connection involves a type of circulation.
The structure of this myth in Plato is clear: it is a circle, with two dynamic functions - namely, turning and returning, distributing and allocation: the allocation of lots is carried out by the turning wheel of an eternally recurring metempsychosis.
... myth establishes the model of a partial circulation in which appears a suitable ground on which to base the difference, on which to measure the roles or claims. In the Phaedrus, this ground appears as the Ideas, such as these are contemplated by the souls which circulate above the celestial vault. In The Statesman, it appears in the form of the shepherd-God who presides over the circular movement of the universe. The ground may be either the centre or the motor of the circle. It is constituted by the myth as the principle of a test or selection which imparts meaning to the method of division by fixing the degrees of an elective participation. Thus, in accordance with the oldest tradition, the circular myth is indeed the story-repetition of a foundation. Division demands such a foundation as the ground capable of making the difference. Conversely, the foundation demands division as the state of difference in that which must be grounded.
The Ideas have a very particular necessary relationship to their instantiations arrayed along a chain of divisions. It almost seems best to say that Ideas differentiate into those instances. The whole point here is that the various instances are grouped together under the lineage of an Idea not by their similarity, but precisely by their difference. This set of differences is created and ordered by the Idea. Conversely, the Idea, being something out of this world, only manifests itself through those differences. The Idea circulates through, or is elaborated via, the chain of descent that it founds.
This explains part of the confusion we had before about whether the "true angler" is at the beginning or end of the chain. Do we work down? Acquiring-hunting-water-fishing-striking-barbs-upwards. Or does the chain go back up? From the true angler, through spear-fishers, net-fishers, land hunters, etc ... In fact, the Idea is at the beginning and the end both, simultaneously distributing all the points and gathering them in an order. This is like the origin myth of a city, told and re-told to continually explain the character of the place and lay out a genealogy. Since the starting point of the chain is actually a myth, the whole structure becomes a circle instead of a line. We depart from the myth and we return to it, again and again, each time renewing and extending the lineage we are part of.
If this sounds like a description of the 4th of July, well, then, at least we're getting in the spirit at the right time of year!
No comments:
Post a Comment