Why, Whence and Wither - the "Big Questions" of Life
Ernst Bloch wrote about 'the principle of hope' as central to a living philosophy. It is a principle central to the human quest for meaning in life. For the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), the purpose of philosophy was not to create ever more refined and abstract concepts in an attempt to depict or grasp ultimate reality, not even to reveal the facts of the physical universe, but to teach human beings what they ought to do and how they ought to live. We live in a moral universe, and human beings need meaning in order to live well and flourish. These are the 'big questions' of philosophy.
"For what, pray, will it profit to have known the nature of beasts, birds, fishes and snakes, but to be ignorant of, or to despise the nature of man - why we are born, whence we come and whither we go." (Petrarch).
Knowledge of the physical universe - fact - has to be accompanied, complemented, by knowledge of the moral universe - value. Knowledge is self-knowledge, both cognitive and affective. That is not to denigrate knowledge of the natural world at all, but to hold fact and value together. Factual knowledge alone is insufficient. Aristotle put biology and ethics/politics together so that an 'ought-to-be' can, in some necessary way, be derived from an 'is'. The nature of some thing implies how that thing ought to be in order to flourish.
Well worth reading in this context is biologist E.O. Wilson's book 'The Social Conquest of the Earth'. Wilson organises his discussion around Gauguin's painting 'Where do we come from?" "What are we?" "Where are we going?" These are Petrarch's 'big questions'. They are perennials.
Wilson states our predicament well: 'Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.'
We need to put the worlds of fact and value together. Wilson himself advocates the principle of 'biophilia', linking the knowledge and love of ourselves with the knowledge and love of the natural world, connecting nature within with nature without. In 'Here on Earth', the ecologist Tim Flannery urges us to embrace the concept of biophilia as a condition of our own survival. Flannery quotes the Bible - ‘A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another.’ (John 13) - but he urges us to love life as a whole as well as each other.
'I am certain of one thing—if we do not strive to love one another, and to love our planet as much as we love ourselves, then no further human progress is possible here on Earth.' (Flannery 2010 ch 23).
The term 'biophilia' pre-dates Wilson. I first came across the term in the work of the social psychologist Erich Fromm, who writes well here: 'I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom.' (Erich Fromm, The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1965).
So I find it significant that the worlds of biology and ecology, the world of factual knowledge concerning the physical world, is exploring the moral implications of natural knowledge.
That's why I open with Petrarch and the 'big questions' of the why, whence and whither of human being.
These questions are moral questions, they imply a normative philosophical anthropology.
The conclusion that Boethius drew at the end of 'The Consolation of Philosophy' is worthy of consideration in this respect. '
Hope is not placed in God in vain and prayers are not made in vain, for if they are the right kind they cannot but be efficacious. Avoid vice, therefore, and cultivate virtue; lift up your mind to the right kind of hope, and put forth humble prayers on high. A great necessity is laid upon you, if you will be honest with yourself, a great necessity to be good, since you live in the sight of a judge who sees all things.'
How we understand this depends on how we understand God. I return to the principle of Hope, something which draws us out of ourselves and enjoins us to use our natural talent and innate moral reason to make common cause and find common ground with the world around us. As Kenneth Clark says in 'Civilisation': 'We should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters.' That's biophilia. We can call is Nature or God or, with Spinoza, we can call it both. So long as we remember that fact and value go together in that greater whole. Physical creation and moral creation are two aspects of the same whole.
In my own work I am seeking to combine an ontological monism with an epistemological pluralism - there is one reality but many ways of accessing it.
Dante Alighieri is the peerless poet-philosopher of Hope. Dante illuminated the ‘living hope’ (di viva speme) that lies at the heart of the moral universe. (Divine Comedy, Paradiso XX 109). Dante makes 'Hope resound'. (Paradiso XXV 28-31). Dante makes it clear that we either live in hope or die in despair. It is in this sense that we can understand Kant's claim that optimism is a moral duty. Optimism, if it means anything at all (and I think it traps us into binary thinking, provoking its obverse pessimism, each as plausible or implausable as the other) can only be about making the ideal the object of our willing. Dante gives us this ideal, he gives us the hope that inspires effort when he promises to ‘restore man to the fullness of his life’ (Paradiso VII 104). He gives us a world ‘full of living power’ (viva
vertute, Paradiso XII 59); full of joy (Paradiso II 28), the ‘fullest bloom’ (Paradiso XXII 57). Dante holds out the promise of ‘fulfillment in the highest sphere, where all desires are fulfilled’ (Paradiso XXII 62-63).
Dante 'loves well and hopes well' (Paradiso XXIV 39-42), of experiencing reality so that ‘you may then strengthen in yourself and others the hope that brings true love to those on earth’ (Paradiso XXV 44-45). That is an ethic which affirms the unity of the freedom and happiness of each individual and all individuals. The Good and Just Society is one that inspires hope and is worthy of our active commitment. In the end, by pursuing the living hope, we change both ourselves and the world around us, we alter the moral and the physical universe together by intellect and love, by knowledge that is both cognitive and affective:
like a wheel in perfect balance turning, I felt my will and my desire turned by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.
[Dante, Paradiso XXXIII 142-146]