The Cunning of Reason — Part One
‘Those were the grandest gynecollege histories (Lucas calling, hold the line!) in the Janesdanes Lady Andersdaughter Universary, for auld acquaintance sake (this unitarian lady, breathtaking beauty, Bambam’s bonniest, lived to a great age at or in or about the late №1132 or №1169, bis, Fitzmary Round where she was seen by many and widely liked) for teaching the Fatima Woman history of Fatimiliafamilias, repeating herself, on which difinely purposeth of the spirit of nature as developed in time by psadatepholomy, the past and present (Johnny MacDougall speaking, give me trunks, miss!) and present and absent and past and present and perfect arma virumque romano’.
- James Joyce, (1882–1941), ‘Finnegans Wake’
Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker here lies dreaming in his four-poster bed, communing with the past; with his own, and with the history of us all, narrated in four parts by Matt Gregory, Marcus Lyons, Lucas Tarpey, and Johnny MacDougall, (yes, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), authors of ‘Annals of the Four Masters’ (and referred to elsewhere in the text as ‘fourbottle men, the analists’); this particular passage is from the testimony of Matt Gregory.
1169 AD, Richard de Clare, aka Strongbow, (1130 –1176), an Anglo-Norman, arrives in Ireland, and thus playing out his leading part in the Anglo-Norman invasion of that country; in 1170 becoming wedded, in Waterford, to Aoife MacMurrough (anglicised as Eva), daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, (c. 1110–1171), (Diarmait Mac Murchada), King of Leinster; eventually becoming Lord of Leinster, Justiciar of Ireland, (makes one wonder how well sales of Strongbow cider, named after Richard de Clare, do in Ireland). A romanticised portrayal of the blissful union between Eva and Strongbow, by Daniel Maclise, has the happy couple joining together in matrimony amidst the ruins of Waterford; in the foreground lie the bodies of dead Irish warriors; on the left is a broken-stringed Celtic harp; while Richard stands upon a damaged high cross. The iconic imagery of this pivotal moment in the Norman conquest of Ireland is clear enough; portrayed here is the end of Gaelic Ireland.
And the ‘gynecolleges’ (of course gynæcology is suggested) tell of the history of woman, the story of Eva, and the much older story of Eve, and of Helen of Troy, stories of woman the cause of so many problems … and the cause of a falling, of one kind or another; the date 1132, a number that is found throughout the Wake, recurs here… and for Joyce the numbers 1 1 32 relate directly to the notion of a fall; the law of falling bodies, thirty two feet per second per second; but also to renewal, the number 11, the beginning, one, repeating itself. Such references in the text as ‘in the year of the flood 1132’ and others indicate a connection between this number and the themes of falling apart and making anew. The flood, for instance, as in the Biblical exemplar, symbolises such dissolution, the fall from grace, and also renewal, a rebirth, an assurance of a new life. ‘For auld acquaintance sake’ …. Auld Lang Syne, sung to mark the end of a year, and the beginning of another …….
And yet, ‘repeating herself, on which difinely purposeth of the spirit of nature as developed in time by psadatepholomy, the past and present’ is a clear reference to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1870–1831), and his ‘Philosophy of History’ wherein he states: ‘History in general is therefore the development of Spirit in Time, as Nature is the development of the Idea in Space’. History unfolds itself according to a rational plan, according to Hegel. Historicism is the term that has been applied to such a perspective on history, the attributing of meaningful significance to space and to time; for instance, to historical period, to geographical place, to regional culture; a viewpoint attacked by Karl Popper, (1902–1994), who claimed that the ideological catalyst for the totalitarian regimes of the terrible twentieth century was their common belief in a national or in a religious destiny that could be assured and countenanced by a grand Hegelian historical process.
But history is most certainly more than just one damn thing after another, (a phrase traceable to historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee, (1889–1975), although he said it about life and in any case he presented it as a dogma with which he profoundly disagreed). The very endeavour to derive meaning from the past is as ancient as is culture itself; the very concept of a culture relies upon a belief in a common history that members of said culture acknowledge themselves as all sharing in, in a significant way. Whether it be an interpretation of historical events as a consequence of divine intervention, whether it be the secular coalescing of families or of nations, history has forever been a kind of adhesive holding together the framework of a culture.
Hegel’s ‘The Philosophy of History’ may be summarised as follows:
1. Spirit is freedom and self-consciousness acting to realize its own potentiality.
2. The real is the rational and the rational is the real; Idea or Reason is the formative principle of all reality.
3. The goal of history is the liberation of Spirit from its confinement in Nature in order that Spirit might be reunited with its essence as Idea.
4. The Spirit could not realize its reunion with Idea were it not for the force of Will, as derived from human passions.
5. The individual as individual is unimportant; only the historically decisive actor, the hero, makes a significant difference in history; but whether a man be a conventional citizen, courageous person, a hero, or a victim, he is nothing but the Spirit’s instrument.
6. The embodiment of the Spirit’s freedom is the State; the State is the concrete unity of freedom and passion.
History, as interpreted by Hegel, is the movement of Spirit toward the attainment of self-consciousness; and in order to comprehend world history as the progress of the consciousness of Spirit there is the requirement to reach for a conceptual apprehension the three constitutive elements which together structure historical movements. These are the Idea of Spirit; the means of actualization; and the State as the ultimate and most perfect realization of Spirit.
Hegel furnishes us with a formulation of the abstract characteristics of the Idea of Spirit. The peculiar quality of Spirit is grasped when it is seen in contrast with its opposite, that is to say, matter; for the essence of matter is gravity, which means that it has its centre outside itself and is thereby dependent upon a central point toward which it tends; whereas the essence of Spirit is freedom, and that signifies a self-contained existence.
One other characteristic of Spirit is that of self-consciousness, for it is of the very essence of Spirit to know itself or to be conscious of itself; and in the self-contained existence of Spirit as freedom is thereby self-consciousness; but in the phenomenon of this self-consciousness two modes have to be differentiated, the fact that I know, and that which I know. There is the self that is conscious, and there is the self of which the self is conscious, and insofar as in self-consciousness the self is conscious of itself, these two modes are combined into a oneness; the self has itself within itself, and yet self-consciousness is a oneness that manifests a twice duplication, given that I can know myself, I can love myself, I can hate myself, were I an existentialist which I am not I may claim that I am a stranger to myself, I can have confidence in myself, I can doubt myself, and so on. Spirit as freedom is thus self-reflecting, which is to say, self-reduplicating; and as it is the nature of Spirit to know itself, so also it is the nature of Spirit to actualize itself, for Spirit always impels itself beyond that which it is in potentiality to make itself that which it can become in actuality; indeed, Spirit hungers for such actualization, as Hegel explains:
‘The very essence of Spirit is activity; it realizes its potentiality — makes itself its own deed, its own work — and thus it becomes an object to itself; contemplates itself as an objective existence’.
Such a definition of Spirit has to be understood within the context of Hegel’s rational philosophy that affirms the identification of reason and reality; within his system the laws of logic are at the same time the laws of being. This underlying supportive principle for the system as a whole he expresses thus: what is real is rational and what is rational is real; a principle very much governing his interpretation of history, as he explains:
‘The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process …. That this ‘Idea’ or ‘Reason’ is the True, the Eternal, the absolutely powerful essence; that it reveals itself in the World, and that in that World nothing else is revealed but this and its honour and glory — is the thesis which, as we have said, has been proved in Philosophy, and is here regarded as demonstrated’.
Idea or Reason thus constitutes the primary formative principle in the entire philosophical system; and Idea itself expresses itself initially in Nature but also in Spirit; a triadic unity of Idea, Nature, and Spirit thereby defines the system. One may be tempted to think in terms of the popular view of Hegelian dialectical logic and take Idea as thesis, Nature as antithesis, Spirit the synthesis, but this would be an over-simplification, if not downright misleading. Perhaps Idea as abstract, Nature as negation, Idea as concrete …. for Nature displays the emergence of the Idea in space; Spirit displays the actualization of the Idea in time and in history; for the primary category for Spirit is time, and by means of the workings of Spirit the Idea is wrenched from its localization in space and is thereby rendered temporal and historical. And both Nature and Spirit are subject to a development under the impulse of the Idea, but while the development in Nature is that of a muted and restrained unfolding, that of Spirit gives expression to a dynamic self-realization within which conflict and alienation (the separation of two things that belong together) are fundamental and inherent movements:
‘Thus Spirit is at war with itself; it has to overcome itself as the most formidable obstacle. That development which in the sphere of Nature is a peaceful growth, is in that of Spirit, a severe, a mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit really strives for is the realization of its Ideal being; but in doing so, it hides that goal from its own vision, and is proud and well satisfied in this alienation from it’.
Spirit is alienated from the Idea through its subjection or enslavement by Nature, and yet in the process of self-realization through which it attains self-consciousness Spirit becomes sovereign over Nature, it subordinates Nature to its purposes, it impels itself to a reconciliation of itself with the Idea. As I intend to discuss in a later part of this series, it was in the historical consciousness of the Hebrew people that Hegel discovered the first deliverance of Spirit from Nature; within the Hebrew doctrine of creation Nature is understood as a created thing and as a servant, and Spirit appears as the creator and the master. The object or the goal of history is the actualization of Spirit as freedom, wresting itself from its confinement in Nature, and seeking reunion with itself as Idea, and this aim or goal at the same time may be read as God’s purpose for the world (though I read it as the Absolute fulfilling itself … this is a philosophy of history that may be interpreted as taking on the function of a theodicy, that is to say, a justification (to humankind) of the ways of God, whereby God’s providential activity in the world is the self-realization of Spirit. I do not quite read it that way, (though that is often how it is expressed), but certainly Hegel ingeniously converts the truths of religious myth into the truths of philosophical categories and thereby endeavours to establish a conceptual justification for the suffering and sacrifices that lamentably occur throughout the course of world history:
‘Itself is its own object of attainment, and the sole aim of Spirit. This result it is, at which the process of the World’s History has been continually aiming; and to which the sacrifices that have ever and anon been laid on the vast altar of the earth, throughout the long lapse of ages, have been offered. This is the only aim that sees itself realized and fulfilled; the only pole of repose amid the ceaseless change of events and conditions, and the sole efficient principle that pervades them. The final aim is God’s purpose with the world; but God is the absolutely perfect Being, and can, therefore, will nothing other than himself — his own Will. The Nature of His Will — that is, His Nature itself — is what we here call the Idea of Freedom; translating the language of Religion into that of Thought’.
The additional constitutive element of the world-historical process is that of the means of actualization; for the Idea of Spirit, as the object or goal of history, as such is simply general and abstract; it inhabits thought as a potentiality that has yet to pass over into existence. And so this additional constitutive element, actualization, has to be introduced, and the source of power that impels Spirit from its potential being into actuality is Will. Hegel defines Will as ‘the activity of man in the widest sense’; a definition with which he endeavours to retain the ranges of meaning as sufficiently wide so as to incorporate the needs, the instincts, the inclinations, the passions of people.
‘We may affirm absolutely’, declared Hegel, ‘that nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion’.
There are thus two elements that are revealed as essential for an understanding of history, one is the Idea of Spirit; and the other is the complex of human passions, and Hegel, with his characteristic flair for imaginative metaphor, speaks of the former as the warp and of the latter as the woof of the cloth of human history. And so the concrete union of the two provide the third and final element of world history, that is to say, freedom embodied in the State; for the means or material of history is thus the passions and interests of people, employed by Spirit for the achievement of its end. And individual people, activated by their inclinations and passions, constitute the Kraftwerk, so to speak, the power plant for the world-historical process; and yet these individuals are, in the final analysis, sacrificed for the object or the end of history; history is the slaughterbench at which the happiness and the welfare of each individual is sacrificed, for the individual constitutes but a moment in the vast general sweep of world history, and he or she remains historically insignificant. As Hegel put it:
‘The particular is for the most part of too trifling value as compared with the general: individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. The Idea pays the penalty of determinate existence and of corruptibility, not from itself, but from the passions of individuals’.
Spirit uses the passions of people to attain its final self-consciousness, and it sets the passions to work for itself. Such an integration of human passions with the object of Spirit is accomplished through the ‘cunning of Reason’; the cunning of Reason weaves together all of the expressions of passion and renders them as contributory toward the final goal; and the passions which are thereby put to work by the cunning of Reason arise from the wills of particular individuals, so they play their manifold and diverse roles and carry out their assorted functions. And these particular individuals are classified by Hegel into four separate, and yet interrelated categories: the citizen, the person, the hero, and the victim.
Within the brain’s most secret cells
A certain Lord Chief Justice dwells
Of sovereign power, whom one and all
With common voice, we Reason call.
- Charles Churchill, (1731–1764)
To be continued ….
Notes to ‘Finnegans Wake’ quotation:
1. gynecollege = gynæcology, that department of medical science which treats of the functions and diseases peculiar to women; and Queen’s Colleges of Belfast, Galway and Cork, and University College, Dublin, all have medical schools.
2. hold the line = — to maintain telephonic connection during a break in conversation; also figuratively.
3. Anders = ander (Dutch), other; and andros (Greek), man’s; and Elizabeth Anderson, one of the first woman physicians.
4. Universary — the whole body or number of something; John Hopkins University.
5. unitarian = one who affirms the unipersonality of the Godhead, especially as opposed to an orthodox Trinitarian; especially a member or adherent of a Christian religious body or sect holding this doctrine.
6. Bambam = (nothing to do with the Flinstones) Banba (bonbe) (Gaelic), Ireland (poetic); and name of Tuatha De Danann, queen; and bamban (French slang), nickname for lame person.
7. bonniest = bonny, pleasing to the sight, comely, beautiful.
8. 1169 = 1169 AD, Strongbow lands in Ireland.
9. bis = (German), until.
10. Fatima = the daughter of Muhammad by his first wife, Khadija.
11. familias = (Latin), of a family in time all history
12. difinely = divinely; and Hegel, ‘The Philosophy of History’: ‘History in general is therefore the development of Spirit in Time, as Nature is the development of the Idea in Space’.
13. psadatepholomy = pseudotelephony.
14. trunks = trunk (plural), the operators who deal with trunk calls; and a telephone line connecting two exchanges a long way apart or in different telephone areas.
15. arma virumque romano = Arma virumque cano (Latin), ‘Arms and the man I sing’ (opening of the Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’); and Arma virumque Romano (Latin), Arms and a man by a Roman; Romano (Latin), by a Roman.
