![PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM
11
If idealism is the view that the universe is spirit or mind, as Burnyeat and
Williams, following Moore, maintain it to be, then while it would not seem
absurd to find precursors of idealism in what Plato reports as Anaxagoras’
view that “it is intelligence [nous] that arranges and causes all things” (Phd.
97b–c), or in Parmenides’ much-discussed proposition that “thinking and
being are the same” (DK28 B3),2
we could not claim these philosophers to be
idealists, because “we do not find” the claim that “nothing ultimately exists
except minds and their experiences … in the ancient world” (B. Williams
2008: 5).
Yet even if we concede that, as a matter of fact, no such “monism of mind”
occurred in the ancient world, it would be a mistake to conflate genus with
species. That is, it is at best, as we shall see throughout this book, foolhardy to
claim that idealism as such is simply a spiritualist or mentalist monism. At one
level, it is the monistic claim regarding mind that is most bothersome to these
critics; “I take it”, writes Burnyeat, “that if the label ‘idealism’ is of any historical
use at all, it indicates a form of monism” (1982: 8). The reason for the unease
such a monistic mentalism provokes is that, at first sight, it deprives reality of
material existence.3
On this view, there is a straightforwardly exclusive disjunc-
tion between idealism and materialism: either one or the other; not both. Such
a disjunction would mean that the robust, naturalistic and pre-philosophical4
realism Burnyeat affirms of the Greeks would, under idealism, be “whittled
away” (Inge 1923: vol. 2, 42). This realism is based on the insistence that “it is
our nature and our experience of the world that explain the concepts we have,
not the other way round. The world is as it is independently of us, and shapes
our thought accordingly” (Burnyeat 1982: 22).
Yet the conclusion that idealism is inherently anti-realist or “immaterialist”
is open to question. First, let us consider realism. Burnyeat bases his Greek
realism on the obviousness of the existence of the external world, its bald
there-ness; yet he prejudges the nature of this reality as material and therefore
not ideal. It is one thing to impute inconsistent positions to the folk philoso-
phy that Burnyeat wishes to protect from post-Cartesian sophisticates; it is
quite another, however, to impute to this realism a preformulated exclusive
disjunction between materialist and idealist explanations, not least since real-
ism is not the exclusive philosophical orientation of materialists; according to
at least one early-twentieth-century British idealist philosopher, for example,
“thought-adaptation in relation to the environment has always been the pecu-
liar pride and province of objective idealism” (Bosanquet 1911: vol. ii, 275).
A version of the same problem arises in regard to the presupposition
that materialism is simply the antithesis of idealism. A consistent materi-
alism must be a monism concerning the nature of existents. Accordingly,
there could be nothing that existed that was not also material. No consist-
ent materialism could therefore argue that anything existent was other than](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-27-320.jpg)
![IDEALISM
12
material, including the causes and the contents of mental phenomena.5
There
could therefore be nothing that was purely mental that would not at the same
time be equally purely material. Thus, as Galen Strawson has recently noted,
while we might accept that:
materialism … is the view that every real concrete phenomenon
is physical in every respect …, a little more needs to be said[;] for
experiential phenomena … are the only real, concrete phenom-
ena that we can know with certainty to exist, and as it stands this
definition of materialism doesn’t even rule out idealism … from
qualifying as a form of materialism! (2008: 23)
Rather than opposing one another, the monistic dimension makes the dis-
tinction suspect. It would, in other words, be futile to protest, as Burnyeat
does, against the proposition that “the universe is mental” if all possible uni-
verses were of this nature, as a monist must hold. There could be nothing
“unnatural” in such a universe, nor anything unreal about its constituents,
nor, by virtue of the monism, any additional “material” element on which it
all rested. In other words, the idealist is a realist to the extent that she for-
mulates propositions concerning the nature of the universe. For a subjective
idealism to differ from this, it would have to allow either that (a) there is
some portion of the objective universe that experience or mind cannot reach;
or that (b) conscious, subjective experience – the only sort of experience
there is – can know only itself. Since Burnyeat finds the philosophical condi-
tions necessary to idealism given in the apparent subjectivism of Descartes’
epistemology, there is good reason to assume that it is (b) that he takes to
provide the model of what he has in mind as idealism.6
As Richard Sorabji has urged against Burnyeat, however, not all idealism
is a response to epistemological scepticism. According to Sorabji (1983: 288),
therefore, there are in fact idealisms in the ancient world, for instance in
the acccount of the genesis of matter from the immaterial in the fourth-
century philosopher Gregory of Nyssa. Further, and in direct contradiction
to Burnyeat’s case that idealism cannot exist prior to Descartes, Dermot
Moran has argued that John Scottus Eriugena’s ninth-century philosophy is
exactly subjective, “in the sense that all spatiotemporal reality is understood
as immaterial, mind dependent, and lacking in independent existence”, and
idealist, “in the Hegelian sense, whereby all finite reality is understood to
require infinite reality for its full intelligibility and completion” (1989: 81).
The problem these idealists, ancient and medieval, confront is how to form
a philosophical system of all things, not some. This is not because they are
engaged in denying the existence of this or that element of things, or in “whit-
tling away one of the terms” (Inge 1923: vol. 2, 42), but, on the contrary, are](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-28-320.jpg)
![PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM
13
seeking to combine them. Again, to quote Bosanquet, “in a theory which has
to face the universe as a whole, nothing which is can be treated as if it were
not. The attempt to do so at once convicts the theory which attempts it of
arbitrary superficiality” (1927: 22).
If Gregory therefore seeks to combine the immaterial and the material, as
Eriugena does mind-dependence and the totality, we can conclude, against
Burnyeat’s scruples that admitting the existence of ancient idealism would
damage the Greeks’ native realism, that one of the problems facing idealists
from Gregory through Hegel to Bosanquet is precisely the problem of an
inclusivist monism, not the eliminative immaterialism Burnyeat fears. As we
shall see in what follows, this inclusivism is the hallmark of the great idealist
systems of Leibniz, Hegel and Whitehead. Since these philosophers do in fact
draw on ancient sources, we need be less interested in whether there was an
ancient idealist philosophy than in what idealist philosophers have made of
what they take to be their ancient precursors, and the inventors of some of
their most important concepts.
Bosanquet’s formulation of idealism as inclusivist monism draws on the
vocabulary of the initiator of monism and, indeed, of systematic metaphys-
ics, Parmenides of Elea. While some will therefore protest that “Parmenides
is not, as some have said, the ‘father of idealism’; on the contrary, all materi-
alism depends on his view of reality” (Burnet 1930: 182), we have already
seen that idealism does not rule out materialism, and will see in what follows
that the problems first formulated by Parmenides play a decisive role in the
development, in successive ages, of idealist philosophy, as Charles H. Kahn
acknowledges: “Parmenides’ monism … had an important development in
ancient and medieval philosophy and significant parallels in modern mon-
ism since Spinoza and Hegel. The identification of Mind and Being; that is,
of cognition with its object” (2009: 163).
PARMENIDES AND THE IDENTITY OF BEING AND THINKING
The 150 extant lines constituting the writings of Parmenides of Elea take the
form of a two-part poem, the first part called the Way of Truth and the second,
the Way of Appearance.7
Following a prologue or “proem”, in which the nar-
rator is carried by a chariot of the sun through the gates of night and day to
the abode of a goddess who promises him that he will “learn all things” (DK28
B1; “Both the unmoved heart of rounded truth, and what seems to mortals, in
which there is no true belief …, [s]till, you shall learn them too, and come to
see how beliefs must exist in an acceptable form, all-pervasive as they together
are”),8
the goddess next informs the narrator of the two “ways of seeking”. The
first is the “path of Trust, for Truth attends it” and the second, “the way that](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-29-320.jpg)
![IDEALISM
14
it is not and that it must not be” (DK28 B2). Both methods are vital, since the
latter provides the rule in accordance with which to assess what cannot be.
The problem of “what is not”, here announced for the first time, marks the
beginning of Parmenides’ complex ontology and its relation to epistemology,
in so far as it opposes truth not to falsity or to belief, but to “what is not”. We
cannot know what is not, the goddess then advises, because “there is no end
to it”. Yet there is another sense to the unknowability of what is not, a sense
that, were its translation not so hotly disputed, we could say is made clear in
fragment B3, which in F. M. Cornford’s translation runs: “For it is the same
thing that can be thought and that can be” (DK28 B3). Cornford’s objection to
the identification of thinking and being postulated by fragment B3 is, there-
fore, that it leads to the panpsychism that Plato finds through Parmenides –
“all things think” (Prm. 132c) – and that Hegel (1969: 84) identifies with the
Eleatics in general.9
It is against the risk of pansychism, rather than that of
idealism, that Cornford justifies his translation:
I cannot believe that Parmenides meant: “To think is the same
thing as to be.” He nowhere suggests that his One Being thinks,
and no Greek of his date or for long afterwards would have seen
anything but nonsense in the statement that “A exists” means the
same thing as “A thinks”. (1939: 34n1)
Cornford’s translation is not the only one; the simplest translation of the
fragment runs “for thinking and being are the same” (Phillips 1955: 553),
from which we can conclude, argues E. D. Phillips, disputing Cornford and
John Burnet, that “Parmenides can be called an idealist, who believes that
what can be thought must be real” (1955: 556). This is closer to the sense
that most overtly idealist commentators on Parmenides have settled on, as
for example in Hegel, who explicates it thus: “thinking is therefore identical
with its Being, for there is nothing other than Being” (1970a: vol. 18, 289–
90). Hegel makes Parmenides’ indeterminate being into the starting point
for systematic thinking in general.10
We find support for this account of the
fragment in Plotinus:
The contemplation must be the same as the contemplated, and
Intellect the same as the intelligible; for, if not the same, there will
not be truth; for the one who is trying to possess beings [ta onta]
will possess an impression different from the realities, and this is
not truth. (Enn. V.3.5)
Plotinus’ concern with the “realities” or beings (ta onta) as grounding the
identity of contemplation and what is contemplated and therefore producing](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-30-320.jpg)
![PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM
15
truth exactly echoes Parmenides. The passage therefore draws attention to
the objective dimension of the identity of what is and what is thought. This is
why Hegel takes “indeterminate Being” as the cornerstone of a system of an
objective idealism – not because it can then be determined by and for think-
ing, but because, following Parmenides’ starting point, thinking starts neces-
sarily from being, from “what is”.
However, there is also a subjective idealism associated with the reading
“being and thinking are the same”. Writing in 1935, Heidegger outlines the
reasoning that leads to this “customary” view of the fragment. If, “thinking
and being are the same”, then:
because thinking remains a subjective activity, and thinking and
Being are supposed to be the same according to Parmenides,
everything becomes subjective. There are no beings in themselves.
But such a doctrine, so the story goes, can be found in Kant and
German Idealism. Parmenides already basically anticipated their
doctrines. (2000: 145)
The reason for this parody is not that Heidegger considers Parmenides’ poem
not to be a vital stimulus to the German idealists, but rather that thinking
would become all that there is. If “thinking and being are the same” is read
as “being is nothing other than what is thought by thinking”, it follows that
nothing but thinking “is”. This is how Bernard Williams construes fragment
B3, which has allowed, he claims, “some interpreters [to] have claimed that
Parmenides believed being and thought to be one, that nothing existed except
thought” (2008: 21). Berkeley’s argument that, since everything perceived is
an idea, there must be an “infinite mind” to perceive them is taken as the
exemplar for Burnyeat and Williams; but even Berkeley does not conclude
that “nothing exists except thought”, claiming instead that such an “infinite
mind should be necessarily inferred from the bare existence of the sensible
world” (GBW II.213). Similarly, the subjective idealisms we find, for example,
in Sprigge (2006) and in Fichte, who waxes very Parmenidean when he argues
that “self-consciousness is the identity of thinking and being” (1992: 382 n.),11
add importantly “objective” qualifications to subjectivity. For such subjective
idealisms, the model is best expressed by Bradley:
We have experience in which there is no distinction between my
awareness and that of which I am aware. There is an immedi-
ate feeling, a knowing and being in one, with which knowledge
begins; and though this is in a manner transcended, it neverthe-
less remains throughout as the present foundation of my known
world. (Bradley 1914: 159–60)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-31-320.jpg)
![IDEALISM
16
Bradley is explicit that, although my experience has a “finite centre”, it
would be a “fundamental and disastrous mistake” to call it subjective (ibid.:
189). He is concerned, in other words, with that point in experience where
precisely being and thinking become one, in other words, when knowing
occurs, when experience is as much objective as subjective. Such a position
would construe fragment B3 not primarily as a thesis concerning being,
but as one concerning knowing. This epistemological or phenomenological
approach is echoed and acknowledged by Kahn as expressly Parmenidean
(2009: 157). Kahn accordingly proposes that “[t]he ‘is’ which Parmenides pro-
claims is not primarily existential but veridical: it asserts not only the reality
but the determinate being-so of the knowable object, as the ontological ‘con-
tent’ or correlate of true statement” (ibid.: 155). It makes no sense for Kahn
to argue that the result is subjective in the restrictive sense, precisely because
all knowledge, if it is knowledge at all, must have “what is” as its content. He
thus argues that in fragment B3, it is the noein, the thinking, that is “reduced”
to being and never the contrary: “the mind does not impose its forms but
receives them from the object it knows” (ibid.: 166). Although Kahn does
not self-describe as an idealist of any sort, the claim as to the fundamental
inalienability of being from knowing he proposes would be equally at home
in Plato, Hegel or, as he acknowledges (ibid.: 157), Bradley.
The three positions – panpsychist, objective and subjective idealism –
derived from Parmenides’ fragment B3, show that the philosophical problem
of idealism consists in (a) how the identity of being and thinking exhausts
what is, and (b) which determines the other. Regardless, then, of whether we
may claim Parmenides as an idealist, his formulations remain key to deter-
mining what idealism became. Importantly, we have seen that none of the
idealists, Berkeley included, simply pass off thought as all there is to being.
It follows from the identity of being and thinking, or of what is and what
is thought, that nothing additional can exist. It is here we first encounter the
monistic implications of Parmenides’ thought. The monism is formulated
in accordance with the two ways announced by the goddess in the proem.
According to the Way of Truth, “it is, and cannot not be”; while according to
the Way of Appearance, “it is not, and it must not be” (DK28 B2).12
From the
first formulation that “It is”, the longest of the extant fragments, B8, deduces
the following properties of being: it cannot have been created, nor can it be
destroyed, since to be created, it must have arisen. To have arisen, it must
not have been there, so if it arose, this must have been from nothing. But
what is not cannot be; therefore, it cannot have arisen. Nor can it have been
created by something else, since there could be nothing other than what is
except what is not, which cannot be, and so on. Nor can it contain any void,
since this would be other than being, and therefore nothing; nor can it have
parts, since by what could parts of being be separated, if not nothingness?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-32-320.jpg)
![PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM
17
Nor can it have come into being at any time, nor become anything in the
future, since either It is, or It is not: “if it is, then it is now, all at once” (Burnet
1930: 181).
Discussing not-being, therefore, immediately presents problems: if what is
not cannot be thought or spoken of, then either mentioning it, as the goddess
does, constitutes a simple self-contradiction, or thinking of x is not sufficient
to warrant a claim that x exists, apparently contradicting fragment B3. For
this reason, the goddess instructs the investigator to “use reason” and “the
test I have announced” in order to “restrain your thinking from this way of
seeking” (DK28 B7). The force of the test is therefore purely logical, and con-
stitutes an early formulation of the principle of non-contradiction. Not to
follow the results of the test will therefore involve the enquirer in an endless
series of failed determinations of not-being, when all that can be said about
it is that “it is not”. In other words, Parmenides is not arguing that contradic-
tions in thinking “what is” are not possible, but, on the contrary, that because
they are, a test is necessary in order that enquiry into “what is” does not suf-
fer the infinite detours of “what is not”. Logically and ontologically, therefore,
not-being constitutes a limit to “what is” and what can be thought.
Yet if “what is not” can be thought even as a limit, or if thinking about not-
being does take place, then not-being is in fact thinkable; it would then not be
true that thinking thinks only what is (fragment B3) unless “what is” includes
“what is not”. Yet this is expressly what Parmenides denies. As Kahn puts it,
A real distinction between knowledge and its object, or between
language and the world, is excluded by his rigid dichotomy [of
what is and what is not]. Such a distinction is all the more alien to
his philosophy insofar as the logical laws (excluded middle, non-
contradiction, identity) which he has discovered in thought and in
language are understood by him as construing the very structure
of the real. (2009: 165)
Thus Parmenides’ axioms outline a problem for any systematic, monis-
tic philosophy. If all is one, as the Way of Truth claims, then all that is must
be accounted for in its terms. Parmenides does this by negation: the one is
uncreated, indestructible, does not come into being, has no parts, and so on.
The problem is, if being and thinking are the same, and yet what-is-not can-
not be thought, how is negation thinkable? If the goddess’s test is solely logi-
cal, then there must be a divide between the logical (what can be thought)
and the ontological (what is), marring the consistency of the system. If, as
Kahn has it, the logical laws of thought constitute the very structure of real-
ity, then “what is not” must be. One solution to this is to argue that the dif-
ference lies in the content of thought: the thought of what is, that is, has an](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-33-320.jpg)
![19
2. PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM
PLATONIC IDEAS
While Parmenides presented his philosophy in poetic metre, Plato’s prefered
medium is the display of dialectic in dramatic form. This presents certain
problems when we set out to identify what does and does not count as Plato’s
own philosophy: positions are given as characters, or characters as positions,
and their implications are worked out in live discussion, with all its digres-
sions, illustrations and false starts. A degree of caution must therefore be
exercised when we attribute a theory to Plato, in the sense “Plato held that …”.
That said, the problems addressed in his dialogues form the corpus of Platonic
philosophy, both in his work and, as we shall see, in Neoplatonism. When,
therefore, in what follows we attribute a position or a thesis, we are attributing
it to “Platonism”, although we shall take care to note what justification there
might be for attributing these positions to Plato. The resulting problems will
therefore form the basis of this outline of key elements of Platonism for the
idealist tradition.
The first such problem concerns Parmenides’ conclusions regarding what
is not, or not-being. Plato engages it in the Sophist, which argues that not-
being takes two forms: first, there is to me on, absolute not-being or “what
is not”. The Eleatic Stranger, who takes Socrates’ usual role as the primary
interlocutor in the dialogue, presents Theaetetus with Parmenides’ argument
that “he who undertakes to say ‘not-being’ [me on] says nothing at all” (Soph.
237e), but adds an important qualification: things can be said of “what is not”,
despite the fact that it is “no thing”. Indeed, in speaking of “things which are
not” or “that which is not”, we cannot avoid attributing the qualities of plural-
ity or unity to not-being (238b–39b), as Parmenides’ goddess does: the way
of not-being is endless.
So far, the Stranger is only exploring the consequences of Parmenidean
restrictions on what can be said about what is not, contravening the goddess’s](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-35-320.jpg)
![IDEALISM
20
advice to “hold back thy thought from this way of inquiry” (DK28 B6), but not
contradicting Parmenides’ theses. It remains the case, in other words, that
not-being cannot be correctly described, that “what is not, cannot be thought”.
Does it follow from this, however, that whatever is not absolute not-being,
absolutely is? To demonstrate that it does not, the Stranger asks Theaetetus to
state what an image is. Theatetus answers that an image is a likeness, copied
from reality, but is “of the same sort” (Soph. 240a) as reality. That is, an image
is, qua image, a real thing in that it is not itself something nonexistent; but
it is also the “opposite of real”, something that, as the Stranger clarifies the
point, “though not really existing [ouk on], really does exist” (240b). This is the
second account of not-being. Second, therefore, whereas me on is “absolute
not-being” (to me on auto kath’ auto; 238c), ouk on is “other than being and
therefore not-being [ouk on]” (256e). As Hegel would helpfully put it, me on
is indeterminate, and ouk on determinate negation (1969: 82; 1991: 147). The
former negates, that is, indiscriminately, as when Being as such is negated. The
latter negates in a determinate manner, as when we say “he’s not really tall” to
distinguish one relatively tall person from another. The Stranger’s conclusion
is that “When we say not-being [me on], we speak, I think, not of something
that is the opposite of being, but only of something different” (Soph. 257b).
The distinction of indeterminate from determinate negation, or of me on
from ouk on, allows the Stranger to criticize Parmenides’ ontological mon-
ism. The question is: is Being one or many? Determinate negation (x is not y)
makes it possible to conceive Being as many. Through a series of arguments
concerning the names of Being (Is Being also unity? Is the name of Being
something or nothing?), echoing Plato’s argument in the Parmenides (141e)
that a purely monistic philosophy could not even say of the One that it exists
(if it were and had a name, it would be minimally two), the Stranger next
asks whether being is a whole of parts. If it is, then it is not unity, since it is
both whole and parts; if not, then either wholeness is real, or being is, but
not both, since “being a whole” is not one but many.
Drawing back from the progress of the Stranger’s arguments for the
moment, the Sophist here makes use of the distinction between indetermi-
nate and determinate negation against Parmenides’ account of Being. Hence,
towards the conclusion of the famous “Battle of Gods and Giants”, between
materialists and idealists, the latter grouping contains and differentiates
between both Parmenidean monists and the “lovers of Ideas” who argue that
Being is a plurality (Soph. 249c–d). Platonism’s advocacy of a plurality of Ideas
as “what really are” is therefore drawn out from Parmenides’ rigid dichot-
omy between Being and its indeterminate negation (the absolute antithesis
of being) precisely by means of determinate negation or distinction (x is not
a y). As Spinoza noted, this is because all determination of a thing depends
not on its “being, but on the contrary, its non-being” (Spinoza 2002: 892),](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-36-320.jpg)
![PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM
21
each determinate thing being determinate by virtue of being distinct from
every other thing. Similarly in Platonic ontology, each Idea1
is exactly and only
what it is, “itself for itself”: the Idea of Beauty, or Beauty itself, is what there
is of Beauty; but Plato can assert the real being of Beauty precisely because
it differs from other Ideas, such as the Good and the True, in a manner that
Parmenides could not. “True being”, as the Stranger puts it, “consists in cer-
tain intelligible and bodiless Ideas” (Soph. 246b). Equally, by distinguishing
the Ideas from everything else, Platonic ontology accommodates becoming in
a manner ruled out by Parmenidean monism. The Stranger therefore defines
“being and the universe” as consisting both of rest and motion (249d), with-
out compromising the being of rest or motion themselves.
What, then, is the Idea? Every philosophy student learns that Plato under-
stands by the Idea a real being existing independently of its being thought or
instantiated in “physical reality”. Yet the problem of what the Idea is develops
throughout his dialogues. The dialogues most expressly devoted to exploring
what has become known as “Plato’s theory of Ideas” are the Phaedo (65c–78e,
97b–105c), where it is introduced, the Parmenides (128e–137c), where it is
critically examined, and the Sophist, which revises the theory. To answer the
question “What is the Idea?”, we shall look at what remains constant through-
out these developments.
Socrates offers the first theory of Ideas as unchanging and absolute true
being in the Phaedo:
Absolute equality, absolute beauty, any absolute existence, true
being – do they ever admit of any change whatsoever? Or does
each absolute essence, since it is uniform and exists by itself
[auto kath’ auto], remain the same and never in any way admit of
any change? “It must”, said Cebes, “necessarily remain the same,
Socrates”. (Phd. 78d)
Plato defines an Idea as auto kath’ auto. Sometimes translated as “absolute
X” or “X itself”, its literal translation is “itself by itself”. Each thing that sensi-
bly and physically becomes – the four-dimensional furniture of the everyday
world – does so in accordance with the “unique Idea” in which those sensible
things that approximate it “participate” (101c) in order to “become” in the
particular way they do (i.e. by participating in the Idea “Man”, an animal does
not become “horse”). Asked how it is that “two” becomes, Socrates responds
that nobody knows of any other way:
by which anything can come into existence than by participating
in the proper being [ousias] of each thing in which it participates,
and therefore [we can] accept no other cause of the existence of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-37-320.jpg)
![PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM
23
Ideas, with the Good at its apex. For this reason, the Sophist raises the issue
of what is at stake in describing the Ideas by means of terms such as “being”,
“by itself”, “apart” and “from the others” (Soph. 252c). If Ideas possess these
qualities then, according to the theory that things receive what character
they have from the Ideas they participate in, it must be that the Phaedo’s Idea
of Beauty, for example, “participates in” or is “combinable with” the Idea of
Being, but not with that of Motion or Rest. It turns out that the Ideas are not
free-standing and isolated, each “itself by itself”, but are internally complex
or, as the Stranger puts it, “in every one of the Ideas there is much that it is
and an indefinite number of things that it is not” (256e).
In other words, being is many (“there is much that is”) because what X is,
is different from all (“an indefinite number”) the things “that it is not”. One
Idea is not another, for instance, but neither is it other than an Idea nor a
concrete particular. In other words, the Sophist does not concede that the
separateness of the Ideas constitutes “another world”, as popular Platonism
has it, but is rather of a piece with the world of becomings, or nature. The
Idea in Platonism is a problem solved by intelligence but also by nature: intel-
ligence investigates the precise complexion of the Idea at issue, just as nature
resolves the problem of endless becoming by approximation to the Ideas.
This “one-world” account of Platonism is now contrary to the popular
view, but it was not always so. Bosanquet, for instance, consistently argues
against “Plato’s so-called dualism”, noting that “this splitting-up of Plato’s uni-
verse into two persistent extremes is part of the easy-going centrifugal atti-
tude against which our whole thesis will prove to be a protest” (1912: 8).3
In
A Companion to Plato’s Republic for English Readers he notes that the Idea is
always conceived by Plato as “inherently connect[ed] with his idea of causa-
tion” (1925: 241), as in its initial presentation in the Phaedo, where the theory
is consequent upon an enquiry into “the cause of generation and decay” (Phd.
95e–6a). The causal Idea becomes explicit later in that dialogue: “If anything
is beautiful besides beauty itself [auto to kalon] it is beautiful for no other
reason than because it partakes of beauty itself” (100c). Thus, while Cornford
(1935: 78–9) notes that the Phaedo simply ducks the issue of participation,
the dialogue does in fact address the issue precisely in causal terms. Clearly,
however, we are not dealing with the kind of “efficient” causation such as
is evident in the transmission of impetus from one object to another. The
causation at issue is final, that is, “teleological”, as Cornford (1932: 63–4)
notes. The Idea does not push nature into existence; rather, nature becomes
in the way it does, generates and decays, by virtue of the Idea that draws it,
as Plato’s cosmology has it, from its “contra-rational [alogou] and aleatoric
power” (Phlb. 28d) to the “setting into order this Universe” (Ti. 53a–b).
Plato thus renegotiates the monism of Parmenidean Being by virtue of
a more complex account of negation as difference than Parmenides’ strict](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-39-320.jpg)
![PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM
27
a many derive from One?” (1996: 28; cf. Dillon in Proclus 1987: xvi; Remes
2008: 41). This already represents a transformation of the problems posed
in the Parmenides (131a–c) concerning the “one over many”, since at issue is
not the separability of the Ideas from particulars, but the derivation or pro-
duction of the many from or by the one. Plotinus offers two accounts of the
“procession” (proodos) of the many from the one:
But there is a need for the One from which the many derives to
exist before the many: for in every number series the one comes
first. But in the case of number-series people do say this; for the
successive numbers are [the result of] composition; but in the
series of realities, what necessity is there now for there to be some
one here too from which the many derive? (Enn. V.3.12)
Plotinus considers first formal, and then real, series. In the former, there
is always something before the many, from which the latter emerges by
“composition” (syntheseis) or addition (1 + 1 + 1 + … ). The procession of
realities from the One, however, is not by composition, but by the neces-
sity that if there is to be one, something must cause it. “All that exists”,
Proclus clarifies, “proceeds from a single first cause” (ET 11); yet of what
kind? The efficient, formal, material and final causes Aristotle identifies in
the Physics (194b16–5a2) or the “kind of causality” Socrates presents in the
Phaedo (100d)? The question of the kinds of cause (ET 7–13, 56–65, 75–86,
97–112), of “principles” (Damascius 2010) or “firsts” (Plotinus), assumes cen-
tral importance in the Neoplatonic philosophy. At this point, then, the con-
trast between the composition of the numbers consequent on the one, and
the order exemplified by the real series, focuses the problem of the nature
and kinds of causality. Just as the Phaedo’s enquiries into the “causes of every-
thing” led Socrates from natural history to “other kinds of cause” (Phd. 96a–
8a), the Republic’s simile of the sun leads from natural causes to the causes
of being. The sun “not only makes things visible”, but:
causes the processes of generation, growth and nourishment,
without itself being such a process. The Good therefore may be
said to be the source not only of the intelligibility of the objects of
knowledge, but also of their being and reality; yet it is not itself that
reality, but is beyond it, and superior to it in dignity and power.
(Resp. 509c)
The Idea of the Good therefore provides the Neoplatonists with their
paradigmatic concept of the first cause or “principle” (Enn. VI.7.15). They
do not consider it true because Plato says it is, but rather ask, “how can the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-43-320.jpg)
![IDEALISM
28
best of realities possibly not be the Good?” (VI.7.23), before filling out this
cause with all the powers necessary to the best of realities. Thus, “if there is
something from which all things come, there is nothing stronger than it, but
things are less than it” (ibid.). The before and after, and the greater and lesser
power, become key to understanding Neoplatonism. Thus, since the Good is
the source of the “objects of knowledge”, that is, the Ideas, and since the Ideas
are “true beings”, the Good cannot be a part of the being it produces (one
among many) but must be “beyond being”. On the other hand, it exceeds
being both in dignity (or value)8
and in power; the excess of the Good over
being is therefore quantifiable in terms of greater or lesser power: “Every pro-
ductive cause is superior to that which it produces” (ET 7).
For Plotinus, power is immanently differentiating. That is, differences in
power constitute the hierarchy of realities or “hypostases” – Good or One,
Intellect and higher and lower Soul – that compose being, as in the follow-
ing passage:
For that Good is the principle …. Intellect therefore had the power
from him to generate and to be filled full of its own offspring, since
the Good gave what he did not himself have. But from the Good
himself who is one there were many for this Intellect; for it was
unable to hold the power which it received and broke it up and
made the one power many, that it might be able so to bear it part
by part. (Enn. VI.7.15)
What the Good gave that it did not have is Intellect and its offspring. If
the Good is the principle, and if Intellect has power – “for intelligence is a
kind of movement” (VI.7.35) – then the cause of the objects of knowledge
(the offspring of Intellect, or the Ideas) and of their being and reality, is a
power that by definition exceeds being. In a direct inversion of Aristotle’s
thesis that “from the potential [dunamis] the actual [energeia] is always pro-
duced by an actual thing, e.g. man by man; musician by musician” (Metaph.
1049b24–5), that is, that actuality precedes potentiality, Plotinus argues
that it is only from a productive power that being arises. The “productive
power of all things” (Enn. III.8.10) is the source of the actual and thus tran-
scends it. It is simply because being depends on such power that it can con-
tain less power than its source: “What then is more deficient than the One?
That which is not one; it is therefore many” (V.3.15). Since it cannot grasp
the power of the Good immediately, Intellect contemplates the objects it
produces singly yet each as related to the One that exceeds it, “making the
one power many”; each resultant Idea is differentiated from the others pre-
cisely by its share of the power of the Good. As Proclus explains, “for parti-
tion dissipates and dissolves the potency of the individual, but indivisibility,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-44-320.jpg)
![foar nei de fierste hoeke fen ’e bibliotheek ta, hwer in iensume kjers
barnde en it fjûr syn nochlike, rodsige wjerskyn joech.... „Noch
tichter.... Sa....” Hja stie nou deun neist him.... as ’r woe, koe ’r it
bounzjen fen hjar bang-bliid hertke hast hearre tsjin ’t nau siden
spinserke oan.
„En wistû, hwet der by heart?” en wylt de trije goudene stikken yn
’t holle fen syn hân leine to blinken, sei ’r hiel stadich, elts wird in
stikje hertefreugd en bitterswiete eangstme:
„Wotte sa wotte,[1]
Hjir hastû de knotte,
Wott’ it net dwaen,
Den moatst’ him my weromjaen.”
[1] Dit knotterym is noch gâns âlder:
Wolstû my hybje, den scil ik dy habje,
Den scill’ wy togearre út ien skûtel slabje.
Wott’ it net dwaen,
Den moast him my werom jaen.
Doedte seach him oan en hy hjar.... yn hillige stiltme helle se de
trije ducaten fen syn triljende hân nei hjar ta en biknypte se stadich
yn hjar iiskâlde rjuchter.
Sá anderje ik, Jehannes,” sei se sêft. Al it berneftige wie yn ien
omsjoch fen hjar antlitke fordreauwn.... hja bisefte hokfoar rjuchten
en plichten dizze iene amerij hjar nou for it hiele libben oplei.
Falentijn, wol op syn openst, seach ris tomûk nei hjar en syn hert,
slingere twisken hope en freze yn, fielde as by ynjowing, ho-t syn
soan taeste nei syn ryp lok. O mocht der seine rêste op dit syn
bisykjen! de Heare hjar herte flije nei dit syn bigear en hja him
tabrocht wirde as in jonge, teare roas yn syn wachtsjend hôf!
Hy socht algedurich ris de eagen fen syn wiif, mar Pronica mirk
neat, dy wie sa alhiel mei de oaren wei yn in kleanpraetsje oer
japonnen en ruches en stroken en kypsen fol fearren, det hja hie
gjin loaits oer for him.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-60-320.jpg)
![Der kaem biweging ûnder ’t folk.... „Sa fier is ’t dochs noch net?”
oppeneare ien binaud. „Sitte wy den al sa yn ’t ûnleech, det wy gjin
kant mear út kinne?”
„Praet fen gelok, as ’t noch net slimmer wirdt. Jisterjoune let krige
ik dit brief.... Geuke Ljibbes wit fensels wol, det wy hjir hjoed by
inoar binne, der soarget de forrieder yn ús foarmidden wol for. Min
moast him ôfsoalje, det ’r der noait wer sin oan hie, om hjir to
judasjen.” Banjer, hielendal efteroan by ’t skûrrefinster, slûpte foart.
Immen joech him in stomp, hy stroffele oer ’e efterhûsstriette.... syn
possenaesje wie nou útspile, fielde ’r wol, it jildfortsjinjen dien. En
Foppe Lieûwes brocht him tobinnen, hwet de jonker ienkear sei hie
der dy joune yn ’t húske to Iestrum.
Nou bigoan Bindert Japiks sels de lange „dagvaarding” foar to
lêzen, opmakke fen ’t Geregte fen Achtkarspelen en únderteikene
fen Geuke Ljibbes en fen der Kooij en hwer de nammen[1]
op
foarkamen fen allegearre, dy-t oan de Collumer opstân mei
hândiedich west hiene en lies teffens de boete op, hwer se ta
foroardield wierne.
[1] sjoch efteryn dit boek de „officieele” list fen nammen en
boeten.
It wie sa stil, min scoe wol in spjelde fallen hearre kinne. D’iene
seach toglûp nei de oare, mar elts for oar hâlde him great for syn
bûrman.
Einliks swijde it swiere lûd fen Bindert Japiks. Hy tearde it pompier
op en stiek it yn ’e bûs. „En nou, hwet sizze jimm’ hjir ta?” tantte ’r
de ljue. „Wy ha rare lege eagen smiten, frjeonen! Is der nou ek ien
by, dy-t it moit, hy komme op. Ef ha wy it allegear for Oranje oer en
yn Oranje for Fryslân, it selsstânnige Fryslân, frij fen hollânske
twingerij!” en do hwette sêfter: „Alle ljeafde freget hjar offers
frjeonen,.... alle lok wirdt ommers bitelle mei syn eigen priis.... Dizze
priis is heech, taest ús oan yn ús goed. De measten scill’ der hjar om
bikrimpe moatte, in tindere brogge en faken in sûpke jenever
minder. Nou, der kin ’t sûnder, dy brouwdrank fen ’e divel is nin
minske ea goed bikaem.... Mar hwet my o sa sear docht, frjeonen....](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-69-320.jpg)
![ek in kloftsje Boerumers, Joege Innes yn ’t foarmidden en hy gyng
der op ta en hja fûsken, mar it antlit bleau stoef en hja seagen
bidrukt.
Och, it jild wie noch wol oer to kommen, det net, al scoe hjar ’t
helter wol útstrûpt wirde en de pong yn ’e alderlangste knoop
komme! Mar dy grêven diene it him, ien op it Aldwâldemer tsjerkhôf,
twa yn Driesum en trije yn Ikkerwâld! It wierne offers fen minsken,
dy-t it Bataefske regear frege hie, in moai biwys fen ’e heech romme
broerskipeftigheit! De tûmmeskroeven setten se linkende wei al mar
kniperiger oan, earst de frijdom kwyt, do it jild en nou! de earste
soannen fen it folk sels, dy-t oars neat gjin kwea dien hiene as det
hja it wettich gesach fen ’e Oranje’s, it hjar fen God taskikte regear,
hânhavenje woene.
Scoe ’r dit noch ienkear bilibje meije, dit regear wer op syn troane
to sjen? de flagge noch ris wer waeije op ’e Eastemarder toer ta
eare fen ’e jierdei fen ’e Stedhâlder, goudtsjeblommen yn syn tún
sjidzje to kinnen, sûnder det der immen kaem en skûrre se der by
nacht en ûntiid út. Och hy wie in âld man en Joege Innes en safolle
oaren wierne it ek.... licht wierne se al lang yn it hinnekleed
bispjelde, eart it sa fier kaem. En dochs.... hy twivele net oan Heger
Bistel, nei dizze tiid fen binauwinge en druk kaem ek ienkear wer in
bettere tiid. Den scoe it folk wer frij wirde en ’t wêze sa ’s alear:
Fryslân wer it frije, moaije lân en in fryske Oranje draechjend yn
eare en greatskens de Fryske kroan, dy-t him takaem en hwer it
hiele folk syn rjuchtsbisef him yn skoarre, dy drage to kinnen....
Ho ’n moaije dream wie ’t, ho ’n bitiizjende tsjoen fen
takomstbylden! ’t Koe allegear sa komme, al wie ’t nou noch mar in
drôge, mar is net alles, hwet nou wirklikheit is, net ienkear ûntstien
út hwet do spotsk drôge hjitten waerde?
Bindert Japiks drôge net, dy hânnele koart biredt en koel. Hy siet
op in ierdkarre en skreau de nammen op fen ’e ljue, hwaens wapens
al ynlevere wierne[2]
op ’t Stynsgeäer gritenijhûs ef dy se weismiten
hiene yn ’e stedsgrêft fen Dokkum. Ek skreau ’r de nammen op fen
’e ljue, hielendal troch earmoed ûnbikwaem ta boetebiteljen. It
wierne mar in stik ef seis, hwent it folk, hândiedich oan it forset,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-71-320.jpg)
![hearde ta de geseten ljue. Earme lús-angels hâldden it mei it
Frânske gesach, hja hiene ommers nea hwet to forliezen, altyd to
winnen, as ’t ris oan ’t fordielen fen ’e bút takaem. Ho scoene se der
den yn omskûrre, as dy bêste brave patriotten hjar ris frij lieten to
dwaen nei hjar eigen wil! Ho scoene se sels skrippe, om it measte to
krijen, al moast der den ek in húsman om dea. As hja it mar hiene!
—tocht Foppe-om.
[2] Sjoch hjiroer efter yn it boek.
Fierders lies ’r ûnder deadlike stiltme it brief fen ’e jonker foar:
Hampton Court de
30e van April 1797.
Mijne seer getrouwe Vrinden.
Deeze wordt UEdn. geschreven uit de residentie van
onzen Frieschen Souverein, te weten Hampton Court,
waar ik na eene seer sware reis van zes dagen door
Gods genade toch nog behouden ben aangekomen. Ik
ben nu, waar ik moet zijn, in de schaduw van mijn’, ja
onzen seer beminden Vorst. Toch gaat mijn verlangen
uit naar mijn vertreden Land en naar mijn verslagen,
verootmoedigde vrinden. Wij hebben ons spel
gespeeld, wij hebben verloren.
Ik zie de toekomst donker in, mijn Heer doet het
evenzoo. Hij weet niet en waarhenen zich te wenden,
zijn herte is in bittere droefenisse om ’t gene en is
geschied.
Laat ons allen onze oogen opheffen naar de bergen,
vanwaar wederom eenmaal onze hulpe komen zal. De
Heere is ook de God der legerscharen, Hij leidt ze naar
Zijn wil.
Seer zoude het mij verblijden, te mogen vernemen,
of onze vrinden Jan Binnes en meester Marten en de](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-72-320.jpg)
![anderen huiswaarts sijn gekeerd ende of se nog zijn
beboet.
Deze wordt UEdn. gezonden door de
tusschenkomste van Porter uit Harlingen en zende de
Uwen ook alzoo.
Ik groet U allen seer, mijne Vrinden, in ’t bizondere
Bindert Japiks in ’t Clooster en Wibe Lubberts: Gedenkt
mijner—banneling—in den gebede:
Ripperda.
Hwet roerden de wirden út dit syn brief teare snaren oan! It hert
spriek ta it hert, ja wol det!—
En einliks formoanne Bindert Japiks de ljue yn in koart, earnstich
wird, goedwei de boeten to biteljen, de saek lei der nou dochs sa ta,
hja wierne oerlevere oan ’e dogeneaten en forroppe foar it Hof to
Ljouwert ef sa, om ’e boeten forlytse to krijen, scoe dochs neat jaen,
omt Hollân raesde om jild en dit moast wer as in lyts pynstillingkje
brûkt wirde.
„Mar wy wolle neat mei det Hollân út to stean ha! Hwet maelt ús
det Hollân?” rôpen inkelden en ho-t Bindert Japiks, fen Scheltinga en
Joege Innes ek praettene, it folk bleau rare roerich.
„Woll’ jimm’ it noch ris bisykje en det it ús wer ôfgiet as to
Dockum?” frege Bindert Japiks.
Der prusten se ek raer tsjin oan. Né, det nou just net....
„Nou, hwet woll’ jimm’ den? Komm’ op, dy-t in útwei wit....”
It bleau stil ûnder ’t folk, mar einliks pinfiske in bisûnder
bolstjûrigen maet: „As wy nou as ien man ris wegeren, om dy
boeten to biteljen, hwet scoe ús den oerkomme kinne?”
„Den krigest skúsjeboelgûd, alles forkoft en den op ’e keap ta
tsjien man ynkertiering....[3]
en ast dy den noch al to raer
postuerdste en net om lyk wolste.... nou, de bile is der altyd skerp to
Ljouwert en der is gjin greater plesier for Hollân, as der in frije
Fryske nekke ûnder,” sei fen Scheltinga bitter.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-73-320.jpg)
![[3] Fen Scheltinga fen Stynsgea koe der fen meiprate. De 7e fen
Selle waerd hy oppakt troch in oermacht fen fyftich patriotten en
’e captain en nei Ljouwert brocht, syn wiif Maria fen Haersma
waerd’ do in húsarrest oplein út suvere pleachsucht en der sahwet
in wike ef fjouwer in man ef tsjien by hjar ynkertierd, wylt hjar
man yn ’t tichthús siet.—
It snie hjar troch it hert, dizze wirden. Wie it sa? Ja, it wie sa! Det
hie Hollân al lang in greate argewaesje west, det rike Fryslân dêrre
ûnder syn eigen regear, dijende fen wolfeart en frede.... de
Hegeskoalle to Frentsjer tige yn bloei en mennich learde ôfleverjend,
hwaens namme klonk as in klok.... Fryslân fleurich, sûnder greate
skilden en wol mei greate baten, hwet stiek it Hollân de eagen út!
Der moast in ein oan komme, hwa kin yn ’e wrâld de fleur fen
bûrman sjen en wirdt net oerginstich?
En nou hiene se Fryslân yn ’e bisnijing! goed knevele ek! en lei it
der spinfoetsjend, machteleas foar! Ho scoene se it nou tramtearje,
eart se it einliks genedich de deastek joegen. Der moast neat fen ’e
âlde gloarje bliûwe! In útplûndere hûs! in kealskodde beam! En den
koe ’t folk gean, hwer it woe, ast tominsen noch op ’e poaten stean
koe....
It joune nei de moaije Snein. Elts ried nei hûs, wrok yn it herte,
opstandich it moed. Hwet Bindert Japiks en fen Scheltinga seine,
wier wie it, bifestige it soun forstân hjar, mar in oaren, tigen fûlen
twinger, it gefoel, stie op tsjin dizze twinglandij. En den fen frjemd!
Hie ’t ien fen ’t eigen folk west, in Fries ûnder ’e Friezen, hja hiene
noch mei tsjinsin dwaen wold, hwet hy gebea, al scoe ’t den ek
wrokjende wei west ha, mar in frjemd oerweldner!? Wûndere
plannen spûken der dy moaije fredige joune yn in bulte hollen om.
Hja seagen neat fen ’e hearlike wrâld om hjar hinne, hja kearden sa
djip ta hjar selme yn, det de bûtewrâld bistie net iens mear op dit
stuit, allinne haet! haet! bimastere hjar tinsen en joech de sêftere
fielings fen ljeafde en forjowing in triûw yn ’e bidelte.—
Foppe Lieûwes bleau to iten by Wolmoet en dy. Wie ’r der net as
thús? En Wobbe en hy kuieren togearre it lân noch ris in eintsje út
en biseagen de nije frucht, dy-t der oerwaeide op ’e jounsigen as in](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/23720-250223003115-a31285f5/85/Idealism-The-History-of-a-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham-all-chapter-instant-download-74-320.jpg)
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- 5. Idealism The History of a Philosophy Jeremy Dunham Digital Instant Download Author(s): Jeremy Dunham; Iain Hamilton Grant; Sean Watson ISBN(s): 9780773538375, 0773538372 Edition: Paperback File Details: PDF, 1.26 MB Year: 2011 Language: english
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- 9. IDEALISM The History of a Philosophy Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton Grant and Sean Watson Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK
- 10. © 2011 Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton Grant and Sean Watson This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. isbn: 978-1-84465-240-2 (hardcover) isbn: 978-1-84465-241-9 (paperback) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. First published 2011 by Acumen Published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
- 11. v CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Note on the text viii Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 I Ancient idealism 1. Parmenides and the birth of ancient idealism 10 2. Plato and Neoplatonism 19 II Idealism and early modern philosophy 3. Phenomenalism and idealism I: Descartes and Malebranche 34 4. Phenomenalism and idealism II: Leibniz and Berkeley 59 III German idealism 5. Immanuel Kant: cognition, freedom and teleology 89 6. Fichte and the system of freedom 116 7. Idealist philosophy of nature: F. W. J Schelling 129 8. Hegel and Hegelianism: mind, nature and logic 144 IV British idealism 9. British absolute idealism: from Green to Bradley 159 10. Personal idealism: from Ward to McTaggart 175 11. Naturalist idealism: Bernard Bosanquet 190 12. Criticisms and persistent misconceptions of idealism 201
- 12. CONTENTS vi 13. Actual occasions and eternal objects: the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead 210 V Contemporary idealisms 14. Self-organization: the idea in late-twentieth-century science 223 15. Contemporary philosophical idealism 256 Notes 299 Bibliography 312 Index 327
- 13. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to a great number of staff working at the University of the West of England who have, both during my undergraduate and graduate study, helped and inspired me beyond measure; in particular Iain Hamilton Grant, Dave Green, Peter Jowers, John Sellars and Sean Watson. I must dedicate an extra special thanks to Hamid Danesh and Georgina Oliver at Human Rights Aid, and Alison Assiter and Havi Carel, without whose help and support I would have been unable to complete the work on this book. Finally I want to express my great gratitude to my family and Stephanie Allan for their unconditional love and support. Jeremy Dunham I would like to thank my colleagues Alison Assiter, Havi Carel, Jeremy Dunham, Darian Meacham, John Sellars and Sean Watson of the University of the West of England for their inspiring presence. Tristan Palmer is due all our gratitude for his patience and encouragement throughout this project. Finally, I would like to offer belated gratitude to Karin Littau for putting up with my absence for so long during the preparation of this book and to Graham Harman for blogging intensively about it. Iain Hamilton Grant I would like to thank my colleagues Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton Grant and Peter Jowers for the many inspirational hours that we have spent together discussing the contents of this book. Two other colleagues, Alison Assiter and Lita Crociani-Windland, have offered thoughts and comments on this work, for which I am grateful. Finally I would like to thank Lorraine Kirby, whose support and patience have made my contribution to this project possible. Sean Watson We would like to dedicate this book to our former colleague Peter Jowers (Rieupeyroux) whose influence on this book was felt yet missed throughout.
- 14. NOTE ON THE TEXT Many and various rules for the capitalization of important terms are adopted in translating and writing works of philosophy. We have adopted the practice of capitalizing where a work or author being cited would or does capitalize (as in Hegel or Bradley, for example). There are two major exceptions to this rule: the term “Absolute” is so prone to being read adjectivally that we have capitalized all its substantive uses throughout; similarly, references to the “Idea” in the overtly Platonic sense are capitalized in order to avoid assimilat- ing it too easily to everyday usages and understandings. Why this is so will become clear in the text.
- 15. ix ABBREVIATIONS A Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (1923– ). Cited by series, volume and page number. Ak. Immanuel Kants gesammelte Schriften (1902). Cited by volume number (in roman numerals). AG Leibniz, Philosophical Essays (1989a). AT Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes (1974–89). Cited by volume and page number. CA Leibniz, The Leibniz–Arnauld Correspondence (1967). Page references refer to the Die Philosophischen Schriften (1875–90), vol. 2, which are cited alongside the translation in Mason’s edition. CDB Leibniz, The Leibniz–Des Bosses Correspondence (2007). The original Latin is printed on the page facing the translation. CP Leibniz, Confessio Philosophi: Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil (2005). CPR Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1929). Cited by A/B editions. CSM Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (1984–91). Cited by volume and page number. DMR Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion (1997b). DSR Leibniz, De Summa Rerum: Metaphysical Papers, 1675–1676 (1992b). E Leibniz, Opera Philosophicae quae exstant Latina, Gallica, Germanica omnia (1839–40). ET Proclus, The Elements of Theology (1963). G Leibniz, Die Philosophischen Schriften (1875–90). Cited by volume and page number. GA Fichte, Gesamstausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1976– ). Cited by series, volume and page number. GBW Berkeley, The Works of George Berkeley Bishop of Cloyne (1948–57). GM Leibniz, Mathematische Schriften (1848–63). Cited by volume and page number.
- 16. ABBREVIATIONS x L Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters (1989). M Rescher, G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology (1992). Cited by section number. NE Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding (1992a). Page numbers refer to the Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, series VI, volume vi (A VI.vi), which are the only page numbers used in this edition. OCM Malebranche, Oeuvres completes de Malebranche (1958–67). Cited by volume and page number. PHK Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. In GBW, cited by section number. PR Whitehead, Process and Reality (1929). SAT Malebranche, The Search After Truth (1997a). SW Schelling, Schellings Werke (1856–61). T Leibniz, The Theodicy (1985). Cited by section number. TNG Malebranche, Treatise on Nature and Grace (1992). W Fichte, Fichtes Werke herausgegeben von Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1971). Cited by volume and page number. WFNS Woolhouse & Francks, Leibniz’s “New System” and Associated Contemporary Texts (1997). WLS Wiener, Leibniz Selections (1951).
- 17. 1 INTRODUCTION The idealist tradition in philosophy stretches from the earliest beginnings of the subject, and extends to the present. There has never been a moment in the history of philosophy when there has not existed an idealist current: for every Locke and Hume there is a Berkeley, just as for every Russell and Moore there is a Whitehead and for every contemporary philosophical naturalist there is a John Leslie and a T. L. S. Sprigge. While this very ubiquity makes a survey of the entire range of idealist philosophy a difficult and obscure undertaking, the present philosophical situation affords good reasons to do so. First, idealism is once again at the core of mainstream philosophical problems. The same issues that make a survey of idealism as such difficult, however, make any extant idealism partial with respect to that tradition. In consequence, portraits of idealism emerge that, while depicting only local features, tend inexorably to be confused with the entire landscape. Most con- temporary idealism, for example, is preoccupied with constructing a meta- physics on the basis of a normativity posed as an alternative to naturalism. While this has, of course, been one theme in the history of idealism, it does not exhaust it. Second, therefore, there is a need for an account of idealism that sets out its central problems such that contemporary, historical and unacknowl- edged idealisms can be coordinated within its general landscape. Despite the enormous and growing scholarly interest in idealism, such interest tends by definition to focus on specific philosophers, schools or periods, rather than addressing idealism as such. Thus, German idealism, surely one of the most inventive periods in the entire history of philosophy, continues to attract enormous scholarly and philosophical energy, while the emerging historical consciousness of the analytic philosophical tradition has brought about a return to the problems that defined that tradition against its idealist precur- sors. Nevertheless, few works cover both, let alone other tributaries of ideal- ist philosophy.
- 18. IDEALISM 2 Third, while we hope to restore relatively unnoticed dimensions of histor- ical idealisms to contemporary attention, we seek not only to contextual- ize contemporary idealism, but also to engage the philosophical resources idealism offers across a range of problems that extend beyond the history of philosophy. On the one hand, we wish to engage a debate concerning what idealism is. On the other, we wish to extend the range of environments in which contributions and developments of idealist problematics may be found. Chief among these environments is that of the natural sciences. While idealism has a long history of engagement with cosmology and the philosophy of nature, contemporary focus tends to be on providing alterna- tives to the predominant naturalistic tendency in philosophy. Yet this is not the only way in which idealism engages with the problem of nature. Idealism has often, for example, engaged in productive exchanges with the natural sciences. Our hope in so doing is to promote contemporary philosophical engagements with idealism and the problem of nature. We take seriously our responsibilities to the figures and concepts we treat, and have endeavoured as far as we can not to distort them. Yet the presence of the set of problems through which we shall consider idealism will of course be registered in our accounts, perhaps to the consternation of the reader in that philosophers will emerge from our discussions in a relatively unfamiliar context. We hope the virtues of direct engagement outweigh the vices of what distortion remains inevitable. Moreover, we cannot, even within the framework we have set ourselves for this project, pretend to completeness. We have had to omit large swathes of idealism’s varieties and history,1 some- times, frankly, owing to a lack of the relevant knowledge, sometimes owing to space and sometimes to prior decision. Two such decisions should be mentioned at the outset. The first concerns the relative subjugation of the ethical and political to the metaphysical dimensions of idealism. This reflects (a) the relatively widespread extant discussions of the former as contrasting with the relative paucity of those of the latter dimensions; (b) our concern to foreground these last, especially given the current predominance of norma- tive idealism; and (c) our contention that philosophy in general, but idealist philosophy in particular, faces a considerable challenge from the problems of nature that normativism rather avoids than meets. The second such decision concerns our address to the natural sciences in what follows. In particular as regards the science of biology, it is hard to avoid the problem Kant bequeathed philosophers in the Critique of Judgement. Kant’s famous despair over the prospect of discovering a “Newton of the blade of grass” (Ak. V.400),2 that is, over the adequacy of mechanistic materi- alism to explanation in the life sciences, centres on the number and kinds of causes operative in nature. With the development of the sciences of complex- ity, the same problem recurs regarding what kind of cause “organization” is
- 19. INTRODUCTION 3 or involves. At one level, then, the natural sciences call out for philosophical interpretation. At another, however, forms of philosophy are implicit in sci- ence’s accounts of the phenomena it investigates. Sometimes this becomes explicit, as is Bernard d’Espagnat’s (2006) redeployment of Kant’s noumenon for particle physics; Julian Barbour’s (2003) celebration of the cosmologi- cal pertinence of Leibniz; Stuart Kauffman’s direct address to Kant’s third Critique (see ch. 14); or in Roland Omnès’ (1999) plea that philosophers cease to worry about scientific method or epistemology and provide the sort of conceptual orientation for intelligibility as such to which Plotinus is bet- ter suited than Popper. Our rationale for exploring the idealism we find in contemporary biology (chs 14–15) concerns the concepts involved in the explanation of natural phenomena. What Bernard Bosanquet (1911) called “the morphology of knowledge” is most fully developed, philosophers are apt to contend, in logic; yet if logic is conceived, as, for example, Hegel did, as “the science of things grasped in thoughts” (Hegel 1991: 156), then, wher- ever concepts are deployed, that morphology is evidenced in the grappling of thought with things. It seems to us, therefore, an arbitrary limitation of the concept that it be exclusively discovered in philosophy. A further reason, however, to pursue idealism through naturalism is pre- cisely to unsettle the contemporary normativist consensus as regards what idealism is. Since Socrates explained his disappointment with natural his- tory in explaining the nature of things, idealism has negotiated its concerns with the philosophy of nature, more overtly on some occasions than others. Nature is a central element of Platonism’s architecture, as is its reinvention by the rationalists; Kant and the German idealists were centrally concerned with nature, with only Fichte rejecting any form of naturalism as philosophically important. Among the British idealists, James Ward agitated for the reintro- duction of finality and creativity into physics, while Bosanquet sought to unite Hegel and Darwin. Alfred North Whitehead followed Schelling’s “real idealism” in the direction of a speculative philosophy of nature, while John Leslie returns to Platonism to explain cosmogony. That the naturalistic dimension of idealism’s history is not well known is to some degree due to some central confusions over what idealism in fact holds. This is relatively unsurprising given the ferocious oversimplifications for- mulated in G. E. Moore’s (1903) so-called “refutation” of it, and the relative silence surrounding idealism following the success of analytic philosophy in deposing its forebears. Accordingly, two aspects in particular of these criti- cisms ought to be addressed before we discuss what we take to be idealism’s core principles. These are (a) that idealism is anti-realist in that it argues that reality, for idealism, is something essentially “mind-dependent”; and (b) that idealism is anti-naturalistic, in so far as it disputes that matter is the basis of all existence.
- 20. IDEALISM 4 IDEALISM AS ANTI-REALISM Idealism is frequently characterized, especially following Berkeley, as “anti- realist”, meaning that it disputes the mind-independent reality of the world. According to some accounts of Berkeleyan idealism, that existence con- sists solely of perceptions, means that there can by definition be no mind- independent existence. Yet Berkeley was clearly disputing the constitution of things with the corpuscular philosophers. That he offers a theory of the world as constituted by other than tiny, spatiotemporally extended material spheres suggests that his philosophy is precisely an attempt to characterize reality. To call Berkeley an anti-realist is therefore to beg the question concerning the character of reality. The Berkeleyan corollary, however, that idealism is the position that real- ity is mind-dependent, has proved extraordinarily resilient to correction. Six out of eight contemporary dictionaries and encyclopaedias of philosophy we consulted presented idealism as the theory that reality is mind-dependent. The thesis is part and parcel of the general anti-realist charge, but makes the additional assertion that whatever reality is, it cannot exist independently of a mind that observes or thinks it. Where idealists are concerned, however, to promote the fundamentality of mindedness, they do not have in mind some reality other than the one common to us all. Idealism, in other words, tends to be motivated not by scepticism, but rather by systematic complete- ness. Consider, for example, the panpsychist idealism of the sort that T. L. S. Sprigge (ch. 15) maintains and draws from F. H. Bradley (ch. 9). The revela- tion that the universe is panpsychist may well entail that reality turns out to be something other than we had previously conceived it to be, but it does not entail that reality is eliminated, or that its fundamental character has changed. As with the anti-realism charge, the deep claim about universal mindedness is not destructive, but rather constitutive of reality. This means that the idealist, rather than being anti-realist, is in fact addi- tionally a realist concerning elements more usually dismissed from reality. Chief among these is the Idea, as Plato understood it. Plato (ch. 2) is often erroneously interpreted as holding that what is not the Idea has no existence whatsoever, or that only the Idea exists. Yet as Socrates puts it in the Phaedo (100d), the Idea of Beauty or “beauty itself” is the cause, the reason why, of the existence of beautiful things. An idealism that is a realism concerning Ideas is not therefore committed only to the existence of Ideas, but rather to the claim that any adequate ontology must include all existence, including the existence of the Ideas and the becomings they cause. Idealism, that is, is not anti-realist, but realist precisely about the existence of Ideas.
- 21. INTRODUCTION 5 IDEALISM AND ANTI-SCIENCE One of the motives behind Berkeley’s idealism (ch. 4) was to dispute with what he called the “minute philosophers”, who earned their name by virtue of main- taining that the real nature of things consisted entirely of atomic entities. In other words, Berkeley was disputing the adequacy of mechanistic materialism not only as an explanatory model, but as an ontology. Now the claim is often made that this amounts to being anti-science, and yet it is clearly not so. Rather, Berkeley opposes a particular scientific account in explaining things. In some senses, then, the claim that idealism is anti-science is of a piece with the claim that it is anti-realist: philosophers committed to the mind-dependent exist- ence of entities cannot maintain, it is held, the existence of a physical reality. We know of no idealist for whom this is true. Kant’s transcendental idealism (ch. 5), for instance, is premised on Newtonianism having the nature of the physical universe fundamentally right, a point Kant had maintained since his first major book, Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755). As already noted, Kant’s problematization of the adequacy of mechanistic materialism for explaining the phenomena of life is not so much anti-science as intra-science, a fact corroborated by the scientists who began theorizing in acknowledged accordance with his strictures concerning natural history. Again, Kant worries about the lack of human remains in the emergent fossil record precisely because this makes the “kingdom of ends” he sees it as our moral duty to create dependent on the contingencies of physical nature: should an earthquake strike, all finite rational intellect might conceivably vanish in the upheaval. Additionally, Kant’s immediate contribution was not simply to provide philosophers hell-bent on denying reality with a means of consist- ently doing so, but also to give philosophical impetus to natural scientists such as Christoph Girtanner and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in what we would now call biology, to Johann Christian Reil in what would now be known as the neurosciences, and to Johann Heinrich Lambert in physics. Lastly, when Kant disputes the right of chemistry to be accounted a science (rather than a tech- nique), he does so not in an anti-scientific spirit, but in support of the math- ematical grounds of what he holds to be true science. Of Kant’s immediate successors, while Fichte did pursue the elimination of all that is unfree from nature (ch. 6), Schelling spent his entire career developing and situating the philosophy of nature as a fundamental depart- ment of philosophy (ch. 7), while at the same time maintaining the existence of the Absolute. Thus Schelling committed himself to precisely the kind of inclusive ontology we noted to be a hallmark of idealism’s realism, while the organicist theory of nature we associate with the Romantic period owes much to Hegel (ch. 8).
- 22. IDEALISM 6 Again, the portrait of the British idealists we receive from the triumphalist literature of the “analytic revolution” is of philosophers with no concern for nature and its sciences. Yet this is consistently untrue: the avowedly specula- tive philosopher Bosanquet (ch. 11), for instance, contested so-called “real- ist” philosophers such as C. D. Broad and Samuel Alexander regarding their “emergentist” thesis of mind, which had an enormous influence in psych- ology and biology (C. Lloyd Morgan, William McDougall and James Ward, the last often considered the “Godfather of Emergentism”, owing to his theory of creative synthesis). Then, as now, emergentism was the thesis that mind is a late acquisition, a relatively rare product that is as natural as rivers but with properties not to be discovered elsewhere in nature. Bosanquet, who was committed to a synthesis of Hegel and Darwin, despite the former’s suppos- edly infamous denial of the reality of evolution,3 in explaining the origins of logic, proposed against the realists that “nature moulds mind” through evo- lutionary process. Similarly, the impact of Einsteinian relativity on the ideal- ists was enormous, prompting not only Bertrand Russell, but also H. Wildon Carr, J. S. Haldane and Whitehead (ch. 13), to write significant works on it. This impact is significant not only in that it illustrates idealism’s attention to the sciences, but also in so far as it reveals that idealism, far from being anti- science, disputes the adequacy of mechanistic materialism to real nature. This amounts to arguing that idealism is the sole philosophical means by which to arrive at an adequate theory of matter in so far as this must involve an explanation of the existence of all phenomena, including the Ideas about which idealists are realists. These theses will form an important strand in our account of idealism throughout this book. WHAT IDEALISM IS If we put together our view that idealism is realist about ideas with the argu- ment that the philosophy of nature forms a crucial component of it, we arrive at a conception not of the two-worlds idealism beloved of interpretations of Plato, but of a one-world inflationary idealism. The world of change, birth and decay is not a world causally isolated from that of the Ideas since, as the Phaedo, for instance, makes clear, the Idea has as its nature to be causal in respect of becomings. This is the Platonism maintained by idealists, a Platonism of “immanent law” or causal efficacy. Not only, that is, do idealists such as Bosanquet dis- pute the two-worlds interpretation (1912: 260–61), but, as a result of ideal- ism’s realism concerning Ideas, they will be committed in turn to a single world that has Ideas as features of its actual existence or nature, as Gernot Böhme has recently argued (2000: 18). Similarly, the Hegelian Absolute is not
- 23. INTRODUCTION 7 other than the world, but it is the world to the fullest extent of its powers; Whitehead’s “eternal objects” are not situated outside or beyond actual enti- ties, but are their articulators, their possibilizers; Schelling’s Absolute “is the universe”; and even Bradley, that most apparently conspicuous “two-worlds” idealist, is committed to a single world that our partial and limited epistemo- logical and practical perspectives are condemned to misconstrue. To be a realist concerning Ideas entails having a theory of what they are. One of the reasons the two-worlds interpretation of Plato has such pur- chase is that textbooks of metaphysics present the Platonic Idea as a version of the medieval theory of universals. Nominalist critics of universals held that they have no real existence other than in our mind (Boethius) or God’s (Augustine), since what really exist are particulars only. When we manufac- ture universals, we merely “equate what is unequal”, as Nietzsche maintained. Such universals, therefore, correspond to the “abstract universals” criticized by Berkeley. There is no “red in itself”, such critics hold, but only red things. How could anyone argue that universals are more real than the world of par- ticulars, and that they occupy a separate and eternal realm? If we hold the Idea to be equivalent to the abstract universal, we will arrive at a poor view of Platonism. This is why it is so important to examine not only the themes of the various disputes tracked across Plato’s dialogues, but also what the Neoplatonists (ch. 2) made of these: the One that is the source of all things, with matter as the lowest ebb of its productivity; the One whose power is augmented by production, while its productions lack sufficient power to return to it. These Platonists share a commitment to the causal dimension of the Idea, integrating it into the world as its immanent reason for being what it is, as Whitehead clearly saw. Clearly, abstract universals do not possess a causal dimension of the sort Platonism hypothesizes the Idea does. While the Platonic Idea certainly acts as a “form” or “paradigm”, it is actual in itself whereas, as Sprigge (1983: 11) writes, the abstract universal remains merely a set of possible forms. We must not therefore confuse the Idea with the abstract universals of medieval and modern philosophy. The other modern candidate for equivalence with the Idea is the concrete universal. Introduced by Hegel, it was enthusiastically embraced as core to many of the British idealists, especially Bradley, and remained central even to Sprigge’s ontology. Hegel contrasts the “abstract universality” of mere collec- tions or sets, and “concrete universality”, which develops into real particular- ity. What makes the concrete universal concrete is precisely its development, which tends always to the production of particulars or singulars. Without this development, it remains abstract. According to the ordinary understand- ing, Hegel writes, the concept is an example of a universal in so far as it is without particularities; such a concept, however, remains undetermined and therefore abstract, since the increase in determination is an increase in
- 24. IDEALISM 8 particularity. In so far as the Concept determines itself to particularity, then and only then does its generality relate to its particularization so as to form the concrete universal (Hegel 1991: 239–41). In keeping with Hegel’s general organicism, then, the concrete universal is for him the “metabolic” relation between system and product. Hegel’s understanding of the concrete universal survives in Bosanquet’s account of the “plastic unity of an inclusive system” (1924: 62) and in Josiah Royce’s: “The universal is no abstraction at all, but a perfectly concrete whole, since the facts are, one and all, not mere examples of it, but are embraced in it, are brought forth by it as its moments, and exist only in relation to one another and to it” (1892: 224). Crucially, then, the concrete universal is inseparable from its moments. It is accordingly immanent to its particulars because they derive from it. Bradley adds an additional dimension to this “organic mereology” in his Principles of Logic. On the one hand, Bradley con- siders the concrete universal to be the whole of reality. On the other, he takes it to constitute a denial of the concreteness of particulars qua particulars. In other words, there are no particulars that do not derive their existence from the universal, while universality exists independently of particulars. Since, however, particulars have “internal diversity of content” (Bradley 1922: 187), none is indivisible or atomic, making it a concrete universal in turn. Where Hegel’s organicism makes particularity into a moment of the universal’s self- development, thus introducing the causal dimension of the Idea, Bradley adds to it the idea of organization as internal complexity all the way down. Gilles Deleuze overtly equates the Idea with the concrete universal, oppos- ing it, as does Hegel, to the “concepts of the understanding”, which retain a non-reciprocal relation with their exemplars (1994: 173). The concrete universal, or the whole determined by the particulars it generates and that differentiate it in turn, is the Idea exactly as Platonism conceived it: as the cause of the approximations of becomings to particular forms, and as the “setting into order of this universe” (Ti. 53a)4 from disor- der (ataxia), as organization. When idealism is therefore presented as real- ism concerning the Idea, this means: first, that the Idea is causal in terms of organization; second, that this is an organization that is not formal or abstract in the separable sense, but rather concretely relates part to whole as the whole; and third, therefore that such an idealism is a one-world idealism that must, accordingly, take nature seriously. This is the variety of idealism the present book is concerned to identify and defend as it is at once less ubiquitous in the secondary literature and more indebted to the tradition’s origins than others of its variants. We shall, however, provide this defence within the full range of idealist positions, rather than seeking to reduce them all to our favoured formula. This context is at once historical and contemporary since, as we shall see, contemporary
- 25. INTRODUCTION 9 idealisms tend overwhelmingly to leave nature behind. Finally, it is contem- porary in the sense that this is a philosophical exercise, a thinking grasp of things more generally, an attempt to make explicit what lies implicit in a philosophy we thought we had already displaced.
- 26. 10 1. PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM INTRODUCTION: ON THE VERY IDEA OF ANCIENT IDEALISM At the end of the nineteenth century, Benjamin Jowett, Plato’s transla- tor and the teacher of many of British idealism’s earlier leading lights, had no qualms about asserting, in the introduction to his translation of the Republic, that Plato “is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature” (1902: 105). In contemporary philosophy, however, the claim that there is such a thing as “ancient idealism” is controversial. This is because for many philosophers, G. E. Moore’s claim that “modern idealism, if it asserts any general conclusion about the universe at all, asserts that it is spiritual” (1903: 433), for all its vagueness, remains an accurate account of idealism.1 Thus we find Moore’s very loose “definition” repeated in Miles Burnyeat’s influential paper “Idealism and Greek Philosophy”, which uses it to argue that idealism: whether we mean by that Berkeley’s own doctrine that esse est percipi or a more vaguely conceived thesis to the effect that every- thing is in some substantial sense mental or spiritual, is one of the very few major philosophical positions which did not receive its first formulation in antiquity. (1982: 3–4) Rather than, with Moore, seeking to “refute” idealism as such, Burnyeat’s contention, as Bernard Williams suggests, is that: idealism and the historical consciousness are the only two really substantial respects in which later philosophy is removed from Greek philosophy, as opposed to its pursuing what are recogniz- ably the same types of preoccupation as Greek philosophy pur- sued. (2008: 6)
- 27. PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM 11 If idealism is the view that the universe is spirit or mind, as Burnyeat and Williams, following Moore, maintain it to be, then while it would not seem absurd to find precursors of idealism in what Plato reports as Anaxagoras’ view that “it is intelligence [nous] that arranges and causes all things” (Phd. 97b–c), or in Parmenides’ much-discussed proposition that “thinking and being are the same” (DK28 B3),2 we could not claim these philosophers to be idealists, because “we do not find” the claim that “nothing ultimately exists except minds and their experiences … in the ancient world” (B. Williams 2008: 5). Yet even if we concede that, as a matter of fact, no such “monism of mind” occurred in the ancient world, it would be a mistake to conflate genus with species. That is, it is at best, as we shall see throughout this book, foolhardy to claim that idealism as such is simply a spiritualist or mentalist monism. At one level, it is the monistic claim regarding mind that is most bothersome to these critics; “I take it”, writes Burnyeat, “that if the label ‘idealism’ is of any historical use at all, it indicates a form of monism” (1982: 8). The reason for the unease such a monistic mentalism provokes is that, at first sight, it deprives reality of material existence.3 On this view, there is a straightforwardly exclusive disjunc- tion between idealism and materialism: either one or the other; not both. Such a disjunction would mean that the robust, naturalistic and pre-philosophical4 realism Burnyeat affirms of the Greeks would, under idealism, be “whittled away” (Inge 1923: vol. 2, 42). This realism is based on the insistence that “it is our nature and our experience of the world that explain the concepts we have, not the other way round. The world is as it is independently of us, and shapes our thought accordingly” (Burnyeat 1982: 22). Yet the conclusion that idealism is inherently anti-realist or “immaterialist” is open to question. First, let us consider realism. Burnyeat bases his Greek realism on the obviousness of the existence of the external world, its bald there-ness; yet he prejudges the nature of this reality as material and therefore not ideal. It is one thing to impute inconsistent positions to the folk philoso- phy that Burnyeat wishes to protect from post-Cartesian sophisticates; it is quite another, however, to impute to this realism a preformulated exclusive disjunction between materialist and idealist explanations, not least since real- ism is not the exclusive philosophical orientation of materialists; according to at least one early-twentieth-century British idealist philosopher, for example, “thought-adaptation in relation to the environment has always been the pecu- liar pride and province of objective idealism” (Bosanquet 1911: vol. ii, 275). A version of the same problem arises in regard to the presupposition that materialism is simply the antithesis of idealism. A consistent materi- alism must be a monism concerning the nature of existents. Accordingly, there could be nothing that existed that was not also material. No consist- ent materialism could therefore argue that anything existent was other than
- 28. IDEALISM 12 material, including the causes and the contents of mental phenomena.5 There could therefore be nothing that was purely mental that would not at the same time be equally purely material. Thus, as Galen Strawson has recently noted, while we might accept that: materialism … is the view that every real concrete phenomenon is physical in every respect …, a little more needs to be said[;] for experiential phenomena … are the only real, concrete phenom- ena that we can know with certainty to exist, and as it stands this definition of materialism doesn’t even rule out idealism … from qualifying as a form of materialism! (2008: 23) Rather than opposing one another, the monistic dimension makes the dis- tinction suspect. It would, in other words, be futile to protest, as Burnyeat does, against the proposition that “the universe is mental” if all possible uni- verses were of this nature, as a monist must hold. There could be nothing “unnatural” in such a universe, nor anything unreal about its constituents, nor, by virtue of the monism, any additional “material” element on which it all rested. In other words, the idealist is a realist to the extent that she for- mulates propositions concerning the nature of the universe. For a subjective idealism to differ from this, it would have to allow either that (a) there is some portion of the objective universe that experience or mind cannot reach; or that (b) conscious, subjective experience – the only sort of experience there is – can know only itself. Since Burnyeat finds the philosophical condi- tions necessary to idealism given in the apparent subjectivism of Descartes’ epistemology, there is good reason to assume that it is (b) that he takes to provide the model of what he has in mind as idealism.6 As Richard Sorabji has urged against Burnyeat, however, not all idealism is a response to epistemological scepticism. According to Sorabji (1983: 288), therefore, there are in fact idealisms in the ancient world, for instance in the acccount of the genesis of matter from the immaterial in the fourth- century philosopher Gregory of Nyssa. Further, and in direct contradiction to Burnyeat’s case that idealism cannot exist prior to Descartes, Dermot Moran has argued that John Scottus Eriugena’s ninth-century philosophy is exactly subjective, “in the sense that all spatiotemporal reality is understood as immaterial, mind dependent, and lacking in independent existence”, and idealist, “in the Hegelian sense, whereby all finite reality is understood to require infinite reality for its full intelligibility and completion” (1989: 81). The problem these idealists, ancient and medieval, confront is how to form a philosophical system of all things, not some. This is not because they are engaged in denying the existence of this or that element of things, or in “whit- tling away one of the terms” (Inge 1923: vol. 2, 42), but, on the contrary, are
- 29. PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM 13 seeking to combine them. Again, to quote Bosanquet, “in a theory which has to face the universe as a whole, nothing which is can be treated as if it were not. The attempt to do so at once convicts the theory which attempts it of arbitrary superficiality” (1927: 22). If Gregory therefore seeks to combine the immaterial and the material, as Eriugena does mind-dependence and the totality, we can conclude, against Burnyeat’s scruples that admitting the existence of ancient idealism would damage the Greeks’ native realism, that one of the problems facing idealists from Gregory through Hegel to Bosanquet is precisely the problem of an inclusivist monism, not the eliminative immaterialism Burnyeat fears. As we shall see in what follows, this inclusivism is the hallmark of the great idealist systems of Leibniz, Hegel and Whitehead. Since these philosophers do in fact draw on ancient sources, we need be less interested in whether there was an ancient idealist philosophy than in what idealist philosophers have made of what they take to be their ancient precursors, and the inventors of some of their most important concepts. Bosanquet’s formulation of idealism as inclusivist monism draws on the vocabulary of the initiator of monism and, indeed, of systematic metaphys- ics, Parmenides of Elea. While some will therefore protest that “Parmenides is not, as some have said, the ‘father of idealism’; on the contrary, all materi- alism depends on his view of reality” (Burnet 1930: 182), we have already seen that idealism does not rule out materialism, and will see in what follows that the problems first formulated by Parmenides play a decisive role in the development, in successive ages, of idealist philosophy, as Charles H. Kahn acknowledges: “Parmenides’ monism … had an important development in ancient and medieval philosophy and significant parallels in modern mon- ism since Spinoza and Hegel. The identification of Mind and Being; that is, of cognition with its object” (2009: 163). PARMENIDES AND THE IDENTITY OF BEING AND THINKING The 150 extant lines constituting the writings of Parmenides of Elea take the form of a two-part poem, the first part called the Way of Truth and the second, the Way of Appearance.7 Following a prologue or “proem”, in which the nar- rator is carried by a chariot of the sun through the gates of night and day to the abode of a goddess who promises him that he will “learn all things” (DK28 B1; “Both the unmoved heart of rounded truth, and what seems to mortals, in which there is no true belief …, [s]till, you shall learn them too, and come to see how beliefs must exist in an acceptable form, all-pervasive as they together are”),8 the goddess next informs the narrator of the two “ways of seeking”. The first is the “path of Trust, for Truth attends it” and the second, “the way that
- 30. IDEALISM 14 it is not and that it must not be” (DK28 B2). Both methods are vital, since the latter provides the rule in accordance with which to assess what cannot be. The problem of “what is not”, here announced for the first time, marks the beginning of Parmenides’ complex ontology and its relation to epistemology, in so far as it opposes truth not to falsity or to belief, but to “what is not”. We cannot know what is not, the goddess then advises, because “there is no end to it”. Yet there is another sense to the unknowability of what is not, a sense that, were its translation not so hotly disputed, we could say is made clear in fragment B3, which in F. M. Cornford’s translation runs: “For it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be” (DK28 B3). Cornford’s objection to the identification of thinking and being postulated by fragment B3 is, there- fore, that it leads to the panpsychism that Plato finds through Parmenides – “all things think” (Prm. 132c) – and that Hegel (1969: 84) identifies with the Eleatics in general.9 It is against the risk of pansychism, rather than that of idealism, that Cornford justifies his translation: I cannot believe that Parmenides meant: “To think is the same thing as to be.” He nowhere suggests that his One Being thinks, and no Greek of his date or for long afterwards would have seen anything but nonsense in the statement that “A exists” means the same thing as “A thinks”. (1939: 34n1) Cornford’s translation is not the only one; the simplest translation of the fragment runs “for thinking and being are the same” (Phillips 1955: 553), from which we can conclude, argues E. D. Phillips, disputing Cornford and John Burnet, that “Parmenides can be called an idealist, who believes that what can be thought must be real” (1955: 556). This is closer to the sense that most overtly idealist commentators on Parmenides have settled on, as for example in Hegel, who explicates it thus: “thinking is therefore identical with its Being, for there is nothing other than Being” (1970a: vol. 18, 289– 90). Hegel makes Parmenides’ indeterminate being into the starting point for systematic thinking in general.10 We find support for this account of the fragment in Plotinus: The contemplation must be the same as the contemplated, and Intellect the same as the intelligible; for, if not the same, there will not be truth; for the one who is trying to possess beings [ta onta] will possess an impression different from the realities, and this is not truth. (Enn. V.3.5) Plotinus’ concern with the “realities” or beings (ta onta) as grounding the identity of contemplation and what is contemplated and therefore producing
- 31. PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM 15 truth exactly echoes Parmenides. The passage therefore draws attention to the objective dimension of the identity of what is and what is thought. This is why Hegel takes “indeterminate Being” as the cornerstone of a system of an objective idealism – not because it can then be determined by and for think- ing, but because, following Parmenides’ starting point, thinking starts neces- sarily from being, from “what is”. However, there is also a subjective idealism associated with the reading “being and thinking are the same”. Writing in 1935, Heidegger outlines the reasoning that leads to this “customary” view of the fragment. If, “thinking and being are the same”, then: because thinking remains a subjective activity, and thinking and Being are supposed to be the same according to Parmenides, everything becomes subjective. There are no beings in themselves. But such a doctrine, so the story goes, can be found in Kant and German Idealism. Parmenides already basically anticipated their doctrines. (2000: 145) The reason for this parody is not that Heidegger considers Parmenides’ poem not to be a vital stimulus to the German idealists, but rather that thinking would become all that there is. If “thinking and being are the same” is read as “being is nothing other than what is thought by thinking”, it follows that nothing but thinking “is”. This is how Bernard Williams construes fragment B3, which has allowed, he claims, “some interpreters [to] have claimed that Parmenides believed being and thought to be one, that nothing existed except thought” (2008: 21). Berkeley’s argument that, since everything perceived is an idea, there must be an “infinite mind” to perceive them is taken as the exemplar for Burnyeat and Williams; but even Berkeley does not conclude that “nothing exists except thought”, claiming instead that such an “infinite mind should be necessarily inferred from the bare existence of the sensible world” (GBW II.213). Similarly, the subjective idealisms we find, for example, in Sprigge (2006) and in Fichte, who waxes very Parmenidean when he argues that “self-consciousness is the identity of thinking and being” (1992: 382 n.),11 add importantly “objective” qualifications to subjectivity. For such subjective idealisms, the model is best expressed by Bradley: We have experience in which there is no distinction between my awareness and that of which I am aware. There is an immedi- ate feeling, a knowing and being in one, with which knowledge begins; and though this is in a manner transcended, it neverthe- less remains throughout as the present foundation of my known world. (Bradley 1914: 159–60)
- 32. IDEALISM 16 Bradley is explicit that, although my experience has a “finite centre”, it would be a “fundamental and disastrous mistake” to call it subjective (ibid.: 189). He is concerned, in other words, with that point in experience where precisely being and thinking become one, in other words, when knowing occurs, when experience is as much objective as subjective. Such a position would construe fragment B3 not primarily as a thesis concerning being, but as one concerning knowing. This epistemological or phenomenological approach is echoed and acknowledged by Kahn as expressly Parmenidean (2009: 157). Kahn accordingly proposes that “[t]he ‘is’ which Parmenides pro- claims is not primarily existential but veridical: it asserts not only the reality but the determinate being-so of the knowable object, as the ontological ‘con- tent’ or correlate of true statement” (ibid.: 155). It makes no sense for Kahn to argue that the result is subjective in the restrictive sense, precisely because all knowledge, if it is knowledge at all, must have “what is” as its content. He thus argues that in fragment B3, it is the noein, the thinking, that is “reduced” to being and never the contrary: “the mind does not impose its forms but receives them from the object it knows” (ibid.: 166). Although Kahn does not self-describe as an idealist of any sort, the claim as to the fundamental inalienability of being from knowing he proposes would be equally at home in Plato, Hegel or, as he acknowledges (ibid.: 157), Bradley. The three positions – panpsychist, objective and subjective idealism – derived from Parmenides’ fragment B3, show that the philosophical problem of idealism consists in (a) how the identity of being and thinking exhausts what is, and (b) which determines the other. Regardless, then, of whether we may claim Parmenides as an idealist, his formulations remain key to deter- mining what idealism became. Importantly, we have seen that none of the idealists, Berkeley included, simply pass off thought as all there is to being. It follows from the identity of being and thinking, or of what is and what is thought, that nothing additional can exist. It is here we first encounter the monistic implications of Parmenides’ thought. The monism is formulated in accordance with the two ways announced by the goddess in the proem. According to the Way of Truth, “it is, and cannot not be”; while according to the Way of Appearance, “it is not, and it must not be” (DK28 B2).12 From the first formulation that “It is”, the longest of the extant fragments, B8, deduces the following properties of being: it cannot have been created, nor can it be destroyed, since to be created, it must have arisen. To have arisen, it must not have been there, so if it arose, this must have been from nothing. But what is not cannot be; therefore, it cannot have arisen. Nor can it have been created by something else, since there could be nothing other than what is except what is not, which cannot be, and so on. Nor can it contain any void, since this would be other than being, and therefore nothing; nor can it have parts, since by what could parts of being be separated, if not nothingness?
- 33. PARMENIDES AND THE BIRTH OF ANCIENT IDEALISM 17 Nor can it have come into being at any time, nor become anything in the future, since either It is, or It is not: “if it is, then it is now, all at once” (Burnet 1930: 181). Discussing not-being, therefore, immediately presents problems: if what is not cannot be thought or spoken of, then either mentioning it, as the goddess does, constitutes a simple self-contradiction, or thinking of x is not sufficient to warrant a claim that x exists, apparently contradicting fragment B3. For this reason, the goddess instructs the investigator to “use reason” and “the test I have announced” in order to “restrain your thinking from this way of seeking” (DK28 B7). The force of the test is therefore purely logical, and con- stitutes an early formulation of the principle of non-contradiction. Not to follow the results of the test will therefore involve the enquirer in an endless series of failed determinations of not-being, when all that can be said about it is that “it is not”. In other words, Parmenides is not arguing that contradic- tions in thinking “what is” are not possible, but, on the contrary, that because they are, a test is necessary in order that enquiry into “what is” does not suf- fer the infinite detours of “what is not”. Logically and ontologically, therefore, not-being constitutes a limit to “what is” and what can be thought. Yet if “what is not” can be thought even as a limit, or if thinking about not- being does take place, then not-being is in fact thinkable; it would then not be true that thinking thinks only what is (fragment B3) unless “what is” includes “what is not”. Yet this is expressly what Parmenides denies. As Kahn puts it, A real distinction between knowledge and its object, or between language and the world, is excluded by his rigid dichotomy [of what is and what is not]. Such a distinction is all the more alien to his philosophy insofar as the logical laws (excluded middle, non- contradiction, identity) which he has discovered in thought and in language are understood by him as construing the very structure of the real. (2009: 165) Thus Parmenides’ axioms outline a problem for any systematic, monis- tic philosophy. If all is one, as the Way of Truth claims, then all that is must be accounted for in its terms. Parmenides does this by negation: the one is uncreated, indestructible, does not come into being, has no parts, and so on. The problem is, if being and thinking are the same, and yet what-is-not can- not be thought, how is negation thinkable? If the goddess’s test is solely logi- cal, then there must be a divide between the logical (what can be thought) and the ontological (what is), marring the consistency of the system. If, as Kahn has it, the logical laws of thought constitute the very structure of real- ity, then “what is not” must be. One solution to this is to argue that the dif- ference lies in the content of thought: the thought of what is, that is, has an
- 34. IDEALISM 18 object, whereas the thought of what is not has none whatsoever. Would it then remain true, however, that “thinking and being are the same”, or would a better translation run “for it is the same thing that can be thought and can be” (Cornford 1939: 31; Burnet 1930: 173), since this would allow that “what is not” cannot be thought, without sacrificing consistency? The problem of negation continues to play a major role in the development of idealism, most especially in Hegel’s dialectic (see ch. 8). Plato’s attempted accommodation of not-being, against Parmenidean strictures, is crucial in the subsequent development of idealism, and we turn to it in Chapter 2. Yet Parmenides’ renown is equally due to his advocacy of this direct contact between thought and reality. There are accordingly many realist accounts of the same identity in subsequent idealists. Bosanquet, for example, argues that “It is all but impossible to distinguish nature from mind; to separate them is impossible” (1912: 367); Whitehead, that “No entity can be conceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe” (PR 3). As a simul- taneous testament to the range of Parmenides’ identity thesis, and warning against an oversimplified account of idealism as inherently anti-naturalistic, both retain their idealism within a naturalistic framework.
- 35. 19 2. PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM PLATONIC IDEAS While Parmenides presented his philosophy in poetic metre, Plato’s prefered medium is the display of dialectic in dramatic form. This presents certain problems when we set out to identify what does and does not count as Plato’s own philosophy: positions are given as characters, or characters as positions, and their implications are worked out in live discussion, with all its digres- sions, illustrations and false starts. A degree of caution must therefore be exercised when we attribute a theory to Plato, in the sense “Plato held that …”. That said, the problems addressed in his dialogues form the corpus of Platonic philosophy, both in his work and, as we shall see, in Neoplatonism. When, therefore, in what follows we attribute a position or a thesis, we are attributing it to “Platonism”, although we shall take care to note what justification there might be for attributing these positions to Plato. The resulting problems will therefore form the basis of this outline of key elements of Platonism for the idealist tradition. The first such problem concerns Parmenides’ conclusions regarding what is not, or not-being. Plato engages it in the Sophist, which argues that not- being takes two forms: first, there is to me on, absolute not-being or “what is not”. The Eleatic Stranger, who takes Socrates’ usual role as the primary interlocutor in the dialogue, presents Theaetetus with Parmenides’ argument that “he who undertakes to say ‘not-being’ [me on] says nothing at all” (Soph. 237e), but adds an important qualification: things can be said of “what is not”, despite the fact that it is “no thing”. Indeed, in speaking of “things which are not” or “that which is not”, we cannot avoid attributing the qualities of plural- ity or unity to not-being (238b–39b), as Parmenides’ goddess does: the way of not-being is endless. So far, the Stranger is only exploring the consequences of Parmenidean restrictions on what can be said about what is not, contravening the goddess’s
- 36. IDEALISM 20 advice to “hold back thy thought from this way of inquiry” (DK28 B6), but not contradicting Parmenides’ theses. It remains the case, in other words, that not-being cannot be correctly described, that “what is not, cannot be thought”. Does it follow from this, however, that whatever is not absolute not-being, absolutely is? To demonstrate that it does not, the Stranger asks Theaetetus to state what an image is. Theatetus answers that an image is a likeness, copied from reality, but is “of the same sort” (Soph. 240a) as reality. That is, an image is, qua image, a real thing in that it is not itself something nonexistent; but it is also the “opposite of real”, something that, as the Stranger clarifies the point, “though not really existing [ouk on], really does exist” (240b). This is the second account of not-being. Second, therefore, whereas me on is “absolute not-being” (to me on auto kath’ auto; 238c), ouk on is “other than being and therefore not-being [ouk on]” (256e). As Hegel would helpfully put it, me on is indeterminate, and ouk on determinate negation (1969: 82; 1991: 147). The former negates, that is, indiscriminately, as when Being as such is negated. The latter negates in a determinate manner, as when we say “he’s not really tall” to distinguish one relatively tall person from another. The Stranger’s conclusion is that “When we say not-being [me on], we speak, I think, not of something that is the opposite of being, but only of something different” (Soph. 257b). The distinction of indeterminate from determinate negation, or of me on from ouk on, allows the Stranger to criticize Parmenides’ ontological mon- ism. The question is: is Being one or many? Determinate negation (x is not y) makes it possible to conceive Being as many. Through a series of arguments concerning the names of Being (Is Being also unity? Is the name of Being something or nothing?), echoing Plato’s argument in the Parmenides (141e) that a purely monistic philosophy could not even say of the One that it exists (if it were and had a name, it would be minimally two), the Stranger next asks whether being is a whole of parts. If it is, then it is not unity, since it is both whole and parts; if not, then either wholeness is real, or being is, but not both, since “being a whole” is not one but many. Drawing back from the progress of the Stranger’s arguments for the moment, the Sophist here makes use of the distinction between indetermi- nate and determinate negation against Parmenides’ account of Being. Hence, towards the conclusion of the famous “Battle of Gods and Giants”, between materialists and idealists, the latter grouping contains and differentiates between both Parmenidean monists and the “lovers of Ideas” who argue that Being is a plurality (Soph. 249c–d). Platonism’s advocacy of a plurality of Ideas as “what really are” is therefore drawn out from Parmenides’ rigid dichot- omy between Being and its indeterminate negation (the absolute antithesis of being) precisely by means of determinate negation or distinction (x is not a y). As Spinoza noted, this is because all determination of a thing depends not on its “being, but on the contrary, its non-being” (Spinoza 2002: 892),
- 37. PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM 21 each determinate thing being determinate by virtue of being distinct from every other thing. Similarly in Platonic ontology, each Idea1 is exactly and only what it is, “itself for itself”: the Idea of Beauty, or Beauty itself, is what there is of Beauty; but Plato can assert the real being of Beauty precisely because it differs from other Ideas, such as the Good and the True, in a manner that Parmenides could not. “True being”, as the Stranger puts it, “consists in cer- tain intelligible and bodiless Ideas” (Soph. 246b). Equally, by distinguishing the Ideas from everything else, Platonic ontology accommodates becoming in a manner ruled out by Parmenidean monism. The Stranger therefore defines “being and the universe” as consisting both of rest and motion (249d), with- out compromising the being of rest or motion themselves. What, then, is the Idea? Every philosophy student learns that Plato under- stands by the Idea a real being existing independently of its being thought or instantiated in “physical reality”. Yet the problem of what the Idea is develops throughout his dialogues. The dialogues most expressly devoted to exploring what has become known as “Plato’s theory of Ideas” are the Phaedo (65c–78e, 97b–105c), where it is introduced, the Parmenides (128e–137c), where it is critically examined, and the Sophist, which revises the theory. To answer the question “What is the Idea?”, we shall look at what remains constant through- out these developments. Socrates offers the first theory of Ideas as unchanging and absolute true being in the Phaedo: Absolute equality, absolute beauty, any absolute existence, true being – do they ever admit of any change whatsoever? Or does each absolute essence, since it is uniform and exists by itself [auto kath’ auto], remain the same and never in any way admit of any change? “It must”, said Cebes, “necessarily remain the same, Socrates”. (Phd. 78d) Plato defines an Idea as auto kath’ auto. Sometimes translated as “absolute X” or “X itself”, its literal translation is “itself by itself”. Each thing that sensi- bly and physically becomes – the four-dimensional furniture of the everyday world – does so in accordance with the “unique Idea” in which those sensible things that approximate it “participate” (101c) in order to “become” in the particular way they do (i.e. by participating in the Idea “Man”, an animal does not become “horse”). Asked how it is that “two” becomes, Socrates responds that nobody knows of any other way: by which anything can come into existence than by participating in the proper being [ousias] of each thing in which it participates, and therefore [we can] accept no other cause of the existence of
- 38. IDEALISM 22 two than participation in duality, and whatever is to be one must participate in unity. (Ibid.) The thesis is clear: “participation” is what causes the coming-into- existence of particulars, whether these are abstract entities such as numbers, or concrete beautiful things (100c). If participation in the Ideas is to explain how particulars become the particulars they become, or how they come into existence, then the Idea itself must be something that does not come into existence, since, if it were not so, the theory would be viciously regressive. This would mean that Idea and becoming are different in kind, leading to the problem, examined at length in the Parmenides (130a–35c), as to how becomings participate in the Idea at all. In the dialogue bearing his name, Parmenides’ first criticism of Socrates’ theory is to construe the existing-by-itself (auto kath’ auto) nature of the Idea globally, so that Socrates’ theory has “separated apart on the one side Ideas themselves and on the other the things that participate in them”, an attribu- tion Socrates accepts (Prm. 130b). The separation of the Ideas from concrete particulars now accomplished, Parmenides is free to pose the problem of how two things that are different in kind can have anything in common, or how physical things can have any relation whatsoever to Ideas different in kind from them. Parmenides’ famous arguments pose Socrates the follow- ing dilemma, known as the third man argument:2 either concrete particulars and the Idea in which they participate are all instances of the same property and therefore not separate; or they are entirely different, and therefore unre- lated. In the former case, if the theory of Ideas is true, then a second-level Idea is necessary in order to impart the quality in question to the first Idea and its participants, so that the initial problem forms an infinite regress. Thus Socrates must revert to the view that they are different, proposing that, rather than being a thing like other things, “each of these Ideas is a thought, which cannot properly exist anywhere but in a mind” (132b). It is striking that Socrates accepts the global construal of the separateness argument. Separateness, however, need not be a property of the Ideas en masse. Separateness also follows simply from the Ideas being exactly what they are, no more and no less, so that their separation is not from becom- ings, but rather different from other Ideas. This is why the problem of the combination of the Ideas and the problem of determinate negation assume the importance they do in the Sophist. It is by this means that Plato initially distinguishes his theory of “what really is” from Parmenides’ theory: rather than the One Being, being is many, comprising all the Ideas, on the one hand and, as we have seen, all becoming on the other. Yet this means that “being” must be shared by all that is: all ideas and, to the extent that they participate in an Idea, all becomings. In other words, there is in Platonism a hierarchy of
- 39. PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM 23 Ideas, with the Good at its apex. For this reason, the Sophist raises the issue of what is at stake in describing the Ideas by means of terms such as “being”, “by itself”, “apart” and “from the others” (Soph. 252c). If Ideas possess these qualities then, according to the theory that things receive what character they have from the Ideas they participate in, it must be that the Phaedo’s Idea of Beauty, for example, “participates in” or is “combinable with” the Idea of Being, but not with that of Motion or Rest. It turns out that the Ideas are not free-standing and isolated, each “itself by itself”, but are internally complex or, as the Stranger puts it, “in every one of the Ideas there is much that it is and an indefinite number of things that it is not” (256e). In other words, being is many (“there is much that is”) because what X is, is different from all (“an indefinite number”) the things “that it is not”. One Idea is not another, for instance, but neither is it other than an Idea nor a concrete particular. In other words, the Sophist does not concede that the separateness of the Ideas constitutes “another world”, as popular Platonism has it, but is rather of a piece with the world of becomings, or nature. The Idea in Platonism is a problem solved by intelligence but also by nature: intel- ligence investigates the precise complexion of the Idea at issue, just as nature resolves the problem of endless becoming by approximation to the Ideas. This “one-world” account of Platonism is now contrary to the popular view, but it was not always so. Bosanquet, for instance, consistently argues against “Plato’s so-called dualism”, noting that “this splitting-up of Plato’s uni- verse into two persistent extremes is part of the easy-going centrifugal atti- tude against which our whole thesis will prove to be a protest” (1912: 8).3 In A Companion to Plato’s Republic for English Readers he notes that the Idea is always conceived by Plato as “inherently connect[ed] with his idea of causa- tion” (1925: 241), as in its initial presentation in the Phaedo, where the theory is consequent upon an enquiry into “the cause of generation and decay” (Phd. 95e–6a). The causal Idea becomes explicit later in that dialogue: “If anything is beautiful besides beauty itself [auto to kalon] it is beautiful for no other reason than because it partakes of beauty itself” (100c). Thus, while Cornford (1935: 78–9) notes that the Phaedo simply ducks the issue of participation, the dialogue does in fact address the issue precisely in causal terms. Clearly, however, we are not dealing with the kind of “efficient” causation such as is evident in the transmission of impetus from one object to another. The causation at issue is final, that is, “teleological”, as Cornford (1932: 63–4) notes. The Idea does not push nature into existence; rather, nature becomes in the way it does, generates and decays, by virtue of the Idea that draws it, as Plato’s cosmology has it, from its “contra-rational [alogou] and aleatoric power” (Phlb. 28d) to the “setting into order this Universe” (Ti. 53a–b). Plato thus renegotiates the monism of Parmenidean Being by virtue of a more complex account of negation as difference than Parmenides’ strict
- 40. IDEALISM 24 dichotomy could allow. The core qualification of the Idea as “itself by itself” need not be understood as a two-worlds theory, but on the contrary, as many philosophers have urged, as a one-world account stretching from the causes of physical becoming to those of intelligibility. It is Plotinus who carries both the systematic and the causal dimensions of Platonism further, and it is to his extraordinary philosophy that we now turn. PLOTINUS AND NEOPLATONISM Plotinus, an Egyptian, founded a school in Rome in 245 ce whose members have, since the late eighteenth century, been known as Neoplatonists. Their period of activity, the last great flowering of ancient philosophy, ended with the Emperor Justinian closing Plato’s Athenian Academy in 529 and banish- ing the philosophers. Having a formidable history behind them, the Neoplatonists were con- cerned to synthesize the knowledges their precedent philosophies furnished them with. In this, they follow the practices of Plato, whose metaphysics fused Heraclitean becoming with Parmenidean Being; and of Aristotle, who begins most of his major treatises with accounts of his predecessors’ theories. In Simplicius’ commentaries on Aristotle’s works, the Neoplatonist scholar provides us with a great deal of ancient philosophical materials that would otherwise not have come down to us, including much of Parmenides’ poem. Similarly, Neoplatonist philosophers such as Proclus, Iamblichus, Damascius and Olympiodorus wrote commentaries on Plato’s works. Commentary, however, is not simply exegetical or scholarly in the restric- tive sense. Reading any of these works betrays a clear agenda: to synthesize the works of the major historical philosophers into a single system. Here is Plotinus setting out the parameters of this research programme: “Now we must consider that some of the blessed philosophers of ancient times have found out the truth; but it is proper to investigate which of them have attained it most completely, and how we too could reach an understanding about these things” (Enn. III.7.1).4 Clearly, although Plotinus wrote no commentaries him- self, the practice of commentary contributed towards this goal in producing not simply a compendium of philosophers’ views, as Aristotle’s histories tend to do, but attempts to ascertain the “completeness” of the truth each presents. Since we know in advance that none has “truth itself”, these attempts are them- selves subject to “completion” by the commentator-philosopher. The Neoplatonic practice of “co-mentation” or thinking with previous phil- osophers – a practice that survives into modernity most obviously in Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy – was particularly focused on realizing the “harmony” of Plato’s and Aristotle’s doctrines. Such harmony depended
- 41. PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM 25 also on rendering each philosopher self-consistent, so that a significant elem- ent of what might critically be called revisionism is necessarily involved in the Neoplatonic project.5 Their basic means for achieving this was to search for “first principles” to provide foundations. Discovering the self-consistency of each philosopher entails that each had a discoverable system; unifying these systems then becomes the task of the Neoplatonic philosopher. The notion that philosophy, regardless of how little systematic form it may appear to possess, always articulates a system, entails the highly Platonic thesis that the elements of philosophy are essentially unchanging and fixed. As opposed, then, to Hegel’s developmental history of philosophy, the Neoplatonists eliminated historical accident from systematic, intelligible form, a form that Hegel himself said was achieved best not in Plotinus’ bet- ter known Enneads, but in Proclus, who, in his Elements of Theology, “dis- tinguished himself from Plotinus, not least because with him, Neoplatonic philosophy by this time attained a general systematic order and a developed form” (Hegel 1970a: vol. 19, 469). What remains implicit in the Enneads is systematically set out in the Elements; while this remains a powerful prejudice,6 Hegel’s interest is clearly aroused by Proclus because of the presupposition that reason grants imma- nent access to the real or, in Plotinus’ terms, that “Being and Intellect are therefore one nature” (Enn. V.9.8). The crucial question is: what nature? How many natures are there in the Plotinian universe? William Ralph Inge, for instance, argues that for Plotinus, “Reality … is not a purely objective realm, existing apart from the mind”, but makes being dependent on “being thought” in precisely the manner that worries Burnyeat; for Inge, even “Matter standing alone is only thinkable if it is invested with a spurious substantiality” (1923: vol. 1, 137–8). This same construal of Plotinus’ “one nature” is equally evident in the work of contemporary scholars such as Maria Luisa Gatti, who char- acterizes Plotinus’ philosophy as a “‘contemplationist metaphysics’, in which contemplation, as creative, constitutes the reason for the being of everything” (Gatti 1996: 33). Both make Plotinus’ metaphysics into a precursor of the sub- jective idealisms found in Berkeley or in Fichte (see chs 4 and 6, respectively), for whom the only reality there is depends on mind for its being.7 There are two remaining alternatives. Inge directly disputes one of these, which he calls the “panlogicist” account most often associated with Hegel. Noting the triadic structure of Plotinus’ “hypostases” (literally, a hypostasis is a constantly underlying element) – the One, Intellect and Soul – Inge adds the following qualification: “In Plotinus the triad is important, but it does not dominate the whole of his thought, as it does that of Proclus and Hegel” (1923: vol. 1, 122). It is not the formalism alone, however, but rather its combination with the Parmenidean identity of thought and being that Inge is rejecting. For in such a case, formalism is not a mere formalism, added as a human artefact
- 42. IDEALISM 26 for conceptual convenience, but rather the nerve uniting thinking and being, and, in consequence, an objective structure. Hence the idealists’ fascination with logic, as simultaneously the enquiry into being’s self-determination in and as thought; and into thinking’s becoming structurally self-conscious. Thus, in Hegel’s words, “the task of philosophy determines itself by making the unity of thinking and being, its foundational idea, objective, and conceiving this” (1970a: vol. 20, 314). If the objectivity of the unity of thinking and being is idealism’s prize, it must still be asked whether it is won if this objectivity is only made, or whether its “being conceived” is a sufficient condition for its being in the first place. In other words, there remains the problem of the real instantiation of logic, of the logos; or, otherwise put, of the reality of the Ideas. The third variation on the Parmenidean identity we find in Neoplatonic philosophy concerns this structure not only as conceived by a subject, how- ever universal it might be; but rather as being’s own structures. This pro- vides us with a third, “naturalistic” strand of idealism, whose legatees are Leibniz, Schelling and Bosanquet (see chs 4, 7 and 11, respectively), so that Neoplatonism’s systematic ambitions encompass idealism’s three major subsequent variants: subjective, objective and naturalistic, respectively. Accordingly, while disputes may be mounted regarding which particular type of idealism is represented by which particular philosopher, Neoplatonism sets out the parameters for all subsequent developments in idealist philosophy. In what follows, we shall consider Plotinus and Proclus to be offering a natu- ralistic account, but without determining yet what Plotinus’ “one nature” might be. We shall also consider it as starting, therefore, from Platonic questions and problems, not least the problem of the differentiation of the Ideas explored in the Sophist. It is in this regard, moreover, that the term “Neoplatonist” is appropriate, in so far as it is integral to all the accounts Plato’s dialogues offer concerning the theory of Ideas that they are always and invariably, that is, eternally, what they are. In its Neoplatonic variant, Platonism achieves a con- sistency that Plato’s interrogations could not supply. Neoplatonism combines the Platonic Idea with core Aristotelian problems concerning the nature of the changeable, of physis, nature or “generation”, to form a complete, that is, a systematic and inclusive ontology of thinking and being “of one nature”. FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE GOOD BEYOND BEING In a text of fundamental importance for the Neoplatonic philosophers, the Republic’s famous simile of the sun provides an excellent map on which we may locate the starting points from which their problems emerge. The common starting point for Plotinus and Proclus concerns what Gatti calls “the principal problem of Greek metaphysics”, namely, “why and how do
- 43. PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM 27 a many derive from One?” (1996: 28; cf. Dillon in Proclus 1987: xvi; Remes 2008: 41). This already represents a transformation of the problems posed in the Parmenides (131a–c) concerning the “one over many”, since at issue is not the separability of the Ideas from particulars, but the derivation or pro- duction of the many from or by the one. Plotinus offers two accounts of the “procession” (proodos) of the many from the one: But there is a need for the One from which the many derives to exist before the many: for in every number series the one comes first. But in the case of number-series people do say this; for the successive numbers are [the result of] composition; but in the series of realities, what necessity is there now for there to be some one here too from which the many derive? (Enn. V.3.12) Plotinus considers first formal, and then real, series. In the former, there is always something before the many, from which the latter emerges by “composition” (syntheseis) or addition (1 + 1 + 1 + … ). The procession of realities from the One, however, is not by composition, but by the neces- sity that if there is to be one, something must cause it. “All that exists”, Proclus clarifies, “proceeds from a single first cause” (ET 11); yet of what kind? The efficient, formal, material and final causes Aristotle identifies in the Physics (194b16–5a2) or the “kind of causality” Socrates presents in the Phaedo (100d)? The question of the kinds of cause (ET 7–13, 56–65, 75–86, 97–112), of “principles” (Damascius 2010) or “firsts” (Plotinus), assumes cen- tral importance in the Neoplatonic philosophy. At this point, then, the con- trast between the composition of the numbers consequent on the one, and the order exemplified by the real series, focuses the problem of the nature and kinds of causality. Just as the Phaedo’s enquiries into the “causes of every- thing” led Socrates from natural history to “other kinds of cause” (Phd. 96a– 8a), the Republic’s simile of the sun leads from natural causes to the causes of being. The sun “not only makes things visible”, but: causes the processes of generation, growth and nourishment, without itself being such a process. The Good therefore may be said to be the source not only of the intelligibility of the objects of knowledge, but also of their being and reality; yet it is not itself that reality, but is beyond it, and superior to it in dignity and power. (Resp. 509c) The Idea of the Good therefore provides the Neoplatonists with their paradigmatic concept of the first cause or “principle” (Enn. VI.7.15). They do not consider it true because Plato says it is, but rather ask, “how can the
- 44. IDEALISM 28 best of realities possibly not be the Good?” (VI.7.23), before filling out this cause with all the powers necessary to the best of realities. Thus, “if there is something from which all things come, there is nothing stronger than it, but things are less than it” (ibid.). The before and after, and the greater and lesser power, become key to understanding Neoplatonism. Thus, since the Good is the source of the “objects of knowledge”, that is, the Ideas, and since the Ideas are “true beings”, the Good cannot be a part of the being it produces (one among many) but must be “beyond being”. On the other hand, it exceeds being both in dignity (or value)8 and in power; the excess of the Good over being is therefore quantifiable in terms of greater or lesser power: “Every pro- ductive cause is superior to that which it produces” (ET 7). For Plotinus, power is immanently differentiating. That is, differences in power constitute the hierarchy of realities or “hypostases” – Good or One, Intellect and higher and lower Soul – that compose being, as in the follow- ing passage: For that Good is the principle …. Intellect therefore had the power from him to generate and to be filled full of its own offspring, since the Good gave what he did not himself have. But from the Good himself who is one there were many for this Intellect; for it was unable to hold the power which it received and broke it up and made the one power many, that it might be able so to bear it part by part. (Enn. VI.7.15) What the Good gave that it did not have is Intellect and its offspring. If the Good is the principle, and if Intellect has power – “for intelligence is a kind of movement” (VI.7.35) – then the cause of the objects of knowledge (the offspring of Intellect, or the Ideas) and of their being and reality, is a power that by definition exceeds being. In a direct inversion of Aristotle’s thesis that “from the potential [dunamis] the actual [energeia] is always pro- duced by an actual thing, e.g. man by man; musician by musician” (Metaph. 1049b24–5), that is, that actuality precedes potentiality, Plotinus argues that it is only from a productive power that being arises. The “productive power of all things” (Enn. III.8.10) is the source of the actual and thus tran- scends it. It is simply because being depends on such power that it can con- tain less power than its source: “What then is more deficient than the One? That which is not one; it is therefore many” (V.3.15). Since it cannot grasp the power of the Good immediately, Intellect contemplates the objects it produces singly yet each as related to the One that exceeds it, “making the one power many”; each resultant Idea is differentiated from the others pre- cisely by its share of the power of the Good. As Proclus explains, “for parti- tion dissipates and dissolves the potency of the individual, but indivisibility,
- 45. PLATO AND NEOPLATONISM 29 compressing and concentrating it, keeps it self-contained without exhaus- tion or diminution” (ET 86). Moreover, being differentiated each from the other according to the share of power manifest in their being, the One differentiates in accordance with power. Were the One merely one among many, “it would not be the absolute One” (Enn. V.3.13). Therefore, “since the nature of the One is generative of all things it is not any one of them” (VI.9.3). Hence the Plotinian formula that the One or Good is “solitary and alone” (VI.7.25) depends on the differenti- ating power it exerts and that cannot be equalled. All of being descends in a hierarchy of differentials of power in relation to the maximum power of the One. It is through the measurement, or evaluation, of this difference that the structure of being is caused. Thus the causal relations that generate being are also evaluations of beings, each evaluation existing as a level of being, proceeding from the One that generates all form to the formless not-one of matter itself, which is relative incapacity, or the lowest value of power. The One, as the power of generation, is “efficient” in Aristotle’s sense (Ph. 194b30), as Plotinus states: “The First is the power which causes motion and rest, so that it is beyond them” (Enn. III.9.7). Like “the beautiful itself”, how- ever, it is also a final cause, since “all things desire the Good” (VI.7.20), while the Good itself remains “impassive” or unmoved. The reference to desire invokes the doctrine of final causes from which Aristotle fashioned the rudi- ments of his life sciences (see Lennox 2001). We would, however, be equally mistaken in considering Neoplatonic systems to be governed by teleological relations as we would Plato to be unconcerned with causes. Rather, they are governed by a “principle of dif- ferentiation into unequals” or, as Pauliina Remes calls it, a “principle of non-reciprocal dependence” (2008: 43): what comes after depends on what precedes it; but what precedes does not depend on what succeeds it. The principle of differentiation into unequals applies not only between realities, but to realities themselves, and even to the Good. Thus, “the One is always perfect and therefore produces everlastingly; and its product is less than itself” (Enn. V.1.6). Realities are unequal in several respects: (a) in respect of power and value; (b) in respect of priority and posteriority; (c) in respect of generator and generated. All these inequalities are entailed in the Plotinian concept of cause, a concept that Proclus formalized thus: “Every effect remains in its cause, proceeds from it, and reverts upon it” (ET 35). Thus, to the efficient cause of being must be added the final cause of the Good. Since all things desire the Good, which is nevertheless unique and alone, the power that produces is also responsible for the power that pur- sues “reversion” (epistrophe) towards the Good. Reversion is the turning back of contemplation on to its cause or principle, but as contemplation rather than production or “procession” (proohodos) from the One. Since “Intellect
- 46. Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
- 47. ikenhouten trap, hwaens útsnien hekwirk him in ekstra ekstra dofke koste hie. It wie allegear prachtich, in hearehûs, út in rûmme bûs bouwd en Pronica en de bern wakker nei ’t sin. Mar hy miste ’r syn âlde geur fen wolle en lekken. Der wie hy by great waen en.... ryk. Hjir wie alles sa nij en och.... sa frjemd. De skiednis fen dit syn hûs moast noch makke wirde en sims.... o elts minske hat ommers syn swakke mominten! den waerde hy sa onwennich nei ’t âld hûs op ’e Nijested, det hy bitocht mar in boadskip en kuiere derhinne, einliks hwette skytskoarjend, hwent hwet moast in oar wol net tinke! En as ’r der wie....! krekt as hie ’r jierren op in woelige sé omswalke en kaem nou earst wer thús yn in stille, feilige haven. Pronica siet der wol net mear yn ’t sydkeammerke by ’t gleon turffjurke, mar nou wie ’t André syn wiif, de lytse bloune Sibylla de Carpentier, hwer hy in kopkefol lekkere kofje fen krige en der in drabbelkoek by, mar de ongedurigheit bleau him yn ’e skonken omrideljen, al gyng ’r ek nei de weverij en kleau wer by de âld trap op nei de souder ta.... hy miste hwet.... it wie net mear s’as eren. En sims koe ’r sa onwennich det wirde nei det âlde libben, krekt sa onwennich as syn âld kat, dy-t forline hjerst twaris by nacht de hiele sted trochkrúst wie fen ’t nije hûs nei ’t âlde ta en der de moarne prinshearlik wer yn ’t finsterbank siet to spinnen en tsjin de mosken to gnizen.— En dochs hie hy it bislút naem, om fen det beuzige, rike libben to skieden, makliker en gauwer as ’r sels tocht hie. Pronica fitere him oan en Bet! o dy greatskens fen det lytse kriel, dy hinnepiken, mar krekt út de dop en kraeije! kraeije! Bet spegele him alles sa moai tofoaren fen ris alhiel frij to wêzen en moarns it bolwirk ek ris omkuijerje to kinnen en to gean to fiskjen! as ’t biterswaer wie en noait mear thúsbliûwe to hoegen om ’t folk yn ’e weverij! En Jehannes! ja Jehannes! dy rette it heit wol net oan.... mar ek net ôf. En hy sels? och de droktme fen ’e weverij waerde him somtiiden wol ris stoefernôch en den dy greate lekkenhânnel! it ôffarren fen ’e skippen mei swiere ladings yn! it boekhâlden, it bistjûren! Sims forbylde ’r him, hy waerde forjitlik en roan mei ’t skriûwboekje fen efteren nei foaren, aloan en alwei en sims diich ’r dryst en tochte....
- 48. it rôlle wol. Den blykte ’r himsels to heech set to habben en forgeat yndied dingen fen bilang. Do op in goede dei yn ’e lette hjerst kaem jonge Andersen wer oansetten. Sa nou en den diich ’r in raem, sims twa kear yn ’t jier. Altyd de forlieder, dy-t it op de swakke siel forsjoen hat. En nou trof ’r dy net mear sa wis, sa fêst yn ’e skoen steand, oan. Wie aerdich nueter waen, harke nou tominsen ris nei it gefloit fen ’e floiter. En dy syn gefloit wie wakkere swiet en fluensk en syn bod oannimlik, seine Jehannes en André allebeide op de joun fen ’e femyljeforgearringe, dy-t hy bilein hie, om ris mei-inoar to praten en André noch ris to hifkjen, as hy gjin sin oan ’e hiele saek hie. Hy makke gjin gading, hie al sêd genôch oan ’e wolspinnerij allinne. Pronica woe ’r hjar net fierder mei bimoije, sei se en Diûke en Bet likemin, mar Mulier, in aristocraet en fen âld regintegeslacht, foun ’t wol mear oerienkomstich skoanheit syn stân, om nou to rintenierjen, tocht him. Hja hiene yn ’e peikeamer sitten, de piipen gleon oan. Hy roek noch de geur fen ’e sealjemôlke, neist Pronica op ’e koal. Fiif kjersen op de greate nutebeamhouten tafel, oars in sellich healtsjuster yn ’t greate fortrek. Hy wist, sá scoe hy nou dy âld keamer syn libben lang sjen! it bytsje ienfâldich húsrie, syn bern, it nije geslacht om ’e tafel en Proan! ja ommers Proan! der yn al de gloarje fen hjar ripe, blanke moaijens by yn hjar appelblossompakje mei de swarte fewieltsjes. O hy scoe alles wol útteikenje kinne, det scoe ’r! Andersen kaem en lang om let rekken se ta in akkoard. Jehannes snie in nije pinne ré en mei dy pinne skraeu ’r stadich syn fonnis en droech syn great affearen oer oan ’e nij-ynkomling en it âld hûs en ’e lytste hânnel oan syn jongste soan. Maeije wie ’t waen, eart hy der út gyng en André en ’t jong wyfke deryn. Hja hâldden de âlde, ljeave meubelstikken en hy wie der bliid om. Stadich wie syn nij hûs klear kaem, de mûrren fen ’e alderbêste Fryske stien, de sniene foegen fen ’e alderbêste kalk, alles rjucht en stiif nei de aldernijste moade, in sarken parredis mei seis opstappen foar de foardoar en heech boppe by de listgoate in kroanlist mei toskewirk. En hiel Ljouwert roan der Sneins foarby to bisjen....
- 49. „bigryp ris oan, sinneblinen foar de finsters en in foardoar út ien stik!” biwiisden de minsken inoar it wûnderbaerlike moaijs. Hy hie al ris sûr sjoen, it naem gâns mear, as syn birekken west hie, ja al in tredde mear! Hy hâldde net fen krinterigheit, mar húsbouwe! húsbouwe! hy bikende it himsels fol skamte, for ’t earst yn syn libben hie hy him forrekkene! Do moasten der noch nije ditten en detten yn, stoellen mei koper ynlei en tripene sittings en in canapé en in greate tafel mei in bled út ien stik, hwer min yen wol yn spegelje koe en in kroan for fyftich kjersen. En nou! de timmerman hie sines en de farwer en de stienhouwer, de nije skoarstien rikke en Proan en Bet formakken hjar ta de teannen út mei al det nijs en saenden noch maenden om neat mear. Hja wisten, syn bûs wie den ek sa plat as in skol. Dit alles liet ’r noch ris yn him omgean, wylt ’r troch ’t tún kuiere en bywilen de geur ris opsnúfde fen it jonge, útrinnende hout, fol jonge libbenskreft, mar noch bisletten yn syn hulen. De lûden fen ’e dei waerden swakker en swakker, it „hallo” fen ’e skippers foar de poartbrêge klonk mar inkeld mear, de snûrjende wiele fen ’e lynbaen stie.... der wie ek gjin geboart mear fen bern op ’e bûrren en gjin hoarnse weintsjes mei plesiergasten rieden mear ta de poarte út, op hûs yn, hwa wit ho fier noch foart yn ’e oandonkerjende fierte. Stadich bjiske ’r optlêst nei hûs. Hy wie noch net oan ’e doar ta, do seach ’r Jehannes oankommen mei syn flugge stap, rjucht troch de gong op him yn. De freugde! ja de kroan fen syn âlderdom! Ho seine de Heare him yn syn bern! „Kom mei yn ’e bibliotheek,” sei ’r sunich en diich de doar op, „de frouljue sitte boppe en hwetstû to sizzen hast, past frouljuesearen kwalik.” Lyts fen stap roan hy foar Jehannes út nei ’t hege, ljochte fortrek fol mei boeken en greate muntekasten, de mûrren opsierd mei skildere bihang en as skoarstienstik in skilderij fen ’t âld hûs to Langwar oan ’t wiide wetter....
- 50. „Hast minne tatiding? Dû bist suver út ’e liken,” miende Falentijn en seach nei syn soan. „Hjir, nim dit op,” en hy hâldde him in glês wyn foar. Moi hastich skouwde Jehannes it fen him ôf. „It walget my.... it walget my allegear optheden. Myn hert is yn opstân, heit.” „Ja jonge,” suchte Falentijn,.... „hwet der bard is by Dockum, leit my ek swier yn ’t moed.” Hy woe net freegje, mar o syn hert siddere fen eangst en freze, hwet ’r sa foartdaedlik krije scoe to hearren. Hy trêdde de keamer ris op en del, twaris.... trijeris.... „Heit,” sei Jehannes, „kom hjir ris, det nimmen ús heart.... It is al bard....” „Ho let?” „Fen middei om trije ûre op ’t Blokhúsplein.” „Wiest der by?” „Ik wie der en bin der by bleauwn, krekt sa lang, as alles foarby wie.... Op heite bistel en kosten wegere de beul fen Gorkum „fenwegen syn hege jierren” dizze executie op him to nimmen. Wy hopen, nimmen oars scoe him oanbiede....” „Nou?” sei Falentijn bidrukt. „Do is der ien fen ’e feinten kaem en hat him de holle ôfslein.” Falentijn bigoan stilwei to skriemen. Jehannes skikte hwet tichterby en krige him by de hân.... „Dy earme jonge stimper....” hearde ’r him sêft nokkerjen. It bleau in hiel set stil yn ’e stille keamer, de tik fen ’e steande klok krige suver hwet minskeliks, sa gyng de tiid stadich syn biwende gong, mar de tiid fen Jan Binnes, syn jonge, oermoedige, noch folryp steande tiid as in jonge risping op in lân.... dy wie foarby.... for altyd foarby.... tocht Falentijn. „Sei ’r ek noch hwet? Wiest derby, jonge? Net sa fierôf, detst it hearre koest?” „Ja,” sei Jehannes bidaerd. „Ik stie der deun by en hy sei ditte, heit: Heare, ontferm Jou oer my en do.... ien slach.”
- 51. „En?!” Falentijn doarst syn soan net oansjen. As ’r syn triennen seach, scoe hy neat mear fortelle wolle. „Heit moat der him net tofolle ynjaen. For eltse goede saek falle der offers.... en hwa-t der ta útkipt wirde scil, leit net yn minskehânnen. It is sa biskikt oer Jan Binnes, it wie syn wei....” „Ja,” suchte Falentijn, mar syn eagen waerden wer helder. It flues fen triennen loek der foar wei. Hy wie wer op de bikende feilige wei, ja yn libben en stjerren bikend en feilich. „It lyk komt net nei ’t Galgefjild om der to forkommen yn waer en wyn, ik ha ’t de beul ôfkoft for myn snijkeamer ûnder de Nije Toer en de holle derby.... Mar det spande.... Dy ha se earst to pronk....” „O!” suchte Falentijn, „hwet in martling, Jehannes.” „Scil ’k my stilhâlde?” frege dy. „Né, ik wol alles witte,” sei Falentijn foarser as oars. „To pronk op ’e Brol folgens oarder fen âlde fen Rhé en der is neat oan to dwaen. Ik stie der op oan, let yn ’e joun alles to habben.... sa ’n soun, jong minske, krekt hwet for my en sa brocht ik de beul op in dwylspoar en ik treau him fiif goudgounen ta en yn ’e foarnacht bringe se him my....” „En den?” Falentijn syn lûd waerde ho langer ho bidester. „Yn ’e neinacht bringt Haeije Trompetter him mei in pear man yn ’e pream nei Aldwâld ta op it hôf. Hy krijt in earbere bigraffenisse dêrre, heit. Al de Oranjeljue stiene der my boarch for.” Falentijn ridele op ’e stoel hinne en wer, sa bistoarmen him de neare tinsen. Aloan en alwei efter de skermen dy fen Rhé, oeral, oeral.... Hy like wol de kweageest fen hiele Ljouwert to wêzen. „En Ryklef,” sei ’r nei in set. „Hast derfen heard? André sei, dy is nou foargoed foartein. Hy scil wol noait weromkomme, nou syn ljeafste forhoping sa fordiggele is yn grús.” En Falentijn tocht om âlde Ripperda der yn it greate iensume hûs en sette der syn eigen rykdom tsjinoer, alle bern om him hinne yn ien en diselde sted, goed yn eare en oansjen.... Pronica hjar bywêzen, de kostlikheit fen hjar bisit bisefte ’r optheden wer
- 52. namstomear, as ’r op in oar syn gemis seach en hy ûnthjitte himsels, Ripperda yntkoart ris op to siikjen. „Dû moatst der mar neat fen sizze by ’t jouniten. ’t Is better, mem en Bet hearre der neat fen.” Jehannes nikte, syn skerpe dokterseagen mirken wol, heit pakte ’r noch raer mei om en dochs hie hy ’t sa maklik mooglik foarsteld, selst mar by binadering, ho-t it west hie. Och hy en de dead wierne selskippers, hy seach him sims alle dei wol yn ’e kâlde, wrede eagen en waerde ’r net oars mear fen.... mar sims, o yn syn doktersherte wie ek in tear steed en as det rekke waerd, den fielde ’r as minske en diich it ek sear.... ja tige sear.... Do-t se by de frouljue kamen, founen se der Mulier yn in loaikerts- stoeltsje by de hird, de wite meagere hânnen boppe de lôge, de fine holle dûknekkich wei yn ’e jaskraech. Falentijn krige in skrik, scoe der swierrichheit wêze? „Dochs allegear goed thús?” frege ’r moi ongerêst. ’t Moast wol goed wêze, tomiddei hie ’r lytse Proan noch hoepjeijen sjoen op de Wirdumer Dyk en Diûke wie him foarby riden yn ’e karosse nei de iene ef d’oare ta to thédrinken. „Alles goed en de groetenis,” andere Mulier. „Pronica sliept al en Diûke is noch net thús. ’t Wie sa stil yn ’e hûs, ik tochte, ik moast hjir mar hinne om in brochje.” „Kinst krije,” sei Pronica hertlik en gol en gyng oerein, om alles klear to setten foar ’t jounmiel. „Kom, wy giene mar wer efkes nei de bibliotheek, om in pypfol to smoken,” sei Falentijn en joech de oaren de wink. „’t Jildt ús oars wol ’t aldermeast, hwet der bipraet wirde scil, tink ’k,” kaem Bet ynienen snibbich út ’e hoeke. „En ik stan der op, det mei oan to hearren.” ’t Sin stie min, heit bispeurde it oan ’t heazige fen ’t lûd. „Bet hat gelyk,” sei Mulier en kaem werom. „Nou den, ik wie langlêsten yn Amsterdam en hearde nuvere praetsjes fen Andersen. En ik acht it myn plicht, myn skoanâlden en Bet yn ’t bisûnder dy to
- 53. fortellen, omt der fen gnute wirdt, it scil twisken jimm’ beiden op in boask oangean.” „’t Is dyn affearen ommers ek, om in oar min to meitsjen,” húnde Bet, alhiel oerémis. „Hui! hui!” sei mem, „hwet bistû koart, Bet!” „Andersen is in minhear en derom kinn’ jimm’ him net útstean. Hy hat nou ienkear oar praet en sjocht de wrâld oars as jimm’ en hat oare ljeafhabberijen....” Bet gûlde der hast om. „Ja wol dy”, sei Mulier smoutwei en hie syn eachweiding oan Bet, nou yn hjar lilkens mei dy skitterjende eagen en it bloske op ’e bleke wangen, tsjienris moaijer as ornaris. „Hwet seine de minsken?” pinfiske Falentijn stadich. ’t Scoe allegear ek wol wer mâl wêze, ’t wie hjoed dochs al sa ’n freeslike dei, dit scoe de doar wol ta dwaen. „Och, ’t scoe hjir de lêste útsetter wol wêze, de Andersen’s leine oan ’e sintinzje. De saken fierst to heech ynset en den Oranje tagedien.... det is al in heal deafonnis. En den.... hy is gâns troch de wyn gien dêrre yn Amsterdam.... Jan bidoel ik fensels.” Falentijn nikte flau.... ho ’n wjeraks hie ’r de earste kear net yn him krige, as in moadegek yn ’t habyt en den det eigenwize, greatske wezen derby. Nou nessele hy him hjir yn Ljouwert en wie aloan drok dwaende, him Bet to ûntfytmanjen. En hy wist wol, Bet wie ien fen dy soarte, as se hjar sin op eat sette, den stjerre se ljeaver as krimp jaen.... It roan ek allegear sa hiel oars, as se tocht hiene.... Ripperda foart.... o sa ’n goed partuer! en mear fen dy Oranjemannen, allegear fen Bette jierren. Hwet oerbleau, wierne Frânsken ef hâlden it der mei en as sadanich by Falentijn’s forspuid. En ’t hertke siet hjar heech, hja woe ljeafst like goed oankomme as Diûke, dy-t it yn ’e kant sette tsjin jonge mefrou fen Rhé. En Andersen mei syn hearichheit, syn yndeftige klaeijing, syn ûnderhâldend praet oer reizen en bilibbe grappen, syn slach om mei frouljue om to gean en fen al hjar lytse grillen en stumerijkes bihoarlik notysje to nimmen.... och hy hie hjar lyts, dom hertke al lang bilêzen.
- 54. It krêke dy joune raer yn ’t hûs fen Falentijn, mar Bet focht for hjar ljeafde as in lyts terge liûwke en stie op hjar stik. Dizze en gjin oaren, der kaem ’t altyd wer op del. Heit en mem en Mulier warden hjar oars danich, om hjar noch ta oar ynsicht to bringen.... Jehannes liet hjar betien en sei, sokke dingen wierne fierst to tear, om der yn om to rearen. Falentijn siet lyts en stil by de tafel, hwet in rare joun, hwet in argewaesje! Mar ’t wie allegear fen dy gefolgen, det de 23e fen Maertemoanne stiene se al ûnder de geboadens, waerden hjar nammen ôflêzen fen ’e preekstoel yn ’e Galileister tsjerke en Falentijn en Pronica hearden it en Jehannes, de djipearnstige eagen ien amerij in ljochtfonkje fleurichheit en Ripperda, stil en âld yn syn hokje, deun efter it fjouwerkant en Doedte Ripperda, tear bloun famke op ien fen ’e frouljuestoellen.... fier fen him ôf en dochs.... him o sa nei, al doarst ’r syn fieling noch net yn wirden uterje, fierst to bang, de hearlikheit, fen hwet allinne noch mar knop wie, moaije knop mei ’t hiele swiete geheim yn him fen ’e kostlike ljeafdeblom, oan to trunen ta foarlike bloei, ta neat nut.... En derom swijde ’r noch, al siddere der somtiiden ynhâldene jubel yn syn siel. Den krige ’r de fioele en gyng sitten to spyljen.... O dy amerijen fen lok.... as ’r syn iensume siel gean litte koe as in siikjende pilgrim út de woestenije fen syn eigen bislettenheit wei en de moaije wrâld ynstjûre nei syn ljeafste! Sinneskyn! wille! Ho moai sjocht ’r den it libben! ho brûzet syn jong, soun bloed! mei ho ’n kreft makket hy him sterk yen alle leed! En lytse bloune Doedte is by him.... de millodijen lokje hjar, hwer se ek is, moat se om him tinke, fielt fen wûndere nije fielings hjar hertke tinen.... Krekt as sjocht se de wrâld nou oars.... nijer en ljeafliker.... Wie ’t om ’e âld stins wol ea sá moai? roeken de earste griene spruten wol ea sá krûderich, bloeiden de titelroazen ea sa ryk? en de ljurk, ho kaem ’t, det ’r nou krekt safolste moaijer song? Jehannes syn tinsen dwaelden ôf yn tsjerke. Hy seach net nei hjar, mar fielde hjar bywêzen yn siel en sinnen. Song mei, liet syn lûd bliid driûwe op de cadans fen ’e noaten, sims oanbôzjend út ’e fierte, den weistjerrend yn ien inkelde noat fen in lang oanhâlden neispel.
- 55. Hy geniet sa echt syn ûre, det it is him, as sit hy hjir as de breugeman en net dy Andersen, liipe bilêzer fen swakke Bet hjar hertke.... Syn ljeafde is fen in oar soarte en hy wit, as Doedte syn wiif net wirdt, den bliûwt hy iensum. Do-t se út tsjerke kamen, fleagen de snieflokken en wie alles noch ris wer wyt. In spitse wyn gûlde út it Noard-Westen, de strietten wierne wiet en gled. Hy sloech syn mantel tichter om him hinne en sette ’r de stap ûnder nei ’t nije hûs, hwer joun in great gearset wêze scoe en hwer ’r Doedte wersjen scoe! Eltse minút, eltse ûre in seine troch hjar bywêzen! De tiid kroep.—De middeis roan ’r tsjin de finnige wyn yn nei Lekkum ta, om nei in siike to sjen, in jongfamke as Doedte, nou al sont wiken as in stik lead op bêd en bisocht mei senuwsinkingskoartsen. Do-t hy se mar seach, wist ’r, de syktme hie in skieding naem nei de goede kant. Syn middels waerden seine, it libben, it soune jonge libben forhefte him yn it siike lichem en wraksele yn stryd mei de dea om de sege.... en woan it. En allinne syn ljeaf lûd, de kniep fen syn sterke, sa treastbringende hânnen, syn bitrouwen op betterskip stibelearen de siike sokke tiiden sa oerweldich, det se it hast wol sûnder medicinen redde koe. In hiel set bleau hy der by dy ienfâldige minsken yn hjar lyts húske op ’e terp, hwer net ien stikje fen weelde yn to bikennen wie. „Saundersum om ’e tafel en det fen in deihier.... it bitsjutte hwet”, sei de mem, lyts, âldsk wyfke hiel bidrukt by ’t foartgean. Hy nikte stilwei en gyng syn wegen, mar yn ’t thépantsje founen se twa grouwe, gleone dukaten.... „For my.... for aeijen”, hime de blide siike fen ’t bêd. En hja sei him sêft de wirden noch ris nei: dû wirdst nou better, fanke.... wy binn’ ’t hoekje toboppe. As ’t simmer is, swilest wer mei yn ’t moaije waer. Hja lei der nou stil hinne.... hja roek suver de geur fen det nije hea al. Jehannes Falentijn gyng wer op ’e sted oan, foar de wyn ôf. It snijen hâldde op, in tin laechje lei donsfearrich op it hirdfêrzen lân. Hjir en der yn ’e lijte like it gêrs al grienich en maitiidseftich, al lei der noch gjin erf op it lân. Soelte moast der komme, Sudewyn en
- 56. sêfte rein, dy-t sa stil delfalt as roazebledden, loslitten fen in geurige kroan.... By in sleatswâl bloeide in âld wylgenmoes. De sinne skynde op ’e goudene hierkes fen ’e katsjes.... hja tsjirmen om yn dizze kjeld, sa fen onpas by ’t lingen fen ’e dagen. Mar dochs.... hâlden se net in boadskip fen ’e maitiid yn? Net fen it wûnder, hwer stadich de wirklikheit út groeit? Hy bigoan ynienen sa ’n langst to krijen nei hûs, det hy sette de stap der ûnder. Namsto dierberder wie him nou dizze syn âld sted, nou hy hjar der nei hjar útfenhûzjen wer yn wiste. Yn ien hûs fen ’e hûnderten klonken ommers hjar foetstapkes.... Licht seach se nou ek wol nei de wytbisnijde bolwirksbeammen ef harke nei it lûde praet fen ’e ljue op ’e gledde strietten, hwer de dryste âld roeken permantich wei op omstapten. Speurende wei seach ’r alles, hwet jong en bloun wie, tomûk ris ûnder de greate kypsen op. Koe ’t Doedte wêze? Mar geandefoet? Gjin tinken oan! Alde Ripperda hâldde se for pop, it draechstoeltsje kaem ef de karosse en mar ienris op in moarntiid hie hy se kuierjen sjoen op ’e Bierkelders, in lyts nuffich parresoltsje op en in wyt kedoeske oan ’t tou. Fensels op oardelfoet distânzje Minne Pjirkes, sa izegrinich, det hy hie ’t net weagje doarst en sprekke hjar oan. Det wie nou al hast wer in jier lyn. Sims hie Bet meilijen mei him en fortelde, hwer hy se middeis fine koe yn ’e thékoepel by in goekinder oan ’e Greftswâl ef Efter de Hôven. En den trof it krekt sa tafallich, hy kaem der de middeis ek. O! hwet wierne it feestdagen! Stadichoan waerde dizze ljeafde him in earetsjinst, hwer hy al syn moaijste, heechste tinsen oan wijde, de swiidlûdigste trilders fen syn fioele oan opdroech en yn sêfte minne wei ûren yn oanbidding forsonken fordreame. It noch net útspritsene wie fen sa ’n greate skiente, as ’r miskien nea bilibje scoe as ’r de dingen ienris as syn eigen ta him nimme mocht. Ho ’n bytsje lok is ommers tsjin forwirkeliking bistand? De wite flokken bigoanen wer oer it lân to stouwen.... as wolkens jagen se oer de lege lânnen op ’e smoute sted oan. Hiel wyt en blank stike de Presterkamp boppe it swarte wetter fen ’e sleatten út,
- 57. de fûrgen streken as donkerder delten troch it ientônige wyt. Op ’e ein fen it lange, smelle stik lân stiene hiel heimsinnich fiif wylgenmoezen op ien trop as âlde reuzen, hjar stammen oan ’e wynkant snie-biklodde.— Jehannes syn tinsen hjir by it knappende houtfjûr biroanen sêftsoalich nou de hiele kommende libbenswei. En Doedte gyng mei him en.... lytse, bloune bern. Hjir yn dizze âlde sted scoene se wenje, yn in hûs mei greate, smûke keamers en flinke finsters, hwer min ljocht en sinne ta ’n yn skine litte koe en in greate tún scoe der by hearre, fol fen rûkende, reade roazen en leeljeblommen. Sá scoe hjar libben stil en fredich foarbygean, as in moaije wite wolken oan ’e loft—tocht ’r, wylt ’r yn stúdzje wei de wolkens neiseach, ho-t se kamen en gyngen folgens ûnbikend bistel. Efkes lichte it snijen, nou forhefte it him wer. Alles waerde wyt, in suvere, goeddwaende stiltme sette elts hûs yn syn eigen iensumheit. De ljochtskimer út ’e brede gong foel yn ’t wite tún, it fine skaed fen hwet tokjes struwel leech op ’e groun teikene him skerp ôf tsjin ’t blombêd, fol fen tulpenoaskes, grien en klûmsk ûnder ’t turfmot. Hy wist net, ho-t hy it hie, it mocht him net tinke, ea sa ’n Sneintojoun bilibbe to habben, sá yn harmony mei himsels en de wrâld. Hy hearde skelgerinkel en it swiere lûd fen Minne Pjirkes by de doar en efkes letter, o foarfreugde! it swiet giressel fen sidene rokjes, de mesyk fen ’t getrippel fen hiel hege lytse hakjes. Op ’t selde stuit stie ’r al yn ’e gong en seach se en bûgde syn holle oer hjar hantsje, oer ’t lange en smelle fen Doedte Ripperda. Alde Ripperda seach it en giisgobbe. It potuerde lang net min, dy twa.... machtich sieten se der om ’e petylje yn ’e Bjirmen, hy scoe wol wolle, as se allegear sa to plak komme koene as miskien dizze lytse rakkert, syn hertlapke. Der wierne noch mear noege en stadich kamen se oandripkjen yn wiide waerme mantels en wollene sjaels om ’e holle for de kjeld, mar al roan it hûs ek fol, for Jehannes Falentijn wie der mar ien en it foege him sa wûnderbaerlik, det hja kamen neist inoar to sitten. De
- 58. oaren wierne meastal âldere, troude ljue en Andersen en Bet sa grien als gêrs, det der wie ek neat oan en sa koene hja togearre it folle geniet ha fen inoar’s bywêzen. „As hy ek noch wol ris spile?” frege hja sêft en hy liet hjar, kreas út in koker rôlle, moaije nije stikken sjen, dy-t hy út Dútsklân komme litten hie. Hja hie ’t spyljen noch net leard, andere hja op syn fraech, mar jouns by heites songen se fjouwerstimmich en Regnerus, hjar broer, learde it dwarsfloite-spyljen to Frentsjer, der hy stedint wie en yntkoart scoe hja der ek hinne to útfenhûzjen by ien fen syn prefesters. Der krige hy in skrik! Doedte nei det lichtsinnige Frentsjer, hwer it krioelde fen dy jonge griene hipperts, it hier fol krol en it hert fol forljeafdens! By tsjienen scoene se hjar foetfallen dwaen en nachts foar hjar finster sjonge en dichten op hjar meitsje en de handigste en leidigste fen allegearre scoe hjar ynpalmje. O hy seach it oankommen! en sei! it scoe him krektlyk gean as Ryklef dodestiids mei syn gemael, hwer hy Anne Hopperus troch kwytrekke. Syn lûd klonk in bytsje onwis, do-t hy frege, honear as de reis oangean scoe. Tongersdei gyng se mei pake wer nei hûs, sei se en Saterdei scoe heit hjar nei Frentsjer bringe en jimmetieten se by prefester en mefrou en den bleau hja der in setsje. Nou wist ’r it, dizze fjouwer dagen waerden bislissend for syn hiele libben. Hwet scoe ’r nou: it skreauwne, deftige en foarmlike brief to baet nimme en hjar heit skriûwe ef scoe ’r hjarsels syn libbenslot foarlizze, om it fen hjar hânnen forfoarmje to litten ta in greate blydskip ef in ellindich lijen? It onbisoarge, hearlike geniet fen ’e joun wie foart.... in ûnrêst krige fat op him, hwer hy him net tsjin forsette koe. It petear stûke.... stilwei sieten se yn it fjûr to sjen, ek in ivich riedsel as hja selme fen hwer-wei? en hwer-hinne? en al fielden hja it net, dochs wie de ljeafde dwaende, om hjar al tichter en tichter yn ’e mesken fen hjar mearkeëftich net to biknoopjen. De ûren fleagen.... der sloech de klok al njuggen ûre, noch in pear ûren en
- 59. hy scoe syn lytse skat foartgean sjen en ’t noch net útsizze kind ha, hwet hy tochte. De feint kaem yn, stoelle it turffjûr wer op mei in pear bêste boekeblokken. It wie it sein, om ris oerein to gean, de hearen stapten nei de bibliotheek, om de nije munten en ’e nije boeken to keuren de dames waerden boppe noege, om Bet hjar troujurk en útset to bisjen. Doedte hâldde hjar mar by pake, hwet scoe se ek mei dy âldere dames? en Bet? och, dy forgeat gled-wei, det der noch oare minsken yn ’e wrâld wierne as Jan Andersen! „Sjoch,” glimke âlde Falentijn, „is ditte net hwet for ús gast?” en hy joech hjar in lytse goudene munt út syn samling, in goudene ducaton. Yn ’e eagen fen Ripperda kaem in tige earnstige, hast swiermoedige útdrukking. Hwet waerd’ dit, gekheit ef djippe, djippe earnst? „’t Is om to hâlden, Doedte,” lei Falentijn út mei dy âlderwetske ridderlikheit, dy-t sa goed hy him paste. Hja draeide de munt om en om. „Der stiet lêzen op,” sei se en hja lies: Daer Ware Liefde woont, Daer is het Huis geheiligd.— „O!” sei se en sloech de eagen foardel. Hja hie Jehannes sines moet en der yn lêzen, hwet syn mûle yet altyd forswijde. Hja joech hjar hwet toside ôf, in bloske op ’e wangkjes, bleu en forlegen en seach hiel efkes nei de mânljue, mar pake en minhear Falentijn kúrden al wer mei greate forgreatglêzen op hjar fynsten om en de oaren dy pypken ef praetten en nimmen tochte om hjar. Hja woe hjar nei de doar tajaen. „Doedte!” hearde se Jehannes. It klonk fen o sa fierôf en dochs.... as kaem it as in wjerklank út hjar eigen, hiel binaud en dochs ek wer hiel frjemd-bliid hertke. „Sjoch ris, hjir binn’ noch trije sokken.... Hja binn’ nea brûkt yn jildomrindershânnen, hja binn’ gloednij, dizze trije. It binn’ knottedoeksducaten.... Kom ris efkes tichter by my,” en hy gyng hjar
- 60. foar nei de fierste hoeke fen ’e bibliotheek ta, hwer in iensume kjers barnde en it fjûr syn nochlike, rodsige wjerskyn joech.... „Noch tichter.... Sa....” Hja stie nou deun neist him.... as ’r woe, koe ’r it bounzjen fen hjar bang-bliid hertke hast hearre tsjin ’t nau siden spinserke oan. „En wistû, hwet der by heart?” en wylt de trije goudene stikken yn ’t holle fen syn hân leine to blinken, sei ’r hiel stadich, elts wird in stikje hertefreugd en bitterswiete eangstme: „Wotte sa wotte,[1] Hjir hastû de knotte, Wott’ it net dwaen, Den moatst’ him my weromjaen.” [1] Dit knotterym is noch gâns âlder: Wolstû my hybje, den scil ik dy habje, Den scill’ wy togearre út ien skûtel slabje. Wott’ it net dwaen, Den moast him my werom jaen. Doedte seach him oan en hy hjar.... yn hillige stiltme helle se de trije ducaten fen syn triljende hân nei hjar ta en biknypte se stadich yn hjar iiskâlde rjuchter. Sá anderje ik, Jehannes,” sei se sêft. Al it berneftige wie yn ien omsjoch fen hjar antlitke fordreauwn.... hja bisefte hokfoar rjuchten en plichten dizze iene amerij hjar nou for it hiele libben oplei. Falentijn, wol op syn openst, seach ris tomûk nei hjar en syn hert, slingere twisken hope en freze yn, fielde as by ynjowing, ho-t syn soan taeste nei syn ryp lok. O mocht der seine rêste op dit syn bisykjen! de Heare hjar herte flije nei dit syn bigear en hja him tabrocht wirde as in jonge, teare roas yn syn wachtsjend hôf! Hy socht algedurich ris de eagen fen syn wiif, mar Pronica mirk neat, dy wie sa alhiel mei de oaren wei yn in kleanpraetsje oer japonnen en ruches en stroken en kypsen fol fearren, det hja hie gjin loaits oer for him.
- 61. De spylklok yn ’e gong spile de folle ûre fen alven, do makken de Ripperda’s rislewaesje. Hja hearden de skeltsjes al wer rinkeljen foardoar yn ’e wite stille wrâld, Minne Pjirkes klos-klos by ’t parradis op en ’t fallen fen ’e klopper op ’t swiere ikenhout fen ’e doar. En de oare moarne betiid al histe Jan syn âlde skonken op ’e loaie brune fen ’e weverij. Falentijn joech him in goede braspenning mei for ûnderweis en in folle knapsek. Sa rekke ’r woltomoet op reis, hwent bang for bûsehifkers wie ’r net, hie ’r net in knyft, slipe as in flym, by de broeksbân yn en Annemoi for in grou goune de kweade net bispritsen, om him ôf to bliûwen op iensume wegen? Yn in learen sekje, ticht oan syn hert, droech ’r syn boadskip, in great brief for jonker Age Ripperda yn Seisbjirrem. Hy koe wol fen bitinken ha, hwet der sahwet yn stean scoe, de dokter scoe wol syn lytse dokteresse foun ha, tocht him. Hy hie ’t al lang bispeurd, hy wie yn ’t frijen keard en as der fen de lytse frelle praet waerd, den harke hy mei saun pear earen. En sok slach fen ljue, der hearde poeha by. Mei syn Lys frijde hy der foartdaedlik mar op los, det it der oer klapte, mar mieri! hjir bleau min op oardelfoets distânzje en ’t scoe wol al in hiele ginst wêze ris in aeijke, ek op oardelfoets distânzje, jaen to meijen! It hynsder kloste sleaudrafkjend de hirdfêrzene wei lâns, nei ’t Westen út. Noch wie de wrâld stil en wyt, mar de loft arbeide gâns yn ’t Suden en ’e mosken sieten bliid to tsjilpen yn ’e keale beammen. Tsjin ’e joun kaem ’r op de stins en diich syn boadskip en waerde do al gaueftich nei de greateljues poeskoken laet, hwer it útroan op in wûnderbaerlik plesierige joun, hwent hy, as in goed Ljouwter, spile ek net swak by mei in mingelen bier foar him en in goed miel efter de baeitsjeknopen. Mar oan alle lofsangen komt ornaris ringen in ein en yn ’e neinacht, do-t de moanne, dy-t al gâns forsiet, opkaem, joech ’r him wer op reis. Hy krige in brief fen ’e jonker mei, it glimke, der det him mei oerjown waerde, bifestige him wol yn it gelove, it waerde in goede tatynge for de jonge dokter.
- 62. Ho oneinige lang like him nou de reis! by nacht en ontiid! Gjin minske op in paed, allinne mirden en by de doarpen healforhongere hounen en boppe yn in listgoate in earmoedzjende kat, de eagen twa greate gleone roundellen, stiif op him delsjende. Hy riboske optlêst fen binaudens en kjeld en ho seine hy de toerren fen Ljouwert, dy-t einliks yn ’e moarn, griis en tsjuster tsjin it oanwinnende ljocht ôfstieken. Jehannes hie gjin hael hawn thús op syn keamers, hy spoarde al ier en betiid by heites om en iet der syn moarnsbrogge en mei ien ruk skûrde ’r it brief op, det Jan him oerjoech. It wie mar koart, al wie syn ynhâld wichtich. Hy waerde útforsocht, om Doedte Tongersdei mei werom to bringen en sels it andert to heljen. Fierder neat.... it wie ek genôch. Mei in optein sin roan ’r nei âlde Ripperda, dy-t al fen alles op ’e hichte like to wêzen en bizich sei, hy scoe wol ljeafst mei Doedte allinne prate wolle. En der kaem se al oan.... for earst seach ’r hjar yn deise klean, yn in grienruten jurkje, it rokje hiel wiid en it spinserke hiel nau, sa deaïenfâldich as in boargermans bern. En it moai boskje hier net yn in toer heech op ’e holle fol skitterjende siersels en plûmmen, mar flochten yn in lange frissel en sa om ’e holle woun. En nou sá hie hy se op ’t alderljeafst, wie ’t net singulier? Hy bleau fensels to iten, en hwet diich ’r ljeaver as det?! den hiene se noch in hiele moaije middei togearre! en o gút.... hy helle in roazeread siden doekje út ’e bûs, der in losse strûp yn siet. En der bitearde hy de trije ducaten yn en do loek hja mei hjar sierlike, lange fingers de strûp oan. „Dit ’s nou for altyd, myn Doedte,” sei ’r earnstich. Hja swijde. Mar der foel in trien op ’e roazereade side fen ’e knottestrûp. As Annemoi it sjoen hie, hie se in krús slein.— En op in moaije dei yn Maeijemoanne, de wrâld yn ’e pronk fen hjar earste blomknoppen, alle hôven wyt fen blomsnie en lûd fen fûgelliet, de blauwe loft helder as in gril, de sinne fen gjin wolken
- 63. skeind, do barde it, det âlde Falentijn for de twadde kear al fen ’t jier de goudene gaspen op ’e skoen naeije liet. Oars diich ’r it altyd mei de sulveren, nou mei it trouwen fen ’e bern moasten de goudenen for ’t ljocht en ’t wie krekt, as kaem yn ’e heechste pronk, de deftichheit fen syn wezen, ék noch namstomear út. Yn ’t seal by Ripperda’s, it seal, der ek ienkear de Oranjemannen dy Sneine by inoar sitten hiene, hâldden se nou it gearset, fornaem en stemmich, ek al mei om de lege plakken fen beppe en Ryklef-om, dy-t nou as in swerfling yn Ingelân forkearde en hiel inkeld tynge stjûrde. As hy der om tochte, den waerde Ripperda it moed fol, selst op dizze freugdedei. O ho miste ’r optheden wer syn jonge twisken dizze bloeijende, nije jeugd fen Ljouwert, ho sear diich it syn âld hert, him misse to moatten!— En nou gyngen Jehannes Falentijn en Doedte Ripperda togearre, sa ’s syn forljeafde dreamen it him ienkear al foarsei hiene. Yn ’t tún bloeiden fjûrreade roazen en mennichten fen wite leeljes tsjin ’t sket oan yn ’e sinne en klip! klap! klapten de lytse sidene toffeltsjes fen Doedte it mei estrikken floerre paedtsje lâns nei ’t simmerhúske ta, hielendal ûnder in treurboek biskûle. En in lytse wite kedoes der blaffende efteroan, in hiele greate fjûrreade strik oan ’e halsbân. Sá echt, o sá echt noch de soarchleaze jeugd der dy simmers, dy moaije simmer mei syn lange sinneskyndagen, hwer fen eltse dei wer in feest for hjar allebeide wie. Do-t de hjerstfleagen om ’t hûs gûlden, hâlden Doedte en kedoeske hjar kûs by de hird, in lyts protsje gûd yn in greate briedstoel en dy winters? Do foreare mefrou Falentijn hjar in greate pelysse fen otterbûnt en der in lyts swart mûtske by for hjar bloun hier en as se de sted yn woe, stie der in forgulden draechkoetske ré mei Jan, trouwe, sterke en o sa soarchsume Jan en Minne Pjirkes as dragers. It kopke ûnder ’t swart mûtske waerde al lytser en biklonkener, de eagen al greater en greater en sims, o sims en ek mar hiel efkes! siddere de sterke Jehannes Falentijn for de takomst, for it libben fen syn teare, bloune skat....
- 64. Hiele skoften koene se stil neist inoar sitte, hja lynjend tsjin him oan mei de holle tsjin syn skouder en hjar beide hantsjes yn syn waerme rjuchter. Dy tiiden learden se it lok kennen, sa ’s it him mar komselden fen minsken kenne lit. En op in kâlde moarne yn April joech se him syn soan, in lytse bloune jonge, in razer. It hiele hûs rekke yn ûnstjûr en hiele Ljouwert dielde fen herten yn ’e blydskip fen syn doctor Falentijn, sels sa faek boadskipper fen sokke goede dingen en nou der sels mei bitocht. Mar Jehannes Falentijn siet mei de hân oan ’e holle. Hy hie syn moed net. Bitterheit wie yn syn freugde, sa ’s de Psalmist seit.... Diselde joune moast Jan de reis wer ûndernimme nei de Bjirmen ta. Der hoechde gjin brief mear hinne en der waerde ek net mear mei blydskip nei ’t andert útsjoen. Alles hie ommers syn bislach krige en der yn ’e widze lei de greatste seine, dy-t in minske mar barre meij. De wegen wierne min to brûken—jonker Age Ripperda liet fjouwer hynsders foar de wein slaen en jage, sa ’s hy noch noait jage hie. O hwet wie det in reis yn dy ljochte, lije maitiidsnacht mei dy freeslike eangstme ta driûwer! It wie noch net to let, do-t ’r kaem om syn bern en bernsbern to sjen. In ûre twa letter gyng Doedte stil by hjar wei, lykme allinne en selst Jehannes mei al syn greate ljeafde wie net yn steat, hjar to folgjen. En diselde simmers, yn ’t tún mei syn rûkende reade roazen, syn leeljeblommen yn al de folle pracht fen hjar wite moaijens, learde hy, hwet iensumheit wie en waerde him de kreft jown, dy birêstend drage to kinnen.
- 65. XII. Ho hearlik roek it bûtedoar! Maitiid, maitiid! floite de skelfink yn Foppe Lieûwes syn hôf,—hearstû my wol, âlde húsman? Bistû ek net bliid? Sjoch de priel fen de lânsdouwe, draecht se net as in keninginne hjar kleurich keninklik kleed, mei blossoms binaeid en sinneglâns der yn biweefd? Sjoch it wetter, ho klear as it is en ho stil.... Sjoch de lytse wetternestjes fen ’e stikeltsjes roeikjen, sjoch de swânneblommen, ho-t se stadich bledden en knoppen út hjar longerjend herte poarje litte, om ek mar sinneskyn to heinen, tûzenris sinneskyn! Sjoch it waeijen fen ’e teare felettene blomtûffen fen ’e pinksterblommen yn dyn finne en it gesoei fen ’e wytbisnijde hagetokken op dyn diken.... is ’t dy ek gjin wille dit alles, o húsman? Foppe Lieûwes hearde de skelfink wol sjongen en seach ek wol de moaije maitiid om him hinne, mar hy suchte.... Dizze winter hie hy hwet bidobje moatten yn syn hert.... det hie him tige sear dien.... hy hie optheden gjin lust oan geniet. Ho hie ’t syn forhoping west, noch ienris wer it âlde Fryslân, sa nei forkleefd mei syn hiele libben, yn gloarje herrizen to sjen! Ho bikaeid wie ’r útkaem! Alles lei nou ommers yn gruzeleminten. En nou hja der yn ’e Haech drok dwaende, om Fryslân noch lytser to krijen, syn selsstânnigens to ûntfytmanjen en syn jild yn to palmjen. Ho hate hy dy Coert fen Beijma, dy saneamde representant, dy-t foarstelle doarst yn ’e Nationale Forgearring, om plechtich haet oan it Stedhâlderskip en alle oerhearsking to swarren! Nimmen wie him byfallen—sa settene se him pyk, mar sei wie it en hy makke him sa lilk, det hy skodde de fûsten fen pûre argewaesje. Wie det in kearel! wie det in Fries! Immen, dy-t alle war diich, om Fryslân yn ’t leech to bringen en kroep foar de hege hearen, om mar in hollânsk plûmke to krijen en
- 66. mei bean to wirden op in hollânsk gearset. Hy en âlde fen Rhé! O it wierne de beide kweageesten fen Fryslân en hja scoene ek wol sa lang skrippe, om it foargoed yn ’e bidelte to hompen. Hy koe se allebeide wol forgrieme, sjeder! en hy makke himsels ho langer ho lilker, en seach net iens, det ’r immen det opdraeide nei hjarres ta. Bidaerd bleau ’r stean, do-t hy mirk, Foppe seach him net en snúfde ris in noasfol op fen al dy hearlike geuren, hjir yn ’t hôfke om ’e nocht to krijen. Hwet ûnthjitte it allegear in moaije risping, de beammen stiene suver wyt! Der knapte in dea tokje op ’e groun en Foppe Lieûwes draeide him moi gysten om. „Hea Roanes, bistû der?” sei ’r hertlik wei en hja fûsken. „Kom mei yn ’e hûs to kofjedrinken.” „’t Is hast skande”, sei dy op syn kalme, bidaerde menear, „sok waer en den yn ’e hûs....” en syn hânnen aeiden in blossomtokje, det him oan ’t skouder ta hinge, mar hy tepte it net ôf. O dy triljende sinneweelde, hokker ljeaflik byld rôp dit alles by him wekker! Hy fielde, ek hy hearde by dit alles, jong, sterk en bloeikreftich yn syn swietste sappen, fen gjin gesting ef onhuerens bidoarn. Syn eagen skitteren, hja dikeren yn ’e fierte, wist ’r der net Bouwekleaster yn syn tsjustere beammen, wenne der Wolmoet net, it swietgeurige blossomtokje yn it maitiidshôf fen syn hert? Hwet wist in âld man fen soks? Dy soarte fen ljue stoarren hjar staf op it forline. Det wie dochs for altyd foart.... Hy woe it nije.... de driûw fen syn soun bloed frege twingerich de skeakeling oan de takomst.... ljeafde, it húsgesin, it bern.... En dizze moaije maitiid, wie hy net it ûnthjit fen dit alles, hearde ’r net in mesykjen fen sêfte snaren en lokke det net ta alle rein en suver geniet?.... Al tocht ’r sa fen alles by inoar, foar it each bleau ’r like bidaerd as altyd, pandere Foppe Lieûwes efternei nei de lamkes ta en de biggen en it bêste koukeal, fen ’e moarn fongen en einliks kamen se yn ’e hûs to kofjedrinken. „En dû bliûwst hjoed mar by úzes to iten”, ornearre Foppe Lieûwes, „en den kinst fenmiddei wol meiride nei ’t Kleaster ta. Ik gien dochs mei de seas. Ef hoechste hjoed net
- 67. hinne?” pleage ’r mei in bizich glimke. ’t Min sin sakseare hwet, nou- t hy selskip hie. Hy kûstere him oan ’e jonkheit fen Roanes as oan in waerm fjûr. Hy sette him heech, dizze skûtmakkerssoan fen Eastemar en ’t scoe Wolmoet nea birouwe, as se mei dizze nei ’t gritenijhûs ta gyng, tocht him. Dy rare markejoun fen Optwizel hie dochs noch earne goed for west. Dy middeis rieden se togearre op ’e kromsidige seas, heech boppe it stof fen ’e wei, troch de moaije, bloeijende wrâld. Hja koene fier sjen.... gjin dize loek syn sulveren streken twisken ’t fiere en ’t tichtebye.... ’t wie allegear sa klear, sa fris en ’t kaem sa folmakke út ’e Skepper syn seinjende hân, det de nije pracht fen it jier makke hjar suver stil. Sá rieden hja in hiel set. De iensume sânreden lâns en do oer ’e Hamsterheide.... yn it âld weinspoar wipte de seas op en del en mennichten fen heideblommen sneuvelen ûnder de greate tsjellen.... Hjir en der in inkelde spjir, in jeneverbeamke, oars de wiide hege blauwe himel en de brune heide inoars maten, nou yn simmerhearlikheit, winters yn earmoeds bitterheit. By Bindert Japiks stiene de skúrredoarren op en Wytse seach al ris út.... It like der wol boelgûd, sa fol stie it hiem fen allerhânne soarte fen weinen, bolderweinen, in gieloaljelinnen kappe der stiif oer spand, seasen, ierdkarren, in pear faeiëtonnen, in inkelde moaije karosse for fjouwer hynsders en yn ’e kamp foarhûs roanen sa ’n sechstich hynsders. „Nou, nou!” sei Foppe Lieûwes en seach dit alles oan. Ho scoe hjoed dit weromsjen wêze fen ’e Oranjemannen, nei de tsjinstuit fen Dokkum út inoar stoud as hwet goezzeplûm nei alle wynstreken. Inkelden, dy-t tichteby wennen, kaem ’r yetteris wol to wird, mar sokken fen Ingwjirrum en Anjum en Boerum en de efter-Ljouwerts, wierne se net as skippen, wachtsjend foar ien slûs in amerij, sa tichteby en nea yn it libben wer diselde reis! „Miskearret der nou nimmen mear?” waerde der frege, do-t se ynkamen yn ’e greate skûrre, hwer wol in hûndert man hjar opwachte. Stadich waerden de nammen oproppen út de neiste
- 68. contreinen.... presint wierne de measten en dy-t der net wierne, der joech in oar for lûd en fen dy-t fierst ôfwennen, kaem allinne de oerste ef foaroanman op it aljimint. Finzen noch inkelden, mar de measten al wer los tsjin in heech losjild. It wie Wytse Binderts Cloosterman, dy-t út namme fen syn heit de list foarlies en do-t hy by de namme fen Jan Binnes kaem, stúke syn lûd efkes. Al de oaren waerden stil. „Jan Binnes!” sei Wytse Binderts. De hoedden kamen ôf. „Jan Binnes is de holle ôfslein for de goede saek fen Oranje de 18e fen Selle fen dit jier en syn stof is biierdige folgens oarder fen al de Oranjemannen op it Aldwâldemer hôf. Dit doch ik, fen Scheltinga fen Stynsgea to witten oan al dizze ljue hjirre. Hy hat syn libben jown for ús saek. Litte wy syn namme yn eare hâlde.” In inkelde bange stimper riboske efkes, ware de geest fen Jan Binnes net yn hjar foarmidden om? Wer trof de klank fen in bikende namme Foppe Lieûwes syn earen. „Master Marten Joukes?” waerde roppen. „Forkomt yn ’e finzenis to Ljouwert al sont Selle.” In dof gemompel gyng troch de rigen, seagen se it lytse opljeppen mantsje noch net oan ’e spits fen syn folkje út ’e Wâlden? en nou al sont moannen yn ’e wiete kelderhôle fen ’t tichthús! Foppe Lieûwes gyng ’t neijernôch, krekt as wie ’r op in bigraffenisse fen ljeaven. „En nou frjeonen, komt it alderslimste yette,” sei Bindert Japiks. „Nou komt de kniper op ’e skine. Ik bigjin sa njonkenlytsen to tinken, det allinne twa fen de earmsten der útpikt binne, om ’e koarte dea op ’t skafot en ’e lange marteldea yn ’e finzenis to stjerren, omt der dochs neat op hjar to forheljen is. As se tûzenen bisitten hiene, wierne se ek wol sparre.... nou wierne se goedkeape offers ta formoedsoening fen ’e wraek fen ’e Jacobijnen. De libbenen moatte bliede.... Frankryk easket ommers jild, tûzenen, hûnderttûzenen, noch mear.... En ienkear.... scil ús it fjûr noch wol neijer oan ’e teannen lein wirde, den komme ús bern oan bar....
- 69. Der kaem biweging ûnder ’t folk.... „Sa fier is ’t dochs noch net?” oppeneare ien binaud. „Sitte wy den al sa yn ’t ûnleech, det wy gjin kant mear út kinne?” „Praet fen gelok, as ’t noch net slimmer wirdt. Jisterjoune let krige ik dit brief.... Geuke Ljibbes wit fensels wol, det wy hjir hjoed by inoar binne, der soarget de forrieder yn ús foarmidden wol for. Min moast him ôfsoalje, det ’r der noait wer sin oan hie, om hjir to judasjen.” Banjer, hielendal efteroan by ’t skûrrefinster, slûpte foart. Immen joech him in stomp, hy stroffele oer ’e efterhûsstriette.... syn possenaesje wie nou útspile, fielde ’r wol, it jildfortsjinjen dien. En Foppe Lieûwes brocht him tobinnen, hwet de jonker ienkear sei hie der dy joune yn ’t húske to Iestrum. Nou bigoan Bindert Japiks sels de lange „dagvaarding” foar to lêzen, opmakke fen ’t Geregte fen Achtkarspelen en únderteikene fen Geuke Ljibbes en fen der Kooij en hwer de nammen[1] op foarkamen fen allegearre, dy-t oan de Collumer opstân mei hândiedich west hiene en lies teffens de boete op, hwer se ta foroardield wierne. [1] sjoch efteryn dit boek de „officieele” list fen nammen en boeten. It wie sa stil, min scoe wol in spjelde fallen hearre kinne. D’iene seach toglûp nei de oare, mar elts for oar hâlde him great for syn bûrman. Einliks swijde it swiere lûd fen Bindert Japiks. Hy tearde it pompier op en stiek it yn ’e bûs. „En nou, hwet sizze jimm’ hjir ta?” tantte ’r de ljue. „Wy ha rare lege eagen smiten, frjeonen! Is der nou ek ien by, dy-t it moit, hy komme op. Ef ha wy it allegear for Oranje oer en yn Oranje for Fryslân, it selsstânnige Fryslân, frij fen hollânske twingerij!” en do hwette sêfter: „Alle ljeafde freget hjar offers frjeonen,.... alle lok wirdt ommers bitelle mei syn eigen priis.... Dizze priis is heech, taest ús oan yn ús goed. De measten scill’ der hjar om bikrimpe moatte, in tindere brogge en faken in sûpke jenever minder. Nou, der kin ’t sûnder, dy brouwdrank fen ’e divel is nin minske ea goed bikaem.... Mar hwet my o sa sear docht, frjeonen....
- 70. it is net de straf.... ef it jild.... ef de kweanamme, dy-t se ús oanwriûwe scille yn Hollân.... mar it is de saek sels. It hat de lêste útsetter west for ús. Nou is der gjin forwin mear op. Wy kinne om ús hinne gnauwe as in snoek yn ’e foeke, it jowt ús neat mear. Hollân krijt ús nou alhiel yn ’e bisnijing. Fryslân wirdt in wingewest, ôfbeuld as in âld hynsder foar in swiere fracht fen skilden.... nou en for alle tiiden en al ús gloarje scill’ se ta hjar nimme. Skrippe se al net, om ús ús Hegeskoalle to ûntstellen? Fryslân moat ta de wrâld út.... As se koene, scoene se selst de tael en de namme der út snije wolle as in minskehert út syn lichem....” De oaren bleauwne stom, gjinien hie in wjerwird, mar it gyng hjar troch ieren en sinen. In nuver gemompel bigoan warber to wirden yn alle hoeken fen ’e greate skûrre, it wie in swier stik, om dizze bittere wierheit forkropje to moatten. Einliks sei der immen bidêsd: „Bindert kin ’t ús nou allegear wol slim tofoaren prate, scoe ’t altomets noch net hwet tafalle kinne? Min merkt der hjir noch net folle fen as nou ja.... mei det jild is nou wol slim, mar der ha wy ek de kâns for hawn om to winnen. Hokker groun hat Bindert for al dizze slimme formoedens?” „As min immen hwet to lien freget, is min al hear ôf en as min frjemd yn ’e hûs hellet, om der to regearjen, wirdt min sels slaef. Hy sit by de skerm en min yn ’e sigerige herne. Tinkst, det Frankryk it rike Hollân om ’e nocht helpt? Wiste noch net, det wy yntkoart in fyftichste penning opbringe moatte fen al ús goed en mar in rinte krije fen 3½%.... as wy se krije?! Brekt de ynkertiering ús allegear op den duer net de nekke? Tinkst sims, det ik myn fiif man ynkertiering altomets om ’e nocht útbisteegje yn ’e Hamster harbarge? En wy binn’ noch lang net oan ’e ein fen ’e tiiden ta.” Foppe Lieûwes, ek ien fen de âlderein, nikte byfallich. De jongeren woe ’t net oan, ho slim as ’t wol stie, och, as min jong is, kin min alles tille.... den leit it hiele libben derfoar as in effene wei. Mar al njonkenlytsen leart in minske hifkjen en soarchjen.... de jonkheit libbet der mar op los as de soldaet Saterdeijouns. Moandei’s is ’r al mak,—tocht Foppe Lieûwes, wylt ’r sa ris om him hinneseach yn ’e healtsjustere skûrre en hjir en der in goekinder tanikte. Hea, der stie
- 71. ek in kloftsje Boerumers, Joege Innes yn ’t foarmidden en hy gyng der op ta en hja fûsken, mar it antlit bleau stoef en hja seagen bidrukt. Och, it jild wie noch wol oer to kommen, det net, al scoe hjar ’t helter wol útstrûpt wirde en de pong yn ’e alderlangste knoop komme! Mar dy grêven diene it him, ien op it Aldwâldemer tsjerkhôf, twa yn Driesum en trije yn Ikkerwâld! It wierne offers fen minsken, dy-t it Bataefske regear frege hie, in moai biwys fen ’e heech romme broerskipeftigheit! De tûmmeskroeven setten se linkende wei al mar kniperiger oan, earst de frijdom kwyt, do it jild en nou! de earste soannen fen it folk sels, dy-t oars neat gjin kwea dien hiene as det hja it wettich gesach fen ’e Oranje’s, it hjar fen God taskikte regear, hânhavenje woene. Scoe ’r dit noch ienkear bilibje meije, dit regear wer op syn troane to sjen? de flagge noch ris wer waeije op ’e Eastemarder toer ta eare fen ’e jierdei fen ’e Stedhâlder, goudtsjeblommen yn syn tún sjidzje to kinnen, sûnder det der immen kaem en skûrre se der by nacht en ûntiid út. Och hy wie in âld man en Joege Innes en safolle oaren wierne it ek.... licht wierne se al lang yn it hinnekleed bispjelde, eart it sa fier kaem. En dochs.... hy twivele net oan Heger Bistel, nei dizze tiid fen binauwinge en druk kaem ek ienkear wer in bettere tiid. Den scoe it folk wer frij wirde en ’t wêze sa ’s alear: Fryslân wer it frije, moaije lân en in fryske Oranje draechjend yn eare en greatskens de Fryske kroan, dy-t him takaem en hwer it hiele folk syn rjuchtsbisef him yn skoarre, dy drage to kinnen.... Ho ’n moaije dream wie ’t, ho ’n bitiizjende tsjoen fen takomstbylden! ’t Koe allegear sa komme, al wie ’t nou noch mar in drôge, mar is net alles, hwet nou wirklikheit is, net ienkear ûntstien út hwet do spotsk drôge hjitten waerde? Bindert Japiks drôge net, dy hânnele koart biredt en koel. Hy siet op in ierdkarre en skreau de nammen op fen ’e ljue, hwaens wapens al ynlevere wierne[2] op ’t Stynsgeäer gritenijhûs ef dy se weismiten hiene yn ’e stedsgrêft fen Dokkum. Ek skreau ’r de nammen op fen ’e ljue, hielendal troch earmoed ûnbikwaem ta boetebiteljen. It wierne mar in stik ef seis, hwent it folk, hândiedich oan it forset,
- 72. hearde ta de geseten ljue. Earme lús-angels hâldden it mei it Frânske gesach, hja hiene ommers nea hwet to forliezen, altyd to winnen, as ’t ris oan ’t fordielen fen ’e bút takaem. Ho scoene se der den yn omskûrre, as dy bêste brave patriotten hjar ris frij lieten to dwaen nei hjar eigen wil! Ho scoene se sels skrippe, om it measte to krijen, al moast der den ek in húsman om dea. As hja it mar hiene! —tocht Foppe-om. [2] Sjoch hjiroer efter yn it boek. Fierders lies ’r ûnder deadlike stiltme it brief fen ’e jonker foar: Hampton Court de 30e van April 1797. Mijne seer getrouwe Vrinden. Deeze wordt UEdn. geschreven uit de residentie van onzen Frieschen Souverein, te weten Hampton Court, waar ik na eene seer sware reis van zes dagen door Gods genade toch nog behouden ben aangekomen. Ik ben nu, waar ik moet zijn, in de schaduw van mijn’, ja onzen seer beminden Vorst. Toch gaat mijn verlangen uit naar mijn vertreden Land en naar mijn verslagen, verootmoedigde vrinden. Wij hebben ons spel gespeeld, wij hebben verloren. Ik zie de toekomst donker in, mijn Heer doet het evenzoo. Hij weet niet en waarhenen zich te wenden, zijn herte is in bittere droefenisse om ’t gene en is geschied. Laat ons allen onze oogen opheffen naar de bergen, vanwaar wederom eenmaal onze hulpe komen zal. De Heere is ook de God der legerscharen, Hij leidt ze naar Zijn wil. Seer zoude het mij verblijden, te mogen vernemen, of onze vrinden Jan Binnes en meester Marten en de
- 73. anderen huiswaarts sijn gekeerd ende of se nog zijn beboet. Deze wordt UEdn. gezonden door de tusschenkomste van Porter uit Harlingen en zende de Uwen ook alzoo. Ik groet U allen seer, mijne Vrinden, in ’t bizondere Bindert Japiks in ’t Clooster en Wibe Lubberts: Gedenkt mijner—banneling—in den gebede: Ripperda. Hwet roerden de wirden út dit syn brief teare snaren oan! It hert spriek ta it hert, ja wol det!— En einliks formoanne Bindert Japiks de ljue yn in koart, earnstich wird, goedwei de boeten to biteljen, de saek lei der nou dochs sa ta, hja wierne oerlevere oan ’e dogeneaten en forroppe foar it Hof to Ljouwert ef sa, om ’e boeten forlytse to krijen, scoe dochs neat jaen, omt Hollân raesde om jild en dit moast wer as in lyts pynstillingkje brûkt wirde. „Mar wy wolle neat mei det Hollân út to stean ha! Hwet maelt ús det Hollân?” rôpen inkelden en ho-t Bindert Japiks, fen Scheltinga en Joege Innes ek praettene, it folk bleau rare roerich. „Woll’ jimm’ it noch ris bisykje en det it ús wer ôfgiet as to Dockum?” frege Bindert Japiks. Der prusten se ek raer tsjin oan. Né, det nou just net.... „Nou, hwet woll’ jimm’ den? Komm’ op, dy-t in útwei wit....” It bleau stil ûnder ’t folk, mar einliks pinfiske in bisûnder bolstjûrigen maet: „As wy nou as ien man ris wegeren, om dy boeten to biteljen, hwet scoe ús den oerkomme kinne?” „Den krigest skúsjeboelgûd, alles forkoft en den op ’e keap ta tsjien man ynkertiering....[3] en ast dy den noch al to raer postuerdste en net om lyk wolste.... nou, de bile is der altyd skerp to Ljouwert en der is gjin greater plesier for Hollân, as der in frije Fryske nekke ûnder,” sei fen Scheltinga bitter.
- 74. [3] Fen Scheltinga fen Stynsgea koe der fen meiprate. De 7e fen Selle waerd hy oppakt troch in oermacht fen fyftich patriotten en ’e captain en nei Ljouwert brocht, syn wiif Maria fen Haersma waerd’ do in húsarrest oplein út suvere pleachsucht en der sahwet in wike ef fjouwer in man ef tsjien by hjar ynkertierd, wylt hjar man yn ’t tichthús siet.— It snie hjar troch it hert, dizze wirden. Wie it sa? Ja, it wie sa! Det hie Hollân al lang in greate argewaesje west, det rike Fryslân dêrre ûnder syn eigen regear, dijende fen wolfeart en frede.... de Hegeskoalle to Frentsjer tige yn bloei en mennich learde ôfleverjend, hwaens namme klonk as in klok.... Fryslân fleurich, sûnder greate skilden en wol mei greate baten, hwet stiek it Hollân de eagen út! Der moast in ein oan komme, hwa kin yn ’e wrâld de fleur fen bûrman sjen en wirdt net oerginstich? En nou hiene se Fryslân yn ’e bisnijing! goed knevele ek! en lei it der spinfoetsjend, machteleas foar! Ho scoene se it nou tramtearje, eart se it einliks genedich de deastek joegen. Der moast neat fen ’e âlde gloarje bliûwe! In útplûndere hûs! in kealskodde beam! En den koe ’t folk gean, hwer it woe, ast tominsen noch op ’e poaten stean koe.... It joune nei de moaije Snein. Elts ried nei hûs, wrok yn it herte, opstandich it moed. Hwet Bindert Japiks en fen Scheltinga seine, wier wie it, bifestige it soun forstân hjar, mar in oaren, tigen fûlen twinger, it gefoel, stie op tsjin dizze twinglandij. En den fen frjemd! Hie ’t ien fen ’t eigen folk west, in Fries ûnder ’e Friezen, hja hiene noch mei tsjinsin dwaen wold, hwet hy gebea, al scoe ’t den ek wrokjende wei west ha, mar in frjemd oerweldner!? Wûndere plannen spûken der dy moaije fredige joune yn in bulte hollen om. Hja seagen neat fen ’e hearlike wrâld om hjar hinne, hja kearden sa djip ta hjar selme yn, det de bûtewrâld bistie net iens mear op dit stuit, allinne haet! haet! bimastere hjar tinsen en joech de sêftere fielings fen ljeafde en forjowing in triûw yn ’e bidelte.— Foppe Lieûwes bleau to iten by Wolmoet en dy. Wie ’r der net as thús? En Wobbe en hy kuieren togearre it lân noch ris in eintsje út en biseagen de nije frucht, dy-t der oerwaeide op ’e jounsigen as in
- 75. hearlik ûnthjit. De lege sinne streake ’r noch goudglânzich oer, in fûgeltsje, sêft fen lûd, song ’r noch syn sangkje. It lûdtsje wie sa fyn, it lûdtsje wie sa tear, krekt as koe ’t hast net ta jubel komme en woe it dochs sa minlike graech.... It wie sa maitiidsêftige jong, dit allegearre en Foppe Lieûwes en Wobbe, de beide âlde mantsjes, fielden hjar optheden o sa âld.... âlder as hja ea west hiene. Hja hearden lûd praten en laeitsjen en seagen Wytse en Ritske mei Roanes Gearts kuierjen yn ’t kleasterhôf, de wallen neisneupend, as der al ripe wylde ierdbeikes wierne.... Hja koene noch laeitsje, dy trije, it gyng hjar noch net botte nei.... „It bliûwt mar oan mei ús Wolmoet”, sei Foppe Lieûwes en syn eagen kipten wolgefallich Roanes út ’e trije. „Hwet seistû derfen Wobbe?” „Dy binn’ for inoar bisteld, det ha ’k al lang bispeurd”, nikte Wobbe wis.... „Us Wolmoet is keken en as sokken hjar hwet yn ’e holle sette, den slacht gjin minskewil it der ea wer út. As ’t in forkearden ien west hie, hiene wy der neat oan dwaen kind.... nou ’t it in goeden ien is, liket it my in seine ta fen de Heare. Hy wit, hwet it weeske nedich hat, wy beide, jou en ik binn’ âlde minsken en Lysbeth ek, wy ha ús measte tal jierren hjir hawn en ho den? It bern hat in stipe fenneden.” „Scoe hy der ta doge?” hifke Foppe Lieûwes útfreegjende wei, al hie hy for him sels Roanes Gearts al tiiden as sadanich biskôge. „Sjoch”, sei Wobbe, „jy hâlde it stil fensels.... ik ha ris nei him fornaem sa nei ’t iene en ’t oare. Hy hat jild fensels en den hat immen ek fijannen, guont, dy-t it him forginne, mar de boaden by syn heites meije him graech lije en syn kammeraten binne ek goedsoartige ljue. En it laech is goed....” „Bêst”, sei Foppe Lieûwes der op ta. „Ik ken se fen âlder ta âlder, it is gjin oastich hout om sa to sizzen.” Sa kâlten dy âlde mantsjes der mei inoar om, wylt de jonge feinten laeitsjend en pratend om hûs en hear kuieren. Roanes loerde al ris skean nei de pleats, hwer hy syn famke wiste en den pleagen Wytse en Ritske him sa, det hy
- 76. waerde der hast mâl fen. Syn donker, djip baslûd klonk fol en helder en sims spitsten de beide âlde mantsjes de earen. Den forstiene se in koartswilich wirdtsje. „Jonge! jonge!” sei Foppe Lieûwes,.... „do-t wy ek noch sa jong wierne....! hwet wie ’t do moai....” „It is noch moai”, sei Wobbe droech-wei.— Lysbeth raspe krekt de tsiis oer ’e broggen, do kamen de manljue yn. „Wy binn’ roppich as hinnepiken, nou Foppe-om?” „It hat in minne dei west”, suchte dy. „Min scoe einliks net ite moatte fenwegen al dy aeklikheden....” „Kom, kom!” susse Lysbeth, „mar gau in flaubyt. Noait de holle hingje litte, altyd der mar wer kraukyl en fleurich by. Elts minske sit wol ris yn ’e skûrsek en de bêste medicyn is jimmer, de holle heech en de mage fol.” „Jy prate hwet”, en Foppe Lieûwes suchte noch djipper.... „Hwer is it fanke?” „Efkes nei de bûrren nei de kammeraetskes. Sjoch, der komt se krekt oan.” De âlde eagen fen al dy trije minsken seagen fol ljeafde nei hjar.... de fleur en de gloarje fen hjar libben. Hiene se se mei- inoar net opsaeid as in lamke, do-t heit en mem it net mear koene? Hiene se der alle trije net like folle oanpart oan? Elts for oar easke syn part op, liet him net oer in strie lûke, fielde him der like nei ta as de oare, Lysbeth einliks aldermeast.... Hwet scoene dy manljue ek al! Der kaem se oan, hjar ljeave, jonge pop! De sinne hie se yn de rêch, nou like se greater as oars. En hwet stie det nije gielsitsen pakje swierich en der de wytkanten skelk by foar. Al wennen se efterôf, hja wist noch wol fen moade en ’t moaijste út de fyndoekspoep syn marse achte se noch mar krekt goedernôch for hjar. Al hie Wolmoet hjar eigen bern west, hja hie net mâlder mei hjar wêze kind, tocht se. Efter de elzenwâl seach noch ien hjar.... Roanes stie der, hielendal wei yn ljeaflik oanskôgjen.... Ut de fierte wei by in bocht fen ’e reed kaem hja in eintsje lyk op him yn.... hy stie der stil nei to sjen, for ’t
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