II: Our World Isn’t Logic

Chapter 14 II: Our World Isn’t Logic Abstract Absurdity and madness are general. No reasonable action gives the best. Badness and goodness change their positions continually. We need to change as the world changes, only virtue before God remains, but virtue has also its measure. Small things can change big issues. “I never complain about the world, as many do who feel badly treated by it; it often benefits the inept and mistreats the sage or the learned man. I do not feel wronged by the world, and both beasts and men, except the big and the small, make the diligent poor and the lazy rich. God does this to ensure that not even one in a hundred men should think that they are doing something because they understand.”1 Once again, Santob the stoic appears, seeing no reason for complaint or grievance about a world that often does not conform to our interests, seems to follow a logic that is illogical, or at least contrary to what might seem sensible or worthy of merit. Basically, and herein lies the core of his thinking (more in line with the twenty-first century than that of his time), there is no rational logic that determines this, although there may be a meaning beyond the human dimension that is somehow explained, or at least guessed at. The absurd or, in any case, mystery, are essential elements of a world that is both known and unknown to man. One cannot, therefore, expect the universe to be fair and reward the wise (the Platonic-Socratic version of the good man) or punish the foolish, because the stars may be blind and insensitive, nor human society, with its profusion of relationships and links, its thousand eyes, often covering each other with their opaque heads, like dead ends. Reality appears as inaccessible, in the face of the often contradictory confusion of tongues that describe it. Santob reveals himself here as a philosopher of life, of practical human events, seeking a certain everyday usefulness in his thinking and not pure speculation that is of little use to anyone. Furthermore, it could be assumed that a Spinoza-type world view underlies his thinking, one in which there would be no Good or Evil as such but what suits one and all, clashes of interests with an iron, unconscious logic behind it all; it does not matter whether they are beasts or men, small or big. However, this does not seem to be his interpretation, more in line with the texts that we have received from him, especially when he considers certain virtues as stable 1 Ibidem, 84–87. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 I. Galán Díez, The Birth of Thought in the Spanish Language, Philosophical Studies Series 127, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50977-8_14 85 86 14 II: Our World Isn’t Logic values; it is more a case of a lack of conventional logic. Indeed, he gives us a possible explanation: God does what He does because human understanding is inadequate and cannot attain or apprehend the unitary and total meaning of the world in a comprehensive way. Neither does the inner life that should give us the key to things or our lives depend on God. Any rationalism would be unacceptable because it is pretentious, exclusive, incomplete and causes confusion by claiming a single, human and limited logic that tries to cover or filter everything. Not Λόγoς‚ (reason) alone but also Χάoς, St John with his initial Word, but also as a symbol that contains the beginning of the cosmogony of Hesiod: “In the beginning was chaos”. Divinity would therefore be beyond our thinking, but the world, and perhaps will have a big role in saying or moving the word that is considered to be static. Humility is more than necessary so that we do not deceive ourselves with futile reasons about what actually occurs or happens to us. “I saw some people gain great reward through mad acts, while others lost everything through sanity,”2 Santob says, later repeated by Rousseau.3 Perhaps it is not madness, but life, dreams, and dreams are perhaps the essence of life. Depending on your point of view and the point in time, space and time are manifold and not entirely ours. Nothing is sure and sanity, common sense or apparently rationality may be the source of our misfortune: “Sanity that offends its owner is not good, nor is madness that gives him excellence bad.”4 The key seems to lie not so much in theory as in the facts, with an eminently pragmatic philosophy in which human experience (not only empirical, in terms of the intellectual discovery of a phenomenon, but also vital, including feelings, action, intuition ....) is the basis of thought – a part of what is human – that is basically not accessible just from reason alone. This is where we see things as they are, not just how we would like them to be, that which seems to fit in with our plans in a mathematical, geometrical arrangement, something calculated (in a futile way) to capture the endless world. There is no ‘absolute prudence’, it is necessary to take risks, to live in instability where knowledge vanishes (this could be said to be guidance from Nietzsche). “I saw many return from battle safe and sound and then have an accident in their tent, or the doctor who knew medicine died and the ignorant shepherd found a cure.”5 The Wheel of Fortune turns again, what was up comes down, and then the bottom rises to the top. The destiny, order or ‘laws’ (crazy or unintelligible) of the world confound our reasoning, so we need to place ourselves in another dimension to live better, using another logic (or supralogic) or being aware of the lack of logic and willing to accept this because “great knowledge in people who do not fear God is no help to them, nor is it worth having an estate if the poor cannot eat from it”,6 as there would have to be a supreme instance with an equilibrium and justice. The lowly world and 2 Ibidem, 88. “la folie du monde est. sagesse” J. J. Rousseau, Op. Cit., Appendice (Préface de Julie ou Entretien sur les romans), p. 580. 4 Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 89. 5 Ibidem, 90–91. 6 Ibidem, 92. 3 14 II: Our World Isn’t Logic 87 its contradictions are resolved in a divine body.7 The lack of logic is resolved in God – as in Nicholas of Cusa, in the harmony of opposites – but God is not only accessed intellectually, simply with a lot of knowledge, as some followers of Plato claimed. This can also be inferred from the intellectualist tradition, but through a will converted into good deeds, kindness emanating from a loving willingness that reconciles everything and shows love for others. Therefore, there is no point in being rich if the poor and those in need do not benefit from it; they are close at hand, and should receive aid. Access to God, as Harmony or Universal Love, involves seeking a certain social justice, to try – if one loves others – to alleviate those people’s problems, opening up one’s heart and combatting selfishness to reach out to others, sharing one’s assets; Santob shows evangelical resonances here. Furthermore, what is good or bad is very relative, depending on how the values and the position of each person in the world and that of others; “if I covet someone else’s possessions, why does he who possesses it not enjoy it? This is a sign that there is no certain good in the world or any evil that is true.”8 Over the years this classic reprimand became a futile desire to consume, to pursue desired things or objects that we then tire of; things we crave as if happiness – human beings included – might be found there, in things or people that later disappoint or tire us. What one possesses and does not value is coveted by someone else; the man with a blond wife is attracted by a brunette and vice versa, etc. The key is not in the thing itself, but in one’s attitude, and object-focused hedonism is counter-productive because it cannot satisfy our potentially infinite desire, or as St. Augustine saw it, inconsolable until one joins the Infinite of all the infinites: God. Santob also sees it in this way, more or less. “People forget to serve God through a desire to taste vice.”9 Vice conceals the reality of what is transcendent and closes people’s eyes to the divine; harmful actions prevent the ‘organ’ of the heart and the eye of the soul, the mind, from perceiving the Divine. God, in the face of scepticism about the world and so many human or metaphysical matters, provides security, in contrast to most modern systems of thought. For God does, whatever is done as infinity or eternity – if it is good, untainted by the fanaticism that destroys through ideas – will work out well; what it is done, as related to the Whole, i.e. full of meaning, is not reduced to banal utilitarianism but establishes links with everyone, and everything is related in some way, linked to all the meanings that exist and may exist, to their source. Therefore, any event is always highly relevant and is not merely lost in non-being. Santob is a practical thinker and he shows this in his writings and the aims he pursues: “another benefit on a level with this one is service to the king, who keeps people on the right path according to the Law.”10 Nowadays it is difficult to accept 7 Joset says, also based on the verses of Sem Tob: “en Dieu se résolvent toutes les contradictions de ce bas monde”. Jacques Joset, “Opposition et réversabilité des valeurs dans les Proverbios Morales: approche du système de pensée de Santob de Carrión”, Autverjen, Marche Romane, special edition 1973, p. 179. 8 Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 94–95. 9 Ibidem, 96. 10 Ibidem, 97. 88 14 II: Our World Isn’t Logic such a unity between the Divine plan and the designs of a monarch without some element of criticism; this is common among those of us who are steeped in modernity today. However, it can be understood in several ways: first, as a vulgar display by the flatterer who, needing royal protection, defended himself, like the rest of the Jewish community, against others in a troubled and violent society, where any issue could be interpreted as treason by one side or the other. Moreover, for many people defence of the crown was often about conquering more freedoms, as the feudal lords – nearby powers, and often nearly absolute – were seen as oppressors of the people, who were seriously affected in terms of carrying out their individual desires. Appealing to a higher court and the Crown, although distant, was also an abstract thing that was fairer for most people, less subject to the arbitrary nature of better known or nearby bodies. For the feudal lords, the Crown was a kind of Constitution for present-day autonomous governments, and royal power was seen as a liberating force against this arbitrariness of the nobility. The key that gave rise to this simple interpretation can be found in the verses where Santob says that people are kept on the straight and narrow under the Law. In such a turbulent period as his, the anarchy that gave more power to the most brutal, strongest and fiercest could be suffered. The Jewish population, as an ethnic and religious minority, often envied when some of its members lived in a certain prosperity, was more subject to excesses and abuses than other sectors of the population. Observing the Law, as a coercion that forced people to be upright and fear legal justice to prevent them abusing the weakest, is seen as a return to justice in Santob, similar to what Hobbes proposed centuries later, in a similar political and social situation, through the empirical observation of how, in certain circumstances where a strong social or political structure is lacking, men can devour each other. However, in the face of the abuses committed by Pedro I ‘the Cruel’, others might put forward the necessary critical comparison common to anarchistic thinking against the tyrant. Indeed, in part, the monarchy itself could be thought to be the cause of the continuous civil wars which ravaged Spain at the time due to succession disputes. In the case of Pedro I, his peculiar angry and despotic character and his propensity to commit atrocities came into play as if, in the eyes of his contemporaries, there were no solution without horror and power had its justification and its steadfastness in the terror it imposed. “Summary of reason: it is highly foolish to look at all periods of history as if they were equal. In contrast, we should often wonder how the world turns: sometimes as a shield and others as a spear.”11 Or, as we would say at the beginning of the twentyfirst century, pure universal and fixed thought – static in the style that Parmenides commended – does not seem possible, but depending on the circumstances each time (and place) requires a particular perspective. Only then would an analogical form of thought be possible – a digital one would be impossible – that is characteristic of exact mathematics. Reason, like knowledge, turns on itself and is relative to what configures it, to its immediate source – our understanding, often confused – and to what surrounds it. This does not eliminate its wisdom but makes it applicable depending on fashions and times, either mutant, adaptable or flexible, i.e. a living 11 Ibidem, 98–99. 14 II: Our World Isn’t Logic 89 thing, and therefore more perfect, able to grow and reproduce, not as the static and rigid knowledge characteristic of minerals championed by some, especially thee Rationalists. This concept is all the more surprising if we consider the time and the environment in which it occurs; the issue of universal relativity has been identified by some scholars as surprising because it is found in mediaeval texts, where the common element is usually ideological and social stability.12 This knowledge sometimes defends us from the chaos of the outside world, as reflected in the metaphor of the shield, or hurts like a spear, cutting through reality and penetrating it with our sharp perspective. Metaphors are thus appropriate, the most ‘logical’ way for such a way of learning and knowing in a manner that is not purely logical. They are important because they resonate, set off harmonics in the mind of the person who hears them, with intuition as the supreme element of knowledge. The model of epistemology in Santob would not be the mechanical rigidity of inert beings but that of biology, and hence its present-day relevance, as physical science was the model for philosophy even in the eighteenth, nineteenth and a good part of the twentieth century. Biology replaced it in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. “Every good habit has a certain measure to it; if one goes too far it loses its worth. The same applies to a finger outside a marked line, showing that one day it was outside that limit.”13 However, in the face of the relativism of the exterior, the firmness of subjective knowledge emerges; of the interior that sees, from itself, how every virtue must have moderation and self-control, somewhat reminiscent of measured action, to control the quantity or intensity of its quality. Virtue should therefore not involve excess, as in Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean. It is not an object or a thing done marks out whether it is virtuous or not, but the way it emerges, if it is measured – and as such has a relationship to what whatever measures and makes (or judges) it – and what is around it, i.e. possible references of magnitude. In a way, Santob seems to anticipate what Kant later distinguish between objectbased material ethics and formal ethics based on Man, preferring the latter. Sometimes it does not matter if one overdoes things a little or a lot, because the virtue has already been corrupted by the excess. In other words, a virtue does not depend so much on quantity as on quality, and especially the quality of the person who makes or creates something through a personal and unique action. The ‘measure’ that Santob speaks about does not have to be quantitative; it is rather an attitude, a way of approaching objects that is therefore subjective or spiritual rather than a material ethic that presumptuously sets itself up as something objective. 12 Joset, says, quoting these verses: “L’editeur des Proverbios Morales, I. González Llubera, analysait les premiers vers de l’oeuvre en termes de “relativité universelle” et de “besoin d’adaptation individuelle aux changements de conditions”. L’homme n’est. jamais en repos: tout se transforme, rien n’est. stable (...) Cet éloge de la “mudanza” ne peut manquer de frapper le lecteur de textes médiévaux qui, le plus souvent, lui parlent de stabilité idéologique en accord avec un idéal social statique.(...) Cette conception du mouvement est. étroitement subordonnée, on s’en doute, à une cosmogonie.”Jacques Joset, “Opposition et réversabilité des valeurs dans les Proverbios Morales: approche du système de pensée de Santob de Carrión”, Autverjen, Marche Romane, special edition 1973, p. 178. 13 Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 100–101. 90 14 II: Our World Isn’t Logic “The lunatic sometimes thinks he loses for big margins and not for small ones, and when he loses for the latter his regret is so great that he cannot console himself. He does not know that, to cover an eye, a canvas is as useful as a masonry tower.”14 A small virus can kill a big, strong body, and there is often no proportion in the quantities we know that mark out the world’s development. The details can be critical – attention to detail is important – because not paying attention to this can lead us down the wrong track, and when a minor detail leads to error it seems more offensive than if what defeats us is overwhelming, because there is a certain natural acceptance of fate that we cannot influence in that, with our limits amply exceeded. Sometimes there is a great sense of guilt and a clear sense of stupidity, of grave imbecility, when what is lost is considerable and we are responsible for failing to pay attention to detail. The eye’s ability to see can be equally impaired by a small cloth or a large building. The quantities are not as important, nor what can be measured by the Pythagoreans. The qualities, often removed from the quantity, even though they have some gradation or intensity – like love, feelings of attraction or rejection, etc. – are elusive, because they get closer to what appears to be characteristic of the spiritual, and perhaps that is why they are important. “I know as much about what lies in this pit as what happens beyond the River Tagus. It does not matter whether what was not yours anyway is just two steps or twenty days away. Yesterday is as far away as last year.”15 Although it is not the same for us that something lost is near or far away, or that the past is one day or one year away, in all these cases we find the radical nature of the inaccessible. The past is gone, either a short while or centuries ago, and we cannot change that, although we can cover it with the actions of the present or projecting our gaze ahead to the future. The same applies to not knowing, because even if something is right next to me but is unknown to me, in the same way as what is hidden in a nearby ditch that I cannot see, no matter whether it is in Toledo or any other distant city; unless, naturally, one has a greater ability to resolve affairs that are close by than those that are distant. Santob points out that unknown things mean the same in terms of understanding them, even what happens in our guts if we do not feel it, and he seeks the paradoxes and apparent contradictions that provide the master keys to open the multiple doors of the incomprehensible, which is immense, a castle and palace of wisdom, a fortress whose conquest is always beyond our partial human capabilities. What seems to be is not so, and external measurements deceive; it is the inner reality that is more difficult to find and is valuable above all, although it is not entirely secure because it is mixed, sometimes in an undifferentiated way, and thus creates a vague amalgam of our inner reality with our own fantasies, desires, imaginations, as also happens with our perception of the exterior; an exterior transformed by the fantasies of politicians, the military – with destructive dreams -, architects, engineers, artists, etc. There is chaos and confusion in everything. In Santob our foolishness regarding what is distant and close is clear. What our minds and wills cannot grasp and access – even though it might be at hand it does not exist for us (not at 14 15 See Sem Tob, Op. Cit., 102–103. Ibidem, 105–107. 14 II: Our World Isn’t Logic 91 hand, zuhandenes, as Heidegger described it) – is irrelevant vis-à -vis subjectivity. As soon as it is revealed to us we do not feel the need of it, not even its contingency, and we can die without ever knowing it or desiring it. “He who wishes to save himself from wounds needs a shield between him and the arrow like everyone else in that situation; even if the arrow does not hurt him it may pass very close by, while another misses the mark by a long way.”16 It does not matter that a shield that protects ourselves from an attack by an enemy arrow was made of one material or another, one object or another, the most important thing is that the arrow should not hit us; the practical consideration, not an external one but one that safeguards us. Practical life works sometimes at random, grosso modo, and what does not affect a person basically does not exist for that person; it is invisible to his will. “We can access yesterday in the same way as we can a day a thousand years ago. You not reach the past by walking further, nor do you miss what has not yet arrived by standing still.”17 Santob once again returns to the problem of Time; his thinking is meandering and repetitive, as if every time he comes back to the problem he extracts more content from the subject, as if he were squeezing a fruit for juice. Given that the events have passed, both are therefore untouchable, although Santob does not dwell on the past surviving in some way in its consequences and the beings that existed and continue to exist, especially through the emotional or volitional memory or footprint left in each person. In this sense, one can achieve a certain reversibility in the past through the present. Today we can turn history upside down, not only to reinvent it – which would mean hiding it, erasing it towards us, as quite a few historians do when they tell stories about what happened – but because the destinies that their origins started may become transformed. A bad start in studies can be overcome with greater application later; a battle won can be reversed and the winner later changes, etc. The legacy left us by another can mutate into something different from what that person initially intended, and the splendid country he/she left us – which remains splendid – may disappear or sink into the mire through neglect, blood and fire. Santob focuses on the contrast, which also exists, between numerical and qualitative distances in that they affect people and are equally elusive for us. Something similar happens with the future, which comes around, despite us, whether we eagerly expect it or not. The longer we wait, however, subjectively it seems to arrive later if we do not get distracted, in that every moment becomes more important through the distress caused to people who cannot savour the present but suffer it because they do not know how to wait and appreciate what is in front of them in comparison to what they expect. The future, the movement of other human beings and the stars that surround us and are a part of us, arrives and moves us along with time itself, either faster or slower. The future may be one thing or another, according to our internal or external movements; it is not fixed but is made, and sometimes we make it. Of course, the passing of time, as everything that moves and flows separately from us, reveals the virtual nothingness of man in the face of the totality of everything else. 16 17 Ibidem, 107–109. Ibidem, 110–111.