The Ethics of Rhetoric - 1

THE PHAEDRUS AND THE NATURE OF RHETORIC

Our subject begins with the threshold difficulty of defining the question which Plato's Phaedrus was meant to answer. Students of this justly celebrated dialogue have felt uncertain of its unity of theme, and the tendency has been to designate it broadly as a discussion of the ethical and the beautiful. The explicit topics of the dialogue are, in order: love, the soul, speechmaking, and the spoken and written word, or what is generally termed by us "composition." The development looks random, and some of the most interesting passages appear jeux d'esprit. The richness of the literary art diverts attention from the substance of the argument.

But a work of art which touches on many profound problems justifies more than one kind of reading. Our difficulty with the Phaedrus may be that our interpretation has been too literal and too topical. If we will bring to the reading of it even a portion of that imagination which Plato habitually exercised, we should perceive surely enough that it is consistently, and from beginning to end, about one thing, which is the nature of rhetoric. Again, that point may have been missed because most readers conceive rhetoric to be a system of artifice rather than an idea, and the Phaedrus, for all its apparent divagation, (3) keeps very close to a single idea. A study of its rhetorical structure, especially, may give us the insight which has been withheld, while making us feel anew that Plato possessed the deepest divining rod among the ancients.

For the imaginative interpretation which we shall now undertake, we have both general and specific warrant. First, it scarcely needs pointing out that a Socratic dialogue is in itself an example of transcendence. Beginning with something simple and topical, it passes to more general levels of application; and not infrequently, it must make the leap into allegory for the final utterance. This means, of course, that a Socratic dialogue may be about its subject implicitly as well as explicitly. The implicit rendering is usually through some kind of figuration because it is the nature of this meaning to be ineffable in any other way. It is necessary, therefore, to be alert for what takes place through the analogical mode.

Second, it is a matter of curious interest that a warning against literal reading occurs at an early stage of the Phaedrus. Here in the opening pages, appearing as if to set the key of the theme, comes an allusion to the myth of Boreas and Oreithyia. On the very spot where the dialogue begins, Boreas is said to have carried off the maiden. Does Socrates believe that this tale is really true? or is he in favor of a scientific explanation of what the myth alleges? Athens had scientific experts, and the scientific explanation was that the north wind had pushed her off some rocks where she was playing with a companion. In this way the poetical story is provided with a factual basis. The answer of Socrates is that many tales are open to this kind of rationalization, but that the result is tedious and actually irrelevant. It is irrelevant because our chief concern is with the nature of the man, and it is beside the point to probe into such matters while we are yet ignorant of ourselves. The scientific criticism of Greek mythology, which may be likened to the scientific criticism of the myths of the Bible in our own day, produces at best "a boorish sort of wisdom." It is a limitation to suppose that the truth of the story(4) lies in its historicity. The "boorish sort of wisdom" seeks to supplant poetic allegation with fact, just as an archaeologist might look for the foundations of the Garden of Eden. But while this sort of search goes on the truth flies off, on wings of imagination, and is not recoverable until the searcher attains a higher level of pursuit. Socrates is satisfied with the parable, and we infer from numerous other passages that he believed that some things are best told by parable and some perhaps discoverable only by parable. Real investigation goes forward with the help of analogy. "Freud without Sophocles is unthinkable," a modern writer has said.

With these precepts in mind, we turn to that part of the Phaedrus which has proved most puzzling: why is so much said about the absurd relationship of the lover and the nonlover? Socrates encounters Phaedrus outside the city wall. The latter has just come from hearing a discourse by Lysias which enchanted him with its eloquence. He is prevalied upon to repeat this discourse, and the two seek out a shady spot on the banks of the Ilissus. Now the discourse is remarkable although it was "in a way, a love speech," its argument was that people should grant favors to non-lovers rather than to lovers. "This is just the clever thing about it," Phaedrus remarks. People are in the habit of preferring their lovers, but it is much more intelligent, as the argument of Lysias runs, to prefer a non-lover. Accordingly, the first major topic of the dialogue is a eulogy of the non-lover. The speech provides good subject matter for jesting on the part of Socrates, and looks like another exhibition of the childlike ingeniousness which gives the Greeks their charm. Is it merely a piece of literary trifling? Rather, it is Plato's dramatistic presentation of a major thesis. Beneath the surface of repartee and mock seriousness, he is asking whether we ought to prefer a neuter form of speech to the kind which is ever getting us aroused over things and provoking an expense of spirit(5).

Sophistications of theory cannot obscure the truth that there are but three ways for language to affect us. It can move us toward what is good; it can move us toward what is evil; or it can, in hypothetical third place, fail to move us at all. Of course there are numberless degrees of effect under the first two heads, and the third, as will be shown, is an approximate rather than an absolute zero of effect. But any utterance is a major assumption of responsibility, and the assumption that one can avoid that responsibility by doing something to language itself is one of the chief considerations of the Phaedrus, just as it is of contemporary semantic theory. What Plato has succeeded in doing in this dialogue, whether by a remarkably effaced design, or unconsciously through the formal pressure of his conception, is to give us embodiments of the three types of discourse. These are respectively the non-lover, the evil lover, and the noble lover. We shall take up these figures in their sequence and show their relevance to the problem of language.

The eulogy of the non-lover in the speech of Lysias, as we hear it repeated to Socrates, stresses the fact that the non-lover follows a policy of enlightened self-interest. First of all, the non-lover does not neglect his affairs or commit extreme acts under the influence of passion. Since he acts from calculation, he never has occasion for remorse. No one ever says of him that he is not in his right mind, because all of his acts are within prudential bounds. The first point is, in sum, that the non-lover does not neglect his affairs or commit extreme acts under the influence of passion. Since he acts from calculation, he never has occasion for remorse. No one ever says of him that he is not in his right mind, because all of his acts are within prudential bounds. The first point is, in sum, that the non-lover never sacrifices himself and therefore never feels the vexation which overtakes lovers when they recover from their passion and try to balance their pains with their profit. And the non-lover is constant whereas the lover is inconstant. The first argument then is that the non-lover demonstrates his superiority through prudence and objectivity. The second point of superiority found in non-lovers is that there are many(6) more of them. If one is limited in one's choice to one's lovers, the range is small; but as there are always more non-lovers than lovers, one has a better chance in choosing among many of finding something worthy of one's affection. A third point of superiority is that association with the non-lover does not excite public comment. If one is seen going about with the object of one's love, one is likely to provoke gossip; but when one is seen conversing with the non-lover, people merely realize that "everybody must converse with somebody." Therefore this kind of relationship does not affect one's public standing, and one is not disturbed by what the neighbors are saying. Finally, non-lovers are not jealous of one's associates. Accordingly they do not try to keep one from companions of intellect or wealth for fear that they may be outshone themselves. The lover, by contrast, tries to draw his beloved away from such companionship and so deprives him of improving associations. The argument is concluded with a generalization that one ought to grant favors not to the needy or the importunate, but to those who are able to repay. Such is the favorable account of the non-lover given by Lysias.

We must now observe how these points of superiority correspond to those of "semantically purified" speech. By "semantically purified speech" we mean the kind of speech approaching pure notation in the respect that it communicates abstract intelligence without impulsion. It is a simple instrumentality, showing no affection for the object of its symbolizing and incapable of inducing bias in the hearer. In its ideal conception, it would have less power to move than 2 + 2 = 4, since it is generally admitted that mathematical equations may have the beauty of elegance, and hence are not above suspicion where beauty is suspect. But this neuter language will be an unqualified medium of transmission of meanings from mind to mind, and by virtue of its minds can remain in an unprejudiced relationship to the world and also to other minds.

Since the characteristic of this language is absence of anything(8) like affection, it exhibits towward the thing being represented merely a sober fidelity, like that of the non-lover toward his companion. Instead of passion, it offers the service-ability of objectivity. Its "enlightened self-interest" takes the form of an unvarying accuracy and regularity in its symbolic references, most, if not all of which will be to verifiable data in the extramental world. Like a thrifty burgher, it has no romanticism about it; and it distrusts any departure from the literal and prosaic. The burgher has his feet on the ground; and similarly the language of pure notation has its point-by-point contact with objective reality. As Stuart Chase, one of its modern proponents, says in The Tyranny of Words: "If we wish to understand the world and ourselves, it follows that we should use a language whose structure corresponds to physical structure" (italics his). So this language is married to the world, and its marital fidelity contrasts with the extravagances of other languages.

In second place, this language is far more "available." Whereas rhetorical language, or language which would persuade, must always be particularized to suit the occasion, drawing its effectivieness from many small nuances, a "utility" language is very general and one has no difficulty putting his meaning into it if he is satisfied with a paraphrase of that meaning. The 850 words recommended for Basic English, for example, are highly available in the sense that all native users of English have them instantly ready and learners of English can quickly acquire them. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the availability is a heavy tax upon all other qualities(8). Most of what we admire as energy and fullness tends to disappear when mere verbal counters are used. The conventiaonl or public aspect of language can encroach upon the suggestive or symbolical aspect, until the naming is vague or blurred. In proportion as the medium is conventional in the widest sense and avoids all individualizing, personalizing, and heightening terms, it is common, and the commonness constitutes the negative virtue ascribed to the non-lover.

Finally, with reference to the third qualification of the non-lover, it is true that neuter language does not excite public opinion. This fact follows from its character outlined above. Rhetorical language on the other hand, for whatever purpose used, excites interest and with it either pleasure or alarm. People listen instinctively to the man whose speech betrays inclination. It does not matter what the inclination is toward, but we may say that the greater the degree of inclination, the greater the curiosity or response. Hence a "style" in speech always causes one to be a marked man, and the public may not be so much impressed - at least initially - by what the man is for or against as by the fact that he has a style. The way therefore to avoid public comment is to avoid the speech of affection and to use that of business, since, to echo the original proposition of Lysias, everybody knows that one must do business with others. From another standpoint, then, this is the language of prudence. These are the features which give neuter discourse an appeal to those who expect a scientific solution of human problems.

In summing up the trend of meaning, we note that Lysias has been praising a disinterested kind of relationship which avoids all excesses and irrationalities, all the dementia of love. It is a circumspect kind of relationship, which is preferred by all men who wish to do well in the world and avoid tempestuous courses. We have compared its detachment with the kind of abstraction to be found in scientific notation. But as an earnest of what is to come let us note, in taking leave of this part, that Phaedrus expresses admiration for the eloquence,(9) especially of diction, with which the suit of the non-lover has been urged. This is our warning of the dilemma of the non-lover.

Now we turn to the second major speech of the dialogue, which is made by Socrates. Notwithstanding Phaedrus' enthusiastic praise, Socrates is dissatisfied with the speech of the non-lover. He remembers having heard wiser things on the subject and feels that he can make a speech on the same theme "different from this and quite as good." After some playful exchange, Socrates launches upon his own abuse of love, which centers on the point that the lover is an exploiter. Love is defined as the kind of desire which overcomes rational opinion and moves toward the enjoyment of personal or boddily beauty. The lover wishes to make the object of his passion as pleasing to himself as possible; but to those possessed by this frenzy, only that which is subject to their will is pleasant. Accordingly, everything which is opposed, or is equal or better, the lover views with hostility. He naturally therefore tries to make the beloved inferior to himself in every respect. He is pleased if the beloved has intellectual limitations because they have the effect of making him manageable. For a similar reason he tries to keep him away from all influences which might "make a man of him," and of course the greatest of these is divine philosophy. While he is working to keep him intellectually immature, he works also to keep him weak and effeminate, with such harmful result that the beloved is unable to play a man's part in crises. The lover is, moreover, jealous of the possession of property because this gives the beloved an independence which he does not wish him to have. Thus the lover in exercising an unremitting compulsion over the beloved deprives him of all praiseworthy qualities, and this is the price the beloved pays for accepting a lover who is "necessarily without reason." In brief, the lover is not motivated by benevolence toward the beloved, but by selfish appetite; and Socrates can aptly close with the quotation: "As wolves love lambs, so lovers love their loves." The speech is on the single(10) theme of explotiation. It is important for us to keep in mind the object of love as here described, because another kind of love with a different object is later introduced into the dialogue, and we shall discuss the counterpart of each.

As we look now for the parallel in language, we find ourselves confronting the second of the three alternatives: speech which influences us in the direction of what is evil. This we shall call base rhetoric because its end is the exploitation which Socrates has been condemning. We find that base rhetoric hates that which is opposed, or is equal or better because all such things are impediments to its will, and in the last analysis it knows only its will. Truth is the stubborn, objective restraint which this will endavors to overcome. Base rhetoric is therefore always trying to keep its objects from the support which personal courage, noble associations, and divine philosophy provide a man.

The base rhetorician, we may say, is a man who has yielded to the wrong aspects of existence. He has allowed himself to succumb to the sights and shows, to the physical pleasures which conspire against noble life. He knows that the only way he can get a following in his pursuits (and a following seems necessary to maximum enjoyment of the pursuits) is to work against the true understanding of his followers. Consequently the things which would elevate he keeps out of sight, and the things with which he surrounds his "beloved" are those which minister immediately to desire. The beloved is thus emasculated in understanding in order that the lover may have his way. Or as Socrates expresses it, the selfish lover contrives things so that the beloved will be "most agreeable to him and most harmful to himself."

Examples of this kind of contrivance occur on every hand in the impassioned language of journalism and political pleading. In the world of affairs which these seek to influenc, the many are kept in a state of pupillage so that they will be most docile to their "lovers." The techniques of the base lover, especially as exemplified in modern journalism, would make a long(11) catalogue, but in general it is accurate to say that he seeks to keep the understanding in a passive state by never permitting an honest examination of alternatives. Nothing is more feared by him than a true dialectic, for this not only endangers his favored alternative, but also gives the "belvoed" - how clearly here are these the "lambs of Socrates' figure - some training in intellectual independence. What he does therefore is dress up one alternative in all the cheap finery of immediate hopes and fears, knowing that if he can thus prevent a masculine exercise of imagination and will, he can have his way. By discussing only one side of an issue, by mentioning cause without consequence or consequence without cause, acts without agents or agentss without agency, he often successfully blocks definition and cause-and-effect reasoning. In this way his choices are arrayed in such meretricious images that one can quickly infer the juvenile mind which they would attract. Of course the base rhetorician today, with his vastly augmented power of propagation, has means of deluding which no ancient rhetor in forum or market place could have imagined.

Because Socrates has now made a speech against love, representing it as evil, the non-lover seems to survive in estimation. We observe, however, that the non-lover, instead of being celebrated, is disposed of dialectically. "So, in a word, I say that the non-lover possesses all the advantages that are opposed to the disadvantages we found in the lover." This is not without bearing upon the subject matter of the important third speech, to which we now turn.

At this point in the dialogue, Socrates is warned by his monitory spirit that he has been engaging in a defamation of love despite the fact that love is a divinity. "If love is, as indeed he is, a god or something divine, he can be nothing evil; but the two speeches just now said that he was evil." These discourses were then an impiety - one representing non-love as admirable and the other attacking love as base. Socrates (12) resolves to make amends, and the recantation which follows is one of the most elaborate developments in the Platonic system. The account of love which emerges from this new position may be summarized as follows.

Love is often censured as a form of madness, yet not all madness is evil. There is a madness which is simple degeneracy, but on the other hand there are kinds of madness which are really forms of inspiration, from which come the greatest gifts conferred on man. Prophecy is a kind of madness, and so too is poetry. "The poetry of the sane man vanishes into nothingness before that of the inspired madman." Mere sanity, which is of human origin, is inferior to that madness which is inspired by the gods and which is a condition for the highest kind of achievement. In this category goes the madness of the true lover. His is a generous state which confers blessings to the ignoring of self, whereas the conduct of the non-lover displays all the selfishness of business: "the affection of the non-lover, which is alloyed with mortal prudence and follows mortal and parsimonious rules of conduct will beget in the beloved soul the narrowness which common folk praise as virtue; it will cause the soul to be a wanderer upon the earth for nine thousand years and a fool below the earth at last." It is the vulgar who do not realize that the madness of the noble lover is an inspired madness because he has his thoughts turned toward a beauty of divine origin.

Now the attitude of the noble lover toward the beloved is in direct contrast with that of the evil lover, who, as we have seen strives to possess and victimize the object of his affections. For once the noble lover has mastered the conflict with his own soul by conquering appetite and fixing his attention upon the intelligible and the divine, he conceives an exalted attitude toward the beloved. The noble lover now "follows the beloved in reverence and awe." So those who are fulled with this kind of love "exhibit no jealousy or meanness toward bhe loved one, but endeavor by every means in their power to lead him to the likeness of the god whom they honor." Such is (13) the conversion by which love turns from the exploitative to the creative.

Here it becomes necessary to bring our concepts together and to think of all speech having persuasive power as a kind of "love." Thus, rhetorical speech is madness to the extent that it departs from the line which mere sanity lays down. There is always in its statement a kind of excess or deficiency which is immediately discernible when the test of simple realism is applied. Simple realism operates on a principle of equation or correspondence; one thing must match another, or, representation must tally with thing represented, like items in a tradesman's account. Any excess or deficiency on the part of the representation invokes the existence of the world of symbolism, which simple realism must deny. This explains why there is an immortal feud between men of business and the users of metaphor and metonymy, the poets and the rhetoricians. The man of business, the narrow and parsimonious soul in the allusion of Socrates, desires a world which is a reliable materiality. But this the poet and rhetorician will never let him have, for each, with his own purpose, is trying to advance the borders of the imaginative world. A primrose by the river's brim will not remain that in the poet's account, but is promptly turned into something very much larger and something highly implicative. He who is accustomed to record the world with an abacus cannot follow these transfigurations; and indeed the very occurrence of them subtly undermines the premise of his business. It is the historic tendency of the tradesman, therefore, to confine passion to quite narrow channels so that it will not upset the decent business arrangements of the world. But if the poet, as the chief transformer of our picture of the world, is the peculiar enemy of this mentality, the rhetorician is also hostile when practising the kind of love proper to him. The "passion" in his speech is revolutionary, and it has a practical end.

We have now indicated the significance of the three types of lovers; but the remainder of the Phaedrus has much more to say about the nature of rhetoric, and we must return to one or more points to place our subject in a wider context. The problem of rhetoric which occupied Plato persistently, not only in the Phaedrus but also in other dialogues where this art is reviewed, may be best stated as a question: if truth alone is not sufficient to persuade men, what else remains that can be legitimately added? In one of the exchanges with Phaedrus, Socrates puts the question in the mouth of a personified Rhetoric: "I do not compel anyone to learn to speak without knowing the truth, but if my advice is of any value, he learns that first and then acquires me. So what I claim is this, that without my help the knowledge of the truth does not give the art of persuasion."

Now rhetoric as we have discussed it in relation to the lovers consists of truth plus its artful presentation, and for this reason it becomes necessary to say something more about the natural order of dialectic and rhetoric. In any general characterization rhetoric will include dialectic, but for the study of method it is necessary to separate the two. Dialectic is a method of investigation whose object is the establishment of truth about doubtful propositions. Aristotle in the Topics gives a concise statement of its nature. "A dialectical problem is a subject of inquiry that contributes either to choice or avoidance, or to truth and knowledge, and that either by itself, or as a help to (15) the solution of some other such problem. It must, moreover, be something on which either people hold no opinion either way, or the masses hold a contrary opinion to the philosophers, or the philosophers to the masses, or each of them among themselves." Plato is not perfectly clear about the distinction between positive and dialectical terms. In one passage he contrasts the "positive" terms "iron" and "silver" with the "dialectical" terms "justice" and "goodness"; yet in other passages his "dialectical" terms seem to include categorizations of the external world. Thus Socrates indicates that distinguishing the horse from the ass is a dialectical operation; and he tells us later that a good dialectician is able to divide things by classes "where the natural joints are" and will avoid breaking any part "after the manner of a bad carver." Such, perhaps, is Aristotle's dialectic which contributes to truth and knowledge.

But there is a branch of dialectic which contributes to "choice or avoidance," and it is with this that rhetoric is regularly found joined. Generally speaking, this is a rhetoric involving questions of policy, and the dialectic which precedes it will determine not the application of positive terms but that of terms which are subject to the contingency of evaluation. Here dialectical inquiry will concern itself not with what is "iron" but with what is "good." It seeks to establish what belongs in the category of the "just" rather than what belongs in the genus Canis. As a general rule, simple object words such as "iron" and "house" have no connotations of policy, although it is frequently possible to give them these through speech situations in which there is added to their referential function a kind of impulse. We should have to interpret in this way "Fire!" or "Gold!" because these terms acquire something through intonation and relationship which places them in the class of evaluative expressions(16).

Any piece of persuasion, therefore, will contain as its first process a dialectic establishing terms which have to do with policy. Now a term of policy is essentially a term of motion, and here begins the congruence of rhetoric with the soul which underlies the speculation of the Phaedrus. In his myth of the charioteer, Socrates declares that every soul is immortal because "that which is ever moving is immortal." Motion, it would appear from this definition, is part of the soul's essence. And just because the soul is ever tending, positive or indifferent terms cannot partake of this congruence. But terms of tendency - goodness, justice, divinity, and the like - are terms of motion and therefore may be said to comport with the soul's essence. The soul's perception of goodness, justice, and divinity will depend upon its proper tendency, while at the same time contacts with these in discourse confirm and direct that tendency. The education of the soul is not a process of bringing it into correspondence with a physical structure like the external world, but rather a process of rightly affecting its motion. By this conception, a soul which is rightly affected calls that good which is good; but a soul which is wrongly turned calls that good which is evil. What Plato has prepared us to see is that the virtuous rhetorician, who is a lover of truth, has a soul of such movement that its dialectial perceptions are consonant with those of a divine mind. Or, in the language of more technical philosophy, this soul is aware of axiological systems which have ontic status. The good soul, consequently, will not urge a perversion of justice as justice in order to impose upon the commonwealth. Insofar as the soul has its impulse in the right direction, its definitions will agree with the true nature of intelligible things.

There is, then, no true rhetoric without dialectic, for the dialectic provides that basis of "high speculation about nature" without which rhetoric in the narrower sense has nothing to work upon. Yet, when the disputed terms have been established, we are at the limit of dialectic. How does the noble rhetorician proceed from this point on? That the (17) clearest demonstration in terms of logical inclusion and exclusion often fails to win assent we hardly need state; therefore, to what does the rhetorician resort at this critical passage? It is the stage at which he passes from the logical to the analogical, or it is where figuration comes into rhetoric.

To look at this for a moment through a practical illustration, let us suppose that a speaker has convinced his listeners that his position is "true" as far as dialectical inquiry may be pushed. Now he sets about moving the listeners toward that position, but there is no way to move them except through the operation of analogy. The analogy proceeds by showing that the position being urged resembles or partakes of something greater and finer. It will be represented, in sum, as one of the steps leading toward ultimate good. Let us further suppose our speaker to be arguing for the payment of a just debt. The payment of the just debt is not itself justice, but the payment of this particular debt is one of the many things which would have to be done before this could be a completely just world. It is just, then, because it partakes of the ideal justice, or it is a small analogue of all justice (in practice it will be found that the rhetorician makes extensive use of synecdoche, whereby the small part is used as a vivid suggestion of the grandeur of the whole). It is by bringing out these resemblances that the good rhetorician leads those who listen in the direction of what is good. In effect, he performs a cure of souls by giving impulse, chiefly through figuration, toward an ideal good.

We now see the true rhetorician as a noble lover of the good, who works through dialectic and through poetic or analogical association. However he is compelled to modulate by the peculiar features of an occasion, this is his method.

It may not be superfluous to draw attention to the fact that what we have here outlined is the method of the Phaedrus itself. The dialectic appears in the dispute about love. The current thesis that love is praiseworthy is countered by the antithesis that love is blameworthy. This position is fully developed in the speech of Lysias and in the first speech of (18)Socrates. But this position is countered by a new thesis that after all love is praisworthy because it is a divine thing. Of course, this is love on a higher level, or love re-defined. This is the regular process of transcendence which we have noted before. Now, having rescued love from the imputation of evil by excluding certain things from its definition, what does Socrates do? Quite in accordance with our analysis, he turns rhetorician. He tries to make this love as attractive as possible by bringing in the splendid figure of the charioteer. In the narrower conception of this art, the allegory is the rhetoric, for it excites and fills us with desire for this kind of love, depicted with many terms having tendency toward the good. But in the broader conception the art must include also the dialectic, which succeeded in placing love in the category of divine things before filling our imaginations with attributes of divinity. It is so regularly the method of Plato to follow a subtle analysis with a striking myth that it is not unreasonable to call him the master rhetorician. This goes far to explain why those who reject his philosophy sometimes remark his literary art with mingled admiration and annoyance.

The objection sometimes made that rhetoric cannot be used by a lover of truth because it indulges in "exaggerations" can be answered as follows. There is an exaggeration which is mere wantonness, and with this the true rhetorician has nothing to do. Such exaggeration is purely impressionistic in aim. Like caricature, whose only object is to amuse, it seizeds upon any trait or aspect which could produce titillation and exploits this without conscience. If all rhetoric were like this, we should have to grant that rhetoricians are persons of very low responsibility and thier art a disreputable one. But the rhetorician we have now defined is not interested in sensationalism.

The exaggeration which this rhetorician employs is not (19) caricature but prophecy; and it would be a fair formulation to say that true rhetoric is concerned with the potency of things. The literalist, like the anti-poet described earlier, is troubled by its failure to conform to a present reality. What he fails to appreciate is that potentiality is a mode of existence, and that all prophecy is about the tendency of things. The discourse of the noble rhetorician, accordingly, will be about real potentiality or possible actuality, whereas that of the mere exaggerator is about unreal potentiality. Naturally this distinction rests upon a supposal that the rhetorician has insight, and we could not defend him in the absence of that condition. But given insight, he has the duty to represent to us the as yet unactualized future. It would be, for example, a mesrepresentation of current facts but not of potential ones to talk about the joys of peace in a time of war. During the Second World War, at the depth of Britain's political and military disaster, Winston Churchill likened the future of Europe to "broad sunlit uplands." Now if one had regard only for the hour, this was a piece of mendacity such as the worst charlatans are dound committing; but if one took Churchill's premises and then considered the potentiality, the picture was within bounds of actualization. His "exaggeration" was that the defeat of the enemy would place Europe in a aposition for long and peaceful progress. At the time the surface trends ran the other way; the actuality was a valley of humiliation. Yet the hope which transfigured this to "broad sunlit uplands" was not irresponsible, and we conclude by saying that the rhetorician talks about both what exists simply and what exists by favor of human imagination and effort(20).

This interest in actualization is a further distinction between pure dialectic and rhetoric. With its forescast of the actual possibility, rhetoric passes from mere scientific demonstration of an idea to its relation to prudential conduct. A dialectic must take place in vacuo, and the fact alone that it contains contraries leaves it an intellectual thing. Rhetoric, on the other hand, always espouses one of the contraries. This espousal is followed by some attempt at impingement upon actuality. That is why rhetoric, with its passion for the actual is more complete than mere dialectic with its dry understanding. It is more complete on the premise than man is a creature of passion who must live out that passion in the world. Pure contemplation does not suffice for this end. As Jacques Maritain has expressed it: "love...is not directed at possibilities or pure essences; it is directed at what exists; one does not love possibilities, one loves that which exists or is destined to exist." The complete man, then, is the "lover" added to the scientist; the rhetorician to the dialectician. Understanding followed by actualization seems to be the order of creation, and there is no need for the role of rhetoric to be misconceived.

The pure dialectician is left in the theoretical position of the non-lover, who can attain understanding but who cannot add impulse to truth. We are compelled to say "theoretical position" because it is by no means certain that in the world of actual speech the non-lover has more than a putative existence. We have seen previously that his speech would consist of strictly referential words which would serve only as(22) designata. Now the question arises: at what point is motive to come into such language? Kenneth Burke in A Grammar of Motives has pointed to "the pattern of embarrassment behind the contemporary ideal of a language that will best promote good action by entirely eliminating the element of exhortation or command. Insofar as such a project succeeded, its terms would involve a narrowing of circumference to a point where the principle of personal action is eliminated from language, so that an act would follow from it only as a non-sequitur, a kind of humanitarian after-thought."

The fault of this conception of language is that scientific intention turns out to be enclosed in artistic intention and not vice versa. Let us test this by taking as an example of those "fact-finding committees" so favored by modern representative governments. A language in which all else is suppressed in favor of nuclear meanings would be an ideal instrumentality for the report of such a committee. But this committee, if it lived up to the ideal of its conception, would have to be followed by an "attitude-finding committee" to tell us what its explorations really mean. In real practice the fact-finding committee understands well enough that it is also an attitude-finding committee, and where it cannot show inclination through language of tendency, it usually manages to do so through selection and arrangement of the otherwise inarticulate facts. To recur here to the original situation in the dialogue, we recall that the eloquent Lysias, posing as a non-lover, had concealed design upon Phaedrus, so that his fine speech was really a sheep's clothing. Socrates discerned in him a "peculiar craftienss." One must suspect the same today of many who ask us to place our faith in the neutrality of their discourse. We cannot deny that there are degrees of objectivity in the reference of speech. But this is not the same as an assurance that a vocabulary of reduced meanings will solve the problems of mankind. Many of those problems will have (22) to be handled, as Socrates well knew, by the student of souls, who must primarily make use of the language of tendency. The soul is impulse, not simply coginition; and finally one's interest in rhetoric depends on how much poignancy one senses in existence (Without rhetoric there seems no possibility of tragedy, and in turn, without the sens of tragedy, no possibility of taking an elevated view of life. The role of tragedy is to keep the huyman lot from being rendered as history. The cultivation of tragedy and a deep interest in the value-conferring power of language always occur together. The Phaedrus, the Gorgias, and the Cratylus, not to mention the works of many teachers of rhetoric, appear at the close of the great age of Greek tragedy. The Elizabethan age teemd with treatises on the use of language. The essentially tragic Christian view of life begins the long tradition of homiletics. Tragedy and the practice of rhetoric seem to find common sustenance in preoccupation with value, and then rhetoric follows as an analyzed art).

Rhetoric moves the soul with a movement which cannot finally be justified logically. It can only be valued analogically with reference to some supreme image. Therefore when the rhetorician encounters some soul "sinking beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice" he seeks to re-animate it by holding up to its sight the order of presumptive goods. This order is ncessarily a hierarchy leading up to the ultimate good. All of the terms in a rhetorica vocabulary are like links in a chain stretching up to some mater link which transmits its influence down through the linkages. It is impossible to talk about rhetoric as effective expression without having a term giving intelligibility to the whole discourse, the Good. Of course, inferior concepts of the Good may be and often are placed in this ultimate position; and there is nothing to keep a base lover from inverting the proper order and saying, "Evil, be thou my good." Yet the fact remains that in any piece of rhetorical discourse, one rhetorica term overcomes another rhetorical term only by being nearer to the term which stands ultimate. There is some ground for calling a rhetorical education in that the rhetorician has to deal with an aristocracy of notions, to say nothing(23) of supplementing his logical and pathetic proofs with an ethical proof.

All things considered, rhetoric, noble or base, is a great power in the world; and we note accordingly that at the center of the public life of every people there is a fierce struggle over who shall control the means of rhetorical propagation. Today we set up "offices of information," which like the sly lover in the dialogue, pose as non-lovers while pushing their suits. But there is no reason to despair over the fact that men will never give up seeking to influence one another. We would not desire it to be otherwise; neuter discourse is a flase idol, to worship which is to commit the very offense for which Socrates made expiation in his second speech.

Since we want no emancipation from impulse but clarification of impulse, the duty of rhetoric is to bring together action and understanding into a whole that is greater than scientific perception. The realization that just as no action is really indifferent, so no utterance is without its responsiblity introduces, it is true, a certain strenuousity itnot life, produced by a consciousness that "nothing is lost." Yet this is preferable to that desolation which proceeds from an infinite dispersion or feeling of unaccountability. Even so, the choice between them is hardly ours to make; we did not create the order of things, (24) but being accountable for our impulses, we wish these to be just.

Thus wen we finally divest rhetoric of all the notions of artifice which have grown up around it, we are left with something very much like Spinoza's "intellectual love of God." This is its essence and the fons et origo of its power. It is "intellectual" because, as we have previously seen, there is no honest rhetoric without a preceding dialectic. The kind of rhetoric which is justly condemned is utterance in support of a position before that position has been adjudicated with reference to the whole universe of discourse - and of such the world always produces more than enough. It is "love" because it is something in addition to bare theorectial truth. That element in addition is a desire to bring truth into a kind of existence, or to give it an actuality to which theory is indifferent. Now what is to be said about our last expression, "of God"? Echoes of theological warfare will cause many to desire a substitute for this, and we should not object. As long as we have in ultimate place the highest good man can intuit, the relationship is made perfect. We shall be content with "intellectual love of the Good." It is still the intellectual love of good which causes the noble lover to desire not to devour his beloved but to shape him according to the gods as far as mortal power allows. So rhetoric at its truest seeks to perfect men by showing them better versions of themselves, links in that chain extending up toward the ideal, which only the intellect can apprehend and only the soul have affection for. This is the justified affection of which no one can be ashamed, and he who feels no influence of it is truly outside the communion of minds. Rhetoric appears, finally, as a means by which the impulse of the soul to be ever moving is redeemed.

It may be granted that in this essay we have gone some(25) distance form the banks of the Ilissus. What began as a simple account of passion becomes by transcendence an allegory of all speech. No one would think of suggesting that Plato had in mind every application which has here been made, but that need not arise as an issue. The structure of the dialogue, the way in which the judgments about speech concentre, and especially the close association of the ture, the beautiful, and the good, constitute a unity of implication. The central idea is that all speech, which is the means the gods have given man to express his soul, is a form of eros, in the proper interpretation of the word. With that truth the rhetorician will always be brought face to face as soon as he ventures beyond the consideration of mere artifice and device(26).

-Richard Weaver, from The Ethics of Rhetoric. Henry Regnery Company, Chicago: 1953

Tristram - Book 8 - Chapter 3

HOW SIR TRISTRAM WAS SENT INTO FRANCE, AND HAD ONE TO GOVERN HIM NAMED GOUVERNAIL, AND HOW HE LEARNED TO HARP, HAWK, AND HUNT

And then he let ordain a gentleman that was well learned and taught, his name was Gouvernail; and then he sent young Tristram with Gouvernail into France to learn the language, and nurture, and deeds of arms. And there was Tristram more than seven years. And then when he well could speak the language, and had learned all that he might learn in that country, then he came home to his father, King Meliodas, again. And so Tristram learned to be an harper passing all other, that there was none such called in no country, and so in harping and on instruments of music he applied him in his youth for to learn. And after, as he growed in might and strength, he laboured ever in hunting and in hawking, so that never gentleman more, that ever we heard read of. And as the book saith, he began good measures of blowying of beasts of venery, and beasts of chase, and all manner of vermin, and all these terms we have yet of hawking and hunting. And therefore the book of venery, of hawking, and hunting, is called the book of Sir Tristram. Wherefore, as meseemeth, all gentlemen that bear old arms ought of right to honour Sir Tristram for the goodly terms that gentlemen have and use, and shall to the day of doom, that thereby in a manner all men of worship may dissever a gentleman from a yoeman, and from a yoeman a villain. For he that gentle is will draw him unto gentle tatches, and to follow the customs of noble gentlemen. Thus Sir Tristram endured in Cornwall until he was big and strong, of the age of nineteen years. And then the King Meliodas had great joy of Sir Tristram, and so had the queen, his wife. For ever after in her life, by cause Sir Tristram saved her from the fire, she did never hate him more after, but loved him ever after, and gave Tristram many great gifts; for every estate loved him, where that he went.

-Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur

On H.L. Mencken

Extra Review
December 12, 1926

When I had finished H.L. Mencken's new book, Notes on Democracy, I looked out of the window with a sort of halfway vague expectation that I would find tottering buildings, rows of groveling sinners, and other Judgment Day effects. But nothing had happened. All the inhabitants of the Mencken universe - the Boobs, the Morons, and the Yokels - were calmly and even gaily going about their business, totally unaware of large volcanic disturbances in the region of New York. Streetcars were running. A new building was going up across the street. The bricklayers' cars were parked at the curb. A billboard announced that Chesterfields satisfy. The clouds were ambling northward in a gentle southern sky. All was as usual. There were no signs of crumbling civilization, or even of a penitent civilization.

After all, I thought, until Mr. Mencken convinces the Morons that they are Morons and should hence be submissiver, how is he going to do the world much good? And since the Morons naturally haven't gumption enough to read his books, much less understand them, how is the convincing to be accomplished? Perhaps, however, he has no persuasive intentions. Let me try to understand Mr. Mencken, not to worship him or abuse him. After just consideration, I arrive at two possible views of his activity, as illustrated especially in his recent book. In one view he appears as a social philosopher or critic indulging in a rather destructive analysis, but, unlike the giddy reformers, proposing no panaceas; and in this view he must be taken seriously. The other view puts him up as a gargantuan humorist with an immense capacity for invective and ridicule, and this view requires him to be enjoyed for his own sake, like any other writer who knows the pyrotechnic possibilities of language.

Taking first the serious view, I must offer the opinion that in Notes on Democracy Mr. Mencken deals with the weightiest subject he has yet approached. And, although the book is to a certain extent a restatement of his now familiar ideas, it is, on the whole, new material. He divides his Notes into three principal sections: "Democratic Man," "The Democratic State," "Democracy and Liberty." There is also a "Coda," in which, surveying the general destruction, he disclaims any knowledge of the future and declares that he enjoys democracy immensely because "it is incomparably idiotic, and henc incomparably amusing." The treatment of these various topics is not very systematic. Each Note is of course a denunciation; but each denunciation is a separate volcano, erupting lava like its neighbors, but disposed and erected by whim rather than geometry or logic. There is some overlapping and likewise some contradiction, as is usual in Mr. Mencken's writings. But there is no carefully symmetrical arrangement, no neatly marching parade of thesis - data - proof - conclusion.

Mr. Mencken sets up in his first section the idea that democratic man, considered in the mass, is a congenital moron incapable of an intelligent act. He admits that there are a few superior beings, but most minds are capable only "of a sort of insensate sweating, like a kidney." This view of the mob he bolsters up with the intelligence tests, which he sees as outlining intellectual levels beyond which no advance can be made. Therefore education offers no hope, because the Moron mob, which has a low "I.W.," cannot be educated. Thus he knocks over the doundation of democratic theory which attributes some sort of mysterious (and Mencken would say, bogus) wisdom to the masses and exalts the Will of the People. The Will of the People, in his opinion, signifies simply the triumph of inferiority. And, since the mob is animated only by the savage motives of fear and envy, a government based on intelligence becomes an impossibility, for the masses are so stupid that they will oppose, and always have opposed, even sensible efforts to better their lumpish and besotted condition.


Furthermore, the democratic state, in Mr. Mencken's survey, becomes a travesty, simply because it is so thoroughly and nauseously democratic. The will of the people, if exerted, can accomplish any fool thing. The democratic mob "could extend the term of the president too life, or they could reduce it to one year, or even to one day. They could provide that he must shave his head, or that he must sleep in his underclothes." Politics, instead of a science, becomes a "combat between jackals and jackasses." Only demagogues can rule. Gentlemen stay out of politics. Instead we have a Harding, whole "notion of a good time was to refresh himself in the manner of a small-town Elk," or a Coolidge, of whom Mr. Mencken says: "There is no evidence that he is acquainted with a single intelligent man." The typical senator is "simply a party hack...His backbone has a sweet resiliency...it is quite impossible to forecast his action, even on a matter of the highest principle, without knowing what reards are offered by the rival sides." Bribery and corruption are the order of the day. Public servants become cowards.


And then the fair principle of liberty, what of that? Democratic man, says Mr. Mencken, doesn't want it. He wants only safety and peace: "The peace of a trusty in a well-managed penitentiary." He wants laws, and especially laws that protect him against himself. Democracy "kills the thing it loves." It applauds mediocrity and pulls down superiority. Therefore puritanism is a natural accompaniment of democracy. For the puritan wants (1) "to punish the other fellow for having a better time"; (2) "to bring the other fellow down to his own unhappy level." It is typical of democracy that "Every district attorney goes to his knees every night to ask God to deliver a Thaw or a Fatty Arbuckle into his hands" - all because the mob delights in seeing rich persons browbeaten.


Thus Mencken! I have quoted freely but not as freely as I would like to, for every page is thickly sown with verbal torpedoes, exciting for their explosive vehemenc, however questionable their direction and effect. But ho shall Mr. Mencken's criticism of democracy be criticized? Mr. Mencken, who uses the South as the butt of his jokes and represents it as totally intolerant, would perhaps think that I would be in danger of assassination if I ventured to express any agreement with his ideas. But I do so venture, with a feeling of complete safety. The truth is that most of his excoriation of democracy is old stuff - at least as old as Thomas Carlyle, who also asserted that democracy sabotaged the superior man. Even the most ardent democrats must admit - and can admit with a tolerant smile - the bulk of Mr. Mencken's charges as to democracy's shortcomings. Furthermore, the influence Mr. Mencken wields and the whole secret of his method lie in the fact that he turbulently overstates what everybody knows. Nowhere, except in political editorials and the platitudes of orators, both of which are pretty generally received with skepticism, will you find the view that our present democracy is the absolute "summum bonum." Mr. Mencken's criticisms of democracy are paralledled by the jokes of Will Rogers, the bitingly satirical comic strips, and vaudeville patter, all of which we absorb with enormous gusto. Andy Gump's political campaign went over with a bang; but it was in its implication as destructively critical as Notes on Democracy. Goldberg's boobs are as savagely treated as Mencken's boobs. But this is true, also, that Mr. Mencken exceeds other critics in his ferocity and unscrupulousness. His exaggerations are not simply exaggerations; they are often studied distortions at plain variance with the truth; in fact, Mr. Mencken, who is as poetic as a tale-bearing child, cannot always be trusted to give the correct facts. In spite of his really powerful intellectual equiopment, he often draws on himself the just charge of malice because he is either too lazy or too prejudiced to separate truth from falsehood.

His criticism of democracy is, of course, full of holes and non sequiturs. We have not merely to make the charge that Mr. Mencken views democracy everywhere at its worst. His major premise, based on modern biology, behavioristic psychology, and the like, serves his purpose, but is shaky in its claim that inferior men can never become superior men. Mr. Mencken admits that some men are supeirior; he does not admit that the class can be enlarged; the best democratic theory might say that it could be. Furthermore, though Mr. Mencken makes much of the gullibility of the mob, he refuses to admit that superior men can do the gulling; and though he is raucously tolerant of bilogical evolution, he is quite intolerant of the idea of political evolution. In fact, his opinions dirive him, as he is frank enough to admit, directly toward anarchy; and in essence, we are forced to conclude that Mr. Mencken is sorry he was born, and that life offers him no pleasure except an occasional tickling, a sensual excitement, or sardonic laughter at the ridiculousness of the world. Even so, though Mr. Mencken may be sorry he was born, it is fortunate that he was born in the United States, which, with England, is the only country democratic enough to permit a confirmed and lowly misanthrope to rise to his present position of honor, wealth, and the power, or to tolerate his persistent rowdyism after he has arrived.

So, Mencken, the destroyer, necessary as he may be in his role as an occasional stimulant or a gadfly, is not to be trusted as a purveyor of ideas. Mencken as humorist is another thing. Others may imitate, but none can approach the vivacity and brilliance of his style: the sentences that crack like a hip, the phrases that fall and rebound like Thor's hammer, the surly laughter that revels in well-seasoned colloquialisms, ridiculous incongruities, sudden and vulgar paradoxes. Read Mr. Mencken for his ideas, and you will only hug the viper of melancholy to your bosom. Read him as you would read Mark Twain, you will not only escape the virus, but you will have a rare, indeed a unique, entertainment. You will have also the democratic (according to Menckent) pleasure of seeing the mighty ones biffed soundly; and you will only spoil the joke if you get angry because you are biffed yourself.

-Donald Davidson

from The Spyglass, Views and Reviews 1926-1930. Ed. by John Tyree Fain. Vanderbilt University Press. Nashville 1963. 126-31

The Yoga of Power - Chapter 3

SHAKTI: THE WORLD AS POWER

First of all, let us assess the new form that Tantric metaphyscis assumed folllowing the assimilation and transformation into a main hermeneutical principle of the ancient idea of the Devi, or Great Mother, who is conceived as the supreme deity.

The starting point is represented by the acknowledgment that the principle and measure of every real being and form is a multiform energy, an acting power that expresses itself in various ways. It is not a coincidence, as someone remarked, that the German word for reality, Wirklichkeit, comes from the verb wirken, "to act." This is also the case in Tantric metaphysics. With regard to power (shakti), even what we call "person" occupies an ontologically subordinated rank, including Ishvara, who is the God of theism. This radical version of Shaktism denies the existence of a principle "endowed" with power, yet distinct from it. The argument runs on these lines: "If everything exists in virtue of shakti, why look for its source? You feel the need to identify the principle or support on which shakti is based. Are you not then compelled to explain on what principle shakti foundation is based?"

The similarities between Tantrism and older Hindu metaphysical systems may easily be established as follows: These systems did(20) not stop at the concepts of "being" and "person." The counterpart of being (sat) is nonbeing (asat). Beyond both of them we find the Absolute (brahman, which is neuter, should not be confused with the name Brahma, which is masculine). Hindu metaphysics did not employ a theistic notion of "God," conceived as a person (Ishvara, Brahma, and analogous hypostases), as the ultimate reference point. Rather, brahman is something that transcends the personal deity and is thought of in terms of primordial and abyssal energy. The Tantric Shakti eventually came to be identified with it, but in the course of this process she lost all of her specifically feminine traits, since brahman is beyond the masculine/feminine differentiation. Shakti also lost the primacy she enjoyed as the feminine element which is typical of ancient civilizations. That primacy derives from the capability of giving birth and from being thought of, in a cosmic context, as an incubating womb. Generating as well as creating are, however, still considered to be subordinated and partial functions, and Brahman's rather than brahman's prerogatives.

Shakti is therefore characterized by the same attributes usually associated with brahman; nothing exists outside of her, since she is "one without a second" (advaya). All living beings find their origin, life, and purpose in her: "Thou art all power. It is by thy power that we are powerful."

It is also said:

"Shakti is the root of every finite existence. The worlds are her manifestation; she supports them and one day they will be reabsorbed into her...She is the supreme brahman (Parabrahman)....She is the mother of all the gods; without Shakti they would cease to exist."

She is called Paratpara, "supreme of the supreme," that is, the brahman invoked in Hindu Brahman metaphysical tradition. She is the eternal energy of him who sustains the universe" (vaishnavishakti), and in relation to the trimurti, the divine triad of Hinduism, it is said:

"It is by Thy [Shakti's] power only that Brahma creates, Vishnu maintains, and, at the end of things, Shiva destroys the universe. Powerless are they for this but by Thy help. Therefore it is that Thou alone are the Creator, Maintainer, and Destroyer of the world."

And also: "Thou supportest everything, without being supported(21) yourself." Only Shakti is "pure," "naked": "Though having a form, yet thou art always formless."

In this context Shakti is given the name Parashakti, to emphasize that no other being or principle ranks higher than her. The ancient pre-Aryan understanding of Shakti as the magna mater, or mother of the gods - a sovereign divinity from whom every life and existence derives -undergoes a radical transformation as a consequence of the encounter with Aryan Upanishadic metaphysics. Shakti there becomes "she who dwells in everything in the form of power"(Shaktirupa).

From the texts we gather a further, particularly relevant element. If we consider the principle of the universe merely in terms of primordial energy, we may be induced to think that its manifestation in the world is nothing but a random, centrifugal movement. That being the case, we would then be reminded of the notion of "life" as it is found in some Western irrationalist philosophies and even in Spinoza's pantheist system. According to Spinoza, the world proceeds eternally and almost necessarily from the substance of the godhead, in the same way that the properties of a triangle derive from its definition. In Tantrism, in the contrary, Shaktis manifestation is considered to be free. Since she is not bound by any external or internal laws, nothing forces her to become apparent: "Thou art power. Who could tell you what to do or not to do? Since in human experience the ideal prototype of unrestrained action is play (lila), the Tantras do not hesitate to call Shaktis manifestation "play" and to say that (1) her essence is play (lilamayishakti); (2) her name is "playful," lalita; and (3) the supreme Shakti's (Parashakti) solitary game finds expression in every form of manifested and conditioned existence, whether human, subhuman, or divine. Tantric symbolism merged with Shaivist symbols and even appropriated the theme of the dancing god, Nataraja. Dance is something free and uninhibited, representing the unfolding of the manifestation. It is no longer Shiva who engages in the dance, but the goddess Shakti, portrayed with a flaming halo to symbolize her properly productive aspect.

As a natural consequence of this development, the theses of radical Shaktism, which reflected the goddess's ancient sovereignty and ontological priority, were subsequently articulated. This led to the assimilation of Sankhya's metaphysics and to the reappraisal of the maya doctrine during the same period in which Shankara had formulated it(22).

Sankhya is a darshana based on dualism. As its hermenueutic principle it adopts an original duality, that of purusha and prakriti, corresponding to the masculine and feminine elements; spirit and nature, and consciousness and unconsciousness. The former is unchangeable, the latter is the principle of movement and of becoming. Sankhya meticulously excluded from the first element, purusha, anything that is not pure, impassive, or action-oriented. Creation derives from a peculiar connection of these two principles and from an action originated by purusha (called "catalysis" in chemistry) and determined just by its presence. The closest analogy I can think of comes from that Aristotelian doctrine which explains the world and its becoming in terms of motion and of the desire awakened in and its becoming in terms of motion and of the desire awakened in matter (ule = prakriti) by the nous, or "unmoved mover." Prakriti, as such, is thought of as an equilibrium of three powers (the so-called gunas, which I will discuss later). Purusha's reflection on prakriti breaks this equilibrium, and by virtue of an impregnating action it causes motion and thus prakriti's unfolding into the world of forms and phenomena, which is called samsara. Sankhya also contemplates a "fallen condition," corresponding to a fundamental notion found in both Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics, namely avidya, or ignorance. Purusha identifies with its own reflection in prakriti, the so-called elemental Self (bhutatman), thus forgetting it is "other," that is, the impassive being whose substance is pure light, or the "spectator":

"The immortal soul [atman] is like the "drop of water on the lotus leaf." This elemental soul verily is overcome by nature's [prakriti] qualities, unsteady, wavering, bewildered, full of desire, distracted, this one goes on to the state of self-conceit (abhimanatva). In thinking "This is I" and "That is mine" he binds himself with his self as does a bird with a snare...The person is not overcome. This elemental soul (bhutatman) is overcome (abhibhuta) because of its attachment to qualities."

Sankhya lent its tenets to classical yoga, which indicated the way leading from prakriti to reintegration with a purely purushic state, which we may call "Olympian," or mukti (release). Yoga pointed the way by promoting detachment from consciousness and from the I (atman = purusha), and by neutralizing those(23) modifications (vritti) that are consciously believed to be one's own rather than proper to the other principle (prakriti).

At this point we are not yet dealing with practical applications, but still with cosmological views. Let us proceed. Sankhya offers an explanation of the world, not in terms of pure spirit, or of pure nature, or as being immutable or in a process of becoming, but rather by introducing the purusha-prakriti dyad. These two principles become connected in various ways: following the loss of equilibrium of the gunas, prakriti, after being fertilized by purusha's reflection, "becomes" and grows in the manifested world of "names" and "forms" (namarupa is the classical Hindu designation for the differentiated universe).

The tantric synthesis takes up this paradigm again and reappraises it. Unlike the Sankhya system, purusha and prakriti are no longer conceived as an eternal, primordial duality, but rather as two differentiations or forms of Shakti. Shiva, the personal god now transformed into an impersonal metaphysical principle, corresponds to the former. Shakti corresponds to the latter, though in a limited sense, since she assumes the role of Shiva's counterpart, namely, that of the god's companion and bride; she is also believed to be his power (traditionally the term shakti had the meanings of both "power" and "bride"). As it was the case in Sankhya, Shiva retains the attributes of "being," immutability, and the nature of atman, or conscious principle. On her part, Shakti retains the characteristics of movement and mutability. She is the source of productive activities, generation, and vivification. While Sankhya spoke of "reflection" and "action" in terms of pure presence, in the Tantric synthesis the idea of "fertilization" was widely accepted: the union of Shiva and Shakti is believed to generate the universe, with both its static and dynamic components, and with both its immaterial/conscious and material/unconscious forms. The introduction of the purushic, or Shaivist element, discredits the idea that a radical version of Shaktism had upheld instead, namely, that the manifested world is the result of a wild outburst of an undifferentiated, elementary energy.

Hindu Tantric iconography enhanced in various ways the authentic characteristics of the two principles. First, we may recall the icon of Shakti's dance over Shiva's outstretched and still body. In this instance, immobility represents the immutability of the male principle. According to the canons of Hindu religious art, his tall stature signifies the superior ontological status he enjoys vis-a-vis Shakti, who is in motion. Second, we may recall the symbolism of (24)the union between Shakti and Shiva (as well as of equivalent divinities in the Hindu and Tibetan pantheon) in viparita maithuna, namely, the sexual position in which the male sits still and the woman, wrapping her legs around him, undulates her body over him. We may recall at this point that Western "activistic" axioms operated an inversion of the traditional idea according to which the true male principle is characterized by "being." This principle does not act, since it is sovereign and capable of generating action without becoming involved with it. Therefore, everything that is action, dynamism, and development, by virtue of not being self-sufficient, is said to fall under the aegis of the feminine element, nature, or prakriti rather than under the aegis of spirit, atman, or purusha. It is an instance of active immobility versus passive activity. The activist Western world has forgotten these truths, and it is therefore ignorant of the true meaning of virility.

In the period in which Tantrism was developing the doctrine of the metaphysical dyad, the Vedanta system had already been outlined in rather extreme terms by Shankara. I previously mentioned this in the context of a Tantric critique of Vedanta's version of monism. Following the lead of the Upanishads, Shankara upheld in a rigorous way that whatever changes and is differentiated (kalatraya-sattva) cannot possibly be real. Considering that our experience of the world is not one of nirguna-brahman, namely, of an absolutely pure, impersonal, and solitary purusha, and considering wthat we live in a qualified, conditioned, and ever-changing world, Shankara concluded, as we have seen, that such a world is nothing but an illusion and a lie. As a result of this explanation, however, the problem is not solved but rather recast in different terms, since we still have to explain the source of this appearance, or fiction, and also how it came to be. Shankara therefore introduces the notion of maya, attributing to it the cause of solitary nirguna-brahman's dimming and of saguna-brahman's arising. The latter is thought of as brahman's manifestation and unfolding in a world of forms and conditioned beings, with Ishvara, the personal, theistic God, at the top. Maya is conceived as something that cannot be explored or grasped; it is enigmatic (anirvakya) and beyond imagination. The followers of Vedanta claim that we cannnot say that it either is (since maya is not pure being) or is not (since it acts and grows its roots in ordinary experience), nor that it both is and is not. Maya remains a mystery, something that is eminently irrational. Obviously, Shankara denied any relation between brahman and maya.

All of this merely identifies, rather than solves, the main(25) difficulty encountered by radical Vedantic monism. The dilemma cannot possibly be solved by leaving the realm of ontology in order to take refuge in the notion of "different perspectives." In ancient Greece Parmenides, who was concerned to safeguard the notion of pure being, formulated the theory of double-sided truth. He opposed the truth characteristic of rigorous thought (nous), according to which "only being is," to the truth characteristic of opinion (doxa), which accounts for becoming and nature, all the while denying to them ("according to justice") the status of "being." Likewise Shankara opposes a secular, empirical perspective (vyavakarthika) to an absolute one (paramarthika). In the latter peerspective maya does not exist. This means that achieving the enlightening knowledge that this view aspires to is contingent upon seeing maya disappear as if it were mist or a mirage, at which point one no longer needs to explain it. Maya is but a product of ignorance (avidya), a projection of ignorance on the eternal and immutable being.

Yet even now the difficulty remains unsolved, since we must ask how, generally speaking, ignorance and relative perspectives arise. We could find a solution if we were operating in the context of a creation theology typical of religions such as Christianity and Islam. Since theistic religions postulate the existence of created beings (who are somehow separated from god, who is their principle, and therefore are not to be identified with Him), we could attribute to them the relative perspective that arises as a consequence of maya. Unfortunately, in Vedantic monism there is no place for such a notion. Its cardinal tenet is "brahman has no equals," namely, there is nothing outside of it, not even created beings that are subject to ignorance and to experiencing the world according to the illusion of maya. If we uphold Vedanta's Advaita monism, we are thereby forced to conclude that maya, in its irrational and miragelike nature, could mysteriously arise within brahman itself (since nothing exists other than it). This, in turn, would lead us to conclude that brahman itself is subject, in some way, to "ignorance." It is the only way out, but by choosing it, the radical Vedantic monsim is fatally flawed.

The following are some further Tantric criticisms. In a sense we may say that the world is not absolutely "real" and that maya, its source, is not totally unreal. A dream may be said to be unreal, but not the power that generates it. If maya is unreal, whence comes samsara, namely, the finite and ever-changing world? Somebody said: "If maya is unreal, samsara becomes real." This means that the unreality and contingency of phenomena and of becoming (samsara)(26) may be upheld only if it can be successfully demonstrated that they do not exist in and by themselves, but that they rather have their source and reason of being in a higher power. If one denies the existence of that power, in no way may the contingency and unreality of samsara be maintained. In such a case, samsara must be thought of as an external and autonomous reality, limiting and altering the supreme principle. According to the Tantras, the only solution to the problem consists in relating maya to a power, or shakti. As an alternative to Vedanta's mysterious maya, the Tantras speak of maya-shakti, which is a manifestation of the supreme Shakti or Parashakti. They even appeal to an alternative meaning of maya, namely "magic" (maya yoga refers to a particular kind of yoga pursuing magical purposes). In this context the term designates a creative art producing real, effective results rather than the art creating tricks proper of illusionists and magicians. Once maya is reduced to maya-shakti, there is no further need to deny empirical reality and to consider everything as an illusion.

In her freedom, and in virtue of being "playful," Shakti produces the world of samsara and displays herself in it. Thus the unity of the supreme principle is preserved. It may rightfully be stated that:

"To form a concept of the Godhead that one worships, the idea of Shakti, or power, is for the devotee a surer guide than the nebulous idea of atman [spirit]. It is very hard for those who have no faith in Shakti to trace the "one without a second" through the physical to the spiritual plane of existence, there being no appreciable link to chain the planes together. But a worhsiper of Shakti need contend with no such difficulty. In all planes of existence he finds the one power all-pervading. It is therefore laid down in the Tantras: "O Devi! without a knowledge of Shakti, mukti [liberation] is mere mockery!"

Again, it is not a matter of affirming or denying that various things are "unreal." One should rather ask: "To what degree can you make a single blade of grass 'unreal' (that is, not existing in itself, which implies a power over it)?" Whatever exists does not cease to exist at one's whim or thought. The power of action would dissuade anybody from pursuing such fancies:

"Until brahman is perceived to be everywhere, and until the chains of the laws of nature are broken and the distinction between the I and the not-I is abolished, the particular living being [jiva] will(27) doubt this dualistic universe and call it a lie, a dream, and so on. Eventually, the efficiency of karma, namely, the power of action, will force the jiva to believe in it, against his or her will."

Speculative Tantrism, which does not share creationist perspectives, developed a metaphysics suitable for the sadhaka, one who is committed to the path of spiritual realization. This metaphysics overcomes both sankhya's dualism of purusha and prakriti as well as the dualism between brahman and maya that Vedanta unsuccessfully attempts to eliminate. Dualism is substituted, in this context, with a dyad typical of every free manifestation. Thus we may talk about an "immanent transcendence," corresponding to Shiva, or better, to the Shiva form of the supreme principle. All the powers found in reality have their roots in him, who is both their culmen et fons. Shiva is called the "naked one" (digambaram, namely, free of determinations) and at the same time "he whose body fills the entire universe." Shiva is portrayed, in a symbolism closely related to Tantric ethics, as one who, while immersed in the vortex of passions, remains free and in control of them. He is the master of eroticism, yet he remains free of lust. Although he always becomes associated with various forms, energies, and powers, he is nevertheless eternally free, invulnerable, and attributeless. The elements that in Shakti's cosmic play appear to be differentiated still do not affect the immanent unity of her Shiva form. Even what is finite and unconscious derives from consciousness, as the by-product of maya-shakti, which is not unconscious in itself. It is important to notice that finitude no longer constitutes a problem whenever it is related to a power determining it.

This context may be further clarified when we consider the meaning assumed by Shakti's manifestation and the "movements" through which she displays herself. While a particular power may be focused on any object, the supreme Shakti has only herself to display, since outside of her, by definition, nothing else exists. In a Tantra it is written: "You are your own birth place; in and for yourself you have become manifested."

This manifestation still implies a "proceeding from" (prasarati), a centrifugal movement "coming out from" a state of static stability and "self-projecting." It corresponds to the first movement originated in the feminine substance by the fertilizing action of the motionless Shiva, or purusha. Incidentally, it is analogous to what, in Aristotelian metaphysics, is responsible for awakening the (28) formless power of "nature." The texts refer to an "inwardly cognitive state" (bahir-mukha) and also consider phenomena to be Shakti's bursting forth and projecting hersef outward, under the influence of a desire or elementary yearning, or of a cosmogonic Eros aimed at creating an object in which to find delight. This phase is called pravritti-marga, "the way of determinations," of "finite forms" (vritti), which are generated and assimilated by Shakti. In this "descending" phase, Shakti's role is one of negation, since the manifested forms are just partial possibilities of the unmanifested principle resting in itself. It is also said that maya-shakti is a "measuring power," since it creates determinations or delimitations corresponding to various beings and to various forms of existence. Ignorance, or avidya, is inherent to power, since it is an "outwardly cognitive state," contemplating something other than itself, which is proper to the yearning and identifying movement of the objectification process.

That process eventually comes to an end. After a descending phase of the manifestation comes an ascending one: thus the circle is complete. The power must eventually recognize itself in everything that is differentiated, turned into an object, an "other," by maya-shakti. The process must also be consummated in a possession, since the Shaivistic element must prevail again over the purely Shaktic element and bring it back to itself with all of its productions. Following the centrifugal movement comes a centripetal one; that is, an inner detachment ensues the "outwardly cognitive state," which was characterized by a passionate attachment to those objects produced by maya-shakti's magic (the so-called nivritti-marga as opposed to pravritti-marga). In the first phase Shakti prevailed over Shiva and almost absorbed him into her own nature. Now it is the other way around. Shiva takes control of Shakti and makes her subject to himself, until an absolute, transparent unity is achieved.

The Hindu Tantras of the Northern School (Kashmir) conveyed this notion through these words: "Shakti is like a pure mirror through which Shiva experiences himself." This resembles Hegel's notion of "absolute spirit," which first exists "in itself," then becomes an object unto itself, and eventually comes to recognized itself in objective forms that exist "in and for itself." This also reminds us of analogous schemata found in Western idealist philosophies, especially when we consider that a commentary on the text previously referred to speaks of the I or "I-ness" in a transcendental sense, or as the essence of the highest experience of Shakti one could possibly achieve(29).

The same idea is expressed through a conventional analysis of the word for "I," aham. The first letter in the Sanskrit alphabet, a, represents Shakti. The last letter, ha, represents Shiva. The formula of the manifestation is not just a or ha, but rather a + ha, aham, which is "I" according to the abovementioned meaning of active self-identification, mediated by Shakti, as if through a mirror. The "I-ness" is therefore the supreme word, which includes all the phenomena and the entire universe, which in the doctrine of mantras (on mantra-shastra, see Chapter VIII) is symbolized by the letters between a and ha. Likewise, in Tibetan Buddhism the various powers of the manifestation are ascribed to various arts of the sacred syllable AUM, which in Tibetan too means "I." This is the meaning of the cosmic act of Parashakti, in which a whole world of forms and of finite beings is displayed. A movement ensues in which duality is dissolved into unity, only to unfold again the dualistic play." In this movement brahman, which is perfect consciousness [we are dealing here with the Tantric version of the active brahman], generates the world in the form of maya consisting of qualities [gunas], and then takes the part of a particular living being [jiva] in order to fulfill its cosmic play. The same principle that achieves the supreme experience of the "inwardly cognitive state" experiences the world as samsara through an "outwardly cognitive state."

In regard to the various ages in which the manifestation took place, a relationship is established between them and the doctrine of the two ways (Right Hand versus Left Hand) in the following terms. The creative and productive aspect of the cosmic process is signified by the right hand, by the color white, and by the two goddesses Uma and Gauri (in whom Shakti appears as Prakashatmika, she who is light and manifestation"). The second aspect, that of conversion and return (exitus, reditus), is signified by the left hand, by the color black, and by the dark, destructive goddesses Durga and Kali. Thus according to the Mahakala-Tantra, when the left and right hands are in equilibrium we experience samsara, but when the left hand prevails, we find liberation.

A further interpretation of Kali's role is found in popular iconography. There Kali apears black and naked, wearing only a necklace of severed heads. Under this aspect the goddess is Shivas shakti, namely, his power of active transcendence. The color black represents transcendence over any manifested and visible thing. According to a well-received etymology of the word, her name is Kali, since she devours time, "becoming," and progress, which(30) constitute the law of samsaric existence. Her nakedness symbolizes her being fee of forms. The fifty heads she wears around her neck (which in popular mythology belong to slain demons) are made to correspond to the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, which in turn symbolize the various cosmic powers presiding over the manifestation (matrika, which Greek speculation identified as logoi spermatikoi). The heads allude to those powers because they are removed from their elementary nature, proper to the descending phase. Therefore, if the role of maya-shakti's power in the Tantras is one of negation, then Kali's role, in the aspect so far considered, may be said to be "a negation of a negation." Here we begin to witness the self-destructive and self-transcending orientation of a power that in Tantrism plays a considerable role, especially in the context of Left Hand practices and rituals.

"To destroy" and "to transcend" should be seen mainly in terms of (1) going beyond manifested and conditioned forms, and (2) getting rid of the habit of identifying oneself with external forms, whether human or cosmic. The "destruction" considered here concerns the elements of "desire" and of "enslaving fascination with the self." It is considered a matter of secondary importance if, at an individual or social level, this attitude may eventually require severing relationships and personal attachments. When we talk about the process of destruction at work in the multiform world of nature, we should not confuse it with Kali's attributes, since they serve the transcendental purpose of leading "upward" and beyond (this, incidentally, is the Latin etymology of the word transcendence). That is why in a Tantric hymn Kali is presented under that particular Shaktic form in which she picks up what preceded her. In this context, the term employed to describe her action is vikvasamghera. In it, Shivas power, or shakti, is clearly manifested.

Traditional Hindu cosmology knew the theory of the emanation and reabsorption (pralaya) of the worlds, which obey cyclical laws. Such a theory should not be confused with what was previously discussed. It is inappropriate to speak of two ages, times, or phases, if those terms are interpreted in a temporal sense, as if they were consecutive stages in a temporal series. In this second age, we still do not find an elimination or disintegration of the current order. What we find is only a change of polarity and an experience of being as "formless yet endowed with every form" and as "it appears at the same time, with forms and without forms" (ruparupaprakasa), which is what Tantrasara claims. Under the aegis of Shakti,(31) who is now reduced to her principle, and of the implementation of that principle, "the world and samsara remain and become the true place where liberation may take place" (according to the Kularnava-Tantra's formulation). In this fashion, Tantrism agrees with that peculiar truth found in Mahayana Buddhism according to which nirvana and samsara are identical and coextensive. This truth will also find expression in the Zen experience of satori.

It is necessary at this time to add a couple of references taken from the Upanishadic tradition, in the hope that they will clarify what I have expounded so far.

Let us adopt as a reference point the atman, or spiritual Self. The Upanishads mention four possible states of the Self in regard to the manifestation. In the first, which is that of consciousness experienced during wakefulness, the world appears under the form of exteriority. In the second, it is perceived under the species of productive shaktis (tajasa). Their experience is ossible only if one elevates the Self, still operating at a level of consciousness, to a superconscious dimension that in ordinary people's lives corresponds to the chaotic life of dreams. In the third stage, prajna, the world of these energies is seen as one; it is perceived in the function of its unity, and personifed by Ishvara on the religious plane. One arrives at such a stage when the ego plunges into that ultimate depth which ordinary people experience as dreamless sleep. The law of cause and effect applies only during the first two stages. In the third stage there are only principles in the form of pure causes. Finally, a fourth stage is contemplated, called turiya. We say "fourth" in an improper manner, since it follows the other three only from sadhana's and yoga's perspective. By itself, ontologically speaking, this stage resumes and transcends all the previous three. Here is the level of "selfhood" in which the world of manifestations is consumed. When describing the turiya stage, the Upanishads say that "it destroys the entire phenomenic world" by "devouring Ishvara as a self-subsistent being."

Another reference is found in the Nrisimha-Uttara-Tapanya-Upanishad. Atman, the one and only, during the first stage is "contained" (ati), or embodied, in the material of its experience. This, in a Tantric perspective, corresponds to the function of maya-shakti. During the second stage atman exists as Anyatri, "he who affirms": "Atman affirms this world by donating to it its own being; it affirms its own self [as the I of the world] since the world is selfless. There is another expression designating this stage: "it says yes (aum) to the whole world," thereby "giving substance to a(32) world that does not have one." The external reality is thus seen as a projection of the spiritual principle's reality, which "affirms" the world. In the third stage experience is simply anujna, namely, pure affirmation without a subject or person. This force is then overcome and what follows is the supreme stage, a reference point unto itself called avikalpa. Here atman "knows and knows not," which is another way of saying that it does not know according to knowledge that implies an objectification, or "something else," since knowledge in this context refers to something "simple," anubhuti. "Atman both differs and does not differ from becoming." It is itself "under all the forms of being from which it differs." Hence the following view, which is identical to the "perfect knowledge" (prajnaparamita) of Mahayana Buddhism: "Truly there is neither disappearing nor becoming. There is nobody who binds, or who acts, or who needs liberation, or who is liberated."

Aside from these metaphysical insights concerning the nature of the world, the bottom of the descending or the extroverted process is represented by the material objectivity of the world itself, that is, by physical "matter." In matter, the extreme form of "thinking the other" is found in a condensed state. Both the Chandogya-Upanishad and the Gandharva-Tantra speak of the self-hypnotic and magical power whereby an object's thought generates itself and is transformed into it. Consciousness, by thinking "other," namely, a distinct reality, and by following the law of craving, eventually generates "other" and becomes other. Matter therefore is the experience and the symbol of a self-identification carried to its extreme consequences. Only ignorance arising out of desire and self-identification (maya-shakti as kamarupini), which takes place during the outward phase, makes nature appear to be actual. In the West, Meister Eckhart wrote that even a stone is God, except it does not know it. It is precisely the lack of awareness of being God (avidya) that causes it to be a stone. This is also the case of that particular phase of the manifestation in which Shakti prevails: nature is then perceived not as a self-subsistent reality but rather as a magical/cosmic participation in an idea, in a state of being. We would not perceive nature in these terms if there were in us no maya-shakti, which is a similar function at work in our being.

Beyond the limits of nature, the steps of the ascending process - which correspond to degrees of awakening and of knowledge (vidya) - are reflected in the hierarchy of beings under the aspect of objectifications and cosmic symbols.

Once these beings overcome the dark passions of matter and (33) break free from the control of their inferior and prehuman nature, they will arise in forms animated by an increasingly conscious and free life. The corresponding limit is the state in which the spirit no longer exists in the form of an object or an "other" (under the species of "otherness") but rather as it is in itself (atmasvarupi). In it, Shakti, instead of being a binding principle, manifests herself as Tara, "she who imparts freedom." Thanks to her, even what seems imperfect and finite now looks perfect and absolute.

From an immanent pont of view, the expereince in terms of nature and matter of what corresponds, metaphysically speaking, to a series of stages of the one and only spiritual reality, depends on each individual's degree of avidya. It constitutes maya-shakti's action in him. However, Shiva, the subject and lord of this function, dwells as a principle in everybody. He is the same supreme power that is experienced in a given aspect of the cosmic play, and he is as he chooses to be. One can only remain passive before maya-shakti and be unable to assume it and reduce it to its principle. That is the only reason why the original Shakti cannot be found free and wholesome in every form and aspect of reality, and also why the world is not expeerienced as release, according to the Kularnava-Tantra's formulation and Mahayana Buddhism's deepest insight.

More specifically, a peculiar encounter or dynamic connection between maya-shakti and shiva-shakti must be acknowledged in every form and being of the universe. The supreme synthesis may be compared to a flame that, after consuming the matter from which it was kindled, has finally become pure energy or pure act. With respect to that synthesis, every particular finite existence is characterized by a certain inadequacy of the two principles and by different degrees of power. According to Tantric metaphysics, materiality, unconsciousness, conditioned beings, and maya (in the Vedantic sense of the word) all have their roots in these various degrees. In every finite being, the two primordial forms of Parashakti (male and female; Shiva, who is "knowledge," and Shakti, who is "ignorance"; centrifugal and centripetal movement) are found in a different relationship and quantity. According to this point of view, whatever power is to be found in a given being that has not yet become actualized in the form of Shiva is said to be Shakti. Shiva or shiva-shakti is instead identified with whatever is unified, transformed, transparent, and luminous. More specifically, matter, body, and soul correspond to the former, the atman element to the latter. In any event, in Tantrism both of them are considered to be simply(34) two different manifestations of the same principle, of the same reality.

Since the union of Shiva and Shakti in both states of existence is not perfect and absolute as in the level reached by the supreme synthesis, the spirit therefore experiences its own power as shakti and as maya-shakti, or as something different, even as a phantasm of the external world. The nature of finite beings consists in being dominated by shakti rather than by dominating it. According to the Tantras the difference between Ishvara (God, in theistic Hinduism) or Shiva and the finite living being, jiva, is that despite their being both conjoined to maya and metaphysically the same thing, the former dominates maya, while the latter is dominated by it.

To sum up what has been discussed in this chapter, we may conclude that the Tantras state the intention of reconciling a transcendental truth, namely, monism, or the Upanishadic doctrine of nonduality (Advaita), with the truth proper to every living being's dualistic and concrete experience. This reconciliation is accomplished by thinking of brahman as an actual unity of Shiva and Shakti, which are two principles superseding Sankhya's purusha and prakriti. The notion of shakti is what mediates between the I and the not-I, the conditioned and the unconditioned, the conscious spirit and nature, the mind and the body (physis), and the will and reality. This notion brings those apparently antithetical principles into a higher transcendental unity, whose implementation is offered to man as a real possibility. In the Kularnava-Tantra (1:110) Parashakti says: "In the world some desire nondualistic, others dualistic knowledge, but those who have known my truth have passed beyond dualism and nondualism(35)."

-Julius Evola