The pursuit of meaning: secular versus spiritual

Classical Platonism is a "rational spirituality," as I like to call it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Plotinus—these are not modern, secular thinkers. The Divine has an important place in their philosophy. And yet, they are the source of our intellectual life, here in secular modernity. What I call the "phenomenological Platonists"—Iris Murdoch, Raimond Gaita—are secular and atheistic. So where am I leading you? Into a rational spirituality, or toward secularity?

To answer this question I am going to engage you in some philosophy. It is a little abstract, so please do not be put off by assuming that all my conversations with clients are at this level. At the same time, this is a good opportunity to do some philosophy. Importantly, what I am about to share with you lies at the centre of my philosophical thinking. 
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To be a philosopher in the tradition of Plato is to develop a detachment from particularity, and to attach instead to the universal.

What do I mean? Let us take the example of goodness. It is not a meaningless word, nor does it refer to pizza, or the weather. Rather, it is something you can characterise, and eventually define. There is something that is goodness, a universal form of goodness. We do not find it a certain location in the world, as one object among others, but rather every example of goodness that we encounter is a particular case of goodness, but it is not the universal form itself.

An analogy might help here. What is a circle? What is its form, its essence? That is, what is a true circle? A circle is a curved line where every point is the same distance from a centre. That is the definition, the essence, the universal form, of a circle. We do not encounter that universal form in material reality; rather we encounter examples of circles, particular cases, which participate in that universal form to some imperfect degree. This is why we can be better or worse at the freehand drawing, or at the chiselling out, of circles.

​Likewise, particular good things participate in the form or nature of goodness, but each in a limited way, which is precisely what makes them particular. This means that each case of "a good thing" is good in certain respects, but not in others. Indeed, despite their sharing in the universal form of goodness, some particular cases of goodness will not only differ from others, but be contrary to certain other cases of goodness.

On the one hand, that is a fine thing. That is the multiplicity of the universe. On the other hand, it is a cause of confusion and even strife. For people become attached to one particular form of goodness as though it were goodness in itself. When people do this, they reduce goodness in itself to their favoured particular form of goodness. They become inclined then to deny that the other forms of goodness are good at all. Indeed, they treat them as competitors, and so threats, and that invites attack.

The error here is the conflation of the universal with the particular. It is to reduce the universal to the particular.

Philosophy lifts our mind beyond all this. It reveals levels, enabling us to distinguish between the universal form of a thing and its many particular examples. These particular examples can differ in many respects from one another, while each participates in the universal. Philosophy guides us to see the universal clearly and to attach our desire to it, and to possess no more than a preference when it comes to the particular. This is a discipline of attention and of desire. This is wisdom, and the virtue that grows from it.

What are these universals I am talking about? They are many, for everything has a form, otherwise it would not exist, but the universals I am concerned with include goodness, beauty, justice, truth, and at a level below that, reason, happiness, flourishing, creativity, courage, and so forth. What we love in life, and what makes both us and our lives good, are the particular embodiments of these universals and others at their levels.

As a philosophical counsellor, I help you (1) to discern the universals, and (2) to embody them in the particulars of your worldview, and (3) to embody them in the particularity that is your way of being. For example, I help you to consider the form of human flourishing—its reality, its nature, its conditions in life—and I help you to cultivate a view of life that embodies that as well as possible, albeit in some particular and so limited way. And I help you embody human flourishing as well as possible in your individual way of being and concrete, particular life. Likewise with truth: we explore its nature, cultivate a worldview which is as true as possible, and a way of being that embodies it as well as possible.

This raises a question. "Surely Matthew has arrived at a certain worldview, which, granting its limitations, he views as the best expression of truth that he can find? It would be strange if he had not done so; indeed it would raise questions about his potential to help others in this regard."

That raises further questions. "I am a commited atheist; is Matthew going to try to convert me to some spiritual view of his?" Or, likewise: "My spiritual commitments are true and vital to the meaning of my life; is Matthew going to undermine that, is he going to try to convert me to a secular view?"

I have already answered this, at least implicitly. It is why I have taken this detour into Platonic philosophy. I have set out my commitment. It is to truth. To goodness. To beauty. To kindness, courage, creativity, and so on. My concern is with the forms of these, more than their particular embodiments. When it comes to their embodiments, I recognise the variety. I am at peace with that. I am interested in exploring and working with difference. This is Platonism.

If you are committed to secularity, for example if you are an atheist, we will work within that framework. If you have a spirituality, or seek one, we will work within that framework. In either case, my work is to help you explore the nature of goodness, and to embody it as well as possible, within your framework. Likewise for any other form. No matter the framework, goodness transcends that, and it is with goodness, or any other such quality, that I am most fundamentally concerned.

Many atheists will say: "That is ridiculous, and you, Sir, are a vacuous "Yes-man"! For how can you speak of reason and truth, and yet take a Christian seriously?" A Christian might say: "How can you not see that reason leads to God, and that only Godly people are good?"

I am a philosophical counsellor, and in particular a Platonist. I am not a dogmatist who needs others to agree. What I want is that you embody truth, goodness, justice, strength, happiness, human flourishing, and so forth, as well as possible. That will be "as well as possible" within your commitments, but those are yours to decide. This is not because I do not care about truth. It is because, like a mainstream counsellor, my role is not to make your decisions in life, but to help you live more fully as a human being. And like a professor of philosophy in the tutorial room, my role is not to press you into a worldview, but to help you to think well. As a Platonic philosopher, my role is to guide you to embody all those higher qualities I speak of. Like Socrates in Plato's dialogues, the forms of the true, the good, and so forth, are my true commitment.

Of course, I do have my own views in life. I will describe two of them. For a have a passion for secularity, and for spirituality, which addresses the two broad concerns I am discussing here.

I have a passion for secular modernity—not that version which is rationalistic or scientistic (which is, of course, irrational and unscientific). Not that version which objectifies, which reduces us to mechanisms, which is arrogant, blind, and nihilistic. Rather, I have a passion for modernity as truth-seeking, which is to say genuinely rational and scientific, which is humanistic and universalist in its ethics, and which is phenomenological in its understanding of human life. More particularly, I have a passion for secularity in the form of a phenomenological Platonism, the kind we find in Iris Murdoch, Christopher Corder, and Raimond Gaita, as well, in an unusual but profound way, in Simone Weil. A Platonism which brackets off metaphysics, religion, and so on, and looks deeply into human experience, and experiences the depths of that experience in ways which heal, grow, and guide us. In this Platonic way, I have a passion for cultivating a secular modernity that is as good, beautiful, true, just, and so forth, as possible. Indeed, I am protective of it, concerned about the threats to it in our time. Thankfully, I am one person in a sea of people with such explicit concerns, or who in their many different implicit ways are contributing to this creative, civilisational project.

I have also a deep interest in religion and spirituality. I have a Platonist's passion for helping other people, whose spiritualities differ from mine, to bring out all that is best in theirs. To cultivate and embody a form of it that is as good, beautiful, true, just, and so forth, as possible. 

The question was, however, about my own personal commitments in this realm. I have only a interest not only in exploring other spiritualities and helping people in them, but I have a passion for a particular form of spirituality, which aims at articulating what is universal. That might sound like an astonishing blind spot, as if I am saying that in my case the spirituality is universal, but take careful heed of what I say. I am speaking of a philosophical form of spirituality. One which seeks to articulate the forms, and to understand their particular embodiments in the light of them. This is Platonism. That is my spirituality. It is an ancient one.

Platonism is not only phenomenological, in the modern secular sense in which we encounter Iris Murdoch or Raimond Gaita. It was, in classical times, a "rational spirituality." It starts in philosophising and ends in mystical union with the divine. The chief voice in this deeply spiritual aspect of the Platonic tradition is, after Plato, Plotinus.

For Plotinus, the world is an emanation or radiation from the divine. Like the light thrown out by a candle. At this, the furthest metaphysical distance from the flame, light is mixed with shadow, the good with its negation, happiness with suffering. We are not the divine in itself, but we are emanations of the divine, and so the path back is not toward something outside of us; rather it is inward. We need to focus on seeing and becoming more of what we already are. Plotinus' image is that of wiping away the mud to reveal the reality that was there all along. This work begins with the cultivation of the same reason and virtues that concern a secular mindset; there is no "spiritual bypassing" here. That draws explicitly on Aristotle's map of the cultivation of wisdom and virtue and flourishing. It includes also Stoicism, especially Epictetus, who gives so much wisdom for strength and focus on the path. The inward path ascends, however, as per Plato, from being alive to the beauty in the world, and through love of that, to a deepening inward ourney into one's own depths as an emanation of the divine. This spirituality is best outlined by Pierre Hadot's Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision and, following that, Joseph Moreau's Plotinus or The Glory of Ancient Philosophy.

So yes, I have commitments. As a philosopher, my two loves are the cultivation of a richer form of secularity, which is the civilisational project into which I have been born, and which I embrace deeply, albeit to a degree. I say "to a degree" because I have encountered nothing as beautiful as Plotinus' vision of reality, which he takes from Plato, and I practice that path. Of course, even that path can be "read" at both these levels, and often is--the difference between Hadot and Moreau (above) is a fine example. These two paths constitute for me complementary, if distinct, kinds of work. I am well aware that many people will have trouble imagining this; for many have not trained themselves in this philosophical detachment from particulars, of the kind that enables a creative engagement with multiplicity. Philosophy is a discipline which, bit by bit, raises us to what the Stoics called the cosmic view. It is a path that is in equal parts immanence and transcendence.

This is my "intellectual confession," if you like. I respect the framework you bring to me. If it is a nihilistic form of secularism I will challenge it, but it will be the nihilism I challenge, not the secularity. Indeed, my commitment will be to help you cultivate a more powerful, beneficial form of secularity. I do not need you to agree with me; what I ask, or invite, is that we pursue what is good, even if your preferred form of it differs from mine. That is not relativism, it is not a case of "anything goes"—the egoist will be challenged, the cruel will be challenged. But it is a deeply open way of seeing the world, for the good takes so many forms, is found in so many places. We might say that my concern is less with what you believe, as with how you believe, and even far more than that, with who you are, and what you are making yourself into.