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Regnum Hominis

Some Observations on Modern Subjectivism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Kostas Papaioannou
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The medieval view of the universe as entirely theophany, manifestation of God; and hierarchy, the ordered participation of all beings to God, could not conceive of an opposition between subject and object. Aut lux hic nata est aut capta hic libera regnat, “here the light is born, or here, captive, it freely reigns,” may be read in the vestibule of a chapel at Ravenna: that not yet created golden light enclosing heaven and earth in the selfsame unity where everything became perceptible at a single glance. From an infinite distance descended the Word, filling the void and becoming the universe; while from below, the rising wave of adoration gradually divested created beings of their terrestrial weight, introducing finiteness and multiplicity into the realm of immutable crystalline eternity. Light as the most efficacious means of sanctification, as the surest way of negating the restrictive power of thingness: this was the basis on which Robert Grosseteste formulated an entire light-cosmogony. The stained glass masters of the cathedrals of the West, and the Byzantine mosaicists held the same view. The description of Saint Sophia, made in the 6th century by Paul the Silentiaire, leads us right into the heart of this magical world of light:

The apse is like a peacock, whose plumage has a hundred eyes. One's sight is blinded by the brilliant light emanating from the golden immensity of the vault. It is a Latin and barbaric display at the same time. The altar is of gold; it rests on golden columns and golden supports; other than gold there are only sparkling gems. In the evening so much light is reflected from the temple that you would think it to be a nocturnal sun. Resplendent night laughs like dawn; it too seems to have rosy feet. The navigator needs no other lighthouse; he need only gaze at the radiant temple.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 11 , Issue 41 , March 1963 , pp. 26 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © 1963 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Georges Duthuit, Le feu des signes, 1962.

2 "Why do you torment your too-tiny soul with Eternity's design? Why don't you go stretch out under the lofty plane tree or pine?"

3 Plato, Gorgias, 508a.

4 Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great I, II, 7.

5 Plato, Laws, 966e.

6 Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, II, V, 3.

7 Cfr. Karl Jaspers' penetrating observations: Über das Tragische, 1952.

8 Cf. our essay "Nature and History in the Greek Conception of the Cosmos," in Diogenes, No. 25.

9 Machiavelli, History of Florence, Book III, Chap. 13.

10 Act IV, Scene 3.

11 Maurice de Gandillac, Pascal et le silence du monde. In Pascal, l'homme et son œuvre (éd. Cahiers de Royaumont) pp. 345-6.

12 Pascal, Pensées (éd. Brunschvicg, 1913) frag. 72 (p. 348).

13 Ibid. frag. 695 (p. 647).

14 Ibid. frag. 144 (p. 399).

15 Ibid. frag. 693 (p. 646).

16 Ibid. frag. 72 (p. 350).

17 Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 641-42.

18 Descartes, 3rd Meditation.

19 Aristotle, Eth. Eudem. VII, 14.

20 Hegel, SW (Jubiläumsausgabe), XVI, 429.

21 Carolus Bovillus, De Sapiente, 1509, Chap. XIX.

22 Cf. Plato, Laws, 903 b-d; Marcus Aurelius, XII, 8, 10; Plotinus, II, 9, 9.

23 Bovillus, op. cit. Chap. XXVI.

24 Bovillus, De Sensu, fol. 22.

25 Bovillus, De Sapiente, Chap. V.

26 Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, No. 1.

27 Nicholas of Cues, Idiota, III, 7.

28 Marsilio Ficino, Theologia Platonica, pp. 298, 378.

29 Descartes, Discours de la Méthode, VI.

30 Kant, Opus postumum (after Adickes, C 333).

31 Fichte, Briefe (ed. Plitt) II, 326.

32 Hegel, Encyclopädie, 248, 286. SW (Jubiläumsausgabe) IX, 56 and X, 44.

33 Hegel, Encyclopädie, 337; SW, IX, 451.

34 Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes (ed. Meiner, 1949) p. 236.

35 R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (N.Y. 1956) pp. 206-7.

36 Cited by B. Grœrhusen, Origines de l'esprit bourgeois en France, 1956, p. 215.

37 Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, p. 149 ff.

38 Hegel, Realphilosophie, 1804, I, 237.

39 Hegel, System der Sittlichkeit, 1801-2, in Schriften zur Politik (ed. Lasson, 1923), pp. 431 and 428-9.

40 "Ah, those pagans" Marx says ironically, Das Kapital (ed. Dietz, 1951), I, 428, comparing them with the barbarity of modern entrepreneurs who make use of the machine in order to prolong the working day. But those pagans would have been still more horrified by Marx' wanting to transform labor into "Man's primary need…"

41 Hegel, System der Sittlichkeit, p. 434.

42 Marx, Nationalökonomie und Philosophie (1844. Ed. Kiepenheuer 1950), pp. 147, 192.

43 Ibid., p. 192. We have analyzed this technocratic philosophy (or non-philosophy) of the young Marx in our essay "Marx y la soberania de la industria," Revista mexicana de literatura, Nos. 4-6, Mexico, 1956.

44 Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Dietz, 1951), p. 268.

45 Turgot, Œuvres (1808) II, 272.

46 Marx, Die Deutsche Ideologie (ed. Dietz, 1953), pp. 40-43.

47 Schelling, SW, X, p. 72.

48 Dokumente zu Hegels Entwicklung (ed. Hoffmeister 1936), p. 360.

49 Herder, SW, v, 574; Hegel, SW, II in fine; Marx, SW, IX, 226.