Idealism

"Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality.
Which, then, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?" ~ Novalis

What did Plato really mean when he said "ideas are things"?

We say "an apple", but what we mean to indicate is really "the form of an apple". Conversely, we will indicate the form, and believe that we have identified the thing. We hold that the idea of an apple is not the thing, but an abstraction from it, while the form is the apple proper. But, what if the reverse were true: what if that which we now call "an apple" were understood to be, not an apple, but, merely "the form of an apple"? What if, rather than saying "the idea of an apple", we were to say only "an apple", and take the idea to be the thing; just as we now take the form to be the thing? What would this reversal suggest for ourselves? Also, for our culture, and the values it promotes?

If we considered ideas as things a priori would they perhaps command the respect we now reserve for hard currency? If we held that forms are not real things, but abstractions, would we then be forced to look upon them as mere appearances? How rich would this make the poor man, and how poor would seem the rich man's riches?

Granted, the idea of an apple cannot be eaten. But it can be utilized in a thousand inventive ways to illustrate a thousand beautiful, natural truths. The form of an apple, on the other hand, is good only for eating. It is here one minute, devoured the next, and if we wish to recall it, we find that it may only be recalled in a more ghastly, more vomitous form.

How is it that forms have come to occupy such a high position in our thoughts? Is it only because they are rare, -- at least, relative to ideas, which "materialize" (if I may be permitted to stretch the word so far) at the speed of will, and the ease of intention? Is it because they are difficult to procure and maintain? Is it because they must be guarded against theft and decay?

If we were to consider ideas as things, and forms as abstractions, it is conceivable that the things which ought to matter most in life -- the intangible things, like honesty, hope, loyalty, compassion, friendship, and so on, -- would actually begin to matter most in our lives; and not just in our personal lives, but in our culture, our politics, our businesses and economies, as well.

It may be that the prejudices we hold about what constitutes reality keep us from appreciating what is most precious, and most present to us. Perhaps even our language, in the most fundamental ways, undermines our appreciation for what is, by constantly suggesting to us that what exists in the mind does not really exist, and that what is wrought in matter possesses eternal "weight".

How shall we best prepare ourselves for the world to come; the world of spirits? By endeavoring to see matter as the only real thing? By accumulating possessions? By seeking, rather than finding what the Lord has set before us?

Or, -- as was believed by Plato, Novalis, and the greatest mystics of all faiths, -- by endeavoring to imbue the life of the soul with greater meaning and immediacy than we have done thus far, and by recognizing as real and valuable the objects of the mind, which the soul has called before it? Let every person judge.

For my part, I believe the most needful thing is not a "thing" in the ordinary sense.

As a culture, as a people, what we need to remember is that, ultimately, the ideas do not come out of a book. Ultimately, the books come out of an idea.

While this may seem to convey a fairly minor point, and may even seem to be saying nothing of any actual substance, but merely presenting a clever peek at an out-of-the-way, and inapplicable-to-anything-earthly, perspective on the world, the reality is that nothing could be more fundamental to the hygienic orientation of human consciousness in our time.

We have become thorough materialists, and while our great religious and philosophical traditions proclaim the primacy of the immaterial, the mysterious and the subtle, our most common words and actions reveal the deep-rooted prejudices we harbor in favor of what is solid, unchanging and manifest.

Our economies are working us to the bone, robbing Nature of her resources, and us of our inheritances, at an alarming and unprecedented rate, all for the sake of humanity's intensifying compulsion to see itself, and its ideas, reflected in matter.

We reverence the idea only as the germ of the form. The form, which once seemed necessary to legitimize, and bring reverence to, the idea, and, ultimately, to the dynamic life of the spirit which underlies it, has become an idol. An end in itself. In many ways, an end.

These forms which were meant to serve the greater glory of the unmanifest, mutable, unsayable, active life of the spirit, are now only the "whited sepulchres" concealing our unenviable necromancy.

What is needful, above all things, is that we see matter as an emanation of spirit; as spirit a posteriori. Conversely, that we see spirit as both the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, of manifestations; as matter a priori.

We must discover, or return to, the place where ultimate truth is held in reverence, while the forms, and efforts to obtain them, which surround us in the visible world, are recognized as secondary, and positively worhless if, when, and to the extent that, they cannot put us in mind of the invisible, but only of themselves.

The life of what is good is more abundant. "Truth springs eternal", for those with eyes aturned to it. Spoken words, and even words unspoken, can have a greater value than the most priceless, and certainly the most covetous objects; for covetousness is an evil if it is not covetousness of the spirit; "the desire to be everywhere at home", or what Novalis calls "philosophy".

To covet philosophy is not to seek power over your fellows, but, to give yourself over to what is most directly at hand. Philosophy is the fruit that hangs on your every word, and waits to be plucked, or else, to fall, unsuspected, back into the fertile earth of the unconscious.

Nothing is so ready to your hand, nay, to your mind, than philosophy. She offers her breast out of every window. She motions to you from just around every corner. She procures for you infinite pleasures without effort or cost, and has always something more to promise, always something more to say. She is unobtainable in her entirety, and, yet, she is everywhere to be enjoyed.

What, I ask you, -- what -- could be more needful than this: that we disdain the dead offerings of the world, and pursue the only mistress worthy of our favor; the mistress whose favors only we, as true children of heaven, are worthy of?