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Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals / Iris Murdoch

What we see is the Demiurg's model of the eternal reality, made in
another material, while he can see the original. This is something which
we can imagine, as a picture of our relation to an absolute. The
Demiurge sees the Forms, responding to their magnetism, but does not of
course converse with them. These magnetic and illuminateing objects are
seperate and unresponsive. They are in and with themselves, simple and
eternal: not the sort of thing with whic one holds a dialogue. We do not
have dialogues with Goodness. In an important sense Goodness MUST be
Ides. If an incarnate model is proposed we still must judge the model.
Only to say 'must' and 'judge' sounds rather too harsh and mechanical.
In Platonic terms we recognise what we already know. Goodness is an
idea, an ideal, yet it is also evidently and actively incarnate all
around us, charged with the love which Demiurge feels for the eternal
Forms as he creates the cosmos. So we are ALSO able to evoke mystical
Buddhas and mystical Christs who as historical figures were imperfect
men, together with innumerable other images and tokens of perfect
spiritual ideas. Buber's memorable distinction between the I-Thou
relation and the I-it relation seems to simple and exclusive, and may
indeed suggest the old fascinating division of fact from value, which
makes nothing of the greater part of our ordinary life of knowings and
actings. Much, in some cases most, of our spiritual energy and
understanding comes from non-reciprocal relationships with what is
beyond and other. Our relation with a foreign language which we are
learning is not reciprocal. (That we may enjoy what we learn is another
matter.) We are helped if we have active principles of dilligence and
truthfulness standing by. If what we are learning is to love a person
unselfishly, we have the privilege of dialogu, and need also the
presence of good ideals and desires. In either case the impersonal
'presence' may be felt as external (the voice of duty, the ideal of
goodnessi etc.) or as an instinctive source of relevant power.
(Elsewhere in the soul.) Buber wondering how one might give sense to
Heidegger's concept of Being, refers to Christian mystics and
scholastics who speak of contemplating the Godhead as it is in itself
prior to creation. But he adds that Eckhart follows Plato in holding
that God is above Being. "Est denim Deus super esse et ens". Only of
course Plato says this of Good, not God. The supreme principle of love
is not and cannot be an existing thing (or person) and is separate from,
though magnetically connected with, contingent 'stuff' however thought
of in some contexts as fundamental. God or gods, or a metaphysical
conception of History, or a Life Force or Cosmic Rhytm, or protons or
genes or DNA, or "archi-écriture", may be or have been (plausibly or
implausibly) said to have some "fundamental" status which is to be
contrasted with ordinary existence. But Good would not be a part of
this, it would be above it in the position of its judge.

Iris Murdoch
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Penguin

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Iris Murdoch'ın 'Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals' kitabından alıntı
http://epigraf.fisek.com.tr/index.php?num=509
Emre Sururi tarafından, 31/05/2001 tarihinde gönderildi.
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