PARTISAN REVIEW
were interested only in seeing : first the images on the screen, then
the things themselves in the dim light of the fire in the cave, until
finally those who want to see the truth must leave the common
world of the cave altogether and embark upon their new adventure
all by themselves. In other words, the whole realm of human affairs
is seen from the viewpoint of a philosophy which assumes that even
those who inhabit the cave of ordinary human affairs are human
only insofar as they too want to see, though deceived by shadows
and images.
This dichotomy, between seeing the truth in solitude and speech–
lessness and being caught in the web of relationships and interde–
pendencies of human affairs through speaking and acting, became
authoritative for the tradition of political thought.
It
is at the basis
of our common understanding of the relationship between thought
and action and as such was not dependent upon an acceptance of
Plato's doctrine of ideas; it depended much rather on a general atti–
tude which Plato expressed in another random remark and which
Aristotle later quoted almost verbatim, namely that the beginning
of all philosophy is
thaumadzein,
the surprised wonder at every–
thing that is as it is. This surprise and wonder separate the few
from the many and alienate them from the affairs of man. Aris–
totle, therefore, without accepting Plato's doctrine of ideas, and even
repudiating Plato's ideal state, still followed him in the main by sep–
arating the
bios theortitikos
from the
bios politikos
and by basing
the rules for the latter on the experiences of the former. The prior–
ity of seeing over doing and speaking, of the
vita contemplativa
over the
vita activa,
could be challenged only in the modem age,
when an altogether new "scientific spirit" had begun to doubt that
things are as they appear, replacing experience, the reasoning but
non-interfering observation of appearances, with the modern experi–
ment, where we prescribe conditions in order to know, until the
search for truth eventually ended in the conviction of the modern
world that man can know only what he makes himself.
Since the rise of modern science, whose spirit is expressed iri
the Cartesian philosophy of doubt and mistrust, the conceptual frame–
work of the tradition has not been secure. The dichotomy between
contemplation and action, and the hierarchy which ruled that truth
is ultimately perceived only in speechless and actionless seeing, could
