In Memoriam: Tradition and Memory in Alasdair MacIntyre's Thought
A lecture delivered at The Shalem College, Jerusalem in memory of the late philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre.
This lecture was delivered at The Shalem College, Jerusalem, in memory of the late philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. The lecture reflects the unique settings and occasion of the lecture in Israel of our time.
I'll begin by saying that I want to dedicate this lecture to all those who are drafted to the reserves. Among my friends, many are currently drafted and therefore couldn't attend—but they asked that the main points of the session be conveyed to them. Some were fortunate and at this stage are not required, so they are here. Either way, the reservists demonstrate day by day, in citizenship, on the home front and at the front, the good measure of courage.
The topic I've chosen for today is "tradition and memory" in the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre. Why this topic? In an essay on the storyteller, Walter Benjamin once wrote, if I may paraphrase: The event of death is that in which all of life receives, for the first time, the possibility of transmission. And therefore, one can say that death is the material from which stories are made.
I thought about this not only because I read Benjamin's essay at the time through MacIntyre's concept of narrative. I thought about this because Benjamin's diagnosis allows us, in my opinion, to understand why MacIntyre's own death might constitute MacIntyre's entry into tradition. It allows us, for the first time, the possibility of interpreting MacIntyre as a totality. It frees us from the very justified concern that some of us had during his lifetime—that he had not yet finished telling us what he had to tell us. This lecture is intended, for me, to be part of the process of MacIntyre's initiation, a process that has already begun long ago, into a place of honor in the tradition of Western philosophy.
During the lecture I will try to present MacIntyre's thought in his book "After Virtue" through the philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe. This presentation will lead me to MacIntyre's concept of tradition and the way "After Virtue" connects to his later thought. Tradition in MacIntyre includes his concept of memory—which will lead me to the concluding discussion of the role of poetry in our memory.
MacIntyre's book "After Virtue," written in 1981, is a difficult book. It contains many different arguments that branch out from a central argument that itself requires clarification and development—clarifications and developments that MacIntyre took upon himself to make by expanding the book into three more books: Whose Justice? Which Rationality?; Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry; and Dependent Rational Animals. I will try to give some preliminary introduction to "After Virtue" that maintains fidelity not only to this book, but to the broader project of which it is part.
The argument in "After Virtue" is so long and detailed that it's difficult to do it justice in summary. One way might have been to offer you the thought experiment in the first part of MacIntyre's book, which in his view reflects reality. But the disadvantage of the pictorial expression of this thought experiment is that it suggests that what we lack in our moral inquiry is some kind of framework of reference. A framework of reference similar to the framework of reference of modern science. The experiment is as follows: supposedly, we have moral Einsteins and we have moral Heisenbergs. But in MacIntyre's scenario they lack a shared framework of reference to discuss in the precise way their theses relate to one another. Supposedly we don't even know how to attribute the central achievements of one of them to practices of observations of macro objects and the other to practices of observations of sub-atomic objects. But as we shall see, MacIntyre argues in the book that we lack more than a shared framework of reference, if we are to understand it only through this analogy to modern science. In fact, the dimension that this analogy conceals from us is precisely how the modern concept of reason that was shaped before the scientific revolutions and enabled them destroyed the concept of reason that MacIntyre called "traditional." It is precisely part of this difference that I want to draw attention to in MacIntyre's concept of tradition.
It seems to me that a good way to present MacIntyre's central argument is through Elizabeth Anscombe's foundational 1958 article. Anscombe wrote the article "Modern Moral Philosophy," which unfortunately exists only in a poor Hebrew translation. Anscombe, a choice student of Wittgenstein's, is perhaps the main contender for the title of the unjustly forgotten philosopher in twentieth-century philosophy. She is also, for those who notice, the only philosopher in "After Virtue" whom MacIntyre acknowledges he is indebted to. MacIntyre's excellent intellectual biographer, Perreau-Saussine, argues that MacIntyre's entire understanding of Aristotle is mediated, at least at this stage of his work, by Anscombe's work and thought. Unfortunately, time is too short for us to enter into all the ways in which MacIntyre's central argument in the book expands the argument in her article. I can offer you a portrait of the shared claim.
The central claim is that modern moral philosophy, including the Aristotelian, is not the place to learn from how to be moral. Or more correctly, how to live. Anscombe's first and important point is that modern moral philosophers did not understand the importance of understanding how to correctly describe a certain situation for applying certain rules to that situation. For example, they did not consider that it's possible to describe a situation where someone murdered someone else in terms that do not describe murder, but by finding creative ways to describe the situation in other ways. For example, that perhaps it's possible to describe murder as a particular case of simple killing. Or a case of lying that can be described in terms of heroism where no lie occurred at all. General commands, Anscombe tells us correctly, need some systematic sense of conditioning the possible descriptions.
The true heart of Anscombe's claim lies in her critique of Hume. Hume, as is known, is the ancestor of the modern distinction that in the twentieth century received the dubious name "the naturalistic fallacy." The naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy that seems to exist in the transition between judgments of "the state of affairs is thus and so" to sentences in the style of "it ought to be thus and so." For example: if I lack water to drink, then water ought to be brought to me to drink. Anscombe points to the enormous importance of this distinction, which originates historically with Hume. The distinction is later expressed in a series of philosophical appearances: in the hermetic separation that Kant makes between the domain of morality and the domain of nature, later in the neo-Kantian distinction between facts and values, and in the attempt of modern philosophers from Diderot to Sidgwick to establish morality as an autonomous domain. Since Hume's argument was taken, especially by Moore, to be an argument that follows from a correct analysis of discourse, Anscombe criticizes the move from this prism. She shows convincingly that if it's a question of transition from descriptions of "the state of things is thus and so" to descriptions in the style of "it ought to be thus and so," then the analysis might teach us something about the hierarchical relations between facts, but at no stage are we justified in claiming that there is a fallacy in the use of language insofar as we indeed make inferences of this style. Precisely through the comparison between Hebrew and English we might get a better sense of this matter: in English it is perfectly correct to say something in the style of "The machine needs oil, it ought to be lubricated." In modern Hebrew, on the other hand, "ראוי" (ought) has almost completely lost all its uses that do not stem from the autonomy of the moral domain. After all, saying "The machine needs oil, it ought to be lubricated" sounds at least strange (in Hebrew). But precisely the fact that this sounds strange points us to the fact that something in the comparison between English and Hebrew points to a historical change.
At this point Anscombe demonstrates that Hume actually has a point. The original context in which there was a continuous sense between everyday descriptions as we described regarding the machine to moral judgments was within the Aristotelian-theistic framework of the Middle Ages. In MacIntyre's words: in the Middle Ages the concept of purpose had both a hypothetical-teleological sense, in the style of "if you do thus and so... then you will be happy" and a categorical sense, in the sense of "you must obey God." This context, for reasons that MacIntyre goes into extensively, began to break down in the late Middle Ages and up to the nineteenth century. Therefore Hume, when he analyzes language, does so in such a way that inferring moral statements from descriptive statements becomes incorrect. Hume is indeed not right regarding reality—but his analysis of reality correctly reflects a historical reality that came into being in the modern world. A historical reality in which man has no relation to any natural duty. And he has no such relation because his reason grasps only duties and purposes that he sets for himself.
In this sense Anscombe's argument heralded MacIntyre's extensive and interesting analyses regarding the unique sociology and history of modernity. MacIntyre claimed two things in parallel regarding the central thinkers of modernity, such as Weber for example. On one hand, their distinctions are not correct, if we examine them from within reference to the "traditional view," namely the Aristotelian. On the other hand, they indeed reflect a historical reality that came into being. And not only a historical reality, but a reality that concerns our correct use of language. In this sense playing in the field of contemporary moral arguments is an almost meaningless activity. The sociological analyses almost certainly take precedence over the arguments heard in arguments of this kind. They take precedence because there is no longer a traditional framework that constitutes the shared standard by which such arguments might be decided. The only command that reason succeeds in imposing is negative: do not contradict yourself.
The history of modern moral philosophy is the attempt to arrive from a thin concept of reason to the maintenance of a morality that existed in the Middle Ages. A morality whose power behind its arguments and the domain to which they refer is identical to the domain they had in the Middle Ages. That is, it offers at least implicitly how part of the life we live should look. But this is of course a goal that cannot be reached without assuming a framework of reference analogous to that which ethical discussions in the Middle Ages assumed. In other words, our conceptual language has been corrupted beyond recognition. It is important that this story, which is basically a story of the degeneration of the tradition of Western inquiry, can only be told while giving up neutrality. The neutrality that the modern historian, following the modern philosopher, claims for himself. This story in other words assumes in advance the traditional framework, even if not exactly the Aristotelian one. What can be done after all?
I want to dwell a bit on this point, because it seems this annoyed MacIntyre when they tried to understand his argument differently. MacIntyre's claim is that the context in which claims are heard changes the truth value they might hold. If in a theoretical context the meaning is the domain of possibility of a series of signs, in a practical context the meaning is primarily social, institutional and finally traditional context. Therefore in the prologue he wrote to the third edition of "After Virtue," published in 2007 and therefore unfortunately not translated into Hebrew—Shalem's translation was made in 2006—he returns and emphasizes that
It is important to note that I am not arguing that Aristotelian moral theory is able to demonstrate rational superiority in terms that would be acceptable to the figures of academic philosophy. We should not expect that in theoretical competitions in modern arenas, Aristotelians will be able to defeat Kantians, utilitarians or contractualists. Not only is this factually not the case, but in those arenas it happens and it is necessary that it happen that Aristotelianism appears only as another type of moral theory. One whose proponents have the same measure of hope—or lack thereof—to defeat their opponents as utilitarians, Kantians and contractualists have.
This emphasis by MacIntyre is necessary because the result of the publication of "After Virtue" is that an entire academic field began to flourish that emphasizes "virtue ethics." This field is conducted from within distinct competition with the other schools prevalent in academia. Now, most, if not all these attempts, ignore the fact that MacIntyre's central argument, as was Anscombe's central argument, is historical. Rawls and Nozick could have been, and perhaps even were, the most socially friendly colleagues in the history of philosophy—but there is nothing to it. There is nothing to it because they do not have, as MacIntyre argues, a shared concept of practical rationality. A concept that might constitute an independent standard to which they refer in discussions between them. And the reason for this is that such a standard is a product of a shared way of life over time that is directed toward a certain conception of human good. A standard that is absent from modern academic culture, which is culturally and institutionally committed to maintaining neutrality regarding questions that concern human good.
The contrast between Rawls and Nozick does not concern their philosophy, but the absence of their consensus regarding what might constitute a rational practical reason. As MacIntyre emphasizes in his sequel book "Whose Justice? Which Rationality?", the historical reality of such a standard is not a magic solution. The reality of this standard does not solve a priori disputes regarding what that standard is or disputes on practical issues. But the existence of this standard does make participation in tradition rational. It becomes rational in contrast to hanging hopes on a cultural environment whose central characteristic is an ongoing and continuing attempt to compartmentalize the different spheres of life, without a rational guiding principle.
Therefore the conclusion, both of Anscombe and of MacIntyre toward modern academic culture is what is quietist, that is, of "withdrawal from the game." Now, the interesting part in MacIntyre is that he does offer a positive thesis. A positive thesis for solving a problem that he diagnoses not in modern moral discourse, but in modern culture in general. All this leads us to what MacIntyre understands as "tradition." An understanding that already in "After Virtue" he emphasizes necessarily goes beyond anything that Aristotle alone might have offered. MacIntyre defines tradition as "at least partially an ongoing argument over time about the best form of the good life." For Aristotle, his philosophy would correct the errors of previous philosophers and there is no more need for them. His philosophy—or his school—settled the important philosophical issues and one can simply continue with Aristotelian research. But MacIntyre's understanding is that we need the philosophy of the past and its preservation even if we temporarily rejected it. We need it because if by chance we are wrong and are leading the tradition to degeneration, a future generation might be able to correct our errors. It will be able to do so, perhaps, by referring precisely to those resources that we rejected. In this sense, although we learned from Aristotle the point of view through which we evaluate the achievements of modern philosophy, we must relate to Aristotle as no more than another author in this tradition as well.
At this point we need to understand several things about MacIntyre's concept of tradition, and also about his concept of virtues. Tradition is something that grows from within a community of people who act together in a relatively organized way toward the realization of a certain conception of human good. From this, every tradition has different virtues that are intended to help the community advance its particular and shared conception of human good. It is only within such a framework, which is absent, according to MacIntyre, in our time—that virtues can be understood that a person is required to hold consistently and daily, in contexts of family, work, Facebook, bar, gym, and so on. It is critical to understand that this is true not only for societies that hold Aristotelian philosophy. This is also true for societies that do not have an explicit conceptualization of their inquiry regarding human good. According to MacIntyre, the typical way in which the inquiry of human good becomes explicit for a particular tradition is through dealing with the inevitable contradictions that arise as a result of the standard tools that the tradition passes through: usually, telling stories whose central medium is poetry.
In fact, tradition does not work in the form of simple development from a state where the inquiry regarding human good is not explicit to a state where it is explicit. From a state where it is poetic to a state where it is philosophical. Philosophy is what also allows us to criticize our original society and move it forward—precisely by identifying the contradictions that exist in the society's stories. Contradictions that exist in poetry. The transmission of stories forward through poetry to the next generation continues to function even in a tradition that has philosophy. To understand the sophisticated way in which this is done we will need to examine the roles of Dante and James Joyce in MacIntyre's thought. To do this we need to turn to the third book in MacIntyre's quartet, "Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedic, Genealogical and Traditional" (published in 1994).
In "Three Rival Versions" MacIntyre presents for the first time his understanding of Dante. As I will try to show, this understanding constitutes more than a certain correction to his concept of tradition. A concept whose expression, as we have seen, is philosophy. In this book MacIntyre presents his version of Thomas Aquinas, and the result is a kind of "Aristotelian Thomism" as he once called it. An actual and challenging presentation of Aquinas who is presented as a direct competitor to people like Nietzsche and Diderot. The scope is too short to explain the complex change that MacIntyre underwent from the Aristotelianism of After Virtue to the Thomism of the later stages in his thought. You can read the broad lines of this transition in the prologue and introductions to the third edition of "After Virtue." Either way, MacIntyre maintains his original commitment that philosophy, as an explicit inquiry into the assumptions implicit in the tradition of a given community, does not provide positive content directly. Philosophy is supposed to help organize the existing content of a given tradition. That is, of a community belonging to a tradition with a certain conception of human good that it is required to realize, and for this purpose it is required to have certain virtues. In this sense "positive content" is perceived primarily in the community's practices, and only afterward undergoes, if it undergoes, rational processing. Philosophy offers a synthesis that solves the contradictions that naturally arise in poetic tradition.
Inevitably we are required to ask: if a certain tradition has reached philosophical "saturation"—even if temporarily, according to MacIntyre's concept of tradition—as was undoubtedly the case in his opinion with Aquinas, is there still point in poetry? Seemingly, the role of poetry is more central specifically in the initial formation stages of tradition. Perhaps even in the mythological past of the community. MacIntyre's surprising answer is that poetry continues to play a central role. In "Three Rival Versions" MacIntyre argues that Aquinas's theology constitutes the most systematic organization of the way of life of Christian communities at that time. This is theoretical organization. In practice, in order to understand and participate in the community, and even to understand Aquinas's Summa Theologica, we are required to understand ourselves as operators of some narratives. Supposedly, a deep understanding of the figure of ourselves, and in what kind of story it takes place. Our narratives as family members, as community members, as professionals and as citizens. All these require us to operate ourselves as individuals with different histories with conflicting demands. So while Aquinas might give us the relative theoretical weight of each of these narratives, he cannot do this for us without us operating ourselves as part of these narratives. The reason for this is that the way Aquinas understands practical life is "built" dialectically, that is, relies on a certain processing we have already done, of our experiences. It relies on various experiences we have had of what it means to be active in a community. What it means to learn logic, what it means to learn a craft, what it means to learn grammar, what it means to learn the moral laws of our society and what it means to be happy, even relatively. This is also the reason, in a certain sense, that for Aristotle learning the Nicomachean Ethics is useless for people too young. They have not yet learned, if we use Aquinas's language from MacIntyre's house, the "natural law" from personal experience. Therefore they have nothing to try to understand something like natural law, which refers to the existing totality and beyond it.
Moreover, we always need a reminder of the dilemmas and tensions implied by our culture so that we can understand the solutions offered to us. We need to understand how these theoretical concepts are not theoretical at all, but part of a response to difficulties that arise from the fabric of stories we "operate" unknowingly in our daily activity. In this sense MacIntyre offers us a reading of Dante according to which the Divine Comedy is precisely the operation of Aquinas's Summa Theologica. A poetic operation, an "operation" of the narrative of the Summa Theologica in the imagination. All this without Dante himself presenting himself as a Thomist. Dante simply arrives at a synthesis that is analogous in content to Aquinas's synthesis between the ancient world, philosophy and its demands, and the world of scripture and their demands. What is important in MacIntyre's understanding of Dante is that he shows that it is not a failure of Aquinas's imagination that he does not provide an answer to semi-poetic criticisms like Nietzsche's. It is not a failure, because it is Dante, a figure Nietzsche very much appreciates, Dante who is in the same fundamental position as Aquinas. But beyond these questions, what is important for the story I am telling you here is that as MacIntyre matured, his understanding of the role that Dante plays in tradition deepened. As a result, so did his understanding of the role that poetry continues to play in a "mature" tradition. To understand the role of poetry in mature tradition, we are required to approach another lecture by MacIntyre, "Poetic Imaginations, Catholic and Other," a lecture he gave at the University of Notre Dame in 2016.
In this lecture MacIntyre argues that in order to avoid imagining ourselves as we are not—that is, to avoid deluding ourselves—we must add to education into a tradition of inquiry education into a tradition of poetry. Inquiry strengthens our ability both to conduct conflicts rationally and to correct our society, regarding the contradictions inherent in it, in relevant ways. Education in poetry, on the other hand, is part of maintaining our memory, and especially part of the way we succeed or fail to imagine ourselves.
Several questions immediately arise. First, given that we have the tradition of inquiry, why do we need poetry? And second, given that perhaps we have the Bible that gives us the framework story, the memory, why do we also need poetry? A third question, how can reading poetry, which is an aesthetic activity, and thus neutral regarding our beliefs, help us in our ethical lives?
Regarding the tradition of inquiry we have already answered partially. Philosophy works only from within a society and practices that already exist. But beyond this, we have a strong tendency to adopt beliefs that flatter our self-image. We tend to delude ourselves. Think for example of the central "figure" that MacIntyre places at the center in "After Virtue"—the figure of the modern manager. The modern manager buys his authority, whether he recognizes it or not, through an unsustainable claim to neutrality. He does this from within work in an organization whose goals were given to him from outside, and thus buys special objectivity. He also does this through a claim to effectiveness, since as a successful manager he is supposed to bring results through manipulation of his subordinates. Neutrality gives him a license of distance from the arbitrariness that characterizes the rest of humanity, who according to the story, are forced to choose their values arbitrarily. His efficiency is a claim maintained by an entire industry of social scientists of whom the manager is supposedly a disciple.
As people who deal with philosophy, or science, it is easy to read MacIntyre's arguments and perhaps be convinced that he is right about the figure of the manager. One can understand why this "figure" marks a deep problem in our society and in how we understand authority. But think about the situation where we are that same man. This man has a strong tendency to adopt only those beliefs that serve his flattering self-image. A tendency we all share, to one degree or another. To free himself from this belief he is required to leave his imagination, which in his case is guided by technocratic philosophy. In this sense the figure of the manager is only symptomatic of our society in general and of us in particular. He must find a way to expand his imagination toward the real possibility: that he is promoting goals he does not understand, by means he is not sure how to justify, and advancing in the world through claiming unfounded authority. But how is it possible to imagine such things, which are so contrary to our basic tendency? The answer is that poetry, as part of shared memory, helps us remember who we really are. In this sense the Bible will not help us. While it indeed constitutes a significant part of our memory, and for some of us, the decisive part, it does not help us alone to understand what it is like to be the holders of biblical memory at this time. Like the rest of humanity, even those for whom the Bible is decisive tend to imagine themselves and their community differently than it is. This is the service that poetry provides us, which allows us to imagine ourselves as we are. I have presented MacIntyre's answer to the first two questions. Questions that were actually posed in the book "After Virtue" but received completion, as mentioned, only in his later understanding of the critical role of poetry in our time. Let us now move to a demonstration that will help us understand the answer to the third question. What is the actual relationship between poetry and our beliefs. Can we indeed evaluate aesthetics in a neutral way? We will begin with a presentation of two poems, side by side. "Low Flying" by Dahlia Ravikovitch and "The Silver Platter" by Nathan Alterman. Let us begin with Ravikovitch.
(trans. Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld)
I am not here. I am on those craggy eastern hills streaked with ice where grass doesn't grow and a sweeping shadow overruns the slope. A little shepherd girl with a herd of goats, black goats, emerges suddenly from an unseen tent. She won't live out the day, that girl, in the pasture.I am not here. Inside the gaping mouth of the mountain a red globe flares, not yet a sun. A lesion of frost, flushed and sickly, revolves in that maw.And the little one rose so early to go to the pasture. She doesn't walk with neck outstretched and wanton glances. She doesn’t paint her eyes with kohl. She doesn’t ask, Whence cometh my help.I am not here I've been in the mountains many days now. The light will not scorch me. The frost cannot touch me. Nothing can amaze me now. I've seen worse things in my life.I tuck my dress tight around my legs and hover very close to the ground. What ever was she thinking, that girl? Wild to look at, unwashed. For a moment she crouches down. Her cheeks soft silk, frostbite on the back of her hand. She seems distracted, but no, in fact she’s alert. She still has a few hours left. But that’s hardly the object of my meditations. My thoughts, soft as down, cushion me comfortably. I've found a very simple method, not so much as a foot-breadth on land and not flying, either— hovering at a low altitude.But as day tends toward noon, many hours after sunrise, that man makes his way up the mountain. He looks innocent enough. The girl is right there, near him, not another soul around. And if she runs for cover, or cries out— there’s no place to hide in the mountains.I am not here. I'm above those savage mountain ranges in the farthest reaches of the East. No need to elaborate. With a single hurling thrust one can hover and whirl about with the speed of the wind. Can make a getaway and persuade myself: I haven't seen a thing. And the little one, her eyes start from their sockets, her palate is dry as a potsherd, when a hard hand grasps her hair, gripping her without a shred of pity.
Poems, MacIntyre tells us, cannot be expressed in prose. Otherwise they would be prose. But part of what poems can do is teach us to feel and imagine in new ways that are important to us for understanding ourselves. In this poem Ravikovitch tries to teach us something about the Israeli relationship to Palestinians. She does this not only through presenting the innocence of their children, but through repetitive presentation of the figure of ourselves, the Israelis. The Israelis who seek to "escape" from the reality of war and tell ourselves that we are not those involved in the disaster described in the poem. Poems, MacIntyre tells us, are good at presenting us with reality that is in constant danger of being forgotten. In this way they are part of our memory. Now let us move to Alterman's poem. I chose the poem "The Silver Platter" specifically despite its being known, or at least was known to the public, until at least a generation ago.
And the land was then still, under bleary-eyed heavens That crimsoned and dimmed o’er the smoking frontier, And the nation stood fixed, broken-hearted but breathing, To receive her new miracle, unique, without peer. Ceremony at hand, she made ready by moonlight, All bedecked in her costume of festival and fear, Then before her emerged a young lad, a young maiden Who proceeded to march toward the nation’s premiere. Dressed in uniformed drab, heavy boots, legs all weary As they silently made their way up the incline, Without change of their clothes, without washing the stain of All the remnants of day and night on the front line. Enervated and spent, having sworn off all respite, Dripping with all the sap of a Hebrew youth’s heart They approached soundlessly, and stood rapt at attention, Not a sign if alive, or if shot half-apart. Then the nation inquired, drenched in tears and enchantment Of the two, “Who are you?” as they stood, not unnerved. Their reply: “We are they, the acclaimed silver platter Upon whom the new State of the Jews has been served.” They dropped dead at her feet, and the rest, yet to tell, Will be penned in the Chronicles of Israel.
This poem too is an example of something we might forget. This poem tells us about the heartbreak of war. The figures who make life possible approach us as if from afar, from the unknown, and we do not recognize them alone. We are required to ask them to identify themselves, and only then do they reveal to us the truth, that life here was given to us at the price of sacrifice. That the war did not actually end without claiming the blood of some of the young people. The sacrifice of those young people is what maintains the State of the Jews on which our lives depend. These two poems constitute an answer to the question of whether our relationship to poetry, considering our existing beliefs, is neutral. The subject of both poems, war, is conveyed in very different ways. The simple answer that emerges from our reading is that in good poetry, in good reading, our beliefs are critical. These poems try to teach us two very different things about the same thing. And so we returned, together with MacIntyre, to the role of poetry. Poetry itself might teach us how we should learn these poems. We can take a lesson from the way MacIntyre does this: if our relationship to poetry is not neutral, how should we find the way to evaluate poetry nonetheless? Can we evaluate poetry that matches only our previous beliefs in advance? But first, forgive me, I would like to change the atmosphere a bit and use MacIntyre's joke to present the problem as it appears for him.
In Northern Ireland, for many years, there were periods when militant and sectarian groups fought each other. During these periods it was dangerous to walk around there. If you were Catholic, and you met a Protestant militia, you would be shot. And vice versa. One day an unlucky fellow was stopped by one of the militia men. The militia man asked him, "Are you Protestant or Catholic?" Since it was impossible to know which answer would lead to his death, the sophisticated fellow answered: "I'm an atheist." The militia man was not confused and asked the follow-up question: "Fine. But are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"
MacIntyre uses this amusing joke to present the difference between Catholic atheism and Protestant atheism. Protestant atheists are exemplary atheists, and the main object of their criticism is theists. Some feel sorry for theists, others are angry at them. Catholic atheists, on the other hand, are, on the exemplary level, they are quasi-atheists. They sometimes might slip into a kind of framed belief. The object of their anger is God, and as MacIntyre says half-jokingly, they are angry at him for not existing.
This distinction serves MacIntyre to present the problem faced by the Catholic believer. That is, a believer who is unable to put his faith in brackets, and yet is required to learn from poetry. Specifically, he is required to learn from the best poetry in our generation in order not to imagine himself differently than he is. This means, from MacIntyre's perspective, that the Catholic believer needs to learn not only from Dante. In order not to delude himself, he needs to learn also from James Joyce, a Catholic atheist. But how to do this? How can the Catholic believer learn from Joyce, while his beliefs are polar to those of the Catholic as reader?
At this point MacIntyre demonstrates the real power of poetry. MacIntyre shows us how to learn from Dante, whose memory no longer completely reflects who we are now, and how the Catholic believer should read Joyce. In this MacIntyre "breaks" aesthetic neutrality, which is a reflection of the modern impossibility to move from descriptions of states of affairs, or of enjoyment of poetry, to normative judgments and to the way we should imagine ourselves. The Catholic believer is no longer required to put his faith in brackets when he reads Joyce. He is not required, in other words, to remain in the dimension of neutral aesthetic experience. On the contrary. He is required to understand how to place Joyce in his poetic imagination. MacIntyre quotes Joseph Omley—a mythological poetry teacher at Notre Dame—saying that without deeply imagining the possibility of a world without God, the Catholic believer will not notice how many times he actually imagines the world without God. The Catholic believer is required to learn to place Joyce's poetic imagination precisely so that he can learn the most from him. To learn from him precisely how to avoid being the person who imagines himself, the believer, as Joyce imagined him. Undoubtedly—MacIntyre offers a fascinating solution to the dilemma he raised. But what is our solution to our dilemmas, to our memory?
Unfortunately and fortunately this is not work I can be required to do now, but only to point you to MacIntyre's thought, and to the way it might be relevant for us. We have seen how MacIntyre tells the nature of the crisis in which modern people find themselves, a crisis whose philosophical expression is the mistaken distinction between facts and values. After that we saw how MacIntyre's concept of tradition places philosophy as an important resource we need if we want to begin to understand our story, and what went wrong in it. After that we saw how poetry functions as an important resource if we want not to delude ourselves. We were required somewhat, implicitly, to part of the dilemmas that characterize our time. Finally, we saw how poetry might also provide the beginning of a solution to dilemmas of this kind. After all this has been said, we are required to ask about MacIntyre what we opened with.
What place should MacIntyre take in our tradition, now, when you are entrusted with his memory?
Thank you very much.