The Rediscovery of Wisdom: From Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia

by David Conway

By reconstructing it and tracing its vicissitudes, David Conway rehabilitates a time-honoured conception of philosophy, originating in Plato and Aristotle, which makes theoretical wisdom its aim. Wisdom is equated with possessing a demonstrably correct understanding of why the world exists and has the broad character it does. Adherents of this conception maintained the world to be the demonstrable creation of a divine intelligence in whose contemplation supreme human happiness resides. Their claims are defended against various latter-day scepticisms.

Genres: Philosophy

206 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2000

About the author

David Conway is a British academic philosopher who has written several books on philosophy and politics. He grew up in London, read Philosophy as an undergraduate at Cambridge University in the 1960s and went on to obtain his doctorate in Philosophy from University College London. He taught at Middlesex University for over thirty years, where he was Professor of Philosophy. He subsequently worked at Roehampton University as a senior research fellow in Theology and Religious Studies. Conway then worked for CIVITAS, an independent British think tank, as a senior research fellow.

Reviews

[Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Conway has written a very interesting book that challenges the way in which philosophy has been approached in recent centuries. He argues that monotheism was a central tenet of 'classical philosophy', citing the examples of Plato and Aristotle - whose influence on the development of Western philosophy has been tremendous. Conway argues that 'classical philosophy', as he calls it, was the predominant approach to philosophy from Plato down to the early modern period - to about the eighteenth century.
Conway's book is not just a historical work, however, as he seeks to advocate classical philosophy, both as an intellectually viable option for people today, and as a way of life. Philosophers in ancient the Greek and Greco-Roman worlds tended to view philosophy not as a discipline solely, but as an approach to living one's life. In the case of Plato and Aristotle, this meant the pursuit of 'sophia' or 'theoretical wisdom'. In particular this meant intellectual contemplation of God, as the highest good for human beings.
In the process of defending this view, Conway critiques the early modern critiques of 'natural theology', i.e., rational argument from nature to the existence of God, by David Hume and Immanuel Kant, showing the Hume and Kant's famous critiques are not nearly as strong as has been assumed. Conway is certainly not the first person to do this: Prof. A.E. Taylor in his impressive essay 'Theism' in the 'Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics', published in the 1920s, also raised objections to Hume and Kant - Kant particularly - and Prof. Elizabeth (G.E.M.) Anscombe severely criticised Hume on an number of points related to his objections to the cosmological argument. (Those are just a couple of examples that I'm aware of.)
There are a few of weaknesses in this book, however. The first is that, while Conway outlines Aristotle's cosmological argument for the existence of God, he does not present an in-depth defense of it. So the positive case for theism in his book is a little weak, particularly compared to other impressive works such as David Bentley Hart's defense of 'classical theism' in 'The Experience of God' or Alexander Pruss's defence of theism in 'The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment' (and other similar works).
The second problem is that, while theism has certainly been the predominant philosophical viewpoint throughout the history of philosophy - in contrast to popular ideas of philosophers as religious sceptics, philosophical monotheism of the sort defended by Conway did not become predominant until late antiquity, with the rise of 'Middle Platonism' in the first century C.E. (or A.D., if you prefer). Materialism was the predominant philosophy of the Hellenistic Era (that is, after Aristotle). The Stoics did adopt a somewhat distorted version of 'theism' in this period. However, their god was a nature god: a material being that permeated the cosmos, rather that an immaterial being that transcended the cosmos. Other groups tended to be either unorthodox polytheists (i.e., Epicureans) or ancient sceptics (i.e., the 'Academics'). This omission of Hellenistic philosophy form his account of 'classical philosophy' is irksome, but it is not a serious challenge to Conway's overall narrative. It's just that Conway does not acknowledge this point, thus giving the inaccurate impression that all the major Greek and Greco-Roman philosophers following Aristotle were monotheists.
The third problem comes in the section where Conway briefly critiques Christianity. (This, apparently, is necessary in order to distance 'classical philosophy' from religious theism.) Here, he insists that the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was the resurrected 'son of God' was plagiarized from pagan mystery cults by Paul. His sole piece of evidence for this is that Paul came from Tarsus, a city where pagan mystery cults had some influence. However, Conway's argument here is out of date and the 'Christians borrowed from pagan cults' idea has been rejected by historians and experts on comparative religion. Early Christian beliefs and practices may have had some broad similarities with late antique mystery religions, but these similarities are too superficial to prove 'borrowing'. Also irritating in this section is Conway's tendency to over-use the phrase 'must have' in his conclusions, implying that his conclusions are much more certain than is usually possible in historical argument. (I have noticed that, by and large, scientists make terrible philosophers. It seems that philosophers also, by and large, make poor historians.)

[Philemon - · Rating 4 out of 5]

This treatise oddly attempts to roll back pretty much all of Western philosophy since the Enlightenment. Conway's premise is that ancient Greek philosophy had a wider scope than the modern version: it included wisdom (Sophia) and a model of spiritual contemplation that we associate with religious devotion, one that has since been banished from philosophy as it's rather recklessly developed since Immanuel Kant.

Conway quixotically believes that if he can offer airtight rebuttals of Kant, Hume, and Nietzsche, he'll have exposed contemporary philosophy as simply false. He would then presumably hope to convert enough academics to instigate a sociocultural devolution to more robustly expansive medieval modalities, when monasticism was in flower. Secularism? Gone. Technological fetishism? Gone. Psychologism? Gone. Contemplation of the Godhead? Back. Order? Restored.

The book reminds that it's probably questionable whether rational argument can finally embrace true transcendence. Its big irony is that in crusading to restore Sophia, the method is to try to rebut rationalists -- Hume in particular -- on their own terms. In the court of rational opinion, I'd bet on Hume, or Voltaire, over Conway.

If Sophia's wisdom is as close to religion and spirituality as Conway says, the way to recover it is probably through the latter modes, rather than seeking to flip back current philosophical praxis by logical force of argument.

Other questions are raised. One is whether Plato, Aristotle, and the rest, really rate such stratospheric perches at this late date. Another is whether recent upheavals in cosmology brought about by quantum questions and the multiverse might call for a Sophia rev. 2. You never know for sure.