‘If I attend properly I will have no choices and this is the ultimate condition to be aimed at.’
Iris Murdoch, ‘The Idea of Perfection’, The Sovereignty of Good
I believe this to be true; and if it is true, then it is very important. Possibly few ideas in philosophy are more important, since in this idea you will find the ultimate aim and purpose of philosophy, and in that something that points to the finest way that a human being can live.
The idea is deceptively simple and easily misunderstood: the aim of ethics is not to do the right actions or make the right choices but only to have the right understanding.
Which means that if you want to be good, you need only try to be wise. If you focus on cultivating wisdom, through philosophy, the virtues will follow naturally and necessarily. This is why Socrates suggests that all of the virtues, such as self-restraint or courage or compassion, are forms of wisdom.
And what follows from that: to understand the truth of this and yet not aim for it by pursuing philosophy as a way of life is to go against yourself and against anything in this world that you would call ‘good’, which is why Socrates says that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’.
It is an ancient idea, difficult to accept, then and now. It is difficult to take it seriously. But for me the vague intuition of it, which I think I’ve had since I was young and knew no better, seems to be becoming more clear and distinct in my mind.
Attend
In the quotation above, Iris Murdoch says ‘attend properly’. This needs some clarification.
As it’s used here, ‘attend’ is a philosophical term of art: the word has a distinct meaning in the context of philosophy. Here, Iris Murdoch is applying something from Simone Weil. Murdoch’s application of Weil’s inspiration is more reasonable than the source of the inspiration, in my opinion.
It is only an opinion.
Simone Weil says: ‘We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.’ And: ‘If we turn our minds towards the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.’
This is the basic idea that Murdoch wants to bring forward. It is an old Platonic idea: if you understand what is good and focus your attention on it, you will want it, naturally. Goodness then comes without effort.
I agree with the Platonic idea; I do not agree with Weil’s reason for endorsing it. Because Weil also says this: ‘A divine inspiration operates infallibly, irresistibly, if we do not turn away our attention, if we do not refuse it. There is not a choice to be made in its favour, it is enough not to refuse to recognize that it exists.’
For all attempts to rehabilitate it, I think Weil’s concept of ‘attention’ is genuinely, at root, in part, a kind of mystical passivity to the supernatural. And I disagree with this because (among all the other more obvious reasons) if we learn anything from philosophy then we learn that wisdom is something that requires an active involvement. You can’t just sit back and have it wash over you. It can’t be done to you.
And yet at the same time this sense of ‘passivity’ captures something true, which is that: although we can’t passively receive philosophical understanding, neither can we actively force it. There is no infallible method for its acquisition, and no amount of effort can guarantee its attainment, but it seems instead to come (if it comes at all) in a flash (as Plato says) like light from a fire kindled in the soul.
It is the fire in our souls that we are looking to kindle. And so Weil, sharing Plato’s insight and inspired by it, will say: ‘Method for understanding images, symbols, etc. Not to try to interpret them, but to look at them till the light suddenly dawns.’ And also: ‘Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act.’ She will say that studies are ‘a form of gymnastics of the attention’.
But this underplays an important aspect that is heavily emphasised in Plato: that of actual learning. Learning in the traditional sense of acquiring items of knowledge and technical understanding. This learning is not sufficient for wisdom but, according to Plato at least, it is necessary. The light dawns only for those who are suitably prepared, and this ‘preparation’ comes in the form of learning.
Imagine learning to play a game like chess. It is an obvious enough thing to say that experienced players see more in the game than novices. An absolute beginner, completely ignorant of chess, sees only meaningless shapes scattered on a chequered board. But if they learn a thing or two about the game, about what the pieces represent, how they are used, the rules that bind them, etc., then they will look past the indistinct shapes and come to see a bishop, a queen, a pawn. If they continue to learn then they might see a good move, or see two moves ahead, aggressive play, a winning strategy, a cunning deception, etc.
None of this is visible to the novice. They are in no position to see anything ‘in a flash’ because they are not suitably prepared with learning. To see meaning requires that you have a capacity to understand that meaning. And we mostly come to acquire that capacity through learning in some form, even if the capacity is innate.
This is why I would say that Weil’s description of the process of cultivating philosophical understanding seems too passive. I would rather stress that this cultivation is an active process. The light dawns only because you are looking, focussed and undistracted, with an undistorted perception and a clear head, and prepared with sufficient learning.
I am taught Plato, I learn Plato, I read Plato, I try to interpret Plato, again and again, and I correct my interpretations, again and again, and then, and only then, the light suddenly dawns. But it is misleading to say ‘suddenly’, because although the moment of insight might happen in a flash, the process of gaining it has taken decades of steady work.
It is not enough to simply look: you must learn what to look for. It is not only a matter of seeing, because you can see without recognising, if you don’t know what you’re looking at. But neither is it only a matter of knowledge and understanding, because you can know and understand and still not see, if you are inattentive.
For these reasons I would say that Weil’s ‘attending’ is not enough in itself because it is nothing supernatural: there is nothing waiting to be revealed only by the purity of mystical attention. And the pure ‘knowledge’ of the academic is not enough either because it is not only an intellectual matter: academics have a cultivated tendency to focus on fine technical details and in that become absent-minded to what really matters.
What is needed is attentive understanding, or understanding applied: a combination of intellect and attention. Both are necessary but neither is sufficient.
Applied Understanding
Since I struggle with the concept of ‘attend’, and would rather replace it with a notion of applied understanding, let me offer an alternative wording of Murdoch’s line:
‘If I apply my understanding properly I will have no choices and this is the ultimate condition to be aimed at.’
This expression rings truer for me and it doesn’t carry any stink of supernaturalism. Perhaps it doesn’t matter: there are many other ways you could express it. But however it is captured, I believe the core idea to be true.
Read more: Think Well, Live Well: A Free Introduction to Philosophy
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