Think of actors: they wear masks, they dress up. One looks like a philosopher while not being one; another seems to be a king but is no king; another appears to be a doctor and has not the faintest idea how to cure the sick; another pretends to be a slave despite being free; still another plays the part of a teacher yet does not know even how to write. They do not appear as they are, they appear to be something else. The philosopher is a philosopher only because of his abundant but false wig, the soldier is a soldier just because he sports a military uniform. These disguises help to create an illusion, to hide the reality.

The world is a theater too. The human condition, richness, poverty, power, subjection are merely the pretenses of actors. But when the day is done and the night falls (which, however, we ought to call day: it is night for sinners and day for the just),when the play is over, when we all find ourselves confronted with our own actions and not with our riches or dignity or the honors we have had or the power we have wielded, when we are asked to give an account of our lives and our works of virtue, ignoring both the feats of our opulence and the humility of our need, when we are asked: "Show me your deeds!" then the disguises will fall and we shall see who is truly rich and who is truly poor. (St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Lazarus)

The official epistemology of modernity is positivism, considered very broadly. It is the ideology of the scientific establishment and the political regime in all its forms. It is based on the following propositions:

1. All knowledge is resolvable into particular sense impressions.
2. These impressions, including that of consciousness and will, is all that exists in reality
3. Whether or not these impressions are internally created or external is irrelevant
4. Sense impressions are qualities, not “essences”
5. “Essences” are creations of the mind, that is, the mind, which is also a sense impression, collects particulars and groups them under specific similarities, called “species” etc.
6. Hence, such universals as “species” do not really exist, but are creations of the mind
7. Anything that is outside of these impressions do not exist, or is unknowable
8. The “reality” of a thing is based on its usefulness

These propositions basically sum up positivism, or, speaking broadly, what the Regime calls “common sense.” It is at the very root of Protestantism, Puritanism, liberalism, capitalism, and modern science and is taken for granted, at least within the scientific establishment. It is a myth in the broad sense: it is a story that justifies a far more complex phenomenon. Modern science is purely theoretical and rationalist, not empirical, empirical evidence is sought after the promulgation of a theory, not the other way around.

It is, in short, mystification. It is a set of words designed to hide the fundamental element of the propositions themselves: power. If one accepts, basically, the above eight points, then nature is the creation of man, or, since “man” is also a mystification, the scientific establishment, an entity calling itself by another mystification, “science.” Positivism reigns supreme because it is based on the power of the wealthy (i.e. those who finance the scientific and philosophical establishment) to transform nature to their specifications, desires and demands. The scientific establishment, claiming to represent “science” pure and simple, always depends on elite patrons to function. In England, the “scientific revolution,” another set of mystifications, was created by the Royal Society and later, the Lunar Society (one of whose members was Erasmus Darwin). These were groups of wealthy industrialists and merchants, deeply involved with political liberalism, who financed the “triumph” of positivism abroad. Science did not “win” the victory over Christianity or metaphysics because of its inherent truthfulness, it won because it arranged for itself a series of powerful patrons who made it “respectable.” Scientific theory, which at root, exists to justify an already existing establishment, can only come into existence with substantial external investment, whether it be through the state, as in the USSR, or elite foundations, as in the western world, or from secret organizations, as in Victorian England. The idea is that positivism both justifies and is justified by, this establishment, since truth does not exist, only formal logic. Power and will alone exist, and decide on truth and, more importantly, respectability.

An “essence,” in the old Aristotelian understanding, refers to the stable structure of a thing, the object in se, that which survives change. In other words, it answers the question concerning the “whatness” of a thing disregarding its particular attributes. Its counterpart is an “accident,” or those things that can change while leaving the essence intact, such as color, taste, position, etc. Essences manifested a fixed universe in the Aristotelian and medieval systems, and, if real, a spiritualized one, since an essence did not have a body 9as it was separate from all specific determination), but was manifest in a body. If matter was chaos, form/logos/essence was its ordering principle. Until the 18th century, it was the basic unit of philosophical and scientific discourse.

The rejection of spiritual essence was the result of the Renaissance. This is not, as is commonly said, a resurrection of classical learning or science, for it had never died, but was part of the medieval heritage. It is rather, a renaissance of magic and alchemy from its Egyptian slumber. And here derives the two strands of science, that of essentialism, represented by the medievals Robert Grossesste and Nicholas Oresme, and the alchemists, financed by the Medici banking family of Florence, represented by Bruno, Galileo and Newton.

In the Republic it is the desire for truth that drives man on his way through the various forms of knowledge, from the less to the more perfect ones, until he see transcendent reality which in its turn constitutes the objects of noesis, as well as the faculty of nous or episteme. (Eric Voegelin, OIH, III, 113).

On the other hand, the late medieval scientific schools, largely dropped from history, basically accepted the older Aristotelian forms and sought a science based on the fixed nature of substance. It stressed humility and awe, whereas alchemy stressed power and manipulation. From the alchemists sprang Machiavelli, Hobbes, Darwin and Marx, all of which partake of the alchemical idea of a permanently manipulative human nature, manipulative through the strategic use of chaos as a “solvent” for all social relations.

Due to the elite funding of the latter, both through Italian bankers and later, the revolutionary Puritans through the Royal society, they won, and the former were blacked from history as “obscurantists.” Essentialism was not eliminated due to “science,” but to an elite demand to use science as a means to augment their power. Without the fluid nature of Hobbes or Locke, social manipulation, the rise of the state and propaganda make no sense. All of these things assume the fluid nature of humanity. Therefore, “science” never “won” against “obscurantism,” but rather, modern science eliminated the medieval stress on “light” (another way to see essences), and, through elite funding, stressed power through the elimination of such light.

But a fixed universe did not fit the agenda of the revolutionaries at the Lunar Society. The point of capitalism was the dissolve all older, regional and religious values into the chaos of elite manipulation, which was mystified as “progress.” A fixed universe militated against progress. Hence, it became popular to speak of essences as non-existing, or elements of mental processes only. Nevertheless, the acceptance of this cardinal aspect of positivism automatically means that meaning does not exist, all is flux. But even that is mystification, since the units that are to bring the world out of flux are found in the scientific establishment, who will decide what meaning exists in the universe, and is itself is financed by the globe’s elite. Hence, positivism means, when stripped of its pseudo-logical verbiage, that the elite decide what “nature” is.

Today's path which is followed by various societies is directed towards sin. The cause of this is the development of civilization - of wrongly conceived civilization - towards which the various leaders are striving by diverse means to direct mankind, trying to create a new way of life, different from that prescribed by the Lord (Sts. Raphael, Nicholas and Irene of Lesvos)

And again, C.S. Lewis writes, "What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument."

Since modern society praises itself on its dynamism, that is, its constant motion towards either unknown or unstated ends, metaphysics needed to be eliminated or modified. Since scientific reality was not truth, but merely “use,” theory can change from day to day, depending on the needs of the elite who finance it. Since, morality cannot exist in a progressive universe, since nothing is fixed, the regime made it clear that science pursuing ends such as more deadly weapons, or manipulative advertising, had nowhere to stand to criticize. All is power, all is self interest, all is will. This means that the will of the stronger is the best, and there is nowhere else to stand to criticize it. If one makes the claim that the “world is mine” and my “choices” are supreme, he is immediately claiming that the will of the wealthy is supreme, since they can manifest their will more effectively then the average. If this is bothersome, there is no independent place to stand to make criticism, since all is will, all is choice, all is power.

Thus, we reach the following conclusions:

1. Truth is a function of will, that is, the will of the powerful, since the will of the powerful means more than the will of the average
2. If one eliminates stable essences from nature, then only will, that is, power, survives
3. Truth is then a function of power

Prof. Jim Neidhardt of the New Jersey Institute of Technology says this:

Physicists of the 20th century in their detailed study of both the very small and the very large in the universe have found that concepts developed by the human imagination from ordinary sensory experiences, represented in mathematical language, are no longer adequate. With respect to the analogy of a scientific theory as representing a map of reality many scientists now believe that the map's contour lines are the nearest to reality you can get. All the ideas about "real" rocks, hills, etc., are taking one farther away from rather than nearer to the fullest understanding of reality possible. The ideal of a real rock (in analogy to scientific statements) is really a metaphor or parable permissable to help those who cannot understand the contour lines themselves (the math symbols and operations thereof); it is misleading to take the parable literally.

In other words, science now has enough social power to eliminate the "thing" entirely. Reality is not merely what science makes it, but it is science, that is, the scientific establishment, itself.

However, assuming the Positivist/nominalist idea (which, though often thrown overboard, still, in the popular imagination is science proper) morality, criticism, and ideals must assume the existence of an ordered universe, one ordered by a creator who creates essences, since essences are spiritual entities and thus are not creations of material nature. Spiritual entities are created not by natural forces, but by something supernatural, that is, God, and a God in Trinity, since the essences themselves derives from His thought, and hence imply the existence of another element in the Godhead, or that of the Forms, instantiated within matter to form objects in nature. The forms themselves are also God, since they contain all later positive determinations. This “ordering principle” is logos, or the structure of the created universe, though prior to this creation, they existed as spiritual entities in God, making up the second person of the Trinity. There is no essence without God, and no God without Trinity, since there, by definition, needs to be a creator of essence, a reality of essence (Logos) and the manifestation of Essence (Spirit). Without essence, nature is a chaos of forms that only becomes real when the powerful place their impress upon it. This is scientific paganism, it is at the center of the Babylonian mentality, the urban, Nimrodian system that places all meaning at the best of the powerful, since there is no inherent meaning in nature as such.

If there is a “center,” an essence of species such as “cat” “dog” or “grass,” it is arbitrary to stop at that level (the level of the single species), but the mind discovers more, such as “sensate” or “being” itself, going beyond mere species, it goes naturally beyond that, to genus, to being. Hence, by contemplating nature, one is led to God by a process of abstraction deriving from experience. Hence, there can be no essence without God, there can be no “cat” without “Being itself.”

Positivism claims there is no “cat” (as such), but that “cat” is merely a convenient label for organizing a series of sense impressions that refer to furry, four legged, carnivorous animals. There is no “cattness,” just a basically arbitrary set of labels to organize sense impressions. Science can never go beyond this metaphysic, since it would then involve them in spirit, or “cattness” in itself, which, of course, is not a physical thing. And since it is useful to arrange sense experience that way, it is “true,” regardless of its arbitrariness. “True” is always in quotes, since it is not True, but merely applicable, useful, convenient. As said above, this automatically leads to something intolerable: the existence of a financial establishment, that finances a scientific establishment, that itself defines the nature of nature, it defines perception itself. It organizes the world according to a matrix of images. It is not knowledge (since universals do not exist, but are established by the mind only), but power. If one accepts it, then one cannot stand anywhere to criticize this establishment, except possibly to create a new one, one based on another source of power, such as the state. Either way, it is not “knowledge” that is being created, but the power to impress one’s will upon the chaos of sense impressions that allegedly is the only real entity, i.e. the only “experienced” entity.

It remains, however, to speak more of essence, since if essences are the bulwark against the arbitrary power of the Regime (whether private or state) and stable essences do exist, then Plato and Aristotle are correct. This is because the distinction between Plato and Aristotle is not one of basic ontology, but of perspective. Aristotle comes to the same conclusions as Plato, but from a different route. Aristotle starts from sense impressions, while Plato starts from the conditions that must exist in order for sense impressions to make any sense, or to exist in the first place. Without reason, without this a priori ability to synthesize sense impressions, such impressions would have no use, they would merely be a jumble of sensations without meaning. If stable essences exist as instantiated in matter, which is, generally, Aristotle’s conclusion, then there is no logical reason why they do not exist as non-instantiated, that is, in themselves as detached forms when conceived from the prime facie beginning of logical concepts (as opposed to sense impressions).

If, to reiterate, essence does exist, it is a spirit. If it is a spirit, then it is not created by material nature. It is created by a spiritual being that is responsible for all that exists, all essences, since all essences resolve themselves into Being itself. St. Augustine writes, “when the sharp and strong vision of the mind beholds a number of immutable truths known with certainty, it directs its gaze to truth itself, which illumines all that is true” (On Freedom of the Will, Ch 13).

Even more, Eric Voegelin writes,

The Platonic realm of changeless, eternal being was not a wanton assumption; it was experienced as a reality in the erotic fascination of the soul by the Agathon as well as in its cathartic effects. The realm of Ideas was one of the symbols which expressed the philosopher's expeience of transcendence. . . The Cognitio Dei though faith is not a cognitive act in which anm object is given, but a cognitive passion of the soul. In the passion of faith the ground of being is experienced, and that means the ground of all being, including immanent form.(OIH, III, 275).

Knowledge that is occupied with visible things and receives instruction concerning them through the senses, is called natural. But knowledge that is occupied with the noetic power that is within things and with incorporeal natures is called spiritual, since perception in this case is received by the spirit and not by the senses. In both of these kinds of knowledge matter comes to the soul from without to give her comprehension. But that knowledge which is occupied with Divinity is called supernatural, or rather, un-knowing and knowledge-transcending. (Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian)

St. Augustine, the great doctor of the west, brings all of this sort of speculation into perspective, and it is his great victory. There is no reason to believe that a metaphysic beginning from sense, and one from the conditions of sense need wind up in different places, Augustine and the later scholastics differ only as a matter of perspective and emphasis. The two work in tandem. In other words, if one starts from sense impressions and logically concludes the ordered and regular nature of nature, one is, if free from prejudice, ends up with spirit, or the very nature of regularity and order, since these orders themselves are objects worthy of scientific study. If one begins with the existence of mind, that is, the soul possessed with the ability to make sense out of sense impressions, one reaches the same conclusions about nature, through from a different path. They do not contradict, except find themselves with different emphases.

St. Augustine starts from God, since this is the condition of knowledge. Ofr St. Augustine, starting from sense impressions make no sense, since, first, it must be established that the external world exists, that it matches up with our logical concepts and that men have the ability to make sense out of their world, none of which are capable of proof from there mere existence of sense impressions. God is the condition of knowledge because there is no other source of spiritual essences, and such essences, or the ordering principle(s) of the universe, are an absolute requirement for knowledge, that is, of the realization that things do not change, order remains the same despite the change in attributes. If there are no essences, then nature is not stable, and no knowledge is possible, and therefore, there is only power. It does not matter if one starts from God and gets to the regularity of nature, or from the regularity of nature, to essence, to God. Even essence itself can be conceived as individual (as Aristotle), or even as relational (as St. Athanatius or Solovyev), i.e. that of law and mathematical regularity. Either way, spirit is manifest in nature, since both the regularity of processes (such as an ecosystem) and the stability of species (“cattness”) are spiritual entities in that they are instantiated in objects, are not the objects themselves but are spiritual, non-corporeal, and are the basis of all stable knowledge.

If one states that knowledge is possible, then one states the existence of discorporate life, since knowledge, by definition, is of that which is stable, that is, essence, or spirit. By modern reasoning, knowledge is created, not discovered, hence, the most powerful entity then will have the power to create “truth.” Unfortunately, there is no getting out of the vicious circle, since power will always demand satisfaction, whether that power is to be found among financial elites, state elites or ideological cadres. Hence, St. Augustine begins from the point of view of the ultimate stability, that is He Who Is, the Being of being, the Law of law. From here, sense perception begins to register something real, something with structure inherent to it, and hence, actual knowledge, rather than the arbitrary arrangement of sense impressions according to the latest theory. “A true lover of wisdom is he who, through natural things, has learnt to know their Creator, and from the Creator has understood natural things and things Divine; and such as knows not from teaching only but from experience. Or: a perfect lover of wisdom is he who has perfected himself in the moral, natural and Divine love of wisdom, or rather in love of God.” (St. Gregory of Sinai)

Next, St. Augustine must make sense out of structure, which is to be found in non-instantiated essences, or forms. If forms exist within matter, then they exist outside of it, or at least, there is no logical reason for rejecting that one can get from the latter to the former. If essences are spiritual, then they exist in the mind of the creator before becoming part of matter. Matter is chaos in that it is “unformed.” It is arbitrary motion, possessed at best, of arbitrary forces. Matter, in the work of Augustine, is precisely what the positivist think “nature” is. But experience states clearly that chaos is precisely what is not experienced, but dependency and regularity, these are the two general states of experience from one’s babyhood. This experience of dependency and regularity are at the basis of all religion and all pre-modern philosophy. Chaos is not experienced, but created by powerful establishments later as a myth to justify the power of their establishment. What is experienced are dependency and regularity. Hence, from this, one must conclude that powers exist outside myself that created me, all objects and, by definition, their relations and orders. This Nature is then contingent (in that it is not independent, it did not bring itself into existence), and that there is regularity in relations of both external action and internal thought, manifest in music and art, even at a “primitive” level of civilization.

As the great Hugh the Carthusian writes (1200?):

Now, there are men who are merely sensory beings, who limit themselves to knowing the things of the senses, as if the sense they do have is merely an obtuse intellect and a twisted affection and they could not perceive goodness in itself. Nevertheless, so that they too might partake in divine knowledge, God has established in sense-perceptible creatures, so that, according to St. Paul, the “invisible things of God, being understood through the things which are made, are clearly seen” (Rom 1:20).

Hence, from an empirical point of view, religion is the first manifestation of concerted action, given the inescapable realities of dependence and regularity. All nature is created by a supreme power, and we are dependent on that power. This is not a religious sentiment per se, but a natural and experiential reality prior to the creation of any mytheo-poetic system. The world of the spirit is not religious, but a condition for all stable knowledge independent of the power structure surrounding it.

But if the spirit is at the root of knowing, that is, provides the only stable entity that can be known in itself, then the soul is immediately deduced, again, not as a “spiritual” thing, but as necessary to knowledge as spiritual essences. If the condition of knowing is spirit, that is, the “whatness” of an object not reducible to a specific motion or arrangement of parts, but substantiated in it, “doing” the organizing of chaotic matter, then an equally spiritual entity is necessary to decode it, to receive the spirit as knowledge, and that is the soul. Hence, to speak of knowledge at all, one must speak of things by nature immaterial, otherwise, all is brute force, or the sophistic "transformation of the Parmenidean Being into a topic of immanentist speculation" as Voegein would term it.

Hence, from the nature of stability, of knowledge, of the notion of being able to claim to know something, God, the soul and spirit are deduced. Positivism is about power, about the ability of the establishment (however defined) to impose its own impress on reality, which is completely the opposite of the Augustinian system, where Logos, or the structure of all things, impresses its reality upon “the waters” or the realm of chaos, the first entity in creation, matter. Matter and form exist together an a entity inseparable in reality, but separable in thought. Matter is not pre-existing, but represents the chaos of reality prior to spirit, prior to Logos. Hence, from an analytic point of view, the life of contemplation is justified, since it is not a merely emotional state, but a higher state than mere analysis, since it seeks to participate in the very immaterial reality necessary for any knowledge at all.

But a rational structure of the universe is insufficient. Will remains important, and is at the center of all epistemological work worthy of the name. What St. Augustine does that differs from Aristotle is stress the nature of the willing soul in relation to reality, that is, knowledge is not merely about the manifestation of Logos in matter, but rather the condition of the knower relative to external objects. In short, the will.

The will exists in humanity in the same respect as God to the universe. It is something that anchors knowledge, something that, considered in a rather basic way, creates the conditions for sense impressions. Or at least, the conditions whereby sense impressions can make sense. Will can either be bad or good, and this has everything to do with the nature of Christian and Orthodox epistemology. While it must be the case that nature is made up of stable essences, the ability to see it, to understand it and to live with it is a matter of will. If one is greedy, thinking only of money and power, one will see nature not as a set of stable things, but as “dead,” merely raw material for “man” (in reality, an elite) to re-create it for power and profit. Human beings are not en-souled beings, but mere raw material for one’s plans. The nature of reality is self-evident, but to make sense out of that, to accept it, takes a good will, one free from prejudice and the passions which function precisely to distort reason.

Hence, the bridge from will to external reality/Logos is asceticism. Asceticism is necessary for real scientific research. Man is not born with a good will, he is born selfish and dependent. A child thinks only of himself, but at the same time is completely dependent on parents for basic sustenance. The cleansing of the will to think universally, to live among substance rather than desire, is the focus of a proper social environment, the church and the family in society. The point of the sacraments in a child’s development is to remove him from the “positivist” sense of nature, that is, as a series of dead “things” one can manipulate for one’s own purposes, to something living, orderly and beautiful for that reason. If nature is considered merely as a set of sense impressions, then one lives in a state of passion, not reason. This is because sense impressions are sensations, and sensations excite the passions, either for desire or aversion. Essence, however, is another matter. It excites the reason only, and hence, stable essences are necessary even for basic perception, let alone cognition, to take place. If one holds that nature is dead matter, then one’s desires and passions have free play. Unfortunately, it is the passion of the powerful that counts. Passion is unsatisfied desire. Reason is to uncover the nature of things with the final purpose of conforming one’s desire to what really is, rather than the opposite. Only particulars excite passion. Universals do not. Hence, reason must rule, but reason depends on the existence of immateriality, or else it is a chimera, suited only to justify passions rather than to regulate them. However, epistemology is not just a matter of word-play or syllogistic sophistry, but of will, and a diseased will will make whatever it wants out of external reality. This is the objective need for asceticism, for the spiritual and scientific work cannot be opened to a carnal person, since such a person will see his passions reflected in nature, not objects themselves. The carnal person sees not nature, but his ego (defined as the sum total of passions, manifest in aggression and selfishness) manifest in everything. It is an inversion of reality. Asceticism puts a brake on the carnal man and releases the soul to see spirit, i.e. to see things as they really are, as stable objects, with their own essence and hence, end. The carnal man only has a soul potentially, not actually, since only through struggle can the soul be truly manifest. Man is born without free will, it is something to be struggled for, not given as an object. The majority of men are not free, but radically determined by desire and the powerful around them, these powerful who create the images that are called “society,” it is rather a hall of mirrors. Only a handful can achieve freedom, for it demands a full realization of spirit, knowledge and hence, God’s will. Freedom is the result of struggle, not the presupposition of it. Man is born determined and dependent, it is only through purification that one can become free, but purification is a lifelong struggle, dependent on correct faith, life and love.

But what must be understood is the following: God is manifest in His works. He does not “live” “up there” in the sky. He is manifest in the workings of his nature, though again, not identical with it, as the pantheists believe. God exists within nature, exising within a dimension inaccessible to carnal people, but can be seen, on rare occasions by his saints, who are purified to such an extent that they can perceive more dimensions than the average person. God exists in nature through essence, which is spirit, and hence derives from the spiritual Being capable of creating all that is. Thus, we reach the following conclusions:

1. Knowledge is real. Human beings can know things. Without true knowledge, human life is absurd.
2. If 1 is true, then objects must have a spiritual core, in that the “is-ness” of things is not reducible to matter, since matter is always changing, decaying and the source of chaos and can never be a source of knoweldge.
3. The essence is the basis of knowledge
4. God is the source of spirit, because nature cannot be this source. Nature is the manifestation of spirit, but not its creator
5. Nature is beautiful precisely because it is the manifestation of God’s power. Nature is an open book, a book of symbols, each with God’s imprint on it. Without it, knowledge is impossible
6. To make the claim that essences to not exist, that is, that stable reality is the creation of the mind, in that universals are the creation of the mind, knowledge is thereby rejected, since all that exists is chaos and will by default
7. If one accepts 6, then power is the only reality, since the establishments that are empowered by the powerful to make judgements as to what “reality” is, such as the scientific establishment, the Royal Society, the state, etc., have the power, money and reach to make their version of reality known and accepted.
8. Without stable essences, all is a manifestation of will, that is, the will of the stronger.
9. If one rejects 6, then one is forced to accept the spiritual basis of all things, in that they are ` known by their essences, things that are not physical
10. If this is true, then God is the creator of all essences, since essences are spirit, and spirit demands a spiritual creator
11. God is then manifest in all things, in that his energy (which might be another word for essence) is to be found in all things, in themselves, as well as in relation to one another via law. Spirit is an element of God’s power and grace, not a part of Him in se
12. Nature then is the Bible for all men, since God’s power can be detected within it. It is not identical with God, but its stability and regularity are elements of God’s energy and power

From the point of view of absolute knowledge, that is, knowledge of things that do not change, St. Augustine can deduce the soul, the spirit and the spiritual nature of all things. The existence of God, the Trinity, God’s goodness and beauty, the spirit, all of this exists within the ability of a deeply ascetic person to understand by studying nature, not as a means of satisfying desire, but as a living organism, a manifestation of God’s energy though the essences of objects and their relations that produce objective knowledge in the first place. Here is spirit manifest, and new life open to the few who God has called to himself.

Author’s Postscript: After re-reading Voegelin’s Order and History (vol III), I remembered an issue of extreme importance. Plato spoke of disembodied ideas only in relation to justice. The idea, the full realization of Truth, Beauty and Justice, can be embodied in the state, social institutions, realizing Justice itself, and hence, nature is seen for what it is, and what it is is definitely not a series of dead lumps just waiting for the Enlightenment technical to make something “useful” out of it.

In reality, there is no difference in the Platonic sense, between an embodied idea or a disembodied one. The “resistance” of a culture or of a people to an idea does not, in Voegelin’s terms “invalidate the Idea nor the philosopher who manifests it.” It is a condemnation of the people, the society. But a proper vision of nature is dependent upon Justice. In other words, the philosopher can see what nature is, an ascending hierarchy of species and genre, manifesting, more and more nakedly, the Idea of justice and law. The timocratic and oligarchic soul can only see death: dead matter for his own use. This is the gnosis of Plato’s metaphysic: the belief in disembodied forms is not a statement about their ontology, but a condemnation of the society, Athens, or 21st century America, who refuses to see it, or even believe in its existence. Forms are embodied in natural “sense data” only when a society adheres to the basic outline of Justice. However, the timocrat sees nothing but “potential,” and objects to exploit, rather than the manifestation of Law and Justice.

Modern philosophers are generally a useless bunch. They are sophists in the purely Platonic sense of the word. Establishment liberalism is their creed, with few exceptions, serving the Regime that has given them lifetime employment, summers off, an average salary of $55,000 plus benefits and pension, gracious travel expenses, social prestige and power over students without accountability. This is the deal, and hence, the philosophical establishment spouts the media, lib-chic concept at each turn. They are lower than the sophist because the former are convinced of their calling and their own brilliance. The point is that they refuse to connect ontology with ethics, for it would condemn their own lifestyles and prestige. In other words, the oligarchic lifestyle places blinders on the university scribbler, ontology is dependent upon justice, and the academic establishment is, at its best, timocratic. Plato said things very similar to the sophists of his day, and the establishment nods along with it, as if it is not directly pointed at them.

In short, positivism, nominalism and scientism (generally) are the result, not the cause, of the disconnect of Justice from social life. Nature appears dead and unformed. Metaphysics, as Plato insisted, is intensely social, and cannot be cooped up in academic buildings, secret meetings and faculty groupthink. As Plato speaks of in the Statesman, the lone wanderer is wiser than the sophist, the scribbler, the philodoxical whore-for-hire. He is hated, looks ridiculous, is awkward in public, but contains the Idea, the concept of which is completely foreign to the sophist, ancient or modern.

Containing the idea is a death sentence. Either the sentence is symbolic (banishment from the academy), or literal, in the case of the Russian new-martyrs, but it is real nonetheless.