Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy

Kojin Karatani, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017), 165 pp. $23.95

Since 2003, Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani has published three books—a trilogy, really—the last of which is Isonomia. Transcritique and The Structure of World History precede the latest volume with, in the first case, a penetrating analysis of the relatedness of Kant’s to Marx’s thought, and, in the second, a radical reinterpretation of Marx’s Capital making modes of exchange take the place of modes of production. Isonomia, as its subtitle suggests, focuses more on the history of philosophy, its geographical birthplace, and the specific conditions that enabled the emergence of a way of thinking that was hitherto unknown. An architecture of mutually supporting evidence and argument make the procession interdependent and reinforcing. As we shall see, Karatani’s arguments concerning philosophy cannot be separated from his analysis of world history.

“It is widely thought,” writes Karatani, “that in liberal democracy humankind has arrived at its ultimate form, and there is nothing left for us but trying to make moderate progress within its limitations. Needless to say, however, liberal democracy is nothing of the sort” (16). To find an alternative requires a return to economics in strict opposition to the cultural or linguistic “turns” of the last half-century (since the sixties revolutions). These “turns,” Karatani contends, resulted from a misinterpretation of Marx’s and Engel’s conception of the “superstructure-base” dialectic. Thus he begins with Marx’s basic unit of analysis in Capital: the commodity. Commodity, by definition and in fact, is a relation of exchange and on this basis Karatani identifies four modes of exchange corresponding to, A: reciprocity by gift and counter-gift, B. Domination and protection, C. Commodity exchange and D. transcending A, B, and C. Each mode corresponds further with the Nation (A), the State (B), Capital (C) and a yet to be realized “world to come” or, perhaps, communism (D). When historically formed societies, dating back to the dawn of written history (Sumer 6,000 years ago) are compared according to these coordinates several points are clarified. Above all, according to Karatani, we can explain why in a span of two centuries (6^th to 4^th BCE) universal religion arose across a vast landmass inclusive of Africa and Eurasia and the majority of the human population. Universal religion is the first expression of mode of exchange D: humanity as one, a united and harmonious society based on reciprocity or sharing.

From this vantage point, it is possible to locate geographically and temporally, the conditions that gave rise to philosophy, as well as the intellectual situation in which it arose. In this day and age of debunking, decentering, and delegitimizing, it might appear that Karatani is another in a long list of writers critiquing Eurocentric expropriation of contributions originating elsewhere. But appearances can be deceptive. Karatani’s world-historical perspective leads him to conclude that what happened in sixth century Ionia (towns such a Miletus, Kos, Samos, and Halicarnassus) was indeed unique in human history and, though depending to a large extent on what had been gleaned from Egyptian and other neighboring civilizations, was a radical breakthrough for human consciousness. This breakthrough was called natural philosophy, its basic lineage, from Thales to Plato (the pre-Socratics), is well known, as is the fact that natural philosophy laid the basis for modern science. Karatani goes an important step further, however, by examining the relationship of its emergence with the coincident rise of universal religions, for example, Judaism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Instead of springing fully formed from the head of Zeus, so to speak, Karatani situates the emergence of a new way of looking at the world within the world it was looking at, including those viewpoints with which it had to contend. It need hardly be said that this contention persists today, but perhaps most significantly, Karatani shows that philosophy was not simply anomalous or accidental, arising instead out of particular conditions that existed in the Greek colonies of Ionia. What were these conditions and how did they differ from those in Athens, Sparta or other city-states on the Greek mainland? Karatani’s answer: isonomia.

The literal definition of isonomia is “equality before the law.” But Karatani says that in practice, it meant “no rule.” (not to be confused with anarchy-a word/concept not in use at the time) “No rule” describes a situation in which Ionians’ freedom to migrate gave rise to equality among them. ‘No rule’ thus overcame the irreducible conflict between liberty and equality inherent in liberal democracy, a conflict that has produced little liberty and less equality for the great majority. Furthermore, according to Karatani, the democracy for which Athens is world-renowned, was founded to constrain isonomia, not to realize it.

The Ionian colonies were ports with mobile populations engaged more in handcraft/manufacture and trade than in agriculture. There was no basis for a landed nobility to arise or command the obedience of anyone. Furthermore, the bonds of tradition-clan, religion, hierarchy by birth-were far weaker, to the extent of being effectively powerless to prevent experiment of either a practical/technical or political nature. Doubt about theological explanations for natural phenomena and the pursuit of verifiable/predictable relations of cause and effect (eclipses of the sun, for example), were thus free from censure. This was exemplified by Thales and Hippocrates (respectively for astronomy and medicine and from Miletus and Kos in Ionia) and was attested to by dramatists such as Euripides and Aristophanes.

Athens, on the other hand, sought to mobilize the peasants for war and food production, in the context of imperial expansion, democracy emerging whenever tyrants and oligarchs proved inadequate to the task. From Solon to Cleisthenes, democracy was only nominally about isonomia and more about limiting who the “many” were. Indeed, Cleisthenes’ great innovation was to make the deme (a subdivision of land) the identifier of citizenship, or demos, as opposed to the phratry or clan. Unlike in Ionia, the demos were defined by their locality and foreigners were excluded from citizenship. Furthermore, the free peasant was not only responsible for agricultural production, but was mobilized for war on land and sea, that is, in the phalanx formation and as a rower in the battleships. Thus Athenian democracy, according to Karatani, was inseparable from imperial conquest and rooted in one’s place of origin or the land they tilled.

This was furthermore closely linked to religious observance and the placating of gods (as opposed to experiments in problem-solving, such as in navigation and manufacture), gods, furthermore, that were patrons of the polis or city-state. Socrates was condemned to death for corrupting the youth-corruption in this case being unfaithful to the city’s religious practices-not for opposing democracy.

While this is no doubt unsettling to simplistic notions of Greek democracy, there are further unsettling views concerning philosophy. Karatani draws battle lines between Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus and other pre-Socratics, on the one hand, and Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle on the other. He rescues Protagoras and the Sophists from two millennia of bad odor, aligning them with the Eleatics and Atomists, and natural philosophy/science in general. Moreover, he argues that Socrates belongs among the pre-Socratics and not, as Plato has portrayed him, as a departure from them. This is argued specifically regarding isonomia both as a concept and as a set of social relations. Pythagoras and Plato were each in their way responding to the betrayal of isonomia, their disillusion with how it was undermined by democracy as practiced in Athens and their attempts (disastrous in Plato’s case) to influence “the powers that be” in their compromised situations.

There is much to be debated here, for example, I question Karatani’s reading of Parmenides and his blanket endorsement of the Sophists. Furthermore, his view of Pythagoras harbors ambiguity counter to the main thrust of his argument, Pythagoras being remembered, above all, for his scientific contributions; indeed the name “philosophy” originates with him. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to view these questions within the world in which they arose, about other contemporary intellectual developments (Rabbinical Judaism, among others) as well as to issues facing us today. If nothing else, Karatani shows the relevance of philosophy to political conflict, how philosophy arose out of such conflict and how many of the first philosophers, far from being grey-beards in contemplative repose, were intellectual combatants. This role, moreover, is consistent with the historical fact that philosophers have often been persecuted (Socrates and Giordano Bruno being notable examples).

What Karatani is presenting, therefore, is a concrete analysis of the conditions necessary to produce the scientific method, the rational against the superstitious, the cosmopolitan (think of Diogenes: “I am a citizen of the world”) against the ethnos/nation and the universal against the particular (the concept of justice, for example). It need hardly be said that these themes are more timely than ever. Karatani’s advocacy of a World Republic along the lines indicated by Kant, and an association of producers, as Marx and Engels describe communism, is therefore grounded in a comprehensive study of history and philosophy. Whether one agrees with Karatani or not, such renewed effort is urgently necessary at a time when liberal democracy has manifestly failed to deliver its promise of liberty, equality and fraternity, but instead brought us to the brink of catastrophe.

Mat Callahan
Editorial Board member, Socialism and Democracy
info@matcallahan.com