Page 42 - CONSCIENCISM By Kwame Nkrumah_Neat
P. 42
36 CONSCIENCISM
PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIETY 37
to principles ofjustice. At the end oftheir time, they give way to ofthe soul a tenet ofphilosophy as distinct from a belief ofreligion.
other things and flow back whence they came, back into the According to Heraclitus, too, all things are one. But fire, the
boundless neutral stock. So whereas at first blush Anaximander fundamental thing, suffers transformations into other things.
seems to have diverged widely from Thales, his master and friend, There is a permanent potential of instability in everything, and
he in fact only tried to secure similar social objectives by means of it is this instability which makes transformations possible. Ob
conceptual instruments not too different from those of Thales. jects are only deceptively serene, they are all delicate balances of
The early Greek philosophers had a social-moral preoccupation opposing forces. This opposition of forces is conceived by Hera
which they expressed in terms of metaphysics. It was this social clitus to be so fundamental that without it everything would
moral preoccupation which made them continual sufferers of pass away. An object is an attunement of opposite tensions and
political persecution.
without the tensions there could be no object.
The point I wish to underline in this respect is that the priests had Social laws, too, are conceived by Heraclitus after the same
grounded their power and all manner of social hierarchy in their manner. He conceives them as an attunement of tensions, tlle
supernatural account of the world. To destroy sacerdotal power resultant ofopposing tendencies. Without the opposing tendencies,
and its associated arbitrary social structure, it was necessary to there could be no laws. It can be seen that Heraclitus conceived
remove their grounding; it was necessary to give a natural account society as a dynamism, in which out ofthe strife ofopposites there
of the world. In this way, philosophy served as an instrument of emerges an attunement. Heraclitus makes this strife of opposites
social justice.
indispensable to growth and creation both in nature and in society.
However revolutionary were the monists, that is to say those And growth or creation is nothing but that attunement or balance
who claimed that everything was at bottom the same thing, they which emerges from a strife of opposites. In social terms, this
were still bogged down once they had claimed the fundamental means that society is permanently in revolution, and that revolu
equality ofall. It is possible, admittedly, to regard Anaximander as tion is indispensable to social growth and progress. Evolution by
haVing had an awareness ofthis stagnation, for he envisaged not a revolution is the Heraclitean touchstone ofprogress.
static and immobile social equality, but a social equality pursued The idea of the cosmic strife ofopposites came to be impressed
at all times by the active principle ofjustice. Anaximander was not on Heraclitus by the eruptions which shook Greek society. After
a lotus-eater. He could not allow society to remain dormant, com the aristocrats had overthrown the monarchies, Greek colonies
placent with the social structure which was current in his time. His came to be established on the lip ofthe Mediterranean basin. With
principle ofjustice was one which called for social change, for he this and the introduction ofcoinage, the value oflanded property
could not see an egalitarian society as one in which everything was as an instrument ofeconomic transactions declined. Trade became
permanently as it was, in which inequalities remained undisturbed. more widespread, and the development of a merchant navy to
It fell to Heraclitus to introduce the notion ofgrowth into the con assist the spread oftrade further depressed the economic significance
ception ofsociety.
ofthe landed aristocracy. The new merchant force began to seek
The preceding early Greek philosophers were so bent on political prizes from the decadent aristocracy. This fundamental
destroying the foundations ofpriestly aristocratic power that they social change initiated by econ01nic driv;es, coupled with the
paid little attention to social growth. They were so rapt in their opposition oflocal forces to Persian rule in the Asia Minor States,
purposes that they also jibbed at the immortality of the soul, created among the Greeks a society which was comparatively
Socrates being the first Greek philosopher to make the immortality redeemed. Even the thirty tyrants marked a redemption ofGreek
