The Morality of Language: A Wilsonian Proof for the Existence of Higher Law

Mary Katherine Collins

What laws? I never heard it was Zeus Who made that announcement, And it wasn’t justice, either. The gods below Didn’t lay down that law for human use. And I never thought your announcements Could give you—a mere human being— Power to trample the gods’ unfailing, Unwritten laws. These laws weren’t made now Or yesterday. They live for all time, And no one knows when they came into the light. No man could frighten me into taking on The gods’ penalty for breaking such a law. 1

Natural law has been one of the most controversial and widely discussed topics since the very beginning of philosophical tradition. From Plato’s and Socrates’ insistence upon respecting higher law, to Blackstone’s common law definitions, to Kant’s and Nietzsche’s determination to throw out God and eternal law altogether, the conversation spans thousands of years and dozens of relevant dimensions. While at times referred to by near synonyms such as “common law,” “eternal law,” “higher law,” or “law of nature,” the undertones of the term

1. Sophocles, Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone(Boston: Mariner Books, 2002), lines 450-460.

remain the same. At its foundation, the concept of “natural law” implies a consistent rule that exists beyond the man-created law. Throughout the transcripts from his Lectures on Law, James Wilson provided multiple proofs to propose that affirming natural law is a more logical belief than debunking it. 2 This work will buttress Wilson’s proposal that language’s inherently implied moral judgements, which lace nouns and adjectives alike, point to a higher standard through a discussion on the distinctions between human and higher law, an examination of Wilson’s argument, and an evaluation of the role of Thomism and Genealogy within the paradigm of language.

Richard Hooker’s work, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, outlined what he understood to be five distinct types of law: “the law which God from before the beginning hath set for himself to do all things by,” 3 (divine law), the law which guides nature (nature’s law), the law of the angels (angelic law), the law which directs man “to the imitation of God” 4 (law of nature). and the law of man. 5 Hooker’s work is clear in its articulation of the fact that “not all laws are created equal.” Though Hooker roots his argument in his explicitly Christian beliefs, such beliefs are not necessary to defend the proposition of a higher law. Because of this, it is perhaps easier to refer to higher law as “the law of the gods,’” regardless of either genuine belief in gods or belief in specific deities.

This allows us to use Wilson to defend more ancient accounts that do not align with a Christian narrative. For instance, the ancient poet, Aristophanes—a religious pantheist—wrote in Clouds, “You’re the one responsible for this. You’ve turned yourself toward these felonies… Each time we see someone, who falls in love with evil strategies, …we hurl him into misery; so that he may learn to fear the gods.” 6 This ancient conception that the gods demand certain actions and forms of justice, virtue, and veneration is consistent with the writings of other ancient Roman philosophers as well. St. Boethius wrote, “But in blindness they do not know; Where lies the good they seek: That which is higher than the sky; on earth below they seek…” 7 This shows us that in ancient Roman and Chris

2. James Wilson, Collected Works of James Wilson: In Two Volumes(Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund Inc., 2009), 1:500-25. 3. Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: Books I.-IV. (London: George Rutledge and Sons, 1888), 58. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Aristophanes, and edited by Jeffrey Henderson, Aristophanes(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), lines 1454-1460. 7. B oethius, and translated by Victor Watts, The Consolation of Philosophy (New York: Penguin Classics, 1999), Book III-VIII, 62.

tian thought, there is a clear distinction between laws written by kings such as Creon, and the eternal gods of the heavens. To use Wilson’s rhetoric, “Laws may be promulgated by reason and conscience, the divine monitors within us.” 8 Again, undertones of a deity are present even if the facial verbiage might exclude a heavenly originator.

Regardless of mens’ wishes, it is the will of these deities that ought to be followed and revered more highly. This thesis is proposed by Sophocles in Antigone, a discourse on this very query: if the laws of men and heaven collide, who is to be disregarded? Certainly, it cannot be expected that the arbitrary men and unfaltering heavens will be in perpetual agreement. Antigone, Sophocles’ protagonist, was steadfast in her obedience to higher law throughout the play, willing to give up her life rather than submit to an earthly order which violated her understanding of the law of the gods. Creon confronts the girl after she is brought to his court as the perpetrator who illegally buried her brother Polyneices. “You dared defy the law.” 9 Creon argues, believing his proclamation to be the true binding law of the land. Antigone’s response is,

I dared. It was not God’s proclamation. That final Justice That rules the world below makes no such laws. Your edict, King, was strong, But all your strength is weakness itself against The immortal unrecorded laws of God. They are not merely now: they were, and shall be, Operative forever, beyond man utterly. 10

Here we find a clear articulation of law that is above the whims of man, to which men must submit to or risk violating justice. This paper is more concerned with the foundational question of whether such a higher standard exists to begin with.

James Wilson’s seven arguments in support of natural law derive from a variety of sources, including the “beauty of the universe,” 11 obligation from knowledge, obligation from God’s superiority, a unity of “reason and divine will,” 12 utility, social obligation, and an innate moral sense. Each presents its own unique attempt at proving the existence of higher law. Defending natural

8. Wilson, 470. 9. Sophocles, 352. 10. Ibid., 356-363. 11. Wilson, 505. 12. Ibid., 506.

law requires defending an absolute standard which is always true. This means that if natural law proposed that only Brown cows could be morally eaten, that argument would hold true absolutely and regardless of how delectable an Oreo cow might appear. In order to substantiate the rationality of natural law, Wilson must begin by defending the value of absolute truth statements.

The classical Aristotelian conception of truth is understood to be: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.” 13 However, this definition could easily be converted into more common modern philosophical terms by expressing it slightly differently: “The truth of a sentence consists in its agreement with (or correspondence to) reality.” 14 Truth is historically understood in comparison or contrast with its correspondence with reality – trees, for instance. It was Albert Einstein who wrote that, “‘Three trees’ is something different from ‘two trees.’ Again ‘two trees’ is different from ‘two stones.’” 15 As the reflexive property reminds us, things are equal to which that they are. Even Thomas Aquinas supported this to be a correct understanding of truth. 16 Words are, therefore, properly meant to describe the reality of the world – to accurately, symbolically portray the idea they intend to communicate. It is called “truth” when they correctly do so.

Wilson argued for absolute truth with his, “Argument From Utility.” Premise one: community’s end is to increase general happiness and utility. Premise two: some actions positively increase (or diminish) general happiness and utility. Conclusion: therefore, some actions effect the community’s end. Actions ought to be measured by their inclination to affect happiness. “Whatever is expedient, is right.” 17 Utility alone infers an obligation toward some actions and away from others. This very obligation is a statement of absolute: the language of ‘ought’ conveys a standard of some kind which it is asserting should be obeyed. This argument gains significant traction with the utilitarian and hedonistic philosophies, though they tend to present utility as an alternative to natural law instead

13. Alfred Tarski, and edited by Irving J. Lee, “The Semantic Conception of Truth,” in The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics(New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1949), 68. 14. Ibid. 15. Albert Einstein, Leopold Infeld, and edited by Irving J. Lee, “Physics and Reality,” in The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1949), 92. 16. Ewa Thompson, “The Great Amputation: Language in the Postmodern Era,” Modern Age 60, no. 4 (Fall 2018), 43. 17. Wilson, 507.

of arguing that it offers proof for higher law’s necessary implications upon the world of men.

Alternatively, consider Wilson’s “Argument from Sociability.” It states that if “the care of maintaining society properly, is the foundation of obligation and right,” 18 once again a corresponding obligation can be drawn from the higher calling of “the whole human kind.” 19 Since men ought to properly maintain society they either pass or fail the standard of whether their actions properly do so. The nuances of the standard might be ambiguous—what all does the care of properly maintaining society infer?—but the foundational argument is that nonetheless a standard is required.

Wilson also argues from “An Innate Moral Sense.” He postulates that “The universality of an opinion or sentiment may be evinced by the structure of languages… where all languages make a distinction, there must be a similar distinction in universal opinion or sentiment. For language is the picture of human thoughts; and, from this faithful picture, we may draw certain conclusions.” 20 Language, he believes, often shares commonalities despite varying dialects. The Japanese konnichiwa, the French bonjour, the Chinese ni hau, the Italian ciao, the German guten tag, the Hindi namaste, or the Russian zdras-tvuy-te, are each examples of a pleasant greeting that is expressed upon seeing a friendly face. This particular example, of course, hardly scratches the surface of the repetitive patterns within languages. Consider eerily similar grammatical structures, declensions, shared root words, male/female tenses, and oddly consistent noun usage despite linguistic origins thousands of miles or hundreds of years apart. Separately evolving semantic constructions found need for similar words in a plethora of situations including nouns (boys or Jungen), adjectives (white or blanco), and verbs (drinking or trinkt). 21 Though there might not be a clear cause for these shared traits—to claim they originated from the gods at this point has the potential to be tautological—that does not minimize their existence.

Wilson is clear that he believes the similarity within languages is rooted in a shared underlying sense of morality. All languages speak of a beautiful and a deformed, a right and a wrong, an agreeable and disagreeable, a good and ill, in actions, affections, and characters. All languages, therefore, suppose a moral

18. Wilson, 507. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., 511. 21. This is in no way meant to propose that dialects can simply be mapped onto each other through elementary translation—a vast multitude of even modern vocabulary still lacks equivalent translatability—but merely a drawing out of the underlying recurrences.

sense, by which those qualities are perceived and distinguished.” 22 There is a moral sense ingrown to the regular use of language. Concepts such as a man who is “indelicate or hard,” “who has no admiration of what is truly noble,” “who has no sympathetick [sic] sense of what is melting and tender,” 23 exist commonly in language. The language of “enemy” or “friend,” “good boy” versus “bad dog,” “obedience” or “dishonor,” “holy man” or “whore,” are all phrases that bear with them inherent judgements about an individual, place, time, thought, or action. “Far from aiming at suspended judgment, the spontaneous speech of a people is loaded with judgments. It is intensely moral—its names for objects contain the emotional overtones which give us the cues as to how we should act towards these objects.” 24

Calling a man a “friend to the family” when one introduces him is to per se suggest a pattern of behavior in regard to him – generosity or charity, perhaps. To label a woman a “whore” inherently casts darkness, disapproval, and contempt upon her activities, pattern of speech, or perhaps clothing. Language is essentially biased and non-neutral. “Spontaneous speech is not a naming at all, but a system of attitudes, of implicit exhortations. An important ingredient in the meaning of such words [as enemy] is precisely the attitudes and acts which go with them.” 25 Wilson argues that this inborn moral exhortation is the true beauty within a language. The greatest poets, authors, and playwrights utilize these undertows of affection and disapproval to play with the audience’s hearts, to move them in passionate, zealous emotion, to inflict sorrow and grief upon those who deserve. “If it were void of a relish for moral excellence, how frigid and uninteresting would the finest descriptions of life and manners appear!” 26 Language laced with inherently understood morality is the difference between the capability of calling a disobedient lad a “menace” and finding one’s self unable to disapprove of or label his actions at all.

Taking the next step of semantic value: words are also not meant to be simply contained to prima facie meanings. There have historically been four different levels at which words have had meanings: literal (“daily dealings with the physical world”), 27 analogical (“…language [that] is used to invoke a classical Aristote

22. Wilson, 511. 23. Ibid. 24. Kenneth Burke, edited by Irving J Lee, “Two Functions of Speech,” in The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1949), 40. 25. Ibid. 26. Wilson, 511. 27. Thompson, 43.

lian mimesis.”), 28 symbolic (“…similarities of a nonmaterial nature…”), 29 and the anagogic level (“…on which human language reaches toward the metaphysical world. On this level, symbols are also utilized, but they point to a transcendent reality rather than to the intellectual or material one.”) Dr. Ewa M. Thompson wrote that “medieval thinkers took it for granted” 30 that language included all four of these elements. It is not as if some words were anagogical and other literal, even the literal words might have value on all four levels. Otherwise, a priest’s call to “be charitable and chaste” in his Sunday homily might prove to be entirely useless to his congregation.

Arguably, learning to sense these nuances of level within literature is the purpose of a liberal education to begin with. “By reading fine texts individuals develop an ability to discover aspects of language invisible to a barbarian.” 31 Tuning one’s ear to these shades of language is not merely valuable on a philosophical level. In the words of Aldoux Huxley: “For evil then, as well as for good, words make us the human beings we actually are.” 32

The profound significance of language is the communication of thought. Audible and written communication holds its place as “the highest and most amazing achievement of the symbolistic human mind. The power it bestows is almost inestimable…” 33 Without language, it is impossible to think or evaluate, to analyze or consider. Symbolism is necessary to put vague conceptions into thought and then into words or actions. As De Maistre wrote, “The question of the origin of ideas is the same as that of the origin of language, for thought and language are simply two splendid synonyms, the mind not being able to think without knowing what it thinks…” 34 First, there is a cow in a field. Then, a barbarian looks out and sees the cow in the field and is able to mentally imagine that particular cow standing in that particular field, but he still does not have a way to communicate the thought - even to himself. Later that day he imagines

28. Thompson, 43. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Aldous Huxley, edited by Irving J Lee, and., “Behavior That Language Makes Possible,” in The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1949), 58. 33. Susanne K. Langer, edited by Irving J Lee, and., “The Phenomenon of Language,” in The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1949), 7. 34. Joseph De Maistre, and translated by Jack Lively, The Works of Joseph de Maistre(New York: The MacMillan Company, 1965), 209.

it again and draws a circle with four legs on a cave wall. But, still, no one understands. Without language, he can only hope that someday his drawing skills will improve to the point where another barbarian will recognize the cow he has also seen out in the field. When words are implemented, it becomes possible to both state facts and ask questions. Some have gone so far as to say that “the birth of language is the dawn of humanity.” 35

Language is far more than a mere conversation held between a group of individuals. In reality, language is verbally spoken as frequently and precisely as it is held in the mind as a thought. This should not be a surprise, “for it is equally foolish to believe either that a symbol can exist for an idea which does not exist or that an idea can exist without a symbol to express it…” 36 Furthermore, consistency in human behavior is rooted in language. It “permits human beings to behave with a degree of purposefulness, perseverance and consistency unknown among the other mammals…” 37 Language both gives and refines man’s purpose. In his article, Behavior That Language Makes Possible, Aldous Huxley argues that this consistency of human behavior “is due entirely to the fact that men have formulated their desires, and subsequently rationalized them, in terms of words.” 38 When men are able to plainly consider their actions through clear, descriptive language, they act more logically, more reasonably, and more predictably. Without language, one might not consider the consequences of an action such as eliminating an enemy, but once language permits rational thought, the repercussions can perhaps come into clarity. As it becomes possible to analyze situations, individuals begin to make more regular choices and results become more consistent. The value of language is obviously not something to be minimized. Words clearly have (and ought to have) profound meaning.

Unfortunately, meanings—particularly at the anagogic level—are being slowly eradicated in the name of a rising Genealogical tradition. This is primarily because Wilson is far from the only philosopher who has used language to point back to transcendental truths; if the moral undertones of language can be eliminated, its reliance upon and reflection toward natural law can also be censored. Alasdair MacIntyre writes in his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, that the Genealogist tradition is built upon an eradication of transcendentals. This eradication undermines to even identify a conception of telos along with a complete overturning of absolute truth. Eva Thompson commented on this transition, “You get ‘construction of identity,’ as contemporary philosophers and

35. Langer, 7. 36. Ibid., 206. 37. Huxley, 57. 38. Ibid., 57-58.

sociologists have taught us to say. Note the assumed absence of a core. This popular scholarly phrase is classically nominalist.” 39 Rather than seeking to uphold a higher or eternal law, Genealogy throws that notion out the window. It rebukes Thomistic tradition altogether. In fact, even under Encyclopedic tradition—as outlined by MacIntyre—truth is allowed to exist, with the asterisk that it is entirely relevant to the time, place, and situation. Encyclopedic tradition debunks transcendentals, but still does not take the final step that Genealogy does: refusing the acknowledge the validity of truth in any situation whatsoever.

This Genealogical framework is inherently contradicted against a conception of higher law providing mankind fundamental, transcendental duties and moral obligations to uphold. Certainly, if a paradigm is accepted where “2 + 2” cannot be assured to reach a sum of “4,” then any semblance of moral order is laughable. The robust, anagogical understanding of language from the Medieval period is also necessarily stripped to its core. This was, in fact, one of the primary aims of Genealogy:

By 1873, [Nietzsche] was asking, ‘What then is truth?’ and replying, ‘A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms, a sum, in short, of human relationships which, rhetorically and poetically intensified, ornamented and transformed, come to be thought of, after long usage by a people, as fixed, binding, and canonical. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions, worn-out metaphors not impotent to stir the senses, coins which have lost their faces and are considered now as metal rather than as currency’ (Über Wahrheit und Lüge im Aussermoralischen Sinn I). 40

Nietzsche understood academic utterances to be repressive expressions “disguised behind a mask of fixity and objectivity.” 41 He emphasized the concept that though it might bear an external resemblance to truth, in reality, it is no more than a mask. Though an individual may be thoroughly convinced that something pertaining to their life is ‘true,’ that is simply not the case under a Genealogical perspective. They have accepted the masks they put on for the moment as a sign of something more significant.

Under this paradigm, Wilson’s argument is absurd. If there is no absolute truth, moral absolutes cannot underlie language. The argument simultaneously goes both ways: if the end goal is to promote a Genealogical tradition of morality,

39. Thompson, 41. 40. Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 35. 41. Ibid., 39.

then altering language has the potential to help fulfill that objective; meanwhile, if a Genealogical perspective filters down through society it can result in a disembowelment of language. The two progress hand-in-hand. Of course, Nietzsche was aware of this natural motion. He shamelessly opposed Thomistic tradition with “wholehearted hostility,” 42 warning others against being entrapped in the Socratic dialects while favoring the Sophists’ lectures, “for he perceived correctly that only by breaking with that dialectic at the outset could one hope to escape from arriving at Platonic and Aristotelian conclusions.” 43 Not all agree with Nietzsche’s reinterpretation of tradition. 44 Thomism and Genealogy are at direct odds; it is impossible for both to simultaneously coexist. Thompson reflected upon this as she wrote: “Something happened to the English language within my lifetime. Its most subtle and ineffable level has been amputated. The most respected humanistic texts are anti-essentialist in a way that precludes assigning a ‘metaphysical vibration’ to language. In public discourse, words have ceased to be, in Seamus Hearney’s expression, ‘bearers of history and mystery’…” 45

This brings the discussion around full-circle to the contrast with tradition. It would not require an extensive search of Plato’s work to discover his transcendental view of the world. 46 When skimming the Gorgias, for instance, one will find Socrates proudly stating: “There is nothing worse than injustice and wrongdoing,” 47 while Callicles—his Sophistic interlocuter—proposes that, “The only authentic way of life is to do nothing to hinder or retrain the expansion of one’s desires, until they can grow no larger.” 48 Socrates proposes that a clear standard of justice exists, while Callicles argues for the restraint-free idealism that Nietzsche’s Genealogical morality later affirms. This argument is affirmed repeatedly by critics reflecting upon Plato’s writings, “E. R. Dodds argued that

42. MacIntyre, 60. 43. Ibid. 44. De Maistre, for example, was firmly against the modern reinterpretation of language. “…let us establish first of all that the greatest, noblest, and most virtuous geniuses in the world are agreed in rejecting the origin of ideas in sensory perceptions. It is the holiest, most unanimous, most inspiring protest of the human spirit against the gravest and vilest of errors…” De Maistre, 207. 45. Thompson, 41. 46. Plato, trans. by C. D. C. Reeve, Republic (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2004) lines 505a1-505b3. 47. Plato, trans. by D.J. Zeyl, Gorgias(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1987), lines 479b-c. 48. Ibid., lines 491e-492a.

we find in the Callicles of the Gorgias an anticipation of Nietzsche’s response to Plato.” 49 Within Socrates’ worldview, men may not live however they please, instead they are expected to uphold a set of standards and rules.

Plato believes that abiding by the standards of justice and natural law is so critical to one’s soul that it could potentially continue to affect one’s eternal outcome even after death. The end of the Gorgias includes a vision of exactly such an eternal soul, “Once the soul has been stripped of the body, all its features become obvious… scourged and covered in the scars which every dishonest and unjust action has imprinted on it…the promiscuity, sensuality, brutality, and self-indulgence of his behaviors has thoroughly distorted the harmony and beauty of his soul.” 50 He who is just, truthful, and virtuous will bear a clear soul while he who is unrighteous will wear the scars for eternity. Though perhaps hyperbolic, if there is an absolute standard of truth it would seem fair to assume that souls (if they do indeed exist) might possibly experience some sort of wrath or penalty for leading wicked lives. The flip-side of the same coin is that an absolute standard of justice and virtue also provides an incentive for lives to take on an intrinsic value simply because it is worth supporting, worth fighting for, and worth adhering to.

If Thomism and Genealogy - along with the substantial divide between the two - have been accurately portrayed, then Wilson (perhaps prematurely) pinned down one of the greatest subliminal battles of the modern era. In 2018, Dr. Ewa M. Thompson wrote a piece in Modern Age entitled “The Great Amputation: Language In the Postmodern Era” in which she discussed what she referred to as a “flattening out” 51 of language due to what MacIntyre has labeled a ‘Genealogical tradition.’ Thompson prefers the terminology ‘postmodern,’ though the concepts as discussed in this work and Thompson’s work are clearly close to, if not entirely, synonymous. She notably drew attention to the vanishing of anagogical meanings within modern use of language. Thompson largely contributes this to a vanishing of religious sensibilities. For example, the term mother used to deeply denote the profound spiritual implications which ‘Mary, the Mother of God’ shed upon the pronoun. Today, “hardly a trace remains.” 52 “We learned to read and write texts as if there were no metaphysical dimension to language and as if the range of possible meanings never exceeded what the New York Times

49. MacIntyre, 60. 50. Plato, Gorgias, lines 524d-525a. 51. Thompson, 47. 52. Ibid., 46.

offers us as intellectual food.” 53

Phrases such as “father,” “holy,” “master,” “king,” or “priest,” used to be steeped in deeply religious understandings. When an individual was referred to by such titles, the anagogical meanings were remembered and shared via common knowledge. “It should be noted that mainly nouns are being consigned to oblivion.” 54 In the same way that a mother might name her son after her favorite saint in the hopes that he would mimic the holy habits of the Saint as he grew, anagogical meanings of nouns and titles were commonly understood in their metaphysical context. “For centuries, first names carried an anagogical echo because they were the names of Christian saints.” 55 Unfortunately, according to Thompson, that meaning has largely been lost. “As a result, texts of all kinds became colorless and uninteresting, and their half-life has become short.” 56 These meanings were safely secured through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Metaphysical understandings of words were valuable because of the very religious connotations that they provided. It was only with the rise of the Enlightenment that there was a move toward exterminating them. In the words of Thompson,

In Medieval Exegesis, de Lubac mentions dozens of language philosophers of the Middle Ages; …there exist profound texts most educated people do not know anything about. Instead of building on them, we started anew during the Enlightenment and declared that the anagogic level of language does not exist and attempts to connect to it should disappear from public discourse. 57

More than likely, Wilson could not have predicted such a shift in semantic usage throughout the subsequent two hundred years. Jeremy Bentham engaged in a mission to slice basic nouns from their deeper meanings. “[It was] partisan quality in speech which Bentham, who specifically formulated the project for a neutral vocabulary, would eliminate. He rightly discerned in it the “poetry” of speech and resented its “magical” powers in promoting unreasoned action.” 58 Rather than flowing naturally from a societal shift Jacques Derrida also hoped to eliminate the entirety of metaphysics from the world of language altogether but encouraged active progress toward that end: “What he tried to get rid of—

53. Ibid., 48. 54. Thompson, 41. 55. Ibid., 46. 56. Ibid., 47. 57. Ibid., 48. 58. Burke, 40.

the very core of Western culture—has all but disappeared.” 59 Cutting meanings free from their traditional words and usage, this is the Genealogist and postmodernist’s game. The most basic disembowelment of language is necessary in order to snip it off from its anagogical value. Wilson would doubtless be entirely disheartened to hear of this modern project.

Though there are many significant arguments which could be brought into a proper discussion of the Genealogist’s war against words 60 —that discussion must be set aside for a more appropriate context. Three arguments have been made clear: natural law is classically understood to refer to an absolute, higher standard to which men must conform their arbitrary whims; James Wilson argues that language’s inherent moral exhortations which are inherently connected to words and phrases is a reflection and proof of this higher law; and the Genealogical tradition seeks to simultaneously undermine both the Thomistic understanding of an absolute higher law and the anagogical value of language which points men toward it. It is perhaps valuable to see their very resistance to language as a mere buttress to Wilson’s claims. One does not fight where is not an enemy. Meanwhile, Wilson, Thompson, and Plato light a path of return to the anagogical, metaphysical, morality-infused language to which men naturally are drawn. “Language’s resonance and depth stem from its contact with the spiritual world – a context which cannot be replaced by the complex verbal aerobatics that postmodern philosophy and literature have offered.” 61

59. Ibid., 42. 60. Alasdair MacIntyre argues this at length in his Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry including the following passages: “The problem then for the genealogist is how to combine the fixity of particular stances, exhibited in the use of standard genres of speech and writing, with the mobility of transition from stance to stance, how to assume the contours of a given mask and then to discard it for another, without ever assenting to the metaphysical fiction of a face which has its own finally true and undiscarded representation, whether by Rembrandt or in a shaving-mirror. Can it be done?” “The attempt to spell out the consequences of the death of God by moving beyond the constraints of grammar and the logic of all established values was bound to end in tragic failure.” “Nietzsche did not advance a new theory against older theories; he proposed an abandonment of theory.” MacIntyre, 47-9. 61. Thompson, 51.

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