The Folly of Wisdom

The Artificial Fool

Queenie:           Nice try Melchy, but it is no use. I'm still bored!
Melchett:           I'm very sorry madam. Your royal father used to be very                               amused by my impersonation of Columbus.
Queenie:           You don't surprise me. He used to laugh at those people with                     the funny faces and the bells.
Melchett:           Ah, jesters ma'am.
Queenie:           No, lepers.

Blackadder, Series 2, Episode 1, “Bells”.

4.1     An unnatural fool

This chapter marks a major shift of focus in this piece of writing.  Prior to now I have dealt exclusively with the natural fool and its variations.  I did this in order to find some initial ways that foolishness and its associated irrationality could be considered as wise.  In the course of this attempt it became apparent that the wisdoms shown in the natural fool and the associated mad fool were tied inextricably to their nature as irrational agents.  To take a small example, fearing death is usually taken as something futile and harmful, hence not fearing death is wise.  Natural fools do not fear death because they possess little or no comprehension of what death is and thus evince wisdom with respect to death.  However, for a normally rational person, hopefully of the sort destined to read this dissertation on folly, this exact form of wisdom is out of reach.  In order to emulate the natural fool, our normal rationality and knowledge would have to be surrendered in some fashion; an unappealing prospect.  While the natural fool may possess wisdom stemming in part from their irrationality or their lack of knowledge, I would doubt that attaining this form of wisdom is worth sacrificing the fruits of reason and the types of wisdom that reason can grant.

            Furthermore, when the natural fool does show wisdom, that wisdom is often of a somewhat dubious nature.  To further my example, the wisdom of not fearing death through being unaware of it does not seem to be very valuable.  Real wisdom would lie in overcoming the fear of death, and the natural fool’s situation circumvents the problem rather than overcoming it.  The natural fool is in the situation of the wise person with regard to the fear of death, yet their situation does not have the merit of wisdom.  In itself this may be a form of wisdom, but it seems to lack much of what we expect from wisdom.

            One proposed way of acquiring the ‘wisdom’ of the natural fool without abandoning rationality may lie in the nature of the artificial fool.  Artificial fools are people who emulate folly or who are considered fools by the dictates of society, but who nevertheless possess the rationality and reason usually lacking in the natural fool and are not by essential character fools themselves.  Often they feign folly for a purpose, whether that purpose be to entertain or to educate.  Historically this group has been large and amorphous with very different people playing the part of the fool for very different reasons.  At various times people who have donned the motley have ranged from very different backgrounds, including dwarfs, foreigners, highly educated people and normal, everyday people.  The reasons these people have adopted folly have been similarly diverse, from simple desires to entertain or to achieve a livelihood, to more earnest desires to educate or to act as social critic.  Even in literature the characters of artificial fools are equally diverse from simple, crude people to sophisticated wits and intelligent rhetoricians.

            They also come together, I shall claim, to convey something about human nature and human existence.  The adoption of foolishness by a normally rational person helps say something about the nature of rationality, the nature of wisdom and certainly about the nature of folly.  To give a more concrete example, in the morality plays of the Middle Ages a common, almost formulaic close for these plays was for the entire cast to remove their outer garments revealing motley underneath and, in effect, become artificial fools at the play’s conclusion.  One simple, intended implication of this way of concluding is to point out that, at heart, all of the characters in the play are fools.  The other roles they play are less true than that of the fool – the fool’s motley is hidden under their clothes, indicating that it is a deeper, more real role for them.  By saying that all the characters are fools, no matter their importance in the play or what role they play, implies that perhaps most of us in the wider world are, in the final summation, fools.  All our purposes and strivings are simply foolishness and empty air.  This example helps show that the adoption of the motley can be a very profound choice.  It can convey very important themes.

            I shall begin this chapter by making a number of points about the artificial fool’s wisdom and how it relates to the natural’s wisdom.  I shall be showing how the artificial fool can take elements of the natural fool’s wisdom and build upon them to create a wisdom that, while different in kind from the natural fool’s wisdom, is itself valuable and shows the value that emulating folly and valuing the irrational has for wisdom.  I shall then move on to some larger points about the artificial fool, looking at some of the more common reasons people have feigned foolishness and why this has been wise, before finally turning to the big picture – what it means for wisdom and knowledge if emulating their antitheses can be wise.  I shall begin with the account of the natural fool’s innocence and ethical blamelessness.

4.2          Learning from the natural fool

4.2 (a)     Innocence

One of the first points I made about the natural fool in chapter 2 was that through not being able to comprehend the nature of immorality and immoral action, the natural fool gains an ethical blamelessness.  They cannot understand what constitutes a crime and hence cannot hold a proper intention to commit a crime.  In most views this means they should not be held culpable for that crime even if they do commit that crime.

            Natural fools, by being innocent, have seemingly found a solution to all ethical dilemmas and that might seem to be a kind of wisdom.  That solution is innocence.  There are two points to make about this.  The first is that innocence cannot be regained except through extreme measures.  The second is that being innocent is not the same as being a perfectly moral agent.  The natural fool has solved the dilemma of ethical action by simply avoiding the problem.  Instead of determining what you need to be an ethical person, natural fools avoid the dilemma by being amoral agents, incapable of either morality or immorality.  Innocence should certainly not be strived for if all it can bring us is a way of dodging an issue.  It would be tantamount to deliberately shutting out some truth about the world in order to not have to deal with it – intentionally remaining ignorant about the plight of slaves on the Ivory Coast, for instance, so as not to have to deal with the moral dilemma of whether it is moral to buy the major export of the Ivory Coast: chocolate.

            Ethical innocence does seem positive in some ways, but just as the innocent cannot be morally bad, nor can they be morally good.  A morally positive action also requires an understanding of what morality is.  Intention is just as important in attributing approval as it is in attributing blame.  If a person were to give up eating meat because they think vegetables feel more pain, they would not be morally praiseworthy.  Similarly, if a simple-minded person were to stop someone from choking to death by patting their back, perhaps because the simpleton enjoyed patting backs, then that simpleton would only be due the most cursory of praise.  If praise were given, it would most likely be in order to teach and instruct than to make any real statement about positive moral values.

            I do not think that the artificial fool should emulate this form of wisdom, even in a modified form.  Innocence may be feigned, but it cannot be easily regained and it has no value if it is just feigned.  Moreover, even if the artificial fool could regain or properly emulate innocence, doing so is probably not the wisest thing to do.  Innocence only avoids ethical issues, it does not solve them, and innocence also rules out the possibility of any ethical merit other than that of being innocent.  This form of ‘wisdom’, possessed by the natural fool, is not, all things considered, worth emulating.  If this latter claim is true, then it provides no motivation for becoming an artificial fool.

4.2 (b)     Shame

The natural fool is unaware of social taboos and social opprobrium.  By being innocent of these qualities, the natural fool is able to avoid experiencing their force.  Some would say that by avoiding feeling shame, the natural fool has achieved true individuality.  They are free from the burdens society places on a person – burdens that are often exceptionally heavy.

            This form of wisdom is definitely something the artificial fool can emulate.  Artificial fools cannot gain exactly the same form of wisdom, as they are aware of social mores.  However, they can emulate natural fools.  Artificial fools can see the benefits not possessing shame can have and could make an effort to deliberately ignore the mores of society.  This is indeed the case when we think of examples of artificial fools.  The humour of fools and jesters often involves flouting social conventions and upsetting social balances.  For instance, the artificial fools of the middle ages utilised a lot of bawdy physical humour, exposing themselves in public or striking people with their sceptres[1], showing their contempt for the social constructions of nudity and propriety.  Similarly, their motley was often in direct contradiction to social restrictions.  In Tudor England social restrictions based around clothing were so strong that they were enshrined in law.  Henry the Eighth produced “sumptuary laws”[2] restricting what people from various social classes were allowed to wear.  He wanted to be able to see what social class a person belonged to just by looking at them.  The fool’s motley was often made from scraps of velvet, silk and other expensive cloths reserved for the upper classes.  This apparel showed both that the fool transcends social class and that the fool does not feel the force of society’s disapproval.  Without shame social mores, such as those concerning apparel, are easily broken.

            The Cynic philosophers, of whom I shall speak more soon, also held shame to be a negative quality.  To the Cynics freedom is an essential goal, and shame with regard to social opprobrium is entirely inconsistent with true freedom.  Thus the Cynics attempted to get closer to the natural state, emulating at least this aspect of the natural fool.  Certainly the Cynics bear many resemblances to the artificial fool, especially when the artificial fool is taken to be someone emulating the natural fool in order to attain something like their wisdom.  Since freedom is a main Cynic concern, and the natural fool possesses a great deal of freedom from, amongst other things, society and its mores, emulating the natural fool is a wise strategy for the Cynics to take.  I also think there are some good reasons to think that the Cynic philosophers have some good reasons for exalting freedom to such a high status.

4.2 (c)     Fear and the fear of death

Natural fools lack the fear of death and fear in general because they are unaware of the causes of fear.  Since they do not understand what death is they do not fear it, just as a child might not fear putting their hand on a hot stovetop.  Fear, and especially fear of something inevitable or something that it is not rational to fear, is an unpleasantness that has no purpose.  Hence natural fools exhibit a state which is wise when they lack fear of death and they may also show wisdom in not having the more general fears.  This latter point may be more contentious though since it can be argued that other forms of fear have a more solid basis than the fear of death.

            In the Phaedo, Socrates claims that “the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.”[3]  The artificial fool prepares an attitude towards death based on what can be learned from the natural fool’s stance towards death.  However, once again the artificial fool cannot mimic this attitude and element of the natural fool’s wisdom exactly.  To copy the natural fool’s lack of fear exactly would require losing awareness of the things that cause fear.  This would be both difficult and undesirable as it would make other, more conventional forms of wisdom and knowledge unavailable.  However, the artificial fool can take a lesson from the natural fool and, in the process, can exceed the natural fool’s wisdom.

            Artificial fools can apply rationality to the fear of death, basing their rational assessment on the wisdom shown by natural fools and can, through this course of action, hopefully exceed the natural fool.  The artificial fool can take the point that sometimes fear is not a useful emotion, especially when that fear has causes that are, ultimately, irrational.  For instance, fearing death is, in some instances, an irrational thing to do.  It should be separated from an associated fear, the fear of dying, something that can be painful and unpleasant.  Once separated, fearing death itself seems somewhat irrational, especially when consideration is given to the specific nature and “inevitable and irremediable shipwreck”[4] of death itself.  If death is simply non existence, then why should we fear it?  We do not fear our neo-natal non-existence….  In the Phaedo Socrates claims that our fear of death is irrational because it is simply fear of the unknown, and the unknown should not be classified as fearful.  We do not know enough about it to classify it as worthy of fear, just as we do not know enough about it to classify it as joyful.

            Thus, the artificial fool realises that we are in part similar to the natural fool.  Just as the natural fool does not fear death because they have no comprehension of what it is, the artificial fool realises that we shouldn’t fear death because we too lack a proper understanding of it.  It could even be argued that the artificial fool exceeds the natural fool’s wisdom.  Artificial fools overcome their fear of death.  Natural fools unintentionally dodge the problem.  Artificial fools are aware of why people fear death, they simply do not fear it themselves.  Natural fools do not properly resolve the issue of proper preparation for death, but they can help point the way.

            However, it is important to note that the issue of whether it is wise to fear death has two sides.  Thomas Nagel[5], amongst others, puts forward arguments claiming that there is something about death it is valid to fear.  Nagel claims that it may be viable to fear some aspects of death because, while you may not experience the condition of death, you have nevertheless suffered a loss because of it.  You have been deprived of a future, and hence harmed in a significant way.  This argument and others point towards the natural fool’s attitude towards death being incorrect.  However, fearing death to the extent that most people do is almost certainly an unwise attitude.

4.2 (d)     Gnosticism

When it comes to Gnosticism, the artificial fool’s wisdom is even more clear than the natural fool’s.  Gnosticism claims that the path to wisdom has two parts.  The first part involves recognising that normal, human forms of knowledge and wisdom are not the highest forms of knowledge and wisdom and that in some instances it can be wise to relinquish normal conceptions of wisdom and not strive for them.  The second part involves realising that there is a higher form of understanding, this understanding being of humanity’s true, spiritual nature.  Essential human nature is not merely physical, but a spiritual spark of divinity that exists within everyone.

            The path of the Gnostic sage bears many similarities to the path of the artificial fool.  The Gnostic sage must learn that the benefits we can receive from worldly knowledge and reason can be limited.  The natural fool shows that the path to wisdom can be away from normal knowledge, something the artificial fool also learns through emulating the natural fool.   However, the natural fool cannot progress far along the path of the Gnostic sage.  It may be possible for them to lack worldly, conventional knowledge, but it is not possible for them to gain knowledge of humanity’s true, divine nature: the natural fool simply lacks the capacity.  However, the artificial fool does possess the capacity to attain Gnostic wisdom.  In fact, to become a Gnostic sage it is necessary to emulate some aspects of the natural fool in order to attain a higher wisdom; hence Gnostic sages bear a lot of similarity to artificial fools.

            The Gnostic sage need not consciously emulate the natural fool, rather it is more coincidental that their paths should cross.  In this way they differ from the true artificial fool.  Nevertheless, their paths do cross, helping to confirm that the artificial fool’s path to wisdom may indeed be a valid one.

            In the case of Gnosticism, the natural fool possesses some wisdom and can help to serve as a guide to wisdom.  However, their wisdom is limited.  In this case, the artificial fool is able to attain greater wisdom than the natural fool.

4.2 (e)     Nicholas De Cusa and the limits of knowledge

Not everything that is learnt from the natural fool is to be learnt from the unusual, pre-rational wisdom they possess.  Some things can be learnt simply from observation, much as some have gained wisdom from witnessing the harmony of a beehive or in pondering the size of the universe.  Wisdom does not always need to be learned from people who are wise.

            De Cusa asserts that this latter point is very apt.  He claims that knowledge of and wisdom regarding what is truly important in human existence, namely of the divine, is extremely limited.  What we can learn about the divine does not have to be learnt through scripture or from priests, rather what is important can be ascertained through simple, rational principles.  The natural fool, most likely, is restricted in this understanding.  A normally rational person may be able to come to an understanding of the divine, but a natural fool lacks the rational tools to reach this understanding.  However, natural fools can help us to further our understanding of the divine.  They hold an instrumental value, as well as an intrinsic value.

            The value they can teach us is that of humility.  As agents with normal rationality we are able to look at the natural fool and observe that they understand nearly nothing about the world in comparison to our own lofty understandings.  Yet they are oblivious to their lack, only perceiving dimly that there is something missing from their comprehensions.  It seems possible that we too have a similarly limited understanding of our existence.

            As in the morality plays cited earlier, the wisdom of the artificial fool may be in actually recognising their true nature.  In his article “Folly as Philosophical Idea”, Donald Verene claims that “Wisdom is attained through folly and the recognition of the self in its foolish condition.”[6]  If wisdom is, as the Delphic oracle has it, self knowledge, then wisdom could be found in recognising that foolishness may indeed be a fundamental part of human nature.  For instance, if the Sceptic claim is correct, and true knowledge of the world around us is impossible, then claiming to possess knowledge or even assuming we can have knowledge is pure folly, in the common sense of the word.  Only by accepting how little we can know and how much like fools we are can we come close to true wisdom; as Tolstoy once said: “The only thing that we can know is that is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human reason”.  Socrates, our usual paradigm case of philosophical wisdom, claimed he only had two types of knowledge; that of seduction and, perhaps slightly more significantly, self-knowledge.  He was “well aware that [he had] no wisdom, great or small”[7].  Like the artificial fool, Socrates’ wisdom does not stem from him claiming that he possesses large quantities of first-order knowledge.  Rather it stems from knowing the limits of his knowledge, and if it is true that our knowledge is of a limited sort as the Sceptics, then the artificial fool is making an apt value judgement.

            As Verene has it, “For both [Socrates and de Cusa] what the self most needs to know is that it is ignorant, that in this lies wisdom, and that in this is the true usefulness of philosophy”[8].  If, at heart, we are ignorant and this is something we need to realise in order to achieve the wisdom of self-knowledge, as Socrates wants, then the artificial fool possesses wisdom.  If wisdom is realising the limits of our knowledge when it comes to understanding the divine and the nature of our ignorance when it comes to the divine, as de Cusa claims, then the artificial fool’s choice to adopt the motley is still a wise one.

            So, in short, the wisdom of artificial fools may be to simply realise that they are fools in the sense of lacking knowledge and wisdom.  In doing so they achieve self-knowledge and, through this, wisdom.  Once more, though, this is not a wisdom that the natural fool can easily attain.  It may be possible for a simple person to realise their state, but it seems unlikely that they are more able to do so than a person of normal reason; it may even be more difficult.  Often people claim that the more you know, the more there is to know, and it often seems apt.  Without knowing any physics I would have no idea of the grand scale of physical facts I don’t know .  Hence, this wisdom may be more accessible to the normally rational person than to the natural fool, and already possessed by the genuine artificial fool.

4.2 (f)     Happiness

A persistent feature that often arose when discussing the natural fool was the idea of happiness.  Erasmus claims that both old age and childhood are made happy by their folly.  Fools make “good, sociable, jolly companions”[9] who should only be “infected with wisdom” to protect them from being “too happy”.[10]  Here Erasmus is plainly claiming that the natural fool is made happy thanks to their lack of normal reason.

            If happiness is wise, as is Erasmus’ claim, then we must ask if the artificial fool is similarly happy.  Certainly, artificial fools do not possess the childlike happiness of the natural fool.  They do not possess happiness, as the natural fool does, through lacking awareness of the things that can cause unhappiness.

            Yet, it is plain that artificial fools do value the lighter side of life.  Their profession is humour and amusement.  Perhaps we can say that artificial fools take their love of happiness from the natural fool and try to attain it according to what they witness in the natural fool.  They can see that natural fools are not burdened by the cares and worries that plague most people.  They can see that this contributes to the natural fool’s happiness.  They can then decide that the cares and worries of most are not useful and can minimise those aspects of their lives.  To relate this to some of the points made earlier, the artificial fool can see that shame and fear can make a person unhappy and can see that the natural fool avoids these emotions.  The artificial fool can then try to avoid these qualities in order to achieve the goal of happiness.  The artificial fool can also witness the natural fool and decide that what natural fools implicitly believe because of their lack of proper reason and as an accident of nature, namely that happiness should be valued more highly than burdens and concerns placed on us by our reason, is also an inherently reasonable choice.

            Natural and artificial fools may value happiness highly, but associated with the concept of happiness is the idea that happiness and pleasure, indeed all emotions, partake of something irrational in human nature.  This may be a false idea, as surely one form of rationality is to experience the appropriate emotions at the appropriate times.  It seems rational that one experience happiness when something good happens, or experience discomfort when given noxious stimuli.  Nevertheless, there is a tension between the latter and the common perception of emotion something we that is outside our control, or beyond our rational control.  For instance, I always feel depressed at Christmas.  I rationally know that I should not feel this way.  I would like to feel happy, or at least not depressed, over Christmas.  However, this depression is beyond easy rational control, although perhaps not beyond more extreme measures of rational control, such as behavioural training.  Yet it still seems that if I were purely rational, then I would be perfectly in control of my emotion – a Spock like creature ruled only by the dictates of reason.  It seems that to be purely rational is to be unmoved by emotion.

            I have repeatedly said that valuing the wisdom of the natural fool can often amount to valuing the wisdom that may arise from the irrational part of human nature.  If placing a high value on happiness and emotion is valuing something best associated with the irrational, then the artificial fool is valuing the irrational over the irrational.  This means that the artificial fool values humour over being sensible, levity over seriousness.  Rather than trying to analyse what makes them happy, artificial fools may just enjoy the experience itself.  This said, artificial fools are still rational agents.  Their choice to adopt the motley is still meant to be something of a rational choice.  Choosing happiness and adopting a certain ‘que sera, sera’ attitude towards living is a rational choice on their behalf.  They have rationally decided that there are limits, not to how far reason can take us, but to how far reason should take us.  They have reached a point where, through the use of reason, it is decided that reason must take a back seat.

            I think the best way to characterise the artificial fool’s attitude towards the limits of reason here is to say that the artificial fool sacrifices reason in the short term for a wider vision of reason, one that embraces some of the products of irrationality.  By doing so, artificial fools achieve a wisdom that cannot be found when using only reason in the short term, reason that does not see a use for the irrational.  In terms of seeking happiness, it may, contentiously, be more rational to think of one’s life as unhappy.  A person can think in rational terms about how they constantly desire things and how this desire implies a want or a lack which in turn can be equated to suffering, as is one of the claims of the four noble truths of Buddhism.  The artificial fool would be inclined to emulate the natural fool by living in the present, taking pleasures and happiness as they come and  by enjoying life, despite this perhaps being an irrational thing to do..  The natural fool and the artificial fool, turn a blind eye to the suffering of the future in order to enjoy the pleasures of the moment.  In this way they escape the problem of suffering noted in Buddhism and elsewhere.  They fulfil the desires they are able to and they do not worry about those desires they are unable to fulfil in the present.  They live by the Epicurean motto of ‘eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’.  This in essence may be an irrational way to live.  Yet at the same time it serves a wider consideration of rationality.  If it is ultimately rational to be happy, and a narrow rationality leaves one unhappy, then it should be set aside, or at least not taken as the overriding consideration.

4.2 (g)     Creativity and Invention

Happiness is not the sole goal of the artificial fool.  There are many fools whose folly does not lead to happiness, but who nevertheless value folly, the irrational and what they can gain from it.  One such group might be those who see the irrational as a potential fount for creativity.  In chapter three I mentioned a link between the irrational and the creative process.  Creation, I claimed, is not purely the process of rationality, rather much of it must arise from the chaos of the irrational.  Often creation has been described as a form of controlled madness, where ideas are uncritically generated before being filtered by the rational mind.  Madness, I said, partakes of this extreme creativity, but fails to do anything useful with it.

            Here we can plainly see an advantage the artificial fool’s wisdom has over the natural fool’s.  Insane natural fools gain from their contact with the irrational a touch of the creative.  The irrational, being unconstrained, is able to go beyond pre-conceived notions towards new and novel ways of thinking.  However, when such creation is completely unrestrained, meaning is lost.  If the point of creation is to produce something meaningful, and the products of unrestrained creation are meaningless data, then this form of creativity is useless.

            The artificial fool, however, is able to go a step beyond this.  By valuing the irrational but still being a rational agent they are able to use the creative force of the irrational as a tool, rather than being used by irrational, as it seems in the case of the insane natural fool.  The artificial fool is able to delve into the irrational and then use their rationality to filter and sort what they gain from this contact with the irrational.  They embrace a “momentary and passing madness” [11] for the sake of creation.

            A question that may well be raised is whether the wisdoms I ascribe to artificial fools are best associated with them.  They may possess these wisdoms, but are they intrinsic wisdoms that arise from the ideal of the artificial fool?  For instance, when looking at creativity and using the mind’s contact with the irrational as a means to gaining creative impetus, is this wisdom best associated with the artificial fool?  After all, it seems that this process is not limited to the artificial fool – writers, artists and inventors seem to use this process, yet we would not want to call them artificial fools.  Not only this, but where much of the wisdom of the fool has been implicit in intuitions regarding the fool, it seems unusual to describe that creature of fiction and fact, the motley fool, as an exceptionally creative person.

            My reply to this is that the artificial fool, in terms of this work, has a very specific definition.  Specifically, the artificial fool is defined as a person who adopts aspects of unreason for the purpose of attaining a wider version of wisdom than that which can be attained from the rational.  Hence, ‘artificial fool’ as a term will include the creative artist, just as it will the Gnostic sage or the Medieval motley fool.  It is not an arbitrary definition, as it arises from our common conceptions of the wise artificial fool.  However, it is a very inclusive definition, and I certainly do not believe that every example of artificial fool will contain every aspect of the artificial fool’s wisdom.  The wisdom of the artificial fool I am in the process of describing is an ideal.

4.2 (h)     Unburdened perceptions

The final wisdom I shall mention that the artificial fool gains from emulating the natural fool is based around how the natural fool perceives the world.  One way natural fools are said to be wise is in the way they perceive the world around them.  Normal perception involves bringing organising concepts to our perceptual data.  For instance, if I look at an orange, then the datum I receive is of an orange, spherical object.  However, because I am (hopefully) a rational agent, as soon as that perceptual object appears before me it is analysed, weighed and sorted.  I apply a word to it, and with that word comes all my associations, thoughts and feelings about oranges.  The perceptual object becomes inextricable from the concepts I load it with.

            In contrast, the natural fool’s perception is not burdened down with concepts and associations, or at least is not burdened down as much as the normal person’s is.  It is passive perception, as opposed to the active perception of the normal person.  In some circumstances this can be seen as wise, as the natural fool is perhaps seeing the world closer to the way it truly is than the normal person.  Their perceptions are uncoloured by the brush of past experience and are perhaps clearer because of this.

            It can be argued that this is both a positive and a negative.  In some sense, ‘active’ perception may be the truer way to observe the world.  Looking at an orange and seeing only colour and form is not as accurate as looking at it and realising that it is an orange, with all the usual qualities I associate with oranges.  Yet it is still a positive since, at heart, what I am seeing is not an orange, but a bundle of sensory qualia.  Going beyond these initial qualia involves an inductive leap that may be more than is warranted.  If absolute truth is what is desirable in perception, then the truth is that making the leap beyond pure perception is the same as making an inductive leap from the information to hand – that leap may be correct, but it is still a leap.

            The positive side to unencumbered perceptions have been mentioned in a number of schools of thought, but the most obviously related concept here is the Buddhist notion of ‘emptiness’.  The Vaibhāşika (Sarvāstivāda) Abhidharma school of Buddhism[12]draws a distinction between primary existents, what I have been calling basic sense datum, the objects of passive perception, and secondary existents, or conceptual constructs, which I have named as the objects of active perception.  The Abhidharma school of Buddhism also claims that ultimate reality is formed only from these primary existents; secondary existents, the conceptual constructs of active perception, can only create ‘conventional’ truths that can be reduced down to a more basic level, the level of primary existents.  Thus, true perception of the world is only perception of the primary existents; and this more closely approximates the way the natural fool perceives the world.

            Once more it must be asked whether the artificial fool can emulate this form of wisdom and if not, then what wisdom they can learn from the natural.  I think that while the artificial fool may find it harder to achieve this state, it is not an impossible goal.  Indeed, the general aim of Abhidharma Buddhism and of Buddhism in general is to attain the state of ‘emptiness’.  ‘Emptiness’ is seen as being close to the Buddha-nature, a nature that is empty of desire (the ultimate cause of suffering according to Buddhism) and which is empty of the conceptual loading that we, as rational agents, give the world.  The Buddha-nature is meant to be a goal for rational people, it is not only attainable by people already naturally given towards ‘emptiness’.  From this we can assume that the goal of ‘emptiness’ is attainable by the artificial fool, the person trying to emulate the natural’s wisdom.

            In fact, the artificial fool’s wisdom may again surpass the natural fool’s.  The natural fool’s outlook on the world is more one of relative emptiness than genuine emptiness.  They have different and fewer conceptual tools, and hence generate fewer conceptual constructs.  Nevertheless, for the most part the natural fool has not attained true ‘emptiness’.  Additionally, ‘emptiness’ is not a goal natural fools strive for, rather they are usually engaged in the normal effort of filling in the conceptual blanks in order to explain the world, only they are less adept at it.  Hence, in following natural fools, artificial fools go a step beyond them, trying to achieve genuine ‘emptiness’, rather than just simplicity and a resemblance to ‘emptiness’.

            As a final note on this topic, even when taken in isolation from Buddhism, the natural fool’s perception of the world can be seen as wise in another way.  The child and idiot are often portrayed as viewing things we see as ordinary with wonder and amazement.  To the child, many things are new and interesting.  To the true idiot, most things are as if new every time they are seen or experienced.  One thinks of a child, first seeing a butterfly, or an idiot, fascinated by a game of ‘peek-a-boo’ no matter how many times it is played.  This wonder is caused by lacking most of the conceptual framework we, as rational adults, are able to apply to the world.  Perhaps there is even wisdom in seeing the world with wonder.  As time goes past it is easy to become accustomed to the world around us; even the most astounding phenomena can become commonplace when repeatedly experienced.  The aurora borealis may inspire wonder when it is first seen, but when seen every day it becomes normal, perhaps even boring.  If there is one thing that can be easily learnt from natural fools’ perception of the world, it is probably to value highly the wonder natural fools see in the world around them, a wonder that is almost certainly a correct response to the world we find ourselves in.  Certainly the world is filled with mystery, a mystery that may be best approached with wonder rather than trepidation and fear.  It may even be wise to observe the world with wonder.

            Up to here I have been talking only about those types of wisdom that the artificial fool learns or can learn from the natural fool.  For the most part artificial fools are unable to match the natural fool’s wisdom exactly, but are able to emulate it in their own ways, ways that often exceed the wisdom available to the natural fool.

            These points most certainly do not exhaust the artificial fool’s wisdom.

            Often the artificial fool’s wisdom does not stem from their emulation of simplicity, but from qualities that emerge solely from the artificial fool’s own nature.  There are several major themes that are covered by this category.  Included amongst these are the freedom of the artificial fool, the role of the artificial fool as social conscience and the fool as agent of denouement.

            Perhaps the best way to approach some of these larger themes is with reference to a group of philosophers whose lives and lifestyles show that they value the same qualities the artificial fool does.  They value simplicity and, in their time, called for a return to a natural life and to natural values.  They were seen as fools by the general public; ridiculed and named ‘Кυνικός’ or ‘doglike’ for there adherence to almost bestial ways of living.  I speak, of course, of the Cynic philosophers of Ancient Greece.

4.3     The Cynics

The Cynics, literally the “dog-like”, were a popular movement in ancient Greece.  Called dog-like because their way of life involved sacrificing many so called ‘human’ qualities (like bathing), their central precepts include the idea that a human being is not truly free when they exist within the bounds of the city-state, the polis.  To be free, one has to exist more closely with nature, something impossible to do when a person is bound by the constraints of society.

            The Cynics were true artificial fools.  They were seen as emulating a basic animal existence in order to satisfy the demands of wisdom.  Earlier I described the animal as being a part of the natural fool’s nature.  Animals are associated, whether correctly or incorrectly, with a pre-rational existence, a life not dictated by the strictures of human reason.  The Cynics’ goal was engage in a simpler life, a life closer to that held by pre-rational people.  Hence they emulated certain qualities of the natural fool’s existence for the purposes of attaining wisdom.  The Cynics’ notion of wisdom is very closely tied to the Greek idea of wisdom as being a way of living well.  Cynic philosophy is hence making the claim that the best way to live well is through living a life based around the simple life, a life in which the natural is valued above the artificial.[13]  The Cynics share much with the artificial fool.

            A large part of the natural fool’s existence is the rejection of the mores and values of society.  The natural fool possesses a value system that raises the pre-rational above both the rational state of existence and the fruits of rationality.  It places the ‘natural’ above the ‘unnatural’, where the unnatural includes the fruits of reason; things like art[14], science and, contrary to Chinese thought, but nevertheless a common perception, society and civilisation.  This reversal of values is, by the very nature of the natural fool, not a conscious or an intellectual move.  The value shift is entirely implicit in the figure of the natural fool and instantiated in their way of life.  Because of the natural fool’s constitution their adoption of a pre-rational mode of existence is not a reflective undertaking.  It is a completely different move to make the same judgement call as a result of consideration and intentional thought, and yet this is exactly what some notable thinkers do.  The Cynics are one such group.

            This is not to say that the Cynics reject society completely.  While they do reject the strictures imposed on the person by the city-state and by civilisation, they do not reject the bond between humanity as a whole.  There may appear to be some contradiction in the rejection of the unnatural and their acceptance of a cosmopolitan relationship with others, but they maintain internal consistency in their doctrines by saying that the more universal ‘brotherhood of man’ is a completely natural grouping.  It is completely in accord with the natural order for a cosmopolitan society to exist.  This society does not impose on the freedoms of the individual, freedoms that the state can often override.

            In ancient Greece this reversal of values, a reversal we so often find associated with the fool, is not a complete reversal, only a reversal to a certain extent.  Its coming was foreshadowed in a number of ways.  It is true that the Hellenistic civilisation revolved heavily around the state and around participation in the state; Greece saw the first democracy, and the type of democracy created involved heavy participation by the citizens of that state.  Elections for certain military and civil positions were held on a yearly basis.  Actual governance was, at least in early Greece, determined by lot.  It was a citizen’s duty and honour to act in the defence of their state.

            However, as time progressed, the mood shifted.  Rather than the state always being more important than the individual, the individual gained relevance; especially in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War.  Both the earlier and the later values are reflected in the writings of such as Aristotle and Plato; for instance, to Aristotle “man is by nature a political animal”[15], indicating that one of the things that distinguishes the human from the animal is the political life and that humans are always heavily political.  At the same time Aristotle and Plato also believed that one of the correct and moral things a human being should do is develop as a person.  For Aristotle such development involves the acquisition of the virtues in order to promote a person’s ultimate happiness and achieve their ‘eudaimonia’ or ‘flourishing’.  Self-development for the sake of personal happiness goes against idea of the state as being of ultimate importance, more important even than personal gain.  In addition, such self-concern can readily be associated with ‘nature’ and a certain dog-eat-dog frame of mind.  Taking importance away from the state helped herald the reversal endorsed by the Cynics.  Thus the reversal the Cynics introduced can be seen as a reversal of only some of Greek society’s mores.

            There are many things about the state and civilisation that the Cynics find restrictive to a human’s freedom.  Prime amongst these are social mores and taboos.  Civilisation and human society impose a large number of duties upon a person to act in a certain way so as not to offend others.  A lady does not laugh loudly.  A gentleman does not wear socks that are of a lighter colour than his trousers.  A gentleman does not have laces that visibly cross over each other.  A gentleman does not masturbate in public.  All of these duties place restrictions a person.  To the Cynics such restriction is unwarranted and freedom is more important than the things a person might gain from society, such as comfort, modern luxuries and the like.  To be free a person has to exist more closely with nature.  This involves removing the trappings of civilisation, trappings like social mores and concern for public opinion.

            There is no doubt that society places other obligations on a person than just adherence to social mores.   For a state to be effective it must place obligations on its citizens.  These are obligations to the state and to other individuals within the state, obligations including adherence to the laws, contributions to the public good and consideration for other citizens in the state.  The political theorist Hohfeld formulates these obligations as being a network of rights and duties, liberties and rights-absences[16].  This network outlines the freedoms available to people inside the state, freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but these liberties are only gaps in a web of restricted actions.   They are genuine freedoms and are seen as being held against both the state and other individuals, but they are limited freedoms; for instance I can have religious freedom, but if my religion involves burning people of other religions alive then I cannot practise that aspect of my religion.

            One might wonder just how free of society’s influences the Cynics were considering that they rarely lived outside the city, instead choosing to remain inside the city limits and proselytise the populace whilst still depending to an extent upon society to feed and support them in the form of individual charity and donations.

            The Cynics’ attitude towards freedom places them firmly in the camp of valuing the life and lifestyle of the natural fool.  Yet the importance they place on it is a conscious and considered valuation, not an instinctive attitude as evinced by the natural fool.  This may go some way to further show that the values of the natural fool are not confined to being held by one who is a natural fool; those values can be intellectually and consciously adopted.

            So the Cynics adopted a central feature of the natural fool’s situation: closeness to nature.  They forswore the trappings of civilisation by abandoning material possessions and the mores of society.  However, there are more similarities between the fool and the Cynics than this.  A central tenet of Cynicism is that philosophy is not merely a system of thought, it also a way of living.  Philosophy is a way of life, not just a way of thinking.  The Cynics lived their philosophy, choosing not only to teach it and learn it, but to adopt it in their style of living.  To truly adopt Cynic teachings the person had to leave their homes, families and properties in order to fulfil their obligations as Cynic philosophers; if the word ‘obligation’ can be used to describe the release of obligations in order to achieve personal freedom.

            For instance, to demonstrate the “Cynic indifference to death”[17] Peregrinus, the (in)famous Cynic philosopher “committed suicide by cremating himself immediately following the Olympic Games of AD 167”.  Hence philosophical beliefs are not, to the Cynics, mere objects of knowledge to be attained and then ignored, they must be utilised if they are to have any real status.  Pierre Hadot argues that much of ancient philosophy “from Socrates to the Stoics”, as the title of his book attests, is practical in its goals and not intended as just theory[18]; so the Cynic idea is not confined solely to the Cynics.

            The natural fool is an example of the ideas the Cynics espouse being lived and breathed.  By their very simplicity the only way they can value anything is to live it; intellectual theory is a concept unknown to them.  The fools’ values are, to them, the only way of life possible.  If one accepts the ideologies implicit in the existence of the natural fool then the only way for those ideologies to remain workable is to live them.  It is inconsistent, for instance, to say that shame to the extent with which we experience it is not a useful emotion, without living out that belief and placing a lower value on the shame in your life than you otherwise would.

            The artificial fool also shows philosophy to be a way of life.  Artificial fools, whether in literature or in real life, not only profess allegiance to the goals and beliefs of the fool, they show that allegiance in their choice of lifestyle.  They have chosen to give up a normal life in order to live their beliefs.  Whether fictively or in reality, playing the role of the fool imparts a cost to the person doing so.  To take on the qualities of the fool means making oneself a target for ridicule, something many people find objectionable.  Assuming a person likes to be taken seriously, becoming a target and a catalyst for humour and jocularity is something of a sacrifice.  As we have seen in examining the natural fool, there are many negatives to this way of life.  Hence, the Cynics’ decision to adopt the role of the outsider, the role of the fool, is not one to be taken up lightly.

4.4     Cynic pedagogy

The Cynic sacrifice is not made in vain.  Placing themselves outside society does allow them certain freedoms that are not available to a person within a society.  These freedoms are writ large in their teaching methods.  In addition, their teaching methods bear a startling similarity to those employed by later artificial fools.  Cynic parrhesia (literally “free spokeness”)  brings to the Cynic teachings the freedom their way of life endorses.

            The first and most important aspect of parrhesia is truth telling.  The Cynic, by being completely self-sufficient (autarkeia) is free from any restrictions society and the presence of one’s peers may place on expression.  These restrictions include both obvious and subtle restrictions.  Obvious restriction may include laws that prevent hate speech or the corruption of Athenian youth, to cite examples that may show both negative and positive aspects of free speech.  Less obvious might be the restrictions placed on a person when in the company of their peers, the restrictions of taste and appropriateness, even restrictions generated  Hypothetically, my mother’s cooking could be less palatable than prison rations, but it would certainly be inappropriate to tell her.  Also hypothetically, it might be true that I dislike certain things about the leader of my government who has created an oppressive and warlike regime, but because of my instincts for self-preservation it would be inappropriate to criticise this leader.

            These hard or difficult truths involve a cost, perhaps a cost to the person saying them, perhaps a wider cost.  One aspect to truth telling may be to say that this cost should be borne, regardless of immediate consequences.  Perhaps truth telling thinks the truth will always produce the best consequences… perhaps it does not value the consequences at all, or gives the truth an integral value, independent of other considerations.  Nevertheless, in Cynic teachings truth is more important than potential scandal or negative consequences.  In fact, scandal is also a desirable quality to the Cynics.

            Truth telling is a characteristic of both the natural fool and the artificial fool.  The natural fool is truthful because they lack the complexity to lie.  Even if they had enough complexity to lie, they would almost certainly not be able to successfully convince anyone else of their veracity.  Shakespeare often personifies honesty into the figure of a fool; “I should be wise; for honesty’s a fool / And loses that it works for.”[19]  In a later play he declares “what a fool Honesty is!  And Trust, / His sworn brother, a very simple gentleman!”[20]  This may have more to do with Shakespeare’s villains having inverted virtues and vices, but the point stands that the popular conception of honesty places it closer to the realm of the ‘honest farmer’ than the ‘lying politician’; the honest innocent over the intelligent yet duplicitous machiavel.

            Similarly, many instances of artificial fool are also honest fools.  Where everyone else is bound by restrictive codes of conduct, the artificial fool has public license to speak the truth.  The position of artificial fool in court life allowed a startling degree of candour – arguably more so than any other position in court.  Not only was the truth of the artificial fool meant to be honest, it was, like the Cynic’s, meant to be shocking in its honesty.  The freedom of the fool is, ideally, complete.  Not only should they be able to say things that are inappropriate, they should be able to say anything inappropriate; the more inappropriate, the better.

            The purpose of Cynic parrhesia is to teach.  By saying and doing shocking things, the Cynic philosopher gives their unwitting ‘students’ a jolt.  They are jogged from a position of unquestioning serenity to a state of shock.  They are forced to think about what they have witnessed.  As G.G.F. Visković once said in a seminar on legal education, learning is away from security[21].  For large changes in thought to occur, a person needs to be outside their comfort zone.  They need to be challenged on a fundamental level.  The Cynic philosophers wished to change people’s views on a very fundamental level, to get them to question things taken for granted.  Merely saying it would not go very far given the difficulty of this task.  Telling a person ‘don’t fear death’ is almost pointless.  Shocking people through self immolation is bound to be – at least – a more punchy way to put it.

            The classical artificial fool shocked in just this way.  One is inclined to wonder whether the purpose of shocking people was simply to entertain, or to question fundamental values, but whatever the motive, the artificial fool shocked and amused.  The wisdom of the artificial fool here I feel lies in two things.  First, the artificial fool questions fundamental concepts.  They do not value reason in the same way as a normal person and thus view some of the fruits of reason, common notions and beliefs, with skepticism.  Thus they question what is usually unquestioned and unquestionable – a very philosophical thing to do.

            Secondly, artificial fools show their wisdom in being teachers.  A common notion of the wise person is of someone who, while engaged in their own quest for wisdom, help others to attain it as well.  The enlightened person of Plato’s cave analogy does not just witness the form of the good, the sun, and then continue to admire the sun, they returned to the cave to tell others of the sun.  Socrates, while still a philosopher and a wise person, was also a teacher.  To possess wisdom, it is implies, one must be willing to share it.  Artificial fools, by attempting to shock people, show that they are, to an extent, also teachers.

4.5     The artificial fool Nietzsche, nihilism and laughter

If there is one thing that the image of the fool should convey, then it is that the non-rational should be seen as being intrinsic to true wisdom.  I have talked about how the fools of varying type can go beyond ordinary rational ways of perceiving and organising experience.  Whether this perception comes through lacking the capacity and the rational tools to perceive such meaning, as is the case with the ‘true’ natural fool, or whether this perception comes through perceiving too much meaning in the world, a chaotic overloading of concepts that can make meaning itself incomprehensible, as is the case with the ‘insane’ natural fool, the fact is that due to the fool’s unique perspective on the world, they perceive the world as lacking meaning to an extent.  I reflected in chapter 3 earlier that one way the fool could be wise would be if their perception of the world as lacking meaning were true.

            Yet this itself is not a point that is best made by the fool, whether natural or artificial.  Saying that ‘the fool sees the world as lacking meaning, therefore it may lack meaning’ seems a very roundabout route to take to reach nihilism.  I do not wish to disprove or prove nihilism and certainly do not wish to do it by using the fool as a springboard for my arguments, rather I wish to show that the artificial fool is able to offer a strategy for dealing with nihilism.

            Nihilism is almost always associated with a radical scepticism and extreme pessimism.  The reason for this latter is because nihilism reduces all human endeavour, achievement and effort into nothing with one fell swoop.  Life becomes purposeless and everything becomes futile.  Some even see nihilism as being inherently destructive.  Nietzsche, for instance, wrote that “Nihilism is… not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one’s shoulder to the plough; one destroys”[22].  If there is no meaning to anything, then there is no point in striving, no reason to continue.

            Even those who fall under the rough definition of nihilist sit uneasy with it.  Those who brought nihilism to modern attention, the Existentialists, spent much effort trying to find justification for living under the sway of nihilism.  Sartre saw nihilism as offering both amazing liberation and frightening possibility.  Camus, as mentioned earlier, saw in nihilism both something dangerous and something that could even be ennobling and offer some unusual form of meaning to existence.

            From inside and outside nihilism come efforts to halt its corrosive effect.  From outside nihilism people have attempted to disprove its conclusions, claiming that meaning is to be found in artistic endeavour, in living a good life, in religion or in science.  From amongst the nihilists themselves there have been attempts to show that nihilism does not mean that there is absolutely nothing to life.  Blatant denial through making an irrational ‘leap’ into a meaningful belief system was proposed and rejected by some.  Finding succour in stoicly enduring a meaningless life was offered by others as the best possible solution.  As Nietzsche saw, nihilism offers a huge challenge:

I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength. It is possible…

Nietzsche, Friedrich: On the Genealogy of Morals.

However, none of these previous responses to nihilism have seemed entirely satisfying.  Blatant denial seems dishonest, stoic endurance in the face of a pointless existence seems pointless and thus somewhat self-defeating.

            Nietzsche, I think, offered us a strategy for dealing with nihilism.  This strategy emerges in the character Zarathustra from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in his discussion of the Übermensch (superhuman) and in his portrayal of the jester and the tightrope walker in TSZ.  Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s version of the fool – he does not “want to be a holy man; sooner even a buffoon”[23].  He “speaks like a buffoon”[24] and is ridiculed by the general populace.  The wisdom Zarathustra desires is a ‘joyful wisdom’ as attested by the title of the self same book.  He sings and he dances – in fact he seems exactly like the common portrayal of the artificial fool, right down to his happy participation in the ass festival.

            Zarathustra struggles with the nihilism that Nietzsche himself struggled with.  Zarathustra offers us two paths to take with regard to nihilism.  The first is Nietzsche’s own brand of denying nihilism.  Nietzsche offers us the superhuman as a possible goal for our existences, hence giving meaning to our lives.  The second path, and the one that relates to the fool, can be found through laughter and light-heartedness.

            Nietzsche’s first path is similar to ones made by other philosophers.  By offering us the superhuman as a goal Nietzsche denies nihilism.  Rather than life having no meaning, life does have a meaning: the creation and existence of the superhuman.  Yet this strategy is still essentially one of denial.  It denies that there is not purpose to life.  This may be a valid option, but it does not deal with nihilism on its own ground.

            Nietzsche’s second method for dealing with nihilism and with the experience of meaninglessness in general is tied up with the artificial fool and laughter.  Nietzsche saw nihilism as a destructive force.  In the hands of the normal seeker after knowledge it proves entirely negative, as illustrated in the following quote which draws a link between the seeker after knowledge, the ugly truths to be found and the solution to deal with these ugly truths – truths that may well include that which Nietzsche took to be a truth: nihilism.

One who was sublime I saw today, one who was solemn, an ascetic of the spirit; oh how my soul laughed at his ugliness!  With a swelled chest and like one who holds his breath he stood there, the sublime one, silent, decked out with ugly truths, the spoils of his hunting, and rich in torn garments; many thorns too adorned him – yet I saw no rose.

As yet he has not learned laughter or beauty.  Gloomy this hunter returns from the woods of knowledge.

Ibid., pg 228.

Here we have someone who, like Zarathustra, has seen the “woods of knowledge” and returned.  He has found “ugly truths”, but by remaining solemn and gloomy those same truths are nothing but a burden to him  Nevertheless, he has found truth, but that truth has wounded him greatly.

            Here we have Nietzsche’s general strategy for the “ugly truths” that the search for knowledge is bound to bring us; laughter and beauty must be applied even to the search for truth.  Wisdom is, for Nietzsche, a joyful wisdom that brings laughter and delight.  The ‘sublime one’ is not an entirely negative character.  He is named as being sublime and has genuinely, Nietzsche states, found real truths.  Yet he lacks knowledge about how to use his knowledge: he lacks wisdom with regards to the ugly truths he bears.

            So wisdom in Nietzsche is a joyful wisdom, a wisdom that includes laughter.  Here the wisdom of the fool is coming to the fore.  If the fool possesses wisdom, then it is certainly a light hearted wisdom, a wisdom that views knowledge and the search for knowledge as a jocular quest that, no matter the results, should still be viewed with humour.

            In addition, almost certainly the ugliest truth to Nietzsche’s mind would have to be his nihilism.  The ‘sublime’ seeker of knowledge can only be harmed by this truth, whereas the laughing wise person is more able to deal with the ugly truth.

            To support this view, take Nietzsche’s account of the ‘rope dancer’:

Then, however, something happened which made every mouth dumb and every eye rigid.  For meanwhile the rope-dancer had begun his performance: he had stepped out of a small door and was walking along the rope which was stretched between two towers, so that it hung above the market-place and the people.  When he was just midway across, the small door opened once more, and a fellow in motley clothes, looking like a jester, sprang out and went rapidly after the first one.  “Go on, halt-foot,” cried his frightful voice, “go on, lazy-bones, interloper, sallow-face, or I shall tickle you with my heel!  What are you doing here between the towers?  In the tower is the place for you, you should be locked up; you block the way for one better than yourself!”  And with every word he came nearer and nearer the first one.  When, however, he was but a step behind, there happened the frightful thing which made every mouth dumb and every eye rigid – he uttered a yell like a devil, and jumped over the other who was in his way.  The latter, however, when he saw his rival triumph, at the same time lost his head and his footing on the rope; he threw his pole away, and shot downwards faster than it, like a whirlpool of arms and legs, into the depth.

TSZ, pg 131.

Here we see the jester, dressed in motley, performing what on the surface just seems to be an act of senseless violence; very much unlike what we normally expect from a jester.  He, perhaps significantly, claims to be better than the rope dancer and demands to be let past.  On its own this passage seems somewhat confusing, yet compare it with an earlier passage: “‘Man is a rope, tied between beast and superhuman – a rope over an abyss.’”[25]

            So here the fool comes into the account more explicitly.  The jester and the tightrope walker, the ‘rope dancer’, are both on the path between beast and superhuman.  The tightrope walker follows the path, but does not reach the other end; he is overtaken and passed by the jester who proclaims himself the tightrope walker’s superior.  Thus one interpretation of the passage is that the jester, by implication someone who is able to laugh and whose wisdom is light hearted (despite his dark actions), is more able to follow the path to the superhuman.  Hence the wisdom of the fool enables them to travel further on the path to the superhuman.

            These passages also lend themselves to another interpretation, an interpretation that again links the fool to the difficult truths of nihilism.  In the book published immediately following TSZ, Nietzsche expresses one of his most famous aphorisms: “He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.  And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”[26]  This aphorism is most commonly interpreted as being about nihilism.  People who contemplate the depths of nihilism, the abyss, are harmed by that contemplation.  Contemplating nihilism is like fighting the monster – in doing so one is most likely to incorporate nihilism in one’s world view.

            Thus, the passage across the abyss can be likened to the path of the thinker across the treacherous straits of nihilism.  Yet, the normal thinker, the tightrope walker, fell from the rope.  The creature to cross the rope was the jester, the figure of humour and hilarity.

            I think Nietzsche attributes to the jester, the light hearted seeker after knowledge, the ability of being able to cross the straits of nihilism intact, without falling victim to the abyss.  The fool or the jester achieves this feat through their light hearted wisdom, their laughing approach to wisdom.  Laughter is a completely non-rational approach to the irrational, and yet it is an approach that makes the most sense.  Laughter at nihilism is not a denial of nihilism’s tenets.  Rather laughter is acceptance, and through its acceptance it changes the nature of nihilism.  Meaninglessness does not become a destructive force, it becomes a ridiculous one.  Just as we may laugh at the fool’s pointless antics, the fool laughs at the pointless antics of us all and in doing so removes the destructive side to nihilism.

4.6          Conclusion

It is apposite that we are left wondering just who is laughing at whom.  Wondering whether or not we are all fools was a medieval conceit that seems strangely appropriate, but nevertheless just as we often think fools can learn from us, we certainly can learn from fools.

            Artificial fools display a peculiar sort of wisdom.  Their wisdom stems from their unusual relationship to the non-rational.  They embrace this side and attempt to learn from it, rather than denying its existence.  In doing so they learn and are able to bring to the light of reason the elements of wisdom that are usually seen as existing in the darkness of unreason.  While much of their wisdom is derived from emulating the wisdom of the natural fool, whose exists in the darkness of pre-rationality, there is also much to be gained from observing the artificial fools themselves, and many points that are unique to artificial fools.  Many have said that the search for wisdom is pure folly; it seems more appropriate to say that the search for folly can also be the search for wisdom, as implied in the biblical quote: “And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly”[27].