by Jonathan Schulz

In a new place or a place where the usual population has significantly shifted, one may easily mistake new faces in the crowd for familiar faces from elsewhere. These faces become ghosts of an old reality within a new reality. Even so, one is not always wrong to see similarities in unlikely places. The familiar face in an alien crowd may be a long-lost friend rather than an unknown doppelganger. Although most have surely experienced this phenomenon of true or false similarity in interactions with people, this principle extends far beyond its many manifestations in physical life into the world of ideas. Further, in this world of ideas, the stakes of precision become even higher. On one hand, striking similarities in the thoughts of different thinkers indicate that one of these thinkers influenced the other—a true similarity like the familiar face in the foreign crowd. On the other hand, such similarities may be false or convoluted, chance convergences or passing similarities ultimately demolished by subtle, but crucial, differences. Ultimately, the answer to the question of true or false similarity can render an idea either fascinating or false. In light of this, an understanding of the respective virtues and vices surrounding proclivities for seeing similarity or difference ultimately serves a scholar well in his or her pursuit of the life of the mind.

In many ways, a proclivity for seeing similarity can be based on love—which is far from a vice in academia. Searching for similarities, in turn, can reveal fascinating affinities in history that may have otherwise remained hidden. If one denied all plausible similarities out of principle, fascinating questions such as that of whether the ancient Christian thinker Origen and the Pagan Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus were students together would potentially be silenced before they could begin. In turn, the web of allusions that enriches the literary realm can certainly become impenetrable to a mind rejecting subtle similarities. However, the subtlety of similarities often comes to light only through consciousness of equally subtle, but earth-shaking, differences. The truly fascinating subtle similarities are most truly seen when they are not washed out by oversimplification and false equivalence. In a sense, the progression of humanity’s intellectual life has been a progressive desynonymization of terms, a progressive crafting of language to prepare it for expressing increasingly intricate realities. Amid this process, many superficial, popular similarities have been rejected wholesale, greatly benefiting intellectual discourse. However, amid the quest to disambiguate language and create subtle distinctions, one must avoid a rejection of the spirit. Amid the innumerable meaningful distinctions between thinkers and texts, a shared spirit and a complex and almost familial intellectual commonality remain possible. A rejection of a spirit, though perhaps justified on many rational levels, threatens to shatter nebulous–but perhaps beautifully true–historical generalizations with a sort of atomized precision where every thinker or figure is sifted into his or her own category of heterodoxy–even though such categories may well be, at least in name, of modern making.

In a sense, the progression of humanity’s intellectual life has been a progressive desynonymization of terms, a progressive crafting of language to prepare it for expressing increasingly intricate realities. 

Despite the benefits of sensitivity to similarity, an overemphasis on potential similarities can flow into the grave academic vice of reductionism. With reductionism, there is a great danger of closing off learning. The human mind regularly, skillfully, and unconsciously hides gaps in its knowledge. Multitudes of people, both historically and in the present day, worry comparatively little with precise questions concerning the origin of reality or the fundamental nature of its ontological being. The various creation myths seemingly satisfied their respective believers, who, at least predominantly, perceived little or no ideological or practical need for scientifically investigating the beginnings of the universe and life. Even now, it is not uncommon for philosophical fields such as ontology, the study of being, to be treated with bewildered disdain. Based on the testimony of sense experience or implicit reasoning, most are content to accept reality as a brute fact, perhaps not even realizing the possibility of exploring more fundamental levels. Reductionism, on all levels, presents a tragic failure. Reductionism presents the prospect of remaining forever in a closed, dark box of invincible ignorance–ignorance of which the ignorant one may remain quite unaware–afloat in a luminous, but unseen, sea of real truth. For those who honestly value truth, this would be a tragedy.

A proclivity for seeing differences harbors great academic precision and opens great depth and subtlety. Sensitivity for difference effectively populates one’s intellectual arsenal, and, in turn, a diverse array of intellectual tools may certainly unlock new epistemological vistas. The one who beholds subtle differences and distinctions looks at the wall and sees the bricks. Indeed, such a thinker looks at even smaller components until there are no names for such small entities and increasingly drives toward the fundamental nature of reality. Indeed, the minute details of the most minute aspects of the world present staggering depths of complexity. One study of the complexities of subatomic particles opens the realization that something as large as a life may be altogether spent on the smallest things when one seeks to dive into the full complexity of any aspect of the universe. One may be justifiably tempted to criticize this subtlety in light of incidents where an expert opinion and a lay opinion are—at least, from an actionable perspective—broadly similar although the academic opinion is more tentative and justified through 50 extra argumentative steps. At some point, perhaps intellectual subtlety must give way to an active life—even if that activity consists of little more than speaking one’s understanding of the truth with conviction. Even so, in some sense, the value of an academic may perhaps be measured by how much subtle truth he or she can handle without losing balance amid the complexity. In turn, a world of increasing understanding and wonder awaits the thinker who can conquer in this fray. Sensitivity to subtle differences makes true similarities shine forth like stars, distinguishing the true gold from the pyrite. Though it may be a fearful thing to awaken from reductionistic slumber and behold the true complexity of the world and feel the tragedy of unknown and painfully original greatness beyond the horizon of a lifetime’s learning, surely a great nobility lies in such a vision, and surely truth shadows such a journey with hopeful light. There is a weight of wisdom in understanding subtle distinctions, and the weight of wisdom is the best weight a traveler can carry.

There is a weight of wisdom in understanding subtle distinctions, and the weight of wisdom is the best weight a traveler can carry.

One cannot understand an author’s ignorance until he understands that author’s understanding. That understanding will never be reached unless one is willing to engage with an author on his own terms and as he is. Ultimately, the sense of similarity and difference must work in concert to attain this true understanding. First, the sense of similarity solemnly reaffirms the commonality of language and the hope of coming to the true idea and sense of the author’s words through the symbols on the page. Without this fundamental faith in mutual comprehensibility, the academic endeavor receives a mortal wound before it can even begin. On the other hand, sensitivity to subtle differences remains absolutely necessary for identifying the particular voice and ideas of an author. It may be too easy to sift the thinkers of the past into broad categories such as “Enlightenment,” “Humanist,” or “Scholastic” and thereby ignore critical differences between given authors, differences that shatter such broad categories into a fireworks display of creativity and complex thought. In the end, it is through this sensitivity to difference that one may, at least on the exoteric level, come to understand an author’s understanding of the truth and, perhaps, catch a glimpse of a larger truth by following that author or building upon his ideational edifice.

One cannot understand an author’s ignorance until he understands that author’s understanding. That understanding will never be reached unless one is willing to engage with an author on his own terms and as he is. 

With an understanding of the mind’s perception and application of similarity and difference, new life and fascination enter the experience of the crowded intellectual plazas of the world. As those who argue that one person is the same as another while others argue equally strenuously that he or she is an entirely different being, the one who understands the subtleties of both similarity and difference may look upon the person in question and behold a father’s son. With a commanding understanding of similarity and difference, one may see the world more clearly as it is, both in terms of the grand, individual otherness of its many inhabitants and in terms of the grand connections binding all things together into a harmonious unity.

Jonathan Schulz is a senior majoring in history. He sends sincere thanks to a mighty host of friends, teachers, and past thinkers who have contributed greatly to his thinking and writing over his years at Hillsdale.