Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy

by Josef Steiff

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  VOLUME 61

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  Breaking Bad and Philosophy (2012) Edited by David R. Koepsell and Robert Arp

  Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy (2012) Edited by Mark Ralkowski Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy (2012) Edited by Jon Cogburn and Mark Silcox

  Neil Gaiman and Philosophy (2012) Edited by Tracy L. Bealer, Rachel Luria, and Wayne Yuen

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  AN EXTRAORDINARY GENIUS FOR MINUTIAE

  Chapter 1

  A Sherlockian Scandal in Philosophy

  Kate Rufa

  I’m in love with Sherlock Holmes. I’ll admit it. He is so tantalizingly (yet utterly, infuriatingly) English. His cool, concise, and unapologetically confident nature enthralls me. Whether he’s pacing a crime scene with his trademark magnifying glass or wearing one of his numerous disguises, Holmes is the epitome of confidence and his unruffled and rational persona is absolutely riveting and absorbing.

  In my mind the image of Sherlock Holmes will forever remain the talented actor Jeremy Brett who played Holmes in the revolutionary 1980s TV series, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. And while I feel that other such actors who have taken on the Holmes role have given equally adequate performances—I enjoyed the versions played by Basil Rathbone and Robert Downey Jr.—no one will ever take the place of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes in my heart.

  But while the various movies are fun, I’ve always held the opinion that the books are far superior and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s world famous literary character was truly innovative. Holmes’s astute logical thinking and objective rationality gives him a distinctive character. He is continuously unimpressed with the crimes and criminals he pursues and his unperturbed countenance makes him an exceptionally entertaining hero.

  We’re truly astounded by Sherlock Holmes because he is never astounded himself.

  Sherlock Holmes is, at his quintessential core, unemotional, objective, and completely rational. He uses logic, science, and strict analytical cognitive processes to solve his mysteries. Whether he’s handling the affairs of scandalous royalty as the world’s first and only “unofficial consulting detective,” chasing a murderer in the dead of night with his trusty hound Toby, or catching a treasure thief in an adrenalin-racing boat chase, one thing remains a constant: his logical and unemotional persona.

  Truly, most philosophical doctrine tells us that this state of being—to utilize our reason to overcome our passions—ought to be one of our ultimate goals if we wish to attain non-materialistic happiness. No philosopher embodies this doctrine more than seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In his most celebrated work, his Ethics, Spinoza discusses his view of human passions and explains how the just man can utilize reason to overcome his negative human emotions. Once these emotions have been checked by reason he is able to experience not only freedom but the highest form of human happiness possible.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary character Sherlock Holmes is the very person whom Spinoza believed that human beings should aim to be. Sherlock Holmes is an unemotional sleuth in search of justice. His cool and precise nature allows him to examine clues without prejudice and place each puzzle piece together until he has a complete picture before him.

  The crimes almost appear to the reader (and our beloved Dr. Watson) to be like elaborate illusions. Holmes, like the gifted illusionist, takes random, meaningless bits of information and connects them to show an undeniable chain of events. Once the illusion has been explained the magic disappears and we all believe it to be utterly simple.

  No Romantic Illusions

  In The Sign of the Four Sherlock Holmes criticizes Watson for romanticizing his published stories about his criminal investigations:

  “Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”

  In Holmes’s perspective, written works should be purely scientific and informative. Spinoza could not have agreed more. Spinoza himself amusedly called his style of writing in Ethics his “cumbersome geometric method.” He wrote in a fashion similar to a mathematical treatise, with definitions, proofs, and axioms all lined up in an orderly fashion. Spinoza’s Ethics is broken down into five parts. Within each part Spinoza states a proposition then proceeds to prove it and occasionally add a scholim, axiom, corollary, or other extremely boring and complex geometric term to his proof. I can see much of a similar style between Holmes’s “The Book of Life” (in A Study in Scarlet) and Spinoza’s Ethics.

  Similar to their writing styles both Holmes and Spinoza lived their life accordingly. Spinoza advocated a life in which we objectively examine our emotions (or passions) and understand them (what initiated their cause and their effect once in place) and then utilize reason to overcome them through an understanding of the external emotional stimulus. When we use reason to keep our emotions in check we allow ourselves to broaden our minds to the possibility of more advanced forms of knowledge. And with a greater understanding of life, the universe, and ourselves, we experience the highest form of contentment possible.

  Sherlock Holmes is the ideal model for Spinoza’s concept of the “just man.” Holmes must have long ago eliminated the illogical nuisance of uncontrolled passions and chosen to live life through the utilization of reason. Because his mind is not cluttered with irrelevant and, therefore, useless thoughts that might hinder his investigations, Holmes is capable of examining clues and crime scenes with an almost automaton quality.

  Indeed, Watson on many occasions in the canons of Conan Doyle’s work noted Holmes’s perpetual unemotional state of being, and considered him more machine then man. For example, in The Sign of the Four, Watson describes Holmes as “an automaton—a calculating machine,’ I cried. ‘There is something positively inhuman in you at times.’”

  And again in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson uses the metaphor of a machine to describe Holmes’s objective, analytical mind even in reference to Holmes’s only potential love interest, Irene Adler:

  It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one in particular, were abhorrent to h
is cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has ever seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position.

  Even when facing the threat of death, Holmes remains his distinguished self. In “The Final Problem” we encounter a somewhat different Holmes than that found in Doyle’s previous stories. While confident as ever, we find our calculating consultant detective more cautious and guarded as he faces off against “the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe:” the maniacal Professor Moriarty. Indeed, while confronting Moriarty’s revenge for interfering in his criminal activities, Holmes (in the company of Watson) is eventually forced to leave the country on “holiday.”

  This dramatic tale begins with Sherlock Holmes’s unexpected visit to Dr. Watson’s consulting room. Holmes arrives looking thinner and more sickly than usual. One of his hands appears to be injured due to a violent confrontation that occurred that very night on his way to Watson’s home. Holmes immediately proceeds to close the windows to the room, securing them with bolts. Watson, aware that something is amiss, concludes that Holmes is frightened by something, though we should know by now that Holmes is never afraid but merely cautious. Holmes begins to relate to Watson his recent actives to bring down the villain Moriarty whom, Holmes believes, is behind all of the major crimes of the last few years.

  Moriarty, who is described as being “extremely tall and thin” and almost snakelike in his mannerisms, is described by Holmes as being the “Napoleon of crime.” He is Holmes’s intellectual equal and his moral polar opposite. After an impressive battle of wits and intellect, Watson is left to conclude, at the end of the story, that during their travels through Switzerland, Holmes and Moriarty fell together while still in battle, plummeting down Reichenbach Falls where they both presumably perished.

  Indeed, while a thrilling tale in and of itself, what is most intriguing about this short story, in which we witness what was meant to be the death of one of the greatest detective characters of literary history, is that throughout its entirety, complete with all the death threats and very real possibility of mutually assured destruction, Holmes shows no fear and no regret. His temperament constantly remains calm and cool. If he does express an emotion it is never a negative or pernicious one but one of intrigue or amusement. Indeed, when dueling both physically and mentally against Moriarty’s vengeance Holmes was not depressed but energized. He was excited by the challenge of a worthy opponent and the tale played out similarly to a game of chess.

  From this we can see that whether engaged against his only potential love interest or battling to his presumed death, Sherlock Holmes maintains a Spinozistic countenance at all times. Spinozistic philosophy maintains that while there is nothing wrong with human emotions as such, they can interfere with higher forms of cognitive processes. When an emotion is provoked by an external cause and is not properly reasoned through it can distract us from understanding the truth about said external cause by adding a personal element to an objective occurrence.

  One of the ultimate goals of Spinozistic philosophy is to achieve true happiness, happiness that is found through an intellectual pursuit of the mind instead of any fictional happiness that can temporarily arise from materialistic gains. For Spinoza happiness can be found only through freedom, the freedom that we can experience when we’re no longer controlled by our emotions and by our human ignorance. If we allow ourselves to merely react when an external force happens to elicit our uncontrolled emotions, we submit ourselves to forces that are ultimately beyond our control.

  Of course we cannot eliminate our emotions. No matter what, they are there. Even our renowned Sherlock Holmes cannot eliminate all of his emotions (just primarily the negative or passive ones). What reason does, says Spinoza, is turn our passive human emotions into active emotions by allowing us to understand them as clearly and distinctly as is humanly possible. Once we have a clear and distinct understanding of the emotion, the more control we have over it, and the less passive we are when we encounter it. Because we’re no longer passive bystanders to the powerful emotions set into place by external stimuli we experience a kind of freedom, which for Spinoza, is true happiness. Spinozistic philosophy dictates, and Sherlock Holmes demonstrates, the idea that we ought to control our reactions to our emotions instead of allowing them to control us.

  The Conatus and Cocaine

  One of the more troubling character flaws with Holmes has always been his morphine and cocaine addiction. It doesn’t seem to fit with his purely rational persona. As much as it may surprise us, it was Watson in The Sign of the Four who reasonably argued to Holmes the illogical choice of utilizing these powerful hallucinogenic drugs:

  “Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue-change and may at least leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed?”

  Sherlock Holmes attempts to justify his substance abuse by claiming the drugs allow his mind to stay in an active state when he has no work or crime to solve. From Conan Doyle’s first work about Holmes, A Study in Scarlet, we note Holmes’s demeanor when he fails to have adequate cognitive stimulation. He not only becomes depressed but utterly torpid:

  Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night.

  Here again we can see Sherlock Holmes as a representation of Spinoza’s concept of the just man. He’s only happy when engaged in intellectual work and problem solving. Spinoza claims that happiness can only be achieved when we utilize our reason and are in a state of cognitive activity. Intellectual passivity leads to unhappiness. We can note the same feelings in Conan Doyle’s Holmes: when Holmes has no work he becomes utterly depressed to the point of lying on the couch for days on end. To alleviate the depression, Holmes abuses powerful hallucinogenic drugs in an attempt to stimulate his mind.

  One of the clearest examples of Holmes’s drug use and of his excuses for his addiction can be found in The Sign of the Four, where Watson, having repeatedly witnessed Holmes’s drug use, finally rages at him. Holmes contemplates Watson’s argument, but finally states, probably more forcefully and dramatically then really necessary:

  “My mind,” he said, “rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave mental exaltation.”

  Holmes will sacrifice his life, not just his physical duration on Earth, but his all-consuming mental facilities to maintain his constant mental activity.

  It’s here that Holmes appears to separate himself from Spinoza’s just man. One of Spinoza’s key concepts in the Ethics is his notion of ‘conatus’. Conatus is the Latin word for striving or endeavor. In the third part of the Ethics, “Concerning the Origin and Nature of the Emotions,” Spinoza introduces and defines a thing’s conatus as its endeavor to persist in its own being. This simply means that everything has an innate sense of wanting to promote its own existence for as long as possible.

  Holmes’s use of morphine and cocaine, then, suggests that he is acting, consciously or unconsciously, against his conatus in that the use of these drugs will potentially (and drastically) shorten his existence. We can convincingly conclude that he is irrefutably acting against his conatus by purposefully performing actions that instead of promoting longevity perform the opposite.

  Why? Why would Sherlock Holmes, the master of logical, analytical thinking, this objective and rational machine that so astounds us, allow himself to make such an obviou
s miscalculation? Quite simply, Sherlock Holmes is not a machine. He is a human being and, as such, not above human error. He too is prone to inadequate ideas. If he were otherwise the beautiful and talented Irene Adler would not have escaped and several of his clients wouldn’t have inconveniently died.

  We can attempt to rationalize Holmes’s inadequate ideas concerning drugs through our continued examination of Spinozistic philosophy. Spinoza, as a philosopher, believed in a world view in which the only thing that exists is God (otherwise known as Nature or that which is self-caused) and various modes of God (things which are conceived and brought into a transient state of duration through something other than themselves). Human beings are, hence, considered “modes” in Spinozistic philosophy.

  God itself is understood as being complete actuality. Which makes sense, in that if God were anything else this would inherently imply that God has the potential to be something God is not, which is absurd if we accept the notion that God is omnipotent. If God or Nature is complete actuality, various human modal units are found somewhere within a scale of potentiality. We as beings have the potential to always be more or less than we currently are.

  We can move forward on this imaginary scale closer to actuality if we are active (mentally and physically) and move away from it when we are passive. Moving closer to actuality makes us happy which, in the world of philosophy, ought to be one of our primary goals. We can be cognitively active by utilizing reason to understand and override our emotions and allow for higher forms of knowledge and intellectual fulfillment. The role of reason is to turn passive emotions into active affects. If we were to visualize this scale we would see Watson probably somewhere towards the upper middle of the scale between passivity and actuality and Holmes about as close as a human can get to actuality.