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What is the Measure of Electricity? 1
Howard J. Fisher
What is the measure of electricity? The question itself raises questions. For not all
things are susceptible to measure; and even when they appear to be, it is not always
clear whether “measure” applies to them as wholes, or only in certain respects. For
purposes of this talk, let me propose that a measure of something must, at minimum,
enable us to speak of that thing in terms of more and less. Faraday inherited an
electrical vocabulary that appraised electricity as more and less in two respects: first,
in quantity; and second, in intensity. At the outset of Faraday’s researches, neither he
nor anyone else had been able to state just what these two characteristics were, nor to
explain how they related to one another. On the other hand, everybody had some rough
and practical idea of them, as we may gather from Faraday’s unassuming
characterization in the Third Series:
The term quantity in electricity is perhaps sufficiently definite as to
sense; the term intensity is more difficult to define strictly. I am using
both terms in their ordinary and accepted meaning. [360, note]
If Faraday regarded the term “quantity” as relatively straightforward, it is probably
because at the time he began his researches, the conventional idiom of electrical
thinking was that of electric fluid, a special kind of substance, thought to be endowed
with the power to attract or repel other portions of electric fluid. Electric fluid was either
vitreous, like that which could be evolved upon glass surfaces, or resinous, like that
which could be produced on rubber, gum, amber, and similar materials. Portions of
unlike fluids attracted one another; portions of like fluids repelled each other; and the
more fluid there was, the stronger that attraction or repulsion would be. It is easy to
know what we mean by “quantity” if electricity is a fluid. But is it a fluid? And how can
we know?
In contrast, as Faraday implies, the fluid language fails to offer a similarly clear
image of intensity. What can it mean for a fluid to be more or less “intense”? Faraday
will seek, and perhaps he will find, a clearer understanding of both these terms.
As the Third Series opens, we find Faraday in almost the same position as Socrates
of the Meno; for how can we hope to know the properties of electricity unless we first
know what electricity actually is? We well remember Meno’s reply when Socrates
asked after the “what” of virtue:
1
Meno. “There will be no difficulty, Socrates, in answering that. Take
first the virtue of a man: it is to know how to administer the state, in
which effort he will benefit his friends and injure his enemies, and will
take care not to suffer injury himself. A woman’s virtue may also be
easily described: it is to order her house, and keep what is indoors,
Lecture delivered 23 February, 2024 at St. John’s College, Santa Fe
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and obey her husband. Every age, every condition of life, young or old,
male, or female, bond or free, has a different virtue....” [71]
Meno is positively exultant as he contemplates the rich variety of virtues! How
disheartening is it, then, to consider that the electrical science of Faraday’s time,
though professing to seek a unitary account of electricity, can offer little more than a
Meno-like catalog of “electricities.” These include:
Voltaic electricity, which is evolved by devices like Alessandro Volta’s “cups.”
Faraday will study voltaic action extensively in the Seventh Series and will show there
its relation to chemical combining power.
Magneto-electricity, obtained through the
relative motion of magnets and conductors, and
which Faraday had already studied in the First
Series.
Thermo-electricity, produced when the junction
between two different metals is exposed to heat.
A.
B
Animal electricity, which is produced by several fascinating families of both
freshwater and saltwater fishes. Faraday will study the wonderful electric eel in the
Fifteenth Series, one of the most engaging of all his researches. And, finally...
Common or ordinary electricity. This is what we
now call “static” electricity: the electricity produced
primarily by friction—for example, by rubbing a
resinous rod with wool, or a glass rod with silk. But how
often do we undertake such highly specialized activities
as these, except in a classroom or similarly contrived
setting? In our day there would seem to be nothing at
all “ordinary” about the electricity that arises from
friction; but I assure you that when I was a child, rugs,
sofas, and especially automobile seats, could easily give
you a very unpleasant jolt if you carelessly walked across a carpeted room, or slid out
of an upholstered piece of furniture, and then touched a doorknob or a water faucet.
Today, many fabrics contain antistatic materials which greatly reduce the frequency of
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such experiences; so for us, the terms “common electricity” and “ordinary electricity”
are no longer apt, and they are consequently no longer in common use.
Unfortunately, today’s more familiar term, “static electricity,” is misleading in its
own way; for many of the signs that alert us to the presence of static electricity occur
precisely when that electricity is not static! Those unpleasant shocks which lurked in
my family’s home and automobile, patiently awaiting their opportunity to strike,
represented the discharge of electricity which had previously been built up by friction:
they were instances of electricity in motion, not electricity at rest.
Faraday’s efforts to demonstrate the identicality of this “swarm” of electricities
occupies the first and longer part of the Third Series. Only then does he set out upon
the second part, where the topic is measure—and particularly the measure of quantity.
Readers may notice a distinctive suppleness in the language Faraday adopts for this
discussion: while he does not reject the imagery of electric fluids outright, he never
crafts his descriptions in a way that depends on that imagery.
Now, one way we can estimate quantity—whether of electricity or anything that is
evolved or produced—is to identify a repetitive element in the process that produces it;
then, presumably, each repetition of that action will produce an equal amount afresh.
Faraday obtained common electricity from a frictional “plate machine,” in which a large
plate of glass was rotated against a fixed
“rubber”—which was usually made of silkwrapped leather, rather than what we now
call rubber. The appliance shown here is a
smaller version of Faraday’s enormous
machine, which featured a glass plate of
fifty inches diameter—nearly four times as
large as this one. 2
At several points in the Third Series
Faraday treats each turn of his machine as
developing the same quantity of electricity.
You can see why such a supposition is
reasonable; for it is easy to make sure that all revolutions of the crank are
accomplished with uniform effort and speed. And to the extent that individual turns
are identical to each other, there is no obvious reason why successive turns would not
produce identical results.
2
Photo courtesy London Science Museum. The glass disk is 35 cm in diameter.
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This “same-again” principle of reasoning is familiar to us in other contexts, such as
grinding pepper in a mill. Indeed, in the case of grinding we are rewarded with a clear
image of “quantity” in the form of a heap of the ground
substance, as shown here. But when Faraday cranks
his plate machine, no “heap” of electricity is produced.
Is electricity even the sort of thing that possesses
“quantity” in the sense of a heap, a pile, or a mound?
Once again we are reminded of Socrates’ lament to
Meno: “If I do not know the ‘what’ of something, how
can I know the ‘such’ of it?” 3 In our present case, if we
do not know the “what” of electricity, is it really
meaningful to ask the “how much” of it?
When Faraday remarked that the term quantity
was “perhaps sufficiently definite as to sense,” he
meant to acknowledge that we habitually think of “quantity” through images of
accumulation or gathering up. But do not overlook the note of reservation suggested
by his word “perhaps.” Faraday is far from confident that electricity is really amenable
to such imagery. We regularly use such language for electricity without a second
thought; but can we point to any body of experience that gives real content to that
language?
If electricity does not manifest its quantity directly in experience, might it do so
indirectly? Sometimes, for example, we think it natural to express the magnitude of
something in terms of the power it exercises. Galileo offers a memorable instance in
the Two New Sciences; Sagredo is speaking:
“Thus a vast number of ants might carry ashore a ship laden with
grain. And since experience shows us daily that one ant can easily
carry one grain, and it is clear that the number of grains in the ship is
not infinite, but falls below a certain limit, then if you take another
number four or six times as great, and if you set to work a
corresponding number of ants they will carry the grain ashore and the
boat also. It is true that this will call for a prodigious number of ants...”
[67]
That delightful phrase, “a prodigious number of ants,” seems to employ the imagery
of number; but its rhetorical burden is rather the sheer magnitude implied by the
ability to move “the grain and the boat also.” The phrase expresses huge
undifferentiated totality, whose greatness is known primarily by what it can
accomplish. It is an indirect representation of quantity.
3
71A
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Frictional electricity, too, seems to express quantity only indirectly. When a rubber
rod is stroked with woolen cloth, it acquires the power to attract a small ball of cork or
I
\
pith. We say that the rod has been electrified, or charged with electricity; and in the
left-hand sketch, the electrified rod has succeeded in drawing the ball aside through a
moderate angle of perhaps 9 or 10 degrees. But after receiving additional strokes with
the wool, the rod is able to urge the ball to a greater angle—perhaps as much as 18 or
20 degrees, as shown on the right. Is it not reasonable to believe that the rod on the
right exerts more attractive force precisely because it has acquired more electricity?
But this is conjecture, not direct experience. Any notion of quantity we can gain
from this experiment is limited to what we can surmise from the angle of the
suspended pith ball. But angle is no image of “muchness,” and it shares none of the
straightforwardness of such eminently legible figures as heap, mound, or—in the fluid
case—puddle.
If not the pith ball, then, might some other electrical instrument offer a more
immediate experience of electrical “quantity”? The distinctive power of electrified
bodies to attract or repel other electrified bodies is the principle of several electric
indicators that are considerably more refined than the pith ball.
Two early
instruments operate on the principle of mutual repulsion. The leaves of the gold-leaf
electroscope, pictured here on the left, diverge from one another more or less,
.
depending, partly, on how many times the rubber rod has been stroked. On the right,
Henley’s electrometer calls even sharper attention to angle by incorporating an obvious
pointer and protractor in its design; when the instrument is mounted on the electrified
conductor of a plate machine like Faraday’s, the pointer is repelled from the body, just
like the leaves of the electroscope. With its angular scale, the Henley instrument
emphatically announces its rhetoric of numerical measurement—and hence its name
“electrometer” rather than “electroscope.” But what, exactly, does it measure? The
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angle of the pointer, even when expressed numerically, still seems far removed from a
direct image of quantity.
In fact, one of Faraday’s experiments in the Third Series suggests that the
electrometer is better understood as indicating some other electrical attribute—an
attribute rather different from quantity, though it may be related to quantity. Faraday
describes that experiment in paragraph 363 of the Third Series. It involves an array,
or “battery,” of fifteen identical Leyden jars, like this one. You see that the central
conductors, which are connected to the jars’ inner coatings, are all joined together.
Within the wooden container, the outer coatings rest upon a conductive plate that is
connected to the flexible chain B, which in turn is connected to the earth.
Faraday will charge these jars using the plate electric machine. Notice the Henley
electrometer mounted on the prime conductor; this was one of the chief applications
of the Henley device.
At first Faraday connects only eight of the jars, charging them by thirty turns of the
plate machine. This causes the electrometer to rise to some position A. Does that
position represent the quantity of electricity supplied to the jars? Certainly that
quantity must be considerable, since Faraday noted that merely one revolution of the
plate will, in his words, “give ten or twelve sparks from the conductors, each an inch in
length.” 4
At a later stage of his experiment, Faraday charges all fifteen jars, again by thirty
turns of the machine. This time, he reports,
The Henley’s electrometer stood not quite half so high as before...
4
Paragraph 290.
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Obviously the electrometer is not measuring quantity! For the quantity of
electricity was the same in both cases—the result of thirty turns of the machine. Yet
with a greater number of jars, the electrometer reading was lower by more than half.
What electrical characteristic was it, then, that the electrometer measured when it
registered that striking reduction?
In hopes of answering this question, let us conduct an experiment of our own. Recall
that Faraday noted the generous number of sparks produced with each turn of the plate
machine. This should give us pause: why does the machine produce a series of sparks
rather than one continuous spark?
To study the conditions under which spark develops, I will use an electrometer of
still greater refinement—one which, although invented long after the Henley device,
does not differ greatly from that instrument in the essentials of its operation. The
electrostatic voltmeter operates on the principle of attraction rather than repulsion. On
C
the left is a photograph of our meter. It dates from the 1950s, and is therefore
calibrated in units whose defining assumptions would have had little meaning to
Faraday. But we can regard the scale divisions as arbitrary units of attractive force; let
me explain this.
On the right is a much-simplified diagram of the meter’s internal mechanism. A
movable plate B is mounted on a pointer which pivots at C and is held in an equilibrium
position by a very light spring. Plate A is fixed in place. When the plates are oppositely
electrified, they attract one another; and plate B will move upward until its force of
attraction is balanced by the spring. The pointer’s angle of displacement then reflects
the amount by which the spring has been stretched, and therefore, also, the force of
attraction between the plates. The scale divisions are so marked as to represent,
broadly, equal increments of that force. 5
We will connect the electrometer’s plates to a Wimshurst machine. I have separated
the machine’s terminals by about a millimeter or so (VIDEO BEGINS).
This is not really accurate, since true volt-meters must take into account both the plate separation and
effective plate area, both of which vary as the reading increases. But in the meter we are using, the
correction can be ignored for our purposes.
5
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Next, I will slowly crank the machine—and notice that the meter rises until a spark
develops, at which point the needle suddenly falls. As I continue to crank, the meter
repeatedly exhibits this pattern of rise to a maximum, followed by abrupt descent when
the spark passes. The maximum is not always the same; but there always is a
maximum, and the subsequent descent always coincides with the spark.
The regular association between the meter’s descent and the spark suggests a more
pointed question: “What is the condition between the terminals just before the spark
passes?” Whatever that condition is, it evidently results in spark each time it occurs.
And since the electrometer consistently develops a maximum reading just prior to each
spark, it seems very likely that the electrometer is indicating precisely that condition
which, when it reaches a certain degree, results in spark. What, then, is the nature of
that condition?
Faraday thought of the spark—and, for that matter, all instances of electric
discharge—as the breakdown of an antecedent state of stress in the region where the
discharge takes place. Faraday calls that region, or the material which may occupy it,
the “dielectric.” Here is his description in the Twelfth Series:
All the effects prior to the discharge are inductive; and the degree of
tension which it is necessary to attain before the spark passes is
therefore ... a very important point. It is the limit of the influence
which the dielectric exerts in resisting discharge; it is a measure,
consequently, ... of the intensity of the electric forces in activity.
This golden passage finally lends imaginative content to the term “intensity,” which
seemed so questionable to Faraday at the outset of the Third Series. The chief
manifestation of electrical action is a condition of tension in the region between two
surfaces, and that action is said to possess intensity commensurate with the degree of
that tension. “Intensity,” then, characterizes the action; “tension” the region or
material that experiences that action.
The distinction between intensity and tension is a subtle, but a natural one. We find
a comparable distinction in two descriptions of Odysseus’ great bow in Book 21 of the
Odyssey. The suitor Antinous knows the bow in terms of its own strength, which makes
stringing it so difficult. He warns the crowd: 6
6
Homeric passages translated by Gilbert Murray.
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“For not easily, I think, is this polished bow to be strung.”
(line 90)
(The image in this slide is that of a fifth-century Theban coin.) But once the bow is
strung and in action, it is known by the thrum of its string, the sign of surpassing
tension: 7
And Odysseus held it in his right hand, and tried the string, which sang
sweetly beneath his touch...
(line 408)
Just as Odysseus’ stout bow reveals its strength through the superlative degree of
tension it creates in the string, so electric action reveals its strength, or intensity, in the
form of tension in the material between oppositely-charged electrodes. Intensity and
tension are two different rhetorical aspects of electrical action: “intensity”
characterizes the action itself (corresponding to the bow); “tension” characterizes the
material or region which experiences that action (analogous to the bowstring). Do not
underestimate the scientific importance of such metaphorical images as those of string
and bow. Without them, or something like them, our understanding of natural powers
would degenerate into a merely formal correlation of numbers with numbers. But any
reader of Faraday quickly discovers that Faraday has little interest in symbols,
numerical or otherwise. Faraday is constantly alert for legible images that convey the
essential character of nature’s beings and powers. What is so remarkable about
Faraday’s experimental practice is how much of it consists in allowing the phenomena
to reveal their own images. 8
7
8
Illustration: detail from an etching by Theodoor van Thulden, part of a series produced in 1632–33.
Fisher, Howard, “The Great Electrical Philosopher,” The College, XXXI,1 (July 1979).
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Faraday’s interpretation of electrical discharge as being essentially a release of
antecedent tension departed sharply from the then-accepted account, represented here
on the left. Conventional thinking posited a buildup of opposite electric fluids on the
0 5 ed buildup of
.
Sup_
1• e (+) electric fluid
pos11v
sed buildup of .
Supo. (-) electric fluid
negative
j Tension
surfaces between which spark took place. As those fluids accumulated—or so the
account maintained—the inherent repulsion of like portions of fluid, combined with
the mutual attraction of unlike portions, would eventually propel the electrical
substances across the gap to combine with and nullify one another. Notice that the
conventional view recognizes no role for the space or material between the charged
surfaces; all action is ascribed to the electrical fluids.
Faraday’s view—represented on the right—reverses the order of priority by
focusing on the gap rather than the bodies which it separates, ascribing tension to the
gap, but assigning no causative role to the adjoining bodies, nor to any supposed
buildup of electricity upon them. If the dielectric material occupying the gap is capable
of sustaining high degrees of tension, it constitutes what we call an “insulator”; but all
known insulators, including air, have a limit to the tension they can sustain, and when
this limit is exceeded, they break down, electrically speaking. The release of tension
associated with that breakdown is disruptive discharge, or spark. In contrast to
insulators, the materials classed as “conductors” are incapable of withstanding any
tension at all; they break down under the slightest degree of electrical tension, and the
condition of continuous breakdown under tension is how Faraday understands
“current” in a conductor.
Thus the electrometer’s pattern of rise and sudden fall in our spark experiment
gives us reason to believe that the electrometer measures that very tension—or its
rhetorical counterpart, intensity. 9 How does it do so? If you recall our earlier diagram
of the electrometer’s inner workings, you will remember that the needle’s
Throughout the Eleventh and Twelfth Series we find Faraday using the terms “tension” and “intensity”
almost synonymously.
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displacement indicated the degree of extension of the internal spring, and hence the
force on the moving plate—or, rather, the tension in the region between the plates. But
of course the condition of the electrometer’s own plates is not what we are interested
in! If the electrometer is to function as a measuring instrument, the pointer’s
displacement must tell us about some other object—the object whose condition we
wish to measure. How is that possible?
Consider, from the standpoint of tension, what must be the case when the
electrometer plates are connected to the terminals of the Wimshurst machine. When
C
the machine is operated, electrical tension is established in the air between its
terminals D and E. I say that equal tension must therefore develop in the region
between the electrometer plates A and B; for if the tensions were not equal, the
conductors DA and EB would together have to bear the difference between those
tensions. But recall that, for Faraday, a conductor is incapable of sustaining electrical
tension. Thus the tension between A and B must be equal to the tension between D
and E; and the needle’s displacement will therefore reflect not only the tension
between the electrometer plates but the tension between the Wimshurst terminals as
well.
Have we gained any fuller understanding of those troubling electrical terms,
quantity and intensity? Faraday’s study of the forms of electric discharge, especially
spark, led to the idea of electric tension; and that image of tension, in turn, does indeed
seem to offer a firmer notion of intensity, namely, the action producing a certain level
of tension in a dielectric.
But what about quantity? Initially, we looked to the electroscope as an indicator of
quantity; but successive refinements of that instrument brought us, not closer to, but
farther and farther away from the expected imagery. All our attempts to find, in
experience, the imagery that a material substance would ordinarily demand—a
localized heap, mound, or puddle—have led us instead back to tension. Why do the
phenomena of static electricity seem to lead us so persistently away from “heap”
imagery and toward the vocabulary of tension? Might that be a sign that tension is
actually more fundamental than quantity?
In fact, Faraday already has ample grounds for this view; for if electrifying a body
really represents the accumulation of electric substance upon it, we ought to be able to
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electrify a body “absolutely," that is, without relation to any other body—just as we can
fill a glass with water regardless of whether or not we fill any other container with
water. But Faraday’s famous Cage Experiment, along with other investigations,
showed definitively that no body can be in a “charged” condition at all except through
a mediating relation with some other, oppositely charged, body. This means that there
is no such thing as a quantity of electricity in itself. Every instance of electric charge is
but one element of a mutual relation to which Faraday gives the name “induction”; and
in a striking passage in the Eleventh Series he explicitly elevates the relation over the
things related:
All charge is sustained by induction. All phenomena of intensity
include the principle of induction ... All currents involve previous
intensity and therefore previous induction. INDUCTION appears to be
the essential function both in the first development and the
consequent phenomena of electricity. [1178]
Furthermore, since all of what Faraday calls the “phenomena of intensity” involve
tension in a dielectric, then it is the dielectric, not the so-called “charged” body, which
is to be counted as the principal entity in static electricity. In Faraday’s words,
In the theory of induction founded upon ... action of the dielectric, we
have to look to the state of that body principally for the cause and
determination of the ... effects. [1368] 10
If the dielectric is indeed the principal entity in static electric induction, it is easy to
see why Faraday devoted so much of the Eleventh Series to studying the dielectric
specifically. To that end, he designed the special “inductive apparatus” illustrated here.
The appliance on the left is an historical reproduction; 11 Faraday’s own diagram
appears on the right. Today we would call this contrivance a spherical capacitor; but it
In an omitted term Faraday characterizes the action in question as “molecular.” By this he merely means
action at the level of small portions of the dielectric. He does not refer to chemical molecules of the sort
propounded by atomic theory—as readers of his 1844 paper, “A Speculation touching Electric Conduction
and the Nature of Matter,” will appreciate. See Experimental Researches in Electricity, Vol. II (1844), p. 284.
10
Photograph generously supplied by Dietmar Höttecke; see Höttecke, Dietmar, “How and What Can We
Learn From Replicating Historical Experiments? A Case Study.” Science & Education 9, 343–362 (2000).
11
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is essentially a Leyden jar consisting of an outer and an inner conductor, with electrical
connection to the inner conductor established by a conductive wire terminating at the
little sphere on top. Faraday’s experiments established for all time the pre-eminent
role of the dielectric in induction.
We can emulate Faraday’s induction experiments. 12 In place of his spherical
capacitors, we shall use a pair of our adjustable plate capacitors, set to equal plate
separations and thus electrically identical.
Faraday placed his two identical inductive devices on a grounded metal work
surface, so that their outer conductors were permanently connected to the earth while
their inner conductors remained free. We will use a heavy copper wire for the same
purpose by connecting it to the earth. The righthand plates of our capacitors are joined
to it, and are thus in permanent electrical contact. The lefthand plates will be isolated
from one another, except when I briefly connect them later.
To measure the electrical tension that developed when his devices were charged,
Faraday employed a sensitive torsion balance, pictured here on the left. That fine
instrument balanced the tension between two electrified spheres against the elastic
twist of a slender thread—just as our modern electrometer, as in the diagram we saw
earlier, balances the tension between two electrified plates against the elastic stretch
of a spring. Both instruments, therefore, serve to measure electric tension.
12
Faraday describes this series of experiments in paragraphs 1208–1214.
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Faraday possessed only a single balance with which to measure both his inductive
devices; but we have the luxury of using two electrometers, one for each capacitor,
A
B
To earth
designated A and B, respectively. Let me first outline the procedure we shall be
following; then I’ll show some videos of the actual experiment.
Faraday began by charging only one of his devices. Similarly, I will connect the
Wimshurst machine to capacitor A alone, and crank it until the electrometer
B
To earth
approaches its full scale reading. Capacitor A will thus sustain a definite tension,
indicated by the electrometer. Capacitor B, of course, will remain uncharged and will
sustain no electric tension.
Next I will momentarily join the ungrounded capacitor plates. Now, think about
To oatlh
what must happen when I do that. The joining wire is a good conductor, so it cannot
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sustain tension; therefore when contact is made, the electrical condition of both
capacitors should instantly change to make their respective tensions equal, and we
should expect both electrometers to read the same. That will constitute the first part
of our experiment; so now, let us carry out the steps I just described (VIDEO BEGINS).
Here is the setup. The copper wire that is appearing on the left will connect
capacitor A to the Wimshurst machine... Now I am cranking the machine, and you can
see the electrometer rise almost to its full scale.
And here is a closeup view of the electrometer; it shows that Capacitor A is
sustaining a tension of 2.80 units. I could not fit the second electrometer into this view,
but it reads zero—as of course it must, since Capacitor B was not charged.
Now I join the capacitors momentarily ... and the tension in Capacitor A falls; we’ll
take a closeup look at the electrometer to see the new value...
The tension in Capacitor A has fallen to 1.37 units, while the tension in Capacitor B has
risen to the same amount, as it must—though, again, I could not include both meters in
the same view.
Now, this change in tension took place when I allowed Capacitor A to share its
electricity with Capacitor B. But since the capacitors are identical, they ought to divide
that electricity equally—so that each capacitor should now embrace half the quantity
of electricity that resided originally in Capacitor A alone.
And the tension in both capacitors is 1.37 units, that is, almost exactly half the initial
tension of 2.80 units. Thus as the quantity of electricity in Capacitor A diminished to
half, so too its tension diminished to half. Evidently tension is here proportional to
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quantity! But doesn’t this contradict what we saw in the Third Series? For there, when
Faraday charged first eight Leyden jars, and then fifteen, with the same quantity of
electricity, his Henley electrometer gave two different readings; and obviously if one
magnitude can take on two different values while the other remains unchanged, those
magnitudes cannot be proportional.
This reasoning, though, overlooks a critical difference between the two
experiments. In the Third Series, Faraday was comparing the tension of a fixed quantity
of electricity distributed first over eight jars and then over fifteen jars, as illustrated
here. The electrometer readings are indeed very different, just as Faraday reported.
But our experiment, like Faraday’s in the Eleventh Series, compares the tensions of
different quantities of electricity in one and the same capacitor. The two experiments
are not comparable, because in the earlier exercise the physical environment
underwent significant change—from a smaller number to a greater number of jars—
while in the later experiment the environment did not change: the electrometer
measured the variation of tension in one and the same capacitor.
Clearly, the physical environment affects how much tension a given quantity of
electricity will develop. This should not surprise us, since that environment includes
the dielectric; and we have already seen how central is the role of the dielectric,
according to Faraday’s thinking.
The next step in Faraday’s experiment, and in ours, will confirm that central role by
showing that different dielectric materials develop specifically different tensions.
Faraday filled the air space in one of his devices with various substances; and we shall
do the same to our capacitor B by inserting a sheet of glass between its plates. Then
we will run through the same experimental sequence as before; but remember that this
time, our capacitors will no longer be identical.
(VIDEO BEGINS.) You see I have mounted a glass sheet between the plates of
Capacitor B.
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And again we connect Capacitor A to the Wimshurst machine, and charge it to an
initial tension.... Its electrometer reads 2.83 units, nearly the same as before, while of
course the other electrometer continues to read zero.
Again I briefly join the two capacitors together; and the electrometers once more
display equal deflections—as they must, since the tensions have to be equal. But notice
that this time the tension is not equal to half the original tension... Instead the tension
is only 1.02 units, roughly one-third of the initial tension. How shall we understand
this?
When Faraday obtained a similar result with his spherical capacitors, he concluded
that the apparatus containing a solid dielectric had, in his words, “a greater aptness or
capacity for induction” than the apparatus whose dielectric was air. To see what he
means by this phrase, let us analyze our results in the same way that Faraday
interpreted his. When I joined the two devices, the charged capacitor gave some of its
electricity to the uncharged capacitor. Specifically,:
The capacitor with air dielectric lost a certain quantity of electricity, and
its tension decreased by 1.81 units.
The capacitor with glass dielectric gained that same quantity of
electricity, but its tension increased by only 1.02 units—a much smaller
amount.
Air dielectric-greater change
Glass dielectric-smaller change
I~ \
I~ \
by 1.81 units
by 1.02 units
�18
Thus one and the same quantity of electricity is associated with lower
tension when the dielectric is glass, and higher tension when the
dielectric is air.
Evidently, then, “greater capacity for induction” means the ability to sustain the
same quantity of electricity at a lower tension. Or, equivalently, it denotes the ability
to sustain a greater quantity of electricity at the same tension.
We could go on, as Faraday does, to show that a dielectric’s “capacity for induction”
depends on its dimensions as well as its specific material. But the main point is clear:
where static electricity is concerned, our only access to electrical “quantity” is
indirect—through the measurement of tension, 13 taking account of the medium’s
capacity for induction. And thus we must regard electrical quantity as only an
alternative rhetorical expression for tension—a special figure of speech. Recall
Faraday’s earlier remark, that we have to look principally to the state of the dielectric
for the determination of the electric effects. In contrast, he described the supposedly
“charged” conductors in this almost dismissive way:
The conductors ... may be considered as the termini of the inductive
action.... [1361]
Charged bodies, then, are merely the boundaries of electrical action, not its cause!
To say that a body is “charged” no longer labels it as the source of electric effects, but
merely the place where a medium that does sustain tension switches to a medium that
does not. With this characterization, Faraday has effectively turned the conventional
order of causal priority on its head. Charge is no longer prior to tension; rather, tension
is prior to charge. Whatever else this may mean, it fatally undercuts the notion that
“charge” is the name of an electrical substance, for—to use an Aristotelian formulation
that would have been quite foreign to Faraday: “How can a non-substance be prior to
a substance?” 14
I hope I have conveyed how thoroughly Faraday’s account of electricity inverted the
conventional understanding. At the same time, I hope it is clear that Faraday did not
arrive at his unorthodox view through polemic or disputation. He did not marshal
evidence so as to refute the established conceptual scheme. In fact, at least in the
Experimental Researches, Faraday hardly ever engages in “collecting evidence,” any
more than he engages in symbolic mathematics. Instead, he looks directly to nature
showing itself.
Classic doctrines of scientific “method” emphasize putting hypotheses and
conjectures to the test, establishing a preponderance of evidence for or against them.
For electricity undergoing discharge, as Faraday shows, the ballistic galvanometer offers an alternative
measure of quantity. But while it might seem obvious that when electricity discharges, its quantity in
discharge must be the same as its quantity prior to discharge—when it was still static—the problem of
correlating the measures of static and dynamic electricity would prove to be a knotty one. It would
eventually become the problem of relating the electrostatic unit to the electromagnetic unit, the problem
that would lead Maxwell to his electromagnetic theory of light.
13
14 Aristotle, Physics, Book I (189a34) tr. Cornford. In the present case, how can tension (not a substance) be
prior to electric fluid (a substance)?—implying that electric “fluid” is not actually a substance after all.
�19
Such an approach is suited to an alien world, a world indifferent to human
understanding, a world in which, as has been said, “nature loves to hide.” 15 Faraday’s
world, on the contrary, shows itself in forms that may challenge our understanding;
but they are not incommensurable with it. Faraday’s science flourishes in a world that
is fit for us, a world that is preeminently knowable.
How did Faraday manage to nourish a scientific outlook so little influenced by
conventional scientific doctrine? A customary answer to this question singles out
Faraday’s lack of a conventional education. To be sure, Faraday had little formal
education and was largely self-taught; but the materials of his self-education were
steeped in established knowledge. As a bookbinder’s apprentice, he read volumes of
the Encyclopædia Britannica while engaged in binding them. By his own account he
benefited greatly from Jane Marcet’s Conversations in Chemistry, a lovely book which,
however, reliably held to established and accepted teachings. 16 Through the
generosity of a friend of his employer, Faraday was able to attend lectures by
Humphrey Davy, an establishment figure in science if there ever was one. I do not think
it was ignorance of established science that explains Faraday’s relative indifference to
it. Much of his practice in “reading the book of nature” 17 points instead to his religious
tradition.
Faraday belonged to a very small Christian denomination, the Sandemanians, a
dissenting offshoot of the Church of Scotland. Sandemanians eschewed theology and
had no established clergy; instead, the Bible was the central source of guidance in every
aspect of their lives. Reading the Bible demanded no special credentials, for it was
written in human language for the sake of human understanding. 18 Similarly, they saw
the natural world as having been created as a gift and a fitting home for mankind. Like
the biblical text itself, the created world was seen as a channel of God’s communication
with the human race.
You can see how such views concerning nature could inform Faraday’s methods of
natural investigation. If natural phenomena show themselves in terms we can grasp,
they will not need to be expressed mathematically—or, for that matter, through any
other external symbology. We see from Faraday’s own example that the study of
nature requires patient and prolonged labor—but much of that labor stems not from
nature’s recalcitrance but from our own sluggishness to put familiar thought patterns
aside—what Faraday once called “mental inertia” 19—and allow the phenomena to
speak to us directly. For Faraday, at least, the means for cultivating an ear for nature’s
15
Heraclitus, B123
Jane Marcet never sought to break new scientific ground; but by composing instructional texts that were
explicitly directed to young women, she conspicuously broke new social and educational ground.
17 Geoffrey N. Cantor, “Reading the Book of Nature: The relation between Faraday’s Religion and his
Science” in Faraday Rediscovered: Essays on the Life and Work of Michael Faraday, 1791–1867. The
Macmillan Press, Ltd. (1985).
16
See David Gooding, Michael Faraday, 1791–1867: Artisan of Ideas. http://www.bath.ac.uk/~hssdcg/
Michael_Faraday.html, 15 June 2002; accessed 4 September 2023 through the Wayback Machine.
18
See Faraday’s “Observations on Mental Education” (1854) in Experimental Researches in Chemistry and
Physics (1859), p. 463
19
�20
dialect and an eye for its forms are practical rather than analytical. Before he asks
questions in speech, he asks them in practice; such are Faraday’s experiments.
Nevertheless, while Faraday’s mode of experimenting clearly reflects central
elements of the Sandemanian outlook, it would be a mistake see him only as dutifully
putting the Sandemanian creed into action. Faraday just doesn’t write as though he
were feeling the weight of doctrinal obligation. His prose, both in his laboratory Diary
and in the published Researches, is simply too fresh, too lively, too responsive to what
just happened. There is a palpable difference between being open to nature and
observing a code of being open to nature. I invite you to think about that difference—
the difference between responsiveness and responsibility 20—and how it plays out both
in consciousness and in speech. But for now let us return to the terms “quantity” and
“intensity,” the two candidates for electrical measure; for as regards their lucidity, I
think we will have to acknowledge that the terms have effectively exchanged places.
The term intensity, which Faraday initially found “more difficult to define,” has
gained considerable clarity, since Faraday has been able to assimilate to it the figures
of speech associated with tension; and we may now understand electrical intensity as
commensurate with the degree of tension developed in a specified region. But the term
quantity, which Faraday previously thought “sufficiently definite as to sense” has
instead become highly questionable. For the “definite sense” of that term rested on the
image of heaping up or accumulation of electrical substance; and we have seen how
that image has repeatedly failed to find any grounding in experience. Moreover, now
that Faraday has identified the primary electrical entity as being the dielectric under
tension, not the so-called charged body, any idea of “quantity of electric substance” can
only be regarded as a merely verbal one—a figure of speech. Under such
circumstances, would it not behoove any responsible thinker to avoid the term
“quantity of electricity” altogether? And yet Faraday continues to speak of “quantity of
electricity” throughout the remainder of the Eleventh Series, and in the Twelfth,
Thirteenth, and Fifteenth Series. Why would he do this?
Faraday nowhere speaks directly to that question as regards electrical terminology;
but he does address a similar one in connection with the language of atoms. Some of
you have read, and some of you will read, his 1844 paper, “A Speculation touching
Electric Conduction and the Nature of Matter.” 21 In that essay, after having reviewed
his many reservations about the theory of atoms, and hence also the atomic language
that takes their existence for granted, he nevertheless admits,
I feel myself constrained, for the present hypothetically, to admit them
[that is, atoms], and cannot do without them.
Here, then, is another instance where Faraday feels obliged to make at least
provisional use of a terminology that has not been grounded in phenomena. A
doctrinaire purist would have avoided such a compromise; but Faraday’s openness
Contrast, for example the Knight of Faith in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling with the rule-inferring
“insomniac” who, reflecting on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, confidently deduces, “Oh, I see how
it works: you raise the knife, and then suddenly there’s a ram!”
20
21
Experimental Researches in Electricity, Vol. II (1844), p. 284, esp. page 289.
�21
extends to language as well as to experience, for each of these must evolve along with
the other.
Natural phenomena show themselves in forms and images that human beings can
apprehend; and those images continually try to shape a language that is anchored in
the phenomena. But such a language requires discovery, interpretation, and
adeptness; and these in turn require time, patience, and love. As we do not expect to
take in a dialogue, or a drama, on first reading, we must not expect to “perform”
experiments once only and then set them aside. We must live with them, enter into
them, and try them again and again. The idea is less to get the right answer, than to
capture the right idiom. The book of nature deserves multiple readings; and no two of
those readings are likely to be quite the same.
�
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St. John's College Lecture Transcripts—Santa Fe
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21 pages
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What is the Measure of Electricity?
Description
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Transcript of a lecture given by tutor Howard Fisher on February 23, 2024 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "Faraday made use of numerous electrical measuring instruments; but what, exactly, did they measure? What properties of electricity are "measurable" at all? Faraday's efforts to identify these properties raised a question which Meno would have recognized: how can we know the properties of electricity unless we first know what electricity actually is?"
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Fisher, Howard J., 1942-
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
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2024-02-23
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text
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pdf
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Electricity
Faraday, Michael, 1791-1867
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English
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SF_FisherH_What_is_the_Measure_of_Electricity_2024-02-23
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/918955aa969820ba91330685ca00088a.mp3
da58b213e69eeab5c7b5a8b7e1ecc7c3
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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01:02:44
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The Discovery of Entropy, 1824-1865
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on August 31, 2001, by Adam Schulman as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Schulman, Adam
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2001-08-31
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sound
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mp3
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Carnot, Sadi, 1796-1832. Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu.
Clausius, R. (Rudolf), 1822-1888. Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Wärme.
Entropy
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English
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LEC_Schulman_Adam_2001-08-31_ac
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/ff2cff0f5a91a5c2b864f29583b31cfe.mp3
1b35ca27be5727703363cb80adc896b7
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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St. John's College Meem Library
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m4a
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01:10:50
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Ecology, Evolution, and Ontology of Elevational Ranges
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture given by Ethan Linck on February 16, 2024 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "The elevational distributions of organisms have long fascinated scientists, an interest that has burgeoned with expectations of upslope movement of species in response to climate warming. Yet tests of this hypothesis have produced conflicting results, perhaps due to varied approaches and assumptions. In this lecture I will explore the historical roots of the concept of the elevational range in ecology and evolutionary biology, highlighting how it has been treated as both a byproduct of other phenomena and an object of study in its own right. I will then argue that this divide has created ontological and statistical issues for the field, and suggest areas for improvement."
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Linck, Ethan
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
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2024-02-16
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Ecology & environment
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English
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SF_LinckE_Ecology_Evolution_and_Ontology_of_Elevational_Ranges_2024_02-16
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f52c75f0b9eaace1cabeec234e90b71c.pdf
bb216559fbb3be5f324ee55e843357ff
PDF Text
Text
Colloquy
On Creation
1
�2
�Table of Contents
4. Letter from the Editor
6. Poetry
22. Short Stories & Musings
32. Essays
66. Translations
79. An Interview with Associate Dean Brendan Boyle
3
�Letter from the Editor
4
�On Creation and the Value of Themes
I think a short explanation of the role of theme within a publication is warranted, given its inclusion in a handful of recent issues of Colloquy. Not only is it useful for you,
the reader, but for the contributors, and the editorial team. Without theme, we have
nothing to judge against. I’m not speaking of judgements of quality, as we would have
a difficult and spirited discussion about how to ascertain a work’s quality. Instead I
mean “judge” as in weigh the value of any particular work within the context of its
setting. I think the simplest way to explain the importance of a theme is to highlight
how prevalent the habit of keeping something “thematic” is. You cannot say something coherently unless a theme renders what you say coherent.
I’d first point to books, like the many we read here at St. John’s. If Kant deviated at all
from theme then the Critique of Pure Reason would suddenly find itself impure and unreasonable. And what a detriment to the ends of that work such a change would be. A
core aspect of our ingrained habit of storytelling is theme. It ties one plot point to the
next and allows metaphor to shine in the liminal space between word and interpretation. The role of theme is the same as the role of words, to communicate, but theme
on its own can communicate an entire catalogue of interpretations and emotions that
words cannot in their isolation.
So, let us focus on the theme for this issue of Colloquy: On Creation. Creation is among
the most transcendent capabilities of any single thing. It can refer to the creation of
new life or new purpose. We talk of artists as creators, and we say the same of gods.
The role of creation is that something comes to fruition, and moves from a space purely other, that of the non-existent, to that of the tangible and knowable, materializing
reality from concept.
In a way, “On Creation” is not a theme that enforces rigid boundaries. Creation as act
is available to the entirety of life’s beings, and seems to belong to nature’s fundamental forces. The Universe forges stars as we create an idea. As a theme, “On Creation”
does invite the polity of the Graduate Institute to participate in the single most unifying capability of all the Universe. And so I would like to end this musing with what I
hope the following submissions create within you, dear reader.
I hope they create inspiration, so that some aspect of the style, content, or beauty of
what you read here aids you in creating something wholly your own. I hope they
create a reaction, as emotional states are a sudden and startling reminder that we are
alive. And I hope they create a sense of appreciation for the brilliant, curious, and creative minds that make up the polity of the Graduate Institute, in this time and place.
Thank you, and give witness to creation.
Stephen Borsum - Editor
5
�Poetry & Musings
On Creation
Old Dog
Forbidden Fruit
Children of that World
Mimi
My Mind’s a Dark Forest
Before the Blank Stare
6
�Contributors
Austin Suggs
Chris MacBride
Stacey Rains
Louis Petrich
Sydney Rowe
Sylvie Bernhardt
John Harwood
7
�On Creation
Austin Suggs
What was in that dark
Over which the Spirit’s spark
hovered?
There was water there it seems
Though not the water of our streams.
This was of a different order
Not teeming with life
But humming with the power
Of a world not yet made
But somehow already there.
Did you tame primordial chaos
Or disturb a primal peace?
And what happened on that second day
That caused the pen to betray
Something was off.
For it was not good
Nor was it great.
It simply was.
Did the mass of land amidst the seas
Begrudge the Spirit its roaming free
A new strife where once there was peace?
And tell me, how great was man, really,
If you came to regret his progeny?
And if he’s an image of you,
Well, what are we to do
With that?
8
�Somewhere with Warm Waters - Louis Petrich
9
�Old Dog
Chris Macbride
The click-clicking of four arthritic ankles
announce him into the kitchen
At 17, he’s still turning up whenever the recipe begins
warm olive oil over medium heat, add 2 cloves garlic…
We met him at a rescue and were told his first owner was a chef
it explains a lot
His back is now a long, deep sway between hip and shoulder
curved like the mountain valley in Virginia where he was born
He shakes his head and the World’s softest ears
slap against sunken cheekbones
These days, he speaks in low groans as if to say
getting older stinks (like dog poop)
And yet
when the air outside turns chilly
darn if he isn’t a pup again
Trotting up the driveway eager to sniff out
the latest news left by four-legged friends
Nose to ground, tail wagging
he is happy
10
�Forbidden Fruit
Stacey Rains
In 9th grade Biology, we dissected lilies;
we carefully opened the white petals to access the pale green center,
separated the stamen from the pistil, and
learned that even flowers have ovaries
to grow life inside of life,
inside the deep, protected center, comes the slow swelling and upwelling,
‘til the petals drop away, and all is given
to the potential.
I have wrestled with
the discovery that trees can be dioecious–
that plants also are gendered–and, more, that there exists
a botanical misogyny. “When used for street plantings,
only male trees should be selected,
to avoid the nuisance from the seed.”
Fertility is so inconvenient.
Nevermind the spewing,
fertile pollen that now dominates the landscape,
causing red eyes and running noses.
Nevermind regret.
11
�Children of that World
Louis Petrich
(Luke 20:34-36)
“—they neither marry, nor are given in marriage—”
That’s all, perhaps, you need to say to inculcate
thy kingdom come and save us bouts of parables:
your sower, famed as seeding ground that’s cursed,
then straining after roots to clutch at light,
next family farms and winter strawberries—
all angelically void when wings caress
god’s breath and ‘tis enough to harvest songs.
Your late-hired field hands, prodigally paid for?-consider angels--any time--for free.
The good Samaritan gets even better,
stays the night with beaten travelers
instead of backing home to wife and stacking
nursing on an innkeeper, whose own shrewd wife,
though scraping profit from the dirty sheets,
with years grows tired of busybody neighbor feats.
12
�There’d be no rigmarole with folks declining
t’attend the wedding--no resorting last
to uncast idlers outing for a lark—
when kingdom come has come, the nights are done
that consummate, no made-up faces fine
or bodies nipped and tucked to light a spark—
O what a load from off the mind!--you lookers, mark.
My savior dear, your promised kingdom
parabolic could have been a kingdom
literal, in words that summon what they mean
forthright as prince’s peal: I say there shan’t be
children given away from honied skies.
For yes, I do remember Paradise-creation, mine to color.
Then the pall,
for none do slice off married once for all
until they deal their evil able parts
and die while knowing them inseparable.
She, hearing how to swallow serpentine
the world, tends him naked taste of inside
out desire; henceforth, he’s good no more alone
to name things as he will and hear the Lord approve.
13
�If only kingdom come, pie rained from sky,
were plated now for simple thanks to still
the pulpy verbiage, round it goes: “Now eat
at once the astronomical wee apple
that lets fall the dominoes.” Along come back pains,
raking leaves from tree left-o’er uneaten,
cracking truth on fossil fruit pertaining
not to peaceful night of sleep ‘til death-with tugging of the limbs and closing in
and never deeper getting than this flushing skin.
To walk with God in cool breeze
of the evening--unafraid
of after-hidden, poor performing fool—
that’s ever, and forever, bliss.
For that, be overcome, O world amiss.
14
�Mimi
Sydney Rowe
Vertebrate coast.
Silent boat.
Cusp of tropics, touch pearl.
Medicine inside embers.
Sails high; flatter.
Arcing Inwards to you.
The tiny cabin with a bowl of salt.
Cut open, pouring.
15
�My Mind’s a Dark Forest
Sylvie Bernhardt
Escape—run for the trees—evade;
Before they mark me freak,
No hope flickers warmth I might save.
No others will I need learn.
Down, down a dark stone cave
Goes I, who dares and burns.
I’ll claim honors as renegade,
Down, down these mountain graves
As friend to claw and beak.
That shutter, crack, and groan.
No good friend have they been to me—
Community of Fear—
Scratching fang nails on rusty rails,
These wretched creatures roam.
Conquer my last youthful decree:
I’m no Devil nor deity;
“I know this dark mirror.”
Grisly death wings me home.
Under night’s blanket I make haste
Away from light, away.
To fall in sight would lead to waste;
Safety in darkness lay.
Know I seek not a Paradise
Where those wretched do roam.
Those that claw against their stone
tombs
Wail, weak cretin cries.
As I descend, no lights a friend
Forever suckling purple blooms,
To delve through depths returned.
They who lives no more dies.
Wicked shadows cling to bright kin,
To I, who dares and burns.
Brutish heads prevail in disorder,
In guise of man though beast.
Debased are they, the exploiter,
And violence of brutes won’t cease.
16
�I move quietly in shadow
But if my flesh be not my end,
With sharp claw I unsheathe.
Then question not my aim.
No hatred I harbor in tow,
Makers of form are divine kin,
But blood be what we breathe.
So worship not to tame.
Should I consent to suffer more
Tread on, but move most steadily,
Or live in sunk despair?
Else these shales might splinter,
I know in cruelty they’ll restore
And break. Striking me readily,
A lust for death so fair.
As done in past winter.
Earth, oh Earth, cries do bury
Depths I dove, and air gusts led
An evil rot in mind.
Through caverns and deluge.
Spoken in tongues—restless fury
A moonlit grove, past tamed, then freed—
Stirs frenzied force blind.
Now my living refuge.
If only I had strength in hand to rake
A melody of crinkling leaves
The tremors from my flesh.
Invokes safety’s soft glee.
From my throat’s rage to the world’s
break,
Lantern flower blooms now breathes
All cries ever languish.
A loving warmth through me.
Death I keep always in soft heart,
Hold I no more despotic dark,
That will know endless cold.
While rose, mint and oak grows;
Love binds us before we depart;
Reflecting sanctuary’s mark
Of All, this I now hold.
Away I from old woes.
17
�Ruins are ripened with dull time.
On this bed of oak leaves I sleep;
I find the warm glow safe.
No company I seek.
Lonely lantern’s golden flame climbs
My tale always to tell as creep,
An ancient etched-stone waif.
As friend to claw and beak.
Secret garden beneath the falls
Spiraling to center.
Fire sprouts flame on vine-meshed
walls
Blooming in November.
To stir thoughts of metaphysics
I deny mind’s fetters.
Alight there glows hieroglyphics—
Spells in gold letters.
Timber crackles in a dirt pit.
Smoke fails to reach the floor.
Poems I babble and I spit,
So to deepen the lore.
Tonight, what dreams will I endure?
Be they kind or bleak?
While rosy-cheeked dawn will ignore
Me so tender and meek.
18
�Puck: Consider it a Dream - Nadine Bucca
19
�Before the Blank Stare
John Harwood
Here I sit and kneel
Before the blank stare
Of some little earth,
An image, of one
I have never seen nor touched.
The more thoughts rattle
In between my ringing ears,
The less I can manage
To imagine even the carving
Of the one I’ve never seen.
A faceless and mangled
Homunculus of marble
Stands before my penitent’s gaze.
In fear, I can not fathom to begin;
To set a chisel into the creature,
To even gesture to the creator.
How can I release anger and dread,
Praise and duty, pent up
In the veins and muscles
Of marble, so finely shaped
By the hands of the Almighty?
20
�Would even a painting,
A lead etching,
A mindless praying,
Or even tranced dancing
Begin to evoke the Unspeakable,
The Ever-Perplexing?
So, I sit and scratch lines into letters
And letters into the pages of my heart
That resembles the stone
That patiently awaits
Before my artist’s first minding.
After a purging time of pondering
Before the blank stare
Of the One Unfathomed,
Who fathoms me gently,
I dare begin to finally set a mark.
21
�Short Stories & Musings
Dialogue: Meeting with Descartes
TRANSLATIONS
The First Postulate
22
�Contributors
Yonas Ketsela
Cynthia Crane
23
�Dialogue: Meeting with Descartes
Yonas Ketsela
I set out on a journey today to meet with Descartes. He invited me to come and chat
with him at his house. I have been anxiously waiting to see him all day. I have his
book, Meditations on First Philosophy under my arms. After a long walk, I arrived at the
appointed time, and I am now only waiting for his call. This is roughly how our conversations go:
Descartes: “Let us for example take the wax; it has only just been removed from the
honeycomb; it has not yet lost all the flavour of its honey; it retains some of the scent of
the flowers among which it has gathered; its colour, shape, and size are clearly visible;
it is hard, cold, easy to touch, and if you tap it with your knuckle, it makes sound. In
short, it has all the properties that seem to be required for a given body to be known as
distinctly as possible.”
Yonas: What you said makes sense to me. This is in fact what I myself experimented on
a candle before coming here. If I put it in my own words, what you describe is exactly
what I characterise as my conscious sense-experience or sensations: the colour, shape,
size of the candle belongs to my vision; it has some cedar flavour which belongs to my
sense of smell and taste; its hardiness and coldness to my sense of touch; and its sound
to my ear. Thus, all these sensations are distinct to me. Even though I am not sure if I can
say that it is clear, nor do I know exactly what this experience means to me.
Descartes: “But wait–while I am speaking, it is brought close to the fire. The remains of
its flavour evaporate; the smell fades; the colour is changed, the shape is taken away, it
grows in size, becomes liquid, becomes warm, it can hardly be touched, and now, if you
strike it, it will give off no sound. Does the same wax still remain?”
Yonas: It is unclear to me now how I can precisely answer the question whether the
same wax remains or not. But one fact is clear to me that it has undergone some changes
of appearance. Its previous qualities are not there anymore. My sensations are obviously diminished in reaction to this change. I can barely smell it, its colour is unclear, its
shape somewhat deformed or irregular as a result of being in a change of state—from
that of solid to liquid; I also cannot grasp it; its sound is not as distinct as before. So, I
guess, so far as my sensation is diminished, I can say it is not exactly the same wax as
before. In fact, if someone now breaks into the house and senses this wax, he would
hardly be able to exactly predict or imagine its previous state. But as for me, I know
what happened and I can remember its previous state–however vague it might be. So I
don’t see the same wax as before.
24
�Descartes: [I see what you are saying but] “we must admit it does remain: no one would
say or think it does not. So what was there in it that was so distinctly grasped? Certainly, none of those qualities I apprehended by the senses: for whatever came under taste,
or smell or sight, or touch, or hearing, has now changed: but the wax remains.”
Yonas: Ahh, you are right. I hadn’t reflected in this way before. But If I follow your suggestion, it does seem to me that what I distinctly grasped was first its number, namely,
there was one wax here which has undergone a change from one state to another. But
as you said, for its taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing, they become very obscure and
even my imagination can only be a little to no help (given that my imagination is not
good enough). My senses may still retain a certain trace of sensations in them, but I am
sure they will disappear pretty soon (given that my memory does not always record
these sensations accurately). In another extreme case, someone who does not have one
of these sense organs may not participate in the same experience at all as I am now. I am
now wondering if these qualities are not necessarily what belongs to the essence of this
wax, then what is the essence of the wax apart from these qualities?
Descartes: [Good], “perhaps the truth of the matter was what I now think it is: namely
that the wax itself was not in fact sweetness of the honey, or the fragrance of the flowers
or the whiteness, shape, or sonority, but the body which not long ago appeared to me
as perceptible in these modes, but now appears in others. But what exactly is this that I
am imaging in this way?”
Yonas: That is exactly what I am wondering about too.
Descartes: [Okay] “let us consider the matter and, thinking away those things that do
not belong to the wax, let us see what remains.”
Yonas: Ok. Good.
Descartes: “Something extended, flexible, mutable: certainly, that is all.”
Yonas: I think I can understand that.
Descartes: “But in what do this flexibility and mutability consist? Is it in the fact that
I can imagine this wax being changed in shape, from a circle to a square, and from a
square into a triangle?”
Yonas: Well, speaking in clear concepts, I think, that may be what we can understand by
terms such as flexibility and mutability. But I am not sure if that is exactly what happens
in reality.
Descartes: [Okay] “That cannot be right: for I understand that it is capable of innumerable changes of this sort, yet I cannot keep track of all these by using my imagination.”
25
�Yonas: Now, I see what you mean, namely that the limitation of my faculty of imagination would not at all allow me to keep track of all these changes ad infinitum.
Descartes: “What about ‘extended’? Surely, I know something about the nature of its
extension. For it is greater when the wax is melting, greater still when it is boiling, and
greater still when the heat is further increased.”
Yonas: Yes, in some vague estimation, I can surely think of changes in its state, that is to
say, from a solid state to liquid or further to gas, consequently its extension increases.
Yes, I am not sure whether at a certain point, we may want to say that it is dispersed,
and not any longer an extension but discrete parts in space.
Descartes: [Okay, hold that thought] “And I would not be correctly judging what the
wax is if I failed to see that it is capable of receiving more varieties, as regards extension,
than I have ever grasped in my imagination.”
Yonas: Your meaning is that if I cannot determine what this wax is like as it changes
from one state into another in some notion or idea, then it seems that I could not do that
by my imagination alone.
Descartes: “Now [see] I am left with no alternative, but not to accept that I am not at all
imagining what this wax is, I am perceiving it with my mind alone: I say ‘this wax’ in
particular, for the point is even clearer about wax in general. So then, what is this wax,
which is only perceived by the mind?”
Yonas: If I remember correctly, we previously said that if we remove all the qualities
from the wax, we will arrive at only flexibility, mutability, and extension. Is that what
you mean? I mean that the mind can grasp the wax in these ideas and yet it would be
the same wax.
Descartes: “Certainly, it is the same wax I see, touch, and imagine, and in short it is
the same wax I judged it to be from the beginning. But yet—and this is important—the
perception of it is not sight, touch or imagination and never was, although it seemed to
be so at first: it is an inspection by the mind alone, which can be either imperfect and
confused, as it was before in this case, or clear and distinct, as it now is, depending on
the greater or lesser degree of attention I pay to what it consists of.”
Yonas: Indeed, that seems to be an interesting and important point. There seems to be
much more happening in perception than my simple sensations. But I don’t quite see
the problem yet. I do trust my senses that they can give me accurate sensations, but
I hadn’t quite reflected in this way before—how my mind can be problematic to this
experience or how it would inspect the wax apart from the senses and yet could be in
error?
Descartes: “...I am amazed by the proneness of my mind to error. For although I am considering this in myself silently and without speech, I am ensnared by words themselves,
and all but deceived by the very ways in which we usually put things. For we say that
26
�we ‘see’ the wax itself, if it is present, not that we judge it to be there
on the basis of its colour or shape. From this I would have immediately concluded that
I therefore knew the wax by the sight of my eyes, not by the inspection of the mind
alone.”
Yonas: That difference makes sense to me.
Descartes: [For example, as I am seeing this wax]..”If I had not happened to glance out
of the window at people walking along the street, I have immediately concluded that I
knew the wax by the sight of my eyes, not by the inspection of the mind alone but using
the customary expression, I say that I ‘see’ them [the people in the street] just say I ‘see’
the wax. But what do I actually see other than hats and coats, which could be covering
automata? But I judge that they are people. And therefore, what I thought I saw with
my eyes, I in fact grasp only by the faculty of judging that is in my mind.”
Yonas: This explanation does make much more sense to me now, especially when I
connect it to what you said before about the degree of attention one needs to put in his
observation of facts of experience. Thus, my mind’s imperfection and confusion then
only consist in that it judges quickly and that is when it errs.
Descartes: [Good] “Let us then go on where we left off by considering whether I perceived more perfectly and more evidently what the wax was, when I first encountered
it, and believed that I knew it by these external senses, or at least by what they call common sense, that is imaginative power; or whether I perceive it better now, after I have
more carefully investigated both what it is and how it is known. Certainly, it would be
foolish to doubt that I have a much better grasp of it now. For what, if anything, was
distinct in my original perception?”
Yonas: I don’t believe we arrived at that yet.
Descartes: [That is right] When I distinguish the wax from its external forms, and as if
I had stripped off its garments, consider it in all its nakedness, then, indeed, although
there may still be error in my judgement. I cannot perceive it in this way except by [my]
mind…I have learned now that bodies themselves are perceived not, strictly speaking,
by the senses or by the imaginative faculty, but by the intellect alone and that that they
are not perceived because they are touched or seen, but only because they are understood, I clearly realise that nothing can be perceived by me more easily and more clearly
that by own mind.
Yonas: I am amazed by this conclusion. I think I would rather stop our discussion here.
I want to go now and come back another day for more discussions. For now, I have
enough thoughts to contemplate for the coming days. It is really nice meeting you and
talking to you in such a respectful way.
27
�Walking to My House
My dialogue with Descartes was very interesting and, on my way back home, I was
contemplating deeply the significance of his conclusion. Descartes’s assertion is that in
one’s act of thinking, he said, it is possible to strip all external impressions and concentrate a certain degree of attention to the object and receive a correct perception in the
mind. This is conceivable. After a long walk, I finally arrived at my house. I was completely lost in contemplation; only when I looked at the flowers at the front door of my
house that I was awakened to the facts of this amazing world. I said to myself, ‘that is
my house.” I judged it correctly but the question that is still with me is how I did that—
is it my mind or my senses that showed me the way here?
Note: The Full Treatise of Descartes’s Discussion of the Wax is found in Book II of his
Meditations on First Philosophy.
28
�The First Postulate
Cynthia Crane
A false and scurrilous tale
Let it be postulated to draw a straight line from any point to any point.
East of the dusty market, under a low dry tree, a girl put an open wooden box at the feet
of her little brother. The boy did not notice, but stared at the curling clouds brushing the
near-white sky, broken to bits by the branches and leaves of the olive. “Euclid, look,”
she said, and tapped the box. Their mother, working the edge of the market, stopped her
hawking, saw the children safe in conversation, and turned back to her selling. Nothing
would come of it, she knew, and wished the girl would let her brother be. Euclid’s eyes
moved slowly off the clouds and his mind moved slowly off the job of assembling them
back to wholes from the fragments between the leaves. The box of sand assembled itself
at his feet, and then his sister’s face: lips, teeth, sunned freckles, black eyes obscured by
curls. “Euclid,” she said, “come back.” So he did.
The boy knelt and smoothed the sand
And smoothed the sand
And smoothed the sand,
Grains of glass under his palms
Grains of glass under his palms
Grains of glass under his palms and fingertips.
Mother’s cries, “here, here, sailor,”
Cut his ears like
Grains of glass under his palms and fingertips.
“Don’t listen,” the girl said, and shifted the box around so Euclid would not watch their
mother. His tears were leaving tracks in the dust on his face, but she did not wipe them
away, would not touch him and set him off.
He spit the dirt out of his mouth, and watched it bead then sink into the ground.
29
�No.
He smoothed the sand and smoothed the sand and smoothed the sand, grains of glass
under his palms and fingertips.
“Yes. Look.”
His sister’s dirty finger poked a dot in the sand,
And by it, another,
And by it, another,
And by it, another,
Snaking a line across the box of sand,
Awaking a serpent in his mind,
Between his eyes,
Behind his nose,
Above the taste of salty olives and grape leaves boiled in wine
Lingering
Annoying
On his tongue.
He spit again.
No.
The serpent reared its hooded head, smelling tongue and clouded eyes. It curled around
his thoughts and flicked them into disarray.
Euclid jabbed his finger into the sand, dragged it straight across the box, connecting one
of his sister’s dots to another and abandoning the rest. He pulled his finger out again,
and smoothed the sand on either side of the line he’d made. He leaned forward, his face
close to the surface of the sand, and then he leaned back. Strange. Sensation. He felt his
face with his fingertips and palms. It moved soft as shifting sand or dust and as though
and as though and as though .
“You’re smiling,” his sister said.
30
“Yes.”
�Galaxy in a Flower - Nadine Bucca
31
�Essays
Corruption at the Symposium
How to Read Well
The Galileo Affair
The Nature of the Pilgrimage
The Creation of the Self
32
�Contributors
Sam Hage
Siobhán Petersen
Shirley Quo
Noah Vancina
Kyle Reynolds
33
�Corruption at the Symposium
Sam Hage
At the conclusion of the Symposium’s six speeches about Eros, the drunken Alcibiades
interrupts the party with a crowd of attendants in tow. At the conclusion of Alcibiades’
speech, another, drunker crowd of revelers interrupts the party, sending things into
confusion and signaling the end of Aristodemus’ narrative. Unlike Alcibiades’ initial
entrance, which enables his long and rhapsodic depiction of Socrates—providing key
biographical information found in only a handful of places in Plato—this second entrance seems to serve no discernible dramatic purpose.
A small detail, however, included almost as an afterthought, may tell us a great deal.
The second time around, the intruders find the door to Agathon’s house already open,
because “someone had gone out.” We mustn’t suppose this detail is accidental; according to ancient anecdotes, Plato revised individual lines of his dialogues hundreds of
times. What’s more, the preposterous custodial chain of the Symposium’s narrative is a
clear indication of Plato’s own authorial hand at work.
So who has left the party? And why does Plato wish for us to know? Once noticed, the
first question is not difficult to answer: Alcibiades is still speaking or has just finished;
Phaedrus and Erixymachus are mentioned as leaving right after this; Socrates, Agathon, and Aristophanes stay awake talking all night; Aristodemus is there to witness and
narrate it all. Of the seven speakers, plus Aristodemus, Pausanias is the only one not
explicitly mentioned. Unless this is a meaningless addition meant to refer to one of the
unnamed speakers whom Aristodemus or Apollodorus forgot about, the only possibility is Pausanias.
Why Plato should present us with this detail is a much greater question. Pausanias,
we are told in the opening pages, is still hungover from last night’s festivities—but no
reader will be satisfied to think he has left simply because he isn’t feeling well. More
relevant is the fact that he has been witnessing his beloved, Agathon, flirt with the beautiful newcomer Alcibiades—and with Socrates from the very start of the party. Given
that it is during Alcibiades’ speech that Pausanias finally storms out, it seems likely that
34
Alcibiades will provide us with the key to Plato’s lesson.
�Without undertaking a tedious examination of Pausanias’ and Alcibiades’ speeches, we
can at least observe some cursory points. Pausanias’ defense of Eros is highly unerotic;
even the “highest” relationships are for him ultimately transactional. In truth, Eros is
not defended at all, but instead undergoes a kind of technical scrutiny and classification. Pausanias’ bizarre focus on the jurisprudence of pederasty is especially startling
in juxtaposition with Phaedrus’ emphasis on the tragic nobility of a lover’s self-sacrifice
and Eryximachus’ rapturous elevation of Eros as the governing principle of the entire
cosmos. His focus on the shameful is revealing: he seems rather ashamed of erotic relationships altogether.
No character could be further opposed than that of the shameless and bombastic Casanova who delivers the evening’s unexpected epilogue. Whereas Socrates reveals the
true nature of Eros properly understood, Alcibiades vividly illustrates the corruption
that this philosophic attitude can sometimes leave in its wake. As a youth, Alcibiades has been partially won over by an appeal to wisdom; nonetheless, the conversion
has not entirely succeeded. Plato’s dramatic art demonstrates the extreme care Socrates
took in choosing to whom, and how, he disclosed his teachings. Socratic education does
not admit of half measures, and a little learning is a dangerous thing. No doubt Socrates
is not entirely to blame for the schizophrenic political career of a man with such unreformable erotic impulses. Nevertheless, many Athenians would have seen Alcibiades
as a prime example of Socratic corruption.
However strange his views of pederasty might seem to us, Pausanias, by contrast, is a
spokesman for the conventional. His archetypal pederastic relationship exchanges the
beauty of the body for the knowledge of a wise teacher. The lover possesses the good
that is truth, and desires the beauty he lacks. Socrates recognizes the beauty of his own
soul as superior to that of any mere body; he would never participate in this transaction. Socrates’ students instead come to recognize the beauty of his soul, and become
his lovers instead.
Plato offers us many indications that corruption is a theme of the Symposium. When
Apollodorus is first approached by his unnamed companion in the dialogue’s opening
lines, he reports that just the other day, Glaucon had asked to “question him closely”
about the party where “Socrates, Alcibiades, and the others” made erotic speeches.
35
�The singular focus on Alcibiades is understandable, not only because of his prominent
role in Athenian politics throughout the Peloponnesian War, but especially on account
of suspicions that Socrates was somehow responsible for Alcibiades’ spectacular downfall. The party depicted in Plato’s dialogue occurred not long before the Sicilian expedition, Alcibiades’ recall, and his subsequent desertion to Sparta; the framing device at
the start of the dialogue takes place just over a decade later—only a handful of years
before Socrates’ trial.
This offhand inclusion of Glaucon as Apollodorus’ interrogator is extremely notable:
the evidence of this dialogue, in addition to that of other Platonic works, suggests that
of all Socrates’ close associates, Glaucon in particular may have felt himself corrupted
by Socrates’ tutelage.
At the start of this dialogue we learn that “everything” is more important to Glaucon
than philosophy. This might indicate that he now holds a conventional and suspicious
view of Socrates’ way of life; moreover, it tells us that his concern with the details of the
speeches at the party can’t possibly have been philosophical. How odd, indeed, that if
he is so interested in the events of the drinking party, he did not simply consult Socrates
himself. Glaucon’s importance is also signaled by similarities between the opening lines
of the Symposium and the Republic, in which Glaucon is Socrates’ central interlocutor:
both begin with the narrator “going up” to town, before being arrested by a combative
acquaintance. In this case, the verb used by Apollodorus in the dialogue’s first line,
πυνθάνεσθε (“I am not unprepared for what you ask about”), is in the second person
plural—is he now being scrutinized by a group of inquisitors?
Xenophon also wrote a dialogue called the Symposium, also with an unmistakable suggestion of the theme of corruption: Socrates is there depicted in the company of the
beautiful youth Autolycus and his father, Lycon—one of Socrates’ accusers in his trial
for corrupting the young.
In general, Xenophon seems more willing than Plato to concede the reality of the corruption charge. He grants in the Memorabilia, first, that Socrates did indeed impart political skill to his associates and, second, that Alcibiades and Critias were among those
associates.
36
�(It is often taken for granted that the ruination of these two supreme criminals was the
real substance of Socrates’ indictment, but that because of the amnesty of 403, such
a charge could not be made explicit.) Commentators have even pointed out that the
Greek verb απομνημονεύω, from which the title Memorabilia is derived, can mean, in
addition to simply “call to mind,” to “hold something against another”; not just “bear
in mind,” but also “bear a grudge.”
Just like Plato’s inclusion of the detail of the open door, Xenophon cannot possibly
have placed Lycon among the banquet’s attendees by accident. He must wish for us to
learn something about what would become Lycon’s motivations for accusing Socrates
23 years later. It is true that in Xenophon’s version of events, just as in Plato’s, Socrates
subverts commonly accepted pederastic norms, urging both Callias and Critobulus to
avoid sexual entanglements and to care only for the virtue of their young beloveds. But
while disagreements like this might explain a frustrated lover’s early departure from
a party, they can hardly provide motive for the prosecution of a capital crime. Besides,
this chaste exhortation is exactly the kind of thing Lycon, the father of a handsome
youth, would most wish to hear.
Doubtless far more important, then, is the revelation that Autolycus was killed by the
Thirty Tyrants after the Peloponnesian War. Did Lycon hold a particular grudge against
Socrates for his role in Critias’ education, or associate him with Thirty’s rise? Did he
blame Socrates for Autolycus’ being an “outspoken” member of the insurgent democratic faction, as Diodorus Siculus describes him?
Beyond his putative influence on Critias, there is admittedly a strong case against Socrates as an opponent of democracy. Republicanism and the rule of law are presented a
number of times in Plato’s dialogues as a “second sailing” to the rule of a wise statesman, and in the Republic, Kallipolis bears certain unmistakable similarities to Sparta
and other monarchic or oligarchic regimes. Socrates’ theories about “intellectual despotism”—the belief that the wise alone hold a rightful claim to rule—could easily have
been taken by men like Lycon to constitute support for actual despots.
It is understandable that an embittered father could attribute some blame to Socrates,
the famous political philosopher, for the power and brutality of the oligarchic Thirty
37
�Tyrants. It may not at first make sense that Lycon could also blame him for his son
Autolycus’ membership in the coalition that resisted them. But Xenophon once again
suggests the connection. Despite the fact that no reader of the dialogues could mistake
Callias III of Alopece for a genuine follower of Socrates, the debaucherous grandee
presents himself at the beginning of Xenophon’s Symposium as a devoted student of
philosophy and a member of the Socratic circle.
In Xenophon’s depiction of the party, Socrates exhorts Callias to a career in politics, and
tells him the surest way to woo Autolycus is to make him more virtuous. Indeed, the
theme of the evening’s conversation is introduced by the question of who can “make
Autolycus better.” Socrates quickly warns the others that this is a dangerous topic, and
should be put off to another time. It seems he was right: Callias’ unfortunate political
career during the Peloponnesian War demonstrates a respect in which Autolycus chose
the wrong mentor.
Perhaps Lycon sees it thus: a follower of Socrates ensured Autolycus became an outspoken member of the losing side; a follower of Socrates caused the winning side to form a
powerful, repressive oligarchy that put Autolycus to death.
Socrates’ supposed intellectual despotism, it turns out, is not unconnected to his erotic
innovations. In both Symposia, erotic attachment to the beautiful is supplanted by attraction to the good. This reorientation is of a piece with the typical Socratic line about deliberate action and human motivations: everyone is always pursuing what seems good
to him, and wrongdoing is thus the result only of mistaken apprehension of the good.
Human action, in other words, is to be understood in terms of a kind of self-interest;
elevated self-interest perhaps, but self-interest nonetheless.
To truly comprehend this outlook is to radically undermine traditional notions of noble
virtue. If what it means to act deliberately is to act in accordance with a belief in one’s
own good, how could beautiful sacrifice be possible? On this extreme Socratic view of
human nature, the brave or noble person really thinks what he’s doing is best.
Orpheus, Alcestis, and Phaedrus’ invincible regiment of male lovers would no longer
deserve our admiration—not to mention pediatricians, special ed teachers, firemen, and
38
�Nobel Peace laureates.
In teaching this doctrine, Socrates did something far more subversive than impugn the
city’s religion. Most Athenians, in any case, seem to scorn literal belief in the gods: Euthyphro is openly ridiculed for his unusual fundamentalism. It was corruption of the
young that carried the real weight in Socrates’ indictment, for which impiety was mere
window dressing. Socrates has done something much worse than simply contravene
the city’s religion; he has taken away its idols, and undermined the very basis for noble
and heroic deeds. No wonder the city tries to kill him. We would, too.
39
�Nightmare - Nadine Bucca
40
�How to Read Well
Siobhán Petersen
How is it that I’m able to say that I’m not sure I ever read a book before I started the
Program? Close reading – attending deeply to what is said, the way it was said, what
it could mean – has never been a weakness of mine. Yet, something was still missing;
some crucial engagement beyond merely what the author has put on offer that gets to
the vitality of what our labors are all for. How do we facilitate a meaningful conversation with an inanimate object, how do we engage with ideas so renowned they’re
practically cliché? If we decide the inexhaustibility we’re seeking in the Great Books
actually comes from ourselves, can this teach us how to drink deeper from them? I
offer some thoughts on how I’ve met that challenge.
I
On a pragmatic concern: I am a strong advocate of writing in our books. The best
advice I ever got on annotation – after it was too late to help with my first semester,
incidentally – was to not to try to make insights or observations in the margins, but
rather to be indexing them for things I found interesting about it as I read. My margins
are full of notes that just describe the action, like “Patroclus’ ghost;” running motifs
specific to the text, like “synthetic judgment” or “The Moment;” and big ideas it might
speak to, like “fate” or “death” or “divine justice.”
i This makes it easy to find quotes in discussion, and come paper season, it’s so
helpful to know what I was thinking about and where. I’ve turned my copy into a
bespoke reference for textual evidence on every line of inquiry that matters to me. But
more to the point, it helps me read deeper because it helps me return to the text as I
think about it later on; it is perhaps only half of the experience to actually read and
discuss, the other half is how you turn it over in your mind after.
ii Beyond the practical value, I’d also advocate for an aesthetic value to the practice.
Books are strange, fourth dimensional objects – they carry our thoughts forward in
time. A thought is ephemeral; a body of them preserved against the passage of time is
a text, and that can be as true for the reader as it is for the writer. Further, I am creating a shelf of artifacts of my life at St. John’s. What starts as a two-way conversation
between the reader and the author becomes a trialogue, with the version of myself
as a Master’s student participating too. Just as I feel privileged to see inside the head
of people I care about when I read their annotated books, someone is likely to value
these thoughts from this particular stretch of time of my life at some point in the future, even if that someone is only me.
41
�II
I think what separates a lay reading and a close reading is a decision: to take nothing
within a text as incidental. Every word was deliberately chosen for a particular effect;
every tangent, every metaphor was considered in light of the whole. I take as axiom that
no one writes anything because they want to say something – they do it because they
need to say something. Whatever the author set out to express lies
in the background of every small detail, so it pays to attend them with care.
How do we attend to details that will enhance the discussion? I think that anything that
sticks out to you is interesting. A particular use of language, a mention of something
else you read, the way some pet interest of yours appears in a reading: I’ve seen some
of the most profitable inquiries come out of someone’s peculiar observation. Someone
offering their idiosyncratic take opens up vistas of thought that, definitionally, I could
never have hoped to imagine myself. Ultimately (or with an eye to the Good Life, let’s
say penultimately), we read to come ready to share; to me, this is what we call the
“learning community.” No one else can give your perspective, and it’s our function as
classmates in-community to offer it.
i In trying to sort out the big picture, I think it’s valuable to remind myself – as anyone who’s written anything can probably relate to – I’ve never gotten to the end of any
writing project and felt like I’d fully said everything I set out to. I try to leave space in
the text for what the author perhaps couldn’t write. I think this is different from simply
granting a charitable reading; I’m perhaps suggesting we can sometimes glimpse past
the text if we look hard enough at the totality as well as the particularity: can see the
forest and the trees. Whether we’re impressed with the picture we see is up to us, but
given the choice between two readings, I try to default to the one that is most nuanced,
human, interesting.
ii Counterintuitively, what I’m not suggesting is a devotion to the author, nor their
intended message. What I’ve found reading so many Great Texts birthed from Great
Minds is that somewhere along the way I stopped reading to find out what Plato, or
Descartes, or Dostoevsky thought; I only read to find out what I think. We talk about
ourselves as “in conversation” with the books. Part of being a good conversationalist is
to hold up your end of the discussion. Have your own thoughts! There’s a bit of a
pressure-relief in realizing I can be nearly certain I can’t have a wholly original idea
about texts so widely read, but that doesn’t mean we have to rely on cliché, or pre-made
understandings. What does a text mean to you, right now?
III
In that spirit of the “now,” I’ll even go so far as to say it is okay to disinterpret a text to
the end of creating the most interesting possible reading. “Disinterpretation” implies
willfulness; we are free to develop accounts of the reading that run contrary to good
sense, so long as we can support it with textual evidence. Put a quote in another context!
Take one out of context!
42
�Are you unsatisfied with the answer the author provides, can you develop a more elegant account with what else they’ve said?
i Even if you end up spiraling out or spinning the wheels; experimenting by analyzing, combining and recombining ideas from all over the canon, from your classmates,
from your favorite novel will be a worthwhile skill to build in its own right. I try not
to worry myself with the products of any of these experiments, nor do I try to disguise
my experiments in-seminar as completed positions; the idea is to
push every idea to its limits. I only ever want to be a better scientist.
ii Partly, my decision to close-read is built on this disinterpretation; I can’t know for
sure what was in the mind of the author when they selected any element, but I choose
to read it otherwise, even if I’m wrong. I joyfully forfeit any spurious claim on the
Necessary for a ground in the realm of the Aesthetic. If something seems to come out
of nowhere based on everything you’ve previously understood about the work, it’s
easy enough to disregard it as incidental, but far more worthwhile to examine it as
vital, integral. Why might this be here? There’s no ambition to exactitude in “might,”
only pliable openness. It is my firm opinion we are not here to be right about anything; we’re here to be wrong in interesting ways.
43
�Galileo and the Interaction between Religion and Science
Shirley Quo
Introduction
Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican (Dialogue) is one of the most important texts of the Copernican and Scientific revolution.
It started the transition from the geocentric to a geokinetic worldview by means of interdisciplinary considerations based on Galileo’s new physics, observational evidence
stemming from his telescopic discoveries and methodological principles including critical reasoning.
The Dialogue is also noteworthy because it led to Galileo’s trial by the Roman Catholic
Inquisition in 1633. His book was banned and he was found guilty of ‘vehement suspicion of heresy’. This was because the Catholic Church believed that the Holy Scriptures
supported the geocentric worldview i.e. that the sun revolved around the earth. To
support a geokinetic worldview was therefore an act of heresy. These developments are
known as the Galileo Affair.
The purpose of this article is to examine the conflict between science and religion in the
context of the Dialogue, the Galileo Affair and its aftermath. What, if any, is the role of
religious authority and the Bible in scientific inquiry?
The Geostatic Worldview
The geostatic worldview assumed that the earth is spherical, motionless and that it is
located at the center of the universe i.e. geocentric theory. Aristotle and Ptolemy were
the two main contributors to this view of the universe. The old view considered that
there was a fundamental division in the universe between the earthly and the heavenly
regions and each region consisted of bodies with different properties and behavior.
This is called the heaven-earth dichotomy.
Terrestrial bodies occupied the central region of the universe below the moon, whereas
heavenly bodies occupied the outer region from the lunar to the stellar sphere (the highest heaven or the firmament). Earthly bodies moved naturally straight toward (downward for earth and water) or away from the center of the universe (upward for air and
fire), whereas celestial bodies (aether) moved circularly around the same center.
44
�Geometrically there were only two lines with the property that all parts are congruent
with any other part – the circle and the straight line. Motion could be simple or mixed.
Simple motion was motion along a straight line. Thus there were only two types of simple motion – straight and circular. Mixed motion was motion which is neither straight
nor circular.
There was a theoretical reason why upward and downward natural motions could
belong to the same fundamental region of the universe but were essentially different
from natural circular motion. This is the theory of change as contrariety according to
which all change derives from contrariety and no change can exist where there is no
contrariety. Contrarierty means opposites such as hot and cold, dry and humid. So up
and down is a fundamental contrariety. This applies to terrestrial bodies which is full
of qualitative changes e.g. birth, growth, generation, destruction etc. Circular natural
motion of heavenly bodies by contrast have no contrary therefore it lacked an essential condition for the existence of change. Because no physical or organic or chemical
changes were detected or observed in the heavens, it was claimed that the heavenly
realm, unlike the terrestrial realm, was unchangeable, ingenerable, incorruptible etc.
This provided the basis for the heaven-earth dichotomy.
The Copernican System
Copernicus published ‘On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres’ (Revolutions) in
1543. Unlike the old view, the stellar sphere was motionless and did not revolve around
the earth with westward diurnal rotation. Instead, the diurnal rotation belonged to the
earth, though its direction was eastward in order to result in the observational appearance of the whole universe rotating westward. This is called a geokinetic worldview.
The earth was given a second motion, an orbital revolution around the sun with a period of one year, and also in an eastward direction. The annual motion was shifted from
the sun to the earth thus making the earth a planet rather than the sun. This terrestrial
orbital revolution meant that the earth was located off-center, the center being instead
the sun. This is called a heliocentric worldview.
45
�Copernicus’s view was based on an idea proposed by the Pythagoreans in ancient
Greece which had been rejected in favour of the Ptolemaic worldview. In Copernicus’s
worldview, the earth moves by rotating on its own axis daily and by revolving around
the sun once a year. It was a simpler and more coherent theory if the sun rather than the
earth is assumed to be at the center and the earth is taken to be the third planet circling
the sun yearly and spinning daily on its own axis. It had fewer moving parts than the
geokinetic system because the apparent daily motion of all heavenly bodies around the
earth is explained by the earth’s axial rotation and thus there is only one thing moving
daily (the earth) rather than thousands of stars.
There were also theological and religious objections. The biblical objection claimed that
the idea of the earth moving is heretical because it contradicts many biblical passages
stating or implying that the earth stands still.1 For example, Psalm 104:5 provides that
the Lord “laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever”.
In Ecclesiastes 1:5, it provides that “the sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down, and
hasteth to the place where he ariseth” which seems to attribute motion to the sun and
support the geostatic system.
Another theological objection was based on the idea that God is all powerful – this
may be called the divine omnipotence argument.2 This was endorsed by Pope Urban
VIII during whose reign Galileo was tried and condemned. One version of this argument was that since God is all powerful, He could have created any one of a number
of worlds e.g. one in which the earth is motionless. It was religiously heretical because
it conflicted with Holy Scripture and the biblical interpretations of the Church Fathers
and therefore undermined belief in an omnipotent God.
The Galileo Affair
In 1615, the Holy Office, or Roman Inquisition, asked its Inquisitors for an opinion on
two propositions based on some formal complaints filed against Galileo in relation to
the Copernican system:3
(1) the Sun is the centre of the world and completely immovable by local motion; and
(2) the Earth is not the centre of the world nor immovable, but moves as a whole and
also with a diurnal motion.
46
�The Inquisitors returned a unanimous opinion:
(1) The first proposition was declared unanimously to be foolish and absurd in philosophy and formally heretical inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the doctrine of Holy
Scripture in many passages, both in their literal meaning and according to the interpretation of the Fathers and learned theologians.
(2) All were agreed that this proposition merits the same censure in philosophy and
that, from a theological point of view, it is at least erroneous in the faith.
In 1616, the Congregation of the Index issued a Decree declaring that the doctrine of the
earth’s motion was physically false and contrary to Scripture; condemning and permanently banning Foscarini’s book, Letter on the Pythagorean Opinion, which had argued
that the earth’s motion was probable and not contrary to Scripture; and temporarily
prohibiting Copernicus’s Revolutions until and unless it was revised.5
Although Galileo was not mentioned at all in the Decree, he was given a warning in
private. This warning exists in two versions. One is written on a certificate given to
Galileo and signed by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who was an authoritative member
of both the Congregation of the Index and of the Inquisition; it stated that Bellarmine
had informed Galileo that the earth’s motion could not be held or defended. The second
version is in an unsigned note written by a clerk and found in the file of Inquisition trial
proceedings; it stated that the Commissary-General of the Inquisition gave Galileo the
special injunction that he must not hold, defend, or discuss in any way the earth’s motion. Galileo claimed that he had never received the second version.6
Despite the warning given to him by the Catholic Church, Galileo published the Dialogue in 1632. The book was a discussion of the earth’s motion but took the form of
a critical examination of all the arguments for and against the idea; the arguments on
both sides were presented, analysed, and evaluated. The arguments for the earth’s motion turned out to be much stronger than those against it. This was an implicit defence
of Copernicanism. However, Galileo believed that he had acted within the spirit of
Bellarmine’s warning because it was only a hypothesis.
47
�In 1633, Galileo was brought to trial by the Inquisition on the charge that in his Dialogue, published in the previous year, he had disobeyed the injunction of 1616 and
had defended the Copernican system, knowing it to be heretical. In the course of their
judgment the Inquisitors twice reaffirmed that the system was heretical, in two slightly
different forms. In the first place they recalled and quoted the judgment of 1616, citing
it as evidence that it had already been duly examined and condemned. The Inquisitors
then delivered their own verdict:7
“We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you, the said Galileo... have rendered
yourself, in the judgment of this Holy Office, vehemently suspected of heresy, namely
of having believed and held the doctrine, which is false and contrary to the Sacred and
Divine Scripture, that the Sun is the centre of the Earth and does not move from east to
west, and that the Earth moves and is not the centre of the world, and that an opinion
may be defended and held as probable after it has been declared and defined contrary
to Holy Scripture.”
According to one commentator, there is an interesting difference between the two statements.8 The Inquisitors in 1616 condemned as heretical the proposition that the Sun is
the centre of the world (centro del mondo) and immovable; in 1633 they condemned as
heretical the proposition that the Sun is the centre of the Earth (centro della terra) and
does not move from east to west (i.e. does not move in a diurnal orbit around the Earth).
What does this mean? Surely it cannot be taken to mean literally that the Sun is the centre of the Earth? Perhaps it means that it is the centre of the Earth’s orbit or, as in Copernicus’s own theory, the centre of the celestial sphere in which the Earth is embedded
(which might be called ‘the Earth’ in an extended sense).9
As time went on, however, the situation changed. In the new theory, the fixed stars did
not rotate and hence, it was no longer necessary for them to be held together in a rigid
sphere. The whole system of rigid spheres could be abandoned. The universe need not
be spherical, it could be any shape or even infinite. Even if it was a sphere there was no
need for the Sun to be at its centre or immovable (for the whole planetary system might
be in motion).
48
�Galileo was aware of this theory. In the Dialogue, Salviati, the advocate of the Copernican centre of the universe; if any centre may be assigned to the universe, we shall rather
find the sun to be placed there, as you will understand in due course’.10 Galileo added
this marginal note “The sun more probably at the centre of the universe than the earth.”
In 1633, the Inquisition found Galileo “vehemently suspect of heresy” for holding and
defending the thesis that the earth revolves around the sun and for thinking “that one
may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined
contrary to the Holy Scripture”.
The content of Galileo’s suspected heresy was two-fold. The first was an astronomical
or cosmological claim about physical reality, which Galileo had supported and defended in the Dialogue. The second was a methodological principle or rule about how to
proceed in the search for physical truth or the acquisition of natural knowledge i.e. the
principle that Scripture is not an authority and may be disregarded as irrelevant in astronomy and natural philosophy. Galileo’s new telescopic evidence removed most of
the observational-astronomical objections against the earth’s motion and added new
evidence in its favor. Galileo believed not only that the geokinetic theory had greater
explanatory coherence than the geostatic theory (as Copernicus had shown) and that it
was physically and mechanically more adequate (as Galileo’s new physics suggested)
but also that it was empirically and observationally more accurate in astronomy (as the
telescope now revealed). His assessment was that the arguments for the earth’s motion
were stronger than those for the earth being at rest; that Copernicanism was more likely
to be true than the geostatic worldview.
According to one argument, the view was developed during the Enlightenment that
Galileo’s trial embodied the inherent incompatibility between science and religion, and
later this view became widely accepted. The case of Galileo may be one of those where
science and religion happened to be in conflict. Galileo’s trial does exhibit such a conflict if science is interpreted in that context as Copernicanism and religion as Scripture;
for although Galileo believed and argued that Copernicanism is compatible with Scripture, the Catholic Church (through Bellarmine, Pope Urban VIII, the Index, and the
Inquisition) claimed that Copernicanism is contrary to Holy Scripture.
49
�The conflict between science and religion is a striking feature of both the original and
the subsequent Galileo affair: in the original episode in 1616, it takes the form of Copernicanism versus Holy Scripture; in the subsequent controversy in 1633, it takes the
form that Galileo’s trial was widely perceived to epitomise the conflict between science
and religion.
Aftermath of the Galileo Affair
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith
and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed
the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever
contradict truth.
Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried
out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict
with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the
same God. The humble and preserving investigator of the secrets of nature is being
led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of
all things, who made them what they are. By 1939, Pope Pius XII was praising Galileo
for being among the “most audacious heroes of research … not afraid of the stumbling
blocks and the risks on the way, nor fearful of the funereal monuments.”
Galileo was again mentioned with approval by Pope Pius XII in an address to the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in 1952, where he concluded his
remarks saying:
As so, friends, above and beyond the deep respect which we entertain for all the sciences and for yours in particular, this is yet another reason why we are moved to pray: may
the science of astronomy, founded on the highest and most universal horizons, the ideal
of so many great men in the past such as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton,
continue to bear the fruit of marvellous progress and, through to the heartfelt collaborations promoted by such groups as the International Astronomical Union, bring the
astronomical vision of the Universe to an ever deeper perfection.
50
In 1979, at a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences commemorating the centen
�nial of Einstein’s birth, Pope John Paul II gave a speech in which he talked about the
Galileo affair. The Pope admitted errors on the part of ecclesiastic individuals and institutions and acknowledged some wrongdoing on their part. He spoke of Galileo having
been caused “suffering,” of his treatment as an instance of unwarranted interference
into the autonomy of scientific research, and of the fact that the Second Vatican Council
had “deplored” such interferences.
From the point of view of the principles Galileo held regarding the relationship between
science, religion and the Bible, Pope John Paul II spoke with unprecedented clarity and
remarkable accuracy. In the 1979 Einstein centennial speech, the Pope said:17
He who is rightly called the founder of modern physics declared explicitly that the two
truths, of faith and of science, can never contradict each other . . . The Second Vatican
Council does not express itself otherwise.
Pope John Paul II also issued a call for further studies of the Galileo affair that would
be guided by three goals: bipartisan collaboration between the Galilean scientific side
and the ecclesiastic religious side; open-mindedness to the wrongs of one side and the
merits of the other side; and validation of the harmony between science and religion.
Although the third goal was in some tension with the other two, it was the one closest
to the Pope’s heart. For he argued that Galileo believed that science and religion are
harmonious and that Galileo conducted his scientific research in the spirit of religious
service and worship.
Galileo also elaborated important epistemological principles about Scriptural interpretation, which correspond to the correct ones later clarified and formulated by the Catholic Church. The Pope wanted to reverse the traditional interpretation of Galileo’s trial
as epitomising the conflict between science and religion.
For Pope John Paul II, a key lesson from the Galileo affair is the need and importance of
methodological pluralism i.e. the rule that different branches of knowledge call for different methods. This is what Galileo himself had advocated. In contrast, his theological
opponents were committed to a misplaced cultural unitarianism that led them to fail to
distinguish scriptural interpretation from scientific investigation and so to illegitimately transpose one domain into the other.
51
�Some commentators argue that the Inquisition was wrong to condemn Galileo since
he preached and practiced the principle that scriptural passages should not be used in
astronomical investigation, but only when dealing with questions of faith and morals.
The Inquisition found this principle intolerable and abominably erroneous, and wanted to uphold the opposite principle that Scripture is a scientific authority, as well as a
moral and religious one. On this question of theological and epistemological principle,
Galileo was ultimately exculpated.
In regard to the biblical issue, the main point of Galileo’s letters to Castelli and to Christina is that the literal interpretation of the Bible is binding only for questions of faith
and morals and not for physical questions.18 Although in a sense this proposition can
be accepted as true, it was regarded and was in fact singularly dangerous at that time.
The most detailed description of how the Church views the interaction between religion
and science can be found in a 1987 letter written by Pope John Paul II to Fr. George
Coyne SJ, director of the Vatican Observatory. In this letter, he insisted on the equal
value of science and religion:19
… both religion and science must preserve their autonomy and their distinctiveness.
Religion is not founded on science nor is science an extension of religion. Each should
possess its own principles, its pattern of procedures, its diversities of interpretation and
its own conclusions.
Science can purify religion from superstition; religion can purify science from false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.
The Pope also argued that this dialogue was essential to progress within science itself,
a theme which Pope Francis would later develop in Laudato Si’:20
… science develops best when its concepts and conclusions are integrated into the
broader human culture and its concerns for ultimate meaning and value. Scientists …
can also come to appreciate for themselves that these discoveries cannot be a genuine
substitute for knowledge of the truly ultimate.
And in 1992, at the conclusion of his inquiry, the Pope had not changed his mind in this
regard but reaffirmed the point with these words:
52
�“Paradoxically, Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this
regard than the theologians who opposed him . . . The majority of theologians did not
recognize the formal distinction between Sacred Scripture and its interpretation, and
this led them unduly to transpose into the realm of the doctrine of the faith a question
that in fact pertained to scientific investigation.
Moreover, from the Galileo affair . . . another lesson we can draw is that the different
branches of knowledge call for different methods . . . The error of the theologians of the
time when they maintained the centrality of the earth was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was in some way imposed by the literal sense of
Sacred Scripture.”
The Galileo myth claims that Galileo was not condemned for his astronomical conclusion that the earth moves, but for his theologically unsound practice of supporting an
astronomical view with biblical passages.22
This explanation is untrue because Galileo preached and practiced the opposite principle that Holy Scripture should not be used to support physical propositions. This myth
seems to have acted as a catalyst for the subsequent Galileo affair to become the cause
celebre it is today.
Commentary
As Galileo put it, quoting Cardinal Baronius, “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to
teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
Galileo added the following note in the preliminary leaves of his own copy of the Dialogue:
“Take note, theologians, that in your desire to make matters of faith out of propositions
relating to the fixity of sun and earth you run the risk of eventually having to condemn
as heretics those who would declare the earth to stand still and the sun to change position – eventually, I say, at such time as it might be physically or logically proved that
the earth moves and the sun stands still.”
Galileo rejected the conception of the center of the universe which deprived the justi
53
�fication for the idea of the immovable earth. Following Copernicus, Galileo set forth
the advantages of assuming the sun to be at rest. It is simpler to assume a rotation of
the earth around its axis than a common revolution of all fixed starts around the earth.
The assumption of a revolution of the earth around the sun makes the motions of the
inner and outer planets appear similar and does away with the troublesome retrograde
motions of the outer planets, or rather explains them by the motion of the earth around
the sun.These arguments are convincing but are only of a qualitative nature i.e. since
humans are tied to the earth, our observations will never directly reveal to us the “true”
planetary motions but only the intersections of the lines of sight (earth-planet) with
the fixed star sphere. Galileo demonstrated that the hypothesis of the rotation and
revolution of the earth is not refuted by the fact that we do not observe any mechanical
effects of these motions. However, this misled him into formulating a wrong theory of
the tides.
Galileo’s work represents the passionate fight against any kind of dogma based on authority. Only experience and careful reflection are accepted by him as criteria of truth.
In Galileo’s time, this was a revolutionary concept. Merely to doubt the truth of opinions which had no basis but authority was considered a capital crime and punished accordingly. This is one of the reasons that Galileo is considered to be the father of modern science. The Dialogue is the book which historically did the most toward breaking
down the religious and academic barriers against free scientific thought.
As Einstein said, ‘the leitmotif which I recognise in Galileo’s work is the passionate fight
against any kind of dogma based on authority’. Galileo’s works were not removed from
the Catholic Church’s prohibited list until 1741 by Pope Benedict XIV.
The Inquisitions of Galileo Galilei between 1615 and 1633 highlighted the Catholic
Church’s interpretation of the role of tradition. In that time, the Church was facing the
fact that Copernican heliocentrism was better able to predict planetary motion than biblical tradition. Galileo has also been celebrated as a figure of valor to the scientific community because the Dialogue pulled no punches in mocking the then Pope Urban VIII.
Galileo allegedly used direct quotes in the Dialogue and attributed them to a character
called Simplicio. What is less appreciated however, is that Galileo agreed that the natural world could not be in contradiction with the faith that he maintained his whole life.
54
�Conclusion
The moon is 40 million years older than we thought, according to a new analysis of lunar samples collected by Apollo astronauts a half-century ago.
This research looked at moon dust brought back by the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the
last time humans set foot on the surface.
The results, published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters, suggest it must
be at least 4.46 billion years old and that it could have formed as long as 4.51 billion
years ago.
“It’s important to know when the moon formed”, Professor Philipp Heck of the Field
Museum in Chicago, senior author of the study, said, “(because) the moon is an important partner in our planetary system – it stabilises the Earth’s rotational axis, it’s the
reason there are 24 hours in a day, it’s the reason we have tides. Without the moon, life
on Earth would look different.
In the Dialogue, Galileo argued that the tides are caused by the compounding motion
of the earth as a conclusive proof of heliocentrism. Despite this error, the Dialogue remains one of the most important texts of the Scientific revolution.
The Galileo affair illustrates that changing scientific paradigms caused increasing
problems for religious doctrines that had been reconstructed according to the scientific knowledge of earlier times. It has been claimed that science and religion constitute
“non-overlapping magisteria” whereby science pertains to the empirical realm of facts
and religion to ultimate meaning and moral value.28
From the late nineteenth century, free inquiry came to encompass the study of religion
itself. Emile Durkheim, a prominent social scientist, defined religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and
forbidden.” This assumes conflict whenever scientists attempt to study sacred things
“set apart and forbidden” and in so doing, challenge religious prohibitions. Today,
stem cell research invokes some of the same deep-seated religious prohibitions as heliocentrism once did.
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�Mind in a Fog - Nadine Bucca
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�The Nature of the Pilgrimage:
The Meaning of Springtime in The Canterbury Tales
Noah Vancina
“Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages” (12)—why now, and whence the longing?
Before he even arrives at the human subjects of his tale of pilgrimage, all described in
the General Prologue, Chaucer, as an “introduction” to the General Prologue, gives the
sweetest description of springtime, which evokes already in the hearer the longing for
the peaceful time he describes. Let us go on our own pilgrimage to seek how Chaucer
awakes this longing, and how we might then be ready to join the pilgrims as “to Caunterbury they wende.”
Chaucer begins by providing a context for pilgrimages: “whan” (1). “When” is a temporal description that is precise or imprecise, depending on what follows. What follows
must be some event, identifiable such that the time, the “when” of the sought-after
occurrence, appears. Yet, Chaucer draws out his “whan” for eleven lines, one great dependent clause, in which he lists multiple conditions before the long-desired “thanne”
arrives. Even these conditions, though, remain imprecise: “Whan that Aprille with
his shoures soote/The droughte of March hath perced to the roote/And bathed every
veyne in swich licour/Of which vertu engendred is the flour” (1-4); at what moment
have all these things come to pass? Rain falls gradually, only in drops, and slowly it
soaks into the earth, uprooting the drought that preceded. So likewise the blowing of
the zephyr until it reaches and warms end of every damp wood. Thus, the awaited
fulfillment is an atmosphere, not a moment, in which pilgrimages begin. With these
descriptions, Chaucer evokes a dawning awareness, a longing that does not come all
at once and overwhelm but that grows like the fitful entrance of springtime and the
growth of young shoots, like the passing away of sickness and the coming of full health.
Chaucer presents meteorological events not exactly as personified, but yet as intentional and moving towards a goal. April, with “his” sweet showers, as if the showers
belonged to April (as opposed to “April’s” showers, which feels more distant), who
brought them with the intention of ending the drought and bringing the moisture needed for the flowers. The zephyr and the sun, too, play a part with “sweete breethe” and a
“cours” to run. This almost personification suggests that natural phenomena act in the
world as more than dumb happenings.
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�Each verb, too, is loaded with intentions. April’s showers pierce the drought of March
(2). Not a simple statement of cause and effect in nature, “pierce” suggests attack, an
intentional breaking through as if much depends on not being repelled. The next line
reveals the goal: to “bathe[] every veyne in . . . licour” (3), that life be not hindered. The
zephyr then inspires the “tendre croppes” (5-7) as if it had breath to share, or the shoots
could receive spirit. When Chaucer arrives at the birds, no change of language is necessary. One might even say that the verbs applied to the birds, “maken” and “slepen,”
are the least suggestive of life, although birds are the most obviously conscious of the
characters so far.
Curious also is the peacefulness suggested by Chaucer’s diction. The showers are
“soote” (1), the zephyr’s breath is “sweete” (3), the shoots are “tendre” (7), and the birds
are “smale” (9). Everything in this springtime bespeaks gentleness and peace. Only
against the intruder is any harsh word said, for the “droughte of March” is “perced” to
the root (2): the drought being an unwelcome condition that would forestall the coming
of spring and, perhaps, also of pilgrimage.
It is in this verdant time, teeming with life, that men long to go on pilgrimages. Now
why at a time when everything seems so right with the world would men desire change
rather than rest? We find a suggestion in a line that sits right between the dependent
clause description of springtime and the independent clause discussion of pilgrimage:
“So priketh hem nature in hir corages” (11). Of whose hearts is Chaucer speaking? It
may seem natural, as the immediate antecedent, to think that the birds are meant, who
make melody and sleep with open eyes due to nature’s influence. But could it not be
looking ahead as well, to the folk who long to go on pilgrimages? Even the rhyme
scheme would couple “hir corages” with “pilgrimages.” Line 11, situated close to the
midpoint of this introduction to the General Prologue and at the meeting of the dependent and independent clauses, joins weather, plants, animals, and humans in the influence of nature on their thoughts and actions.
What kind of nature incites men to longing? Two meanings of “nature” seem possible:
the inherent constitution of a creature or the creation itself. But perhaps neither meaning is really distinctive. If nature is understood the first way, Chaucer is saying that
something within man stirs him up in the springtime, in reaction to what it perceives
around it. If the second way, creation in springtime moves man to longing.
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�Chaucer points to the importance of the natural world in either case, leading us to wonder why springtime would cause such feelings in human beings.
There is, first, a correspondence between the creation emerging from winter and a man
recovering from sickness. Chaucer lavished attention on explicating the blooming flowers, the tender shoots, and the centrality of the sun, but these conditions or incitements
for longing are only linked to humans with a “thanne,” the termination of the dependent clause. Nevertheless, the pilgrims on the road to Canterbury are seeking a saint
who helped them recover from sickness. The parallel is evident, though human convalescence is not described so lyrically. It has already been described through springtime.
But more darkly seen is a lack in men out of which rises this longing. Before nature, with
its wholeness and life, man is disturbed. The showers do not enliven him; the wind does
not warm him. Or not primarily. Man stands across from a natural world that seems as
conscious as he. He longs, and so he leaves his familiar home, sometimes to go to foreign lands. Still, what is the lack, the source of longing? As has been said, those pilgrims
that go to Canterbury have been healed from sickness. Wholeness there; so we would
have to say those pilgrims are responding to wholeness, not to want. Thus, man at his
best state would still not possess something of which he is made aware by springtime.
The conceit behind Chaucer’s tales suggests that this want is filled by fellowship. Plurality is present throughout the introduction: “every” vein is bathed by the rain, “every”
wood and field is inspired by the zephyr, and multiple “foweles” sing. As emphasized
to by the loading of all these plurals into a dependent clause, these plurals are bound
together, as if joining one another in a festival of spring. Thus, people who recover out
of the loneliness of sickness (or whatever separates them from others) find in springtime the inspiration to join fellowship on pilgrimages. The newness of spring incites
men to seek new acquaintances, new sights, and new experiences. We see how Chaucer
(or whoever the narrator may be) embarks on his pilgrimages alone but quickly seeks
out, and is accepted into, the company of other pilgrims (19-34). Men desire to mirror
the character of the season around them. They participate in this way not solely with
creation, but with each other, each individual being drawn out of himself and into a
community.
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�Of course, we should not force Chaucer to say that he has described all people in springtime or even all who go on pilgrimages, just as not every springtime is as consistently
idyllic as the one represented in the General Prologue. What Chaucer does offer is insight into human nature, seasons, and pilgrimage. The wholeness found in a beautiful
springtime does incite longing in the human heart, but not a longing of despair or unrequited passion. Instead, it draws people together into communities of thanks—for to
this end Chaucer’s pilgrims wend to Canterbury. While it may be less common now to
make a pilgrimage of the kind Chaucer describes, springtime can still create longing in
our hearts and, now that we better understand what it means, we are better prepared to
meet our own longing “to goon on pilgrimages.”
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�The Creation of the Self: Shakespeare and Aristotle
Kyle Reynolds
It might seem self-evident that Prince Hal undergoes a significant change in character
throughout Shakespeare’s Henry IV. His character is first introduced as a drunken degenerate ne’er-do-well. Yet, by the end of Part One, Hal has redeemed himself in the
eyes of his father and is hailed as a hero. This does not necessarily signify a change in
character though, only a change in his conduct. One does not need to be virtuous to
act virtuously. As Plato’s Ring of Gyges allegory demonstrates, the utilitarian benefits
of acting justly are often enough to compel just behavior. Still, perhaps a change in
conduct is enough to result in a genuine change in character, even if this result is unintended. This begs the question, does Hal’s character truly change and does he become
a more virtuous man?
Hal’s first soliloquy, spoken to the audience after the prince agrees to join his comrade
Poins in a plot to embarrass their friend, Falstaff, provides some critical insight on this
question. Shakespeare uses this soliloquy to help elucidate Hal’s intentions and provide an explanation for his behavior. The prince tells us he is seeking to “imitate the
sun / Who doth permit the base contagious clouds / To smother up his beauty from
the world, / That, when he please again to be himself, / Being wanted, he may be more
wond’red at” (Shakespeare 15). If the prince is to be believed then, his juvenile and
dishonorable behavior is all in service to a grand façade. By shirking his duties and
ensuring he is perceived as worthless and reprehensible throughout the kingdom, Hal
is tempering the expectations of his subjects, his father, and his peers. So, when he does
finally cast off this façade, his redemption and reformation “shall show more goodly
and attract more eyes”.
However, it’s not clear that Hal’s behavior is merely a façade. He seems to thoroughly enjoy taking part in the debauchery perpetrated by his dishonorable cohort. Take
the dialogue directly preceding Hal’s soliloquy for example. Hal is at first weary of
Poins’s scheme to prank the unsuspecting Falstaff. To convince the prince, Poins offers
the prophetic argument, “[t]he virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that
this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet for supper: how thirty, at least, he fought
with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this
lives the jest”.
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�Hal, now convinced, responds, “[w]ell, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary
and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap. There I’ll sup. Farewell” (Shakespeare 14).
It is the prospect of humiliating Falstaff and catching him in his lies and exaggerations
that finally compels Hal to join Poins’s plan. There does not appear to be any utilitarian
benefit for Hal in joining Poins. His willingness to go along with the prank seems best
explained by a genuine and wholly ignoble desire to humiliate Falstaff.
Hal’s reactions to Falstaff’s all too predictable lies concerning the prank only a few
scenes later serve to further illustrate this point. Falstaff begins to eagerly, and inaccurately, recount his ordeal to Hal and Poins, telling them of the men who robbed him of
his stolen gold, entirely unaware of the fact that those men were in fact Hal and Poins.
Almost immediately, Falstaff begins to, in a rather obvious manner, increase the number of his attackers, for which Hal derides him, saying, “O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!” (Shakespeare 47). Falstaff, surprisingly unphased by the
prince’s derisions, continues with his fictional account of the “battle” and Hal continues
with his mockeries. Finally, after Falstaff becomes wholly indignant due to Hal picking
apart every aspect of his tale, the prince tells Falstaff the truth, stating:
“We two set on you four and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, and
have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your
guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity and roared for mercy, and still run
and roared, as ever I heard a bullcalf. What a slave art though to hack thy sword
as though hast done, and then say it was in a fight! What trick, what starting hole
canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?”
Every action Hal has taken and every word he has spoken in this scene seems to have
been aimed at maximizing Falstaff’s embarrassment. If this is simply a part Hal is playing, such intricate scheming would be unnecessary. However, if Hal truly is morally
degenerate and elicits genuine joy from poking fun at and participating in the schemes
of his corrupt and contemptible crew, then his behavior makes a great deal more sense.
Hal’s so called “reformation” begins in earnest when he confronts his father and pledges to fulfill his duties as a prince of the realm.
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�He tells the king, “So please your Majesty, I would I could / Quit all offenses with as
clear excuse / As well as doubtless I can purge / Myself of many I am charged withal”
. The king rejoices at this news, but is, at first, skeptical. Hal reassures him, promising
to “[b]e more”.
Hal appears to honor his commitment, marching off to battle against a rebel force, to the
astonishment of his enemies. Percy Hotspur, the leader of the rebels, inquires as to the
statues of Hal and his forces, asking, “Where is … [t]he nimble-footed madcap Prince of
Wales”. His cousin, Vernon, replies:
“All furnished, all in arms; / All plumed like estridges that with the wind / Bated like
eagles having lately bathed; / Glittering in golden coats like images; / As full of spirit
as the month of May / And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; / Wanton as youthful
goats, wild as young bulls. / I saw young Harry with his beaver on, / His crushes
on his thighs, gallantly armed, / Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, And
vaulted with such ease into his seat / As if an angel dropped down from the clouds /
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus / And witch the world with noble horsemanship”.
Hal has, at least in the eyes of his enemy, become an entirely different person. He is no
longer seen as the “madcap Prince of Wales,” but is instead viewed as a gallant warrior.
Hal has done little except show up to the battle, yet, Vernon offers him some of the most
striking and sincere praise seen throughout the play. At this point, the reformation Hal
prophesized seems to be coming to pass. Hal is executing his plan and those around
him are taking note.
However, Hal’s plan is to simply feign virtue so as to be better looked upon by those in
his kingdom. He is only interested in the utilitarian benefits of being perceived as virtuous. Yet, after the conclusion of the battle with Hotspur’s forces, Hal takes an action
which appears entirely inconsistent with this philosophy. Falstaff falsely tells Hal and
his brother, John, that he had killed Hotspur. Hal responds, truthfully, “[w]hy, Percy
I killed myself”. This, of course, does not stop the invariably deceitful Falstaff from
arguing that his account of Hotspur’s death is accurate, going so far as to threaten to
make anyone who doubts him “eat a piece of [his] sword” (Shakespeare 114). Hal, despite knowing the falsehood of Falstaff’s claims, agrees to allow him to take credit for
the killing of Hotspur, saying, “if a lie may do thee grace, / I’ll gild it with the happiest
terms I have”.
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�While it’s not entirely clear why Hal chooses to let Falstaff persist in his lie, it seems
to come from a genuine desire to see Falstaff improve himself and his circumstances,
which Falstaff commits to do only a few lines later. There doesn’t appear to be any
benefit to Hal in allowing Falstaff to claim the glory and honor associated with killing
Hotspur. Hal’s motivations are instead altruistic in nature and demonstrative of true
virtue.
Despite deciding to reform himself in the eyes of those around him, Hal is unable to
entirely forgo his old ways. Much to the dismay of his father, Hal continues to associate
with Poins, Falstaff, and his other sinful companions. When the king learns that Hal is
back in London with his band of scoundrels, he laments;
“Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds, / And he, the noble image of my youth, /
Is overspread with them. Therefore my grief / Stretches itself beyond the hour of
death. / The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape / In forms imaginary th’
unguided days / And rotten times that you shall look upon / When I am sleeping
with my ancestors. / For when headstrong rage and hot blood are his counselors,
/ When means and lavish manners meet together, / O, with what wings shall affections fly / Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!”
The king is deeply afraid that Hal cannot truly reform and will ultimately succumb to
his rage and other vices which will destroy him.
Finally, at the conclusion of Part Two, Hal ultimately casts of his old habits and comrades. In a cutting and markedly harsh speech directed at Falstaff, the prince announces:
“I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. / How ill white hairs becomes a
fool and jester! / I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, / So surfeit-swelled,
so old, and so profane, / But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. / Make less
thy body hence, and more thy grace. / Leave gormandizing. Know the grave doth
gape / For thee thrice wider than other men. / Reply not to me with a fool-born
jest. / Presume not that I am the thing I was, / For God doth know, so shall the
world perceive, / That I have turned away my former self. / So will I those that
kept me company”.
The way Hal speaks of his transformation makes it sound not as if he is simply put
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�ting on a different mask but as if he has truly undergone a metamorphosis of spirit. He
likens his reformation to wakening from a bad dream, a dream he now despises.
So, although Hal may not have meant to undergo a genuine change in character, he did.
His actions make clear that he was a morally corrupt degenerate that enjoyed taking
part in the activities of his London gang. Then, he undergoes a reformation, which may
have at first simply been an act, but ultimately results in a changed character capable of
committing acts of altruism. Hal does seem to waver in his new convictions, returning
to the London tavern to fraternize with Poins and Falstaff, but finally lets his old wayward acquaintances go. But why does Hal undergo this change in character? Perhaps
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics can provide some insight. Aristotle tells us:
“oral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name (ethike) is one
that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also
plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists
by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. … Neither by, then, nor contrary
to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive
them, and are made perfect by habit”.
Hal lived a life of vice and did not create a habit of virtue. He thus became sinful and
devoid of moral integrity. Hal then began to act virtuously. Eventually, acting ethically
became habitual. However, habits are engrained on the soul and Hal struggled to overcome his past transgressions. Though, finally, a new, virtuous Hal was created through
the prince’s actions. For, the self is formed by our habits, and Hal is no different.
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�Translation
On the Creation of Man
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�Contributor
Stephen Cunha
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�On the Creation of Man
By Wolfgang Musculus
Translation by Stephen Cunha
Now, accordingly, in proper order, we proceed to consider the work of God in the creation of
man: which consideration must be understood, not only to be next after those things which we
have noted concerning God the maker of all things, but also to especially concern man. For what
is more properly suitable for man than, after his creator, to understand himself? We are drawn
to this knowledge not only by that which Lactantius somewhere puts into words, “Great is the
power of man, great his reason, great his mystery, so that not undeservedly Plato gave thanks
to nature, because he was born a human being”—yes indeed, because next to God nothing is
more sublime than man, nothing more excellent has been made;3 but also because no small
portion of our salvation requires this, that we know ourselves, wherein even those who have
everywhere inculcated the saying γνωθε σεαυτόν, that is, “know thyself,” as if it had dropped
down from heaven, have admonished that the greatest part of wisdom is found. But who does
not know that it is especially required for the knowledge of man, that we should not be ignorant
of the origin and making of mankind? And the Holy Spirit has described the creation of man
with singular care and greater diligence than all other created things in the Sacred Scriptures,
undoubtedly for this purpose, that even from the origin of our race, we might be reminded that
when God made man, he wanted to create a certain remarkable work, which would be much
more outstanding, and would much more closely approach the glory of his divinity, than the
rest of creation; and in the next place, that the knowledge of our beginning might be very much
conducive to the consideration of divine wisdom, goodness, and power, and contain, as it were,
some principles of heavenly philosophy.
And I also think that some parameters of knowledge are required, so that we do not extend our
consideration beyond those things that are able to advance Christian godliness. What should be
thought by the godly person concerning the creation of man cannot be better determined than
from the instruction of the Holy Spirit, which Sacred Scripture sets forth to us. For the mind of
man has been so darkened, that he is able to judge rightly neither of his maker nor of himself.
For this reason, man must take care to search for the things that ought to be known, and held
with certainty, not only concerning man himself but also concerning God his creator, from the
Sacred Scriptures rather than from human opinion.
And those things which have been handed down in the Sacred Scriptures, having rejected all
curiousness, are so composed, that they are adapted to both our capacity and our benefit. They
are moderate, but solid, certain, profitable, necessary, and harmonious. Therefore, concerning
the creation of man, this is related to us in few words in Genesis chapters one and two. First,
that man is a work, just as all other created things. He was made in time; he did not exist before
time. Indeed, if we consider the time of our beginning, which Sacred Scripture also reveals, every creature is more ancient than man. Now everything which has been made does not exist on
account of itself, but by reason of another source. And just as
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it does not exist from itself, so whatever it has, it does not have from itself, but from the one by
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�whom it was made. Nor when it was made, was it able to cause itself to be made different, either
better or worse, than what it was made according to the will of its maker. On the contrary, it has
not even contributed in the smallest degree to become what it has been made. Accordingly, it
should be observed concerning man, that since he also, just like the rest of creation, was made,
all that he is and all that he has (in terms of natural abilities), depended on the will, wisdom,
and power of his maker.
Second, since the very consideration that we have been made immediately leads us forward to
become acquainted with our maker, we next inquire about the maker and creator of man. Sacred
Scripture attributes the creation of man to the same One by whom all other things were made.
It says, “God created man.”The books of the Gentiles say concerning a certain Prometheus, the
father of Deucalion, that he first formed man. And he did not form man, but the image of man
from clay: for which reason he is also the author of the art of molding. We acknowledge that
the maker of our race is the only and true God, who made heaven and earth, and all the things
which are in them, visible and invisible, and so we confess that whatever we are and whatever
we have is from him. Moreover, it is properly required that in all things we depend on him
alone, as the creature on his creator. Israel is reproached in the Mosaic and prophetic books
because it abandoned its maker. And God himself cries out, saying: “I made you.” Wherein it is
sufficiently demonstrated how perverse the heart of man is, to such an extent that he forsakes
his own maker, God.
Furthermore, we are admonished by this knowledge, since we all have the same creator and
maker, lest any man find fault with his work, either in himself or in others, saying: “Why
did he make me like this?” In Isaiah chapter forty-five we read as follows: “Woe to him
who speaks against his maker, a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay
say to its potter, ‘What are you making?’” And in Proverbs chapter fourteen we read: “He
who finds fault with a poor man, reproaches his maker.”Therefore, that faith by which we
believe that we have been created by God, will work these three things in our hearts. First,
that in all things we depend with our whole heart on God our creator. Second, that each man
is content with how he has been created, and even embraces it with thanksgiving, for which
he has been made by God the creator. Third, that no one looks down on how his neighbor
has been made, however base and lowly, lest he dishonors in him their common creator.
In the third place, the Sacred Scriptures are not silent about this, of what man was made. In Genesis chapter two we read the following, “Therefore, the Lord God formed man from the dust of
the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living creature.” In
Hebrew it is, המדאה ןמ רפע. Notice the material from which man was made. And what is baser,
what is poorer and more unstable, than the dust of the ground, from which not even bricks can
properly be made? He could at least have been made from solid earth. This origin of our race
warns us all, that in consideration of it we maintain modesty, lest it be said to us: “Why are you
prideful, O earth and ashes?” For what other assessment is to be made of that, which is made
from dust? The Holy Spirit could have said, “The Lord God formed man from the ground,” or
“from the dust”: but in order to inculcate the lowliness of man, he called man, made from dust,
“the dust of the earth.” And what did
God say to Adam? “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.” He did not simply say, “you are
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�from dust,” but “you are dust.” Lest the flesh should say, “So what that I am from dust? Whatever I came from, I am now a human being, and am not dust”; the sentence of God our maker
comes to us, saying: “And from dust you are, and dust you still are, and to dust you will return,” just as if you were to say to a magnificent glacier: “And water you were, and water you
are, and to water you will return.”
In the fourth place, the way in which the first man was made is read in the Sacred Scriptures.
We read the following in Genesis chapter two: “Therefore, the Lord God formed man, from
the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living
creature.”11 By the verb “formed,” the Holy Spirit expresses the singular diligence put into the
creation of man. Second, in order to describe what material God formed, when he built man,
he adds: “dust of the earth.” Third, he adds, “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,”
by which words he teaches us how the figure of the human body, first formed from the dust,
and still inanimate, was made animate and living. His maker poured into him spirit and breath
(for in the Hebrew it is )םייח תמשנfrom which he would live, and so he was made into a living
soul: that is, he began to live, a man now animated, who before was dust and inanimate. Thus,
the things concerning the first man Adam.
And how Eve was subsequently made, is in the same chapter read in this way: “The
Lord God sent a deep sleep on Adam. And while he slept, he took out one of his ribs, and replaced the flesh over it. And the Lord God built the rib, which he had taken from Adam, into a
woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh
of my flesh. She is called woman, since she was taken out of man.’”
In both cases, the singular purpose and care that God used in the creation of man is
sufficiently intimated. And yet, in like manner, we are permitted to see how the Holy Spirit describes in three words the wonderful way man was formed—wherein the body together with its
members, both internal and external, such as bones, veins, cartilage, vertebrae, muscles, joints,
and limbs were most harmoniously fashioned, put together, and adorned, and then vivified by
the infusion of the soul—when he says, “he formed,” “he built,” and “he breathed [inspired].”
And in this way, he restrains our curiosity, which is itching to know each of these things, how,
by what industry, by what strength, and in what space of time it was accomplished, admonishing us to reverently hold fast to those things imparted in few words, and to acknowledge and
honor God our maker.
In the fifth place, it is also taught in the Sacred Scriptures, what kind of man was made.
With respect to the figure of the body of both, male and female, its stature, and the fitting together of the body and soul, it is in itself plain, of what constitution we have been made. But
as for clearly perceiving the nature and dignity of man, since both have been corrupted, and
deprived of their original quality, of what kind both were in the first man, we are not able to
know, unless the Holy Spirit speaks of and teaches it to us.
And I do not understand in this place by quality of nature the bodily necessities and
affections, in which we are still subjected, but that original quality of rectitude, which it is read
that God imparted to the first man in Ecclesiastes chapter seven. For Ecclesiastes says the following, “I have found this only, that God made man [ רשיthat is, upright].” This is not to be un
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�derstood of the uprightness of the body, but of the soul, which men call original righteousness,
and which comprises the knowledge of God the creator, obedience, faith, love toward both God
and one’s neighbor, and the freedom of an upright will, together with other adornments of that
nature.
Therefore, when the first man by nature was made such—namely, upright, not only in
body, but also in soul—he possessed free will in such a way, that he was able to obey God, if he
wanted: and, on the other hand, he was able to sin, if he wanted. For however upright and free
to do good he was made, nevertheless, at the same time, he differed from the angels in this, that
he was able to be tempted by inordinate affections, and consent to them, and be led away from
the rectitude of original righteousness. This does not have a place in those angels who, since the
fall of the reprobate spirits, have remained in the truth of God.
The Sacred Scriptures also testify concerning the dignity of the first man, when they
teach that he was made in the likeness and image of God. God says in Genesis chapter one, “Let
us make man in our own image and likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and over
the birds of the air, and over every living creature on the earth, and over every creeping thing
that moves on the earth. And God created man in his image and in his likeness, in the image of
God he created him,” and the things which follow in that place.
Most ancient and contemporary authors expound the dignity of man as uprightness of
nature, of which we have made mention, so that the image of God was what separated man
from the beasts, by reason and by the internal integrity of man which more nearly resembled
the divine nature, wisdom, and righteousness. But although that exposition is not to be altogether discarded, it is nevertheless clear from the very words of Sacred Scripture that man was
so made in the image of God, that he should be like God on the earth, and have all things placed
under his feet. For what else is being said where it reads, “And God created man in his image
and likeness,” than what follows, “in the image of God he created him”? In Hebrew it is םלצב
םיהלא. And to be created in the image of God, is to be constituted like a certain God. Whence,
magistrates and rulers are in the Scriptures called םיהלא: that is, “gods” and “mighty ones.”
And this image of God granted to man does not exclude the internal uprightness of man, which
is so necessary for the former to be retained, that without it a ruler differs nothing from a savage
beast, except perhaps that he employs more subtlety and cunning in carrying out the malice of
his tyranny. This understanding of human dignity, according to which man is made in the image of God, was plainly set forth by Chrysostom in his exposition of Genesis chapter one, and
occasionally by Augustine in his dispute with the Manicheans.
And when the apostle says in First Corinthians chapter eleven that “a man indeed ought
not cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man,”
he thus plainly makes a distinction between the man and the woman, saying that the man is indeed made in the image of God, but the woman in the image of man. This cannot be understood
only of internal human rectitude and righteousness, of which the woman is a partaker together
with the man in the Lord, but is wholly to be understood of the authority of rule, which, as is
well known, was granted at once to the man at the beginning, but denied to the woman.
74
The putting of Adam in a paradise of pleasure after he was made, a place more excellent and
exceptional in comparison with all other habitations on the whole earth, and that he put names
�75
�upon all the living creatures, also relate to this dignity of the image of God. For what else do
these things prove than that he was the lord and ruler of the whole earth?
Many other things are disputed concerning the status that our first parents had in paradise, and
what they would have had if they had not sinned, but these things from Sacred Scripture are
more certain and more profitable to students of theology: briefly, to hold, first, that man was
made; second, that he was made by God; third, that he was made from the dust of the earth;
fourth, that he was built with the special care of God; and fifth, that he was made in and elevated to the image of God, so that he is more outstanding in both nature and worth than all other
creatures. If properly considered, these things contain most ample subject matter of Christian
philosophy, and are conducive to this, that through the consideration of our origin we are restored to modesty, and through the knowledge of the uprightness and dignity of our first parents, we understand more deeply what we have lost in them, and what we have recovered, and
not without great gain, in Christ our second Adam, and the author of our regeneration.
76
�77
�Bad Dreams - Nadine Bucca
78
�“Creating a Community”
An Inter view with Associate Dean
Brendan Boyle
A vision for building community at the
St. John’s College Graduate Institute.
By Stephen Borsum
79
�It was what I would call the first cold day of the year when I came to the BBC to meet
Mr. Boyle for an interview. It was cold only in that the rain falling that day was a chilling one, one lacking the distinct warmth that rain has in summer and early fall here in
Annapolis. As I entered, I approached Mr. Boyle’s office to see it closed. Unexpected,
given I was just on time for our scheduled meeting. But he called to me from within the
GI Conference room where he had been taking some calls for the day, and after some
polite banter and the brewing of some green tea, we began our discussion. What follows
has been edited for clarity, and is ultimately a poor reflection of just how engaging a
face-to-face conversation with Mr. Boyle can be.
Stephen:
I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on the role you play as dean. You know, you’re
a liaison to the college. You are a tutor. You’re a family man. You have all of these responsibilities and so, where does worrying about the health of the GI community fall in
the list of priorities?
Mr. Boyle:
I think my top priority is the GI as a community. One thing I realized when I was thinking about this interview this morning is that I’m probably going to be borrowing a lot of
formulations that I heard from Walter Sterling yesterday. And I’m happy to credit him
and you can credit him in whatever way you think is necessary, but I hadn’t really even,
until yesterday, begun to notice that the first statement of the program is that St. John’s
College is a community of learning, and that even if I hadn’t noticed that, I don’t think
I had caught what he drew attention to. Which is that sentence, at least on his construction, is meant to distinguish St. John’s qua community from St. John’s qua institution
like in the first instance. At the same time it might well be an institution. But if it’s an
institution, that description is somehow much lower than the description of St. John’s
as a community. So I do feel like my first responsibility is to the community of learning
and more particularly to the community of learning that is the Graduate Institute now.
And that there’s a new aspect to that community given the fact that the community now
includes persons who are not physically located here, namely low-residency students.
And so, in some sense, I’m the first Associate Dean to inherit this. To walk into a community or to have responsibility of shepherding the community that is not physically in
the same place. It is true that Emily Langston also had that in the latter part of her term,
80
�and maybe I’m the first to come into a term for a community of this sort. And that will
present, you know, new different challenges, but those are very much on my mind.
How does one hold together a community that includes a not small number of persons
who are not residents of this place? I’m trying to do some things, reading groups, for
example, that in the past, I think, would be unheard of for an associate dean to have a
reading group that was held online by design. But for me, in having the dean’s reading
group be part of the weekend, I made it online by design because I was trying to be responsive to the nature or shape of the community now. To return to to the formulation
of your question, I really do think that my job is as the steward of the community and
its intellectual health, but intellectual health understood in the most capacious term. I
also want people to be flourishing affectively and interpersonally because, in so doing,
their intellectual flourishing will be still greater.
Not to go on too long — I do want to make this conversation — but I will say one thing
that I really liked about some of the things [Walter Sterling] said yesterday is that it’s
very important for the person in a position of leadership to be physically present. And
I’m trying to keep that at the center of my own mind. Now, I think I can actually do a
much better job of being at ASG on Thursday nights — things like that. I could, in fact
— and should, in fact, do a better job of that. So one of the things that’s important to me
is to acknowledge the importance of the associate dean being physically present here as
much as possible.
Stephen:
I will say, I think the impact of that is already palpable. You and Ms. Langston both
have prioritized that, and I think it’s noted. I will give you the pass on being there at
ASG. You’re here at, you know, eight or nine in the morning. I don’t think we need you
there at 10 p.m. at night. That’s not on you.
Mr. Boyle:
That’s kind of you to say.
Stephen:
That splits off into two things, and feel free to go either direction with these questions.
I do think the gap between the in-person students and the low-residency students is a
very tough one to address and some things are being done like low residency weekends
and I think everyone really enjoys those and it’s hard to require them to come to us
81
�more. So I think that solutions like online reading groups are excellent. The other thing
is the relationship between tutors and students seems so vital and, as much as I know,
certain tutors really enjoy the GI but I don’t see them present in some of those additional events. So I think the two main questions there are: Are there other things you are
considering to bridge the gap between in-person and low-residency? And how do we
keep the tutors involved at a greater level?
Mr. Boyle:
Yeah, two hard and great questions. I have some ideas for bridging this gap, and I’m not
sure even if the ideas were put in place and they were successful, I’m still not sure how
much the gap would be bridged.
One of the things that I’d like to do and want to start doing in the near future is just
doing something like a spotlight on a low-residency student, weekly or biweekly, or
something like that, and maybe having a little interview and then putting it up on the
board or sending it around. Just as a way to get the in-person students to know about
the low-residency students who are out there. Would that make intellectual connections? I don’t know. I’m hopeful that something like that, and I don’t know what their
exact right form is, could go some way. Now, to me, it’s still an open question. What
would the best possible outcome look like? How much of a divide would there be in
the best of all possible worlds between the low-residency students and the in-person
students? I don’t think that the answer would be none. But maybe it would be rather
little and I think that’s a perfect question. How do you achieve that “rather little.” The
question about tutors is also a good and hard one. And I think that one of the things
that Emily Langston did really well is integrate the Graduate Institute into the larger
life of the college, and I think that she would say that that was an important part of her
own work. I think that she would also say that it’s probably not yet finished, and it’s
my job to, if not finish it, then hopefully advance it. But it’s also true that we haven’t
really found a way to bring more tutors to the GI. I feel like there’s a somewhat small
subset of tutors, and the faculty who are teaching in the GI and we haven’t yet found
a way to broaden that subset. There are some restrictions, like untenured faculty can’t
teach in the GI seminar. OK, leave that to the side. I would like to find a way, and I’ve
begun to speak with [Annapolis Dean] Susan Paalman about this to find a way to bring
in mid-career tutors beyond the current subset of regulars into the GI, because I feel
like that problem is related to the problem that you’ve said of getting tutors to just be at
other co-curricular or curricular-adjacent events.
82
�They seemed like separate problems, but I think they’re related in that if people think of
the GI as a regular part of the academic life of the college tutors, that is, they will see GI
events — be they ASG or (Campus) Convening weekend or what have you — as much
more of a piece with homecoming weekend or just general college events that they go
to with some regularity, even if they’re not teaching in the GI in that particular semester. So, that’s an aim of mine, and I think it would be good for the GI to have greater
circulation of the faculty through it. And I think that some of the GI students even like
the fact that there a subset of tutors who are especially dedicated to GI. I think there is
something to be said for that, but it would be nice for that subset to be larger, and then
I think we would have that circulation which would be good for all parties.
Stephen:
I think all of that addresses another question I have. It seems that It’s hard to build a
community with busy adults when you only have four segments to do so. And I know
that’s how the program is built and marketed, but do you see that as a hindrance to a
sustaining a community? Are there inclinations you have on how to address that other
than GIs coming back to do precepts and audit classes later?
Mr. Boyle:
Can I first ask a question in response? Is it somehow a corollary of that question that the
MALA could or should be longer than four segments?
Stephen:
It certainly could be. And I’m thinking of the four semesters and particularly how I hear
it marketed in some ways where you could do summer or fall, spring, summer and be
done in a year, and you can hardly form a friendship in a year regardless of your lifelong relationships.
Mr. Boyle:
That seems that seems fairly said. On the one hand, I think that the MALA is by most
Master’s standards long. Most other programs speak in the language of credit hours.
This Master’s program, seeing as it takes, let’s say, two academic years, generally is
more time for students to form community than I think a lot of other Master’s programs
have. I’m not entirely sure that the time component is works against us. I do agree that
83
�when the program is marketed, or at least described, as a program that you could finish
in a year — summer, academic year, following summer — then the question of how
to put that frame together with the emphasis on community is a hard one, and maybe
even might sound a little bit disingenuous. As in, how can you promise the creation of
community in one calendar year? I would respect that criticism. I don’t actively talk
about the program as one that should be done in a single calendar year. When people
ask if they can do this, I tell them that of course they can, and I recognize that some
people have a year off of their job or a sabbatical that is just the calendar year, and we
want them to be able to do this in that in that single calendar year and I guess we’re in
some sense crossing our fingers that the intensity of the program will generate some
sort of community and lasting friendship that is typically brought about by time. It
might be important for me to think about those persons who have done the program in
a year and calendar year and whether they as a distinct group feel connected or not to
the college now.
One other open question for me is: does this segment structure itself work against community? That wasn’t precisely your formulation, but I wonder if you might endorse
it? And I say that because it’s not as if students move through the program together.
You’re in a segment with somebody one semester and then they’re in segment X in the
spring semester, but you’re in segment Y spring semester and you just don’t see each
other or aren’t reading the same texts any longer. Does that work against community?
Maybe it does. It’s certainly true that the undergraduates, you know, don’t have that
experience. So that’s something I may have to give some more thought to, but maybe I
could just pause for a second and ask you, do you think that segment structure works
against community? Insofar as the person with whom you are forging a deep friendship
now this fall very well will not be in the same class with you next semester, let alone in
the same segment.
Stephen:
I do think this type of thing plays out in ASG. And I haven’t seen enough evidence to
say that it’s positive or negative, but it is interesting to see the... I want don’t use the
term “clique” because it’s often so loaded, but it’s the most apt word. Cliques will form
in ASG often, and if they’re not people who are already established friends they will
form because of the shared texts. And those are bright and vibrant conversations, but
84
�at the same time, there is such a genuine interest in what everyone else is experiencing
that I think it overcomes itself, so I don’t think the segment structure is necessarily a
hindrance. I would be curious to know, and this is more of a general question, if there
is a perceived issue, how even flexible is the structure of the GI? It doesn’t seem like it’s
something that can change on a whim.
Mr. Boyle:
Definitely not something that could change on a whim. But the GI structure has changed
a lot, even in the short time that I’ve been at the college. For example, the decoupling of
the preceptorials from the segments. At one point, not during Emily Langston’s associate deanship but back in Jeff Black’s deanship, it used to be the case that the preceptorials were in a pretty strong sense pegged to the segments offered that term. So, if you
take this term for an example, Math and Natural Science, and Literature. The preceptorials offered would be two Literature preceptorials and two Math and Natural Science
preceptorials. Instead, what we actually have this fall is Canterbury tales, Galileo, three
modern poets, the Greek, and Plato. And yes some of those may fit the themes of the
current segments, but that seems to be circumstance, not designed.
I think in years past one might have said that Plato’s Republic somehow belongs to
Philosophy and Theology. So I do think that there is some kind of openness for the
structure of the GI to change, and you might hear people around the halls talk about
other paths to degree that the GI might pursue. Maybe we decouple — and I’m not
endorsing this, I’m just reporting things that I’ve heard — decouple the seminars and
tutorials. And it’s no longer the case that one needs to take four seminar-tutorial pairs
plus four preceptorials, but one needs to take four seminars, four tutorials and four preceptorials. And they can be somehow mixed and matched. That could not be changed
on a whim and I’m not sure that that’s even a good idea. I would say I do think that
the relationship between seminar and tutorial in the GI is unique and it’s not like the
relationship between seminar and tutorial in the undergraduate program. Insofar as
it’s unique, I can imagine people in the future thinking about different ways forward
to the degree that may not abandon the segment structure, but might actually in some
sense alter it because one would be no longer bound to these seminar-tutorial pairs.
Again I’m not endorsing this. I’m just speculating on things that I have heard, and I’m
of two minds. As you might recall yesterday, Walter Sterling talked about the GI as be
85
�ing a place for experiments, and I think that there’s definitely some truth to that. Now,
one needs to be cautious about imagining the GI as just some kind of laboratory where
one can try a bunch of different things, because that’s a deep disservice to the Institute,
as an institution with its own coherent program. It’s true that it’s more amenable to experimentation, new offerings, new MALA segments than with the undergraduate. Well,
obviously it might be amenable to new offerings than undergraduate programming is,
but one needs to be very measured about how one goes about doing such a thing.
Stephen:
I think this discussion of the structure of the GI program raises a question that ties the
conversation back to the relationship between the GI and the broader college community. I think the first thing I want to just hear your input on is, there is such a difference
in how the GI and the undergrad programs are built — and this might get at the heart
of the issue — do you think GIs and undergrads graduate from their programs prepared to have the same conversation with each other? Is there something inherently
true about the structure either way that creates that unity?
Mr. Boyle:
I think there’s enough overlap between the texts that are at the center of the GI. I want
to say that at the center of the GI are the books and at the center of the undergraduate
program are the books. It just so happens that we have kind of carved them up into segments for reasons that might be related to the unique position that a number of persons
who are coming to the GI find themselves in. That they’re organized by segments to
me will always remain a secondary fact about the about the Graduate Institute, and the
books on the lists will always remain the absolute center, and insofar as there is great
overlap between those lists and the list for the undergraduate program. I do think that
the two sets of graduates, GI and undergraduates, go out ready to talk to one another,
and the places in which they differ, it’s probably the case that undergraduates know
about and wish that they could have read things that are in the GI program and vice
versa. For example, the entire history segment. GI’s have ready ears to hear about things
that are in the graduate program but not in the undergraduate one, and seem genuinely
curious about the undergraduate experience and what it offers that they may not see
in the GI. Labs are a terrific example there. Music, by and large. But yeah, there’s a nice
amount of overlap. But with the possibility for growth because the overlap is not total.
86
�Stephen:
Absolutely. Well, I only have two more quick questions for you. I’m curious to hear
your take on what it is that makes the GI community so unique amongst the polity or
even in the world. And then the last question is just a question on your background and
what got you here. So I guess you if you want to take the GI community question first
and then we can jump into the other one.
Mr Boyle:
This is where I’m definitely going to steal from Walter yesterday because I thought it
was so moving of him to have said that. In some sense, the GI is most reflective of what
it is that is at the heart of St. John’s College. Insofar as, people come to the graduate program, people do not drift into the Graduate Institute in the way that 18-year-olds can
drift into the undergraduate program or be helped along by their parents into the undergraduate program, directed by their parents say, into the undergraduate program.
It’s not a knock on anybody, it’s just a recognition of that’s how life is. One at 18 is still
not quite in charge of one’s own life. But when one decides at the age of 25, 55, 75 to give
of oneself one’s time and one’s finances to intellectual inquiry, that is a demonstration
of the true choice-worthiness of the undertaking that we do here. That characterizes
the work of the college. And yes, it will always be the case that the undergraduate program is at the center of St. John’s. No one, no one is doubting that. But I thought that
Walter really highlighted a way in which something about the presence of persons who
have made a very considered and deliberate choice, in something like the middle of
their lives, to undertake this mode of inquiry through conversation is the best possible
endorsement of it. So, I found that very, very moving. And in some sense wish all GIs
could have heard that. It helps me even think about what I find so moving about seeing
a 25-year-old, a 55-year-old, a 75-year-old here together learning from one another. I
see in them hunger for a life of learning with others and in community with others but
also, recognition that that hunger is one that can be met by this distinct community, the
institution of St. John’s College. So, their presence here in the Graduate Institute is in
some sense the greatest endorsement of the institution as a whole.
Now, how did I get here? Again, I’m going to borrow a little bit from something that I
heard Walter say in a different meeting. I’ve been a tutor for 10 years, more or less. And
at some point along the way, I think I felt some sort of calling to take on a role in the
college over and above my work and the working of the classroom, which is, I believe,
the most important work at the college. But I thought that I might have had one or two
administrative talents that are in some sense very minor virtues like staying on top of
87
�things or keeping some things organized, that I felt like I could put in the college’s service. I Won’t be in this position forever and look forward to returning to the classroom,
but as I felt like I had these minor virtues I wanted to share them with the college. And
so when they asked me to do this, I was very glad to do it. And I came into the role with
the GI in a great position and hope to leave it in a still better one.
Stephen:
Building on your journey to this position I have one last question is and then we’ll get
you out of here. I saw in your background in classics is what led you into this world
of inquiry. But clearly, just even having a couple of brief intro or Campus Convening
Weekend seminars with you, there’s a vibrancy in you about educating itself. So I’m
curious, does that drive to be an educator come before the passion of the classics, or did
the passion of the classics inspire the drive to be an educator?
Mr. Boyle:
Can I do the thing that interviewers hate and just reject the terms of question?
Stephen:
Be my guest.
Mr Boyle:
I think I might have at one time thought of myself as an educator, but I’m very grateful
to St. John’s because I don’t any longer really think of myself as an educator. But I feel
like I can passionately model being a student, like I just love learning and I love learning
with others and I think I’m not bad at it. I think I know how it goes well, and what in
what conditions it goes well, and what conditions it goes somewhat poorly. And I think
I can model that for people. If I’m educating them in that regard, I’m happy to, but I’m
definitely not filling their minds with any theories.
88
I’m grateful to St. John’s because to be perfectly honest, before I came to St. John’s I
did just want to be filled with facts that I could report, but not really own as my own.
St. John’s, as I think it’s true for many tutors, marked a real new beginning in my own
intellectual life. What I could say if I have to start again from nothing and say, almost
all of what I take myself to know I know in only the most attenuated sense because it’s
so mediated. It’s been handed to me by so many other persons that I have never really
taken any ownership of my own education, and I think I was able to do that when I
�became a tutor and I hope I’m showing people that they can do that, too. And you can
start at any time. It’s available to anybody to just take ownership of their education.
And insofar as I’m showing people what that might look like, I may consider myself an
educator, but in the main, I’m just a student.
Stephen:
Well, it’s certainly palpable and thank you for taking some time with me today
Mr. Boyle:
It was a pleasure, glad to.
89
�Thank you to all our contributors
90
Austin Suggs
On Creation
Chris Macbride
Old Dog
Cynthia Crane
The First Postulate
John Harwood
Before the Blank Stare
Kyle Reynolds
The Creation of the Self
Louis Petrich
Children of That World
Nadine Bucca
Visual Art
Noah Vancina
The Nature of the Pilgramage
Sam Hage
Corruption at the Symposium
Shirley Quo
The Galileo Affair
Siobhán Petersen
How to Read Well
Stacey Rains
Forbidden Fruit
Stephen Cunha
On the Creation of Man
Sydney Rowe
Mimi
Sylvie Bernhardt
My Mind’s a Dark Forest
Yonas Ketsela
A Dialogue with Descartes
�COLLOQUY
St. John’s College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, Maryland
Volume 13: Fall 2023
Editor
Stephen Borsum
Editorial board:
Sarah Ritchie, Paul Harland-White, Shirley Quo, Stuart Williams,
Kyle Reynolds, Sylvie Bernhardt
With thanks to: Kashya Boretsky, Associate Dean Brendan
Boyle, and the Graduate Student Council
.....
Colloquy is a biannual publication of the Graduate Student
Council and St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. The journal is free of charge. Address correspondence to Colloquy, The
Graduate Institute at St. John’s College, 60 College Avenue,
Annapolis, Maryland, 21401. Or email to colloquy@sjc.edu.
Students, tutors, and alumni of St. John’s College and the Graduate Institute are encouraged to submit their manuscripts in PDF
or Word format by email to colloquy@sjc.edu . The journal also
accepts submissions of poetry, original art, and photography.
Please include your name, contact information, and the title of
your work with your submission.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the journal do
not necessarily reflect those St. John’s College, the Graduate
Council, or Colloquy.
91
�92
�
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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Hair, Clothes, Brush: On Becoming Human in The Tale of Genji
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Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor Patricia Locke on February 2, 2024 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "In the hothouse of courtly life in Heian Japan, people cultivated themselves and their relationships through deliberate attention to hair, clothes and the aesthetic realm dominated by arts of the brush: calligraphy, painting, and poetry. What can the material aspects of their highly refined lives tell us about becoming human? What is it to be members of a species immersed in our environment, yet able to affectively distance ourselves enough to create and sustain poetic meaning? Genji, the radiant and accomplished prince, paradoxically devoted himself to both amorous adventures and religious rituals. He caused heartache in his sometimes violent encounters, yet he suffused the world with beauty wherever he appeared. Through practices of reading and writing aligned with The Tale of Genji, we are invited to participate in becoming more attuned to loveliness and suffering, invited to become more fully human."
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Locke, Patricia M.
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
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2024-02-02
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Murasaki Shikibu, 978?-. Genji monogatari.
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English
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SF_LockeP_Hair_Clothes_Brush_2024-02-02
Friday night lecture
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CELLS AND GENES ARE PARTS OF ANIMALS: ARISTOTLE IN THE LATE 2QTH CENTURY
James N. Jarvis, M.D., SJC '75 (Annapolis)
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Wayne State University School of Medicine
Detroit, MI
1
�ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE LEC1'URE 09/16/M
CELLS AND GENES ARE PARTS OF ANIMALS: ARISTOTLE IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY
Ms. Braun, members of the St. John's faculty, fellow-members of the St. John's community. It is a
pleasure to be your guest this evening and to return to the campus where my intellectual and spiritual
life was nurtured for four years. I must begin by reassuring Mr. Michael Dink that I really do have a
talk planned this evening and that this is not just an elaborately-organized scheme for me to get a
bully-pulpit to regale yet. another generation of St. Johnnies about events that occurred on a nearby
softball field just under 20 years ago. Let me also assure those who think that the words •... mental
lapse .. ." and "Michael Dink" can't be spoken in the same sentence that the full telling of this story will
occur (yet again) during my class's 20th reunion a little more than a year from now.
This lecture has been incubating for more than eight years, since, in fact, my first introduction to
biomedical science in Paul Levine's laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis. Until then, my
exposure to medical research, even in medical school, had been more bookish than practical and my
own view of how hypotheses are generated and tested was, I think, limited. Since that time, I have had
the great privilege of participating in a first-hand way in the investigation of living matter and how it
works. My primary interest in this activity has been a practical one: I have accepted the Baconian
premise that understanding how the body functions or operates under normal conditions is the key to
understanding what happens when it doesn't function or doesn't function well. I have, in effect, taken
a rather narrow and what might otherwise be called mechanistic approach to living matter. More
precisely, I have become interested in how cells, genes, and proteins work (this distinction between the
understanding the whole and the parts, and understanding how something works versus other kinds
of understanding, will be explored further in this lecture). Thus, this lecture will have something of a
narrow focus. Please don't expect insights of a profound nature, either about living matter or about
Aristotle. I am fully aware that there are individuals in this audience (probably sophomores, who have
read just enough Aristotle to be menacing) who may even be expecting me to finish this lecture by
telling you what "life", or living matter is. Please accept my humble apologies for not providing this and
offering, instead, some thoughts about the study of living things and Aristotle's contributions to that
study. During the course of this lecture I will share some of my insights into Aristotle's The Parts of
Animals, and I will also tell you a little bit about how to clone a gene. In the process of doing so, it is
my intention to awaken you to the incredible beauty and complexity of living things and enhance your
respect for Aristotle's understanding of them.
While engaged in this wonderful challenge of understanding the working of nature and its relation to
health and disease, I have been struck by the vocabulary of biological scientists, my friends and
colleagues. Although they themselves may not recognize it, it seems to me that the language of biology
is different from the language of other sciences, certainly different from the languages of geology,
physics, and chemistry, three disciplines I follow at a distance as an interested amateur (largely through
my perusal of the weekly journal, Science). What is more, that language, the language of modem
biological science, reminds me of an older scientific language, a language of a discipline that my friend
and mentor Leon Kass calls natural philosophy as a reminder of its pre·Baconian origins. This language
of biology, I submit, still uses important concepts which have been central to the study of biology since
they were articulated in The Parts of Animals. What I will try to point out to you this evening is how
those concepts articulated by Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago are still used in modem cell and
molecular biology, and I will try to convince you (as I continue to try to convince my colleagues) that
the use of these concepts is appropriate and, I think, necessary. I will this evening argue that not only
is the language of modern biology still essentially "Aristotelian," but that our approach to understanding
2
�living matter and how it works differs little from the paradigm presented in the opening paragraphs
of Parts of Animals. I will, furthermore, try to convince you that "good" and "bad" biological science
rests, to a large extent, upon the investigator's ability to see .the world of living things through
Aristotle's eyes.
a
should point out that I am not using the words "good" and "bad" here in a moral sense. What I mean
by "good science" is a shorthand for investigation that would be publishable in peer-reviewed medical
or scientific journals: experiments and conclusions that would be accepted by other knowledgeable
people in the investigator's field. Whether there is morally "good" and "bad" science, and whether
Aristotle's system of the investigation would recognize such, is a question I will not address here but
might be raised in the question period when I am finished these remarks).
I clearly cannot talk about all of The Parts of Animals this evening, so I have and will restrict my
observations to the opening chapter of the first book, in which Aristotle presents the terms and format
for the ensuing discussion. I think that this is really the richest part of the book, because, at risk of
stealing my own thunder, I believe that the genius of Aristotle is not his own particular observations
about animals and the functions of their parts. Many or most of his observations have not subsequently
been found either verifiable or generalizable. Rather, Aristotle's brilliance, at least in the field of
biology, rests in his having provided the framework for all future discussions about living matter.
I will share an anecdote that introduces some of the points that I will be making in the rest of this talk.
I was visiting a colleague at the University of Michigan Medical Center in nearby Ann Arbor last
winter, and, like a polite and interested scientist, I asked her how her work was going. She beamed and
proudly answered, "Great! I think I've found a function for my gene." This is a response that perhaps
only another cell or molecular biologist could understand or appreciate. Suffice it to say that, while the
modern revolution in molecular biology and medicine has given us tremendous power to clone and
sequence genes from every species of living matter, including human beings, those of us engaged in this
sort of endeavor are actually looking for something more than a genomic or complementary DNA library
and a gene sequence. What my colleague was telling me, I think, was that she had finished the 20th
century part of her work (discovering; cloning, and sequencing a gene), but that her work was seriously
deficient until she had done the Aristotelian part. She understood that a gene sequence in itself is a
rather paltry contribution to science and very unlikely to be published in a prestigious journal or by
itself provide the basis for a grant application to the National Institutes of Health without a context for
that gene sequence. That is, even after having intimate knowledge of the structure of a gene and the
related DNA sequences that control its transcription to RNA and protein, there is something more that
needs to be explored and considered before even one's fellow-scientists will consider the work either
compelling or complete. Let us look in more detail at the type of work that my friend had done and
try to define, in Aristotle's terms, what more needed to be done.
Anyone who has taken a high-school level biology course or is reasonably well-versed with the lay press
is aware that living things possess within their cells the information required to replicate either identical
copies of themselves or semi-allogenic copies which contain genetic material from another member of
the same or a nearly-related species (we call these copies "offspring", and, for the human species, they
are called "children"). However, although the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as the source
of genetic information and the unravelling of its marvelous code has assuredly contributed in an
enormous way to our understanding of genetics and reproductive physiology, an equal impact bas come
in our ability to explore in a detailed fashion the functioning of cells and how the expression of
particular genes is controlled in particular cell types. Thus, specific cells in specific tissues are capable
of being studied in intricate detail and this, in turn, has allowed us tremendous insight into how these
cells and tissues function. It is this level of study, sometimes subsumed under the heading, •eeu and
Molecular Biology," that provides the core for much of modem medical research.
3
�If you examine appropriately-stained human tissue under a light microscope, it is very clear that what
you are viewing consists of an ordered arrangement, and that different-appearing cell types contribute
to this pattern. In fact, the absence of pattern and the appearance or predominance of a single cell type,
the pattern observed in tissue sections of malignant tumors, appears obviously pathological. Similarly,
within these cells, a semblance of pattern emerges, different for each cell type, with some common
patterns for all cells. DNA is largely confined to the nucleus, while RNA and the structures for protein
biosynthesis can be found in the cytoplasm. These observations, which have been accepted for many
years, suggest that, although every cell of a given organism contains the same genetic material as every
other cell, in multicellular organisms (and especially complex organisms like vertebrates), every gene
is not expressed in every cell of every tissue. That is, the different cell types and specialized functions
of specific cells (for example, insulin secretion by what are know as islet cells of the pancreas)
demonstrate or indicate that the transcription of encoded DNA into a messenger RNA template and
subsequently into protein occurs differently in the cell types, and sometimes differently depending upon
the tissue in which a given cell type might be found. This has lead to the hypothesis that certain cells
and tissues express genes that are not expressed in other cells or tissues, and that our understanding
of the functioning of such cells or tissues in health and disease might be aided considerably by our
knowledge of the genes expressed exclusively in these tissues and the factors that control their
expression.
The discovery of gene sequences expressed only in specific tissues is undertaken by the construction by
what are called gene libraries. This was the process that my colleague in Ann Arbor was engaged in
when I visited her last winter, and because the process by which this is accomplished is relevant to the
discussion that follows, I will share some of that with you. I apologize in advance for the somewhat
technical nature of this exposition, realizing that I am about to provide you with something that is
almost certain to squelch fruitful discussion at St. John's: factual information. Please bear with me,
however, because I believe your understanding of the process through which data is generated in the
modem biological sciences will help you to understand what I have to say about understanding this data
from Aristotle's point of view. I should also say that I believe the process itself would have been
interesting to Aristotle, and that I believe that it's the sort of thing he himself would have delighted
in had he had the means to do it.
The construction of gene libraries from specific cell or tissue types begins again with the "First Law"
of modern biology: that DNA contains information that encodes specific protein sequences, and that the
protein is synthesized from a template molecule of RNA, whose synthesis serves as the intermediary
step. You will recall (again, please forgive my pedantry) that proteins are composed of smaller building
blocks called amino acids. Each amino acid is specified within the DNA molecule by a three base-pair
sequence called a codon. The DNA code is somewhat "degenerate", as the currently-used jargon has
it, in that some of the amino acids are specified by more than one codon. In the normal sequence, a
gene is activated by the binding of certain proteins to a region of DNA called the promotor, which
results in the transcription of an RNA molecule whose sequence is complementary to that of the DNA
template (remembering the Second Law of modem biological science: adenine pairs with thymine [or,
in an RNA molecule, with uracil] and guanine with cytosine ). The newly-synthesized RNA molecule
is processed further in the cell cytoplasm and used as a template for the biosynthesis of a new protein.
Because of the complementarity of DNA or RNA, gene libraries can be constructed from either, those
using DNA referred to as genomic libraries (containing all the genes of the specific species from which
they were obtained and therefore identical whether the starting tissue was brain or skin) and those
starting with RNA being designated "complementary DNA libraries," as they begin with a RNA which
is then synthesized in vitro to a complementary strand of DNA Complementary DNA libraries contain
only the gene sequences are expressed in the tissue or cells from which they were obtained
The next steps in cloning involve the digestion of the DNA into smaller fragments that can be analyzed
4
�in a practical way, and the insertion of the fragments into a host (usually a virus) that will allow its
insertion into a cell (at this stage, usually, a bacterium) that will propagate and produce multiple copies
of the gene fragments. This is. necessary in order to have an adequate amount of DNA to manipulate
and analyze. After millions of copies of each gene are produced, the gene fragments can be isolated from
the bacteria, which grow as colonies on agar plates. Selection of the specific colonies which contain the
genes or genes of interest can be accomplished by examining products secreted by the bacteria or by
techniques which rely upon the binding of related DNA sequences to the DNA within the bacterial
plasmids. The bacteria containing the genes of interest can then be selectively grown, the plasmids
containing the cloned DNA isolated from the rest of the bacterial DNA, and the sequence and structure
of the cloned genes ascertained (the techniques used to sequence DNA are in themselves rather
interesting but not within the purview of a talk like this one). Using complementary DNA libraries,
unique genes expressed in specific tissues in response to specific stimuli or at specific times in
development can be identified, isolated, and their sequence determined
I want you to note that up to this point all we have is a gene sequence, a structure, a very minute part
of an animal (or plant). Furthermore, although there is some marvelous technical wizardry involved in
obtaining this sequence, the process through which the sequence is obtained is more or less mechanical
and, with some exceptions, more or less the same no matter what cell type, tissue, or even species the
scientist is working with. This is the equivalent, more or less, of doing what Aristotle describes in
lines 15-18 of the first chapter: taking a lion, or ox, or human being and describing the parts in infinite
detail. No attempt is made (yet) of relating the minute DNA sequences to commonly-expressed cell,
tissue, or organism functions. The reason for this relates, in part, to the method through which genes
are isolated and cloned. It should be clear from how I have described the method of cloning and
sequencing that the manipulation of DNA required for this process involves the almost complete
separation of that particular gene or DNA sequence from the context in which it is normally found
However, it is just that context that is crucial to our understanding of the role of that gene within the
cell and, subsequently, its role in the function of that particular tissue or organism. The rest of the
process, the activity that makes cloning and sequencing truly interesting, involves the understanding
of how the protein encoded by that gene functions or what it does (which is why my colleague was so
excited about having a function for her gene). To put it another way, one seeks the telos for that gene.
Until that is found, the mere gene or protein, sequence is singularly uninteresting to either the natural
philosopher or the molecular biologist. To put it in language that my peers might understand, it would
be very difficult to publish a gene sequence by itself without a context for that sequence which suggests
a functional. role for that gene in a cell or tissue or in a particular biological process. My knowledge of
that function might be limited or vague, but publishable molecular work invariably contains and
requires a context without which the gene sequence is neither useful nor enlightening.
So what does all this have to do with Aristotle? Because this is early in the year, I think I should say
a few things about the reading of Aristotle to the freshman, who should be engrossed in and captivated
by Homer at this time and have probably had little no exposure to Aristotle's scientific books. In this
way I will also reveal some of the prejudices that I have brought to this book as I read and reread it
over the past 8 years. I was once told that a key to reading Aristotle is the understanding that many
of his books seem to be written as answers for which the reader must supply the question. I have found
this insight very useful. Furthermore when reading The Parts of Animal.s, I have found it helpful to
pause after every sentence or two and ask, "As opposed to what?" We are fortunate that Aristotle
sometimes gives us alternative explanations or possibilities, but I think that one appreciates the genius
of Aristotle only after considering the explanations or alternative ideas that he has rejected without his
having belabored the point in writing Oest the freshmen should be misguided, let me quickly point out
that Aristotle is not above belaboring points).
To begin this discussion, we have to confront, first and foremost, our archnemesis. I believe that
understanding The Parts of Animal.a requires some insight into the alternative point of view about
5
�living things, which Aristotle attributes to Empedocles. I feel unfortunate that most of what I know
about Empedocles comes from Aristotle, and I think that we at St. John's, especially, have to be
cautious in judging a philosopher's thought simply on the basis of what somewhat else says about him.
I certainly would not want to judge Aristotle's system of natural science on the basis of what is said
about him in modern science textbooks, for example. However, be that as it may, whether fairly or
unfairly, Empedocles is used as representative of a school of thought that suggests that the coming·
to-be of living things has occurred by chance, that their formation has occurred haphazardly, and that
the compelling force in this process is necessity, in Greek, anangke. For example, the process of the
formation of the backbone, Empedocles is said to argue, occurs by necessity, a consequence of the fetus
becoming twisted in the uterus.
This approach is one that, on the surface, seems attractive to modern scientists. It is certainly consistent
with classical physics and mechanics and the so-called scientific ideal exemplified in Newtonian physics.
When I was a junior here at St. John's, I remember reading a quote by French biologist Andre Lwoff
attempting to support a role for Empedoclean necessity in biological science:
"The machine is built for doing precisely what it does. We may admire it, but we should
not lose our heads. If the living system did not perform its task, it would not exist. We
simply have to learn how it performs its task. "1
This same mechanistic approach seems to have been what Claude Bernard had in mind when he stated
that:
"...a created organism is a machine that necessarily2 works by virtue of the physico-chemical
properties of its constituent elements. "3
At a certain level, this seems to remain a deeply-cherished belief or prejudice of modern scientists, who,
even after the demise of classical physics in the early 20th century seem to yearn for a world more like
Newton's than Einstein's. However, when I confront this belief, as I often do when I encounter other
colleagues, particularly those who work exclusively in the laboratory rather than at the bedside, I recall
the words of Marcel Proust:
"Error is more obstinate than faith and does not examine the grounds of its belief."
I do believe that in biology and experimental medicine, the Newtonian/Cartesian model is erroneous,
or at least incomplete. The ·problem with this approach, is, ironically, a practical one: it simply doesn't
work. It may very well be. true that the coming-to-be of living matter occurred as an accident in the
"primordial soup" billions of years ago, requiring neither the direction of a beneficent deity or even
directedness from the impersonal forces of nature. It may very well be that what transpired was
1
Quoted from The Cell Carl Swanson. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 3rd Ed., 1969, p.7.
2
My italics
3
Claude Bernard, An Introducti.on to the Study of Experimental Medicine, trans. Henry Copley
Green. New York: Dover Books, 1957, p. 93.
6
�inevitable based on the laws that govern large molecules that we now call "organic" and the chemistry
of carbon and nitrogen. That does not negate the fact that what has come to be is organized matter,
and that our understanding of that matter requires our understanding of that organization and the
relationship between structure and function. As Aristotle points out, the Empedoclean view falls short
because of its lack of logos. It does not provide a framework which makes the phenomena
understandable. Aristotle follows this by gleefully pointing out that Empedocles, too "... being led and
guided by Truth itself, stumbles upon this.. ."' and is required to recant and retract, admitting, for
example that bone is more than its elements per se, but that there is a logos (which, in this context,
I believe might be translated "understandable feature" or "... understandable features ... ") that requires
several layers of explanation for us to discern.
Thus, while the mechanistic language borrowed by modern biologists from classical physics might
sometimes be used in the biological sciences, that is not the common language and certainly not the
language used in published research. Let me add that this is not because, in their heart of hearts,
modern biologists don't wish to have a language reminiscent of classical physics. Indeed, one of the
prejudices common among biological researchers is that the laws of biological science (dealing, as they
do, with the macroscopic world) are or will be shown to be more like classical mechanics, with orderly
phenomena of cause and affect occurring in ti.me, than like the topsy-turvy world of quantum physics
and relativity. They have learned however, that the language of classical physics and mechanics has
limited practical usefulness in modern biological research.
I will here therefore submit that there are several critical concepts in Aristotle's biology that remain
in common use in modern biological science (although in a somewhat disguised form), that remain
crucial to how we understand living matter. I will spend the rest of my time examining two of these
concepts in more detail. They are telos and anangke. My list is intentionally limited to these two, but
before I proceed I should state that a complete understanding of Aristotle's biological works and their
relevance to modern biology should also include a deeper discussion of cause and all its layers of
meaning. Similarly, eidos is clearly a unifying concept in Aristotle's physics and metaphysics and any
discussion of his natural works that does not address this concept is incomplete. However, both of these
topics are by themselves suitable lecture material and I have decided to avoid them in this discussion.
I envy the sophomores, however, who will able to immerse themselves in Aristotle's Physics later this
year and will have, therefore, a rich and ample opportunity to think about these issues.
There is, among modern scientists, perhaps no more greatly-misunderstood concept that of telos as
Aristotle understood it. Indeed, "teleologic" thinking is often apologized for in "serious" research seminars
and can subject its user to a measure of skepticism (if not scorn) by other investigators. This is, of
course, due to a misunderstanding of the concept of telos. We are, in this instance, partly at the mercy
of St. Thomas Aquinas, who brilliantly engrafted Aristotelian thought (physical and metaphysical) into
Christian theology. Thus, the Christian view of a beneficent Deity ordering Nature to His own
(sometimes inscrutable 5 but unquestionably _beneficent) ends has clearly influenced, or tainted, the
reading of Aristotle ever since. No such world view informs the Parts of Animals or the concept of
telos as used in Aristotle's works in the natural sciences. As used in the Parts of Animals, telos is
intended to describe the predictable culmination of natural processes. A robin's egg predictably hatches
a robin. A seed predictably grows into a plant. Thus, the end of the egg is the mature robin; the end
of the seed is either growth or the mature plant. These ends exist without either striving on the part
of the organisms or intervention from the deity. They do, however, provide the foundation for our
4
Aristotle, Parts of Animals, trans. AL Peck. Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1983.
5
" ••• where
were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Job
7
�understanding of the egg or the seed, their logos, as Aristotle says. 6 Furthermore, while they c8n be
thought of separately, telos and necessity (anangke) are clearly co-existent and inter-related, just as
matter and form are. If an egg is to grow into a mature robin (its telos) it must, of necessity, have
certain characteristics which will protect it during gestation (e.g., a hard shell). None of this sort of
thinking, which is central to Aristotle's way of looking at living things, is completely foreign to cell
biology or experimental medicine. In the example of our gene sequence, the telos of the gene is twofold: the transmission of genetic information to progeny and the encoding of information required to
synthesize a protein, which, in turn, has its own its own telos. The second part of the molecular biology
in which my friend in Ann Arbor was engaged required that she put her gene back into context, both
literally and mentally, to discern the function of the protein encoded by the gene and factors regulating
its expression in different cells.
In my own career I was blessed to work with an outstanding molecular scientist (Dr. John Atkinson,
now chair of the Department of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis) who was singularly
unapologetic for his use of teleologic language and thinking. From Dr. Atkinson I learned how serious
scientific problems can be approached in a practical and illuminating way if the Aristotelian concept of
telos is applied creatively. Indeed, posing questions in cell biology that start with telos is often the best
way to start an inquiry into structure and mechanism, form and function. In this sense, telos remains
the prior or primary concept in much of cell biology, just as in Aristotle's biology. 7 Let me provide
some examples.
In both cell and molecular biology, the discovery of new genes and/or structures, or the finding that
a certain gene or protein is unexpectedly expressed in a certain cell or tissue, is one of the exciting and
rewarding events in the life of any investigator. However, insight into the significance of such a finding
is often provided only by an understanding of its telos. Scientists refer to this work and thoughtprocess as the elucidation of the function of the new gene or protein. This is nothing more or less than
an understanding of its telos and it is considered to be an essential part of the understanding of new
genes and proteins. They provide, I submit, the only means by which their biological significance can
be discerned, or, if I may speak in Aristotle's terms, the telos provides rational ground, or logos, for
the subsequent inquiry. That other scientists agree with my assessment of the importance of this
process is measured by my friend's excitement at finding a "...function for her gene." What my colleague
was asserting was the importance of the Aristotelian concept of telos in modern biology.
A question that Dr. Atkinson often used to ask at the beginning of his work was, ''Why would this cell
express this protein (or gene)?" Or, "Why would this cell express this protein (or gene) under these
conditions?". I learned by watching an experienced scientist begin his work this way that a tremendous
amount of experimental biology can be undertaken if such questions are asked and allowed to provide
the rationale for a series of well-designed experiments. Thus, the concept of telos provides not only a
theoretical framework which allows a scientist to understand the meaning of certain phenomena
produced in the laboratory, but it also provides a valuable starting point for further investigations. In
this very real sense, telos is the practical and logical starting point for the investigation, as Aristotle has
pointed out. 8
Necessity (anangke), is another concept that is used in modern biological research with some of the
same breadth of meaning as in Aristotle's biological works. Christianized Aristotelianism has attempted
6
Parts of Animals I, i, 639b 15-17.
7
Parts of Animals I, ~ 639b, 15.
8
Parts of Animals II (1) 646a25 - 646b5
8
�to elevate telos above necessity, maintaining that God's will and the mechanisms by which His world
operates are separable in fact and in thought. This allows, among other things, provision for Jaws of
nature to be suspended for the benefit of the Church, as Edward Gibbon stated. While this is a
convenient world view for the structuring of a politically-powerful church on earth, it had devastating
effects on the understanding of living creatures, and allowed the evolution of the concept of vitalism that
so seriously stymied biological thinking in Europe into the nineteenth century should also point out
that it made theology tough, too. The distinction between God's foreknowledge versus foreordination,
Grace versus Free Will, etc. are innate, I believe, in this dualistic approach to Nature and Nature's
God). This distinct separation of telos from anangke is clearly excluded from Aristotle's natural works,
and The Parts of Animal.sin particular. Rather, anangke and telos go hand in hand, and provide a basis
for the understanding of one-another. Thus, while telos is primary for Aristotle, in that it provides the
framework through which biological processes are understood (again, the logos), it is also clear that
both the coming-to-be and the maintenance of living things obeys the laws of anangke in the physical
and logical way that Aristotle understood this term.
a
I have mentioned before the wistful engagement of classical (Newtonian) physics and modem biology,
an engagement that is ever-prolonged while the wedding is continually postponed. I believe that there
is still a yearning among many biologists to believe that, because living things adhere to the Jaws of
chemistry and physics (or, more correctly, that novel laws of chemistry and physics are not required
to understand either the coming-to-be or the functioning of living matter), that all of the biological
sciences will be eventually be focused on understanding laws of absolute necessity which are the direct
descendants and consequences of the original Big Bang. However, in many cases, this concept of
absolute necessity (because "A" happened, "B" absolutely must happen) is only one of the ways in which
the concept of necessity is used in biological science and medicine. Furthermore, such logical thinking
is seldom the starting point in the practical world of modern medical research. Rather, modem
biologists, working with concepts of structure and function (telos, if you will), are more often fruitful
when they operate in the world of what may called "...conditional necessity." That is, the argument
that if "A" is to be formed, then other things must also occur. For example, if health is to be produced,
then certain actions are necessi~ted by the physician or the healer. This may still seem somewhat
abstract, so let me use an example from my own experiences at Washington University.
The complement system is a series of proteins that provide one of the important defenses of higher
organisms against invading micro-organisms. However, unlike other parts of the immune system,
complement proteins do not, in themselves, discriminate "self' from "non-self." Once activated, there
is nothing in the biochemistry of these proteins that precludes their amplifying on and destroying host
cell or tissues instead of the invading viruses or bacteria. This discovery that the complement system
is non-specific was made simultaneously in St. Louis and San Diego and much of this early work was
done by my mentor, Paul Levine. These discoveries led to the hypothesis that if the biochemistry of
the complement proteins is such that they can activate even on host cells, then by necessity there must
be some mechanism through which host cells can deactivate them. This is a very Aristotelian approach,
and it was the beginning of a series of investigations, carried out in St. Louis, Baltimore, and Cleveland,
that elucidated a new family of cell-surface proteins with a common genetic structure. These proteins
were shown on mammalian cells but not on bacteria or viruses (at least not under normal
circumstances) and were shown to deactivate complement on host cells exactly as would be predicted.
An understanding of these proteins and how they function has provided new insight into rheumatic
diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus, as well as some understanding of how cells
of the immune system are destroyed during the course of HIV infection (the latter is work from my
oWn laboratory). Thus, the concept of necessity, as used in its broader, "Aristotelian" sense, provided
the foundation not just for a theoretical approach to mammalian cells but for practical advances in the
science of immunology.
This is not to say that so-called "absolute" necessity is not used in modern biology. We know, for
9
�example, that if the pH or hydrogen ion concentration of the intracellular fluid drops below a certain
"physiologic" range, that certain predictable consequences will occur to in the efficiency with which
intracellular enzymes will function. We know that, eventually, prolonged lowering of intracellular pH
will eventually have profound disturbance of cellular energy metabolism and eventually lead to cell
death. However, in these cases, the concept of absolute necessity is still informed by the concept that
the enzymes in question do, in fact, have functions that relate to their roles in cellular processes. The
dysfunction of the enzymes is made more intelligible by the understanding that they are involved in
a process that we call intracellular metabolism. In the absence of this understanding, we have hydrogen
ions and a denatured polypeptide that can no longer catalyze the transfer of electrons. Even the most
ardent Newtonian would concede that such an understanding is incomplete.
These two concepts, telos and anangke, are ubiquitous in modern biology and appear to be tmavoidable.
They provide the core of work appearing in peer-reviewed journals as well as an important aspect of
any grant application to agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. They remain in use, as I
have said, not because, in the deepest hearts, modern experimental biologists are enamored of Aristotle,
but because they are unavoidable. Furthermore, they have been shown to be practically useful,
especially when linked to the modern techniques of cell and molecular biology. The admission that these
concepts are essential to the biological sciences is different from saying that unusual laws of chemistry
and physics are required to understand living things. What I am saying, and what Aristotle has said,
is that these concepts provide the framework through which the laws of chemistry and physics can be
understood in living matter.
I hope I have provided you, in this very brief way, with some insight into how certain ideas articulated
in Aristotle's Parts of Animals remain in use in modern experimental medicine. Furthermore, I hope
that I have convinced you that these ideas are not just part of a theoretical framework, but that they
provide a very practical starting point for the process of modern biological research. Let me also say
that I believe that if Aristotle were alive today, he would find very little in modern laboratory research
that is in direct conflict with his approach to living things as articulated in the Parts of Animals.
Let me close by saying a word about what modern experimental medicine has not borrowed from
Aristotle and something about how this may limit, or at least define, our understanding of living
things. Of all the concepts in modern biology, evolution is the one most clearly foreign to Aristotle's
biology. To Aristotle, the species were permanent, more or less immutable, and eternal. To the modern
biologist, species are what's left. over aft.er a process called natural selection. In its most extreme case,
evolution is so totally lacking in either direction or permanence that, ultimately, the theory of natural
selection is just as appropriately described as "... survival of the survivors... " rather than "... survival of
the fittest." Eidos (species) and telos are conspicuously absent from modern evolutionary theory. It is
thus hard to fmd common ground between evolutionary biologists and Aristotle. The two world views
are clearly not compatible.
However, in modern experimental medicine, the concept of evolution is, ironically, partly-informed by
the concept of telos. For example, the existence of certain structures or proteins in lower animals (for
example, fish) and humans is oft.en used an argument for their physiological importance. That is,
structures or proteins highly-conserved through evolution are considered significant. For example, the
fact that fish have complement proteins is used as an argument for the importance of this primordial
wing of the immune system. To put it another way, the telos of a structure is considered vital to the
extent that it is conserved in evolution. Thus, even with modem evolutionary theory as an overlay,
experimental medicine still derives tremendous power from essentially-Aristotelian ideas.
Another aspect of Aristotle's biology that is lacking in modem experimental medicine is its scope. By
this I mean that Aristotle's physics and metaphysics are essentially inseparable, and that they are part
of a system of thought that addresses human beings and their relationship to the world around them.
10
�While the world of clinical medicine may t.ake a person into many parts of the world of man and
display some of the best and worst of human life, the world of experimental medicine is, in the end,
neatly circwnscribed. People engaged in medical research are, in the end, focused on understanding how
things work. The final goal of this is, of course, to fmd out what's happening when something doesn't
work (that is, when someone is ill) so that remedies can be found. The answers given to the questions
raised by modern biologists will, therefore, reflect the form in which the question was asked. That is,
our answers will always only tell us how something works, not what it is or what our relationship to
it should be. We are, in essence, like the Lilliputians, who could dismantle Gulliver's watch and could
understood its mechanism perfectly, but were unaware of its purpose (believing, as they did, that it was
the god that he worshipped).
I will close as I began, with an anecdote, or actually, two anecdotes. Let me t.ake you, on a cool sunny
November afternoon, into the delivery room of an upstate New York hospital, where I, a third-year
medical student, am spending my first afternoon in labor and delivery. I want you to see a wet, blue
infant who t.akes her first gasp, utters her first cry, and begins to wiggle and squirm, her cries
becoming more vigorous with each passing second I want to see the beaming father and mother as they
hold their first-born daughter, call her by her name, and put their cheeks against her soft pink skin.
I also want to t.ake you into the pediatric intensive care unit on a frosty November evening. I will t.ake
you to the bed of an eight-year-old boy dying of infectious complications of AIDS. I will tell you that
this boy was the only child, the adopted son of an otherwise childless couple, and that I had come to
respect this couple's sorrow and struggle as one of the most profoundly sad and noble chapters I had
witnessed in my career. When the time came to accept that we had nothing left to offer but the
prolongation of suffering, when decisions were made to remove noxious tubes and hardware, when I
watched this child gasp his last breaths in the arms of his tearful parents, I understood the profound
ignorance of doctors, biologists, philosophers, and clergy. My experiences at the bedside, and with
birth and death in particular, have taught me that there is a great deal about life that I cannot explain.
I fully understand that the method of inquiry that I have inherited by Bernard, Bacon, and Descartes
was not designed to probe into the more compelling questions that raised by my experiences as a
physician. Thus, while my own career remains focussed in the understanding of the human body and
how it works, I remain profoundly humbled at how inadequate even a complete understanding at that
level would be. For all of our knowledge and our attempts at knowledge, we...
"...are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
11
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Cells and Genes are Parts of Animals: Aristotle in the Late 20th Century
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 16, 1994, by James N. Jarvis as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Jarvis, James N.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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1994-09-16
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Aristotle. De partibus animalium
Cytology
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lec Jarvis 1994
Alumni
Friday night lecture
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Argument Not Less But More Heroic: Milton's Advent'rous Song in <em>Paradise Lost</em>
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on February 11, 2005, by Thomas May as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Milton, John, 1608-1674. Paradise lost
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LEC_May_Thomas_2005-02-11_ac
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Text
Thursday
January 18
2024
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
Vol. II Issue 2
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
Editorial
All college seminar held on
do the right thing
Against the New Housing
Price System
Seminar Scheduled to Commemorate Martin Luther King
Day, Saw High Tutor Attendance
Often, it seems as if a new policy decision by the
College administration is well intentioned but was not
properly thought through, particularly in the impact it
might have on the student body. The new housing
price tier system, recently unveiled by the College, is a
perfect example of this. It has the potential to cause
much harm to our campus community, while also does
not seem to have any actual benefit besides increasing
College housing revenue.
There is a principle of common experience at the
College that I worry the new pricing system endangers.
With the requirement to live on campus for our first
two years here, a community is created of people who
not only read the same books, but who live in the same
buildings, and eat the same food. A special kind of
unity is created, one that really brings together our
small, close-knit community, and which is so solid that
it is kept together even after people begin to move off
campus Junior year. As of now, the differing quality of
dorms does not hinder this campus cohesion: if
someone complains about rats in a dorm, there is
sympathy, as anyone could have ended up there.
Likewise, jealousy over good dorm conditions in the
suburbs only goes so far; it is simply taken as a privilege
of having spent more years on campus, and as a sign of
luck in the housing lottery.
However, with the change from flat rates for housing
to ones based on income, I worry that this cohesion
could be damaged. If someone’s housing condition is
determined by how much they are able to pay for a
dorm, there is not a sense that everyone is on the same
boat: on the contrary, there is a sense some paid for a
much nicer educational experience than others. The
argument that the difference in prices is too small to
cause this kind of socio-economic stratification is
ridiculous: if someone already has difficulty affording
college, which many Johnnies do, every dollar counts,
including the $400 between a Chase double and a
Gilliam split double, without even mentioning the
$2,550 that will divide some residents of Paca.
Students already sometimes go to ridiculous lengths to
save a few dollars on expenses, it is perfectly reasonable
to presume they would do the same if they needed to
on housing, and the divide between those that do need
to save, and those that don’t, would grow much more
visible.
There are also many issues that are (Cont. on Page 2)
This semester’s first All-College seminar was unusual
in two ways. First, it was not hosted by the SCI, who
has traditionally hosted such events, with organization
instead being lead by Assistant Dean Robert Abbott.
Secondly, the seminar was on a film, a medium which
has not been discussed before at an All-College
seminar. The movie, Spike Lee’s 1989 Do the Right
Thing, shown at 4 pm on January 12th, the day of the
seminar, with the actual conversation occurring at
7:30, in the place of a lecture.
The screening, which was attended by several dozen
students, as well as a handful of tutors, was slightly
delayed by audio problems in the FSK, but after
moving to the Hodson Room, the remainder Lee’s
beautiful, chaotic, poignant and thought-provoking
work was shown. The seminar itself was slightly better
attended, although many students who came to watch
the movie did not come to the seminar. Instead, a large
number of tutors turned out for the discussion. There
were enough people to split the participants into three
groups, led by Abbott, tutor George Russel and tutor
emeritus Jonathan Tuck.
Russel began by asking an opening question that
informed the conversation for all the groups, focused
around the statement made by da Mayor which gives
the movie its name: What does it mean to do the right
thing? Groups then split off, with each seminar leader
asking another opening question. The seminar ran for
an hour and a half, with participants congregating over
coffee, tea and snacks afterwards to continue
discussing the film.
Abbott explained that this seminar was intended to
commemorate, and spark discussion about Martin
Luther King Jr. Day, which took place the following
Monday. “In the past few years, the dean has ended up
asking the SCI to have their second semester all-college
seminar on texts that had something to do with slavery
or the civil rights movement. This seemed like an
uncomfortable arrangement since the SCI should be
able to have two all-college seminars every year on
whatever they decide. Also, last year, the president
formed a committee of staff, faculty, and students to
plan an event around MLK day. I volunteered for this
committee and my contribution was to hold a Tuesday
night seminar on a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, 'The
Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock, Fall
1957,' but only a few students attended. The then-
dean and I talked this over and decided to have a
separate all-college seminar on a Friday to give the event
more prominence.”
The College does not commemorate Martin Luther
King Jr. Day, a holiday created to honor civil rights
leader Martin Luther King Jr. shortly after his
assassination, as part of a general policy not to respect
religious or civil holidays. ““We don’t recognize any of
the holidays, it just so happens that long weekend often
coincides with a holiday. I just really value that. I feel
like at the college should honor any individual’s
practices, and as an institution, we should be pretty
careful to remain open and neutral… I think about this
in terms of Herodotus. Particular cultures are
important, because they’re a way to understand what’s
universal… I want people to be able to be themselves in
the classroom and out at the college, but we also need
to say, this place would come apart at the seams if we’re
improperly recognizing some individuals and not
others,” explained Abbott. “At the same time, we have
found ways to use the occasion to do something that is
good, that is harmonious or consonant with what we’re
doing at the college anyway.”
The choice of seminar subject was proposed by Xena
Hitz, a tutor. “Ms. Hitz suggested discussing the film,
Do the Right Thing,” said Abbott. “I thought this was
an excellent suggestion for many reasons. The film
speaks to everyone; it asks the viewer difficult, pressing
questions about race, community, history, and
violence, without giving easy answers; it puts Martin
Luther King Jr. in conversation with Malcolm X.
There are a number of reasons I thought it would be
good for a seminar. And for all those same reasons, I
saw this all-college seminar as continuous with
conversations that develop out of reading works on the
program e.g. by Tocqueville, Twain, Melville, Conrad,
Lincoln, Douglas, Washington, and Du Bois, among
others…Human freedom is at stake; I can think of few
things as serious.”
Holding a conversation on a film posed a new
challenge, but one that was successfully met by most
participants in the seminars. In the seminar that I
participated in, the conversation hovered in generalities
at first, before plunging straight into a thorough and
interesting analysis of cinematographic choices, of the
role of characters, and of the (Cont. on page 2)
This Week in Seminar
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
1/18: Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, VII; VIII, 1–6, 45–end
1/22: Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, IV, 75–end; V, 1–26, 84–116; VI
Sophomores:
1/18: Dante: Divine Comedy, Purgatorio XIX–XXXIII
1/22: Dante: Divine Comedy, Paradiso I–XVII
Juniors:
1/18: Hume: Treatise of Human Nature (see official list for selections)
1/22: Hume: Treatise of Human Nature (see official list for selections)
Seniors:
Essay writing Period
Friday 1/19
5 p.m., Mitchell Museum: Sampling a
Sampler Sampling Exhibit opening
Saturday 1/20
11 a.m., Studio Theater: Careers in Law
Alumni Panel
9 p.m., Boathouse: Pajama Waltz
9 p.m., McDowell Great Hall: Pangaea
Lunar New Years Party
Wednesday 1/24
2:30 p.m., Hodson room: Hodson
Internship info session
- 4 p.m., Conversation Room: Eams Power of
Ten film discussion.
Friday Night Lecture:
Concert by New York Polyphony, 8 p.m. in the FSK
Page 1
�Thursday January 18, 2024
St. John’s Collegian
Vol. II. Issue 2
First measurable snow in two years covers
campus: Two Hour Delay Implemented
By the time this writer exited Mellon for the first time
On Monday, January 15th at 11:30, he saw the snow
which had started in the morning had picked up once
more, and a thin layer was beginning to accumulate
on the grass, although not yet in paved areas. By the
time he returned to campus around 2:15, the snow
had not stopped, and it began sticking even to warmer
brick and asphalt. Speculation began, buzzing around
campus from eager freshmen to weary Juniors: will
they cancel seminar? Do they ever even do that?
When classes ended for the day, the snow was finally
great deal of frolicking going on, and a few snowballs
being tossed around. After receiving a tip-off that a
big scoop might be found on back campus, your
writer continued down towards the creek to find
Johnnies whizzing down the hill on sleds, trash can
lids, cardboard, garbage bags, and their own backs.
The enthusiasm of a child before a snow-day in 3rd
grade was in the air, and everyone was feeling it.
Walking along, this writer crossed paths with a very
enthusiastic Johnnie who perfectly summed this up:
“It’s snowing, it’s snowing!” he repeatedly declared,
while giving energetic hugs to all who went by.
By the 7:30 seminar time, there was no news about
any delays or cancellations, although the snow
continued to fall as the campus made its way towards
Mellon and McDowell. During seminar, however, an
Housing (Cont. from Page 1)
less obvious, but likely to cause problems likely not
foreseen by the College administration. For
example, this new pricing system would make
housing selection far more fraught. If there is
higher demand for the cheaper dorms, as I suspect
there will be, there may be less affordable housing
available for people lower on the list, who may be
penalized and have to pay more, perhaps even
more than they can afford. What happens if
someone can only afford a Group B double, but
when they get their chance to pick there are only
Group A doubles and split doubles left?
Likewise, this causes a problem for dorms set aside
for specific purposes. In the past, Spector has been
designated as a quiet dorm, and one floor has been
set aside as an alcohol-free floor. Would people
who prefer quiet, or to be further away from
alcohol, have to pay extra for that? It is wonderful
that the college tries to accommodate these needs,
but it would be a shameful undermining of what
they seem to be trying to accomplish to have access
to them determined by price.
The reasoning given for this change in housing
pricing is that people “have been asking for it.” I
would like to ask who these people are. I have not
met a single student who speaks in favor of this
system for reallocating housing. The argument
that many other institutions price dorms this way
is also a bad one, since many small liberal arts
colleges do not, and that something being done by
other institutions has never been a reason in itself
for St. John’s to do something.
I suspect the true motivation for this change is not
to respond to some swell of student requests for
this system, but a desire to raise housing prices
without upsetting people as much. At some level,
I understand this; prices need to be adjusted for
inflation, even though they are already very high.
However, if this way of raising prices is likely to
cause harm to our Polity, I think the decision to
implement this system should be reconsidered.
email was sent out by Aly Gontang, Vice-President of
Finance and Operations: “The Annapolis Campus
will be opening at 10:30 am on Tuesday, January 16,
2024, to allow facilities staff time to clear parking lots
and walkways – and to allow time for staff, students,
and faculty to travel safely to campus.”
Gontang explained that this decision was made
according to set College policies. “When we are
experiencing or expecting inclement weather, we
usually coordinate early in the morning to determine
road conditions, how long it may take to clear parking
lots and walkways, and if there are any other
operational challenges to opening on time. We try to
coordinate between 4:30am-5am to have facilities or
public safety staff check on campus conditions – so
we can post a notification no later than 6am by
campus alert, email, and website update. In the case
of [Monday’s] weather, with the extremely poor
conditions we monitored into the evening last night
(some of us were driving home late after work after
8pm) – and with the forecast of alternating freezing
rain and snow combined with low temperatures
during the ‘rush hour’ when most are driving into
campus – we posted the notice last night following
many of the county schools and agencies.
When we expect inclement conditions – just to also
call out the wonderful dedication and care of the Bon
Seminar (Cont. from Page 1)
between the events on the screen and pressing
concerns about communities relevant in our own
lives.
Abbott said that in his seminar, he also found success
in the challenge of discussing a movie. “I really love
film. Scott Buchanan, one of the founders of the
program, thought film was going to have a place in the
cannon. One of my worries about this seminar is that
we would treat the film simply as a text, and only
discuss ideas. I feel like my seminar didn’t fall into
that, which was nice… it was much more about the
way ideas were represented through the film and the
character who speak about them. It was much closer
to a discussion of the film as a film.”
Coming away from these seminars, and into the
discussions over coffee and tea, many participants
expressed a wide range of thoughts sparked by the
movie. By providing a space to reflect on race,
discrimination, representation, identity, violence and
resistance, and community, the seminar provided a
place to touch on many matters that often don’t come
up in day-to-day classes. The conversations begun
that night, however, are still very much alive as this
paper is going to print, at least amongst those who
attended that seminar.
Appetit staff - the dining service staff will oftentimes
nearby accommodations or even stay overnight find
in available residence rooms, that are separated from
students, to ensure food service remains on time.”
This delay, however, did not mean that classes were
canceled. While operations delays are determined by
the Gontang, academic delays are decided by the
Assistant Dean, who instead sent out an email saying
that class cancellations would be determined by
individual tutors, who could best determine whether
they could safely reach campus.
The possibility of classes, however, did not stop
students from celebrating the snow with Johnnie
passion. A massive, all-campus snowball fight
developed on the quad after seminar, with this
reporter being targeted for repeated pelting by a
frequent Gadfly and Collegian contributor who
often goes by his somewhat vulgar initials. After this
spirited combat, this writer set off on a walk with
someone rather special into an Annapolis
transformed into a silent, white mirror of itself. While
the following morning, classes resumed as usual,
(albeit with some confusion as to whether they would
begin at 10:30), the spell cast by the snow on this
campus will be fondly remembered for years to come.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring quick
and timely coverage of important events going on, to
help develop a more informed student body. If you’re
searching for more in-depth investigations and
reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check out
the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between 400600 words, while opinion should be kept short at 350
words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu with
your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
An interview for this article was conducted by Meliha
Anthony for the Communications office. We would
like to thank Communications for helping us with our
reporting, and Anthony for supporting journalism on
the Annapolis campus.
Aphorism of the Week:
"Does it make sense?" Says an American. "Does it
become a word?" Says a Korean.
I am clearly the one who is making sense, but who is
the one making the word?
Page 2
You may have noticed this edition only has one
contributor. This, to put it mildly, is a problem. Not
only is it better for the College to have a diversity of
view represented instead of just my ramblings, but it
is also not sustainable for me: I cannot write a full
edition of the Collegian every week. If you want to see
this paper continue to exist, and to continue to bring
up to date news reporting to the Polity, please send in
some submissions! You can write about anything:
enrollment trends, tutor retention, crazy moments in
your seminar, intramural games. Just write. The
Polity needs everyone to pitch in if we are to remain
engaged and well informed.
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.
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St. John's College
Publisher
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, Md.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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English
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SJCCollegian
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pdf
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2 pages
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Title
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St. John's Collegian, January 18, 2024
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 2, issue 2 of the St. John's Collegian, published January 18, 2024.
Creator
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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Annapolis, MD
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2024-01-18
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St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
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text
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pdf
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
Language
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English
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SJCCollegian_vol2_issue2_2024-01-18
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
-
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fab76a4b9ebd3709b61359ce4e81d9e5
PDF Text
Text
Thursday
January 11 2024
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
Vol. II Issue 1
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
From the
polity
College releases plans for new
housing price structure
For the Improvement of
Collegium
Tiered Housing Price System to go into Effect Fall 2024,
Campus Dorms to See Price Increase
Collegium is one of the most wonderful institutions
we have on this campus. It is an excellent way to end
the semester, getting to hear the beautiful result of the
hard work campus musical groups have done, and
seeing the wide variety of campus talent, while also
gathering one last time as a whole Polity. However,
this beautiful moment of community togetherness is
often marred by simply having it run too long. Four
hours is too much for any performance, even if all the
performers are very skilled. With this length, people
get antsy, you have large numbers leave the hall before
it is finished, and few people stay for the other great
campus traditions like caroling.
The good news is that this can be easily remedied. The
students running Collegium are good at what they
do, and with a few changes, could help remedy the
problem of excessive length. While I recognize that
actively screening performances for quality is off the
table, I would like to propose five easy improvements
in the form of rules for performers, which would
reduce the number of acts, and thus overall length:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
No group should be allowed to perform
more than one piece.
No person may be in more than one solo,
duet or trio: we should try to give as many
people the chance to perform as possible.
Solos should be discouraged. While many of
our solo performers are incredibly skilled,
Collegium should be a space where campus
groups share with the polity, it is not a
private recital. A possible exception to this
should be poetry and writing.
No group should perform with backing
tracks: while some of these performances are
quite good, the focus of Collegium should
be on our campus’ artists.
The program should be adhered to, and
organizers should avoid having new groups
added in who were not originally registered.
Hopefully, by adopting some of these
recommendations, or other rules, the organizers of
Collegium will be able to make the event more
enjoyable for us all. If you disagree with me on these
recommendations, or have ideas of your own, please
write a letter in response, we need more opinion
articles!
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Shortly before winter break, an all-campus email was
sent out notifying the Polity of a major change to the
pricing system for dormitories on Campus. The
change was first announced at an earlier Committee
on Student Life Forum, but the full details were only
sent out on December 7th. This email announced
implementation of a system widely used in other
institutions of higher education at St. John’s, with
pricing for each dorm adjusted for the quality of each
type of room and the building that they are in.
“Since I’ve been here for four years, every year, I have
received a couple questions, as have my colleagues Ms.
Lico and Ms. Waters, from students themselves, as
well as parents, about why every room is the same
price when clearly some rooms are much newer than
others,” explained Jen Cline, Coordinator of Student
Services. In response to these concerns, the College
administration looked into the issue, and decided to
implement a new pricing policy, aimed at making sure
students pay for the quality they receive. “The
difference between some of the dorm rooms and their
prices just helps some of the prices be more equitable
across campus,” continued Cline.
Many students on campus, however, have raised
concerns that changing the pricing structure will
actually lead to more inequity on campus, with an
unhealthy social dynamic developing between
students who can afford more expensive, nicer dorms,
and those who cannot. Up to this point, the divide in
dorm
quality
has
mostly
been
an
underclassman/upperclassman divide, and a change
from that to a potentially more economically based
divide concerns some. When asked about this, Cline
responded that the price differences are not
significant enough to cause problems with social
dynamics. “I don’t think it will make much of a
difference than how singles are more expensive than
doubles. I’ve rarely ever seen a student choose a
double just to save a couple extra hundred dollars.”
The new system divides the dorms into eight tiers:
four tiers of singles, three tiers of doubles, and quads.
The most expensive dorm rooms will be a special
category of singles, which will be in what are now the
lofted doubles in Paca-Carroll. These four dorm
rooms will be rearranged to allow for a divided living
and sleeping space, and will cost $10,000 per year, or
$5,000 a semester, although Cline noted that the way
This Week in Seminar
Freshman:
- 1/11: Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, II, 55–78; III, 1–87; IV, 1–74
- 1/15: Thucydides: Peloponnesian War, IV, 75–end; V, 1–26, 84–116; VI
Sophomores:
- 1/11: Dante: Divine Comedy, Inferno XVIII–XXXIV
- 1/15: Dante: Divine Comedy, Purgatorio I–XVIII
Juniors:
- 1/11: George Eliot: Middlemarch
- 1/15: George Eliot: Middlemarch
Seniors:
- Essay writing Period
Friday Night Lecture:
All College Seminar on Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Great Hall, 7:30 pm
Page 1
the rooms are laid out means that they can be reverted
to doubles should any trouble arise, or if there should
be demand for them as doubles from students.
The next tier of singles, in Gilliam, Spector, Campbell,
Fielding and Pinkney 1, will cost $8,550 per year,
while tier C, in Chase, Pinkney 2-4, and Paca will cost
$8,300. Split doubles in Gilliam and Spector Halls will
cost $7,850, while doubles in Gilliam, Spector,
Campbell, Fielding and Pinkney 1 will cost $7,600.
Doubles in Chase, Pinkney 2-4, and Paca will be
$7,450. Quads, which include the Paca loft and new
rooms in Campbell, will cost $7,670. The current
price of a single on campus is $8,054, and the current
price of a double is $7,340, meaning all housing prices
will be increased by between $246 and $510.
For upperclassmen, the process of selecting rooms will
be the same as in previous years, with selection taking
place first for Seniors, then Juniors and finally
Sophomores, with the order of selection chosen
through a lottery. Cline explained that the system for
freshmen room assignments will also not be changed
drastically. “The prices will be made clear, and if they
have a preference, they can do what is already an
option, which is to request a specific dorm in the
housing questionnaire, which every student fills out to
be paired as roommates… That could be how they
would request a hall if they wanted one that is less
expensive than another.” Freshmen will continue to
be in Humphreys, Fielding and Paca Halls, while the
newly renovated Campbell Hall will primarily be for
upperclassmen.
The renovations in Campbell are on track for
completion by the beginning of the Summer, with
drywall already being installed before winter break.
“The rooms will definitely be done by the end of the
semester,” said Cline. “The rooms are the first
priority.” The basement area, featuring the
Coffeeshop and bookstore, is also important for the
project, but the completion of the rooms will be
prioritized. With the addition of the rooms in
Campbell, and the return of some rooms that are
currently triples to their previous status as doubles,
there will be a total of 390 beds available on campus, a
much higher number than previously, which should
allow for more upperclassmen to stay on campus if
they choose.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Upcoming Events:
Tuesday 1/16
- 3:45 pm, Hodson Room: Career
Services Wayfinding Workshop
It’s a quiet second week back on campus!
Look out for next issue for more information
on upcoming events in Annapolis as the
semester continues to pick up steam.
�Thursday January 11, 2024
St. John’s collegian
Vol. II. Issue 1
Cowards, Every Last One of You, All
Cowards: Or: A Better Gadfly
Dearest cowards,
On the street, in the hallways, at parties, people say
to me: “Hey I liked your articles in the Gadfly. Have
you ever thought about writing on [topic which
clearly interests them and not me]?” Any time
anything even remotely funny happens in one of my
classes, I’ll get a knowing look from someone across
the table inevitably followed by: “You should write
about that in the Gadfly.” Woe is me! Constantly
getting good ideas for articles! (My own fault really: I
write three god damn articles for every single issue. It
gets to the point where even tutors tease me for
using our college newspaper as my own personal
playground.) And you know for a fact that I am a
megalomaniacal narcissist who loves the attention
being solely on me, but my f*cking editors won’t let
me write even more articles per issue.
So let me ask something of you, sweet cowards: write
for the Gadfly. Don’t do it for the sake of school
spirit or civic duty or art. Do it for all the wrong
reasons: do it for your own ego (I know half the
bitches at this school want to be writers); do it
because you’re tired of reading Bennett Scott, Luke
The yellow
coffee shop
I have been sitting in the coffee shop for a few
hours now. I am not sure how many, but I am
alone. It is a rare treat to get the whole place to
myself, but I am starting to get a little nervous.
Though I really have no reason to be. It is nice to
be in the coffee shop alone. With it being so dark
and wet outside, and I am fairly sure I caught a
cold on the way home from break, it is nice to be
somewhere quiet and warm. The lighting is very
warm here. A comforting amber, not really
fluorescent at all. I think it has something to do
with the new paint job. All the previously white
and sterile walls are now a soft yellow color. It is
soothing. I like looking at it. Yet, the more I look
at it, the more nervous I feel. The light casts these
odd shadows on the wall now. Especially around
the fireplace. If I let my eyes focus on one place
for too long it almost seems like the bricks are
moving. Swirling around into hypnotic whorls.
The white of the baseboards seems like it is
bleeding up into the walls, and the chalk dust on
the floor is flowing about as if blown by an unfelt
wind. I have been sitting in the coffee shop for
many hours now. The walls feel like they are
pressing in, and out. Undulating like the stomach
of some great beast. The light is still playing tricks
on my eyes. The shadows are moving across the
lemony walls, they almost look like human
figures. I think that they might be. I'm almost
sure of it actually. There is someone in the yellow
walls of the coffee shop. They are trying to get
out, to escape the canary-colored bars of their
prison. I approach the wall. Scrabbling at the
paint with my fingers, I need to release them. The
light keeps shifting and I keep scratching. I break
through the paint, a layer of drywall, I push past
the studs of McDowell. I emerge out of the
darkness into the light on the other side of the
yellow yellow walls. I am sitting in the coffee
shop.
Briner, Bennett Scott, Luker Briner; do it because if
you don’t this entire publication will succumb to the
inevitable sludge of boring mediocrity that
inevitably consumes all such uncontested empires.
6.
7.
8.
Look, I know you’re worried about how long it’ll
take (a good article takes thirty minutes drunk and
one hour sober, no more) and about not having
anything decent to write on, so I’ll make it easy;
here’s a baker’s dozen of article ideas that people
have pitched around me that someone needs to
write:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
An advice column (multiple people have
said they will. No one has.)
An admonishment of the seniors for not
getting in relationships.
A series of out-of-pocket quotes from
tutors (a game where you have to match
quote to tutor?)
Actual investigative journalism into the
power structures of the college.
A Joseph Smith-esc series of found tablets
telling the real story of the New Program’s
founding.
A little New
year’s sonnet
Like snowflakes falling light upon the ground,
the year in silent rolling passes o’er,
turning over days without a sound
and, sighing, turning hours all the more.
Like drops which drip with sopping coat of rain,
the times with weight of ages slip in rule
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Dear Incels of the College.
A meta-Johnnie typology (every semester
we get typologies/taxonomies of Johnnies:
why not a taxonomy of taxonomies?)
A declaration of the rights of students
(anyone should be able to get up to the
board during any class. Even during
Spinoza seminars. Fight me on it.)
A dialogue between Socrates and Bad
Bunny.
Interviews with SJC legends like the
PubSafe staff and the Dining Hall workers.
The Classiflieds (Classifieds with an SJC
twist).
A stream of consciousness story from the
POV of a middie entering an SJC Waltz for
the first time.
An analysis of which St. John we are
named after.
I have a dozen more article ideas of my own
which you can come accost me for in person. Just
write one, cowards. Cause I may be your one but I
do not want to be your only.
B.S.
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring
quick and timely coverage of important events going
on, to help develop a more informed student body.
If you’re searching for more in-depth investigations
and reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check
out the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
in bright mosaic when the fire is fierce,
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between
400-600 words, while opinion should be kept short
at 350 words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu
with your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
the ticks and sequent tocks of clocks suspend
Contributors for this issue:
the brazen bells that morn and even pierce—
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
and puddle bigly in successive train
and under bearded shadows rise to pool.
Like sunlit leaves how off the bough descend
The thrush and wren together sing their round
like snowflakes falling light upon the ground.
B.S.
Andy Manne
Tarik Mahmud
Tarik Mahmud
Aphorism of the Week:
Ashes are the best fertilizer for new plants.
Are corpses the best fertilizer for new men?
A.M.
Page 2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, Md.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJCCollegian
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
2 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's Collegian, January 11, 2024
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 2, issue 1 of the St. John's Collegian, published January 11, 2024.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-01-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
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pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJCCollegian_vol2_issue1_2024-01-11
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c2dacafc270b5463f3dd60bca2589513.pdf
85f086662d9e0e8a8ca1b9f4709c49be
PDF Text
Text
Thursday
December 7
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
Vol. I
Issue 9
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
From the
polity
Fall 2023: the Collegian’s
inaugural Semester in review
A Message from the Randall
Worms
Looking Back on the First Three Months of the St. Jon’s
Collegian, and Looking Forward to the Paper’s Future
To the Polity:
It has come to our attention that there has been an
attempt from residents of Randall Hall 2 to suppress
the reality of our plight under the guise of “privacy.”
Let the story be set straight. We are the worms.
We are the native inhabitants of the Randall 2 showers
and refuse to be ignored any longer.
In mid-August of this year our modest homes became
overrun with human beings who have incited violence
towards us. We have been wiped away and flushed
down drains. We have been smashed. We have been
bleach-bombed. We have had the higher powers of
Buildings & Grounds called on us, all in a desperate
attempt to eradicate us from our rightful place in the
showers.
We understand we are not the most beautiful
creatures. But if you think it’s traumatic to shower
with us, imagine how we feel. Somehow, we are the
invaders, not you all, the ones entering our homes—
naked, mind you—and attempting to wash us away or
crush us underfoot. There are families who have been
living on these tiles for generations. Childhood friends
have been mutilated by your cruel tactics, and we have
had enough. No longer will we suffer in silence.
This message is for the aggressors of Randall 2: we
won’t be gotten rid of that easily. We have and will
continue to survive your assassination attempts and
will be exacting our revenge shortly.
Stay vigilant.
Sincerely,
The worms
Editor’s Note: This letter was submitted anonymously,
and as a publication we cannot speak to whether or not
any worms do actually reside in the Randall Two
showers, and as to whether or not they can write in
English. However, if there were worms, and if they
could write in English, a letter from them would be so
remarkable, it would be worth publishing here merely
on the chance that it may really be written by worms.
When I first decided to start the Collegian, it seemed
like the task ahead of me was particularly daunting. I
recognized the need for a more frequent campus
publication, but also saw that with our small student
body, it would be difficult to find enough writers to
keep up the kind of regular reporting I was hoping for.
More than that, I saw the task of keeping myself on a
weekly schedule as a challenging one, and a difficult
one to enforce for Johnnies, who are notoriously bad
at deadlines.
The task ahead of me seemed large, and it did turn out
to be so. For some issues, such as this one, I did struggle
to get enough contributors, not for lack of occurrences
on campus, but for the nearly universal lack of time
that all Johnnies, including myself, suffer from.
Likewise, I often found myself cutting precariously
close to my own deadlines, although fortunately
almost all of the paper’s other contributors were far
more punctual than I was. However, despite all these
difficulties, the paper took off, and largely successfully.
Certainly, there were no ends of spelling, grammar,
and printing errors (largely due to my editorial
procrastination), but news was reported on, opinions
were presented, and miscellaneous bits of commentary
and cryptic aphorisms were spread amongst the Polity.
Most of this success is due to the paper’s hard-working
team of contributors. We had, in the nine issues since
the beginning of publication in September, sixteen
different contributors, including, in order of the first
publication their articles appeared in, Caleb Briggs,
Lainey Rendelman, William Marchman, Augustus
Pananas, Georgia Green, Natalie Goldman, Semyon
Andruschenko, Louis Rosenberg, Ron Haflidson,
Andy Manne, Jack Huntley, Susan Paalman, and
Molly Sprout, not to mention the anonymous antismoking crusader, their rival J.S., and the Randall
Worms. I must sincerely thank each and every one of
these people for their contributions- without them, the
Collegian could not exist. In particular, I would like to
thank Briggs, Goldman and Manne, who all
contributed more than once and helped keep the paper
running.
In total, the paper had 36 articles this semester: eleven
opinion pieces, in the form of letters to the editor,
editorials or just very short, opinionated essay about
assorted nonsense; nineteen news articles, ranging
from reporting on the College Creek Connector to a
student attending two seminars, four arts features, on
the Mitchell Museum or KWP shows, and then
whatever this article and the first introductory piece in
the first issue could be classified as.
With all this, the newspaper covered important stories.
Looking back on the semester’s headlines serves as a
sort of summary of the year: September gives us the
summer BVG meeting and the College Creek
Connector, DC Budgeting, and, most importantly, the
incessant ringing of bells during seminar. In October,
dialogue on the bells continued alongside the official
reopening of Mellon and Public Safety’s Cleary
Report, the Polka and Limbo competitions and the
DC Budget Omnibus Bill. November continued to be
just as busy, with another BVG meeting, a tutor
walkout over pay, a suspicious item leading to Mellon
being evacuated, and the College Historical Taskforce.
In different ways, each and every one of these stories is
important to the Polity, and many of them, such as the
BVG meetings or the College Creek Connector, might
never have gotten any notice had there not been articles
written about them. To me with all the challenges the
Collegian has faced, the fact that at the end of the day
the Polity has become, even just a little, better informed
thanks to the work of the Collegian, makes me
motivated enough to keep this paper going to next
semester, next year, and hopefully further into the
future.
However, this will not be possible without other
people’s help. If you are interested in covering
anything, whether it be local Annapolis politics,
College administrative decisions, Intramurals, campus
music and art scenes, or anything at all, please send in
articles! The more regular contributors we have, the
better we can keep up the timely, efficient and
informative publication of the Collegian, and the more
interesting we can make this paper.
Save the Polity from having to read any more “year in
review” summaries from me- find a topic, and just
write! It doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be
complicated, all we need here are articles on things
people care about, and I know that things like that are
not at all rare on this passionate, busy campus.
Farewell until next semester,
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
This Week in Seminar
Upcoming Events:
Friday Night Lecture:
- 7 pm, Great Hall: Summerfield Live
Tuesday 12/12
- 7 pm, Great Hall: Collegium and
Assistant Dean’s Winter Party
Freshman:
- 12/7: Euripides: Medea
- 12/11: Plato: Symposium, Beginning–198A
Sophomores:
- 12/7: Christian Creeds, see official list; Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae,
Prologue; Prima Pars (First Part), see official list
- 12/11: Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars (First Part), see official list
Juniors and Seniors:
- Preceptorials
KWP’s production of the Importance of Being Earnest
Page 1
Friday 12/8
- 7:30 pm, FSK: The Importance of Being
Earnest
Saturday, 12/9
7:30 pm, FSK: The Importance of
Being Earnest
- 10 pm, Great Hall: Pangaea Just Dance
Party
Sunday 12/10
�Thursday December 7, 2023
St. John’s Collegian
Vol. I. Issue 9
Delegate Council semester ends, Shawamreh
elected Dc president
End of the Year for Delegate Council Featured Much Legislative Action, Planning for
Future Budgeting, and Contested Officer Elections
The end of the fall 2023 session was a busy end of the
year for the Delegate Council, which in the past has
slowed down at the end of budgeting season. This
year, however, the council shifted towards working
on legislation aimed at improving its budgeting
process and better representing student voice to the
College administration.
Two committees were formed for this purpose: the
archives committee and the budgeting committee.
The archives committee, which this writer headed in
his capacity as DC Secretary, reviewed current acts of
council, and looked to find ways to improve them
both through amendments and by writing new acts.
The archives committee brought forward three pieces
of legislation: an amendment to the archives act, to
make DC proceedings more accessible to the Polity,
as well as two new acts. The first of these, the
succession act, outlines what happens if both the
President and Secretary are unable to lead a meeting.
The second was the new Club Responsibility Act,
which formalizes the DC’s recommendation that
new clubs receive $500 in their first budget and
requires them to submit an official request do so, as
well as have the budget passed by a 2/3 majority of the
DC.
allocation process and give the Treasurer discretion as
to decide when budgets should be heard, to allow for
more urgent budgets to be heard faster; an
amendment to the Budget Role Clarification Act, to
help distinguish between emergency and
supplemental budgets; and a new act of council, the
High-Budget Sports Club act, which provides new
guidelines for clubs like Polo or Jiu-Jitsu.
The budgeting committee, headed by treasurer
Grace Jang, looked to address problems that have
arisen from the Council’s often confusing budgeting
rules, and pass acts of council resolving them.
Amendments provided by this committee included a
reworking of the Agora Act, which creates a fund any
student project for the benefit of the whole Polity can
request money from; amendments to the Allocations
Procedure Codification Act, to streamline check
Elections were also held for the officers and freshman
delegates. The Secretary and Polity Herald’s races
were uncontested, with incumbents El’ad NicholsKaufman and Rylee Bain being reelected, while in the
Treasurer election, Alexander Paden won in a race
against Rachel Rozsa, and in the Presidential election,
Ali Shawamreh won, running against Lainey
Rendelman.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Behind All that Gadfly BS
A Psychological Analysis of Mr. Bennett Scott
[Note: Mr. Scott has forbidden this article from being
printed, but we shall not be silenced.]
Is he a madman, a prophet of modern decay, or
simply the weird roommate of Ben Maier who makes
those videos? Who really is B.S.? Bennett Scott, man
of many wiles, is known around the St. John’s College
campus as the archon of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, A Senior,
and turtleneck aficionado; lately, he has emerged in
the polity consciousness as the sole pursuer of what
he deems “SJC Mysteries.” His main output,
however, is satire, always signed with his initials: B.S.
Bennett Scott...B.S....Based on what he writes, it’s
enough to make any good wannabe psychologist
wonder whether Mr. Scott would do what he does if
his initials didn’t stand for bullshit. It’s almost too
perfect. Of course the man who writes about the “Bro
Scogan Experience,” the first “Intercollegiate World
National Chopsticks Championship,” and who
allegedly received a cease and desist from the college
for breaking and entering (something he wouldn’t be
so stupid to record himself doing) would write under
those initials. The be B.S. might not just be a tongue
in cheek acknowledgement: it might well be his
deepest insecurity.
The question is then one reminiscent of the chicken
and the egg. What came first? The antics, or the
signature? Did Mr. Scott realize the potential of his
name and begin playing into it, or was he always like
this, sufferer of nominal determinism, the years
passing and proving all too apparent how accurate his
initials are? The answer to this question was provided
by the man himself (in an off the record interview
that he has tried to hide, destroy, and block from
being published). In his wayward youth, Mr. Scott
was a member of Mr. Breck’s sixth grade algebra class.
In this class was also the much smarter, kinder, more
likable Bennie Surketz. As a result, he explained with
clear rage in his voice, his teacher referred to him as
“B.S. 2.” Mr. Scott lambasted Mr. Breck as “the worst
person [he] ever met,” his face turning red, his hands
shaking, muttering the quadratic equation under his
breath.
Not only did the title come first, it’s a name which
represents all of Bennett’s deepest insecurities. To
have to bear such worthless initials and be reminded
that you are only secondary in such worthlessness!?
No wonder Mr. Scott resorts to cheap absurdist
comedy and video podcasting. What respectable
outlet could be left for a man with so little faith in his
abilities that he signs every work with the very
moniker that has blighted and shadowed him since
childhood? Truly, he should be pitied, or at the very
least given a low-level writing job at GQ. Every article
in the Gadfly, every YouTube video, each and every
one is a desperate cry for help. Each inked B.S.
represents the burning soul of a tortured man (just
factor the damn equation Bennett!), a man searching
for answers in the mysteries of his little world, leaving
no cryptic stone unturned or cellar un-rummaged
through, searching for the way to overcome his own
feelings of inadequacy. Pushed aside even in his
weakness, he now presents every sign of narcissism
and “pick-me” syndromes, left in the most absurd of
fights: he tears at himself in search of the angst to
prove that he too is a starving artist. To be B.S, Mr.
Scott needs to do what he does, but to do what he
does, Mr. Scott must truly be B.S.
—A.M. (Assuredly Magnificent, not Ass Magnet)
Pensée of the Week
If religion is the opium of the masses, then revolution is
the crack cocaine of the masses.
Page 2
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly
newspaper of St. John’s College Annapolis.
We work to bring quick and timely coverage
of important events going on, to help
develop a more informed student body. If
you’re searching for more in-depth
investigations and reporting, as well as
essays, art and culture, check out the Gadfly,
our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need
more writers, whether for opinion or
reporting! Submissions for news articles
should be between 400-600 words, while
opinion should be kept short at 350 words.
Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu with
your article, and we will work to get it in
print! Longer form articles and more indepth exploration of ideas should go to the
Gadfly, which accepts submissions at
lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
Andy Manne
The Worms
�
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.
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St. John's College
Publisher
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, Md.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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English
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pdf
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2 pages
Dublin Core
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Title
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St. John's Collegian, December 7, 2023
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 1, issue 9 of the St. John's Collegian, published December 7, 2023.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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2023-12-07
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St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
Type
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text
Format
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pdf
Subject
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
Language
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English
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SJCCollegian_vol1_issue9_2023-12-07
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
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audiocassette
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Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:09:39
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Hegel's <em>Phenomenology of Spirit</em> and the Great Tradition
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on October 15, 2004, by Henry Higuera as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
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Higuera, Henry, 1954-
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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2004-10-15
Rights
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
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Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Phänomenologie des Geistes
Language
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English
Identifier
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LEC_Higuera_Henry_2004-10-15_ac
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
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e35eddd5e905b19402b69708a47f80c4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
audiocassette
Duration
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00:52:34
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Song and Dance and Faith and Prayer: The Case of J. S. Bach's Magnificat
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on February 9, 1996 by Beate Ruhm von Oppen as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
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Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Publisher
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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1996-02-09
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
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sound
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mp3
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Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750
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English
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LEC_Ruhm_von_Oppen_Beate_1996-02-09_ac
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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PDF Text
Text
Must Eudai.monism Mean the Euthanasia of AJ..1. ...._....... __ _
Kant's Rigorism and the Mora1ity of Happiness
by Daniel Kolb
St. John's Col1ege, Annapolis
In the Metaphysics of Morals, the last of Kant's major ethical
works, he offers the following estimation eudaimonian ethics.
"If
eudaimonism (the principle of happiness) is set up as the basic
principle [of ethics] ... , the result is the euthanasia (easy death)
of all morals." [MM 378/183) 1 An ethical doctrine is eudaimonian,
in Kant's terms, if it treats acting virtuously as source of
happiness or contentment. This special kind of happiness, which
Kant also calls 'moral happiness' and opposes to 'empirical
happiness,' is, he tells us, a "self-contradictory absurdity." [:MM
377/182) Kant's use of the Greek term 'eudaimonian' to characterize
this mistake is not accidental.
He means to direct our attention
to the doctrines of certain ancient philosophers closely associated
with it, most notably Aristotle and the Stoics.
At first blush, Kant's rejection eudaimonism seems strange.
He begins his first mature work on ethics with the unambiguous
endorsement of the idea of a virtuous will is the central, indeed
the only, concern of the ethical life. "There is no possibility of
thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which
The key to references to Kant's works is found at the end
of the text.
1
1
�2
can be regarded as good without qualification [that is, as morally
good,] except a good will." [G 393/7] In the midst of the growing
tribes of utilitarians, sentimentalists, and rational egoists who
populate the landscape of modern ethical thought, Kant's call to
focus on virtue for virtue's sake seems to belong to a different
time.
Indeed one might easily suspect that Kant will encourage us
to look to the doctrines of those ancient philosophers who share
his view that moral virtue perfects the person who possesses it.
Like Kant, the ancient eudaimonists insist that virtue is only
virtue if it is exercised for its own sake, not as a means to some
other goal.
Yet, it is precisely these philosophers Kant
conderr~s.
In tonight's lecture I will explore Kant's ethics with a view
to understanding why Kant thinks he must reject any form of
eudaimonism. I shall begin by examining an aspect of Kant's ethics
that is usually ignored and which is generally disparged when it is
noticed.
This is what Kant calls 'rigorism.' I shall argue that
rigorism, p r operly understood, is an essential aspect of Kant's
ethics.
By exploring the roots of Kant's rigorism, I hope to make
clear that Kant's ethics is deeply teleological in its orientation,
and that his treatment of duty cannot be understood apart from his
doctrine of virtue.
It is in his doctrine of virtue that we find
his reasons for rejecting eudaimonian ethics.
Virtue requires
purity of motivation, and philosophers such as the Stoics and
Aristotle who teach us to think that virtue is essentially related
�3
to happiness threaten the purity of the motives of the virtuous
agent and thereby undermine the practice of virtue itself.
RI GORI SM
Kant's clearest endorsement of rigorism is found in the
opening sections of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.
It is of the greatest consequence to ethics in general to avoid
admitting, so long as possible, of anything morally intermediate,
whether in action ... or in human characters; for with such ambiguity
all maxims are in danger of forfeiting their precision and
stability. Those who are partial to this strict mode of thinking
are called rigorists (a name which is intended to carry reproach,
but which actually praises) . . . [R 22/18]
The rigorist is not someone who adheres unwaveringly to principles
of duty, e.g., someone who tells the truth even when doing so will
cause a great sacrifice of non-moral goods.
Rather, rigorists are
persons inclined to view every action or state of character as
morally significant, that is, as either good or evil with no moral
middle ground.
The scope of Kant's rigorism is not limited only to actions
and traits of character.
It also applies to the moral evaluation
of the entire character of a person.
Neither can a man be morally good in some ways and at the same time
morally evil in others. His being good in one way means he has
incorporated the moral law into his maxim; were he, therefore at
the same time evil in another way, while his maxim would be
universal as based on the moral law of obedience to duty, which is
essentially single and universal, it would be at the same time only
particular; but this is a contradiction. [R 24-25/20]
�4
Persons are either good or evil in the foundation of their moral
character.
Opposed to rigorists are what Kant calls latitudinarians.
Latitudinarians threaten to undermine morality by marking off
categories of action or traits of character as intermediate between
good and evil and as therefore falling outside of the scope of
morality.
Kant identifies two types of latitudinarians:
indifferentists and syncretists. Indifferentists are philosophers
who maintain that human beings are by nature indifferent to virtue
and vice.
No ancients fall into this category. [R 25/20 note] Kant
seems to have in mind here modern advocates of natural rights such
as Hobbes, Pufendorf, Grotius, and Locke.
According to Hobbes,
there is no justice or injustice in the natural condition of men.
Morality consists of a set of human agreements which we make and
keep because it is in our interest to do so.
Locke differs from
Hobbes in that he believes that there are eternal moral laws which
ought to guide our behavior.
But lacking human agreements to
enforce these laws, and, ultimately, a divine judge to assure their
perfect application, we do not have a sufficient motive to obey
them. A marginal note of Locke's expresses this well.
Men have a natural tendency to what delights and from what pains
them. This universal observation has been established beyond
doubt. But that the soul has such a tendency to what is morally
�5
good and from what is morally evil has not fallen under my
observation, and therefore I deny it. 2
For the indifferentists, moral activity has nothing to do
with the perfection of the agent. Rather, the guiding light in our
adherence to any moral principle is self-interest which leads us to
avoid conflicts which would and render our own individual, private
pursuit of pleasure impossible. Without constraints on selfinterest, individuals would not have any reasonable assurance of
their ability to survive and pursue even part of their private
agenda. Thus even agents who are completely motivated by selfinterest will be led to conform to a moral principles because by
doing so they can carve out a space in which they are able to
pursue their own private interest without restraint. 3
By syncretists, on the other hand, Kant seems to have in mind
primarily, advocates of moral sense, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and
2 Cited by John Passmore,
Duckworth, 1972), p.159
The Perfectibility of Man (London:
Leibniz is sharply critical of this idea the compatibility
of what he calls 'internal corruption' and 'external virtue'.
"While it is possible that someone, by hope or fear, will repress
wicked thoughts, so that they do not harm ... nevertheless he will
never succeed in making them useful. Therefore, whoever is not
well intentioned will often sin, at least by omission .... Thus
[Pufendorf's] hypothesis about a soul which is internally corrupt
and outwardly innocent is not very safe and not very probable."
Political Writings (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
p.69 Those of you who have read Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov
will remember Ivan's claim that he would protect his father's
li fe whil e re t a ining the 'right' to wis h f or h is murde r.
He ends
up not only wishing for his father's murder but also acting to
facilitate it.
3
�6
Hume. {Kant lectured with enthusiasm on the these moral theories of
these philosophers in the mid 1760's - about 20 years before he
finally formulated his mature ethical views. He was still trying to
incorporate major elements of moral sense theory in his ethics as
late as 1775.} These philosophers maintain that virtuous behavior
is motivated by a unique set of feelings which direct us to goals
different from those of immediate self-interest. I quote here from
Francis Hutcheson's The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.
The author of nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous
conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and
powerful instructions as we have for the preservation of our
bodies. He has given us strong affections to be the springs of
each virtuous action and made virtue a lovely form that we might
easily distinguish it from its contrary, and be happy in the
pursuit of it. 4
The beauty of virtuous actions stems from the fact that they are
be neficent, that is, they tend to the public good or the goods of
other individuals even when they conflict with self-interest.
However, these motives are often competing with other interested
motives, and there can be no assurance that the motive of virtue
will be sufficiently strong to win out over other motives opposing
it.
Moral sense theorists, at least Hume and Hutcheson, endorse
the practice of finding ways to combine appeals to the moral sense
with appeals to self-interest.
From Mor al Philosophy from Montaign e to Kant, J.B.
Schneewind editor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990),
Vol. II, p.506.
4
�7
Beneficent actions tend to the public good; it is therefore good
and kind to give all possible additional motives to them, and to
excite men who have some weak degrees of good affection to promote
the public good more vigorously by motives of self-interest ... 5
In the end, we have a we cannot tell and perhaps do not care which
motive, love of virtue or self-interest is primary. In the Critique
of Practical Reason Kant expresses his distaste for this kind of
theory.
(W]e find ourselves in a syncretistic age, when a certain shallow
and dishonest coalition between contradictory principles is devised
because it is more acceptable to a public which is satisfied to
know a little about everything and at bottom nothing ... (CprV 24/23]
MORAL WORTH
In order to see why Kant objects to the morality of actions in
which self-interest or natural feelings of beneficence lead us to
do the right thing, let us turn to Kant's argument from the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
In the much discussed
examples from the first section of the Groundwork Kant contrasts
actions that are simply in accord with duty with actions that are
performed out of a sense of duty.
A shopkeeper acts from the
motive of his own calculated self-interest. He performs the morally
required action and charges his customer an honest price.
But he
acts for a ''selfish purpose" rather than from a sense of duty.
his second example a naturally beneficent man, one whom Kant
5
Schneewind, Vol. II, p.512.
In
�8
characterizes as a 'friend of mankind', acts in accord with his
duty to help those less fortunate than himself.
Even though he
acts without vanity or selfish purpose and is motivated by a
genuine concern for the happiness of another, his act does not
spring from a sense of duty and, therefore, according to Kant, it
lacks moral worth.
Kant identifies three problems with motives of the selfinterested shopkeeper and the friend of humanity. First, their
motives do not lead to moral actions in a universal manner, that
is, under all conditions and in all circumstances.
If his
calculations of market forces and social pressures no longer
constrain him, the shopkeeper who acts out of self-interest will
fail to act in accordance with his duty.
There is no necessary
connection between his self-interest and honesty.
In the case of
the friend of humanity, feelings such as beneficence may lead him
to perform actions which are even contrary to those morally
prescribed. The beneficent person may, out of sympathetic feelings,
protect the guilty from punishment, supply drugs to a suffering
drug addict, kill someone to end suffering, or help a terrified
criminal escape legal detection.
If you have read Crime and
Punishment place yourself behind the pawnbrokress' door with
Raskolnikov when he is on the brink of being discovered after his
murders and s ee where your sympa thy lies .
Or read the concluding
scenes of Of Mice and Men in which George kills Lennie and then
�9
lies about his act and its motives. Sympathy is with the escaping
criminal and the beneficent lying murderer.
The second problem Kant finds with motives of self-interest
and beneficence is that it is a matter of chance that we find
ourselves endowed with these motives.
They are subject to
arbitrary alteration. The sympathetic person's feelings may change.
He is affected by the ingratitude of his beneficiaries or by a
change in his circumstances and the feelings of sympathy weaken to
the point where they are no longer sufficient to move him.
Shakespeare's Timon of Athens presents us with just such a man.
Timon's generous benevolence is transformed into raging misanthropy
by the ingratitude of those around him.
These problems point to Kant's third, and deeper, reason for
thinking that motives other than duty for duty's sake have no true
moral worth.
Persons acting from self-interest or beneficence
really have different ends in view from those acting from a sense
of duty.
The shopkeeper motivated only by self-interest, or the
sympathetic person motivated only by feelings of benevolence, act
without regard for duty.
The person who acts from a sense of duty
acts out of respect for the moral law.
His end includes, at a
minimum, the component that he will not violate the moral law.
For Kant, human being are more than natural beings governed by
sentiments.
In so far as we are parts of nature, we find ourselves
subject to various feelings and inclinations that are caused in us
�10
independently of our wills.
As rational . beings, however, we find
ourselves set apart from nature.
Everything in nature acts according to laws.
Only a rational being
has the power to act according to the idea of laws, that is
according to principles; that is to say only a rational being has a
will. [G 412, my translation]
Human agents are able to distance themselves from the immediate
promptings of nature, consider other possibilities, order and rank
incentives.
That is, they can think about how they are going to
act and give reasons for their choices.
In calling our motives
'maxims' or 'ideas of laws' Kant means to emphasize the fact that
human action contains rational reflection on both the ends of
action and the motives for pursuing .them.
Actions which appear the
same externally can be motivated by very different maxims. A
shopkeeper must rank self-interest and honesty in his maxim.
If he
ranks self-interest above honesty, his honest dealing with his
customers depends on his perception that it will promote his selfinterest.
His motive is very different from the shopkeeper whose
honesty is not dependent entirely his self-interest.
The
shopkeeper who values honesty more highly than self-interest will
act honestly from a principle, that is the idea of the good of
honesty, even when he can see no benefit for himself from honest
dealing.
A rational agent whose reason is not just instrumental, but is
pract i c a l i n t h e Ka nti a n sens e c a n as k why h e is d o ing what he is
doing; that is, he capable of conscious self-examination of his
�11
motives.
For Kant, practical reason does not just deliberate about
means; it is also active in evaluating ends. Kant's forbiddingly
titled "Categorical Imperative," in its initial formulation, really
commands no more of rational agents than that they choose ends for
good reasons, that is, reasons which command the assent of any
rational being.
For example, for the self-interested shopkeeper to
say that his action is a good one, he must be able to say that it
is good for people to value self-interest over honesty.
The
enterprise of shop keeping, however, depends on customers and
suppliers keeping their promises, honoring contracts, and
respecting ownership.
These conditions of shop keeping would be
impossible if everyone was to value self-interest over honesty.
Hence it is inconsistent for the shop keeper to will self-interest
over honesty.
In willing his self-interest over honesty he is
inconsistent in the same way a thief who wants others to respect
his ill gotten gain is inconsistent.
"That's my money; I stole
it."
The moral agent who respects his reason giving capacity
refuses to allow his reason to be reduced to the status of a mere
instrument serving for the procurement of ends prompted by his
desires.
Retaining rational control of the ends of his action is
the goal that a self-respecting rational agent sets for himself.
Kant summarizes this line of argument in discussing the 'respect
humanity' version of the categorical imperative.
�12
Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by the
fact that it sets itself an end. This end would be the matter of
every good will.
But in the idea of an absolutely good
will ... complete abstraction must be made from every end that has
come about as an effect .... And so the end must be conceived not as
an end to be effected, but as an independently existing end. Hence
it must be conceived only negatively, i.e., as an end which should
never be acted against and therefore as one which in all willing
must never be regarded merely as means but must always be esteemed
at the same time as an end.
[G 437/42)
We act against humanity when we treat the rational capacity that
makes us persons, as a mere means to be used in procuring any
goals. This amounts to no more than saying that the ultimate end of
any rational being's mode of action must respect its integrity as a
rational being. It is neither possible nor desirable to eliminate
pathologically conditioned incentives directed towards an
indefinite variety of ends - food, drink, friends, knowledge, etc.;
but these can be tested for permissibility and overridden if they
fail the test.
It is a consequence of this account that Kant's rigorism holds
fo r act i on .
No actions can be morally neutral. Consider an agent
whose maxim ranks self-interest or immediate inclination of
benevolence above respect for duty.
The agent is then treating the
satisfaction of these incentives as unconditional goods.
While
this might produce permissible actions occasionally, or even in
particularly fortuitous circumstances, throughout a lifetime, the
maxim of the agent lacks recognition of the primacy o f the moral
law a nd expresses a willingness even to violat e the moral law
should it be necessary in the pursuit of its object.
While such an
�13
action may be legally permissible, it has a morally unacceptable
motive. [CprR 62/64] In their maxims agents either recognize
respect for the moral law as a necessary condition for the
permissibility of actions, or they do not.
If acts include this
recognition as part of their motive, they are morally good and can
be willed universally.
If motives do not include respect for the
moral law, they cannot be willed universally and the actions they
prompt are morally evil.
An action which is not one or the other
is impossible.
A morally indifferent action ... would be one resulting from natural
laws, and hence standing in no relation whatsoever to the moral
law, which is the law of freedom; for such action is not a morally
significant fact at all. . . [R 23/18, note)
In other words, an 'action' which is morally indifferent is not
really an action at all.
It is rather a natural event governed by
natural necessity.
HAPPINESS AND MORAL LIFE
As so far characterized, Kant's rigorism might seem fairly
benign.
While it recognizes an overriding duty to adopt a certain
point of view when evaluating actions, it might turn out that most
actions considered by most agents are in the permissible category.
It need not be not an overly onerous intrusion into most lives.
Furthermore, it is not yet clear why Kant's rigoristic exclusion of
a moral middle ground between good and evil applies to character of
�14
the agent considered as a whole.
Why could it not be the case that
one is respectful of the moral law in areas of life dealing with
property and honesty but falls short when it comes to sensual
pleasures such as food and drink?
Why does Kant think that we
cannot be good in some ways and bad in others, virtuous at some
times and vicious at others?
In order to begin answering these questions let us turn to
Kant's account of the place of the pursuit of happiness in a moral
life.
This is, perhaps, best illustrated in the genetic account of
the development of moral consciousness found in a number of works short essays on history and the Critique of Judgment - written in
the period between the Groundwork the Religion.
The story Kant tells about the development of moral
consciousness in human agents (and for which he acknowledges his
debt to Rousseau [SBHH 116/54]) goes something like this. As
animals human beings find themselves wi th a host of natural
inclinations.
The rational capacity of human beings complicates
the way in which we respond to these inclinations. The technical
rationality of human beings enables them to develop arts and
sciences.
Competition and jealousy among people leads to greater
reliance on craft and less on nature in the satisfaction of desire.
As a consequence people are able to pursue a wider variety of ends
than could be prompted by mere instinct. They f ind themselves
confronted with a range of options which are not mutually
�15
compatible and must make choices requiring rational consideration.
This in turn requires the discipline of desires, freeing them from
their immediate responses to the impulses of nature.
It is a characteristic of reason that it will with the aid of
imagination cook up desires for things for which there is not only
no natural urge, but even an urge to avoid; at the outset these
desires go by the name of greediness, and from them arise a whole
swarm of unnecessary, indeed even unnatural, propensities that go
by the name of voluptuousness. [SBHH 111/51]
Worry about the future satisfaction of as yet unfelt desires,
desire for honor and esteem of others, and the corresponding vices
of avarice and envy as well as a taste for beauty and higher
learning are the result of this expanding circle of desires.
The agent must now use his reason to impose order on the mess
it has helped to create.
Reason does not yet function morally.
does not dictate what ends ought to be pursued.
It
Rather, it
attempts to form a coherent idea of order out of the ends suggested
by desire.
The object of this idea is what we mean by 'happiness.'
The concep t of happiness is not one that man abstracts (s ay ) from
his instincts and hence gets from himself as an animal. Rather, it
is a mere idea: the idea of a state of his, an idea to which he
tries to make that state adequate under merely empirical
conditions. (J 430/317. See also, SBHH 113-4/52.]
The idea of happiness, "the greatest sum of what is agreeable in
life," [J 208/50] represents a good, but one which is merely
subjective, since its organizing principle is dictated by arbitrary
individual preference.
�16
When happiness is pursued as an unconditioned good it leads to
incoherence.
This is because happiness pursued as an unconditioned
end is unattainable.
Even if we restricted the concept of happiness to the true natural
needs shared by our entire species, or if instead we maximized
man's skill for accomplishing the purposes he imagines, he would
still never reach what he means by happiness, and reach what is in
fact his own ultimate natural purpose ... : for it is not his nature
to stop possessing and enjoying at some point and be satisfied. [J
430/318]
In more realistic circumstances where we do have unnatural desires
and have only moderate skill in satisfying them, the pursuit of
happiness results in a condition even less adequate to the idea of
happiness.
If the value that life has for us is assessed merely in terms of
what we enjoy (i.e. happiness, the natural purpose of the sum of
our inclinations), then the answer is easy: the value falls below
zero. [J 434 note/321)
When happiness is pursued as an unconditioned good it also leads to
conflict with others because it fails to harmonize efforts of
different individuals. Given the subjective nature of the idea of
happiness, such conflict is inevitable.
[CprR 28/27-28) The
conflict among individuals leads to greater disorder, fears,
frustrations, and new desires for power .. The pursuit of happiness
as an unconditioned good leads to its opposite of its goal.
[IUH
20-21/32]
I want to emphasize two points that emerge from Kant's story
about the sad fate of human agency dominated by the idea of
unconditioned happiness.
First, Kant illustrates the the
�17
systematic function of reason in its practical affairs.
All human
end setting is mediated by rational conceptions of ends and selfawareness of the agent. In human agents reason transforms what Kant
calls our ''crude'' predispositions from an animal-like instinctual
form of end setting into a distinctly human capacity.
All human
end setting involves the use of 'ideas.' Even in the pursuit of
non-moral ends, reason has more than a purely instrumental role to
play. Second, in pursuing happiness unconditionally we are driven
to recognize the futility of happiness as the final goal of human
action\
In this recognition, however, we discover our independence
from the desire for happiness.
This in turn leads to the idea of
an end which can successfully introduce systematic order into our
practical pursuits and successfully harmonize them with those of
others. [SBHH 114/52)
This is the idea of the moral
law~
In his genetic accounts of the development of hurnan moral
capacities Kant does little more than hint at how a systematic
moral idea of life might emerge from the failure of the idea of
happiness to provide a coherent guide to action.
[SBHH 114-5/52-53]
His formal account of the relationship between happiness and the
moral law, however, fits exactly as the end of this process. By
subjecting the desire for happiness to the condition that it be
pursued in accordance with the moral law, happiness first becomes a
true good and not just an object of arbitrary preference.
love cannot be rejected.
Self-
According to Kant, it is "natural and
�18
active in us even prior to the moral law." [CprR 73/76]
When self-
love allows its claims to be mediated by the moral law, however,
they can be willed universally; and it is then called "rational
self-love." [CprR 73/76]
By recognizing the necessity of
considering the happiness of others and willing my happiness only
when it harmonizes with that of humanity in general, willing my own
happiness has the form of law and is objectively good.
Let the material content [of my maxim] be ... my own happiness. If I
attribute this to everyone, as in fact I may attribute it to all
finite beings, it can become an objective practical law only if I
include within it the happiness of others. Therefore, the law that
we should further the happiness of others arises not from the
presupposition that this law is an object of everyone's choice, but
from the fact that the form of universality which reason requires
as a condition for giving the maxim of self-love the objective
validity of law, is itself the determining ground of the will.
[CprR 34/35)
If I am willing to subject the claims of self-love to the form of
the moral law, I have a virtuous disposition and my happiness
becomes a legitimate goal. If I limit the requirements of the moral
law in order to accommodate my pursuit of happiness, theD I have a
vicious disposition.
MORAL LAW AND FUNDAMENTAL DISPOSITIONS
As a agent endowed with practical reason, then, each of us is
confronted with two competing principles of systematic order and
must choose between them.
The whole of each agent's moral life can
be ordered e i t he r by the demands of self-love or by respect f or the
moral law.
�19
The disposition, i.e., the ultimate subjective ground for the
adoption of maxims, can be one and only one and applies to the
whole use of freedom. [R 25/20; see also MM 410/210-11]
Both principles, happiness and obedience to the moral law, are
original and indispensable.
The choice of what Kant calls a
''supreme maxim" (R 31/26] determines which principle will be
subordinate to which.
Either the pursuit of happiness is
subordinated to the moral law or the moral law is acknowledged only
when it does not interfere with the pursuit of happiness.
Kant's argument for the claim that the whole agency of a moral
agent must be governed by a single maxim or principle is based on
his insistence that human actors do have systematic conceptions of
themselves as agents, and these conceptions include an estimation
of the relative merits an agent assigns to moral incentives.
We
have the capacity to think about our lives as wholes, rather than
as random sequences of unconnected actions.
We do not shift
arbitrarily from one set of motives and values to another.
If such
a shift does occur, it needs to be explained either by means of a
deeper continuous value, or by means of a change in the basic
disposition of the agent and the adoption or rejection of a basic
maxim.
In either case there is a basic maxim at work.
If an agent
refuses to relate his maxims to each other and is willing to allow
a high degree of incoherence in his agency, he has adopted a maxim
of moral indifference.
The only other possibility, Kant notes,
ZL/17-18, note] is that he acts on natural impulse.
But Kant
[R
�20
rejects this because he assumes that human agents are free,
rational beings and can take an interest the coherence of their
maxims if they choose to do so.
What is lacking in the morally
shiftless agent is not a systematic conception of his own agency.
Rather it is the disposition to respect the moral law in his
systematic conception of his agency.
Kant's argument concerning the 'supreme principle' of virtue
in the Metaphysics of Morals reflects this argument.
The supreme
principle of virtue is that one should adopt the moral law and the
promotion of humanity as the basic principle of all agency; this
amounts to the same thing as adopting a fundamentally good
disposition.
Kant notes that this principle can be deduced from
its possibility.
The basic principle of the doctrine of virtue ... cannot be proved,
but it can be given a deduction from pure practical .reason. What,
in relation to himself and others, can be an end is an end for pure
practical reason. For practical reason is the capacity for ends
generally and for it to be indifferent to ends, that is, to take no
interest in them, would be a contradiction ... [~ll~ 395/198, emphasis
Kant's]
Since reason can take an interest in the content of our maxims and
the fundamental disposition of our character, it must take such an
interest.
Failure to do so reflects a culpable lack of virtue.
RIGORISM AND MORAL PERFECTION
The a dopt ion of the f undament a l ma xim of moral goodness is
only the beginning of the story of what is required of the virtuous
�21
agent. But the adoption of a fundamentally good maxim is, however,
always the beginning.
Moral regeneration for Kant must always stem
first from the choice of fundamental maxim and only secondarily
from the reformation of habits. [R 48; MM 409] The original choice
of a
fundamental disposition reforms the "cast of mind and the
grounding of the character." [R 43]
In doing so, it orients the
character toward the ideal of moral perfection in which all aspects
of the agent's character and actions are in complete harmony with
the commitment to the supremacy of the moral law.
Now it is our duty as men to elevate ourselves to this ideal of
moral perfection, that is, to the archetype of the moral disposition in all of its purity. [R 61/54]
The duty to moral perfection follows from the basic maxim of moral
goodness.
To choose the end is also to will the means.
The
individual who is good in his fundamental disposition must also
will that the elements of his character and passions do not present
obstacles which tempt him away from or make him inattentive to
duty.
The duty to moral perfection does not allow any accommodation
to inclination.
Kant calls the duty to elevate oneself to moral
perfection "narrow and perfect" in its quality. [MM 446/241]
In
non-Kantian terms, this means that it is a duty which, like
repaying a debt, has only a single path to its completion, and it
should be completely accomplished.
In practice the duty to moral
perfection must be treated as "wide and imperfect" because of the
�22
overwhelmingly imperfect condition of human beings.
There is
simply so much work to do in bringing our empirical natures into
harmony with the idea of moral perfection that we cannot do it all
at once.
The choice to adopt the basic maxim of moral goodness is
made in the context of a will which also has what Kant calls the
'propensity to evil in human nature' and which has already made
claims on our characters. [R 29-32/23-29]
[I]n the moral development of the predisposition to good implanted
in us, we cannot start from an innocence natural to us but must
begin with the assumption of a wickedness of will in adopting
maxims contrary to the original moral predisposition; and since
this propensity [to evil] is inexstirpable, we must begin with
incessant counter action against it. [R 46]
We can never eliminate the propensity to evil.
No matter
successful one is in reforming his character, there is always the
possibility of slipping into a fundamentally evil disposition.
The best we can hope for in the struggle against evil in us is that
we make continual progress.
The person who has adopted the basic disposition of moral
goodness confronts two major obstacles to its realization in
practice. Much like the characters at the bottom of the mountain in
Dante's Purgatory, their souls have the·right fundamental
orientation, but they need to undergo a cleansing.
According to
Kant what needs to be cleansed are conditions he identifies as
'frailty' and 'impurity'.
when
Frailty is the condition that results
�23
I adopt the good into the maxim of my will, but this good which
objectively in its ideal conception ... is an irresistible incentive, is subjectively ... when the maxim is followed the weaker. [R
29/25]
The frail agent does not incorporate an immoral maxim into his
fundamental disposition.
Rather, he is overwhelmed by impulses,
such as when a generally well disposed individual is momentarily
overcome by anger or by passion, e.g. when an alcoholic who has
sworn off drunkenness, has no idea how to resist the passion for
drink.
The will is frail when it has adopted the fundamental maxim
of moral goodness, but confronts irresistible obstacles to its
achievement.
Kant's initial description of frailty makes it seem not so
much a quality of a human will failing as a case of the will
encountering the limits of its capabilities.
If the incentives
that lead us to act against the moral law are truly irresistible,
the acts are really beyond our control and should more properly be
considered events than actions. A disposition which requires moral
self-condemnation for events beyond the agent's control seems more
like pathological psychosis than a moral imperative.
Looked at more closely, however, Kant is concerned here with
barriers to moral perfection which originate in the will itself.
Virtue is ... the moral strength of a man's will in fulfilling his
duty ... but because this constraint is to be irresistible, strength
is required, in a degree that we can assess only by the magnitude
of the obstacles that a man himself furnishes through his
inclinations. The vices, the brood of dispositions opposing the
law, are the monsters he has to fight. [MM 405/206]
�24
We 'furnish' ourselves with incentives that lead us to act contrary
to the moral law, and these are to some degree alterable.
Likewise, our defenses against these
or weakened by our own practice.
inc~ntives
can be strengthened
The will which is overcome by
incentives contrary to duty may have virtue in its fundamental
orientation, but it lacks virtue in the narrow sense in which it is
opposed to specific vices.
The struggle against frailty requires a wide range of
strategies.
We must avoid adversity, pain, and want to the degree
to which that is possible if these present us with overwhelming
temptations.
[MM 388/192-3)
We must also, however, seek out
adversity when it will strengthen the will against immoral
incentives.
With regard to the principle of a vigorous, spirited and valiant
practice of virtue, the cultivation of virtue, that is moral
ascetics, takes as its motto the Stoic saying: Accustom yourself
to put up with the misfortunes of life and to do without its
superfluous pleasures .... This is a kind of reqimen ... for keeping a
man healthy.
[rvIM 485/273, emphasis Kant's]
Kant calls this 'ethical gymnastics'.
Ethical gymnastics ... consists only in combatting natural impulses
sufficiently to be able to master them when a situation comes up in
which they threaten morality ... [MM 485/274]
In assessing progress against frailty Kant's rigorism requires
that we accept nothing less than perfection.
This means that we
must measure ourselves not against our own past performance, our
pr e sent abilit i e s, or t he condition o f othe r people.
Rather i t
must be measured only by perfect conformity with the moral law.
�25
Ethical duties [that is, duties of virtue] must not be determined
in accordance with the capacity to fulfill the law ... On the
contrary, man's moral capacity must be estimated by the law, which
commands categorically and so in accordance with our rational
knowledge of what man ought to be in keeping with the idea of
humanity, not in accordance with the empirical knowledge we have of
men as they are. [MM 404-5/205/6)
Since the struggle against human frailty is never over, at least
not in this life, the basic moral disposition of the agent must be
estimated in terms of effort to make progress against weakness
rather than in absolute terms of moral strength. [MM 409/209]
The condition of impurity, like frailty, is a condition of the
will which is compatible with a fundamentally good disposition.
The impure will allows incentives other than pure respect for the
moral law to be incorporated into its basic maxim.
Rather than
treating the moral law as the fundamental incentive to permissible
action, the impure will incorporates other incentives such as selfinterest, pride, or hope for eternal salvation into his basic
maxim.
In condemning impurity, Kant cannot mean to conderrw the
presence of incentives other than respect for the moral law.
Many
incentives other than respect for the moral law are compatible with
a fundamentally good disposition.
The problem with the impure will
is that it places these incentives on an equal footing with the
moral law.
Since these motives will conflict, at least in
principle, with the moral law, the person with an impure will
becomes confused and corrupted.
[G 411/22] This corruption is a
large part natural propensity to evil.
By this Kant does not mean
�26
that incentives other than the moral law are intrinsically evil.
Rather it is the tendency of the will to confuse the proper
ordering of the incentives in its maxims.
This tendency cannot be
completely overcome, it can only be combated.
corrupted condition.
We begin in a
The fundamental disposition of the agent must
be judged not in terms of its purity or impurity in absolute terms,
but rather in terms of its willingness to combat the condition of
impurity which is always present to some degree.
The method Kant recommends for fighting impurity is
scrupulous examination of conscience.
Indeed the "First Command of
All Duties to Oneself" is to gain moral self-knowledge.
Impartiality in appraising oneself in comparison with the law, and
sincerity in acknowledging to oneself one's inner moral worth or
lack of worth are duties to oneself that follow directly from this
first command of self-knowledge. [MM 441-442/236]
Sincere pursuit of self-knowledge helps to undermine a number of
vices, not the least of which is egotistical self-esteem of the
person convinced of the goodness of his own heart.
The b as ic
disposition of the will is never immediately manifest in our
experience of even ourselves as agents.
It can only be inferred
from the more limited intentions we have in particular actions and
projects.
Yet even with regard to these, Kant notoriously
maintains, we are never certain and are subject to a great deal of
self-deception in interpreting the moral worth of our acts.
The depths of the human heart are unfathomable. Who knows himse lf
well enough to say, when he feels the incentive to fulfill his
duty, whether it proceeds entirely from the representation of th~
�27
law or whether there are not many other sensible impulses
contributing to it that look to one's advantage ... and that in other
circumstances, could just as well serve vice. [MM 447/241)
Examination of conscience must, therefore, always recognize the
possibility that lawful actions are motivated by an impure will and
work to guard against it.
Persons lacking self-knowledge may
frequently mistake impure motives for virtue.
Very often he mistakes his own weakness, which counsels him against
the venture of a misdeed, for virtue .. . ; and how many people who
have lived long and guiltless lives may not be merely fortunate in
having escaped so many temptations? In the case of any deed it
remains hidden from the agent himself how much pure moral content
there has been in his disposition.
[MM 392-3/196]
To the outside observer, and perhaps even to the agent himself, an
impure will may seem no different than that of the purely dutiful
agent.
The greedy shopkeeper may always act in accord with duty
and may be smugly self-satisfied on account of his conformity to
the law.
By contrast the frail individual who often acts against
duty may have a much greater purity of will.
He may feel the full
force of his transgres sions , have a firm re solve to reform, and
take steps for his improvement.
Yet, to the external observer he
seems much worse than the agent with the impure will who happens to
act in legal conformi ty with duty. The agent with an impure will
is, ne ve rthe l e ss, in the more da ngerous condition because he is
much closer to slipping over into a fundamentally evil disposition.
Ka nt's rigoristic approach to character, then, allows him to
make subt l e and nuanced judgments about va riations in and types of
vice and virtue.
By distinguishi ng between the fundamental
�28
disposition of the agent and his state of progress .in incorporating
the ideal of moral perfection into his character, Kant is led to
some rather surprising conclusions for a rigorist, who, it seems
should divide everyone into sheep and goats.
For example, he
maintains that one should never attempt to make a final estimation
of the basic moral worth of oneself or others. A tendency to moral
self-condemnation and disgust with the evil state of one's
character suggests a degree of respect for the moral law and may
indicate a fundamentally good disposition.
In judging others we
can never acquire enough information to determine the true state of
their basic disposition.
Another surprising conclusion is his
recognition that the frail character who acts against prescribed
duties may have a fundamentally good disposition, while the impure
age nt may act in accord with duty but be fundamentally evil in his
disposition.
KANT'S CRITICISM OF EUDAIMONISM
How does all of this help us understand Kant's condemnation
of eudaimonian ethics?
Let us put his c r iticism before us .
I
quote here from the Metaphysics of Morals.
When a thoughtful man has overcome incentives to vice and is aware
of having done his often bitter duty, he finds himself in a state
that could well be called happiness, a state of contentment and
peace of soul in which virtue is its own reward. Now a eudaimonist
says: This de light, this ha ppi ness is r e ally the mot i ve for acting
virt uously. The concept of dut y does not de t e rmine his will
directly.
He is moved to do his duty only by means of the
happiness he anticipates .... [T]here is a contradiction in this
�29
reasoning. For on the one hand he ought to fulfill his duty
without asking what effect this will have on his happiness, and so
on moral grounds; but on the other hand he can recognize that
something is his duty only when he can count on gaining happiness
by doing it, and so in accordance with a sensibly dependent
principle, which is the direct opposite of the moral principle. [MM
377-378/183)
While the eudaimonist pursues a course of action that is in accord
with virtue, as here characterized he is moved primarily by the
happiness he anticipates will result from his action.
He
understands the nature of duty for its own sake; but his motive is
so mixed with consequent satisfaction that he cannot even recognize
his dUty unless he can count on it.
He will act in accord with
duty, but his motive is fundamentally impure.
Kant's condemnation of eudaimonian ethics certainly does flow
from the core of his moral theory. If we see his criticism as
directed at modern eudaimonians, the people who we earlier saw Kant
characterizes as latitudinarians, it also seems well considered.
These philosophers do base morality on sensibly conditioned motives
and argue that without such motives we would be unable to recognize
or do our duty. Hume, in the closing pages of the Treatise,
certainly sounds like just the sort of eudaimonist Kant has in
mind.
[W]ho can think any advantages of fortune a sufficient compensation
for the least breach of the social virtues, when he considers not
only his character with regard to others, but also his peace and
inward satisfaction entirely dependent upon his strict observance
�30
of them; and a mind will never be able to bear its own survey, that
has been wanting in its part to mankind and society. 6
It is not difficult to understand Kant's negative reaction to the
kind of duplicity he sees here.
For Hurne, as for any moral sense
advocate, ethics is based on an empirical impulse of benevolence
that may or may not be stronger than conflicting motives of selfinterest.
Trying to bolster this tenuous basis for ethical life
with appeals to contentment and self-satisfaction merely adds one
more empirical and contingent motive to the mix.
Yet, Kant's condemnation of eudaimonian ethics does not does not
seem fair or accurate when applied to the ancient philosophers whom
he also seems to have in mind, namely, Aristotle and the Stoics.
For both Aristotle and the Stoics, virtuous activity must be
undertaken for the sake of the virtuous activity itself without
regard to external goods the individual might acquire by being
virtuous.
One need not look far in their works to find passages
asserting the necessity of being virtuous even at the expense of
the sacrifice of all goods Kant associates with happiness.
I quote
here from the Nichomachean Ethics, Book III.
[In] the case of courage ... death and wounds will be painful to the
brave man and against his will, but he will face them because it is
noble to do so and base not to do so . And the more he is
possessed of virtue in its entirety and the happier he is, the more
he will be pained at the thought of death; for life is best worth
living for such a man, and he is knowingly losing the greatest
goods, and this is painful. But he is none the less brave, and
6
Treatise of Human Nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge, ed., p.620.
�31
perhaps all the more so, because he chooses noble deeds of war at
that cost. 7
The virtuous activity that Aristotle considers essential to
eudaimonia is not motivated by a desire for happiness as a
consequence of virtuous actions. The virtuous man must choose
virtue for its own sake. He is possessed of eudaimonia to a higher
degree precisely because he is able to sacrifice goods external to
the exercise of his virtue in order to exercise that virtue more
perfectly.
The Stoics, likewise, consider concern for anything
external to the exercise of virtue for is own sake to be an
impediment to virtue.
Only one who has achieved a state of
complete apathy to goods external to virtue is really acting
virtuously. Indeed, the Stoics do maintain that this leads to a
state of tranquillity, but the state of tranquillity is a result of
living in harmony with one's true rational nature. Although stoic
rhetoric on this point is at times confusing, desire for
tranquility cannot be the primary motive for virtuous action if the
action is really virtuous.
Hence, it seems that what Aristotle and the Stoics mean by
'eudaimonia' is very different from what· Kant means by 'happiness.'
Eudaimonia essentially involves the pursuit of virtue.
For
Aristotle, practicing moral virtue for its own sake is an intrinsic
part of eudaimonia.
7
For the Stoics, it is the whole of eudaimonia.
Nichomachean Ethics,
David Ross tr., Book III ch. 9.
�32
The happiness Kant speaks of is distinct from and consequent upon
the exercise of virtue.
For Kant, there is no intrinsic happiness
in the exercise of virtue and there is no necessary connection
between happiness we might have and the exercise of virtue.
Is Kant then just wrong in his blanket condemnation of
eudaimonian ethics?
Does his criticism, at least in the case of
the ancients, simply rest on a linguistic confusion, taking the
ancient idea of eudaimonia for his own idea of happiness?
not.
I think
I believe Kant is right to be suspicious of ancient doctrines
of eudaimonia, if not quite for the same reason he rejects the
modern eudaimonists.
Central to the idea of ancient eudaimonian ethics is the
belief that desire can be cultivated in such a way that reason and
desire really share the same goals.
In the man of perfect virtue,
reason and desire are in perfect harmony with each other.
Kant
rejects this not only because he thinks it is a false conception of
desire, but he also sees in it a threat to his rigoristic account
of moral virtue.
The mixture of reason and desire in the
eudaimonist's ideal of virtue Kant perceives as a threat to the
purity of virtue.
It is useful in this light to consider Kant's criticism from
the Metaphysics of Morals of Aristotle's account of virtue as a
mean between extremes.
[T)he well known principle (Aristotle's) that locates virtue in the
[Note)* ... What distinguishes
mean between two vices is false.*
�33
avarice (as a vice) from thrift (as a virtue) is not that avarice
carries thrift too far but that avarice has an entirely different
principle (maxim), that of putting the end of economizing not in
enjoyment of one's means, but merely in the possession of them,
while denying oneself any enjoyment from them. In the same way,
the vice of prodigality is not to be sought in excessive enjoyment
of one's means but in the bad maxim which makes the use of one's
means the sole end, without regard for preserving them.
[MM 404/205, text and note]
As Kant puts it elsewhere, if proper thrift is a mean between
avarice and prodigality, one would pass through the virtue in
moving from one vice to the other.
being. a little less vicious.
One could be virtuous by simply
[MM 432/228]
While Kant's
condemnation of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is certainly hasty
in that he ignores the role of practical wisdom in the choice of
the mean, the point he is making is clear enough.
either vicious or they are not.
Maxims are
The path from vice to virtue
requires first and foremost the conversion of the character from an
evil maxim to a good one.
Habituation of desires is valuable in
enabling an agent to overcome his frailty and build strength that
is necessary for consistently acting on a moral maxim.
If his
actions are not based on the proper maxim, however no amount of
habituation to the mean will make the action virtuous.
Thi s criticism of the doctrine of the mean suggests a deep and
unbridgeable chasm between Kant and Aristotle.
For Kant, the end
that Aristotle proposes for moral life, the perfect harmonization
of inclination and reason, is neither possible nor desirable.
For
Aristotle desire is a fundamentally different animal than it is for
�34
Kant.
Desires points us at a something good.
That something is
desirable tells us something about its intrinsic value.
Untutored
desire my attach to a good in the wrong context or to the wrong
degree, but desire itself has an affinity with reason in that it
indicates something about the true value of objects to which it
attaches.
Thus Aristotle can say
[W]e must none the less suppose that in the soul too there is
something beside the rational principle, resisting and opposing
it ... Now even this seems to have a share in the rational
principle ... ; at any rate in the continent man it obeys the
rational principle-and presumably in the temperate and brave man it
is still more obedient; for in him it speaks, on all matters, with
the same voice as the rational principle. [NE I.13]
Desire is capable of education in the Aristotelian scheme of
things; it makes sense to talk of "those who desire and act in
accordance with a rational principle ... " [NE I.3] In the case of
the virtuous man, the good is indicated to him both by his desires
and by his reason.
The completeness of his virtue is indicated by
the pleasure he takes in virtuous actions.
[N]ot only is a horse pleasant to the lover of horses, and a
spectacle pleasant to the lover of sights, but also in the same way
just acts are pleasant to the lover of justice and in general
virtuous acts are pleasant to the lover of virtue. Now for most
men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because they
are not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of the noble find
pleasant things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions
are such, so that these are pleasant for such men as well as in
their own nature. [NE I.8]
Because desire participates in the rational principle the two
faculties can come to share the same goals, take pleasure in the
same things, and speak with one voice.
�35
Like Aristotle, the Stoics find a strong natural affinity
between reason and desire.
The Stoics, of course, reject
Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. They opt instead for the extremes
of complete elimination of desires directed at goods external to
the will and complete attachment of desire to the one true good
internal to the will itself, namely correct willing and rational
control of life.
But the Stoics share with Aristotle the beliefs
that desire is always directed at what is good and aversion at what
is bad and that desires participate in the rational faculty.
Inde$d, they often speak as if desire is nothing more than a
confused way of thinking and as if desires are really judgments
concerning the value of objects.
Epictetus tells us,
Remember that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or
hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting. So
when someone irritates you be aware that what irritates you is your
own belief. Most importantly, therefore, try not to be carried
away by appearance, since if you gain time and delay you will
control yourself more easily. [Encheiridion, Aphorism 20; see also
Seneca, On Anger, II.1-3}
To desire something is to judge it good.
something is to judge it bad.
To have an aversion to
Since they are really forms of
judgment, desires can be educated by philosophical moral guidance
which reveals the true value of the object of desire.
If
reflection reveals an object of desire not to be a true good, the
will is naturally led to detach itself from the desired object.
The true good for the Stoic is to be found in the perfection of the
act of willing itself and his virtue is an inner attitude that is
�36
indifferent to the consequences of actions.
It is, however,
passionately attached to the good of the will itself, that is,
maintaining control over the faculty of choice and acting in
harmony with the agents true rational nature. 8
Kant will have none of this. For him reason and desire have
very different objects.
A desire to be dutiful is a contradiction
in terms. The main task of moral development is the separation and
purification of reason from desires. As his reflection on ethics
develops Kant does devote a great deal of attention to the need to
habituate the empirical components of our characters to strengthen
emotions and feelings that can assist and to weaken desires and
emotions that can hinder the performance of duty.
But he rejects
the idea that desires can have a share in or participate in the
rational faculty.
Desire is always subject to arbitrary factors of
individual preference and is always empirically conditioned.
The Stoics were notorious for their doctrine that
'externals' can add nothing to the happiness of the virtuous
person. 11 ' But look you, ' 11 it is objected, 'is not the wise man
happier if he has lived longer, if no pain has distracted him,
than if he had always had to wrestle with misfortune?' 'Tell me
[,' responds Seneca,] 'is he better or more honorable? If not,
then neither is happier.'
[ Seneca, "On the Happy Life, 11 The
Stoic Philosophy of Seneca, Moses Hadas, ed., p.244; see also
Epictetus, Discourses, 3.11, or Cicero, De Finibus, III.17-21]
For extensive treatments of the relationship between reason and
desire in the Stoics, see Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of
Virtue, (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), Ch. 3; J.B.
Schneewind , "Kant and Stoic Ethics ," in Aris totle , Kant, and th e
Stoics, S. Engstrom and J. Whiting editors, (New York: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1996), pp.285-301.
8
�37
Only experience can teach us what brings joy. Only the natural
drives for food, drink, sex, rest, and movement, and (as our
natural predispositions develop) for honor, for enlarging our
knowledge, and so forth can tell each of us, and each only in his
particular way, in what he will find these joys .... [MM 215/43)
The arbitrary and personal nature of desire means that it can never
tell us anything about the true value of the objects to which it is
attached.
Desire can never be educated.
It can only be
controlled. While Kant does admit that the cultivation of the taste
for the arts and sciences may heighten sensitivity to our higher
moral purpose, he views it as just as likely to corrupt the will by
engendering false pride and vanity incompatible with duty.
If duty and desire cannot have the same objects as their
goals, the very idea of loving virtue is an impossibility. True
virtue requires complete separation of motives of duty from motives
based in the desires.
The process of the acquisition of virtue
requires distillation of the motive of duty, separating it from
impurities.
It is a process that requires no unique philosophical
knowledge or special learning.
[W]e do not in the
make it attend, as
do we show neither
honest and good or
least try to teach reason anything new but only
Socrates did, to its own principle - and thereby
science nor philosophy is needed in order to be
even wise and virtuous. [G 404/16)
Rather than pointing us toward the simple unadorned principle of
moral duty, eudaimonists direct us to ideals which mix duty for
duty's sake with other elements.
The problem with the ancient eudaimonist, then, is not that
he advocates a goal that is completely wrong or directly opposed to
�38
duty.
Rather, he places before us a moral ideal which cannot but
foster an impure will.
The impurity in question, however, is not a
simple garden variety impurity in which the will is led to hedge
and trim adherence to duty for duty's sake to accommodate easily
understood passions and desires.
It is rather an intellectual's
perversion of . duty in which impurity is painted in a deceptively
attractive light.
The product of this deception Kant terms 'moral
fanaticism,' a vice engendered, he tells us by novelists and
sentimental educators as well as the strictest of all philosophers,
the Stoics. [CprV 86/88-89) In the following passage Kant contrasts
the disposition of the moral fanatic with that of the dutiful
agent.
The moral condition which he (the dutiful agent] can always be in
is virtue, that is, moral disposition in conflict [with desire],
and not holiness in the supposed possession of perfect purity of
the intentions of the will. The mind is disposed to nothing but
blatant moral fanaticism and e xaggerated self-conceit by
exhortation to action as noble, sublime, magnanimous. By it people
are led to the illusion that the determining ground of action is
not duty, i.e., respect for the moral law whose yoke must be borne
whether it is liked or not (though it is only a mild yoke, as
imposed by reason) . This law always humbles them when they follow
(obey) it , but by this kind of exhortation they come to think
those actions are e xpected of them not because of duty but only
because of their own bare merit. [CprR 84-5/87)
The moral f anatic is like ly to forget the condition of moral
degeneracy from which he has progressed, he will probably fail to
correctly examine his own moral condition, and neglect to guard
aga ins t the r eal threats to his virtue . One of the fe w us eful
things that the moral philosopher can do for the ordinary moral
�39
agent is warn him about the temptations of moral fanaticism.
Because it is an intellectual's pipe dream, it needs a philosopher
to diagnose it correctly.
[I]t is indeed an important article for morality to warn us
emphatically against such empty and fanciful desires, which are
of ten nourished by novels and sometimes also by mystical
presentations, similar to novels, of superhuman perfections and
fanatical bliss. But such empty desires and longings, which expand
the heart and make it weak, have an effect on the mind. They make
it languish by depleting its powers, showing well enough how the
mind is repeatedly strained by [these] ideas in trying to bring
their objects into being. With each effort the mind sinks back
into consciousness of its own impotence. 9
If a moral agent is seduced into believing he possesses the virtue
advocated by the moral fanatic he will inevitably overestimate his
own virtue.
On the other hand, if he accepts the ideal of the
fanatic, but honestly evaluates his own inability to make progress
towards it, he will be discouraged.
The goal he has adopted is not
just stern and difficult; it cannot even begin to be approximated.
Finding no way to it, he is liable to despair about the efficacy of
moral effort.
What then would Kant have us do?
Other than avoiding
novelists, sentimental educators, and eupaimonists, (and we do seem
to spend a lot of time in the company of these characters here at
St. John's) Kant would have us see that the conflict between duty
and inclination is not just insurmountable, it is providential.
9
First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, Academy
edition of Kant's work, Vol. 20, p.231 note, my translation.
It
�40
is a creative tension without which we could not come to understand
the nature of our moral purpose. Consciousness of duty is born of
the awareness of the tension between duty and desire.
Finite moral
agents like us with one foot in the world of the sense and the
other in the intelligible world of reason can flourish only with
the recognition of the tension between the two and the claims of
each. The aesthetic character of virtue is not that of beauty or
harmony.
Virtuous acts are not beautiful; they are sublime.
They
contain the subjugation of the finite and conditioned value of
desire and its objects to the unconditional and infinite value of
respect for the moral law. If Kant is right in this, then he is
also right to see attempts to bridge the gap between reason and
desire as destructive of the very core of moral agency.
The
illusion that better life awaits us in the happy land beyond our
present divided moral condition is not only mistaken, it is
potentially lethal to morality itself.
In closing let me suggest that what I have done here is no
more than scratch the surface to expose some of the major
differences between Kant and the ancients. In order to adequately
evaluate Kant's criticism much more needs to be done.
At minimum
the differences between Kant, Aristotle, and the Stoics on the
nature of practical reason and its relation to desires will have to
explored.
Thorny issues such as why Arist otle says that practical
reason is primarily involved in deliberation about means not ends
�41
and while Kant holds exactly the reverse to be the case need to be
explored.
This will have, however, to wait until a later ocassion.
Key to Citations
References to Kant's works embedded in the text are as follows:
CPR
Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith translator.
London: St. Martin's Press, 1929 . References are given
in the standard 'A', first edition and 'B', second edition.
CprR
Critique of Practical Reason, Lewis White Beck translator.
Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill Press, 1956. First number of
the citation is from Volume V of the Academy edition of
Kant's work, second number is from English translation.
G
Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, James Ellington
translator. Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1981.
[Volume IV of Academy edition/English translation.)
IUH
The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan
Intent, in Perpetual Peace and other Essays. [Volume
VIII of the Academy edition/ English translation.)
J
Critiaue of Judgment, Werner Pluhar translator.
Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1987. [Volume V of the
Academy edition/English translation.]
MM
The Metaphysics of Morals, Mary Gregor translator. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[Volume VI of
the Academy edition/English translation.]
SBHH
Speculative Beginning of Human History, in Perpetual Peace
and Other Essays, Ted Humphrey translator. Indianapolis:
Hackett Press, 1983.
(Volume VIII of the Academy
edition/English translation.]
R
~R=e=l=i~o~i~o~n"'--w~1=·=t=h=i=n~t=h=e""-'L=1=·m==i~t~s--"o~f=-=R~e=a==s=o=n-"-'A=l~o~n~e,
Theodore
Greene and Hoyt Hudson translators. New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1960. [Volume VI of the Academy edition/
English translation.)
�41
and while Kant holds exactly the reverse to be the case need to be
explored.
This will have, however, to wait until a later ocassion.
Key to Citations
References to Kant's works embedded in the text are as follows:
CPR
Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith translator.
London: St. Martin's Press, 1929. References are given
in the standard 'A', first edition and 'B', second edition.
CprR
Critique of Practical Reason, Lewis White Beck translator.
Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill Press, 1956. First number of
the citation is from Volume V of the Academy edition of
Kant's work, second number is from English translation.
G
Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, James Ellington
translator. Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1981.
[Volume IV of Academy edition/English translation.]
IUH
The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan
Intent, in Perpetual Peace and other Essays. [Volume
VIII of the Academy edition/ English translation.]
J
Critique of Judgment, Werner Pluhar translator.
Indianapolis: Hackett Press, 1987.
[Volume V of the
Academy edition/English translation.]
MM
The Metaphysics of Morals, Mary Gregor translator. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[Volume VI of
the Academy edition/English translation.]
SBHH
Speculative Beginning of Human History, in Peroetual Peace
and Other Essays, Ted Humphrey translator. Indianapolis:
Hackett Press, 1983. [Volume VIII of the Academy
edition/English translation.]
R
"'"R=e=l=i...,g...,i,,_,o..,,n~w:.:..1=·=t=h=i..,,n...._..t.....h=e=--L=i=·rn=i=t=s-""'oC::f'--"-R"""'e=a=s""'o""'n:..:....:A:..::.=l=o=n=e,
Theodore
Greene and Hoyt Hudson translators. New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1960. [Volume VI of the Academy edition/
English translation.]
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
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paper
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42 pages
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Title
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Must Eudaimonism Mean the Euthanasia of All Morals: Kant's Rigorism and the Morality of Happiness
Description
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on April 20, 2001, by Daniel Kolb as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Kolb, Daniel
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
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2001-04-20
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
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text
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pdf
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Ethics
Aristotle. Ethics
Happiness--Moral and ethical aspects
Stoics
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English
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lec Kolb 2001
Relation
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<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7871">Audio recording</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/25ac0c7d0e280df2121eeb5dc8f3407c.mp3
c61fdfd42819b6ffefffbe83bf2a204a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
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audiocassette
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01:01:39
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Title
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Must Eudaimonism Mean the Euthanasia of All Morals: Kant's Rigorism and the Morality of Happiness
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 20, 2001, by Daniel Kolb as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Kolb, Daniel
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
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2001-04-20
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Ethics
Aristotle. Ethics
Happiness--Moral and ethical aspects
Stoics
Language
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English
Identifier
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LEC_Kolb_Daniel_2001-04-20_ac
Relation
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<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7871">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/575f29b038ec0fd8e9d4ddf31a6977ea.mp3
da14352b20131677c4de3ee7533997b4
Dublin Core
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Title
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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St. John's College Meem Library
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Santa Fe, NM
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m4a
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01:21:02
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Evils in Our Midst: A Close Reading of Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture given by Jeffrey Stout on December 8, 2023 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "What is the movie about? Does the title contain an allusion? When is the story set? What film genres are at work and why? Why are there two Charlies? How did Uncle Charlie and his sister become so close? Why are there so many soldiers in town? What do the Freudian symbols and the biblical quotation mean? Was Hitchcock rejecting or affirming his Catholic upbringing and Jesuit schooling? Was he an amoralist or a moralist?"
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Stout, Jeffrey
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2023-12-08
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
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Hitchcock, Alfred, 1899-1980. Shadow of a doubt.
Language
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English
Identifier
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SF_StoutJ_Evils_In_Our_Midst_2023-12-08
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fe597e28a2e9110e99fe1c2edc8fc89e.mp3
c7449405b8bda4e595eacfa15ceba1be
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
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audiocassette
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01:04:34
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In Defense of Cicero
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on October 31, 2008, by Walter Nicgorski as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Dr. Nicgorski describes his lecture: "The tradition of criticism of Cicero as a thinker consists in charges that his rhetorical interests and oratorical excellence intrude on his philosophical work, that he is more the patriot than the philosopher, that a busy life of political activism led him to be philosophically eclectic and superficial, and that his character, especially his ambition and pride, make him unworthy to be a philosophical guide in a search for a life-directing wisdom. This lecture, by attending to certain topics and passages in the writings of Cicero, looks to him to provide his own defense. The body of the lecture explores his Socratic orientation reaching to his very skepticism, his regard for Plato including his remarkable way of reading The Republic, his apparent elevation of political action and statesmanship over the life of philosophy, and his teaching on the virtues and natural law. What emerges from this partial and selective examination of his philosophical writings is, at the least, a prima facie case for a further, more careful and fuller engagement with his thinking."
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Nicgorski, Walter
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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2008-10-31
Rights
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
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Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Language
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English
Identifier
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LEC_Nicgorski_Walter_2008-10-31_ac
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/340c61c4d97bdbad13760f298307ed53.mp3
b6b140895878c1d038507aef2bbf0087
Dublin Core
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Title
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
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St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
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Santa Fe, NM
Sound
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Original Format
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m4a
Duration
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00:59:32
Dublin Core
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Title
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On Aristotle's Hypothetical Method in De Anima
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor Jacques Duvoisin on December 1, 2023 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "To understand Aristotle’s remark that there is no thinking without an image, it is necessary to consider the mode of his argument in De Anima and elsewhere. If we suppose that he is exploring a hypothesis -- if we accept that, we must also accept this -- and inviting us to join him in it, we may find a result that is both unsettling and oddly compelling, but also one we cannot easily dispense with. It seems strange to say that all modes of thinking, including the thinking we might attribute to the gods must involve an image. This means we have to develop a keen sense of the context of the remark, and this will entail attending to its argumentative mode. This reflection will nudge us toward recognizing both a physiological and a political dimension to Aristotle’s theory of the soul."
Creator
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Duvoisin, Jacques
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St. John's College
Coverage
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Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2023-12-01
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
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Aristotle. De anima.
Language
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English
Identifier
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SF_DuvoisinJ_On_Aristotles_Hypothetical_Method_in_De_Anima_2023-12-01
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9b21e5e3609df121c0ebaa41094361b2.pdf
735ce244532825e870446b2c3bf41254
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
Johnnie Culture
November 27, 2023
Vol. XLV, Issue 4
�CONTENTS
Letter from the Editor
λόγος
Johnnie Family Weekend: An Honest Review by
Vivian Miyakawa
The Truth of Containers by B.S.
Thai and a Movie by Audrey Fox
Leptoglossus corculus: Leaf-footed Pine Seed Bug
by Louis Rosenberg
συμπόσιον
Gilbert’s Metaphysics of Magnetism by Luke
Briner
Mathematics and Seminar by Augustus Pananas
Five Beautiful Passages from Plotinus arranged by
Luke Briner
πόλιςÊ
St. John’s, A New Panem by Molly Sprout
Competition at the College: The National Intercollegiate World Chopsticks Championship By B.S.
SJC Mystery #4: A Deeper Dark by Bennett
“Toxic” Scott
vessels by Natalie Goldman
The Statuary by Luke Briner
Noodles: “The Pessimist” by Tamar Pinsky
“The Student’s Lament”: A Poem From the SJC
Archives
3
4
6
8
Dear Polity,
We hope that you’ve had an enjoyable
and rejuvenating Thanksgiving break!
Please enjoy our fourth issue of the
semester, and here’s to finishing it
strong.
Luke Briner
Editor-in-chief
9
10
12
15
16
18
19
20
22
23
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING
EDITOR
STAFF
Abigail Poppleton
Luke Briner
El’ad NicholsKaufman
Meliha Anthony
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
THE STRUCTURE
Λόγος holds news reports and narratives of
immediate relevance to the Polity. The purpose here
is to develop a shared reservoir of information
relating to campus life and the community.
ΣυμπόσιονÊoffers the opportunity for our readers to
thoughtfully consider contrasting opinions
regarding a particular topic.
ΠόλιςÊserves as a platform for elevating voices in
our community. Here we find letters to the editor,
columns, cartoons, and submitted pieces.
2
Louis Rosenberg
Benne Sco
YOUT
CONTRIBUTORS
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
Louis Rosenberg
Molly Sprout
Natalie Goldman
Audrey Fox
Augustus Pananas
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
Johnnie families participate in the school’s Fall Festival (Photography by Abigail Poppleton)
Johnnie Family Weekend: An Honest Review By Vivian Miyakawa
For many students, college is their first taste
of true freedom away from their families. Far from
the stress and monotony of home life, suddenly the
world is new and exciting. They have independence
to live how they want, sleeping, cleaning, and
working all on their own terms. However, this
transition doesn’t mean complete isolation from the
people they grew up with, especially with events such
as Johnnie Family Weekend. During the weekend of
October 27th-28th, friends and family were
encouraged to make the trek out to Annapolis,
Maryland and visit the students they had dropped off
at college just a few months before.
During this fun-filled weekend, students had
the opportunity to drop their beloved family members
off at a variety of educational and riveting activities,
or in other words, “parent daycare.” Here, Johnnie
friends and family got to gawk at the old books in the
Greenfield Library, listen to the dean assure them that
their children wouldn’t end up as deadbeat poets, and
even participate in a mock seminar! Seeing the
parents raising their hands all around the table, eager
to interject with an “um, actually” moment, really
shed light on why some of my classmates turned out
the way they did.
Another crucial aspect of family weekend was
perfecting your white lies. It’s a valuable skill to be
able to stand in the middle of the quad and assure
your grandfather that “nobody really drinks or
smokes here.” Flaunting your perfect rhetorical
argument, you plaster on a wide smile and convince
them that it’s your dream to become a lawyer one
day. After all, if you charm them enough, they may
just help you pay tuition. Just be sure that if your
room is too messy, it means your roommate is “sick”
and they surely wouldn’t want to catch whatever’s
going around.
Jokes aside, the best part of family weekend
was watching students gleefully drag their family
around campus, introducing them to all of their
friends and seeing them genuinely excited to share
their newfound home with the people they love. And,
for the rest of us, well, it was our collective sigh of
relief when the weekend was finally over.
3
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
The holy land and the disciples (Photo by B.S.)
The Truth of Containers
The Universal Form
(MAJORÊPHILOSOPHICALÊDISCOVERY)
Esteemed members of this philosophical
institution,
Modern philosophy, as you know, claims to
have come far, rooting out so much superstition and
error. But in our rapid motion towards truth, we have
left behind a great many of the most important
questions. If I may speak frankly, you are cowards. But
I cannot blame you. For, until now, I too was afraid, a
coward, a degenerate bound by the will of ‘University
Boards’ and ‘Codes of Ethics.’ No more. We have
hidden the most important lines of inquiry—Why is
there something rather than nothing? What is truth?
Who am I?—out of sheer embarrassment. Even worse,
we have abandoned much of our realm of knowledge to
the“hard sciences”. We have betrayed the presocratics1,
having given up even the most important of all
questions: What is the essential matter of the world?
“Chemists” and “Physicists” claim to know of “atoms”
4
By B.S.
and “quarks.” Let me ask you a simple question: have
you ever seen an atom? A quark? No? Then how can
they possibly be the essential matter of the world? How
could there ever be anything important that was hidden
away from us? It just makes no sense. My dear friends,
science has misled you, has misled us all. And I am
here to right that wrong.
On a date which shall go down in history2
(11/1/2023), I made a trip: I went to Westfield mall.
Amongst the Five Guys,3 the Hot Topic, and the emptygazing shoppers, I found something truly incredible.
The Container Store. One could say it is located right
next to the Crate and Barrel, but, in truth, it exists on an
entirely separate metaphysical plane. To enter into it is
to be confronted with truth. Walking around with my
loyal companions,4 I started to feel a dread emptiness:
was everything here a container? Was there no
substance, no actuality, only a vast abyss waiting to be
filled with all the excess accretions of capitalism so
numerous that we must dedicate ourselves not only to
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
collecting things but collecting things to collect things?
There were boxes, chests, drawers, luggage, every sort
of container, but then I turned and saw something: a
candle? How could they be selling a candle at The
Container Store? Right next to the candles were shirts.
There were even fancy board games. Could it be that
this store, so committed to its cause that it put
‘Container’ in its name, would betray itself and give us
things which were not containers, but containeds? No.
To believe such a betrayal would be akin to
accusing the CIA of testing brainwashing
techniques on American citizens from
1943 up to July 10th, 1972. It’s
just not possible.
I grabbed the candle and
stared, whispering, then saying,
then screaming: how are you a
container? What do you
contain? WHAT DO YOU
CONTAIN?? Then, I had my
revelation, given by the gods.
I looked up and around
Everything I saw was
containers. Not just the boxes
and chests. Candles contain
smells. Shirts contain bodies.
Fancy board games contain fun!
Everything made sense. I began
running through the store, imbibing
in the wisdom of The Container Store
founders Garrett Boone, Kip Tindell, and
John Mullen.5 Measuring tapes contain the form
of measurement. Mirrors contain reflections. That cute
french press contains a possible future for my roommate
and I6. My mind began to expand beyond its dogmatic
state. Those children running around screaming contain
potential. Their parents chasing after them contain
regret. My companions and I and so too you my dear
reader, we are all but mere containers for thoughts and
guts. The Container Store was a container container, the
highest of all forms7. To contain is to have is to be8.
My peers, we’ve done it. I’ve done it. So long
we have faced the dictum “Think outside the box.”
Fools! Fools! All of them! There was never anything
outside of the box to think of! Aristotle will remind us
that after physics must come meta-physics, but what
about containa-physics, encompassing top, bottom, and
sides? Don’t you see? We were misled from the very
beginning. Everything is container. Philosophy has been
solved.
Thank me later (but not too much later),
B.S.
November 27, 2023
Endnotes
1. The moment Socrates began asking his insipid
questions, philosophy died. How could anything
interesting survive genuine inquiry? No. Questions
must be silenced.
2. Alongside the death of Socrates and The Bay of Pigs.
3. Fries were not nearly as good as I remember, clearly
the decline of capitalism.
4. Audrey Fox, food reviewer and enthusiast
of making fun of me, and Ben Maier,
Love Doctor and man who greeted
every employee by saying we
were shopping for Christmas.
5. Our Container Story |
Container Stories
(containerstore.com)
6. In a small apartment on
the Eastside of Seattle.
There are birds singing.
There’s a gentle breeze.
The coffee’s ready. We
have matching cableknit
sweaters. It’s all there! And
we can buy it all at The
Container Store!
7. There were also containers
just for pasta. Truly
revolutionary that containers can
be so object specific.
8. “Rabbi Zeira says that there is another
method [for acquiring an elephant]: One
brings four vessels [which must, of course, be
containers] and places them under the elephant’s feet,
and he thereby acquires it like any other item that is
inside the buyer’s vessels” [Tractate Kiddushin, 25b, tr.
William Davidson]
5
�λόγος
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
Thai and a Movie
By Audrey Fox
Are you looking to film a 21st century
Annapolis reboot of the all-time classic The
Godfather? I too would be a little suspicious if I were
told the best place in Annapolis to reenact the classic
restaurant assassination was Carslon’s Thai Kitchen,
but hear me out; it fulfills many of the aesthetic and
logistical requirements that unfortunately none of the
Italian restaurants in Annapolis possess. It’s quiet,
customers keep to themselves, and the food is great.
There are also some great stand alone tables in the
restaurant that I am sure would easily break upon
impact with a falling body, making for a great
location to stage a cold hearted mob assassination.
Upon arrival at the location, I was struck by
the various means of escape I could utilize for the
getaway car. Not only is West Street an obvious
choice, there are numerous side roads in the vicinity
that could also aid in a “stealth” based approach.
Unfortunately I could not test this, as my editor is a
poor driver, and almost got us killed while pulling out
of the driveway. There are also two entrances to the
restaurant, which I am certain could come in handy.
Inside the restaurant there are two spaces that
constitute the main dining room. There is the check
out area, which is connected to the vestibule of the
doorway, and there is also the seating area that is
partitioned off by a partial wall. Both booths and
tables are available, however it seems that the
majority of customers carry out, meaning it will be
empty inside.
I was staking out the location with my editor
to get a sense of the atmosphere. I had to come back
in the morning as I forgot the most important part: the
bathroom. Oh, and of course the donuts as well. It
soon became apparent that we would have to stage
the bathroom scene at an alternate location, as the
toilet was not an old fashioned one with the pull
chain. Otherwise everything was perfect. The interior
6
has that small, hole in the wall vibe that was essential
to the assassination. Numerous vases line the wall,
the lighting is warm, the only people sitting near us
were an old hard of hearing couple and a young girl
watching Minecraft videos. I would have some
ethical issues with staging such a violent scene near
one so young, but perhaps if she had headphones on
this issue could be averted. By the way—to any
freshman or other Johnnies who have not been to
Carlson’s and love Thursday night donuts—these
donuts are 10x better. I recommend a good old
chocolate glaze donut, but the cronuts (croissant
donut) are also a fun option.
Now, let me get to the good stuff: the food.
We started out with fried tofu. Very solid, a hard
appetizer to mess up. I had the red curry with pork,
and I found it very delicious and perhaps better than
Lemongrass, which is often hailed as the best Thai in
Annapolis. Their drunken noodles are also out of this
world. The noodles are fresh and the flavor has a
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little kick but nothing too overpowering. My
editor loves Carlson’s, but unfortunately the
meal he got while we were staking out the
location (he only referred to it as the #7) was
not to his liking. We also got the Thai iced
tea—which was good, but nothing
remarkable. The only food they order in the
Godfather is the veal. There is no veal at
Carlson’s, however I think any of the curry’s
would be a good substitute.
I have been told by my editor that my
budget proposal for recreating the Godfather
has not been approved. I guess it makes
sense. What sort of mobster movie would
take place in Annapolis at a Thai restaurant?
We may never know. But in the meantime, I
highly recommend you check out Carlson’s
Thai Kitchen.
Images by Benne Sco , Audrey Fox, and Taste of Cinema
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November 27, 2023
Leptoglossus corculus: Leaf-footed Pine Seed Bug
By Louis Rosenberg
About the many bugs that are leaf-t largely
undescribed.
I saw this leaf-footed bug on my friend’s car last
week, so naturally I took a picture of it. After my
initial plan for this bug article fell through, I came
back to that picture and began working to identify its
subject. I began my search by looking up leaf-footed
bugs, family Coreidae, which seemed to be the best
starting place for this specimen and its jagged hindleg protrusions. Since I found it in Maryland, I
headed over to the Maryland Biodiversity Project
website, which is a large database of animals (and
plants and fungi) found throughout Maryland,
including common names, scientific names, and
pictures of specimens of each species. After noting
that the leaf-footed pine seed bug, L. corculus, most
closely matched my specimen, I headed back to my
favorite search engine to try and find more
information on this species.
I found very little. Michigan State University
published a short article from 2006 that focused on
the agricultural impacts of the species, but there was
little description of the bug (only the creature’s size,
the white stripe on its back, and its hind leg shape
were described). Its living habits were only described
insofar as they impact humans — they may
overwinter in human homes, causing minor nuisance,
and thus the authors flatly recommend homeowners
“destroy them or vacuum them up.”
Beyond the MSU article, most of the remaining
search results were for a closely related species, L.
occidentalis or the western conifer seed bug. One of
those links, from Pennsylvania State University, led
to an excitingly detailed article on that species, which
included a note that L. occidentalis can easily be
confused for other Leptoglossus species, including L.
corculus. L. corculus is a darker brown than L.
occidentalis, and the inner and outer portions of their
hind leg expansions can differ in size, as they do on
the bug I found, which further confirmed my
identification of this specimen. A Wikipedia article
for L. occidentalis also comes up, which includes
sections on the insect’s description and range. The L.
corculus Wikipedia article, on the other hand,
8
contains only two sentences: “Leptoglossus corculus,
the leaf-footed pine seed bug, is a species of leaffooted bug in the family Coreidae. It is found in
North America.”
Why is so little information about L. corculus
available? Perhaps because it is so innocuous to
humans: while its relative is expanding its range, and
thus accruing ecological concerns, L. corculus itself
does nothing worse than irritating homeowners.
Perhaps it’s just because there’s so many species of
insects in the world that it’s foolish of me to hope for
detailed information on each and every one of them.
While I feel a little sad for every underresearched
insect that I spot, it also reminds me of the glory of
the natural world. There is, and always will be, so
much out there that’s unknown. We can only strive to
find it.
Sources:
・https://extension.psu.edu/western-conifer-seed-bug
・https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/viewChecklist.php?
family=Coreidae
・https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/leaf_footed_pine_seed_bug
・https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_conifer_seed_bug
・https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptoglossus_corculus
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Gilbert’s Metaphysics of
Magnetism By Luke Briner
In his treatise De Magnete (On the
Loadstone), William Gilbert expounds his theory of
the spiritual nature of magnetism, attributing the
essential behavior of magnetically active bodies not
to the physical properties of body in itself, but to the
“effused immaterial forms beyond the limits of the
body” (p. 61). How can we understand the magnetic
force of these bodies as not a physical but a
metaphysical phenomenon, and what implications
does that understanding have for the way that we
must think about all magnetic bodies?
Gilbert begins his investigation by observing
some of the empirical phenomena which loadstones
(naturally occurring magnetic bodies) exhibit. By
taking a loadstone and shaving it down into a
spheroid, subsequently called a terrella and “a true
homogenous offspring of the earth and…of the same
shape” (p. 56), he observes that, by the movement of
a needle or iron wire along its surface, a north and
south pole may always be observed along its equator
with opposite directions and tendencies to each other.
These two poles, however, despite being contrary to
each other, are at the same time attracted to each
other. Gilbert demonstrates this by showing that the
north pole of a terrella, when suspended in water
such that movement is easy and free, will actively
align itself with the south pole of the earth itself, and
that the south pole will thereby do the inverse (p. 58).
This attraction to the contrary pole, either to that of
the earth itself or to that of any other magnetic body,
is in fact so great that poles of the same kind will
actively repel each other: if two loadstones are set
against each other such that the pole of one is put
toward the same pole of the other “one stone repels
the other” (p. 59) until the proper alignment of
opposites previously observed is restored.
Gilbert attributes all of this behavior not to a
merely physical or mechanical but to a spiritual
cause. While it’s true that “not from a mathematical
point does the force of the stone emanate, but from
the parts themselves” (p. 56), the parts themselves
possess such a force at all solely by virtue of the
“effused immaterial forms” (p. 61) of the souls which
inhabit them. Just as many of the ancients believed
that “not without a divine and animate nature could
movements so diverse be produced” (p. 60) in the
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great bodies of the universe, so Gilbert attributes a
similar nature to magnetic globes large and small,
since only by such a nature could their seemingly
active movements and tendencies be possible or
intelligible.
The implications of this assertion for the ways
in which we can conceive of the general nature of
magnetic bodies can be easily drawn out by applying
the methods of the differential and integral calculus
of our Junior Mathematics tutorial to them. Gilbert
demonstrates that when a loadstone is split apart, the
parts thus divided will naturally and immediately
seek to reunite with those parts to which they were
originally connected when the stone was whole, with
it the one being themselves a north and the other a
south pole (p. 59). But say that we divide the entire
loadsone, “at one fell swoop” (Galileo, Two New
Sciences, NE 93), into a “continuum out of absolutely
indivisible atoms” (ibid). Let the whole original
loadstone be M, and each infinitesimal atom be called
dm (to borrow the language from Leibniz’ New
Method). Now in each infinitely fine cut made to the
unified loadstone, there must, by the same tendency
demonstrated above in the case of the splitting of one
into two, a tendency for each to unify with their
adjacent atoms, since they were connected when the
loadstone was still a unity. From this it’s evident that
there is an infinite series of north and south poles
already and always contained within the loadstone as
present in each dm, such that ∫dm = M; in other
words, each loadstone, itself ensouled, contains
within itself a virtual infinity of equally ensouled
magnetic particles. A merely physical division
couldn’t possibly, on Gilbert’s account, in any way
alter the polar nature of each dm, since this nature has
no physical cause in the first place. Neither does the
duality implicit in each dm necessarily containing a
north and south pole contradict their atomized
indivisibility, by the same distinction between
the physical and the metaphysical explained
before. Hence we come to a similar
conclusion to Leibniz, then, that “there is
a world of creatures…of souls in the
least part of matter” (Monadology,
§66), with each magnetic soul
being immaterial, indestructible,
and causing or helping to
cause all physical
phenomena observed in
magnetic bodies.
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November 27, 2023
Mathematics in Seminar
By Augustus Pananas
Of all the elements of the Program, the
mathematics tutorial is perhaps the one which
requires the most explanation. Not that the value of
the tutorial in itself isn't obvious (at least to the extent
that you take it seriously). People like myself, who
always hated math classes previously, find
themselves delighted with the clarity, orderliness, and
comprehensibility of Euclid. Even the prospect of
calculus in future years and dark hints from the
seniors about some kind of dark sorcerer called
“Lobachevsky” aren't enough to abate the wonder of
this new way of thinking about mathematics. The
experiences of subsequent years only confirm this
feeling. What is perhaps less clear is the way in
which this miraculous experience fits in with the rest
of the Program.
If the central work of St. John's takes place in
seminar (and this I believe wholeheartedly), how
does the mathematics tutorial serve that work? The
content of the mathematics tutorial doesn't seem to
aid much in the project of seminar. If the language
tutorial teaches us how to utilize the tools of language
in a meaningful way, laboratory helps us to use our
observational and theory-forming skills, and chorus
and music tutorial connect our work to the experience
of the beautiful and sublime, what does mathematics
do? As much as some (myself included) might like,
the work of seminar is simply not reducible to
propositional argumentation. And since many of us
don't study any formal logic at St John's (a travesty
which is too vast to be addressed here), the
parallelism with syllogistic reasoning isn't very
helpful either. While the kind of rigorous thinking
which the study of mathematics produces is
something worth mastering in itself, it is something I
see applied to the work of seminar only rarely, even
by the very best Johnnies. The topics of seminar
simply don't lend themselves to the same sort of
thinking that occurs in the mathematics tutorial. So
what is it for? I suspect that the answer lies more in
the
effect
mathematics
(especially
public
mathematical demonstration) has on the psyche of the
10
student. In particular, it has two effects which, if
applied to the work of seminar, address a pair of
failings to which Johnnies are prone.
First, mathematical demonstration requires a
precision of language which is extremely helpful in
seminar. This is distinct from the rigor of its ideas.
Mathematical demonstration is rigorous in that all of
its claims can be said to follow immediately from
those that came before. If an unsupported claim is
made, anyone who is paying attention can
immediately point it out. This is extremely powerful,
but is not the feature which is important here. What
matters here is the fact that in a good demonstration,
it is necessary to always make clear exactly what one
is referring to. All of us have had the experience of
watching (or even presenting) a disastrous
demonstration in which someone makes repeated
reference to “it” or “that one” or “the thing” without
clarifying the objects being referred to. It simply
doesn't work. Mathematical demonstration is
incompatible with that kind of imprecision. The
application of this kind of precision can be
immensely helpful in seminar. Too often a
conversation is hindered because someone proposes
an idea (sometimes even a great idea) in terms too
imprecise to move the conversation forward. At such
times, reminding oneself of the constraints of
demonstration (if you can't say it, you don't know it)
can be immensely helpful. The topics of seminar are
vast and sweeping; the thoughts which it provokes
often have a grandeur which seems to evaporate on
the lips. Grounding ourselves in the simplicity of
speech that our shared experience in mathematics
gives can be a lifesaver when we fall into the trap of
trying to say everything all at once by forcing us to
use meaningful language.
If our mathematical experience can help
prevent us from trying to say too much, it can also
save us from falling into another classic trap: saying
nothing at all. In seminar, it's easy to fill a silence by
rambling about nothing at all. Because a discussion
of Plato or Dante or Locke isn't a proposition, it is
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possible to spend a great deal of time rearranging the
terms of the discussion in such a way that it produces
no new ideas at all. This can happen both
intentionally and accidentally, and all (or at least
most) of us are guilty of it from time to time. It's less
awkward than sitting in silence, but it's even more
useless. And if it's interjected into a conversation
which is actually progressing smoothly, it can be a
massive hindrance to the flow of the argument. While
this problem will almost certainly be with us for a
long time to come, I'm willing to bet that it is not
worse than it is because of our time spent with
mathematics. While seminar may be fertile ground
for using a great number of words to say nothing, the
November 27, 2023
same is not true of mathematics. When you go up to
present a proposition, you either know it or you don't.
There is no faking it. That feeling of standing at the
board with a piece of chalk in your hand and your
foot in your mouth is not easy to forget, and it
reminds us that there is a real difference between
being able to speak and having something to say. You
can talk about a proposition all you want, but if you
can't do the proof, there's no way to hide it. I suspect
we all carry at least a bit of that feeling (or the
vicarious version of it, for those demigods who have
never flubbed a proof) with us into our other classes.
It's a feeling we could stand to bring to mind a little
more.
Female Student at Blackboard during Mathematics Tutorial in 1961
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Five Beautiful Passages from Plotinus
Arranged by Luke Briner
All passages are from the MacKenna-Page
translation as produced in Encyclopædia
Britannica’s 1952 Great Books edition of the
Enneads.
-LB
IV.8.1.
Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body
into myself; becoming external to all other things and
self-encentered; beholding a marvellous beauty; then,
more than ever, assured of community with the
loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring
identity with the divine; stationing within It by
having attained that activity; poised above
whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the
Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent
from intellection from reasoning, and after that
sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens
that I can now be descending, and how did the soul
ever enter into my body, the soul which, even within
the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be.
I.6.9-10.
But how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know
its loveliness?
Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not
find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the
creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts
away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line
lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown
upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is
excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to
all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of
beauty and never cease “chiselling your statue,”1 until
there shall shine out on you from it the godlike
1
splendour of virtue, until you shall see “the perfect
goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.”2
When you know that you have become this perfect
work, when you are self-gathered in the purity of
your being, nothing now remaining that can shatter
than inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the
authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to
your essential nature, wholly that only veritable Light
which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any
circumscribed form nor again diffused as a thing void
of term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater
than all measure and more than all quantity—when
you perceive that you have grown to this, you are
now become very vision: now call up all your
confidence, strike forward but a step—you need a
guide no longer—strain, and see.
VI.7.36.
Knowledge of The Good or contact with it, is the allimportant: this—we read—“is the grand learning,”3
the “learning” we are to understand, not of looking
towards it but attaining, first, some knowledge of it.
We come to this learning by analogies, by
abstractions, by our understanding of its subsequents,
of all that is derived from The Good, by the upward
steps towards it. Purification has The Good for goal;
so the virtues, all right ordering, ascent within the
Intellectual, settlement therein, banqueting upon the
divine—by these methods one becomes, to self and to
all else, at once seen and seer; identical with Being
and Intellectual-Principle and “the entire living all,”4
we no longer see the Supreme as an external; we are
near now, the next is That and it is close at hand,
radiant above the Intellectual.
Here, we put aside all the learning; disciplined to this
pitch, established in beauty, the quester holds
knowledge still of the ground he rests on but,
Plotinus is referencing Phaedrus, 252b7 here. Although the quotation marks are absent in MacKenna-Page’s version, I have chosen to follow
Armstrong’s lead and add them in order to make that reference’s fact clear to the reader, and will do the same when necessary going forward.
2
Phaedrus, 254b7.
3
Republic, 505a2.
4
Timaeus, 31b1.
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suddenly, swept beyond it all by the very crest of the
wave of Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and
sees, never knowing how; the vision floods the eyes
with light, but it is not a light showing some other
object, the light is itself the vision. No longer is there
thing seen and light to show it, no longer Intellect and
object of Intellection; this is the very radiance that
brought both Intellect and Intellectual object into
being for the later use and allowed them to occupy
the quester’s mind. With This he himself becomes
identical, with that radiance whose Act is to engender
Intellectual-Principle, not losing in that engendering
but for ever unchanged, the engendered coming to be
simply because that Supreme exists. If there were no
such principle above change, no derivative could rise.
VI.9.8.
Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever
present with us; we with it when we put otherness
away. It is not that the Supreme reaches out to us
seeking our communion: we reach towards the
Supreme; it is we that become present. We are always
before it: but we do not always look: thus a choir,
singing set in due order about the conductor, may
turn away from that centre to which all should attend:
let it but face aright and it sings with beauty, present
effectively. We are ever before the Supreme—cut off
is utter dissolution; we can no longer be—but we do
not always attend: when we look, our Term is
attained; this is rest; this is the end of singing ill;
effectively before Him, we lift a choral song full of
God.
Bust of Plotinus from the Ostiense Museum in Rome,
VI.9.11.
This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries:
Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is
not to be made a common story, the holy things may
not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not
himself attained to see. There were not two; beholder
was one with beheld; it was not a vision compassed
but a unity apprehended. The man formed by this
mingling with the Supreme must—if he only
remember—carry its image impressed upon him: he
is become the Unity, nothing within him or without
inducing any diversity; no movement now, no
passion, no outlooking desire, once this ascent is
achieved; reasoning is in abeyance and all
Intellection and even, to dare the word, the very self;
caught away, filled with God, he has in perfect
stillness attained isolation; all the being calmed, he
Italy (Source: worldhistory.org, CC BY-SA license)
turns neither to this side nor to that, not even inwards
to himself; utterly resting he has become very rest.
He belongs no longer to the order of the beautiful; he
has risen beyond beauty; he has overpassed even the
choir of the virtues; he is like one who, having
penetrated the inner sanctuary, leaves the temple
images behind him—though these become once more
first objects of regard when he leaves the holies; for
There his converse was not with image, not with
trace, but with the very Truth in the view of which all
the rest is but of secondary concern.
There, indeed, it was scarcely vision, unless of a
mode unknown; it was a going forth from the self, a
simplifying, a renunciation, a reach towards contact
and at the same time a repose, a meditation towards
adjustment. This is the only seeing of what lies within
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the holies: to look otherwise is to fail.
Things here are signs; they show therefore to the
wiser teachers how the supreme God is known; the
instructed priest reading the sign may enter the holy
place and make real the vision of the inaccessible.
Even those that have never found entry must admit
the existence of that invisible; they will know their
source and Principle since by principle they see
principle and are linked with it, by like they have
contact with like and so they grasp all of the divine
that lies within the scope of mind. Until the seeing
comes they are still craving something, that which
only the vision can give; this Term, attained only by
those that have overpassed all, is the AllTranscending.
It is not in the soul’s nature to touch utter
nothingness; the lowest descent is into evil and, so
far, into non-being: but to utter nothing, never. When
November 27, 2023
the soul begins again to mount, it comes not to
something alien but to its very self; thus detached, it
is not in nothingness but in itself; self-gathered it is
no longer in the order of being; it is in the Supreme.
There is thus a converse in virtue of which the
essential man outgrows Being, becomes identical
with the Transcendent of Being. The self thus lifted,
we are in the likeness of the Supreme: if from that
heightened self we pass still higher—image to
archetype—we have won the Term of all our
journeying. Fallen back again, we awaken the virtue
within until we know ourselves all order once more;
once more we are lightened of the burden and move
by virtue towards Intellectual-Principle and through
the Wisdom in That to the Supreme.
This is the life of gods and of the godlike and blessed
among men, liberation from the alien that besets us
here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of earth,
the passing of solitary to solitary.
Pictured on le : Portrait of Stephen
Mackenna, translator of Plotinus, drawn in
1907 by Leo Mielziner
Excerpt from a 1907 journal entry of
MacKenna’s: "Whenever I look into Plotinus I
feel always all the old trembling fevered
longing: it seems to me that I must be born
for him, and that somehow someday I must
have nobly translated him: my heart,
untravelled, still to Plotinus turns and drags at
each remove a lengthening chain. It seems to
me that him alone of authors I understand by
inborn sight..."
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November 27, 2023
Noodles: “The Pessimist”
By Tamar Pinsky
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SJC Mystery #4: A
Deeper Dark
By Benne “Toxic” Sco
I was in Mellon 206, looking for a strike
lighter and a bunsen burner (I have no idea how long
the power is going to last). I haven’t been going out
much. The rain was always cold, but I’m fine with
the cold. My problem was how loud and blinding it
could be; in all my paranoia, the thought of not being
able to see or hear properly sounded, to say the least,
unappealing. But I couldn’t sit inside forever (I’m
slowly discovering all the different ways you can go
crazy), so I went on a little adventure in pursuit of the
thing my little caveman brain can understand best:
fire!
Lights turned off and on in a few of the
windows I passed, the cars were in different locations
despite never moving, all the usual haunts to make
me question the stability of my mind/reality. I
checked my phone out of habit: no texts (despite
having service?), and the date still and always the
same: somewhere between midnight and 8, April 7th,
2016. I kept walking.
After I’d been in Mellon for a while, I found
myself with a bunsen burner in one hand and a
problem in the other: how was I supposed to get a
fuel source from the lab to my apartment? For all the
evidence to the contrary that I have provided you
dear reader, I am not entirely a fool. Having a
propane tank in my apartment that has one exit and
no windows which can open in a world where
firefighters definitely will not answer my call? That’s
fool central. So I decided to light it then and there
instead. About three seconds later, the lights went
out.
Now, someone who has actively put
themselves in the position of summoning powers
beyond our comprehension would be well served by
having a good survival instinct. I, naturally, do not;
when it comes to fight or flight, I freeze. So I stood,
unmoving, trying to make out the contours of the
darkness. At first, I only heard the rain and the
burner. The burner, about a minute in, went out. After
about three or four minutes (long enough that I could
have just been hallucinating), I began to hear the
scratching, a rhythmic cutting in the darkness. It was
coming from the next room.
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November 27, 2023
There is only one thing to do in such a
situation, once more a correlate of ‘Don’t do anything
that would start a horror movie’: if you’re in a horror
movie situation, do something absolutely antithetical
to being murdered. Options include: break dancing,
yodeling, reciting the declaration of independence,
etc. My demon prevention method of choice? Britney
Spears. Toxic. Certainly has some bad vibes, but who
ever got stabbed to something so danceable? Now, I
didn’t sing too loud at first for obvious reasons, but
once you get to the chorus, brother you cannot stop
yourself from going for it. I put on a little show for
those demons: choreography, high notes, drama. And
by God, it must have worked; I finished singing, and
there was no more scratching.
I stood in silence, waiting to hear the screams
of the damned. Nothing, nothing so pure it started to
hurt my ears. I looked around: why the hell did
silence hurt? My head felt like it was expanding,
pressing out at the temples. I tried coughing and it
was swallowed up. It was so very quiet. Out the
window, I could see the stars. The panes were clear.
The rain had stopped.
Well I—to speak like my good ol’
grandmother—just about jumped for joy. What the
hell happened? What the hell kind of explanation
could there be? What the hell did I care for an
explanation? The rain was done and the air was
warm! The lights turned back on (I only jumped a
little when they did). Everything was gonna be
alright! There was only one problem: I had to check
where the scratching had come from. It might get me
killed, but there might be answers. This was what I
found:
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
St. John’s, A New Panem
By Molly Sprout
Recently my friends and I were imagining a
Hunger Games-type situation at St. John’s; a fight to
the death with the entire student body. While
entertaining to think of, and maybe even intriguing
(Reality Club... maybe something to work on?), there
was a thought that came to me: we are all incredibly
weak. And yes, this is ignoring some of the student
body that does really have their shit together and
could probably kill a lot of us with their bare hands.
But for the most part our weakness is accurate and
unavoidable. And this isn’t just due to the student
body comprising mostly of previous high school
nerds, and we can hear why in the conversations we
have outside of class. Does any of this sound
familiar? “I haven’t eaten anything
all day” “I only got three hours of
sleep last night” “I’ve just been
drinking coffee and eating the
dining hall fries for the past week”
“I had ten (10) shots of Jack
Daniels last night” “I have had
bronchitis for eight
weeks but will
continue to
smoke half a
pack a day”—
this campus is
malnourished,
under slept,
and sick.
With our college’s motto being “Books and a
Balance” one would think that we would attempt to
execute this. Our failure to do so raises the question
of what kind of balance the student body is seeking.
If it is not the balance of a healthy life with an
immersive study of books, then what exactly is it?
With the obsession with acting thoughtlessly and
unhealthily along with the need for our peer’s eyes, it
seems as though we are seeking the balance of
someone on a tightrope, teetering on the thin line we
have created for ourselves, made for the spectacle of
it. Because it is not that we are just drinking too much
or eating and sleeping too little, but that it is done in
tandem with scholarly perfection. It is an attempt to
do the impossible; reduce your body and health to
Student Studying in McDowell Hall
nothingness while turning in a beautiful essay on
time. We must be the impossible to everyone we
know! And as glamorous as that sounds, being a
functional alcoholic with a great Don Rag, it is
impossible. We can try to convince ourselves that the
essay we turned in after seventy-two hours of not
sleeping is good, but it really isn’t. Instead of
reaching perfection and self-destruction at the same
time all we have done is hurt our bodies and our
minds without anything to show for it. As much as
we avoid this conclusion it is inevitable, and we can
all see it when we cry to our friends about not being
able to keep going as tired as you are.
To offer a solution for this is to throw a stone in a
glass house. I smoke an incredible amount and
absolutely do not work out. So, really what I have
done is offer up useless critique on a mass problem of
young people in academia. But I will say that each
and every one of you would benefit from drinking a
glass of whole milk
and eating some
vegetables.
17
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
The Statuary
By Luke Briner
They stand abidingly amid the sun-enhalcyoned shrouds
That diadem the lofty, lonesome mount
As though the eminences of a never-passing age,
Formidable and unoblivioned.
I’ve longed so much to know
Myself the secrets of that conclave’s beatific life—
No longer to meander through its ranks
In idle fancy, but to offer up this trembling flesh
Unto its highest rigor, and be free
From all that lies below.
Beneath this sacred crest partitioning the long-estranged
Hypostases of timelessness and toil
A worthless nature writhes, unidylled, frantically inert,
And aching for a self-subverted peace.
Is that my destiny?
Or does a higher motion dwell within this dismal breast,
By which I could endeavor to endure
In still submiss the apogean kiln that immolates
All false debris, and fires the faultless form
That hides inside of me?
18
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
Take all that’s good within: outstretch, unfold the tiny point
Of infinite and life-enthralling light
That silently reposes in the center of the squalls
And miseries of its posterity
Into a puissant shape,
Epitomized in its unique perfection, as its kin,
Atop an undeclining golden age;
Would that ascendancy be mine?—or would I, thrown aside
As an extraneous vessel, only watch
Its heavenward escape?
Alighted effortlessly on the yawning azure apse
The Luminary, cool and pontiff-like,
Presides above the praises of her progeny, and sighs
A living redolence that sweeps them up
In transcendental rite;
As she to them, so they to me—and I in kind aspire
To carve upon the all-anointed plane
A self-derived exemplar that, unmoving, moves the world,
And, surpliced by the noon, behold her with
An uneliding sight.
I have withdrawn into myself and looked, and I have found
The dim quiescence of a once-held spouse;
There lies the one true work made for these transience-addled hands:
To grasp the chisel, and restore him to
His early, godlike shine.
For you and you alone, my Critic, do I make myself
At once the Statue and the Cypriot—
For nothing but the hope of finding in your loving eyes
My truth and legacy, forever fixed
Within your stainless shrine.
19
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
Competition, Victory, Joy. (Picture by Meliha Anthony)
Competition at the College: The National
Intercollegiate World Chopsticks
Championship By B.S.
Dear friends competitors,
You are certainly aware that society is
presently going down the drain. But why? Scroll long
enough on any Tik-Tok feed (past the incessant
dancing, stolen jokes, and… is that just almost porn?
Why?) you will find the same answer given by the
same people: men variously to the side of the camera,
a microphone in their face, will tell you that
masculinity is dead (the so called ‘Bro Scogan
Experientia’ is the prime example of this). People tell
you to be tougher, harder, fight more wolves. And, to
be honest with you dear reader, it’s boring. The man20
o-sphere’s solution is returning to something more
primal, less soyboy; I, as the soyboy philosopher king
that I am, know that they are only striving after
shadows; we must strive after truth. And the truth is
competition.
The immediate, weak-minded assumption is
that competition exists purely in and for itself; the
thoughtful, big-brained solution sees that competition
solves every single problem ever and never has any
issues thank you very much Adam B. Smith. And let
me tell you: St. John’s College has entirely lost its
competitive edge. We make our college ‘hard’ by
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
say pressure makes diamonds, they are not going far
enough: enough pressure makes a black hole, strong
enough to swallow up even Einstein.
Imagine the money from the reality TV
version.
And to prove my commitment to this cause, I
have begun the competing process with a new and
great competition, not just for the college, but for the
whole world: The Intercollegiate National World
Chopsticks Championship:
having enabling, but what is enabling when everyone
and their cousin gets enabled? We claim to have a
rigorous program, but we don’t even require a single
class in Business Administration (the most difficult
course)? We take our name, our calling professors
tutors, calling evaluations don rags from Oxford, the
most prestigious school in the world. The first step to
being truly competitive is to take another Oxi
tradition: post grades on public bulletins. “But B.S.!
We don’t concentrate on grades at the College!” Shut
up. What kind of world is it where we are not
comparing GPAs? What is there to compete over
when our unit of measurement is the number of
longing looks directed your way during a semester
(2)? And god damn it, why do we only have to be
graded on our classes? We need to be truly expansive
in our evaluations. We need grade postings for
everyone as a waltz partner (C+), as a friend (A–), as
a lover (F). You try kissing like a fish and being
publicly ridiculed for it; you will change. You will
evolve.
But why stop there? Everything done by
everyone should be rated all the time to build
pressure and spite. Seminar points should get a rating
from both tutors on the spot (a la gymnastics); papers
should be read aloud and critiqued at random;
intramural games should be made overly violent and
obsessive (see how small the steps we have to take
are!). Forget renovating the dorms: destroy them all
and make one giant Naval Academy building: eat and
be judged, sleep and be judged, shower and be
judged, judged even for your judgement. When they
Entirely seriously,
B.S.
21
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
vessels
By Natalie Goldman
The channels for spirit
Are delicately constructed.
Lying in a well-worn path,
They drive passion to madness.
Nobody, though, would doubt
The hardiness of the walls themselves,
Keeping in even the most
Base and heinous of rages.
There is no seeping out.
Someday, blood will be replaced.
They will change it for something
More beautiful and terrifying.
When that day comes,
We will break down our barriers
And run into each other’s arms.
22
�πόλις
THE GADFLY
November 27, 2023
The Student's Lament from the St. John's College Yearbook;
Author and Year Unknown
Hope you all had some wonderful food over Thanksgiving Break!
23
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
JPEG format. The deadline for
submissions is the Friday prior to
(Photography by Abigail Poppleton)
publication.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
�
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Thursday
November 16
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
From the
polity
Vol. I Issue 8
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
College Historical taskforce
organizes panel on key
It’s a Road! It’s a Way! It’s a… Taskforce, Created to Examine College History and Examine
Desire Path?
the College’s Responsibility Today, Hopes to Spark Dialogue
Chances are you’ve seen them around and barely
noticed them: short dirt paths eroding away well-kept
sod. Have you ever wondered how they got there? The
answer is base human instinct.
Desire paths are created by humans taking the shortest
route between two points and typically occur when the
paved/planned path takes a longer or more-circuitous
one. In some places, desire paths are actively studied by
landscapers and engineers to learn from the wisdom of
the herd and pave accordingly. In others, they are
roped off to prevent further soil erosion.
In the U.S., due to our lack of pedestrian
infrastructure, desire paths can be found where the
sidewalk ends, along the sides of roads, and between car
parks and stores. Another place is on college campuses
since they are some of the few pedestrianized areas in
the country. Poor planning and hurried students
combine to create desire paths on many campuses
around the world.
In a place like St. John’s, we have few desire paths. 300
years of constant habitation have allowed many of our
naturally-created paths to be paved over in an orderlyangled array of bricks. There are a few left, however,
where the aversion to paving over everything has us
keeping some grassy plots. The Quad may be the most
glaring example, as many different desire paths crisscross the grass square and turn it into a mud patch. A
more classic example would be the one next to ChaseStone, leading to the East side of Pinkney .
Some see desire paths as a nuisance and an eyesore.
Others laud them as they fly in the face of the rigid lines
of modern landscaping. There’s even a whole
subreddit (r/desirepath) dedicated to them. Love them
or hate them, they’re sticking around until we can
always predict the movements of a crowd. And even
then, we may still surprise our landscapers.
Caleb Briggs
Editor’s Note: this is not a typical From the Polity
article, but I did not have any submissions of opinion
this week. I know all of you have opinions, please send
them to me. The Collegian needs them!
St. John’s College has seen much in its 240 years of
history, from its founding in the tumultuous days
immediately following the American Revolution to its
slow and quiet decline throughout the last half of the
19th century and beginning of the 20th, and into the
new program that has defined the past 87 years. This
history is inseparable from the state of the College
today; every aspect of life in the Polity is shaped by it,
with an even greater impact on the relationship of the
College with the wider world. However, much of this
history, especially that which predates the New
Program, is forgotten or unacknowledged, outside of a
few anecdotes about Humphreys Hall having been a
morgue, or McDowell burning down.
We pay lip service to our history, claiming the
distinguished 1696 founding date (a myth that I hope
to dispel in a future article), and displaying pride in our
19th century architecture, but we rarely pause to think
about how the College’s history, and particularly
history of discrimination and slavery, has made the
Polity we have today. While it might be nice to imagine
the New Program as its own isolated bubble, a
Republic in Speech brought forth by the sheer
intellectual will of its founders, it is not. Because of this
reluctance to look back practically, there has long been
a need to reckon with the historical legacy of the
College.
In the summer of 2020, a group arose hoping to do
exactly that. “It was the summer of George Floyd’s
murder,” explained Adrian Trevisan, Chair of the
College Historical Taskforce. “Roughly the same time,
there were two open letters from alumni to the college,
and a webinar.” These events, all calling on the college
to address systemic racism, and to make concrete
changes in the day-to-day operations of the College,
and which lead to the creation of the campus Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion Taskforce inspired Trevisan to
think. “Well, let's look at our Annapolis campus that's
built in the 1700s for a bunch of white kids in
Maryland. So there's got to be slavery in there. And we
really ought to be doing something to research our
history and to figure out some way to acknowledge it.”
Trevisan, who is a board member, reached out to the
then Board of Visitors and Governos chair Ron
Fielding, who agreed that this was an important
project. Trevisan expected that Fielding would then
pass the task to someone else, but instead found
himself responsible for putting his idea into action. By
This Week in Seminar
the Fall of 2020, Trevisan had put together a group of
tutors, students, board members, staff members and
historians to begin examining the College’s history.
Since then, they have been researching, discussing, and
seeking ways to get funding to do more detailed work
on the history of the College.
Central to the work of the task force was the question
of what it means to address the College’s history. Many
other institutions have been struggling with similar
questions, with particular focus on who gets to be
commemorated by names of buildings, or how the
institution’s impact on the community may be built on
legacies of discrimination. In Annapolis, there is a long
history of slavery that is irrevocably tied up with the
founding of the College, but hard to document, as well
as later tensions between St. John’s and the
neighboring Clay Street community. The way we
remember important Annapolis figures is also caught
up in this history: Samuel Chase, William Paca,
Thomas Stone, and Charles Carrol all held slaves, while
the College’s most famous alumnus and the namesake
of the FSK auditorium, Francis Scott Key, had a
complex history as a slaveholder, as well as a lawyer for
Black people suing for their freedom. How to address
these issues remains a major topic of discussion.
At St. John’s, there are additional complications
created by the unique position of the College’s campus
in Santa Fe, which, being created in the middle of the
twentieth century, sometimes seems to have a level of
distance from many of the injustices in New Mexico’s
history. Salomon Cordova, a former student
representative from Santa Fe, argued otherwise.
Beyond the responsibility anyone who purchases land
in New Mexico has to address its theft from indigenous
people, he said, “St. John’s kind of triggered the
beginning of gentrification in Santa Fe, they started to
bring in mostly white facing individuals who are
intellectuals… and they came with money… I think
addressing that requires a bit more nuance and more
work to be done by the College.”
“Knowing history gives people a better, a more
complete sense of what it means to be a Johnnie,”
explained Trevisan. “Slavery, that's part of it… you
need to know about it and then you need to figure out
what you're going to do about it.” For now, the
taskforce has begun by commissioning a series of
Cont. on page 2
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
- 11/16: Plato: Phaedo, 57A–84B
- 11/29: Plato: Phaedo, 84B–118B
Sophomores:
- 11/16: Plotinus: see official list for selections
- 11/20: Augustine: Confessions, I–V
Juniors and Seniors:
- Preceptorials
Friday Night Lecture:
Marcel Proust's Turning of the Table, Rebecca Goldner
Page 1
Thursday 11/16
- 3 pm, Mitchell Art Museum: 20
minute tour of exhibitions
Friday 11/17
- Noon, Private Dining Room:
Montessori International info session
Saturday 11/18
- 7 pm, FSK Auditorium: Duchess of
Malfi
Sunday 11/19
- 7 pm, FSK Auditorium: Duchess of
Malfi
�Thursday November 16, 2023
St. John’s collegian
Duchess of malfi:
Play Showing this Weekend
Exclusive Interview of Director Jack Domanski about
The play, The Duchess of Malfi, is set to be performed
this weekend in the FSK. To get a better idea of the
dramaturgical delights that await us, I accosted the
director, Mr. Jack Domanski, on a dark Quad.
through the means of their spy Daniel de Bosola who
is a mercenary who served the Cardinal for several
years as a galley slave. What unfolds from this is a
series of death and tragedy.
Question: Without using the phrase “a Jacobean
Revenge tragedy” give a brief summary of the play.
Q. Does it end well?
Answer: It revolves around the Duchess of Malfi who
is recently widowed who has two brothers, Duke
Ferdinand and the Cardinal and they are both jealous
over her domestic life and encourage her not to marry
again–
Q. What comprises her domestic life?
A. Her domestic life is one– she decides to marry her
steward, Antonio, in secret, against the wishes of her
brothers and they lead a secret life with three children
for several years until their brothers find out
Time is of the
essence
New Exhibit at Mitchell
Museum Shows Video Art
The combination of different sounds from different
places in the room is striking. Screens and projected
videos line the walls, and the floor plan is open, so all
of the audio mingles to create a single backdrop.
Nonstop speech collides with the sound of a person
imitating a wolf howl, and it takes a moment to realize
that the majority of the pieces don’t have audio at all,
but are silent by design. The performance art
movement of the early 1960s gradually turned to film
and video as new mediums through which to express
their art. The Mitchell Art Museum’s current
exhibition, which runs until December 10, highlights
seven pieces of film and video art from the late 1960s
and 1970s in the United States. It’s important to note
that the only information written on the labels on the
walls next to the pieces are the artist’s name and the
duration of the video. One piece features a cat eating
out of a bowl while a person circles it slowly (15:37
min), and one shows the artist putting on makeup
and getting dressed for the day (38 min). Don’t
worry, the names of the pieces and the years they were
created are still displayed on the wall near the door of
the exhibit, but it’s important to this exhibition to
focus the most on the element of time. Some of the
videos are more flashy and less mundane, but even
these ones are made fascinating by their durations.
How much time to spend with each piece of art is up
to the viewer, but seeing the exact amount of time the
artist intended for the piece to take up can compel the
audience to stick around to see the whole thing. It’s
illuminating to find out which pieces are worth the
wait.
Natalie Goldman
Pensée of the Week
Dish washers are the prime example of modern
capitalism. We put dirty things in a closed box and
hope someone else would take care of them
Vol. I. Issue 8
A. I think you could well infer from “death and
tragedy” that it does not end well but–
Q. Very good, next question: What part of the play
are you most excited about?
A. I am excited for the Duchess’s final scenes of the
play. I think that Acacia gives a phenomenal
performance and the audience will be quite
astonished by it. I think also the scenes where Ranger
Kasdorf goes wild as Ferdinand will also blow the
audience away. I’m also excited–
Historical Taskforce, Cont.
reports on figures that have buildings named after
them who were important to the College’s founding,
and which should prove helpful for promoting more
informed conversation about their legacies and how
the College can address them. These reports should
be completed this winter, and be distributed
throughout the Polity.
They should also form the starting point for a series
of forums, beginning with one on Key later this year.
The forum, which will feature Annapolis community
members and historians, to help examine who Key
was, what his impact was on the College, and
Annapolis as a whole, and why it matters how we
remember him. In particular, Key’s complex
relationship with slavery, and his close ties with the
College, including his founding of the alumni
association, will be discussed. In part, this
conversation hopes to be a starting point for more
concrete action, whether that may include suggesting
the College rename the hall, work to help mend
legacies of its impact on the Annapolis Community,
or help educate about Key’s complex past.
The task force is not primarily aimed externally,
however. It hopes to encourage conversation and
reflection within the Polity, particularly amongst the
student body, who often have not been very well
informed about College history. “Your years on
campus are the beginning of your life as a Johnnie.
You’ll be a Johnnie all your life, so the history of the
college will matter for you for a long time,” said
Trevisan. “I would hope that in addition to students
studying history for knowledge for its own sake,
students would be interested in reading the histories
that we will have, and tell us if it matters or not. If they
read it and say ‘eh, I don’t have any problems with
that, then that’s as good information as saying that we
have to change things. What we’re asking is, read these
reports, and tell us what you think.”
It is not easy to address so many centuries of history,
but in a way very appropriate to the College, the
taskforce hopes to do so by conversation. Only by
discussion, based on the grounding texts of the stories
of our own past, can we, as a Polity, decide what our
responsibilities are to address our College’s legacy,
and what it really means to be conscientious citizens
of the Polity’s present in light of its past.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Page 2
Q. This is a short article; we’re going to move on.
What part of the play has been the most challenging?
Mr. Domanski buried his face in his hands for a
moment before muttering “Jesus.”
A. Almost all of it–
Q. And finally, are you bothered that we look the
same?
A. I am deeply bothered by it.
The Duchess of Malfi, a Jacobean revenge tragedy,
featuring Acacia Burnham, Ranger Kasdorf, Max
Mersmann-Jones, and Khanya Mnisi is coming to the
FSK at 7 p.m. on November 18th and 19th.
Caleb Briggs
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring quick
and timely coverage of important events going on, to
help develop a more informed student body. If you’re
searching for more in-depth investigations and
reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check out
the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between 350450 words, while opinion should be kept short at 300
words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu with
your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
Caleb Briggs
Natalie Goldman
Notice of Elections
The Delegate Council will be holding elections on
Tuesday, December 5th for four Freshman
Representative positions, as well as the positions of
President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Polity Herald.
People interested in running should contact the
Polity Attorney, Ranna Kisswani, with any questions
about eligibility or election procedure.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.
Creator
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St. John's College
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, Md.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
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English
Identifier
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SJCCollegian
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
2 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's Collegian, November 16, 2023
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 1, issue 8 of the St. John's Collegian, published November 16, 2023. Corrected version.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-11-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
Type
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text
Format
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pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJCCollegian_vol1_issue8_2023-11-16
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
-
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PDF Text
Text
Thursday
November 9
2023
The St. John’s Collegian
A Gadfly Publication
From the
polity
Vol. I Issue 7
Printed Thursdays in Annapolis
calls alleging suspicious items
made, buildings evacuated
Why Smoking is Frickin’ Epic Local and State Police Conducted Check of Campus, Found
No Explosive Objects, Investigation is Ongoing
I hear the concerns of a tragically misguided member
of the polity and raise them the age-old aphorism,
“live and let live,” applicable in the sense that you
should let me live my life of peace, freedom, and
looking damn cool whilst you live your pedantic, nitpicky life of cold unfeeling sobriety.
Big Anti-Tobacco has been in the limelight for far too
long, propounding such fiction as “lung cancer” and
“emphysema,” which has poisoned public nicotine
discourse in the way smoking does not poison the
body. It pains me to see the noble gifts of my good
and unbiased friend, Phillip Morris, so treated with
base contempt. We could speak for hours on the
claim that well over 10 people die of smoking related
illness per annum, but I digress. We have issues closer
to home to discuss, and such arguments are beneath
such esteemed sophists as we. Did Socrates ever decry
the baseness of smoking? I think not.
Moving onto my anonymous friend’s claim that
smoking grants one an unattractive nature and an
unpleasant presence. I’d in fact like to argue the
opposite, that you non-smoking squares and your
whining tires my fellow smokers and I, gives us a
headache, and makes us really need a smoke. When
you think about it, you’re the problem. But my low,
sexy voice and existential joie de vivre allow me to
suffer such blows without complaint. If you insist
upon being so bent out of ideological shape, perhaps
you should consider the good of the whole. Does the
presence of smoking not elevate the mysterious and
pseudo-intellectual atmosphere that the polity aspires
to cultivate here? In standing in opposition to
smoking, you stand against progress, truth, and
freedom. After all, academia is best seen as the process
of peering through the veil—in this case, one of
smoke.
Now, to the author of On the Smoking Policy, I hope
this refutation is not deeply offensive to you, but
rather that it has encouraged you to entertain the
truth, that there exists no art more dear to—nor more
conducive to—the St. John’s spirit and culture of
passionate truth-seeking. Please cease your attacks on
the cornerstones of our college, and our intrinsic,
God given right to smoke on the quad.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a Lucky Strike. You
know where to find me. That’s all.
–J.S. (Jilted Smoker)
Classes in Mellon on the morning of Thursday,
November 2nd, were interrupted at about 10:40 by the
harsh ringing of the fire alarm. For many students, the
reason for the alarm was unclear at first, with some
speculating that there might be a fire drill that was not
announced, or that there was actually a fire going on
in Mellon. However, the word quickly began
spreading amongst students standing outside of
Mellon, and was confirmed by tutors and staff
nearby, that a suspicious package was reported to be
somewhere in Mellon, and that the Annapolis Police
Department had ordered the building to be
evacuated.
Students who were signed up to the Public Safety
Emergency Alert System received emails and texts
warning them to evacuate Mellon at 10:47, and
students who were in the building at the time were
moved over across the fields of back campus, before
being told to continue down towards the boathouse.
At this time, Fielding Hall, Campbell Hall, Carroll
Barrister House, and the Harrison House were also
evacuated. The buildings remained closed until an all
clear message was sent out to the Polity at 12:44. Due
to this, 1 pm classes were canceled, and the dining hall
was opened from 1-2 pm, with campus operations
returning to normal at the start of 2:20 classes.
The evacuations were triggered in response to a call
made to admissions earlier that morning, in which an
unidentified person suggested he knew that there was
a student in possession of a dangerous object on
campus. “It was Thursday, and I had a 8:30 am to
12:30 pm shift,” explained the student who received
the call, who asked to remain anonymous. “I opened
things up as I usually do, and I was returning calls that
were missed… there was a call that came in at 7:40 am,
which I thought was odd, because admissions doesn’t
open until 9, and why would you call admissions at
7:40?” The student proceeded to call the number
back, and a voice of someone who didn’t sound like a
student responded. “He said, ‘did you know that
there’s a student on your campus that has explosive
material that can bet turned into a weapon?’”
continued the student who answered the phone. “He
said, ‘I don’t want anyone’s arms or legs to be blown
off.’ That is where the call began to feel threatening.”
The student kept the caller on the phone while trying
to transfer him to Public Safety, but was unable to,
This Week in Seminar
and so gave Public Safety’s phone number to the
caller. After the call ended, the student called Public
Safety, and explained what had happened. “They
basically said, please come over right away,” he
continued. After he arrived at the public safety office,
he was given a statement to fill out. “At some point
while I was there, the person actually called public
safety again… as far as I could tell [the Public Safety
Officer] was mostly trying to get his name.”
Upon receiving this call, which specified the
dangerous materials were near a “chemistry
classroom,” the Annapolis Police Department was
notified, and Dean Susan Paalman went around
talking to tutors before 10:20 classes to inform them
of the situation, and to say that they were awaiting the
Police Department for further instructions.
Danielle Lico, Vice President of Student Affairs, who
helped coordinate the response, said in a statement
that “upon [the police department’s] arrival to
campus and after a review of the information
available, the decision was made to evacuate Mellon
Hall… Public Safety continued to work with onsite
law enforcement, including the Annapolis Police
Department, Maryland State Police, Capitol Police K9 Unit, the US Navy Police Department, and the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,
including explosive detection canine units, to
determine if any explosive materials were present.
After searching multiple locations on-campus, no
explosive materials were found.”
Paalman, in a statement to the Collegian expressed
appreciation that the response was quick, well
organized, and that the first priority was to keep
students safe. “I'm not sure what led someone to
report that there might be a dangerous object on our
campus. It was frustrating to have to leave everything
for a couple of hours. I am grateful that there was, in
fact, no dangerous object and that students, tutors,
and staff were calm and listened to instructions. I'm
grateful for the beautiful day and the extra time many
of us had to enjoy it. I'm grateful for the people who
were not able to enjoy the lovely day, but whose job it
is to respond to emergencies. I especially note the calm
professionalism of Ms. Lico, Mr. Abbott, Ms.
VanNess, Chief Boston, our Public Safety officers,
and others I'm not thinking of at the moment.”
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Upcoming Events:
Freshman:
- 11/9: Aristophanes: Clouds
- 11/13: Plato: Apology and Crito
Sophomores:
- 11/9: Bible, First Corinthians
- 11/13: Bible, Romans and James
Juniors and Seniors:
- Preceptorials
Friday Night Lecture:
All College Seminar on Ecclesiastes, Hosted by the SCI
Page 1
Saturday 11/11
- Noon, Library Patio: Library Book
Sale
- 9 pm, Great Hall: Masquerade Waltz
Tuesday 11/14
- 3:45 pm, Hodson Room: Internship
Search Workshop
- 4:30 pm, Conversation Room:
Shakespeare in the Fall, Coriolanus
Wednesday 11/15
- 2:30 pm, Hodson Room: Maryland
Public Service Scholars Info Session
�Thursday November 11, 2023
St. John’s collegian
Vol. I. Issue 7
Editorial:
The Gadfly Publication Delays, and Why Both Campus Publication’s
Review by Administration and Independence is Important
For the third time this year, the Gadfly’s publication
has been delayed, with none of the three issues
scheduled to come out to date having been
published on the week they were supposed to. The
first time was purely an internal issue, which has
been resolved, but the remaining two times have
been because of concerns over the Gadfly’s content
during its review by the administration of the
College. The most recent issue, which should have
come out last Thursday, is not yet out at the time of
the Collegian’s publication.
Publications are delayed on campus for two good
reasons. The first is practical: we receive our funding
from the College, and the College cannot have a
publication that operates with its money spreading
disinformation or harmful content without
exposing itself to liability. The second is more
philosophical: these reviews often function as a
check for truth and moral character of the
publication. In one incident that occurred this year,
the Collegian was delayed because I had mis-
recorded some important financial data from the
BVG meeting, and the treasurer wanted to offer a
correction. This kind of fact checking is important
for the publication, and was a good reason for a
delay. Likewise, an article in the Gadfly held up the
second issue because some of it might have seemed
insulting to individuals on campus. The author of
the article had secured the permission of the people
mentioned, but the person doing the reviews did not
know that, and it was very reasonable to make sure
that the paper wasn’t personally attacking or hurting
students on campus.
However, the most recent delay caused by these
reviews is not necessary for ensuring the factual or
moral soundness of the paper, and has continued a
trend of more administrative involvement in the
day-to-day operation of the Gadfly. The Gadfly is
currently being delayed because Ms. Demleitner
wants to publish a response to an interview I
conducted on tutor pay. While I respect that there
may be a need to provide factual corrections,
Balancing our books and
our bodies:
Musings on the Campus Problem of Student Health (or
Utter Lack Thereof)
Recently my friends and I were imagining a Hunger
Games-type situation at St. John’s; a fight to the
death with the entire student body. While
entertaining to think of, and maybe even intriguing
(Reality Club... maybe something to work on?),
there was a thought that came to me: we are all
incredibly weak. And yes, this is ignoring some of
the student body that does really have their shit
together and could probably kill a lot of us with their
bare hands. But for the most part our weakness is
accurate and unavoidable. And this isn’t just due to
the student body comprising mostly of previous
high school nerds, and we can hear why in the
conversations we have outside of class. Does any of
this sound familiar? “I haven’t eaten anything all
day” “I only got three hours of sleep last night” “I’ve
just been drinking coffee and eating the dining hall
fries for the past week” “I had ten (10) shots of Jack
Daniels last night” “I have had bronchitis for eight
weeks but will continue to smoke half a pack a day”
This campus is malnourished, under slept, and sick.
With our college’s motto being “Books and a
Balance” one would think that we would attempt to
execute this. Our failure to do so raises the question
of what kind of balance the student body is seeking.
If it is not the balance of a healthy life with an
immersive study of books, then what exactly is it?
With the obsession with acting thoughtlessly and
unhealthily along with the need for our peer’s eyes, it
seems as though we are seeking the balance of
someone on a tightrope, teetering on the thin line we
have created for ourselves, made for the spectacle of
it. Because it is not that we are just drinking too
much or eating and sleeping too little, but that it is
done alongside perfection in school. It is an attempt
to do the impossible; reduce your body and health to
nothingness while turning in a beautiful essay in on
time. We must be the impossible to everyone we
know! And as glamorous as that sounds, being a
functional alcoholic with a great Don Rag, it is
impossible. We can try to convince ourselves that the
essay we turned in after seventy-two hours of not
sleeping is good, but it really isn’t. Instead of
reaching perfection and self-destruction at the same
time all we have done is hurt our bodies and our
minds without anything to show for it. As much as
we avoid this conclusion it is inevitable, and we can
all see it when we cry to our friends about not being
able to keep going as tired as you are.
To offer a solution for this is to throw a stone in a
glass house. I smoke an incredible amount and
absolutely do not work out. So, really what I have
done is offer up useless critique on a mass problem
of young people in academia. But I will say that each
and every one of you would benefit from drinking a
glass of whole milk and eating some vegetables.
Molly Sprout
holding up the publication of the newspaper to give
a greater voice to the administration is an abuse of
the review power. If Ms. Demleitner really wants to
have her voice heard about tutor pay, she should be
able to either offer an official statement outside the
Gadfly, or wait until the next issue.
Once the paper is ready, the primary aim of the
review should be to get a factually sound Gadfly out
as fast as possible. Otherwise, the Gadfly loses its
relevance as a source of news and information. To
hold up this key part of what a campus publication
is just in order to give more voice to people on
campus who already have many other platforms of
communication seems irresponsible and infringes on
the independence of the Gadfly.
I hope that moving forward, the Gadfly and
administration can work to build better
communication, to ensure that we can find a balance
between publishing an independent, relevant
newspaper, and reasonable review of its content.
About the St.
John’s
Collegian
The St. John’s Collegian is the weekly newspaper of
St. John’s College Annapolis. We work to bring
quick and timely coverage of important events going
on, to help develop a more informed student body.
If you’re searching for more in-depth investigations
and reporting, as well as essays, art and culture, check
out the Gadfly, our affiliated publication, which is
published once every three weeks.
Want to submit an article? We always need more
writers, whether for opinion or reporting!
Submissions for news articles should be between
350-450 words, while opinion should be kept short
at 300 words. Just email eanicholskaufman@sjc.edu
with your article, and we will work to get it in print!
Longer form articles and more in-depth exploration
of ideas should go to the Gadfly, which accepts
submissions at lbriner@sjc.edu.
Contributors for this issue:
Pensée of the Week
The observant reader will note that this is now
classified as the pensée of the week, rather than the
aphorism. This is because a new manuscript,
attributed to the same sage of Gorman Street, was
found by my friend, clarifying that these were in fact
inspired by the scattered philosophical musings of
Pascal. Upon receiving this information, I quickly
corrected the title of this reoccurring feature, as most
of these really don’t make sense as aphorisms to
begin with. Whether they make sense as thoughts in
general is another question, but one I feel more
comfortable to let the reader decide.
The Leviathan ruled the wide sea on his majestic
throne. One day, he was sitting on his throne for too
long, and he drowned because he forgot to breathe.
Page 2
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman, Editor
J.S.
Molly Sprout
Enjoy intramurals? Want to see more
coverage of games, scores and standings?
The Collegian wants you!
We are looking to provide comprehensive coverage
of College sporting events going forward, and would
like to have a sports writer on staff. If this interests
you, please email El’ad Nichols-Kaufman at the
email listed above, and we can get started on giving
our campus sports the attention they deserve.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The St. John's Collegian</em>
Description
An account of the resource
A student newspaper of St. John's College. <em>The St. John's Collegian</em> began publication in 2023 and is affiliated with <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/16"><em>The Gadfly</em></a>. <br /><br />Published weekly on Thursday, with the exception of weeks <em>The Gadfly </em>is published. <br /><br />Earlier publications with the title <em>The Collegian </em>and <em>The St. John's Collegian </em>are available in <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/collections/show/26"><em>The Collegian Collection</em></a>.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, Md.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJCCollegian
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
2 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's Collegian, November 9, 2023
Description
An account of the resource
Volume 1, issue 7 of the St. John's Collegian, published November 9, 2023.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2023-11-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJCCollegian_vol1_issue7_2023-11-09
Student publication
The Collegian
The Gadfly
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