1 20 52 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/44505a691685c0883fa651f5173860a9.mp4 904192631c2bf731dd49b174929b020b 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data streaming video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:33:20 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 Timeless and Timely: Liberal Education and the Demands of the Present Description An account of the resource Video recording of a panel discussion between Brendan Boyle, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, Jonathan Badger, and Patrick Coleman, St. John's College Tutors, on June 19, 2024, as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boyle, Brendan Coleman, John Patrick Badger, Jonathan N. 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-06-19 Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Panel_Badger-Boyle-Coleman_2024-06-19-ac Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e7328bb40ad4f799e65fccc6def183f9.mp3 f74576fd80e5be3727aff240940e0344 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:53:49 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 Learning, Knowing, and Remembering in a Digital World Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on July 26, 2017 by Naomi Baron as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Baron, Naomi S. 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-07-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Baron_Naomi_2017-07-26 Graduate Institute Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d8bc5790f8efd7f772bfcf9119b24c95.mp4 9c322938f97a00bf754ecdf73a43bafc 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom video conference Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:29:02 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 Community Colleges and Teaching in the Liberal Arts Description An account of the resource Video recording of a panel discussion held on July 1, 2020 as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Like St. John’s, community colleges are institutions devoted primarily to teaching and learning.  They reach a broad and diverse portion of our country’s population. (In 2017–18, 38% of undergraduates were attending 2-year public colleges.) St. John’s collaborated with Anne Arundel Community College to bring together for this panel discussion faculty from a number of community colleges that have implemented discussion-based liberal arts education, including Austin Community College, Hostos Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College and LaGuardia Community College.  The panelists include Andrea Fabrizio and Gregory Marks of Hostos Community College, Daniel Gertner of LaGuardia Community College, Holly Messitt of Borough of Manhattan Community College, Theodore Hadzi-Antich of Austin Community College, and Steve Canaday of Anne Arundel Community College. The panel was introduced by Emily Langston and moderated by Erica Beall of St. John's College. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Fabrizio, Andrea Marks, Gregory Gertner, Daniel Messitt, Holly Hadzi-Antich, Theodore Canaday, Steve Beall, Erica 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Signed permissions form have been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Community college teaching Education, Humanistic Anne Arundel Community College Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Langston, Emily Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PanelLecture_2020-07-01 Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6626ab6196c4611b835a97b6b7725714.pdf f4c0d71c0699e6beddf27c82d21d9f44 PDF Text Text Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 1 “Everyone Sees How You Appear; Few Touch What You Are”: Machiavelli on Human Nature How do the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli appear to us today? There is no small risk that, whenever we crack the spines of The Prince or the Discourses on Livy, we will find these books to be boring. Full of historical details, full of admittedly colorful and even shocking anecdotes, they nonetheless appear to teach us only what we already know: the maxims of amoral, or immoral, prudence, that ‘the end justifies the means,’ or that ‘might makes right.’ To say that we already know such things does not mean that we believe them, of course. Perhaps in extreme circumstances, with lives at stake, we might grant that it is necessary to be Machiavellian; but who really expects to find himself in extreme circumstances? Most of the time, among family, friends, and fellow citizens, we try to be good, to do what is right. We might grant, while smothering a yawn, that we sometimes need to be Machiavellians. But we would not say that we are Machiavellians. And yet Machiavelli’s books are not just full of striking maxims about how we should live, like “men should either be caressed or eliminated” [P 3:10].1 They are also full of striking claims about how we do live, claims that Machiavelli offers in support of these maxims. “[M]en should either be caressed or eliminated, because they avenge themselves for slight offenses but cannot do so for grave ones” [P 3:10] – because, that is, only death can stop a human being from seeking revenge, even for a slight injury. Behind or beneath the Machiavellian maxims about how we should live, there appears to be a Machiavellian account of how we do live – an account of what human beings are, an account of human nature. Could this account be true? And if we find it to be so, are we compelled to be, not just rainy day Machiavellians, but Machiavellians �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 2 through and through? These questions, it seems to me, run a lesser risk of being boring. Tonight I will sketch this Machiavellian account of human nature, chiefly as it is found in The Prince, but with some reference to the Discourses on Livy. In concentrating on these two books, I will be following Machiavelli’s advice, at least to some extent. In the Dedicatory Letter of The Prince, he suggests that it contains all that he has learned and understood; while in the Dedicatory Letter of the Discourses he writes that it contains as much as he knows and has learned [P DL:3-4; D DL:3; compare TM, 17]. Either book on its own would presumably suffice for the experienced student of Machiavelli. But for relative beginners like ourselves, it is helpful to have the same matter given two different forms. What I hope to show by this sketch is that we underestimate Machiavelli if we consider him simply as a teacher of amoral or immoral practices that we can take or leave as we conduct our lives. To the extent that Machiavelli’s account of human nature is shared by his successors, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau – to whose thought we trace our political institutions and our understanding of ourselves – we may be forced to acknowledge his account of human nature as our own. It may turn out that deep down, where it counts, we are Machiavellians, even though we do not appear to be so, even to ourselves. This lecture will have three parts. In the first, I will offer the desire to acquire as the main element of human nature as Machiavelli depicts it, and show how in a political setting this desire ramifies into two humors, that of the great and that of the people. In the second I will sketch goodness as the excellence of the popular humor and virtue as the excellence of the humor of the great, and I will connect Machiavelli’s distinction between goodness and virtue to the famous ‘turn’ in Chapter Fifteen of The Prince from the imagination of a thing to its effectual truth [P 15:51]. In the final part I will suggest that Machiavelli’s view of human nature points to �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 3 a science of human nature without a distinctively human element – what Machiavelli calls a “science of sites” – and I will raise some difficulties with this science, difficulties that originate in Machiavelli’s own writings. I Readers who leaf through the pages of The Prince or the Discourses in search of the phrase ‘human nature’ are bound, at first, to be disappointed. As far as I can tell, Machiavelli never uses the phrase in either work. Mentions of nature, by contrast, are easy to find. In The Prince, for example, Machiavelli writes of the natures of nonliving things, like sites, mountains, low places, rivers, and marshes [P DL:4, 14:59]. He writes of the natures of living things, like beasts, foxes, and lions [P 18:69, 70; 19:78]. He writes of the natures of particular human beings, alone or in groups, like peoples, governments, ministers, emperors, princes, and cautious men [P DL:4; 6:24; 4:18; 7:30; 17:68; 19:76; 23:95; 25:99, 100]. He even writes of nature in general as something that contains things [P 7:26], and that causes particular men to incline in a certain way [P 25:100].2 But each time he writes about nature, Machiavelli sidesteps the phrase ‘human nature.’ He is willing to write as if particular beings have natures, he is willing to include particular human beings among these beings, and he is willing to imply that all beings fall within nature in some general sense; but nature in each of these cases is subhuman or superhuman – that is, not specifically human. The closest Machiavelli comes to writing about human nature in The Prince is a single claim he makes about the “nature of men” – that they are “obligated as much by benefits they give as by benefits they receive” [P 10:44]. Even there, he does not dignify the nature of men with the specific adjective ‘human.’ Nonetheless, there are plenty of hints in The Prince that Machiavelli thinks that human �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 4 beings do have a nature, if only in the sense of an abiding character. Early in the work, for example, he considers “a natural difficulty” and “another natural and ordinary necessity” that confront a new prince: that “men willingly change their masters in the belief that they will fare better,” but that “one must always offend those over whom he becomes a new prince” [P 3:8].3 In the immediate sequel Machiavelli treats these natural necessities that follow from the character of men as “universal causes” [P 3:9],4 and suggests that they contribute to an apparently permanent “order of things” [P 3:11] that endures despite the changes brought by time [P 3:13; 10:44].5 Later in The Prince he invokes “human conditions” in much the same way, to explain why a prince cannot have, nor wholly observe, all of the qualities that are held good [P 15:62]. The conditions in question can be summarized in a single phrase: men are wicked unless necessity makes them good.6 As with the other natural necessities felt by a new prince, Machiavelli implies that these conditions will never change, as long as there are human beings. If they did change, his description of the situation of the new prince, and of the political situation more generally, would cease to be true. Similar claims about the abiding character of human beings can be found in the Discourses, in a somewhat more explicit form. In that work Machiavelli warns early on against the error of thinking that men, among other things, have “varied in motion, order, and power from what they were in antiquity” [D I.P.2:6]. To the contrary, “[w]hoever considers present and ancient things easily knows that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same humors, and there always have been” [D I.39.1:83].7 Not just human beings but human things have a permanent character: they “are always in motion, either they ascend or they descend” [D II.P.2:123]. Perhaps as a result, the world has a permanent character too: “I judge the world always to have been in the same mode,” Machiavelli writes, “and there to have been as �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 5 much good as wicked in it” [D II.P.2:124]. He even flirts, indirectly, with the idea that the world is eternal. “To those philosophers who would have it that the world is eternal,” he writes, “I believe that one could reply that if so much antiquity were true it would be reasonable that there be memory of more than five thousand years – if it were not seen how the memories of times are eliminated by diverse causes, of which part come from men, part from heaven” [D II.5.1:138139]. It is reasonable, then, that there be no memory of more than five thousand years, even if the world is eternal. So is the world eternal? However this may be, Machiavelli regards the world as lasting enough that he can claim that human things have an abiding character. “It has always been, and will always be,” he announces, “that great and rare men are neglected in a republic in peaceful times” [D III.16.1:254]. Men “have and always had the same passions, and they must of necessity result in the same effect” [D III.43.1:302]. If it were to turn out that the abiding character of human beings included an element specific to human beings, an element that was a cause or principle of human motion and rest, then despite his avoidance of the term, Machiavelli could be said to have an account of a specifically human nature. The best candidate for such an element, in The Prince and the Discourses, is the desire to acquire. In The Prince this desire sets the tone for the whole book. Machiavelli mentions it in the first sentence of the Dedicatory Letter, writing “[i]t is customary most of the time for those who desire to acquire favor with a Prince to come to meet him with things that they care most for among their own or with things that they see please him most” [P DL:3]. In the particular form of the desire to acquire a principality, this desire dictates the concerns of the first half of the work, and is mentioned in three of the first fourteen chapter titles;8 while the second half, which examines “what the modes and government of a prince should be with subjects and with friends” [P 15:61], can be understood as containing advice about how to keep an acquisition. But when �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 6 Machiavelli formulates this desire as a principle, he writes, “truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire” [P 3:14], without saying for whom, or for what, this is very natural and ordinary. He does continue, in the immediate sequel, “and when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and want to do it anyway, here lie the error and the blame” [P 3:14-15], but this amounts to saying that praise and blame are specifically human, not that the desire to acquire is.9 In the Discourses Machiavelli elaborates: “nature has created men so that they are able to desire everything and are unable to attain everything” [D I.37.1:78]. As a result, “human appetites are insatiable, for since from nature they have the ability and the wish to desire all things and from fortune the ability to achieve few of them, there continually results from this a discontent in human minds and a disgust with the things they possess” [D II.P.3:125]. While Machiavelli says that the insatiable appetites and the discontent and disgust that they produce are specifically human, they are also effects of a cause that is not specifically human: nature in general. Not only does Machiavelli fail to insist that the desire to acquire is specifically human; he also fails to assign the desire a specific end. In The Prince and the Discourses he depicts human beings who desire to acquire material things like cities and provinces, states and kingdoms, friends and partisans, and spiritual things like reputation, glory, and knowledge. But he never argues that these are the proper objects of the desire to acquire. Instead, he asserts in the Discourses, “each willingly multiplies that thing and seeks to acquire those goods he believes he can enjoy once acquired” [D II.2.3:132; compare II.4.2:137]. The desire to acquire can have anything as its object, then, so long as the one who acquires it believes he will enjoy it. But the omnivorousness of the desire points again to its insatiability. Since the object of the desire is nothing in particular, but rather acquisition for the sake of enjoying possession, and since �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 7 possession inspires only disgust and discontentment, the acquiring being goes from expecting future enjoyment to feeling present dissatisfaction, and the desire to acquire must seek a new object. Machiavelli is right, then, to call this desire a desire to acquire, since it aims at no object in particular, but rather at acquisition, which is to say the feeling of acquisition, in general. Human beings feel discontent and disgust with what they have; they enjoy only when they feel that what they have is increasing.10 The desire to acquire thus resembles a drive to grow, since its end is an increase in one’s own, without any intrinsic concern about whether one’s own is also good.11 Understood in this way, the desire to acquire has both external and internal consequences. Externally, this desire drives isolated human beings to acquire without limit and without exclusion – in the Discourses Machiavelli mentions that it is even possible to “acquire the world” [D I.20.1:54]. It follows from this that isolated human beings are almost entirely formless.12 Perhaps this is one reason for Machiavelli’s practice of using “matter” as a term for the human beings who are potential subjects of a prince [P 6:23; 26:102, 104]. But in a political setting, when human beings live together, their desires to acquire interfere with one another, and form arises. In The Prince, Machiavelli proclaims that in every city and every principality, “two diverse humors are found” [P 9:39; compare 19:7613]: the people and the great. These humors are defined by their characteristic appetites: “the people desire neither to be commanded nor oppressed by the great, and the great desire to command and oppress the people” [P 9:39].14 In the Discourses, Machiavelli calls these humors the nobles and the ignobles, and writes, “[w]ithout doubt, if one considers the end of the nobles and of the ignobles, one will see great desire to dominate in the former, and in the latter only desire not to be dominated; and in consequence, a greater will to live free, being less able to hope to usurp it” – that is, to usurp �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 8 freedom – “than are the great” [D I.5.2:18].15 Lest we think that Machiavelli means that the people or the ignobles do not desire to acquire, and that his two humors are therefore different natures,16 rather than ramifications of the desire to acquire, Machiavelli points in the Discourses to their common source. Having just characterized the difference between the nobles and the ignobles, he restates it paragraphs later as the difference between “those who desire to acquire” and “those who fear to lose what they have acquired,” and then explains that tumults are most frequently generated by those who possess, because “the fear of losing generates in [them] the same wishes that are in those who desire to acquire; for it does not appear to men that they possess securely what a man has unless he acquires something else new” [D I.5.4:19].17 Machiavelli thereby blurs the difference between the people and the great: fearing to lose has the same effects as desiring to acquire. Later in the Discourses he makes much the same point, insisting that the difference between a prince’s and a people’s way of proceeding “arises not from a diverse nature – because it is in one mode in all” [D I.58.3:117], and that the popular desire for freedom is an effect of the desire to acquire [D II.2.1:129].18 If these assertions are not enough, Machiavelli also tells a characteristic story in the Discourses about Clearchus, the tyrant of Heraclea, who, finding himself caught “between the insolence of the aristocrats… and the rage of the people,” “decided to free himself at one stroke from the vexation of the great and to win over the people to himself.” By having all the aristocrats cut to pieces, “he satisfied one of the wishes that peoples have – that is, to be avenged. But as to the other popular desire,” Machiavelli continues, “to recover freedom, since the prince cannot satisfy it, he should examine what causes are those that make [peoples] desire to be free. He will find that a small part of them desires to be free so as to command, but all the others, who are infinite, desire freedom so as to live secure” [D I.16.5:46]. Even if the humor of �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 9 the great is eliminated from a city or a principality, the remaining popular humor reforms itself into two humors: the people, and the great. These Machiavellian indications that the humors of the people and the great are ramifications of the more fundamental desire to acquire also indicate that it is political life that chiefly causes these ramifications. In isolation the desire to acquire knows only the feelings of pleasurable increase or disgusting stasis; the desire to oppress, on the one hand, and the fear of oppression on the other arise only in the political encounter with other more or less powerful desires to acquire. Machiavelli acknowledges this in his brief account of the origins of political life in the Discourses. “[S]ince the inhabitants were sparse in the beginning of the world,” he writes, “they lived dispersed for a time like beasts; then, as generations multiplied, they gathered together, and to be able to defend themselves better, they began to look to whoever among them was more robust and of greater heart, and they made him a head, as it were, and obeyed him” [D I.2.3:11].19 Thus arose the universal political struggle between the two humors, in which the great give reputation to one of their number “so that they can satisfy their appetite under his shadow,” while the people give reputation to one of the great “so as to be defended with his authority” [P 9:39].20 The desire to acquire also has internal consequences: namely, the ramification of the present into the past and the future. Like any desire, the desire to acquire involves opposing a painful, factual present to a pleasant, counterfactual future. A being animated by such a desire must be able to distinguish what it actually possesses from what it might possess, in order to direct itself away from the former and toward the latter. So a being who desires to acquire, in particular, must have memory, a continuing sense of its possessions, and foresight, a sense of what its possessions might become. In the healthy case, its memory will be the basis of its �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 10 dissatisfaction with the present, and its foresight, the basis of its hope for the future. As Machiavelli puts it in the Discourses, the insatiability of human appetites makes men “blame the present times, praise the past, and desire the future, even if they are not moved to do this by any reasonable cause” [D II.P.3:125]. It is the people or the ignobles in particular who blame the present and praise the past, since their knowledge of the past is less accurate than their knowledge of the present, and past things in general are neither feared nor envied [D II.P.1:123]. Moreover, memory supports the popular form of the desire to acquire – the fear of loss – by preserving an inaccurate but venerable past, and arguing that excellence consists in this preservation [D I.10.2:31]. Memory encourages men to honor the past and obey the present, and thereby discourages conspiracies [D III.6.1:218]. And when it involves fearsome events, memory can bring a state back to its beginnings, and so preserve it [D III.1.3:211]. Perhaps unsurprisingly, memory is therefore also an obstacle to the great or the nobles’ desire to acquire, especially when acquisition brings innovation [P 2:7, 4:19, 5:21]. It is the first concern of new sects to eliminate the memory of their predecessors, for example [D II.5.1:139]. But memory can also serve the foresight of the great: if it helps to maintain a nation in the same customs for a long time, it makes it easy for human beings to know future things by past ones [D III.43.1:302; compare I.39.1:83-84].21 Since the future is on this account the realm of hoped-for acquisition by the great, or feared loss by the people, while the present is the realm of real possession, whether unsatisfying to the great or satisfying to the people, the ramification of the present into the past and the future is also a differentiation between the factual and counterfactual worlds, or between the real and the imaginary. Taken together, the humors of the people and the great and the ramification of the present into the past and the future explain the typical progressivism of the great, who want �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 11 to live in the future that their desire to acquire foresees, and the typical conservatism of the people, who want to remain free of this future.22 Taken together, these forms of the desire to acquire explain why each of Machiavelli’s humors has its corresponding understanding of human excellence. II So far we have considered the desire to acquire as the core of human nature, according to Machiavelli. We have also sketched the chief implications of this desire, showing how in political settings it issues in a progressive great and a conservative people. Each of these humors, it turns out, also has a characteristic understanding of human excellence: for the people excellence is goodness, and for the great, excellence is virtue [D I.17.1-3:47-48; compare MV, 24-25]. We will discover, as we try next to fill in the content of goodness and virtue according to Machiavelli, that the difference between goodness and virtue is also connected to his famous distinction, made in The Prince, between the “effectual truth” and “imagined republics and principalities” [P 15:61]. Perhaps because of its focus on the perspective of the great, goodness is only mentioned twice in The Prince, both times in an ironic and disparaging way. Having begun his consideration of ecclesiastical principalities with the claim that they are maintained without virtue or fortune, Machiavelli concludes with the pious hope that “with his goodness and infinite other virtues” Pope Leo X will make the pontificate “very great and venerable” [P 11:47]. In a likeminded remark later in the book, during his survey of the fates of the Roman emperors, Machiavelli notes that Emperor Alexander was of such goodness that he never made use of summary execution. But he was also held to be effeminate, for which he was despised, �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 12 conspired against, and assassinated [P 19:77]. These examples distinguish goodness from virtue, and can hardly be said to recommend goodness to a prince. In the Discourses, by contrast, there is a fuller and less dismissive discussion of goodness. Machiavelli claims that it is the characteristic excellence of peoples, as opposed to princes, writing that if the glories and the disorders of princes be reviewed, “the people will be seen to be by far superior in goodness and glory.” Princes, he explains, are superior to peoples in ordering, but peoples are superior to princes in maintaining the things ordered – which is why they attain the glory of those who order [D I.58.3:118]. Despite having characteristically retracted half of his praise of peoples, Machiavelli leaves them with their superiority in goodness. This excellence consists, then, in maintaining what is ordered at the founding of a sect, a republic, or a kingdom, and promulgated by education [D III.1.2:209; III.30.1:280]: namely, the laws, which are maintained by being obeyed by the people. Both peoples and princes show goodness when they obey, and so are restrained by, the laws [D I.58.2:116; compare III.24.1:270, III.46.1:307]. Indeed, early in the Discourses Machiavelli asserts, “the knowledge of things honest and good” first arose out of the people’s obedience to the great. “[S]eeing that if one individual hurt his benefactor,” he explains, hatred and compassion among men came from it, and as they blamed the ungrateful and honored those who were grateful, and thought too that those same injuries could be done to them, to escape like evil they were reduced to making laws and ordering punishments for whoever acted against them: hence came the knowledge of justice [D I.2.3:11-12]. Now because goodness consists chiefly in obedience to the laws, it is closely connected to religion as the basis of the laws [D I.11.3:35; I.55.2:110, 111], and to conscience as their internal enforcement [D I.27.1:62; I.55.2:110]. Through obedience to the laws, goodness procures and defends freedom [D I.17.1:47], which as we have seen is the goal of the people’s modified desire to acquire. Lest we think that goodness consists solely in obedience to the laws, �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 13 Machiavelli mentions one example that “shows how much goodness and how much religion” were in the Roman people. When the Senate issued an unpopular edict that required the plebs to sacrifice to Apollo a tenth of the booty taken in a recent victory, “the plebs thought not of defrauding the edict in any part by giving less than it owed, but of freeing itself from it by showing open indignation” [D I.55.1:110]. Goodness consists chiefly in obedience to the laws, but perhaps more importantly, in the refusal to use fraud even when one disobeys. It is almost the same thing as honesty. Machiavelli signals, in several places, that the opposite of goodness is corruption [D I.17.1:47; I.55.1:110; III.1.2:209; III.30.1:280]. But there is reason to think that a more thoroughgoing opposite to this excellence of the people is the excellence of the great, virtue. This is not just because, as we have seen, Machiavelli is contemptuous of goodness in his book on princes, nor just because the superiority of princes to peoples in ordering means that they must destroy a prior order that others are trying to maintain. It is not just because virtue is inimical to goodness. Rather, it is because goodness can also be inimical to virtue. We see how so in one of the examples Machiavelli gives to illustrate the goodness of the matter and the orders of Rome: that of Manlius Capitolinus, who found no one to support his rebellion against the Senate and laws, and was condemned by the Roman people to death. “I do not believe that there is an example in this history more apt to show the goodness of all the orders of that republic than this,” Machiavelli concludes, “seeing that no one in that city moved to defend a citizen full of every virtue, who publicly and privately had performed very many praiseworthy works” [D III.8.1:238].23 In contrast to his account of goodness, Machiavelli’s account of virtue is developed more fully in The Prince, and in particular in the book’s second half, Chapters Fifteen and following, �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 14 where he turns to consider “what the modes and government of a prince should be with subjects and with friends” [P 15:61]. This statement of what remains of his project implies that the first half of the book considered what the modes and government of a prince should be with foreigners and with enemies; and when we see that the explicit subject of the first half of The Prince is “How Many Are the Kinds of Principalities and in What Modes They Are Acquired” [P 1.T:5] – that is acquisition – this implication is confirmed. We seem to be on a firm Machiavellian footing: with foreigners and enemies the prince follows the desire to acquire, while with subjects and friends he practices virtue. The generality of Machiavelli’s opening statement on virtue might therefore come as a surprise. “A man who wants to make a profession of good in all regards must come to ruin among so many who are not good,” he writes. “Hence it is necessary to a prince, if he wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity” [P 15:61]. Necessity, and not the difference between friend and enemy, or subject and foreigner, determines whether the prince should be good or wicked. The “so many who are not good” include friend and foe alike. To be able to act as necessity demands, we will learn, is virtue. Machiavelli connects his new account of virtue to his famous move from the imagination of a thing to its effectual truth, or from how one should live to how one lives [P 15:61]. Before considering this connection, though, let’s follow his development of this account of virtue in the chapter of The Prince devoted to whether a prince should be honest. Since combat with laws – what we might call the combat of the good – is often not enough, one must have recourse to combat with arms: so “it is necessary for a prince to know well how to use the beast and the man” [P 18:69]. The ancients understood this necessity, and communicated it by depicting the centaur Chiron as the teacher of Achilles. “To have as a teacher a half-beast, half-man,” �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 15 Machiavelli writes, “means nothing other than that a prince needs to know how to use both natures” [P 18.69]. We have mentioned that Machiavelli is willing to say that there is a nature of princes [P ED:4]: this nature now seems to be something more comprehensive than the nature of a man or the nature of a beast, if it is capable of using, or imitating [P 19:78], both of these natures. “Thus, since a prince is compelled of necessity to know well how to use the beast,” Machiavelli continues, “he should pick the fox and the lion, because the lion does not defend itself from snares and the fox does not defend itself from wolves. So one needs to be a fox to recognize snares and a lion to frighten the wolves” [P 18:69]. Each animal, then, has a single defect that is remedied by the other: the fox’s astuteness remedies the lion’s gullibility, while the lion’s fierceness remedies the fox’s contemptibility [compare P 19:79]. But if each of the two bestial natures that the prince should use has a single defect that is remedied by the other, what use does the prince have for the other component of the centaur: the nature of a man? Machiavelli has implied that this nature is needed for combat with laws, since this is “proper to man” [P 18:69]; but we would be forgiven for doubting him, since he has also claimed, six chapters earlier, that good arms are the necessary and sufficient condition of good laws [P 12:48]. We might begin to suspect that combat with arms is also sufficient, and that the prince who knows well how to use the nature of the fox and the lion has no need of the nature of man in addition – that he could be entirely inhuman, all beast. But Machiavelli has more to say. “[I]f all men were good, this teaching would not be good,” – if all men were honest, that is, there would be no snares, and it would suffice for a prince to be a lion – “but because they are wicked and do not observe faith with you, you also do not have to observe it with them” [P 18:69]. There are infinite modern examples, he claims, in which “the one who has known best how to use the fox has come out best,” because a faithless prince has ensnared the gullible. “But it is �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 16 necessary,” Machiavelli continues, “to know well how to color this nature, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple and so obedient to present necessities that he who deceives will always find someone who will let himself be deceived” [P 18:70]. The nature of the fox needs to be colored because its astuteness is limited to recognizing snares, as opposed to setting them. There is a use for the nature of man after all: it equips an otherwise brutish virtue with the specifically human ability to lie. In restating his conclusion, Machiavelli makes it clear that his discussion of “In What Mode Faith Should Be Kept by Princes” [P 18.T:68] is really a discussion of his account of all virtue, which is to say a discussion “Of Those Things for Which Men And Especially Princes Are Praised or Blamed” [P 15.T:61], or a discussion of human excellence in general. “[I]t is not necessary,” he writes, “for a prince to have all the above-mentioned qualities [the traditional virtues and vices] in fact, but it is indeed necessary to appear to have them” [P 18:70; compare 15:62]. Lest we infer that it is necessary to have some of these qualities, he then sharpens his restatement: since “by having them and always observing them, they are harmful; and by appearing to have them, they are useful,” it is necessary to “remain with a spirit built [edificato] so that, if you need not to be those things, you are able and know how to change to the contrary” [P 18:70]. To use a nature, or to imitate a nature, turns out to mean not to have but to appear to have that nature. But to appear to have a nature one does not have is to lie. So the specifically human ability to lie seems sufficient to generate the appearance of, and therefore sufficient to make use of, all the other natures a virtuous prince might need. This reading is supported by the discussion of Severus in the next chapter of The Prince. Since Severus was a new prince whose actions were great and notable, Machiavelli wants “to show briefly how well he knew to use the persons of the fox and the lion, whose natures I say �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 17 above are necessary for a prince to imitate” [P 19:78]. These natures are now persons, things that can be impersonated. “[W]hoever examines minutely the actions of this man will find him a very fierce lion and a very astute fox” [P 19:79], Machiavelli continues, again omitting to mention the person or nature of a man. But it turns out that being like Severus is not sufficient for the best kind of prince: “a new prince in a new principality… should take from Severus those parts which are necessary to found his state and from Marcus [Aurelius] those which are fitting and glorious to conserve a state that is already established and firm” [P 19:82]. Since we know from the Discourses that those parts are called goodness, we might conclude that this is the use of the nature of a man. But Marcus was an enemy of cruelty [P 19:76], whereas Severus was very cruel [P 19:78], so the new prince who combines their parts will be neither, though he will know how to appear to be both. In other words, the virtuous desire to acquire uses the specifically human ability to lie to impersonate a man, just as much as to impersonate a lion or a fox. Understood in this way, the nature of the prince is something built, rather than something grown. But this is also true of the nature of peoples. Recall Machiavelli’s practice of referring to the people as “matter” to be formed by the prince [P 6:23; 26:102, 104], and his claims that knowledge of goodness arises from obedient gratitude to the great, and knowledge of justice from laws to protect against ingratitude [D I.2.3:11-12]. If the excellence of the people is goodness, the maintenance of orders founded by the great, then the nature of peoples is something built by the great, just as the nature of the great is something built by the great themselves. The great, we might say, and especially the prince, give form both to their own formless desire to acquire, and to that of the human beings around them. And they are guided in this formation by necessity. �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 18 Machiavelli means this foundation on necessity to justify his claim in The Prince that by departing from the orders of others in his discussion of virtue and goodness, and focusing on “the effectual truth of the thing” rather than on the imagination of it, he is writing something “useful to whoever understands it” [P 15:61]. Imaginary republics like Plato’s and imaginary principalities like Christ’s, which “have never been seen or known to exist in truth,” are used to illustrate how one should live – that is, they are used to support goodness. Real republics and principalities, by contrast, are used by Machiavelli to illustrate how one does live. That there is a difference between how one should live and how one does live is a sign of the failure of the imaginary realm to make human beings completely good, and a sign of the need to turn to the real. “Hence it is necessary for a prince,” Machiavelli concludes, “if he wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity” [P 15:61]. So the virtuous live in the realm of the real, according to Machiavelli, while the good live for the most part in the realm of the imaginary, or the counterfactual. The virtuous live in the present, which exists, while the good live mostly in the future, which does not. What is surprising about this conclusion is that it exactly contraries the conclusion we came to in our analysis of the desire to acquire, which had the humor of the people seeking to maintain present possessions, and the humor of the great hoping for future acquisitions. In other words, each humor of human nature, each way that the desire to acquire expresses itself in a political setting, must need the native realm of the other. The good people need an imaginary future because their desire to acquire, frustrated by the competing desires of the great, is limited in the real world to a hope for maintenance; only in another world, or in a city in speech, can they hope to avenge their subordination and become great. The virtuous great, by contrast, need the present because their �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 19 practice of lying – that is, their construction of imaginary worlds – for the sake of future acquisition needs to be informed by present necessities imposed by the people they are lying to; in other words, they require goodness for their virtue to be effectual. The difference between goodness and virtue, we could say, is the difference between an ignorant self-deception and a knowing deception of others. III Having concluded our sketch of Machiavelli’s view of human nature, understood as the desire to acquire, with its two humors and their corresponding excellences, we might begin to wonder whether this view is true. This is too big a question to explore in the final part of this lecture, though Machiavelli’s view does have the merit of explaining a common moral phenomenon: the concern of those who are trying to be good, that they might be the dupes of those who are not. Instead, this final part is devoted to a narrower, though related, question: does Machiavelli think that his account of human nature is true? Recall that in the fifteenth chapter of The Prince Machiavelli claims to turn from the imagination of a thing to its effectual truth, and from how one should live to how one lives [P 15:61]. He makes these claims right after announcing his turn to “what the modes and government of a prince should be with subjects and with friends” [P 15:61], and presumably away from what his modes and government should be with foreigners and with enemies. The first chapter of The Prince, by contrast, refers in its title to the modes in which principalities are acquired [P I.T:5], and so announces the subject of the first part of the work. The suggestion in both parts of The Prince, then, is that what human beings should do follows directly from what they in fact do. What human beings in fact do provides the content of necessity, on the basis of �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 20 which virtue acts. Moreover, Machiavelli’s distinctions between foreigners and subjects, or between foes and friends, vanish from the perspective of necessity. The first part of The Prince focuses on acquisition, and so on foreigners and foes, but it treats in the same spirit how acquisitions are maintained, and so mentions subjects and friends [for example, P 7:29-30]. Similarly, the second part focuses on how the prince should treat subjects and friends, but the virtues that Machiavelli discusses in this part are needed also for dealing with foreigners and foes [for example, P 17:67-68]. Perhaps the clearest indication that these divisions vanish from the perspective of necessity is the title of the fifteenth chapter of The Prince, “Of Those Things for Which Men and Especially Princes Are Praised or Blamed” [P 15.T:61]. Attentive readers will remember that Machiavelli has already, much earlier in the work, said what these things are: “truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and want to do it anyway, here lie the error and the blame” [P 3:14-15]. The difference between the first and the second parts of The Prince is the difference between what human beings do to acquire, and what they ought to do. The first part of the work is chiefly descriptive, the second chiefly hortatory; and Machiavelli’s exhortation is based on his description: men should learn not to be good – that is, to be virtuous – because men are not good – that is, they are corrupt. In other words, Machiavelli’s exhortation to virtue requires two things to be true: that men are corrupt, and that there is a difference between corruption and virtue. Let’s look at each of these criteria in turn. One objection to Machiavelli’s claim that men are corrupt is that this may accidentally be so, but it is not so necessarily. As we have seen, human nature, according to Machiavelli, consists of a matter that is not specifically human, the desire to acquire, that can be formed to have specifically human excellences, goodness and virtue. In other words, human nature is �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 21 malleable. (Moreover, Machiavelli is evasive about what is specifically human in goodness and virtue: in The Prince, as we have seen, he guardedly identifies fraud, which uses or imitates brutish natures, as specifically human; but since fraud merely serves the desire to acquire, it does not serve a specifically human end.) In the Discourses Machiavelli makes this malleability more explicit when commenting on Livy’s disparaging claim that the French begin battles as more than men, but end them as less than women. “Thinking over whence this arises,” he writes, “it is believed by many that their nature is made so, which I believe is true; but because of this it is not that their nature, which makes them ferocious at the beginning, cannot be ordered with art, so that it maintains them ferocious to the last” [D III.36.1:292]. To be precise, the nature of the French makes them ferocious at the beginning of battles; it is the failure of this nature that makes their ferocity lapse. This failure can be avoided, and their nature maintained, by the order imparted by art. The Roman army, Machiavelli indicates later in the same chapter, exemplifies such ordering. Nothing its soldiers did was not regulated: “they did not eat, they did not sleep, they did not go whoring, they did not perform any action either military or domestic without the order of the consul” [D III.36.2:292]. Not only can the difference between male and female be maintained by art; art can also constrain the natural movements of growth and reproduction. This artful ordering of nature produces the excellences that Machiavelli names goodness and virtue. But Machiavelli also admits in the Discourses that there are limits to what art can achieve with its human material. He mentions two reasons why we are unable to change our natures as necessity demands: “one, that we are unable to oppose that to which nature inclines us; the other, that when one individual has prospered very much with one mode of proceeding, it is not possible to persuade him that he can do well to proceed otherwise” [D III.9.3:240]. These �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 22 reasons, which correspond to Machiavelli’s injunction in The Prince that one must both be able to change one’s nature, and know how to do so [P 18:70], suggest that the limits to malleability are imposed by the energy and the opinions of each human being.24 Since there will not always be a human being available with the needed energy and opinions to do what necessity demands in each case – and this is especially so if, as Machiavelli implies, success renders one’s opinions inflexible – art will eventually fail to order nature, with a consequent failure of virtue and of the goodness it orders. A permanently good human order, then, is not to be hoped for, despite the malleability of human nature. Corruption is necessary, and so virtue is needed. The requirement that virtue be different from corruption is trickier to establish. We have seen that both of these forms of human nature are opposed to goodness; they differ because virtue in departing from goodness looks to a different standard, necessity, whereas corruption in departing from goodness does not. The difference between virtue and corruption depends, then, on the existence of knowable necessities in human life. Now we have seen Machiavelli write as though necessities are knowable by human beings; this is what he seems to mean when he urges princes to “learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity” [P 15:61].25 In other words, Machiavelli seems to think that there is a science of necessities. But in The Prince and the Discourses taken together, Machiavelli mentions science only twice: both times in a chapter late in the Discourses that asserts that a captain must be a knower of sites, or of “the nature of countries” [D III.39.T:297; III.39.2:299]. The argument of this chapter closely parallels that of a similar chapter in The Prince, titled “What a Prince Should Do Regarding the Military” [P 14.T:58] – a chapter where, admittedly, science is not mentioned. In these two places, Machiavelli advises that princes, captains, and the great should train in hunting, part of the practical mode of the peaceful exercise of the art of war [P 14:59].26 Hunting yields �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 23 particular knowledge of the country in which one trains. “First,” Machiavelli writes in The Prince, “one learns to know one’s own country, and one can better understand its defense; then, through the knowledge of and experience with those sites, one can comprehend with ease every other site that it may be necessary to explore as new” [P 14:59]. Particular knowledge becomes general knowledge, and defensive ability becomes offensive ability, because of a “certain similarity” between the corresponding features in every country, “so that from the knowledge of a site in one province one can easily come to the knowledge of others” [P 14:59].27 Machiavelli makes sweeping claims for his science of sites. Not only is it necessary for a captain to have this “general and particular knowledge” of “sites and countries” if he wants to work anything well [D III.39.1:297-298], but it will allow a prince to know “all the chances that can occur to an army” [P 14:60]. While Philopoemen, Machiavelli’s example of a possessor of this science, led his army, “there could never arise any unforeseen event for which he did not have the remedy” [P 14:60]. As long as we have the energy to be able to act as necessity demands, the science of sites guarantees that we will know how to do so. We might grant Machiavelli’s claim that there are no supernatural kingdoms: that because all countries are alike in nature, knowledge of one leads to knowledge of all. But why does he think that a perfected science of sites allows a prince to overcome fortune? A sentence from the Discourses is helpful here. “Whoever has this practice,” Machiavelli writes, “knows with one glance of his eye how that plain lies, how that mountain rises, where this valley reaches, and all other things of which he has in the past made a firm science” [D III.39.2.298]. This talk of plains, mountains, and valleys should remind us of the comparison in the Dedicatory Letter of The Prince, between the natures of peoples and of princes, on the one hand, and the natures of mountains or high places and of low places, on the other [P DL:4]. By limiting his use of the �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 24 word “science” in The Prince and the Discourses to the science of sites, Machiavelli indicates that there is no science specific to human beings, nor even one specific to living beings. Human nature and living nature are continuous with nonliving nature, and psychology is continuous with geography – or better, with physics. The malleability of human nature, then, is great enough that nonhuman and nonliving phenomena are imitable by human beings, but not so great that human beings become incalculable as a result.28 Just as there are no superhuman kingdoms, there are no supermen – though as we have seen there are centaurs. This understanding of Machiavelli’s science of sites is puzzling, though, because it seems to require a descriptive treatment of virtue, rather than the hortatory one that we find in the second part of The Prince. If human beings are as determined and predictable as nonhuman bodies, why not describe what they do, rather than fruitlessly exhorting them to behave otherwise than they do? In particular, we would expect Machiavelli to insist that princes do learn to be able not to be good, and to use it according to necessity, to the extent that they have the most excellent form of the desire to acquire. Instead, as we have seen, he insists, “it is necessary for a prince, if he wants to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity” [P 15:61; emphasis added]. Now what sense does this condition, “if he wants to maintain himself,” make in the light of Machiavelli’s claim that all human beings, and the great above all, are driven by the desire to acquire? Since acquisition presupposes the persistence of the acquiring being, how could a prince not want to maintain himself?29 In the chapter of The Prince devoted to conspiracies, Machiavelli admits that there exist very rare human beings with “an obstinate spirit,” who do not care about death. A prince cannot avoid death at the hands of such a conspirator, because “anyone who does not care about death can harm him” [P 19:79]. Since the threat of death and the consequent loss of all one’s �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 25 acquisitions – the threat of ruin, as Machiavelli puts it – is the paramount necessity faced by human beings [for example, P 15:61], these very rare human beings apparently fall outside the scope of this necessity, and therefore outside the scope of the science of sites.30 There is no remedy available to princes for such unforeseen events. We might expect Machiavelli to try to account for the existence of such human beings by tracing their obstinacy back to the desire to acquire, saying, for example, that they do not care about death because they hope for an afterlife in which they will be rewarded. But he does not do so; instead, he says only that they are motivated by the desire to avenge a “grave injury” [P 19:79-80; see also D III.6.11:227] – a desire that can be satisfied in this life, even if one does not long survive its satisfaction. In the Discourses Machiavelli claims, “private men enter upon no enterprise more dangerous or more bold” than a conspiracy against a prince [D III.6.1:218; see also III.6.4:223]. In The Prince, by contrast, he writes, “nothing is more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than to put oneself at the head of new orders” [P 6:23]. The obstinate spirit one needs to brave the greatest danger in a conspiracy is presumably also needed to brave the greatest danger in founding something entirely new, for every new foundation begins as a conspiracy against the old. We might wonder, then, whether this account of human nature is adequate to explain the activity of the new prince, or even Machiavelli’s own activity. Is Machiavelli himself motivated by the desire to acquire? We cannot seriously believe that a virtuous possessor of the science of sites, for whom, as long as he is armed, no accident can arise for which he does not have the remedy [P 14:60], could be compelled to endure a “great and continuous malignity of fortune” [P DL:4]. Machiavelli does make it seem, at the beginning of the Dedicatory Letter of The Prince, that he desires “to acquire favor with a Prince” [P DL:3]; but in the Preface to the first book of the Discourses he claims instead that he has �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 26 always had a “natural desire… to work, without any respect, for those things I believe will bring common benefit to everyone” [D I.P.1:5]. These doubts about Machiavelli’s science of sites – that it ought to preclude the hortatory character of the second part of The Prince, and that it cannot account for human beings who are contemptuous of death – suggest that the account of human nature in The Prince and the Discourses is partial, and that Machiavelli knows it.31 Through these works he means to shape human nature, to the extent that it can be shaped, by an education that claims that human nature is more malleable and more predictable than Machiavelli really thinks it is. For the sake of the common benefit, he means to persuade the great to act as if they are acting only according to necessity. This project would amount to nothing more than a curiosity in the history of political thought were it not for its remarkable success. We are the indirect beneficiaries of Machiavelli’s questionable attempt: we who believe that our natures are malleable, especially by technology; we who believe in rights founded only on necessities; we who believe ourselves great because of the dream of acquisition without limit; we who believe in progress, and in the necessity of a better future; and we who believe ourselves to be the people whose acquisitions the laws of nature and of nature’s God secure. Without attention to Machiavelli’s account of human nature we run the risk of remaining the unconscious inheritors at third hand of a partial account, of a project, posing as a science, to narrow human possibilities through education. We risk being Machiavellians without knowing it. How is this to the common benefit of everyone? Jeff J.S. Black Annapolis, Maryland 20 June 2012 �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 27 Notes 1 References to The Prince and to the Discourses will be given in the text, in the forms [P Chapter:page] and [D Book.chapter.paragraph:page], respectively. In these references, DL stands for dedicatory letter, P for preface, and T for title. The editions used are Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince. A New Translation with an Introduction, by Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1985), and Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996). I also refer to Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2001) in the form [MNMO, page]; to Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli's Virtue. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996) in the form [MV, page]; and to Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1958) in the form [TM, page]. 2 In the former passage, Machiavelli writes, “states that come to be suddenly, like all other things in nature that are born and grow quickly, cannot have roots and branches” [P 7:26], while in the latter he writes that a man cannot be found who is so prudent to accommodate himself to changes in fortune, in part “because he cannot deviate from what nature inclines him to” [P 25:100]. In two passages in the Discourses analogous to the latter passage in The Prince, Machiavelli writes that we are unable to change in part because “we are unable to oppose that to which nature inclines us” [D III.9.3:240], and “it is given by nature to men to take sides in any divided thing whatever, and for this to please them more than that” [D III.27.3:275]. In these last three passages we might expect Machiavelli to write “his nature” or “our nature,” but he does not. There is one passage in the Discourses where he refers to “the wicked nature of men” [D III.29.1:277], but he makes the reference while quoting a view with which he does not agree. 3 In nearby chapters at the beginning of The Prince, Machiavelli uses the phrases “natural prince” [P 2:7] and “natural affection” [P 4:17] to refer to the prince who inherits a principality and the affection felt for him. The natural and the ordinary are closely connected at this point in the work, and they both refer primarily to the sequence of human generation. The new prince is opposed to the natural or ordinary prince in Machiavelli’s argument, and the natural and ordinary is both an obstacle and an opportunity for him. 4 Machiavelli may mean to contrast these “universal causes” with the “superior causes” that he mentions in his discussion of ecclesiastical principalities [P 11:45]. 5 “[T]ime sweeps everything before it and can bring with it good as well as evil and evil as well as good” [P 3:13], according to Machiavelli, and “worldly things are so variable that it is next to impossible for one to stand with his armies idle in a siege for a year” [P 10:44]. There is another reference to an “order of things” much later in The Prince: “in the order of things it is found that one never seeks to avoid one inconvenience without running into another; but prudence consists in knowing how to recognize the qualities of inconveniences, and in picking the less bad as good” [P 21:91]. 6 “[O]ne can say this generally of men,” Machiavelli writes, “that they are ungrateful, fickle, pretenders and dissemblers, evaders of danger, eager for gain. While you do them good, they are yours, offering you their blood, property, lives, and children… when the need for them is far away; but, when it is close to you, they revolt” [P 17:66]. Having taught his reader later in The Prince that a prudent lord cannot observe faith, he continues, “if all men were good, this teaching would not be good; but because they are wicked and do not observe faith with you, you also do not have to observe it with them” [P 18:69]. Indeed, “men will always turn out bad for you unless they have been made good by a necessity” [P 23:95]. Machiavelli’s other claims about the apparently abiding character of men include, “men in general judge more by their eyes than by their hands, because seeing is given to everyone, touching to a few” [P 18:71], and, “men are much more taken by present things than by past ones, and when they find good in the present, they enjoy it and do not seek elsewhere” [P 24:96].   �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 28   7 Machiavelli repeats this claim much later in the Discourses, in a way that suggests an amendment. “Prudent men are accustomed to say,” he writes, “and not by chance or without merit, that whoever wishes to see what has to be considers what has been; for all worldly things in every time have their own counterpart in ancient times. That arises because these are the work of men, who have and always had the same passions, and they must of necessity result in the same effect” [D III.43.1:302]. What prudent men say by custom rather than by chance, and not without merit, is then corrected by what Machiavelli says in the immediate sequel: that it is true that the works of men “are more virtuous now in this province than in that, and in that more than in this, according to the form of education in which those people have taken their mode of life” [D III.43.1:302]. Education can shape nature, such that “Men Who Are Born in One Province Observe Almost the Same Nature for All Times” [D III.43.T:302; emphasis added]. Similarly, when investigating “Whence It Arises That One Family in One City Keeps the Same Customs for a Time” [D III.46.T:306], Machiavelli argues that this “cannot arise solely from the bloodline, because that must vary through the diversity of marriages, but it necessarily comes from the diverse education of one family from another” [D III.46.1:306]. 8 “How Many Are the Kinds of Principalities and in What Modes They Are Acquired” [P 1.T:5]; “Of New Principalities That Are Acquired through One’s Own Arms and Virtue” [P 6.T:21]; “Of New Principalities That are Acquired by Others’ Arms and Fortune” [P 7.T:25]. 9 This suggests another reason why Chapter XV, titled “Of Those Things for Which Men And Especially Princes are Praised or Blamed” [P 15.T:61] is also about acquisition. 10 The desire to acquire thus amounts to a desire for novelty. Later in the Discourses Machiavelli writes “men are desirous of new things, so much that most often those who are well off desire newness as much as those who are badly off. For, as was said another time [at D I.37.1:78], and it is true, men get bored with the good and grieve in the ill” [D III.21.2:263]. 11 And just as reproduction is growth by other means, so are one’s offspring and their acquisitions one’s own acquisitions, by other means. Consider Machiavelli’s hints about how Alexander VI used Cesare Borgia [P 11:46]. Death is not simply a limit of the desire to acquire. But compare note 27, below. Machiavelli does occasionally refer to a good that is the goal of acquisition. For example, in the Discourses he writes, [i]t appears that in the actions of men, as we have discoursed of another time [D I.6.3:21-22, where he wrote of “inconveniences”], besides the other difficulties in wishing to bring a thing to its perfection, one finds that close to the good there is always some evil that arises with that good so easily that it appears impossible to be able to miss the one if one wishes for the other. One sees this in all the things that men work on. So the good is acquired only with difficulty unless you are aided by fortune, so that with its force it conquers this ordinary and natural inconvenience” [D III.37.1:294]. But it is not clear that by “the good” here Machiavelli means anything other than any acquisition that can be felt and so enjoyed. Also, there are occasional hints in The Prince and the Discourses that some acquisitions can be harmful to the body that acquires them. In The Prince Machiavelli first raises the possibility of such acquisitions when he tells his reader that to keep an acquisition the prince must ensure that the acquired body becomes “one whole body” with the acquiring body [P 3:9]. If the new acquisition instead remains disparate with respect to the prince’s other possessions, then he runs the risk of losing it. A powerful foreigner can easily gain the lesser powers in a disparate province, since the lesser powers, moved by their envy of their rulers, quickly and willingly make “one mass” with the foreign invader [P 3:11]. A prince who rules a disparate state, and who fails to prevent powerful foreigners from taking advantage of this disparity, will soon lose his new acquisition, and “while he holds it, [he] will have infinite difficulties and vexations within it” [P 3:11]. So acquisitions can be harmful to the prince and his state as long as they remain disparate with his other possessions; in general, Machiavelli claims, “the disparity in the subject” explains why some conquerors hold their acquisitions while others lose them [P 4:19]. This disparity can be eliminated, and the new acquisition made into one whole body with the acquiring state, by eliminating the new acquisition’s memory of its previous way of life [P 4:19] – that is, by making the acquisition more complete.   �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 29   Acquisition in Machiavelli’s account thus resembles nutrition, in that the acquired body must become like the acquiring body before it can be good for the acquiring body. As long as an acquisition remains disparate, it remains undigested, and a cause of “difficulties and vexations.” But it is not until he considers cities and principalities that live under their own laws before they are acquired that Machiavelli suggests that some acquisitions are by their nature indigestible. Considering the case of a city, he claims at first that “a city used to living free may be held more easily by means of its own citizens than in any other mode, if one wants to preserve it [P 5:20]. But Machiavelli soon admits that this is impossible: “in truth there is no secure mode to possess them other than to ruin them” [P 5:20]. The acquisition of a free city is necessarily harmful: “whoever becomes patron of a city accustomed to living free and does not destroy it, should expect to be destroyed by it” [P 5:20-21]. The indigestibility of such a city results, as we might expect, from the persistence of the memory of its way of life, despite length of time, benefits received, and anything short of destruction [P 5:21]. So the only secure way for a prince to keep such an acquisition is to eliminate it, or to live in it – that is, rather than digesting it, to be digested by it [P 5:21]. This marks the extent of Machiavelli’s admission in The Prince that some acquisitions are not good for the acquiring body. In the Discourses he writes that “[t]he intention of whoever makes war through choice – or, in truth, ambition – is to acquire and maintain the acquisition, and to proceed with it so that it enriches and does not impoverish the country and his fatherland” [D II.6.1:140]. Machiavelli thereby admits that there can be acquisitions that are not good. A later chapter title, “That Acquisition by Republics That Are Not Well Ordered and That Do Not Proceed According to Roman Virtue Are for Their Ruin, Not Their Exaltation” [D II.19.T:172], suggests that virtue might be the necessary and sufficient condition that makes acquisitions good, though Machiavelli ends the chapter by suggesting that “acquiring was about to be pernicious for the Romans in the times when they proceeded with so much prudence and so much virtue” [D II.19.2:175]. His most general remark about the goodness of acquisition in the Discourses comes in a chapter whose title proclaims its concern in part with the causes that eliminate the memories of things, where Machiavelli asserts in passing that “in simple bodies, when very much superfluous matter has gathered together there, nature many times moves by itself and produces a purge that is the health of that body” [D II.5.2:140]. But this remark about the goodness of acquisition, like the analogous discussion in The Prince, reduces goodness to similarity to the acquiring body: that is, it reduces the good to what is one’s own. It does not point to the an account in terms of a good that is independent of one’s own. 12 Almost, because the presence of other competing desires to acquire is likely not the only source of formative effects on the desire to acquire. To the extent that circumstances resist acquisition – one is not strong enough, for example, to climb the tree to reach the desired apple – the desire to acquire is also given form. But these formative effects are presumably not as lasting as political ones. If they were, then our common experience of infantile weakness would yield in everyone the humor of the people. 13 Here Machiavelli writes, “in other principalities” than the Roman empire, “one has to contend only with the ambition of the great and the insolence of the people” [P 19:76]. In the Roman empire one had to contend as well with the cruelty and avarice of the soldiers. 14 Later in the same chapter Machiavelli will reformulate this distinction, writing, “the great want to oppress and the people want not to be oppressed” [P 9:39]. The disappearance of command from his formulation calls for an explanation, and Machiavelli provides one in the sequel when he claims, “when a prince who founds on the people knows how to command,” among other things, “he will see he has laid his foundations well” [P 9:41], since “citizens and subjects” can become “accustomed to receive commands” [P 9:42]. Where oppression is concerned, the great and the people have nothing in common; but they do have something in common where command that is not oppressive is concerned. Command is thus the closest thing to a political solution to the existence of two humors. 15 One difference between the perspectives of The Prince and the Discourses is signaled by Machiavelli’s different description of the desires of the two humors in the two works. ‘Command and oppress’ in The Prince becomes ‘dominate’ in the Discourses. In the former work Machiavelli distinguishes between kinds of domination; in the latter he does not. 16   Mansfield writes that according to Machiavelli, morality �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 30   is controlled by natural temperament, by the two humors that divide all mankind and underlie all moral behavior and opinion. By speaking of humors Machiavelli indicates that they are not habits of the mind nor mental in origin but prerational dispositions. Not being rational in nature, they cannot be reconciled by speech or argument. These are two human types who do not understand each other – the one preferring security and comfort, suspicious of anyone who desires more, the other seeking risk and demanding honor, unbelieving that anyone could be satisfied with less [MV, 24]. 17 Machiavelli’s sudden shift from the plural to the singular in the course of this passage is both striking and puzzling. Could he mean to imply that men can be made to feel secure in their possession if only one man among them – their prince, for example, who in a sense has what they have – acquires something new? 18 “It is an easy thing to know whence arises among peoples this affection for a free way of life for it is seen through experience that cities have never expanded either in dominion or in riches if they have not been in freedom” [D II.2.1:129]. Moreover, if a republic “will not molest others, it will be molested, and from being molested will arise the wish and the necessity to acquire” [D II.19.1:173]. The desire to acquire is also an effect of the desire for freedom. 19 There is a similar but less detailed account in the previous and first chapter of the Discourses. Since all cities are either founded by natives or by foreigners, and all foreigners were natives elsewhere, then the original foundation of cities occurs when it does not appear, to inhabitants dispersed in many small parts, that they live securely, since each part by itself, both because of the site and because of the small number, cannot resist the thrust of whoever assaults it; and when the enemy comes, they do not have time to unite for their defense. Or if they did, they would be required to leave many of their strongholds abandoned; and so they would come at once to be the prey of their enemies. So to flee these dangers, moved either by themselves or by someone among them of greater authority, they are restrained to inhabit together a place elected by them, more advantageous to live in and easier to defend [D I.1.1:7]. 20 That the command of one of the great produces a political struggle between the two humors indicates that this command is not a perfect solution to the existence of the two humors. This is partly because the great continue to desire to acquire by oppressing the people. But it is also because the satisfaction of the people’s desire to be free of oppression cannot amount to a satisfaction of their more fundamental desire to acquire. Even a free people is compelled to recognize the superiority of the great, whose fundamental desire they share, and to see this superiority as an obstacle to the satisfaction of their desire to acquire. The result is envy: the desire that the great be deprived of their superiority. Machiavelli acknowledges this difficulty early in The Prince, when he considers the challenges a prince faces in holding a recently-acquired province that is disparate from those he already holds. “[T]he order of things is such that as soon as a powerful foreigner enters a province, all those in it who are less powerful adhere to him, moved by the envy they have against whoever has held power over them” [P 3:11]. Even or especially founders face envy [P 6:25], though Machiavelli conceals this difficulty in his concluding exhortation of a prince to seize Italy and free her from the barbarians [P 26:105]. Since envy persists among the people even when they are free from oppression by the great, and arises among the great when they elevate one of their number to command the people, Machiavelli distinguishes envy from fear [P 7:31; D II.P.1:123] and elevates it to a characteristic of human beings in the Discourses. “[T]he envious nature of men,” he writes there, “has always made it no less dangerous to find new modes and orders than to seek unknown waters and lands, because men are more ready to blame than to praise the actions of others” [D I.P.1:15]. The political solution to the existence of the two humors is not just command, but hidden command. 21 According to Machiavelli, there may be airborne intelligences, by contrast, who foresee future things by “natural virtue” [D I.56.1:114]. 22 This is not to deny that the people, and especially an oppressed people, might long for a future in which they are free from oppression. But such a future would require that the great be deprived of their superiority. The people are   �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 31   typically conservative as long as they cannot imagine a satisfaction for their envy. In a chapter titled “The Multitude is Wiser and More Constant than a Prince,” Machiavelli admits that under a corrupt prince the people fear the present more than the future, while under a corrupt people they fear the future more than the present, because in the future a tyrant might emerge [D I.58.4:119]. But the corrupt case is not the typical one. Similarly, circumstances might require the great to fear the loss of their acquisitions, rather than to desire further acquisitions – for example, when threatened by a superior desire to acquire. But this is also an atypical case for the great. 23 Manlius’ fate points to another of Machiavelli’s remarks about goodness. Later in the Discourses, in a chapter partly titled “For One Citizen Who Wishes to Do Any Good Work in His Republic by His Authority, It Is Necessary First to Eliminate Envy” [D III.30.T:278], Machiavelli suggests first that “virtue and goodness” can eliminate envy, and then characteristically revises his claim by adding that “goodness is not enough” [D III.30.1:279, 280] – implying that virtue, if not sufficient, is at least necessary. 24 Extraordinary energy is needed for a prince to avoid the dangers of either being loved or being feared, according to the Discourses. “One cannot hold exactly to the middle way,” Machiavelli writes, for our nature does not consent to it, but it is necessary to mitigate those things that exceed with an excessive virtue” [D III.21.3:263; compare 22.3:266]. Perhaps most difficult is the apparently miraculous feat of ordering virtue and goodness in the same human being. In the same work Machiavelli praises the generosity of spirit of those [Roman] citizens whom, when put in charge of an army, the greatness of their spirit lifted above every prince. They did not esteem kings, or republics; nothing terrified or frightened them. When they later returned to private status, they became frugal, humble, careful of their small competencies, obedient to the magistrates, reverent to their superiors, so that it appears impossible that one and the same spirit underwent such change [D III.25.1:272]. 25 In a later formulation, Machiavelli writes that the prince “needs to have a spirit disposed to change as the winds of fortune and variations of things command him” [P 18:70]. 26 The theoretical mode of the peaceful exercise of the art of war involves reading histories and imitating some excellent man in the past [P 14:60]. The practical and theoretical modes of the peaceful exercise of the art of war, added to the wartime exercise of this art, make up the whole art of war, which Machiavelli says should be the only art of the prince, because many times it enables men to acquire states, and it helps them to maintain them [P 14:58]. Machiavelli wrote a book called The Art of War. 27 Machiavelli repeats this reasoning in the Discourses. “Once one individual has made himself very familiar with a region, he then understands with ease all new countries; for every country and every member of the latter have some conformity together, so that one passes easily from the knowledge of one to the knowledge of the other” [D III.39.2:298]. Without this familiarization with one’s own country, one comes to know new countries either never, or only after a long time and with difficulty. 28 As Mansfield puts it, Machiavelli adumbrates the modern scientific understanding of nature that, with Bacon, abandons natural beings and begins the search for natural laws, but he does no more than adumbrate. Since he approaches the question of the nature of nature from the standpoint of what is good for human beings, he remains faithful to the fact that in morals and politics, different natures appear distinct to us, above all the difference between good and evil [MV, 21]. I mean here to fill out the content of Machiavelli’s adumbration with respect to human nature, and to point out the resulting tension between his abandonment of natural beings and his fidelity to the natural difference between good and evil. One sign of this tension is that while the science of sites seems to entail a mechanical or hydrodynamic account in which lifeless nature is primary [see, for example, P 25:98-99], the examples that Machiavelli offers for the excellent human being to imitate are chiefly living beings [compare P 25:100-101]. It is not clear whether the living or the nonliving is the primary category for Machiavelli’s comprehensive science.   �Black, Machiavelli on Human Nature, Page 32   29 A reader who remembers the example of Pope Alexander VI from The Prince might object at this point that Alexander hoped to continue acquiring after his death, using his son Cesare Borgia as “his instrument” [P 11:46]. But acquisitions made through one’s offspring can be lost to death just as well as one’s own acquisitions, as long as one’s offspring are also mortal [P 7:31-32]. Also, it may necessarily be the case that a prince’s instruments are always inferior to him; had he lived, Alexander VI might not have made the errors that Cesare Borgia made [compare P 7:32-33 with 18:70]. Lastly, the pleasure of an predicted acquisition might necessarily be poorer than the pleasure of a real acquisition, if one has doubts about the possibility of enjoying it. 30 We learn by Machiavelli’s treatment of the same episode in the Discourses that the centurion with the “obstinate spirit” was not in fact the initiator of the successful conspiracy. Rather, he was the instrument of a prefect, who was himself driven to conspire against his emperor by the necessity imposed by the prefect’s fear of death [D III.6.11:227]. This elaboration does not detract from Machiavelli’s admission that some human beings cannot be compelled by the threat of death, and so his admission that his science of sites is not comprehensive. 31 There are other details in The Prince that raise similar doubts about the science of sites. For example, Machiavelli suggests that “obedience to present necessities” is what makes human beings vulnerable to being deceived [P 18:70]. He seems to mean not just that necessities can be manipulated [compare D III.12.1:247], since a human being would be no less excellent were he to be responsive to artificial necessities as well as to natural ones, nor just that necessities can be apparent rather than real, since a science of sites would distinguish only real necessities. Instead, he seems to mean to qualify his claim that it is sufficient for virtue to orient itself by necessity. In the same chapter Machiavelli also warns that “the vulgar are taken in by the appearance and the outcome of a thing”; and there is a similar passage in the Discourses where he writes, “all men are blind in this, in judging good or bad counsel by the end” [D III.35.2:291]. Again, if necessity were as knowable as Machiavelli elsewhere claims that it is, judging by the end would not be an instance of blindness or gullibility. � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 32 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 "Everyone Sees How You Appear; Few Touch What You Are": Machiavelli on Human Nature Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Black, Jeff J. S., 1970- Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-06-20 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I herby grant St. John's College permission: To make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. To make a copy of my typescript available online." Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527 Philosophy, Renaissance Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80134 Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on June 20, 2012 by Jeff Black as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Mr. Black is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. His talk is on exactly what constitutes human nature in the work of Machiavelli. In particular, he considers how this view has affected the way we see Machiavelli's works and what it has to teach us about his writings. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Deans Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2fb229095aeff924b83e5b571bb603d5.pdf 803664a11eb8c359b4b0d4ff3b6432c2 PDF Text Text The Very Pictures of Education: On Rousseau’s Illustrations in Emile Do great books need pictures? This question arises once we notice that some great books have pictures, while others do not. Once printing began to spread through Europe, in the sixteenth century, great books began to appear with engravings, called frontispieces, placed at their beginnings. Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration (1620) [Slide 1],1 whose frontispiece depicts two ships passing beyond the Pillars of Hercules – that is, the Strait of Gibraltar – in search of a new world; Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) [Slide 2], whose frontispiece depicts the incorporation of the body politic, the sovereign, from the bodies of its subjects; and Giambattista Vico’s New Science (1725) [Slide 3], whose frontispiece depicts a collection of objects of allegorical significance, meant to help the reader’s memory of the idea of the work [NS 1]2 are three famous seventeenth and eighteenthcentury examples. But by the nineteenth century, the use of frontispieces seems to have ended, although the technology needed to include them remained available. Some authors of great books seem to have chosen not to include pictures, then, though it was possible for them to do so. This historical record tempts us to dismiss the use of pictures as a fashion in printing. But our question – do great books need pictures? – recurs from another, more serious, perspective. Ever since Plato’s Socrates raised, in the Phaedrus, the possibility that a piece of writing could be composed according to “some necessity” that dictates the order of its parts and their suitability “to each other and to the whole” [264b-c],3 we have been reminded to ask whether the author of a great book can give an account of the reason for its parts, according to this principle of logographic necessity. From the perspective of this principle, then, the �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 2 difference between those authors who could have added pictures to their great books and did, and those authors who could have but did not, looks like evidence not of a historical fad, but of a disagreement over whether great books need pictures. This disagreement concerns us, as readers of great books, not least because their contemporary publishers sometimes disagree with their authors about the need for their pictures, and omit them from their editions, without notice. Tonight I mean to consider Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s answer to this question – ‘do great books need pictures?’ – by examining some of the pictures Rousseau provided for his great books. Each of the three books that Rousseau says make up his “system,” the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (1750), the Discourse on Inequality (1754), and Emile (1762) [CW 5:575]4 has a frontispiece; Emile also has four additional illustrations, so that it has five in total: as many pictures as books. Rousseau also commissioned twelve illustrations for Julie, his epistolary novel.5 In each case, moreover, there is evidence that the pictures are, in an important sense, Rousseau’s. Apprenticed unhappily as an engraver in his youth [CW 5:26-37], Rousseau corresponded extensively with the artists who worked on his illustrations; and while these letters have been lost, we do have letters to others in which Rousseau indicates the attention he devoted to the pictures for his books. Lamenting his publisher’s difficulties with the engravings for Julie, for example, Rousseau writes, the details into which I entered were not the sort to be carried out to the letter. It is not what the designer must draw, but what he must know so as to make his work conform to them as much as possible. Everything that I have described must be in his head in order to put in his engraving everything that can be admitted there and to put nothing contrary [CC 4:408; translation mine].6 Despite this evidence of Rousseau’s care in instructing his artists, publishers of his works have not scrupled to omit his illustrations from their editions – sometimes even along with passages that mention them – presumably because they consider them unnecessary adornments of Rousseau’s books. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 3 This lecture will have eight parts. In the first two, I will briefly examine the frontispieces to the First and Second Discourses, considering them as preparations for Rousseau’s illustrations in Emile. In the next five sections, I will briefly consider in turn each of these illustrations, reading them first in themselves, then in the light of his explication of each, then in the light of their mythological sources, and lastly in the light of their relation to the argument of Emile. Finally, in the eighth and longest part, I will sketch what I take to be Rousseau’s answer to our question – do great books need pictures? – with reference to his brief discussion in Emile of what he calls the language of signs, and his fuller explanation of this language in the Essay on the Origin of Languages. Part One: Prometheus, or the Failed Frontispiece? Rousseau’s literary fame dates from the publication of his First Discourse, his anonymous entry into the Academy of Dijon’s prize competition, in which the academy asked whether the restoration of the sciences and the arts has contributed to the purification of morals [FD 3; compare 5]. In the Discourse Rousseau argues that, to the contrary, scientific and artistic progress causes moral corruption [FD 9]. Rousseau’s use of illustrations in his works also dates from the publication of the First Discourse, whose printed version was accompanied by a frontispiece. Across from the work’s title page is an engraving of three figures in an outdoor setting, with some vegetation in the foreground, and perhaps a mountain in the background [Slide 4]. The leftmost figure is a muscular, bearded male, naked except for a cloak draped over his shoulder. He holds a torch in his right hand, the flame of which strangely seems to burn horizontally, rather than vertically. His left hand rests on the central figure’s shoulder; otherwise, the leftmost figure seems to hover in midair, straddling a billowing cloud. He gazes �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 4 intently at the other figures in the scene. The central figure is another male, more slightly built than the first, and wholly naked. He stands on a block, in a statuesque pose, with both hands open, their palms visible. He could be looking rapturously at the face of the leftmost figure, or at the torch that he holds. Lastly, though he is partly obscured by shadow, we see enough of the rightmost figure to conclude that he is not fully human: he has horns and cloven hooves. A cloak worn over his right shoulder partly covers his nakedness, and we can make out pan pipes slung over the same shoulder. Of the three figures in the scene, the rightmost is the only one to have at least one limb on the ground. His left hand is raised, palm upward, in an expressive gesture, while his right hand is concealed behind the central figure, into whom he leans. He gazes avidly at one or both of his companions, or perhaps at the torch in the leftmost figure’s hand. This frontispiece also features a caption: “Satyr, you do not know it. See note page 31” [FD 2]. It directs us to the center of the First Discourse, to the beginning of Part Two of the work, to a footnote to Rousseau’s claim that, according to an ancient Egyptian tradition, the sciences were invented by “a god inimical to men’s repose” [FD 16]. The footnote compares this Egyptian myth about the god Theuth to the Greek myth about Prometheus, and points out that both peoples regarded their divine benefactors with disfavor. “‘The satyr,’” Rousseau quotes from an ancient fable, “‘wanted to kiss and embrace fire the first time he saw it but Prometheus cried out to him: “Satyr, you will weep the loss of the beard on your chin, for it burns when you touch it.”’ This is the subject of the frontispiece” [FD 16 n *]. It is not hard to find the satyr among the figures in the illustration. But which is Prometheus? He could be the leftmost figure, who bears a lit torch and hovers in the air like a god. But then who is the third man? �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 5 Six years after the publication of the Discourse, Rousseau judged its frontispiece to be “very bad” [CC 4:408]. It was certainly not understood by all of the Discourse’s readers. One of them, Claude-Nicolas Lecat, wrote an anonymous Refutation of the work, in which he claims that the central figure in the illustration is man, “naked and leaving the hands of Prometheus, of nature.” The satyr, he maliciously continued, is Rousseau himself, ignorantly admiring the image of natural man, which image is about to be burnt to ash by Prometheus’ fire [CW 2:156]. This tendentious interpretation provoked Rousseau’s retort that he would treat his readers “like children,” and interpret for them the “clear allegory” of the illustration. “Prometheus’ torch,” he says in the Letter to Lecat, “is that of the sciences, created to inspire great geniuses.” “[T]he Satyr who, seeing fire for the first time, runs to it and wants to embrace it, represents common men, seduced by the brilliance of letters, who surrender indiscreetly to study.”7 And “Prometheus who cries out and warns them of the danger is the Citizen of Geneva” – that is, Rousseau himself [CW 2:179]. Rousseau’s insistence on the clarity of his allegory should not make us forget that he still only identifies two of the three figures in the frontispiece: Prometheus-Rousseau, the leftmost figure, is known by his torch, while the satyr-common man, the rightmost figure who reaches for Prometheus’ torch, is known by his shape. Again, who is the third man? We can make an educated guess with the assistance of the illustration’s caption. The phrase “fire burns when one touches it” [CW 2:12 n *] comes from Plutarch’s essay “How to profit by one’s enemies,” where it is followed immediately by this qualification: “yet it furnishes light and heat, and is an instrument of every craft for those who have learned to use it” [II.9].8 If Rousseau’s studied omission of this sequel has the same cause as his studied silence about the identity of the third man in the illustration, then it seems likely that this third man must be a “great genius,” whom �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 6 Prometheus’ torch was made to enlighten. In particular, it seems likely that this man must be the great genius whose enlightenment leads him to keep enlightenment from the common people, lest scientific and artistic progress corrupt their morals – namely, Rousseau himself. In the frontispiece to the First Discourse, then, we see the first example of Rousseau doubling himself in an image. Soon we will see another example of this practice in one of the illustrations in Emile. Years after the publication of the First Discourse, Rousseau complained in the Letter to Beaumont that none of his adversaries had been able to understand his distinction between the suitability of enlightenment for individuals, and its dangerousness for peoples – though he always drew this distinction with care [OC 4:967]. We might blame precisely Rousseau’s care in drawing this distinction for his adversaries’ failure to notice it. As we saw, Rousseau compares Prometheus with the Egyptian god Theuth, who is mentioned in the discussion of the “seemliness and unseemliness of writing” in Plato’s Phaedrus as the inventor of written letters, among other sciences [275c-276c]. In this discussion, the question arises whether a piece of writing can have the power to defend itself, by knowing how “to speak and keep silence toward those it ought” [276a]. By trying, with the frontispiece to the First Discourse, to speak differently to different readers, Rousseau seems to have spoken unclearly. But he would soon have a second chance. Part Two: The Hottentot, or the Literal Frontispiece Four years later, Rousseau published his Second Discourse, a work that seeks to uncover man’s original condition, and to describe the history of his development from this original condition to his present state. Once again, Rousseau furnished this writing with a captioned frontispiece, �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 7 located across from its title page [Slide 5]. Again, the setting is outdoors, with vegetation in the foreground and, this time, the ocean in the distance. But this frontispiece features a stark visual and thematic division, cutting down the middle and through its principal figure. To his left we see a group of five adult males, wearing broad-brimmed, feathered hats, with elegant clothes and tasseled shoes. Four of them are standing, apparently disputing with one another: two have their hands raised in animated gestures. The fifth man, perhaps their leader, sits on an ornate box. One of his hands is raised to his face is a gesture familiar from our classes: the gesture of pondering, or perhaps of duplicity. Behind this group, a crenellated keep rises, with two machicolated bartizans. Over this left side of the image hang dark clouds, casting their shadows on the keep and the ground below. To the right of the principal figure, by contrast, we see two rows of low huts, set on a beach that slopes gently to the water. In front of the closer row of huts, we can just make out five or six dark-skinned figures. Behind these huts, on the water, five or six ships are moving under sail, their pennants streaming in the wind. Over this right side of the image, the clouds are lighter, the sky brighter, and birds fly in the distance. The principal figure stands between the two halves of this scene. He is a dark-skinned male, wearing fur breeches, a necklace, and a sword at his hip. A bundle of fabric lies in the foreground; peeking out from it is a broad-brimmed feathered hat like those worn by the other men. While looking down at the leader of the group to his right, the central figure gestures with his left hand at the huts on the beach or the ships on the water, and with his right at the bundle at his feet. While his left foot is planted on the ground, his right heel is lifted, as if he were about to take a step. The caption to this illustration reads, “[h]e returns among [chez] his equals. See Note 13, page 259” [SD 112; I have altered the translation]. Turning there, we find Rousseau observing �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 8 that despite every effort by Europeans, no savage has ever been won over to the European religion and way of life. Anticipating the objection that this is due not to the superiority of the savage life, but to their habitual attachment to it, which makes them insensible to the advantages of the European way, he quotes at length from a traveler’s tale by Peter Kolben. The Dutch governor of the Cape of Good Hope took an infant Hottentot, and had him raised in the European religion and way of life. After he had been educated and had traveled, this Hottentot returned to the Cape, and soon decided to visit his relatives. During this visit, he discarded his European clothes and dressed himself in a sheepskin; he then returned to the Dutch fort, carrying his former outfit, and told the Governor the following (and here Rousseau tells us to see the frontispiece): [b]e so good, Sir, as to note that I forever renounce these trappings. I also renounce the Christian Religion for the rest of my life; my resolution is to live and die in the Religion, the ways, and the customs of my Ancestors. The one favor I ask of you is to leave me the Necklace and the Cutlass I am wearing. I shall keep them for love of you [SD 220-221]. Then, without waiting for a reply, the Hottentot ran off, never to be seen in the Cape again. The footnote containing this story is connected to a passage in the main text of the Discourse, where Rousseau asserts that the savage state, “occupying a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our amour-propre, must have been the happiest and the most lasting epoch… the least subject to revolutions, the best for man” [SD 167]. So at first it looks like the note and the frontispiece are meant to support these assertions. The stability and superiority of the savage state are proven by the story of the Hottentot who – although wholly familiar with the European religion and way of life, and wholly unfamiliar with the savage alternative – prefers the savage way as soon as he learns of it. But Rousseau cautions his reader that his notes “sometimes [stray] so wide of the subject that they are not good to read together with the text” [SD 129]. And indeed, some of the details of the Hottentot’s speech are �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 9 puzzling. It is unreasonable to believe, for example, that he keeps the necklace and the sword for love of the Governor of the Cape – the man who kidnapped him and deprived him of a childhood and youth lived in the best and happiest way for a human being. Why then does the Hottentot take these items, and run away without waiting for a reply? Rousseau’s illustration helps us to answer this question, by showing us that in keeping the necklace and sword, and indeed in wearing the sheepskin, the Hottentot is not returning to his equals. These have neither swords nor necklaces; they do not even wear pants [Slide 6]. The illustration also shows us that, while saying what he says, the Hottentot gestures not only at the beach huts of his native people, but also at the ships of his adoptive people. These ships mean that there will always be more Dutch, more Europeans, more civilized and enlightened human beings arriving at the Cape of Good Hope, in a flood that the religion, ways, and customs of the Hottentot’s ancestors cannot hope to survive – unless they can take advantage of European military technology and luxury economics. The frontispiece to the Second Discourse thus shows us that the Hottentot chooses not to return to the savage state, the mean between our primitive and civilized states, but rather to combine the best of the savage state with what is necessary from civilization. He means to try to be a natural man in civilized society. He means to try to be an Emile. Part Three: Thetis, or the Mother9 Emile, which Rousseau thought of as his best work [CW 5:473], depicts the education of an imaginary child, named Emile, from birth or even before birth, until his marriage to a woman named Sophie and the announcement of her pregnancy. Its first book lays out the reasons for Rousseau’s educational project, and follows the child during his infancy. As a whole, Emile �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 10 consists of five books, each with an illustration commissioned by Rousseau.10 The first of these, titled “Thetis,” is said, in Rousseau’s “Explication of the Illustrations,” to relate to the first book and serve as the frontispiece to the work [E 36; I have altered the translation].11 As befits a frontispiece, it appears across from Emile’s title page.12 Turning there, we find that we begin in the cave [Slide 7]. Five women are gathered underground, on the bank of a river. Behind them, up and to the left, a twisting path rises to daylight. One of the women, adorned with a necklace and bracelets, with jewelry in her hair and wearing a fancy dress, kneels at the water’s edge, holding her skirts back with her left hand, while with her right she dips a naked infant headfirst into the water. Behind her, and more plainly dressed, the other four women are caught in animated poses. One holds a hand up in the air, in a gesture that perhaps indicates astonishment; a second has her arms around the shoulders of the first; a third holds the well-dressed woman’s cloak in one hand, while her other hand rests on the woman’s arm – perhaps to comfort her, perhaps to keep her from falling into the river; a fourth woman crouches at the water’s edge, her dress hitched up in her left hand. At least two of these women have their blouses open and their breasts bared, as though they have just been nursing. And finally, lurking in the darkest part of the scene and barely discernible, we can see a muscular but hunched figure in a raft on the river, bearing a pole or an oar, and accompanied by a shrouded companion [Slide 8]. Rousseau’s explication says that the illustration “represents Thetis plunging her son in the Styx to make him invulnerable” [E 36]. The well-dressed woman, then, is Thetis; and the naked infant is her son, whom readers of the Iliad will know as Achilles. If the river is the Styx, then the figure in the raft must be Charon, ferrying a shade to the underworld. Rousseau’s use of this image as a frontispiece to the whole work leads us to infer that the education described in Emile �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 11 is to be a type of ‘invulnerability treatment,’ and Emile a type of Achilles. But why include Charon in the image, then – especially since Rousseau tells us outright that the river depicted is the Styx? And why title the engraving “Thetis,” rather than “Achilles”? Rousseau’s explication ends by directing the reader deep into the text of Book I.13 Following his direction, we find a paragraph about the two ways that mothers can depart from nature: by neglecting their children – for example, by failing to breastfeed them – or by caring excessively for them. In this context Rousseau mentions the fable of Thetis plunging Achilles in the Styx, which he say contains a “lovely” and “clear” allegory.14 “The cruel mothers of whom I speak do otherwise,” Rousseau concludes: “by dint of plunging their children in softness, they prepare them for suffering; they open their pores to ills of every sort to which they will not fail to be prey when grown” [E 47]. The example of Thetis thus seems like an instance of natural mothering – her ‘invulnerability treatment’ for Achilles is neither too harsh, nor too soft, but just right. And yet the engraving of Thetis suggests that she is not breastfeeding her son, but confiding this task to wet nurses. What is worse, a scant few pages later, in the context of a discussion of how doctors cause their patients to fear death, Rousseau has the following to say about Achilles: “[i]t is the knowledge of dangers that makes us fear them; he who believed himself invulnerable would fear nothing. By dint of arming Achilles against peril, the poet takes from him the merit of valor; every other man in his place would have been an Achilles at the same price” [E 55]. Had Thetis’ ‘invulnerability treatment’ for Achilles succeeded, it would have protected him from death, though at the cost of depriving him of the opportunity for virtue. But it did not succeed: Achilles remained vulnerable in one place, and was therefore given the opportunity for virtue, but at the cost of increasing his fear of death. The ‘Thetis’ engraving completes the argument of the text, �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 12 first by showing that Thetis was at once too hard and too soft – she neglected to breastfeed her son, and she tried to make him invulnerable – and second by showing that the fear of death is both the cause and the effect of both kinds of excess:15 the cause in the case of Thetis, the mother, and the effect in the case of her son. Hence Charon, barely visible in the gloom, is the most important figure in this illustration. Part Four: Chiron, or the Tutor While it seems reasonable to attribute Achilles’ wrath to his fear of death, it might occur to those of us who know Homer well that in the Iliad there is no mention of Thetis dipping the infant Achilles in the Styx to make him invulnerable. So the Iliad cannot be the text to which the first illustration in Emile refers. Rather, the story comes from a later, and to us less-known epic: the Achilleid, by Statius [I.133-134].16 As it happens, this epic is also the likely source of the fable behind the second illustration in Emile – suggesting that these two illustrations are best interpreted together. Book Two of Emile describes Emile’s childhood: the conditions of his happiness, his first experience with property, his learning to speak, and the training of his senses. Turning to the illustration found at the head of this book [Slide 9], we see two figures meeting on a mountainside. To their right, from our perspective, the ground slopes downward to some trees; to the left it slopes steeply upward to some tree-studded crags. In the distance we see some clouds in the sky. The figure on our right is a young child, dressed in a tunic. In his right hand the child holds a rabbit by the ears; it is not evident whether the rabbit is alive or dead. The child’s streaming hair and posture, with one leg flexed but planted on the ground, and the other in the air, suggest that he has arrived running. With his left hand the child reaches out for an �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 13 apple proffered by the figure on our left, as he gazes into his face. This figure is clearly a centaur. His human upper body is clothed by some sort of cape, and his face is bearded. The posture of his equine lower body is strange: with one foreleg straightened and planted on the ground, and his one visible hind leg flexed, he could be rising from a crouching position. The centaur gazes into the child’s face, extending the apple with his right hand, and reaching with his left, not for the limp rabbit, but past it to caress the child’s cheek. At the centaur’s feet we can barely make out a basket of apples to his left, and a heap of items to his right, including what look like a crested helmet, a shield, a scroll, perhaps a lyre, a pad of paper, and perhaps even a potted plant. According to its title, the subject of this engraving is Chiron, the centaur; and the action depicted, according to Rousseau’s explication, is “Chiron training the little Achilles in running” [E 36]. The citation accompanying this explication directs us to “Page 382” of Emile’s first volume, where we read the story of “an indolent and lazy child who was to be trained in running” – a child who, like Achilles, “was intended for a military career.” This child prided himself to such an extent on his noble birth that he persuaded himself that rank can take the place of ability. “To make of such a gentleman a light-footed Achilles,” Rousseau tells us, “the skill of Chiron himself would hardly have sufficed” [E 141]. To make a long story short, the tutor in this example goads his pupil into competing with other children in running, using cakes as a prize.17 By secretly manipulating the conditions of each race, the tutor is able to arrange an initial victory for his vain and lazy charge, and to ensure subsequent victories at his, the tutor’s, will. Not only does this child become accomplished at running. “This accomplishment produced another of which I had not dreamed,” writes Rousseau. “When he had rarely carried off the prize, he almost always ate it alone, as did his competitors. But, in accustoming himself to victory, he became �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 14 generous and often shared with the vanquished. […] I learned thereby what the true principle of generosity is” [E 142]. Leaving aside for the moment this puzzling conclusion, we might also be puzzled by Rousseau’s choice of an illustration for this text. The engraving depicts a race run for an apple, not for a cake; and the competition in the race seems to be a hare, rather than another child. Moreover, why say that the illustration depicts Achilles, and not just a lazy child; and why depict the centaur Chiron rather than a human tutor? It turns out that the fable about Chiron’s education of Achilles comes not from the Iliad18 but from the Achilleid, so that there is a close thematic connection between the first two illustrations to Emile. Now the Achilleid begins with Thetis witnessing the abduction of Helen by Paris, and realizing that the Trojan war will result. Fearing that Achilles will be sought for, will want to fight, and will die [I.37-38, 74-76], she first tries and fails to persuade Neptune to sink Paris’ ships [I.80-81], then seeks out Chiron [I.104-106], to whom she had sent Achilles for his education. “High up his lofty dwelling bores through the mountain” [I.106-107], Statius writes, [h]ere are no darts that have tasted human blood, no ash trees fractured in festive combats, nor mixing bowls shattered upon kindred foes, but innocent quivers and empty hides of wild beasts… [f]or at this time unarmed his only labour was to know herbs that bring health to living things in doubtful case or to limn with his lyre the heroes of old for his pupil [I.112-118]. Thetis finds Chiron awaiting Achilles’ return from the hunt, and persuades him to release Achilles to her – citing, among other things, her frequent nightmares about dipping Achilles in the Styx [I.133-134]. Chiron assents, because Achilles has become unmanageable [I.149-155], though Statius tells us that Chiron never would have done so had he known of Thetis’ plan to disguise Achilles as a woman, in the hopes of avoiding his recruitment to fight at Troy [I.141143]. When Achilles finally appears, he is armed, accompanied by Patroclus, and bearing lion �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 15 cubs that he has abducted after killing their mother [I.158-177]. Achilles and Thetis depart the next day. By alluding in this way to the Achilleid, the ‘Chiron’ illustration helps us to interpret its details. Now we see why the scene is set on a mountainside, why Chiron is clothed in animal skins, and why a helmet, a shield, a lyre, and a potted medicinal plant lie in the foreground. But more importantly, the illustration deepens the story in the text to which it refers, both through its allusion to the Achilleid and through its departures from that work. First, when compared with the ‘Thetis’ illustration and interpreted in light of the Achilleid, the ‘Chiron’ illustration teaches us that the mother and the tutor are antagonists in the education of the child. The mother, moved by the fear of death, seeks to preserve her child from harm, while the tutor, whose motives are unknown, seeks to prepare him to face it. This antagonism is touchingly depicted in the Achilleid, when Achilles, Patroclus, Chiron and Thetis spend the night together in Chiron’s cave. Statius writes, “[t]he huge Centaur collapses on stone and Achilles fondly twines himself about his shoulders, though his faithful mother is there, preferring the familiar bosom” [I.195-197]. Tutor and mother both have a medicine for the human condition, but the mother’s medicine is harmful – it culminates in proud wrath – while the tutor’s medicine is beneficial: it turns pride into generosity, whose principle, the text implies, is confidence that there will always be more cake – or in other words, ignorance of death.19 Second, in its departures from the Achilleid, the ‘Chiron’ engraving implies that Rousseau’s Achilles has been training in running, rather than hunting; that his skill is with defensive weapons; and that he is a vegetarian, and so more capable of pity.20 Rousseau’s Chiron, by contrast, may still be a carnivore; the fate of the hare is unknown. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 16 Part Five: Hermes, or the God Book Three of Emile spans the years between childhood and puberty, and covers Emile’s introduction to the elements of the natural sciences and the trade of carpentry, as well as the completion of the training of his senses. The third illustration in Emile appears at the beginning of this book, which in the first edition falls at the beginning of its second volume. Appropriately enough, this illustration also makes a new thematic beginning. Turning there we discover another outdoor scene, populated by three figures [Slide 10]. The chief figure stands on a step in the foreground, with one foot on the earth. He is nearly naked, clad only in a cloak draped over his left shoulder, and a winged, soft-brimmed cap. His ankles also seem to be winged. In his left arm he cradles a slim wand entwined by two serpents. With his right hand he uses a stylus to draw what look like geometrical figures on one of the two broad columns that stand in the center of the scene. And at his feet, in the foreground, are piled mathematical instruments: an armillary sphere, a protractor, and a sundial are easily discerned, while the other objects may include a writing desk with geometrical proofs, a book, a model star, and a carpenter’s square. In the bottom right of the illustration, far from the mathematical instruments, a plant grows. The other two figures in the scene seem to be an older, bearded male and his younger, beardless companion. Both are dressed simply: the former in a cloak, the latter in an open-necked shirt. Both are also gesturing expressively: the elder points discreetly with his right hand to the chief figure’s activity, while perhaps restraining his companion with his left arm; the younger of the men has his left hand raised in a gesture of wonder. The statue of what may be a sphinx beside them, and the elongated pyramid or obelisk behind them, suggest an Egyptian setting – though the tree on the left margin of the image, and the gently rising hill in the right background, are not reminiscent of Egypt. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 17 Rousseau gives ‘Hermes’ as the subject of this engraving, and writes in his explications that it depicts “Hermes engraving the elements of the sciences on columns” [E 36]. The accompanying reference to the text is to “Page 76.” Turning there, we find Rousseau proclaiming I hate books. They only teach one to talk about what one does not know. It is said that Hermes engraved the elements of the sciences on columns in order to shelter his discoveries from a flood. If he had left a good imprint of them in man’s head, they would have been preserved by tradition. Well-prepared minds are the surest monuments on which to engrave human knowledge [E 184]. So the ‘Hermes’ engraving, like the ‘Thetis’ engraving, depicts a misguided action. Just as Thetis should have trained her son in running, rather than trying to make him invulnerable, so Hermes should have engraved the principles of the sciences in the minds of men, rather than on columns. But how does one do this? Rousseau gives a clear answer in the immediate sequel: with a book, indeed with one book in particular – Robinson Crusoe. While the general danger of books is that they give their readers words that do not correspond to things, and so the opinion of knowledge without the reality, books like Robinson Crusoe escape this danger by putting their readers in imaginary situations that force them to attend to things, and in particular to their real utility, apart from opinion [E 185]. This interested attention to utility is the only lasting foundation of the sciences. Rousseau’s example of a book that escapes the dangers of books helps us better to interpret the ‘Hermes’ illustration. In our treatment of the frontispiece of the First Discourse, we mentioned the possibility raised in Plato’s Phaedrus: that a piece of writing can overcome the defects of writing, by knowing how “to speak and to keep silence toward those it ought” [276a]. A suitably edited Robinson Crusoe,21 it seems, is such a piece of writing: it keeps silent to those interested in words, for whom it is only a quaint story, but it speaks volumes to those interested in judging the true utility of things. But Rousseau also says that the frontispiece to the Discourse �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 18 depicts a fable found allegorically in the “ancient tradition passed on from Egypt to Greece” [G, 16] about the Egyptian god Theuth, known to the Greeks as Hermes. Now we see the reason for the Egyptian objects – the sphinx and the pyramid or obelisk – in the otherwise Greek scene of the ‘Hermes’ illustration. Rousseau takes the fables of Prometheus, Theuth, and Hermes to have the same meaning.22 They raise the question of how the sciences and the arts can be cultivated without causing moral corruption. Putting the ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Hermes’ illustrations side by side, we see that they have similar structures [Slide 11]. There are three figures in each: a divinity who possesses the sciences and the arts, a figure who is kept from them, and an intermediary between the two. But the satyr who is kept away in the ‘Prometheus’ illustration, and who represents “common men” [CW 2:179], is replaced in the ‘Hermes’ illustration by a young man who is kept from Hermes’ engravings, and yet shown them at a distance. The naked man, whom we guessed to represent great geniuses who are suited to the sciences, is replaced by an older, bearded man, who at once restrains his charge and points out Hermes’ work. Lastly, Prometheus himself is replaced by Hermes. If it follows that Hermes also represents Rousseau,23 then the move from the First Discourse to Emile involves a move from a project to keep the sciences and the arts away from the common man, and in the hands of great geniuses, to a project to preserve the useful elements of the sciences and the arts, by teaching them to ordinary intellects [compare E 52]. Far from being uselessly employed in engraving these elements on columns, Hermes is usefully employed in engraving them on the minds of men, using the writing that overcomes the defects of writing. It is more than a joke that Emile’s central engraving is an engraving of Rousseau engraving. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 19 Part Six: Orpheus, or the Priest Book Four of Emile is long, and treats the social but not fully sexual consequences of Emile’s emerging erotic desires: his education in compassion, his study of history, and the education of his taste. The book is made longer, though, by Rousseau’s exceptional inclusion of a distinct writing in its midst, called “The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” [E 266-313]. The illustration to Book Four is also exceptional, because it is found not at the beginning of the book, as the second and third illustrations were found at the beginnings of their respective books, but in the middle of the fourth book – which in the first edition falls at the beginning of the third volume.24 In effect, this makes the illustration into a frontispiece for “The Profession of Faith,”25 whose preamble begins right after the engraving, where Rousseau writes, in reference to religious matters, “[i]nstead of telling you here on my own what I think, I shall tell you what a man more worthy than I thought” [E 260]. Turning to the illustration, we find another outdoor scene, set in the wooded foothills of a mountain [Slide 12]. The center of the engraving is dominated by a man standing on a raised patch of earth, and dressed in sandals, a tunic and a cloak. His left hand holds a fold of his cloak, or perhaps a sheaf of paper, while his left arm cradles a lyre.26 His right hand is raised palm upward in a gesture to the sky. By contrast, his serene gaze is directed downward, to the crowd gathered around him. This crowd is chiefly composed of bare-chested men, old and young – or at least bearded and beardless. Unlike the central figure, they are dressed only in animal skins wrapped around their waists, and they are barefoot. One of these men cowers, one kneels, two crouch; but all of them, except the cowering man, look up at the sky with expressions of awe. The remainder of the crowd, to the central figure’s right from our perspective, consists of animals. We can make out a small rodent, a sheep, an ox, a horse, and several birds, including a �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 20 bird of prey that seems far too large for the branch it perches on. As far as we can tell, there are no women present. Rousseau titles this illustration “Orpheus,” and writes that the engraving “represents Orpheus teaching men the worship of the gods” [E 36]. The illustration itself refers to “Page 128” of Volume Three. Turning there, we find an intermission in the “Profession of Faith,” during which Rousseau remarks, “[t]he good priest had spoken with vehemence. He was moved, and so was I. I believed I was hearing the divine Orpheus sing the first hymns and teaching men the worship of the gods. Nevertheless I saw a multitude of objections to make to him” [E 294]. Rousseau thus likens the Savoyard Vicar, whose views on religion are given instead of Rousseau’s own, and with whose views Rousseau does not agree,27 to Orpheus. It will help here to review some of the details of the Orpheus myth. In Ovid’s version in the Metamorphoses, Orpheus loses his bride Eurydice to death, and is so overcome with love for her that he decides he cannot live without her [X.26].28 He pursues her into the underworld, where his music charms everyone, and secures Eurydice’s release – on the condition that, as he leads her to the surface, he not look back at her. We should understand this otherwise arbitrary condition as a test of Orpheus’ trust in Eurydice: a test of his confidence that she would rather accompany him than stay in the underworld. But when “they were nearing the margin of the upper earth,” Ovid writes, “he, afraid that she might fail him, eager for the sight of her, turned back his longing eyes; and instantly she slipped into the depths” [X.55-57]. Orpheus is stunned by her second death; he tries to pursue her, but his descent is barred. Orpheus mourns Eurydice for three years, spurning the other women who try to console him.29 His lack of confidence in Eurydice becomes a mistrust of all women. He sings in mourning, and Ovid reports that his songs draw to him “multitudinous birds,” “snakes,” a “train �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 21 of beasts,” “oxen,” and some “stout peasants” [XI.20-21, 31, 33] – suggesting that Ovid’s description provides some of the details of Rousseau’s illustration. Even the trees and the stones are moved. But Orpheus’ song also attracts the local women who, offended by his contempt for them, drown out his song and finally tear him to pieces. A nearby river carries off his head, still singing, and his lyre, still sounding, while his shade is reunited at last with Eurydice’s in the underworld.30 So Rousseau’s illustration compares the Savoyard Vicar to Orpheus, and Ovid’s telling of the Orpheus myth suggests that the singer was destroyed by his soured love for a woman. Does Rousseau mean thus to suggest that the “Profession of Faith” – the Vicar’s teaching concerning the gods, his song – is also based on erotic love gone wrong? If we look at the details of what the Vicar says, this is exactly what we learn. In his preamble we learn that the Vicar is miserable because of a scandal caused by a conflict between his erotic desires and his respect for marriage. The Vicar cannot be chaste, but he cannot marry; nor can he bring himself to commit adultery. So he sleeps with an unmarried woman, and she becomes pregnant, without a husband on whom to blame the pregnancy. The lovers are discovered and torn from one another’s arms [E 267].31 “A few such experiences lead a reflective mind a long way,” the Vicar confesses to JeanJacques. We see how far the Vicar was led when we read his “Profession of Faith.” There he outlines a metaphysics in which the soul is enslaved to, and yet feels contempt for, the body: the soul is “subjected to the senses and chained to [the] body which enslaves it and interferes with it,” but “care for [the] body’s preservation incites the soul to relate everything to the body and gives it an interest contrary to the general order, which the soul is nevertheless capable of seeing and loving” [E 292]. Having been torn, like Orpheus, from his love, the Vicar is now figuratively torn apart, like Orpheus was literally, by contempt for his own erotic desires.32 �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 22 Now Rousseau does not wholly agree with the Vicar’s “Profession of Faith,” and Emile will hear nothing like it from Jean-Jacques.33 Rousseau’s own view seems to be that the conflict erotic desire can foment between the soul and the body is not necessary: it can be forestalled by correct education. To the extent that otherworldly metaphysical teachings arise from thisworldly sexual conflict, then, they too are not necessary – and they too can be avoided by correct education. This conclusion reminds us of another, less-known thread of the Orpheus myth. In the Argonautica Apollonius mentions Orpheus first among the Argonauts [I.23],34 and depicts him saving his crewmates on two occasions: once when he sings of the origin of the cosmos and of the gods, to stop the Argonauts from quarreling [I.492-511]; and once when he sings to drown out the voices of the Sirens [IV.903-909].35 Apollonius’ version of the Orpheus myth suggests the possibility of another, more successful Orpheus who can protect his comrades against the dangers of erotic desire, and reminds us of another hero, more successful than Achilles, who resisted the Sirens’ song, who did not lose but regained a wife, and whose image governs the last two books of Emile, as Achilles’ image does the first two. Part Seven: Circe, or the Woman The fifth and final book of Emile begins with a discussion of the natural differences between men and women; it goes on to describe the education of Emile’s intended wife, Sophie, their courtship, Emile’s travels, and their marriage. Rousseau places the illustration for this book at its beginning, which falls at the beginning of the first edition’s fourth volume. The engraving depicts our first indoor scene, with two figures in the foreground [Slide 13]. On our left is a young woman, richly clad in a patterned dress and a cloak, and adorned with a ribbon in her hair and bracelets on her wrist. Her head is tilted to her left, and she wears a serene, welcoming �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 23 expression; her arms are extended, palms open and fingers splayed, as if to invite an embrace. At her sandaled feet lie a long stick and a shallow-bowled, broad-based cup. Behind her are a striking table with a claw-footed leg, and the edge of a sumptuous, canopied bed [Slide 14]. On our right is a bearded man, wearing a plumed helmet, a cloak, short breeches, and sandals. In his right hand he holds a sword, but since his finger is across the hilt and stretched in the direction of the blade, and since the sword point is on the ground, he seems about to lay it down. In his left, he holds what looks like a sprig of vegetation, with his arm stretched out away from the woman. The man’s left leg is extended, his knee unbent, and he gazes directly into the woman’s eyes, his expression made unreadable by the shadow cast by his helmet. He looks like he is trying to step into the woman’s embrace while setting down his sword, without bending his knee or looking away from her gaze. Behind the man we see the snouts and bodies of four or five pigs; behind them, columns reminiscent of the ‘Hermes’ illustration; and behind these a neoclassical temple, its dome faintly visible, decorated with one figure in an alcove, and two more lounging to either side of the pediment. Rousseau titles this engraving ‘Circe,’ and says in his explications that it depicts her “giving herself to Ulysses, whom she was not able to transform” [E 36]. We are referred to “Page 304” of Emile’s fourth volume, where we find the conclusion to the following story. During his courtship of Sophie, Emile and Jean-Jacques live nearby. Sophie only permits Emile occasional visits: one or two a week, for a day or two at most. When Emile first met Sophie, heard her name and heard her speak, he began “to swallow with deep draughts the poison with which she intoxicates him” [E 415]; but now, when he is apart from Sophie, he “is Emile again. He has not been transformed at all” [E 435]. Emile studies the neighborhood and works to improve it, and at least once a week, or in bad weather, he and Jean-Jacques labor in a �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 24 carpenter’s shop in the city [E 437]. Alerted to this practice by Sophie’s father, one day Sophie and her mother visit the workshop. They admire the respectability and the cleanliness of the carpenter’s trade, and they are moved by how seriously Emile takes his low-paying job. Then they prepare to leave, and Sophie’s mother invites Emile to leave with them. Emile sadly replies that he cannot: he and Jean-Jacques are needed, and they have promised to work. So Sophie and her mother leave, the mother in a fit of pique. Why didn’t Emile, who is rich, pay off his obligation, and leave with them? But Sophie is happy with Emile’s choice. Had he paid off his obligation, this would have meant “putting his riches in place of his duties” [E 438]. “It is for me that he stays,” she tells her mother; “I saw it in his eyes” [E 439]. Here Rousseau interrupts to explain that Sophie wants to be loved for her virtues, more than for her charms; so she wants Emile to prefer his own duty to her, and her to all else. “She wants to reign over a man whom she has not disfigured,” Rousseau concludes. “It is thus that Circe, having debased Ulysses’ companions, disdains them and gives herself only to him whom she was unable to change” [E 439]. Though Rousseau follows Horace in using the hero’s Roman name, Ulysses,36 the most likely source for the myth behind this illustration is Homer’s Odyssey. In Book Ten, Odysseus tells of how he came to Circe’s island after the loss of all but one of his ships [X.130-132].37 Spying her house from afar, he sends half his remaining men to scout. Circe invites them in, gives them a potion to make them forget their country, and strikes them with her wand, turning their bodies, though not their minds, into those of pigs [X.236-241]. Only one man, who suspected treachery, escapes. When Odysseus learns of the fate of his comrades, he resolves to go to Circe’s house alone. But on his way there, he meets Hermes, disguised as a youth. The god tells Odysseus what to expect: Circe “will make you a potion, and put drugs in the food, but �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 25 she will not even so be able to enchant you, for this good medicine which I give you now will prevent her” [X.290-292]. He tells Odysseus what to do – as soon as Circe with her long wand strikes you, then drawing from beside your thigh your sharp sword, rush forward against Circe, as if you were raging to kill her, and she will be afraid, and invite you to go to bed with her. Do not then resist and refuse the bed of the goddess, for so she will set free your companions, and care for you also; but bid her swear the great oath of the blessed gods, that she has no other evil hurt that she is devising against you, so she will not make you weak and unmanned, once you are naked [X. 290-301] – and he gives Odysseus a black root with a milky flower, whose nature he explains, called moly by the gods. Events unfold as Hermes predicts. Circe offers Odysseus the potion; he drinks and is not enchanted. She strikes him with her wand; he rushes her with drawn sword. “[S]he screamed and ran under my guard,” Odysseus narrates, “and clasping both knees in loud lamentation spoke to me” [X.323-324]. Circe wonders at Odysseus’ immunity to her drugs; she says, “[t]here is a mind in you no magic will work on” [X.329]. She recognizes him as Odysseus, whose arrival was foretold to her many times by Hermes. She invites Odysseus to bed, and he complies – but only after securing her oath, as Hermes recommended. Later, he will require her to restore his men to human form. With Homer’s assistance, we can now recognize Circe’s “long staff,” and the potion goblet at her feet. The plant in Ulysses’ left hand is no doubt the moly, and the pigs in the background are Ulysses’ unfortunate companions – moved from the pens Homer mentions [X. 238] to Circe’s bedroom for visual effect. The meaning of the bed behind Circe, of her expression and gesture, is unmistakable. But what of Odysseus’ claim in Homer that Circe ran under his guard and clasped his knees? Here both parties are standing. And what of Rousseau’s offhand comment that Emile has already drunk of Sophie’s poison, and been transformed [E 415, �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 26 435]? Lastly, what of the implication of Rousseau’s carpentry story: that it was Sophie’s mother who tried to make Emile into a rich pig, whereas Sophie herself had no intention of doing so? By juxtaposing illustration, myth, and text in this way, we see that Rousseau has tinkered meaningfully with his Homeric precedent. Whereas the Homeric Circe tries both her potion and her wand on Odysseus, and only submits out of apparent fear when both fail,38 the Rousseauean Circe-Sophie tries her potion, succeeds in making Ulysses-Emile forget his country, and then drops her wand, preferring to offer herself willingly to the man who, despite being enchanted by her, nonetheless still prefers his duty. Accordingly, Ulysses-Emile holds the moly off to one side; it is not needed in this encounter. Instead, it will be needed later in Book Five. There, in a final reference to the ‘Thetis’ illustration, which Rousseau has called a “frontispiece to the [whole] work” [E 36], Rousseau recounts how Jean-Jacques must use the authority granted to him by Emile to compel Emile to leave Sophie and travel for a year. The stated purpose of these travels is for Emile to study the principles and practice of government [E 455] – that is, to remind Emile about his country – but they have an additional purpose: to satisfy Jean-Jacques, as Sophie is satisfied, that Emile loves his duty more than he loves her [E 443]. So after gaining Emile’s attention, and stunning his reason, by making him envision Sophie’s death, Jean-Jacques speaks at length about how Emile’s love for Sophie exposes Emile to hurt. “[I]t is in vain,” JeanJacques tells him, “that I have dipped your soul in the Styx; I was not able to make in everywhere invulnerable. A new enemy is arising which you have not learned to conquer, and from which I can no longer save you. That enemy is yourself” [E 443]. That it is not Thetis but Chiron-Hermes-Jean-Jacques who does the dipping, and not Emile-Achilles’ body but his soul that is dipped, shows us how far we have come from the mistaken motherly care of the beginning of the book. Sophie is both a necessary condition for the man raised uniquely for himself to be �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 27 good for others [E 41], and Emile’s Achilles heel. The gravity of this vulnerability is hinted at by Rousseau’s title for the unfinished and unpublished sequel to Emile: Emile and Sophie, Or the Solitaries [CW 13:685].39 Part Eight: The Very Pictures of Education? Now that we have surveyed each of the illustrations in Emile, let’s return to our opening question: do great books need pictures? Is there “some necessity” in writing that dictates that a great book should have illustrations as well as text? In our survey we have given Rousseau’s illustrations four cumulative readings: first as pictures, then as pictures informed by Rousseau’s explications, then as pictures informed by ancient myths, and lastly as pictures informed by the text of Emile. To understand Rousseau’s answer to our opening question, then, we should ask him why each of these readings is necessary. He gives us an answer in a passage from Book Four of Emile, and additional assistance in passages from the Essay on the Origin of Languages and the Second Discourse. First, why are the illustrations themselves necessary? At a climactic moment in Book Four of Emile – Jean-Jacques is about to give his ‘Savoyard Vicar’ speech to Emile, wherein he will reveal all he has done for Emile’s education, warn him of the dangers of sex, and extract from him an unconditional promise of future obedience; that is, Hermes is about to give Ulysses the moly to protect him from Circe – Rousseau pauses the action to discuss how to prepare Emile for this speech. Since his lesson about sex should influence Emile “for the rest of his days,” the instruction it contains ought “never to be forgotten.” “Let us try therefore,” Rousseau proposes, “to engrave [graver: OC 4:645] it in his memory in such a way that it will never be effaced” [E 321]. The verb he uses here, graver, is related to one of the nouns for engraving, gravure, which �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 28 suggests a connection between Jean-Jacques’s goal in setting the scene for his speech to Emile, and Rousseau’s goal in providing illustrations in his book.40 The way to achieve this goal, Rousseau continues, is to use “the most energetic of languages”: “the language of signs that speak to the imagination” [E 321], a language that consists of actions. While this goal of making a teaching more memorable reminds us of the illustration of Hermes engraving the elements of the sciences on columns, and responds to the concern raised in the Phaedrus that writing causes “forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it, through neglect of memory” [275a], it is not the chief reason for Rousseau’s interest in the language of signs. In the discussion in Emile he turns quickly from the mnemonic use of this language to its persuasive use: to make human beings act. Unadorned reason, Rousseau pronounces, “sometimes restrains, it arouses rarely, and it has never done anything great” [E 321]. If you want great actions from human beings, you need reason adorned with images of action, whose energy makes a stronger impression than unadorned reason does, by speaking to the heart. Rousseau does not say why this is so in Emile, but passages from the Second Discourse and the Essay on the Origin of Languages explain that the energy of the language of signs is due to the particularity, the variety, the expression, and the compression of the images that make up its vocabulary.41 So Rousseau’s answer to the question ‘why are the illustrations in Emile necessary?’ is that he hopes that they will persuade human beings to act. Why, then, must the illustrations be explicated? Rousseau’s next move in Book Four of Emile is to launch into a four-paragraph “digression” [E 323] that purports to show, through historical examples, that the ancients knew how to persuade men to act through the language of signs, whereas the moderns, through neglect of this language, can move men only by self-interest or force. The ancients had such a command of this language, Rousseau asserts, that “often” [E �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 29 322] – though pointedly not always – an object they exhibited to the eyes of their audience was able to say everything. Rousseau’s favorite example of this, which he uses both in Emile and in the Essay, is the gift given by the king of the Scythians to Darius, the king of the Persians, when the latter were invading Scythia: a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows. “This terrifying harangue made its point,” Rousseau writes, “and Darius hurried to get back to his country in whatever way he could” [E 322] – whereas a threatening letter in place of these signs would only have been laughable. But if we look up the source of this story, in Book Four of Herodotus, we learn that the Scythians gave the Persians the gift as a puzzle42 – likely hoping to detain them in Scythia – and that the Persians gave the gift two opposite interpretations: as a surrender, and as a threat. Herodotus does not tell us which interpretation was correct, and it’s not even clear from his account that the Scythians knew what they meant to say. He merely recounts that an accidental defeat led Darius to conclude that the Scythians despised the Persians, and to prefer the interpretation that their gift was a threat. If we give the same treatment to the rest of Rousseau’s historical examples from this passage in Emile, and the corresponding passage in the Essay, we find that in several of them he suppresses a detail that is mentioned by his source: that the signs in question did not say everything, because they were accompanied by a speech.43 Once again, we find a helpful explanation in the Essay on the Origin of Languages. There Rousseau concludes from his historical examples that “one speaks much better to the eyes than to the ears,” and that “[t]he most eloquent discourses are even seen to be those with the most images embedded in them” [EOL 250].44 But then he admits that when it is a question of moving the heart and inflaming the passions, it is an entirely different matter. The successive impression made by discourse, striking with cumulative impact, succeeds in arousing in you a different emotion than does the presence of the object itself which you take in all at once glance [EOL 250]. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 30 Rousseau distinguishes between the power of images and the power of sounds by stating that “visible signs make for more accurate imitation, but… interest is more effectively aroused by sounds” [EOL 251]. It follows from this distinction that while images can concentrate the interest of their viewers, they cannot generate this interest, nor ensure that it is directed rightly.45 This account explains why the language of signs needs the assistance of discourse, as we see from many of Rousseau’s historical examples; but it does not explain what can be done for illustrations in a written work – which, unless it is read dramatically aloud, cannot rely on sounds to generate interest. If we read further in the Essay, though, we find another helpful section, where Rousseau writes, “we do not realize that often [sensations] affect us not only as sensations but as signs or images, and that their moral effects also have moral causes” [EOL 284]. Sensations of beautiful colors, for example, are given life by drawing, by imitation, so that “it is the passions which they express that succeed in arousing our own, the objects which they represent that succeed in affecting us” [EOL 284]. This is why colors can be removed from a painting – it can be turned into a drawing – without it moving us less. When illustrations are used to depict an action, then, the passions that motivate action are concentrated by the simultaneity of the drawing, but generated – in the absence of sounds – by the meaning of the things drawn. So if the viewer knows what the images mean, either because he recognizes them, or because he can read an explication of what they represent, they will generate and concentrate his interest. This is Rousseau’s answer to why the illustrations must be explicated: so that the energy of the language of signs will be properly directed, and the right action will be more likely to ensue. But why, third, must the images and their explications refer to ancient myths? After all, the frontispiece to the Second Discourse makes no such reference, and yet there is no sign that �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 31 Rousseau considered it a failure. We can infer Rousseau’s answer to this question once we notice another implication of his historical examples: that the language of signs is more successful the more the communicating parties have something in common. We can treat the example of the Scythian gift as one in which the parties had little in common, and in which the language of signs failed – presuming that communication was ever intended in the first place. By contrast, in Book Four of Emile Rousseau offers several examples46 of the successful use of the language of signs, in which the sign alone did say everything. The first of these, “Thrasybulus and Tarquin cutting off the tops of the poppies” [E 322], partly refers to another story in Herodotus, one that is substantially repeated with different characters by Livy. When Periander came to power in Corinth, he sent to Thrasybulus, tyrant of neighboring Miletus, asking about the “safest political establishment for administering the city best” [V.92]. Thrasybulus led Periander’s messenger outside the city, and, speaking with him about unrelated matters, cut down each stalk of corn that had grown higher than the rest. He then sent the messenger back to Periander. Now according to the messenger, Thrasybulus made no reply to Periander’s query. But once he heard what Thrasybulus had done, Periander understood that the safest political course was to “murder the most eminent of his citizens” [V.92]. In this example, communication by the language of signs succeeded between the two tyrants because of their similar situations and inclinations; but it was accomplished by a messenger who was unaware of the message he carried, because of the difference between his situation and inclination and those of the tyrants.47 We see that the same sign can have meaning among those who have something in common, while being meaningless to those who do not. And this helps us to see how allegorical illustrations can be suited to audiences composed of those with various levels of education. To readers who know the Achilleid, the Phaedrus, the �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 32 Metamorphoses, the Argonautica, and the Odyssey, at one extreme, Rousseau’s illustrations will be full of detailed meaning; those who do not even know the names Thetis, Chiron, Hermes, Orpheus and Circe, at the other, will only find as much meaning as one sees in a picture of a woman dipping a baby in a river.48 So we have Rousseau’s answer to the question of why his illustrations must refer to ancient myths: to single out his educated readers, and in particular those who pride themselves on their devotion to the highly questionable modern project of enlightenment. Lastly, why then must the images in Emile refer also to passages in Rousseau’s text – and do so, as I have suggested, in a way that complicates and corrects their corresponding ancient myths? One final observation will be helpful here about the examples in Rousseau’s “digression”: they quietly point out that the chief users of the language of signs are tyrants. Rousseau begins his digression by listing four ancient examples of Biblical covenants based on threats of divine force;49 then he refers in a footnote to the modern example of the signs used by the Roman clergy and the “tyrannical government” of Venice [E 322 n *]. After the examples of Thrasybulus and Periander, of Tarquin and his son, already mentioned, who communicate their tyrannical designs by signs, he concludes with the example of Mark Antony, who failed to save the Roman republic because, according to Plutarch, he was “swept away by the tide of popular applause,” and by “the prospect, if Brutus were overthrown, of being without doubt the ruler-inchief” [II, 489].50 Now if the language of signs is meant to give its users a hold on human beings other than “by force or by self-interest” [E 321], it must be appealing to those who are unable or unwilling to use force, but also unable to appeal to self-interest, in either its uneducated or its educated form. And since human beings act either willingly or unwillingly, persuasion does not amount to a third option – rather, it amounts to a combination of the two: human beings thinking �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 33 that they act willingly, while in fact they are acting unwillingly. But this requires that the interests that cause actions in human beings be connected with actions that are not ordinarily their result: that the Achilles or the Odysseus that causes admiration, for example, be surreptitiously replaced by the Emile who is both and better than both. This, then, is Rousseau’s answer to the question why his illustrations must refer to passages in his text: that only by so doing can he persuade his educated and enlightened readers to turn their attachment to ancient, mythical heroes into an attachment to Emile. So Rousseau’s answer to our opening question – do great books need pictures? – is a resounding yes. They need pictures, he says, as long as their readers have hearts as well as heads, and as long as their authors mean to make their readers act. They need pictures of mythological figures as long as their authors want especially to reach and move their educated readers. And they need to juxtapose these figures with arguments in their pages as long as they want to persuade their educated readers to act in new ways. As the ancients knew, and Rousseau himself knows, persuasion, which does not attempt to enlighten self-interest, but does not crush with force, is the very picture of education. Jeff J.S. Black Annapolis, Maryland June 18, 2013 Delivered June 19, 2013 Explication of the Slides Slide 1 represents the frontispiece of Bacon’s Great Instauration, which may be found in Francis Bacon, Novum Organum. Translated and Edited by Peter Urbach and John Gibson. (Chicago: Open Court, 1994), ii. Slide 2 represents the title page of the Head Edition of Hobbes’s Leviathan, which may be found in Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668. Edited, with Introduction, by Edwin Curley. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1994), lxxviii. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 34 Slide 3 represents the frontispiece of Vico’s New Science, which may be found in Giambattista Vico, The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the addition of “Practic of the New Science.” Translated by Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Frisch. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 2. Slide 4 represents the frontispiece of Rousseau’s First Discourse, which may be found in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Discourses and other early political writings. Edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 2. Slide 5 represents the frontispiece of Rousseau’s Second Discourse, which may be found in Rousseau, The Discourses and other early political writings, 112. Slide 6 represents and magnifies the detail from the bottom right-hand corner of the frontispiece of the Second Discourse, wherein the huts of the Hottentots are depicted. Slide 7 represents the ‘Thetis’ illustration from Emile, which may be found in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education. Translation and Introduction by Allan Bloom. (New York: Basic Books, 1979), ii. A portion of the illustration on the middle left margin has been boxed in red. Slide 8 represents and magnifies the detail from the middle left margin of the ‘Thetis’ illustration, wherein the figure of Charon can barely be discerned. Slide 9 represents the ‘Chiron’ illustration from Emile, which may be found in Rousseau, Emile, 76. Slide 10 represents the ‘Hermes’ illustration from Emile, which may be found in Rousseau, Emile, 164. Slide 11 juxtaposes the frontispiece of the First Discourse from Slide 4 with the ‘Hermes’ illustration from Slide 10. Slide 12 represents the ‘Orpheus’ illustration from Emile, which may be found in Rousseau, Emile, 261. Slide 13 represents the ‘Circe’ illustration from Emile, which may be found in Rousseau, Emile, 76. Slide 14 represents and magnifies the detail from the top left margin of the ‘Circe’ illustration, wherein a bed canopy is depicted. Notes 1 Readers of this lecture, who cannot benefit from the slideshow that accompanied it, should consult the “Explication of the Slides,” above. 2 Giambattista Vico, The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the addition of “Practic of the New Science.” Translated by Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968). Citations to this edition are given in the form [NS page]. 3 Plato, Phaedrus. Translated with Introduction, Notes, and Interpretive Essay by James H. Nichols Jr. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). 4 Quotations from Rousseau’s writings are taken from the best editions that are widely available. Quotations from the First and Second Discourses and the Essay on the Origin of Languages are from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Discourses and other early political writings. Edited and Translated by Victor Gourevitch. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), and are given in the forms [FD, SD, or EOL page]. Quotations from Emile are from JeanJacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education. Translation and Introduction by Allan Bloom. (New York: Basic �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 35 Books, 1979), and are given in the form [E page]. I also refer in the text to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Correspondance complète de Jean Jacques Rousseau. Édition critique établie et annotée par R.A. Leigh. Fifty-Two Volumes. (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1965-1998), in the form [CC Volume:page]; to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Collected Writings. Thirteen Volumes. Series Editors Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly. (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1992-2010), in the form [CW Volume:page]; and to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Œuvres complètes. Five Volumes. Series Editors Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond. (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1964-95), in the form [OC Volume:page]. Translations from CC and OC are my own. 5 These engravings were not ready for the first edition of the novel, and so were at first published separately, accompanied by narrative descriptions of the “Subjects of the Engravings” [CW 6:621-628] that indicate the high level of detail Rousseau meant his illustrations to communicate. As he writes at the beginning of his discussion of these illustrations, Most of these Subjects are detailed so as to make them understood, much more so than they can be in the execution: for in order to realize a drawing felicitously, the Artist must see it not as it will be on his paper, but as it is in nature. The pencil does not distinguish a blonde from a brunette, but the imagination that guides it must distinguish them. The burin cannot render highlights and shadows well unless the Engraver also imagines the colors. In the same way, with figures in motion, he needs to see what precedes and what follows, and accord a certain latitude to the time of the action; otherwise one will never capture well the unity of the moment to be expressed. The Artist’s skill consists in making the Viewer imagine many things that do not appear on the plate; and that depends on a felicitous choice of circumstances, of which the ones he renders lead us to presuppose the ones he does not. Therefore one can never enter into too much detail when one wants to present Subjects for Engraving, and is absolutely ignorant of the art [CW 6:621]. 6 For an example of Rousseau’s care with the details of his illustrations, consider this passage from a letter to his publisher, Duchesne, written on March 7, 1762: The change that was made to the flames [in the Thetis engraving] on my advice is very bad, and spoils the effect of the engraving which the lit portion brought out a great deal; I would wish that my stupidity in this respect be fixable. I will be more hesitant the next time to give my advice, for fear of committing another. And yet to this point I have not been mistaken in matters of effect [CC 10:142-143]. 7 Why is a satyr an appropriate allegorical representation of common men? Rousseau writes at some length about the mixed or monstrous character of modern human beings in Book One of Emile [E 37-41]. He attributes this mixture to contradictions between the education we are given by nature, and the one we are given by men. The satyr, half beast and half man, is a good image for the kind of monsters that we are, according to Rousseau. It follows that if the education of nature were to have its way with us, we would be nothing other than beasts. 8 See Plutarch, Moralia. Volume Two. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962). Citations from this work are given in the text in the form [Volume.section]. 9 My discussion of Rousseau’s illustrations in the next five sections of this lecture has benefited considerably from John T. Scott’s unpublished paper “The Illustrative Education of Rousseau’s Emile,” which he was kind enough to share with me. 10 Charles Eisen, who designed the engraving for the Second Discourse, also designed the engravings for Emile [Scott, 6]. 11 Rousseau rejected the idea that the engravings should be identified by inscriptions explicating the action depicted in each. In one letter to his publisher he writes, I do not believe that inscriptions at the bottom of the engravings are needed: one ought not to explain at all what is clear: we could just number the page and the volume there, to which each �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 36 engraving is related; but I fear that the binder will move it [each engraving] to that page, whereas each engraving ought to be at the head of a book” [CC 10:143]. In a later letter, Rousseau continues, [i]t is not possible, Sir, that the inscription of the engraving remain as it is; the way in which it has been cut into two lines forming two sort of little rhyming verses, [is] very ridiculous, and I must warn you that anyway we will redo the inscriptions; since there are changes to be made to those that I have sent you, one ought not to have them engraved without alerting me. I would be of the opinion, then, that we erase the inscription completely, if it’s possible to do so without much trouble. If you would rather leave it in, and consequently put one on all the others (and I consent to it if you judge it appropriate) in this case this one absolutely must be rewritten in the following way, since once again it cannot remain as it is. Thetis dips Her son / in the Styx. See p. 37 [CC 10:150]. 12 Rousseau instructed his publisher that, with the exception of “Orpheus,” each engraving was to be placed opposite the first page of each book: The citations of pages that you had engraved at the top of each engraving will certainly lead the binders and signature-sewers to commit an error. They will place the engraving facing the cited page, instead of putting it at the beginning of the book or volume, as is said in the explication. You must attempt to prevent this. There should be an engraving as frontispiece for each volume and another in the first volume at the head of the second book [CC 10:222-223]. 13 As Scott rightly notes, Bloom mistakenly has the explications point to the pages on which the engravings are found, rather than the pages of the text to which the engravings refer [Scott, 9-10]. 14 Rousseau also uses the terms “fable” and “allegory” in his description of the frontispiece to the First Discourse. See the discussion of the Prometheus illustration, above, the Discourse itself, [G, 16 n *], and the Letter to Lecat [CW 2:179]. 15 How does the fear of death cause Thetis to neglect to breastfeed her son? Breastfeeding might entail implicit acknowledgement of one’s mortality, because it involves explicit acknowledgement of one’s subordination to one’s offspring. Rousseau advocates familiarizing young girls with the fear of death early in their educations, whereas he recommends keeping this fear from young boys. See Book Five of Emile [E 379-380]. 16 References to this work are to Statius, Achilleid. Edited and Translated by D.R. Shackleton Bailey. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), and are given in the text in the form [Book.line numbers]. 17 Scott points out that Rousseau is “coy” about whether the tutor and the pupil in this example are Jean-Jacques and Emile. In the example itself he distinguishes himself from “the man who speaks in this example” [E 141], and presumably thereby distinguishes the pupil from Emile. But in one place later in the text he refers to Emile as the pupil in the example [E 153], and in another to Emile’s “former races” [E 436]. Earlier, Rousseau had written that he “will not be distressed if Emile is of noble birth” [E 52]. See Scott, 18. 18 Scott notes that the only reference in Homer to the “most righteous of the centaurs” is to his medicinal skill, which he taught to Asclepius and to Achilles. See Iliad IV.219 and XI.832. It may be significant that Asclepius tried to use these skills to overcome death. Scott also helpfully directs us to the first chapter of Xenophon’s Cynegeticus, where Chiron is mentioned as a master of hunting, and to the eighteenth chapter of Machiavelli’s Prince, where he is a metaphor for knowing “how to use the beast and the man.” See Scott, 15-16. 19 Another difference between Thetis’ and Chiron’s treatments is that Thetis’ are physical, whereas Chiron’s are psychic. Chiron is a singer, and he teaches Achilles to sing as well. This points to a connection between the ‘Chiron’ illustration and the ‘Orpheus’ illustration. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 37 20 Rousseau devotes a few pages of Book Two of Emile to a discussion of carnivorousness. Human beings are naturally vegetarians, he argues, and it is “above all… important not to denature this primitive taste,” not for the sake of health, but for the sake of character: “it is certain that great eaters of meat are in general more cruel and ferocious than other men” [E 153]. He follows these claims with a lengthy quotation from Plutarch, of a lurid passage that argues that while the first carnivorous human beings must have overcome a deep repugnance to eat animal corpses, they were compelled to do so by natural scarcity [!], whereas modern human beings have no such excuse [E 154-155]. It may be relevant to note that Statius’ carnivorous Achilles does indeed seem to be cruel and ferocious. Thetis wants to keep him from the Trojan war by disguising him as a girl and hiding him among the girls of Scyros. Ashamed to comply, especially by the thought of what Chiron might say, Achilles only goes along with her plan after he is seized by lust for one of the girls, Deidamia [I.301-303]. Soon afterward, he rapes and impregnates her [I.640-643]. In some respect, the rest of the story of Emile could be understood as Rousseau’s attempt to avoid this outcome for his Achilles. Compare the interpretation of the Circe engraving, below. The vegetarianism of the Achilles depicted in the Chiron illustration could just as well have been indicated by the depiction of a cake as by the depiction of an apple. Perhaps Rousseau chose the latter to allude to the story of Adam and Eve, or to the story of the beauty contest that was the first cause of the Trojan War. Or perhaps an apple is easier to identify in an engraving than a cake. 21 “This novel,” Rousseau writes, disencumbered of all its rigmarole, beginning with Robinson’s shipwreck near his island and ending with the arrival of the ship which comes to take him from it, will be both Emile’s entertainment and instruction throughout the period which is dealt with here [E 185]. It is instructive to see which parts of the novel, falling before Robinson’s shipwreck and after the arrival of his rescuers, Rousseau considers to be “rigmarole.” 22 Scott points out that the identification of the Egyptian god Thoth or Theuth with the Greek god Hermes only came after the age of classical Greek literature, in the person of Hermes Trismegistus of the hermetic tradition [Scott, 20]. 23 It also makes sense to interpret the beardless youth as Emile, and the older, bearded man as his tutor, JeanJacques – though Rousseau has argued earlier in Emile that a tutor should be as near in age to his pupil as possible: “a child’s governor ought to be young and even as young as a wise man can be” [E 51]. This interpretation has the advantage of agreeing with the story of Book Three, wherein Jean-Jacques shows Emile the elements of the sciences, without allowing him to approach any of the sciences very closely. “The issue is not to teach him the sciences,” Rousseau writes, “but to give him the taste for loving them and the methods for learning them when this taste is better developed” [E 172]. It also has the advantage of repeating the strange doubling of Rousseau that we saw in the ‘Prometheus’ illustration. There Rousseau was at once Prometheus the titan (or Rousseau the author) and the Citizen of Geneva; here he is at once Hermes the god (or Rousseau the author) and Jean-Jacques the tutor. 24 Another indication of the exceptional character of the ‘Orpheus’ illustration is that in his “Explications” Rousseau tells us that it “belongs” to the fourth book – again, unlike the illustrations to Books Two and Three, each of which was said to be “at the beginning” of its book, or the illustration to Book One, which was said to “relate” to that book [E 36; I have altered the translation]. John Scott details the convincing circumstantial evidence that this engraving is a late addition: Rousseau’s instructions for the division of [the] published work come in November 1761, just six months before it appeared, and include his specification that the third volume should open with the dramatic introduction to the “Profession.” At this same time, Rousseau also sends his ideas to Eisen for the engravings for the last two books, and thus his instruction for the engraving of Orpheus. Finally, the textual reference in Book IV to Orpheus was added only during production. See Scott, 25 and OC 4:1569. 25 Recall that Rousseau instructed Duchesne to place the ‘Orpheus’ engraving at the beginning of the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar. See note 12, above. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 38 26 There is also a lyre in the ‘Chiron’ illustration. 27 We can detect this disagreement at the end of the Vicar’s speech, where he advises the young Rousseau: [i]f my reflections lead you to think as I do, if my sentiments are also yours and we have the same profession of faith... [g]o back to your own country, return to the religion of your father, follow it in the sincerity of your heart, and never leave it again [E 311]. Since the young Rousseau did not take this advice, we ought to infer that he did not share the Vicar’s sentiment. An indication of the ground of their disagreement may be seen earlier in the Profession of Faith, where the Vicar claims that conscience is to the soul what instinct and the passions are to the body. He makes this claim in the context of an argument that conscience and instinct or the passions are always at odds with one another, and that of these, it is conscience that speaks with the voice of nature. The young Rousseau tries to interrupt the Vicar at this point, but the Vicar will not let him speak [E 286-7]. To put the comparison crudely for the sake of brevity, Rousseau and the Savoyard Vicar seem to agree that conscience is an innate principle of justice and virtue [E 289]; that it speaks in sentiments rather than in judgments [E 290]; that it therefore differs from reason or the natural intellect, since reason leads to knowledge of the good and conscience to our love of the good [E 286]; that both reason and conscience are required for moral action [E 294]; and that the voice of conscience can be stifled but not eradicated [E 291]. But Rousseau disagrees with the Vicar’s inferences from the contradictory demands of instinct or the passions and conscience. The Vicar takes these demands to indicate that human beings are composed of body and soul [E 279]. This fundamental dualism leads him to a belief in human freedom [E 281], in the existence of God [E 275; cf. 290 and 295], in the natural sociability of human beings [E 290], and in an afterlife—understood as the place where the soul, freed from the body, can finally pursue wholeheartedly the demands of conscience [E 282-5]. It also follows from the Vicar’s hatred of the body and his reliance on the afterlife that, as he sees it, the demands of conscience are not compatible with patriotism [E 295]. The importance of the Vicar’s dualism becomes clear in his comment that [i]f conscience is the work of the prejudices, I am doubtless wrong, and there is no demonstrable morality. But if to prefer oneself to everything is an inclination natural to man, and if nevertheless the first sentiment of justice is innate in the human heart, let him who regards man as a simple being overcome these contradictions, and I shall no longer acknowledge more than one substance [E 279]. By claiming, in his own name, that conscience develops from the selfish human passions [E 235], Rousseau has already suggested, earlier in Emile, how these contradictions may be overcome. According to his own argument, then, the Vicar ought to abandon his dualism, and everything that follows from it. 28 References here are to Ovid, Metamorphoses. With an English Translation by Frank Justus Miller. In Two Volumes. (London: William Heinemann, 1916), and are given in the text in the form [Book.lines]. 29 Ovid adds here that Orpheus turns his sexual attentions to young boys, heightening the impression of Orpheus’ burgeoning dislike for women. 30 We find many of the same details in Virgil’s telling of the story in Book IV of his Georgics, though his imagery does not correspond as closely with Rousseau’s engraving as Ovid’s does. Virgil attributes the fateful backward glance to “a sudden frenzy [that] seized Orpheus, unwary in his love” [IV.488-489], rather than to any fear of weakness in Eurydice. And he does not suggest that it was homosexual practices that turned the local women against the singer. See Virgil, Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid. With an English Translation by H. Rushton Fairclough. In Two Volumes. (London: William Heinemann, 1916). The citation above from the Georgics is given in the form [Book.lines]. 31 The Vicar says that his resolve not to profane the institution of marriage was precisely what destroyed me. My respect for the bed of others left my faults exposed. The scandal had to be expiated. Arrested, interdicted, driven out, I was far more the victim of my scruples than of my incontinence; and I had occasion to understand, from the reproaches with �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 39 which my disgrace was accompanied, that often one need only aggravate the fault to escape the punishment [E 267]. 32 As Rousseau later writes in reference to Emile’s first sexual experience, “I have reflected on men’s morals too much not to see the invincible influence of this moment on the rest of his life” [E 318]. Compare his later chastisement of readers who “do not sufficiently consider the influence which a man’s first liaison with a woman ought of have on the course of both of their lives” [E 415]. 33 Instead of receiving an otherworldly metaphysical teaching, Emile receives a thisworldly revelation in which Jean-Jacques explains what he has done for his education [E 323], and then, having thus secured his attention, initiates him into the mysteries and dangers of sex [E 324]. In reply, Emile asks Jean-Jacques to retain his authority over him, in order to protect Emile from his own passions [E 325]. 34 References here are to Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. With an English Translation by R.C. Seaton. (London: William Heinemann, 1912], and are given in the form [Book.lines]. 35 Jean-Jacques uses the Sirens as an image of the dangers of sex in his revelatory conversation with Emile, as a way of impressing on Emile how difficult it will be to heed Jean-Jacques’s authority. “Just as Ulysses, moved by the Sirens’ song and seduced by the lure of the pleasures, cried out to his crew to unchain him, so you will want to break the bonds which hinder you” [E 316]. This passage, together with a reference to Ulysses at the beginning of Book IV of Emile [E 212], leads John Scott to the thoughtful, and to my mind correct, hypothesis that, had Rousseau not been required by the division of the work into volumes to place an engraving in the middle of Book Four, he would have placed an engraving of Odysseus at the beginning of this book. “The engraving to Book V of Emile also depicts Odysseus,” Scott writes, and choosing the same figure to illustrate Book IV would have given the work as a whole a symmetry with the first two books relating the story of Achilles and the last two the story of Odysseus. […] The choice of Odysseus as the subject for an engraving for Book IV would be appropriate for novelistic reasons, since the story of Emile’s wandering begins there and continues into Book V. It would also be appropriate for theoretical reasons, for the taming of Odysseus’ wily pride and his return to domesticity would accord with Rousseau’s reinterpretation of the story of Achilles in the first two engravings for the work and the philosophical thrust of the work. See Scott, 25-26. It poses no difficulty for this hypothesis that Odysseus’ encounter with the Sirens happens after his encounter with Circe, according to the Odyssey. Homer writes that Circe warns Odysseus of the danger of the Sirens, and tells him how escape despite listening to their song [XII.39-54]. In his Epistles, in a passage which Rousseau knew well, Horace mentions the Sirens and Circe in this order. See note 36. 36 “You know the Sirens' songs and Circe's cups,” Horace writes in the Epistles; “if, along with his comrades, [Ulysses] had drunk of these in folly and greed, he would have become the shapeless and witless vassal of a harlot mistress – would have lived as an unclean dog or a sow that loves the mire” [I.ii.23-26]. See Horace, Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica. With an English Translation by H. Rushton Fairclough. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942). The reference is in the form [Book.epistle.lines]. It’s likely that Rousseau was familiar with this source, the next line of which contains the line nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati, which Lecat cites in his Refutation of the First Discourse [CW 2:133], and which Rousseau later quotes in Book Two of Emile [CW 13:296]. 37 References to the Odyssey are to Homer, The Odyssey of Homer. Translated with an Introduction by Richmond Lattimore. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), and are given in the text in the form [Book.lines]. 38 Those who would argue that Circe offers herself to Odysseus because she recognizes who he is need to find a way to explain the details of Hermes’ advice. He does not advise Odysseus simply to identify himself to Circe. 39 This work, which seems unfinished, and was not published during Rousseau’s lifetime, consists of two letters written by Emile to his tutor Jean-Jacques. In the first, Emile describes how, after Sophie bears him a son and a �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 40 daughter, Jean-Jacques leaves, and Emile and Sophie’s misfortunes begin. Sophie’s parents soon die, then her daughter by Emile. Consumed with grief, she is taken by Emile to the capital city for distraction, accompanied by a friendly couple. They spend two years in the capital, during which time Emile and Sophie are both corrupted. Their friends turn out to be libertines, and the female friend apparently ends by persuading Sophie to engage in an adulterous affair with the friend’s husband. Sophie then reveals this affair to Emile, and the resulting pregnancy. He is thunderstruck; he roams the capital in a passionate fury. But once he calms down, Emile leaves the capital and takes work as a carpenter, while he deliberates about what to do. He decides to leave Sophie and to take his son with him; but he is dissuaded from the latter on learning of a secret visit by Sophie, who fears precisely this. Instead, Emile flees Sophie and the capital, heading south. In the second letter we read that Emile, arriving eventually in Marseilles, embarks for Naples as a common sailor. Unfortunately, the captain of his ship is in cahoots with the Barbary pirates. When the captain’s treachery becomes clear, Emile kills him, but is taken by the pirates and – as soon as they see he will not be ransomed – sold into slavery. As a slave Emile is put to use, first as a craftsman and then as a laborer on public works. When the latter situation becomes dangerously onerous, Emile plots with his fellow slaves to go on strike: an action which ends with Emile being made the overseer of the other slaves. He performs so well in this position that he attracts the attention of, and is eventually sold to, the Dey of Algiers – at which point the primary manuscript breaks off. Two passages in the first letter suggest that, had the work been completed, we would have read of the deaths of Sophie and of Emile’s son as well [CW 13:685-721]. 40 It would have occurred to Rousseau that illustrations could be used to this end if he was familiar, as seems likely, with Vico’s New Science, whose allegorical frontispiece is composed of what Vico calls “hieroglyphs,” to which he devotes thirty paragraphs of explanation, and which he says are intended “to give the reader some conception of the work before he reads it, and, with such an aid as imagination may afford, to call it back to mind after he has read it” [NS, 3]. There is no conclusive evidence, as far as I can tell, that Rousseau read Vico, but there are suggestive similarities between their thoughts. The editors of the Pléiade edition remark that the Essay on the Origin of Languages especially raises the question of whether Rousseau read Vico while he was in Venice, but that decisive proof is lacking [OC 1:1548; 5:1545]. 41 “Every general idea is purely intellectual,” Rousseau writes in the discussion of language in the Second Discourse; but if the imagination is at all involved, the idea immediately becomes particular. Try to outline the image of a tree in general to yourself, you will never succeed; in spite of yourself it will have to be seen as small or large, bare or leafy, light or dark, and if you could see in it only what there is in every tree, the image would no longer resemble a tree. Purely abstract beings are either seen in this same way, or conceived of only be means of discourse. Only the definition of a Triangle gives you the genuine idea of it: As soon as you figure one in your mind, it is a given Triangle and not another, and you cannot help making its lines perceptible or its surface colored. Hence once has to state propositions, hence one has to speak in order to have general ideas: for as soon as the imagination stops, the mind can proceed only by means of discourse [SD 148]. In the first chapter of the Essay on the Origin of Languages, Rousseau adds that the language of gesture, which when frozen in time becomes drawing, is just as natural as spoken language, but easier and less dependent on conventions: “for more objects strike our eyes than our ears, and shapes exhibit greater variety than do sounds; they are also more expressive and say more in less time” [EOL 248]. 42 While Rousseau claims that “[t]he ambassador [left] his present and [departed] without saying anything” [E 322], Herodotus writes that the messenger said, “let the Persians… if they were clever [sophoi] enough, discover the signification of the presents” [IV.131]. See Herodotus, The History. Translated by David Grene. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987). 43 One of Rousseau’s examples in the Essay is of the Levite of Ephraim, who cut the body of his wife into twelve pieces to rouse the tribes of Israel against the tribe of Benjamin. About this sign, Rousseau writes, “[a]t this ghastly sight they rushed to arms… [a]nd the Tribe of Benjamin was exterminated” [EOL 249-250]. But in Judges, the source of the story, we read that while the Israelites were outraged at the sight of the woman’s dismembered corpse [19:30], they needed a speech to determine them to attack those responsible in Gibeah [20:4-9]. Another of the �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 41 examples in the Essay is of King Saul, who dismembered his plow oxen to being Israel to the assistance of the tribe of Jabesh. But in I Samuel we read that Saul accompanied the parts of his dismembered oxen with a threat. “‘Whoever does not come out after Saul and after Samuel, thus will be done to his oxen!’ And the fear of the Lord fell on the people,” the scripture writer concludes, “and they came out as one man” [11:7]. Again, while Rousseau claims in the Essay that the orator Hyperides got the courtesan Phryne acquitted “without urging a single word in her defense” [EOL 250], we read the following in Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, XIII: Hyperides spoke in support of Phryne, and when his speech accomplished nothing, and the jurors seemed likely to convict her, he brought her out in public, ripped her dress to shreds, exposed her chest, and at the conclusion of his speech produced cries of lament as he gazed at her, causing the jurors to feel a superstitious fear of this priestess and temple-attendant of Aphrodite, and to give in to pity rather than put her to death. Afterward, then she had been acquitted, a decree was passed to the effect that no speaker was to lament on another person’s behalf, and that no accused man or [woman] was to be put on display while their case was being decided [590e-f]. See Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters. Edited and Translated by S. Douglas Olson. Volume VI. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 411-413. Finally, the same criticism could be made of Rousseau’s use of the example of Antony, at the end of his digression in Emile. “On the death of Caesar,” he writes, “I imagine one of our orators wishing to move the people; he exhausts all the commonplaces of his art to present a pathetic description of Caesar’s wounds, his blood, his corpse. Antony, although eloquent, does not say all that. He has the body brought in. What rhetoric!” [E 322-323]. According to Plutarch’s “Life of Antony,’ though, Rousseau’s likely source, Antony behaved differently: [a]s Caesar’s body was conveying to the tomb, Antony, according to the custom, was making his funeral oration in the market-place, and perceiving the people to be infinitely affected with what he had said, he began to mingle with his praises language of commiseration, and horror at what had happened, and, as he was ending his speech, he took the under-clothes of the dead, and held them up, showing them stains of blood and the holes of the many stabs, calling those that had done this act villains and bloody murderers. All which excited the people to such indignation, that they would not defer the funeral, but, making a pile of tables and forms in the very market-place, set fire to it; and every one, taking a brand, ran to the conspirators’ houses, to attack them [II, 489490]. Antony uses the language of signs to concentrate the passions generated by his spoken words. 44 Rousseau claims to be following Horace in drawing this conclusion. And indeed, we read in On the Art of Poetry, “[l]ess vividly is the mind stirred by what finds entrance through the ears than by what is brought before the trusty eyes, and what the spectator can see for himself.” Yet Horace follows up with this qualification: “you will not bring upon the stage what should be performed behind the scenes, and you will keep much from our eyes, which an actor's ready tongue will narrate anon in our presence [180-184].” The examples he gives of such things are of atrocities and miraculous transformations. If these things are more striking when imagined than when feigned on the stage, they may indicate a limit to the energy of the language of signs. 45 “The object that is exhibited to the eyes shakes the imagination, arouses curiosity, keeps the mind attentive to what is going to be said” [E 322], Rousseau explains in Book Four of Emile. 46 The other examples are, first, “Alexander placing his seal on his favorite’s mouth,” and second, “Diogenes walking before Zeno.” The first is a reference to Plutarch’s “Life of Alexander,” paragraph 39 [E 491 n 68]. The story told there involves a friend of Alexander who had read a letter from Alexander’s mother, advising Alexander to desist from giving magnificent gifts, because this made their recipients equal to kings and made them many friends, while stripping Alexander bare. The gesture was meant to tell the friend to keep silent about the advice, which Alexander had been keeping secret. The second phrase is a reference to Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Philosophers, VI.39 [E 491 n 69]. The text only says that when “someone” told Diogenes there is no such thing as motion, he got up and walked around. In both examples, though, the significance of the action depends on the communicating parties having a considerable amount of experience in common: the content of Alexander’s mother’s letter, in the first case, and the claims of Zeno’s paradoxes in the second. �Black, The Very Pictures of Education, Page 42 47 According to Herodotus, the messenger reported “that Thrasybulus had made no suggestion at all, and indeed he wondered what sort of a man this was he had been sent to, a madman and a destroyer of his own property” [V.92]. Despite his ignorance of the message, the messenger’s judgment of Thrasybulus was good. 48 In the Letter to Raynal, an early reply to criticisms made of the First Discourse, Rousseau answers the claim that “[i]t is impossible to be too emphatic about truths that clash so head-on with the general taste, and it is important to deny chicanery every possible hold” by saying that “I am not altogether of the same opinion, and I believe that children should be left some baubles” [G, 31; italics in the original]. Compare what Rousseau says about the illustrations in Emile in a letter to his publisher: “I am very happy with the illustrator, and even with the engraver, and I am, like children, quite taken with beautiful images” [CC 10:151]. 49 Rousseau’s first examples showing the superiority of the ancients have to do with covenants. When the gods ruled instead of force, he tells us, covenants were solemnly made in their presence, and these covenants were recorded in the “book” of the earth: in stones, trees, and heaps of rocks. “[T]he faith of men was more assured by the guarantee of these mute witnesses than it is today by all the vain rigor of the laws” [E 321]. He implies that by swearing in the presence of these objects, the ancient Israelites made it more likely that their covenants be kept – that is, that the language of signs persuaded men to act faithfully. What, then, was the basis of this persuasion? Rousseau gives four examples of ancient covenants – all taken from Genesis. The first is to “the well of the oath” [Genesis 26:32-33; Bloom, 491 n 65]. In this example, a pact is struck between Isaac and Abimelech in which the latter pledges not to attack the former, because “[w]e have clearly seen that the Lord is with you” [Genesis 26:28], and a well is dug called the well of the oath. The evidence that the Lord is with Isaac seems chiefly to have been the flourishing of the Israelites that followed once Abimelech realized that Isaac was Rebekah’s husband, and put him under his protection. Second, Rousseau mentions “the well of the living and seeing” [Genesis 16:14; Bloom, 491 n 65]. In this case Hagar encounters a messenger of the Lord, who promises her that she will bear a son named Ishmael, “a wild ass of a man – / his hand against all, the hand of all against him, / he will encamp in despite of all his kin” [16:12]. This covenant leads Hagar to return to Sarai and to endure her abuse, but it also promises centuries of conflict. Third, Rousseau cites “the old oak of Mamre” [Genesis 18:1; Bloom, 491 n 65]. In this passage, the Lord appeared to Abraham in the form of three men, and they promised Sarai that she would have a child. The same three men went on to visit, and destroy, Sodom and Gomorrah. And finally, Rousseau mentions “the mound of the witness” [Genesis 31:46-48; compare Bloom, 491 n 65]. In this last example we read about how Jacob, having taken flocks and daughters from Laban, made a pact with the latter to draw a boundary between them [31:52]. Jacob is able to make this pact because, he claims, God was with him [31:42] in his theft – that is, the theft succeeded. What these examples seem to have in common is that in each case the covenant symbolized by a natural object was concluded against the backdrop of an indirect or direct demonstration of the power of God. We are led to conclude that while the signs concentrated the memory of these demonstrations of power, it was the demonstrations themselves – in other words, an experience of force – that aroused the interest of the contracting parties, and persuaded them to be faithful. The examples thus illustrate how persuasion is based on the tyrannical exercise of force. 50 The only exception, if that is what it is, to the rule that Rousseau’s historical examples of the language of signs involve tyrants, is the example of Diogenes and Zeno [E 322]. � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 42 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 The very pictures of education: on Rousseau's illustrations in Emile Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on June 19, 2013 by Jeff Black as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Black, Jeff J. S., 1970- 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-06-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." 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 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778. Emile. Illustrations. Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 81879 Deans Graduate Institute Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1e9e51b80314fb05e958aefd2ecdf7d8.mp3 2121b78de4bcae6cae7f46883020ee8a 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:44:45 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 Courage, Insight, Sympathy, Solitude: The Genealogy of the Noble Type in Part Nine of <em>Beyond Good and Evil</em>. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boxel, Lise van Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-08-01 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. Jenseits von Gut und Böse. English Nobility Philosophy Courage Good and evil Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80814 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on August 1, 2012, by Lise van Boxel as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. <br /><br />Ms. van Boxel was a tutor at St. John's College. Her talk is on Nietzsche's <em>Geneology of Morals</em>. In particular, her talk examines what it is that makes up a "noble type" for Nietzsche by looking at a close reading of part nine of his work. Her lecture aims to point towards a positive definition of what the noble type in Nietzsche actually constitutes. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2fc3d7c3d983c53ba7d927a6030727e3.mp3 e8c661366318a732f7ac170634fc0820 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:56:41 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 Euclid as Teacher Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on July 10, 2019 by William Braithwaite as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Mr. Braithwaite is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. His talk centers on Euclid's role as an educator not just of mathematics but also of life. In particular, Braithwaite examines the ways in which Euclid's mathematical reasoning has applicability outside of what would be traditionally thought. Using examples from Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and others, this talk deepens an understanding of Euclid as a teacher of logic, mathematics, and life. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas) 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-07-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audio recording of my lecture available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Braithwaite_William_2019-07-10 Subject The topic of the resource Teaching Euclid. Elements Mathematics Geometry Education Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9a845f3d960726c7f87dfded218476d1.mp4 10e760de2f14ca041e7858e8eb964cf5 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom video conference Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:03:38 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 Reading Plato’s <em>Meno</em> Online Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on June 24, 2020 by William Braithwaite as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The final minute of the recording (beginning at 01:02:00) is in audio format only.  <br /><br />Mr. Braithwaite describes his lecture as follows: <br /><br />"Traditionally serving to introduce the study of Plato’s two dozen dialogues, the <em>Meno</em> raises questions about what virtue is and how it is acquired, about what knowledge is—both in itself and in relation to opinion, and about how teaching and learning are connected. <br /><br />I will offer a preliminary, or serious beginner’s, reading of the dialogue, with a view to opening one path to these questions: What are the conditions Plato suggests as ideal or best, indispensable or useful, for learning and teaching? How, and to what extent, are these conditions affected by the differences between face-to-face student-teacher meetings, and meetings among geographically-dispersed teachers and students, mediated by an electronic screen? What sort of community is an 'on-line' community?" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas) 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-06-24 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audio recording of my lecture available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Plato. Meno Web-based instruction Education Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Langston, Emily Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Braithwaite_William_2020-06-24 Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/27c592006dd65c025cf5f0636ef73e2b.MP3 d76af09864391372d6f7ef9d5bd4144d 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:58:08 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data wav 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Crockett_Steven_2015-07-01_ac Title A name given to the resource Tocqueville's American Odyssey Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on July 1, 2015, by Steven Crockett as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. <br /><br />Mr. Crockett is a tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis. His talk centers on the year of Tocqueville's journey to and in America that would become the foundation for his work <em>Democracy in America</em>. His talk looks at letters, reflections, and memorabilia from the young Tocqueville who at that time was only 25-26. It explores his initial reactions and how those would mature into his later works and related to events happening back in France. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crockett, Steven 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 2015-07-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Relation A related resource <a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/323">Typescript</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Subject The topic of the resource Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859. Correspondence. Selections Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859. De la démocratie en Amérique. United States Language A language of the resource English Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/afafcd406850a069e61f61d5d33b41d4.pdf d7c40006c132fc4e2aacaed7da7b6d60 PDF Text Text ������������������ 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 18 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 Toqueville's American Odyssey Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on July 1, 2015 by Steven Crockett as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.<br /><br /><span>Mr. Crockett is a tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis. His talk centers on the year of Tocqueville's journey to and in America that would become the foundation for his work <em>Democracy in America</em>. His talk looks at letters, reflections, and memorabilia from the young Tocqueville who at that time was only 25-26. It explores his initial reactions and how those would mature into his later works and related to events happening back in France.</span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crockett, Steven 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-07-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 83173 Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/272">Audio recording</a> Subject The topic of the resource Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859. De la démocratie en Amérique. United States Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859. Correspondence. Selections Graduate Institute Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/4524b8e28fe494dfa2ac324ca7f70bbd.mp3 1f2e5cd0d389eede68053513aefe60b4 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 wav Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:47:37 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 Words and Things: Mystical Traditions of Reading Sacred and Secular Books Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on June 20, 2018, by Mark Delp as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Delp, Mark 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-06-20 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Delp_Mark_2018-06-20_ac Subject The topic of the resource Mysticism Books and reading Graduate Institute Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/428cb0237da0e28f29f37b5fd07fdea1.mp3 40ef117944dd53194f904704fa9fdc0d 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:05:00 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gimbel, Steven, 1968- Title A name given to the resource Einstein's Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-11 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on July 11, 2012 by Steven Gimbel as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Gimbel's lecture is on the relationship between Judaism and Einstein's scientific thinking, in particular Einstein's unique convergence of science, religion, and politics. Gimbel holds the Edwin T. Johnson and Cynthia Shearer Johnson Distinguished Teaching Chair in the Humanities at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, where he also serves as Chair of the Philosophy Department. He received his bachelor's degree in Physics and Philosophy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and his doctoral degree in Philosophy from the Johns Hopkins University, where he wrote his dissertation on interpretations and the philosophical ramifications of relativity theory. 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 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission: To make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. To make an audio recording of my lecture available on the St. John's College web site." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Subject The topic of the resource Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955 Physics Religion and science Judaism--20th century Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80142 Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/3bb1673535a7f7a28069516f32105c0d.pdf d45ae2e4196a1907b2fb2bad797473d9 PDF Text Text Why We Should (Still) Read Beauvoir A Lecture for the Graduate Institute Summer Series Wednesday July 5, 2017 Rebecca Steiner Goldner I want to thank you all for coming tonight and the Graduate Institute for hosting this lecture, and to say a little bit about why I wanted to give this lecture. Long, long ago, I was a GI student here over the course of four summers, and I recall with great fondness the Wednesday night lectures, talks, and roundtable discussions we had then, though they were perhaps less formally instituted than they have been of late. My paper is aligned with the spirit of those exploratory and informal events and the discussions that followed them. I also want to say something about why I am lecturing on Beauvoir. I was lucky enough to offer a preceptorial on Beauvoir this past academic year and so I was given the gift of reading this incredible book with 10 of the most thoughtful, invested, and interesting students one could wish for as interlocutors. It was actually reading their preceptorial papers that inspired me to write on Beauvoir and so I owe them a great amount of gratitude. I wrote this talk expecting that one need not have read Beauvoir to understand what I am saying: this is a paper on a non-program book and a book that is not necessarily a part of our common discourse (yet). One of the aims of this talk, then, is to introduce you to the book and perhaps to persuade you that The Second Sex is worth reading, is still relevant, and that it raises important questions we might not otherwise ask. 1 �My claim, however, is more specific than a general sense of the relevance of The Second Sex. I also have found this book to be paradigmatic of a way of thinking— perhaps of learning—that we aim for at this college. That is, The Second Sex could be read as exemplifying characteristics that we take to be essential to an education in the liberal arts. To this end, I suggest the following: 1. Beauvoir’s book is motivated by a question— ‘What is woman?’. One might call this her opening question. We like opening questions, here. We particularly like opening questions that require us to consider something we might take as a given, something we think we understand or know, questions which help demonstrate – in particular through prolonged discussion—that we don’t actually know what we thought we knew. When Beauvoir offers her famous premise that “one is not born, but rather becomes, woman” (283, which is almost precisely half way through the book, at the beginning of the second volume) we might read this as an elaboration of the question rather than any kind of answer-- the kind of elaboration we might offer in the second half of a seminar to show that there is more complexity and depth yet to be uncovered. I wonder how often we ask exactly who is included or meant to be included when an author or text refers to ‘humanity’ or ‘mankind’. The Second Sex helps us to investigate this question, and it seems worth our exploring together, even if we don’t agree on the answers. If agreement or assent/consensus were the aim of seminar discussions, seminars would truly never end. 2 �2. Beauvoir’s aim is freedom, and that freedom can only be extended to women by uncovering and revealing the limiting and determining features of women’s lived experiences. When the New Program began in 1937, the motto of SJC was selected as a play on the Latin word for “book” (liber) — “Facio Liberos Ex Liberis Libris Libraque”, “I Make Free Adults from Children by Means of Books and a Balance.”1 We, like Beauvoir, seem committed to the premise that learning can lead to freedom, and, furthermore, that an understanding-- or at least a profound engagement with-- history, literature, philosophy, theology, science, mathematics and art can be liberating. That we question, probe and interrogate our previously held assumptions and opinions about the world is a condition of free and thoughtful action. If we hold assumptions and opinions about what ‘woman’ is, or what ‘feminine’ is, then the freedom of women depends upon exploring our understanding of woman through questions, investigation, and dialogue. That the term or idea ‘man’ can stand in for or represent humanity as a universal (humankind, mankind) --even in our college motto-- risks enfolding women into an absolute model of human freedom that does not adequately recognize differences in the experiences of women. As Beauvoir puts it, “just as for the ancients there was an absolute vertical that defined the oblique, there is an absolute human type that is masculine” (5). 1 I will note that this translation of the motto is the one circulated in a 2014 letter to the community written by Barbara Goyette and Victoria Mora, one or both of whom I assume offered the translation. The college’s Wikipedia page translates the motto retaining the masculine universal—I make free men…. (following the lecture, I changed the college Wikipedia page to the Goyette/Mora translation). 3 �3. Beauvoir is concerned with how we live together. Beauvoir envisions a subject who thinks freely and authentically and who actively engages in human projects and relations. Such a subject ought to be a consciousness engaged in a reciprocal movement with other subjects, positing itself as Subject yet recognizing its possibility to be objectified when confronted by Others. Only such a subject can fully take its part, she says, in the human ‘mitsein’ (being-with). The plurality of conditions determines and differentiates the experiences by which one becomes-- or fails to become-- such a subject, and, insofar as one fails to engage in such a reciprocal movement, insofar as one is relegated to the position of Other, one will fail both to live and to act freely. This failure is not only problem for women, it is a human problem--one that spreads itself through all communities, from the familial to the global. These claims—that the text is motivated by a question, that it aims at human freedom, and that such freedom is necessary for human communities—serve as the background for the talk, though I am going to focus more specifically on a passage from the introduction. Originally, I had intended to explicate five themes and terms offered in this passage, but that would be far too long a lecture, as it turns out, and so I have chosen two words that I hope will provide you with some sense of what I find interesting and important in The Second Sex. (Here is the passage:) 4 �“What singularly defines the situation of woman is that being, like all humans, an autonomous freedom, she discovers and chooses herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as Other: an attempt is made to freeze her as an object and doom her to immanence, since her transcendence will be forever transcended by another essential and sovereign consciousness. Woman’s drama lies in this conflict between the fundamental claim of every subject, which always posits itself as essential, and the demands of a situation that constitutes her as inessential.” (Introduction, 17) I am going to focus on Situation and Freedom, and while I will discuss each of them in turn, it will quickly become clear how they implicate one another. Situation Beauvoir’s first use of the word situation appears in the opening paragraph of the introduction, where we find the term italicized in the following claim: “But conceptualism has lost ground: biological and social sciences no longer believe there are immutably determined entities that define given characteristics...science considers characteristics as secondary reactions to a situation (une situation)”. A few paragraphs later she draws the following contrast: it would never, Beauvoir writes, occur to a man to write a book on the singular situation of males in humanity (5). This is not to say that there is no situation for men, but that the situation for men is a given; it is granted as the universal situation, and to ask “what is a man?” is tantamount to asking “what is a human being?” We might here apply one of 5 �Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s two rules of feminism and ask whether this kind of generalizing is reversible. That is, could we reverse the claim and put women in as the universal? Could the question “what is a woman?” be taken to mean “what is a human being?” My intuition is that we would not make this reversal so easily. If we juxtapose claims about humanity in general-- that is, the situation for human beings or the human condition-- with claims about woman or woman’s condition, we might find enough disparity to recognize that to be human in this general sense and to be a woman do not amount to the same thing. When Beauvoir writes of the situation of woman she means one that places her in a secondary position within the human situation, within the mitsein. If we can better understand what she means by situation, we might better comprehend what Beauvoir means when she writes that characteristics-- the characteristics of a woman -- might be defined by a situation, that is, by a situation rather than nature, biology, or some mysterious feminine essence. First, I think it helpful to look to the structure of the book as a whole. The book is divided into two volumes (1: Facts and Myths and 2: Lived Experience) and each volume is sub-divided into parts and then chapters within the parts. Volume II, Part II is entitled “Situation” but it also contains a chapter (10) entitled “Woman’s Situation and Character”. We should not be misled by the way Beauvoir appears to narrow her use of ‘situation’ to one part of the book. On my reading, the entirety of The Second Sex reveals the situation as a whole, and the construction of the book demonstrates the reciprocal nature of the relations between the facts and myths and 6 �the lived experiences, all of which together constitute the situation for women. What we find in Volume II, Part II as in particular identified as ‘Situation’ are the concrete and typical situations that both result from and contribute to the destiny, history and myths of Volume I. To give an example, one of the concrete situations in the part Beauvoir calls “Situation” is “The Mother”. Beauvoir’s account of “The Mother” (which is a chapter) relies on the biological data, the psycho-analytic account, the historical record, the myths, the economic reality, the childhood, the girlhood, the sexual initiation, the marriage (and likely much more) to demonstrate how these facts and myths as well as one’s own personal history are concretized into a presently lived experience, the experience of being a mother. For a woman to explicitly and simply think that she wants to be a mother because she likes children or because she assumes this role will bring her happiness, is to ignore the plurality of forces at play on and through her. There may a biological impetus to perpetuate the species that has demands on the woman, but, as Beauvoir writes, “the woman’s body is one of the essential elements of the situation she occupies in this world, but her body is not enough to define her; biology alone cannot provide an answer to the question that concerns us” (48). Following Beauvoir, from the biology we should next look to the psychoanalytic, economic, historical and political contributions to the situation. For the specific situation of “The Mother,” these issues might take the form of some of the following: the availability of birth control and/or abortion, which directly influence a woman’s choice to become a mother; these concerns about women’s healthcare will overlap-- sometimes in conflicting ways-- with questions of economics. How one 7 �was raised might play a role--does being handed dolls to play with encourage maternality? The question of what other choices and activities are open to a woman, and whether those options seem or are made to seem better or worse, is of course relevant here. Could ‘mothering’ be an active human project-- a praxis-- that allows someone to eschew other kinds of work? Can being a mother justify and provide meaning to an existence that risks looking passive and aimed at repetition rather than progress? Beauvoir thinks not, or, minimally, thinks that such justification or meaning-giving is largely inauthentic, that is, it does not arise from a recognition of one’s freedom. The decision or situation in which one becomes or doesn’t become a mother is part of the intricate web that constitutes women’s lives. If we feel ourselves inclined to think that motherhood is in and of itself fulfilling, respected, and freely chosen, we should ask ourselves how many women have chosen motherhood outside of a lasting partnership-- likely or historically a marriage. The connection of the mother to marriage is more explicit than to other factors, but they all play a role in more or less explicit ways. At the same time, the lived experiences of women as mothers become the grist for the mills of the myths and facts, that is, scientific fact, historical record, theology and literature as it pertains to women. So long as women feel it is their biological, essential and social destiny to be mothers, being a mother will continue to be the biological, essential and social goal to be attained. What I mean to suggest with the abbreviated example of The Mother is that the particular situations in which women live-- as married women, as mothers, as independent women are not free choices, but largely determined choices, choices 8 �affected and influenced not merely by the options available to any specific woman, but by the way a woman takes on and lives, or assumes, the biology, history, psychology and mythology that capture her. Rather than our choices (to marry, to become a mother, to be an independent woman) representing an entirely rational deliberation leading to free selection, Beauvoir maintains that such decisions are (in the best circumstances) only “chosen in situation”, that is “both motivated and freely chosen”. Of any choice a woman makes concerning how to live as a woman, nothing in the mythology and facts is “determining, although all contribute to explaining it” (436). The options for women are situated choices, choices weighted with a politics, literature, economy, biology and psychology that have historically tended towards the oppression rather than the liberation of women. The situation, then, is this plurality of contributing circumstances constituted both by external and internalized forces on an originally free consciousness. The situation is both the present as lived by women and the entire history that weighs upon that present. It is biological facts that claim as conclusions premises that went unrecognized in its descriptive method; it is a body of literature that varies wildly in its portrayals of women is still largely written from the male perspective. At the individual level it is being raised as a girl, but it is also attempting to raise a girl as if she were a boy. It is an experience of one’s own body as alienation, mystery, and interiority. It is, as our opening citation tells us, to be constantly put into the position of other-- or, as my students started saying, to be othered -- by men, by women, by ourselves-- to be othered and yet to intuit one’s subjectivity. The situation is not singular but is rather a convergence of lived, discursive and implicit 9 �conditions that crystallize in each particular woman. Whether she accepts or rejects the conditions, she is always responsive to them. Even rejecting the notion of woman is to be in some way captured by it, haunted by it even as one enacts its negation. We might recognize that many of the fields which comprise the facts and myths (science, politics, literature, philosophy, theology—Beauvoir even references Ptolemy in one place in the book) bear great resemblance to the arts we study as part of a liberal education, but the way they converge in the situation is not automatically liberating.2 Its multifacetedness does not immediately nor easily yield escape-- in fact, we might better see it as an attack on all fronts. The situation is synthetic insofar as it brings together what might appear as discrete considerations, but that it synthesizes them into the lived experiences of women means that women always locate themselves within a vast field of influences, many or most of which serve to objectify and oppress her, to fix her in immanence. Beauvoir shows how systemically the situation operates by pointing out that, historically, when one area shows improvement, another area becomes more constraining. After she evaluates the situation of women in the ancient world, Beauvoir points out that in Rome, when women had great freedom in their personal lives they were afforded only limited legal rights but just as women were offered some legal emancipation, their personal lives came under far greater scrutiny. This is when we find that the satirists “went 2 Addressing why women have not produced the depth and scope of work that men in these fields that men have, Beauvoir notes “Women do not challenge the human condition because they have barely begun to assume it entirely…Art, literature and philosophy are attempts to found the world anew on a human freedom: that of the creator; to foster such an aim one must first unequivocally posit oneself as freedom” (748). 10 �wild against them” for behaving like men in their personal and political lives. Thus, an abstract equality, especially equality before the law, was wholly insufficient to change the situation.3 The danger particular to an oppressive situation is that it is systematic, self correcting and self perpetuating.4 Though Beauvoir occasionally suggests a sort of hopefulness about changing the situation, because the situation is so convoluted in its causality, it both results from and in the alienation of women within the human species.5 Complicating matters is the fact that while other oppressed groups have united in some way against their oppressors, “women lack the concrete means to organize themselves into a unit that could posit itself in opposition…[women] do not use ‘we’…but remain tied to certain men—fathers or husbands—more closely than to other women” (8). Sexual liberation, autonomy over her reproductive capacities, a body of literature that better reflects women’s interests and realities, love that looks more like friendship than marriage, are a few of the steps Beauvoir suggests towards changing the situation. Perhaps too reliant on the promise of socialism, Beauvoir emphasizes throughout, however, that economic liberation and work is the sine qua non of a new and free situation for woman.6 Most importantly, however, no single aspect of the situation could constitute sufficient liberation. 3 “In their exchanges, woman counts on the abstract equality she was guaranteed, man on the concrete inequality he observes” (758). 4 Beauvoir denies that history is cyclical, if only because she is committed to the idea that “freedom can break the circle” (763). 5 A species which is, Beauvoir reminds us in the conclusion, not so much a species as “an historical becoming, defined by the way it assumes natural facticity” (753). 6 I say the promise of socialism because Beauvoir notes that this is what the Soviet revolution promised but failed to deliver: “women raised and educated exactly like men would work under the same conditions and for the same salaries…women would be obliged to provide another livelihood for themselves; marriage would be based on a free engagement that the spouses could break when 11 �Freedom This brings us to the next word from our opening passage: freedom. Beauvoir contrasts freedom in numerous places (notably the introduction) with happiness, and it is worth our time to think about why. Beauvoir rejects happiness as a goal or an aim – happiness is an ambiguous notion and authenticity-- that is, recognition of ourselves as free subjects-- would certainly be required before one could tackle the question of happiness. “Is not a housewife happier that a woman worker” she asks rhetorically? Her answer is neither yes nor no, but that, “we cannot really know what the word happiness means and still less what authentic values it covers; there is no way to measure the happiness of others, and it is always easy to call a situation that one would like to impose on others happy: in particular, we declare happy those condemned to stagnation under the pretext that happiness is immobility” (16). Happiness seems like such a clear aim-- even a telos-- for humans-- we think so often that we are striving towards happiness. But given the wide range of human activities, emotions and relations that we associate with happiness, could we possibly know what it means to call something ‘human happiness’? More importantly, how can I know that I have authentically chosen my variety of happiness? Happiness is not a definitive term; perhaps in a seminar you have considered the question ‘What is happiness?’. For Beauvoir, the happiness of the they wanted to; motherhood would be freely chosen—that is, birth control and abortion would be allowed—and in return all mothers and their children would be given the same rights; maternity leave would be paid for by a society that would have responsibility for the children, which does not mean that they would be taken from their parents but that they would not be abandoned to them” (760). See also p. 761. 12 �bourgeois woman, for example, is, if not wholly illusory, greatly conditioned by her situation. “How could the Cinderella myth not retain its validity?” Beauvoir asks, and then elucidates, “Everything still encourages the girl to expect fortune and happiness from a “Prince Charming” instead of attempting the difficult and uncertain conquest alone” (155). She thus opposes the difficulties of authentic freedom with the ease of accepting a constrained happiness. Choosing the happiness of the bourgeois housewife allows a woman to ‘‘elude the metaphysical risk of a freedom that must invent its goals without help” (10). The myth of domestic, immanent, repetitive happiness makes it easier for the woman to give in to what she calls the ‘temptation to flee freedom’ and, she concludes, ‘it is an easy path.” Women are not simply condemned to this happiness but complicit in selecting it, “seduced by the ease of their condition, they will accept the role of housewife and mother to which they are being confined… It is easier,” Beauvoir writes, quoting George Bernard Shaw, “to put people in chains than to remove them when the chains bring prestige” (130). Indeed, why remove the chains at all? Perhaps there are some women who are content to go through life enchanted or enchained but happy (a common idiom puts this more succinctly). We need not look much further than our program texts to think about where this alleged domestic happiness leaves us: when Dorothea achieves just the marriage she wanted, we next find her sobbing in a hotel room on her honeymoon. Eve is tempted by the fruit in spite of ideal companionship in Paradise; Penelope, on her own for the better part of her married life, labors in vain 13 �in her room only to undo what she produces each day, Clytemnestra, Antigone. How great is their happiness? Lady Macbeth? One problem with inauthentic happiness, happiness selected in a determined and limited field, is that it will always be tenuous at best, always at risk of fracturing, of falling apart, of recognizing the restrictions as such. In her novel, My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante describes such a realization through Lila, who calls it a dissolving of margins. “But suddenly-she told me- in spite of the cold she had begun to sweat. It seemed to her that everyone was shouting too loudly and moving too quickly. This sensation was accompanied by nausea, and she had the impression that something absolutely material, which had been present around her and around everyone and everything forever, but imperceptible, was breaking down the outlines of persons and things and revealing itself” (89-90). Lila’s horror, her repulsion and her disassociation in this scene sound much like an impotent version of what Sarah Ahmed refers to as ‘snapping’, an experience that forms the foundation for what she calls Snap Feminism. She writes: It is only when you seem to lose it, when you shout, swear, spill, that you have their attention. And then you become a spectacle. And what you brought out means you have to get out. When we think of such moments of snap, those moments when you can’t take it anymore, when you just can’t take it anymore, we are thinking about worlds; how worlds are organised to enable some to breathe, how they leave less room for others. Eve, Dorothea, Penelope, Antigone, Clytemnestra, Lady Macbeth, Donna Anna. Don’t we see them experience their moments of snap, the instant when the happiness they were promised proves highly illusory, when the margins begin to dissolve? 14 �Even if it could be authentic, happiness is a complex matter to elucidate and risks so much relativism. Beauvoir does not deny that happiness may have a part in the future she envisions for women, and for human community, but the happiness that results from genuine freedom is secondary to it and largely unknowable at the present time.7 For Beauvoir, happiness is not merely a difficult, but a dangerous, end to work for, insofar as the ideal of happiness has been used as a tool of oppression. Thus she elects not happiness, but freedom as the goal. Here at the college we talk about human flourishing. If freedom and happiness are not the same thing, it seems to me that Beauvoir would put flourishing on the side of freedom. So what does Beauvoir mean by freedom, and why ought we aspire to it? Beauvoir says, in contrast to happiness, that the position she holds is that of ‘existentialist morality’. We might better turn towards her work in the Ethics of Ambiguity, written two years before The Second Sex, to recognize that Beauvoir does not here intend a general or borrowed notion of existentialist morality, but one that she herself has defined and described. Beauvoir’s existentialism is at once committed to the possibility of human transcendence while fully aware of the limits of facticity, or, as we described it above, the situation. Her ethics, then, is accomplished through struggle and some reconciliation of a radical ideal of freedom with a real possibility for it. In a general sense, existentialism conceives of human subjectivity as wholly or almost entirely transcendent, able to overcome the immanence of being through an ability to project itself into the future, and to alter 7 “…this does not mean that love, happiness, poetry and dreams will be banished from [the world of tomorrow]. Let us beware lest our lack of imagination impoverish the future; the future is only an abstraction for us…” (765) 15 �and affect the world through productivity and praxis. “Every subject,” Beauvoir explains, “posits itself as a transcendence concretely, through projects; it accomplishes its freedom only by perpetual surpassing toward other freedoms” (16). That transcendence is accomplished through a surpassing of what is given (that is, given by the materiality in the world, given by relations with others, with society, given by one’s own past and even one’s present)-- this notion surpassing is typical of existentialist theory; what Beauvoir adds to this (and perhaps what makes it a morality or an ethics) is the surpassing not only towards the future but towards other freedoms, that is, other subjects. Let me be more concrete: I used to terrify undergraduate students (not here) when we studied existentialism by getting them to see that there was really nothing- no genuine constraint or limitation-- keeping them in the classroom, holding that they remain students pursuing a college degree. I would likewise upset them when I suggested that there was also nothing- no essential identity or nature-- that assured that I would continue to be a teacher, a runner, a wife, or a mother. Nothing except my own choices and the way that I that I assume decisions made in my past as an identity or my essential character; only these things can serve as any kind of guarantee for the future. I will continue to be a teacher, to do what is expected of the teacher as long as I see value in it and regard my identity as bound to that role-- and only for so long. Because I create my own essence or identity rather than being born into it, I can also undo it. Because I create values, they are at constant risk of revaluation. This kind of transcendence is a radical and terrifying view of freedom. 16 �But Beauvoir thinks that there are some limitations on this otherwise unrestricted human freedom. The first is that if I genuinely recognize my own freedom and other subjects as like-me, I will also aim for their freedom. Furthermore, Beauvoir recognizes the implications of the situation on this freedom. That is to say, sometimes our situation, particularly when the situation is comprised of systematic oppression-- the situation of a slave, a proletariat, a woman, a person born into poverty-- sometimes a situation such as these has closed too many paths, has restricted the possibilities too greatly to allow for such freedom. This limiting is likely a direct result of the failure of one subject or group of subjects, positing itself as free, to fail to extend that freedom to others. Beauvoir’s ideal of freedom attempts to include some commitment to others- though such commitments risks immanence-- while attempting to maintain the possibility of transcendence. “But what is true of friendship,” she writes, “ is true of physical love: for friendship to be authentic it must first be free. Freedom does not mean whim (caprice): a feeling is a commitment that goes beyond the instant; but it is up to the individual alone to compare her general will to her personal behavior so as either to uphold her decision or, on the contrary, to break it; feeling is free when it does not depend on any outside command, when it is lived in sincerity without fear”(511). 8 Only a commitment which actively and reflectively holds within itself the possibility of being broken can be a free commitment. Freedom, then, is not the rational recognition and pursuit of the best possibility, but entails the existence of 8 I have taken the liberty of altering the possessive adjectives from the masculine to the feminine. In French, the possessives take their gender from the word they modify and we cannot then know that Beauvoir intended them to mean one sex rather than the other. Furthermore, I have changed the word et to “and” rather than “to”. 17 �many-- perhaps endless- possibilities without regard to their moral value beyond the free recognition of them precisely as possible, for oneself and others. Here is the problem. This freedom may not, indeed likely will not, be easy. The radical freedom posited by existentialism is terrifying insofar as it is antireductionist and anti-essentialist. It is common for subjects-- men and women alike- to flee this kind of freedom, to create and hide in essential identities that define us and limit our choices. We find solace and the respite that become characterized as happiness in these identities. But for Beauvoir, being fully human-- and free in her sense of the word-- may not result in happiness, and it is certainly incompatible with the inauthentic happiness that comes with the roles or identities we essentialize ourselves into. Perhaps paradoxically, in spite of her overt commitment to freedom, Beauvoir thinks that some avenues need to be closed, some inauthentic choices revealed as such: Thus, for example, “The situation has to be changed in their common interest by prohibiting marriage as a ‘career’ for the woman” (523). Given her devotion to freedom, has Beauvoir then contradicted herself by eliminating some of the choices as valid possibilities? Why can one not choose to be a housewife9 (home-maker, our new term which makes this task seem more active) if one recognizes it as a free choice and, even better, if one suspects she will be happy with this choice? I think Beauvoir’s response is that in the current situation (hers? ours?) these are the avenues that cannot freely be chosen; the weight of the situation is far too oppressive and extensive in these matters, we are already caught 9 We might now prefer or use the term ‘homemaker’ for housewife, though this seems a linguistic attempt to make an active term (hence, a maker) out of someone Beauvoir sees as resigned to repetition and maintenance (of the home). 18 �up in the situation by the time we think we can freely choose, we are choosing from within and therefore not transcending it. It is like letting the prisoner choose the color of her chains and then convincing her how happy she should be with her choice. Jane Austen might best illustrate this point: Charlotte, perhaps herself a proto-existentialist as it turns out, tells us that “happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance” (16), but Lizzie disagrees. Lizzie rejects two proposals she thinks will make her unhappy. So it looks like Lizzie makes a free choice, in the end, to marry for love and happiness, but we cannot overlook that haunting the entirety of the novel is the threat of economic disaster of social disgrace, of some future for Lizzie, her sisters, and Mrs. Bennett that is so unthinkable Austen doesn’t fully describe it for us. Yes, Lizzie chooses her marriage and yes, she thinks that it will make her happy, but it is a radically situated and highly determined choice. We cannot know what Elizabeth Bennett would have chosen in a different situation. It is a common trope and an active topic of debate that the feminist movement-- in particular the second wave feminism inspired by The Second Sex is (was?) about choice. Perhaps a perfunctory reading of The Second Sex might confuse Beauvoir’s notion of freedom with this concept of choice—indeed, we often consider freedom and choice as equivalents--but this would be to misrepresent the morality for which Beauvoir actually advocates. Often, the options described as ‘choices’ are actually direct consequences of an oppressive situation. Furthermore, many of these so-called choices are only available to the group Beauvoir identifies as the bourgeois, but we might now think of as hetero-normative women within a comfortable socio-economic group. For so many women, for example, the ‘choice’ to 19 �stay at home with her children is not an option. At the same time, these women are often judged by standards-- standards formed from the facts and myths of the situation-- they are judged by standards of motherhood that proclaim the choice to work as the completion of feminism, and at the same time subtly regard the decision to stay home as the better one. For as long as women’s work is a choice, it also remains easier to underpay them-- theirs is, of course, likely to be the second income. Beauvoir’s sense that the economics of the situation cannot be surpassed seems right from this perspective. So much of what we uphold as genuine choices and possibilities for women, are in fact implicit reinforcements of the status quo. Choice and freedom are not the same. It is for this reason that real freedom, Beauvoir’s freedom, requires full participation in the human experience for all humans, not the choice for one group to participate or to opt out. To be optional is to remain secondary. Conclusion I actually find the conclusion to The Second Sex the most perplexing, and perhaps, disappointing part of the book, and this is both because I find Beauvoir’s hopefulness perplexing and, given the time elapsed since the book was written, frustratingly sad because the claims of the book resonated so profoundly with me and with the students I studied it with this year. Perhaps to avoid writing my own perplexing and disappointing conclusion, I merely offer some questions: If you look back at the opening passage from Beauvoir’s Introduction, does it make more sense to you that woman’s existence could be lived as a drama between the conflicting experiences of herself as free subjectivity and as situated objectivity? 20 �Could you understand why a single change, such as equality before the law, is too abstract and insufficient to really change a situation constituted by systematic and multifaceted oppression and othering of women? Do you think freedom and happiness are different goals, and, if so, in which might consist human flourishing? Is it alienating to women to assume that the term and idea man can include them? Is it possible that the universal claims found in some of the books we read here might apply differently to women because of their different experiences and situation? Do you know what it is to be, or to become, woman? Could asking this question increase the liberating possibilities of a liberal arts education? But perhaps most importantly at this moment is the question of whether you want to think more about these topics, to read a bit more from Beauvoir, and to continue the discussion I have been hoping to begin tonight. 21 �Works Cited Adichie, Chimamamda Ngozi. Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017. Electronic edition. Ahmed, Sarah. “Snap!” Feministkilljoys.com. 2017/05/21. Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Indiana: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001. de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, trans. New York: Vintage Books, 2011. de Beauvoir, Simone. Le deuxieume Sexe, I&II. Italy: Gallimard, 1976. Ferrante, Elana. My Brilliant Friend. Anne Goldstein, trans. New York: Europa Editions, 2012. 22 � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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. 22 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 Why We Should (Still) Read Beauvoir Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on July 5, 2017 by Rebecca Goldner as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. <br /><br />Ms. Goldner is a tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis. Her talk is about the importance and relevance of the work of Simone de Beauvoir. In particular, her talk focuses on de Beauvoir's seminal work <em>The Second Sex</em> and the perennial questions it asks. From what it means to be a woman, to how this question impacts debates over subject and objectivity, and the way in which we practice the liberal arts, Ms. Goldner's talk places these questions in the context of de Beauvoir's work and shows their relevance for the past and future of liberal education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldner, Rebecca 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-07-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." 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 Beauvoir, Simone de, 1908-1986. Deuxième sexe. English Feminism Existentialism Women Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Goldner_Rebecca_2017-07-05_Typescript Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/2618">Audio recording</a> Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/adebd9578336ead2ee7f6538f6eb1189.mp3 d576aeffc79543c3b6fd759eef7dfca9 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 mp3 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:47:24 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 Why We Should (Still) Read Beauvoir Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on July 5, 2017 by Rebecca Goldner as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. <br /><br />Ms. Goldner is a tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis. Her talk is about the importance and relevance of the work of Simone de Beauvoir. In particular, her talk focuses on de Beauvoir's seminal work <em>The Second Sex</em> and the perennial questions it asks. From what it means to be a woman, to how this question impacts debates over subject and objectivity, and the way in which we practice the liberal arts, Ms. Goldner's talk places these questions in the context of de Beauvoir's work and shows their relevance for the past and future of liberal education. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldner, Rebecca 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-07-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Permission has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Relation A related resource <a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/2617">Typescript</a> Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Goldner_Rebecca_2017-07-05 Subject The topic of the resource Beauvoir, Simone de, 1908-1986. Deuxième sexe. English Feminism Existentialism Women Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9c9ebffda56bddcd128c1418a022590f.pdf f65aba6a1bcac08e9947419e487b1125 PDF Text Text “Reasons without Reason: Anti-rationalism in Heidegger’s Being and Time” by Lee Goldsmith (Delivered at St. John’s College Annapolis, June 29th, 2016)1 Every polity—but especially a democratic polity—faces difficult questions that they must answer together. Often we settle the answers through political institutions, but sometimes the questions remain in the informal sphere of social life. On many of these questions we disagree with one another deeply, sincerely, and seemingly intractably. It is no surprise then that public discourse can be exasperating, even among friends and colleagues. Nevertheless, we should not succumb to the exasperation. However we finally resolve difficult questions—and even if we never do—it would be best if public discourse were reasonable. Even where we persistently disagree, we ought to be able to articulate the reasons we have, understand those of others, give rejoinders, and, if necessary, reconcile ourselves to a resolution. In order to continue working together as a polity, we ought to be able to have reasonable disagreements where everyone involved can acknowledge the sincerity of the reasons offered, even if the reasons are ultimately unconvincing. If public discourse is to be public reason, we must treat each other as capable of having reasons. Unfortunately, many participants in public discourse scrutinize each other as if they were not offering reasons but some non-rational consideration. Bruno Latour describes the problem ably: One could say, with more than a little dose of irony, that there has been a sort of miniaturization of critical efforts: what in the past centuries required the formidable effort of a Marx, a Nietzsche, a Benjamin, has become accessible for nothing… You can now have your Baudrillard’s or your Bourdieu’s disillusion for a song, your Derridian deconstruction for a nickel. Conspiracy theory costs nothing to produce, disbelief is easy, debunking what is learned in 101 classes in critical theory. As the recent advertisement of a Hollywood film proclaimed, ‘Everyone is suspect… everyone is for sale… and nothing is true!’2 To sum up: when reason is suspect, so is everyone else. If we believe that humans can act only non-rationally—that is to say, not on the basis of reasons but due to causes such as desires, drives, and manipulated beliefs—then we will treat others’ words and deeds as expressions or outgrowths of subterranean roots, and the truth of our criticisms as the more secure, the deeper beneath the surface those roots stretch, the more inscrutable they become. Our public appearances will be interpreted in the first place as idiosyncrasy rather than potential communion. When we encounter difference or disagreement, we will tend to explain away its bearing on us and have our own explanations likewise dismissed. Most importantly, deep public questions about how we are to live together peacefully and respectfully will tend to elicit recriminations rather than answers. I expect anyone who has tried to have serious conversations 1 I would like to note that my work on Heidegger has been deeply influenced by my teachers, Cristina Lafont and Rachel Zuckert, although I do not reference their work in this piece. I owe them much thanks. 2 Latour, Bruno. “What is Iconoclash? or Is there a world beyond image wars?” in Iconoclash, Beyond the ImageWars in Science, Religion and Art, ed. Weibel, Peter and Latour, Bruno, ZKM and MIT Press (Cambridge, MA: 2002). The movie tagline is from 1997’s L.A. Confidential, directed by Curtis Hanson, although I believe the last clause should read, “and nothing is as it seems.” 1 �with strangers on social media will recognize the phenomenon: the cheapness of critique erodes the soil of productive public discourse. I do not mean to suggest that public discourse today is more fraught than it has been in the past. However, we do face a different problem today than our predecessors did. Latour’s quote provides the clue that the erosion of public discourse today arises at least in part from the popularity of reductive anti-rationalist critics of rationalist thinkers. By ‘rationalist’ here, I do not mean the traditional notion: someone who holds that we have some central concepts and knowledge independent of sensory experience. Instead, I mean someone who holds that human beings have a faculty of reason. A faculty of reason is a systematically unified set of principles, encompassing more than classical logic, that binds each of us because it is part of us. Prominent rationalist philosophers, in my sense, include Plato, Leibniz, and Kant. Each held that reason is governed by a single principle—the good, the principle of sufficient reason, the unconditioned— and that subordinate principles align with the fundamental unifying principle as well as cohere with one another, producing a systematic set of principles for thought that a person could discover through introspection. For the rationalist, a person has a reason when she correctly subsumes her situation under the principles set out in the faculty.3 Anti-rationalists, on the other hand, deny that human beings have such a faculty. And anti-rationalists are reductive when they treat any appearance of having a reason as the manifestation of a proximate cause alone. Reductive anti-rationalism rose to the foreground as a final critique of Enlightenment ideals. Reductive anti-rationalists—among whom we might count Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud—worked from the premises of modern scientific inquiry to show that we do not have a faculty of reason. Even the appearance of having reasons is illusory, generated by a false consciousness of our own self-constitution. From the perspectives of history and psychology, they maintained, human considerations are too diverse, contextually embedded, and self-interested to cohere with a systematically unified set of rational principles. In light of these alternate explanations, the existence of reasons is an extraneous hypothesis. The reductive anti-rationalists pose a serious objection to rationality and, thereby, the very possibility of public reason. One response to their challenge would be to defend the rationalist position. I will not be exploring that line of thought here. Instead, I will present a third option, which I lift from Heidegger’s work in Being and Time. According to the schematization I have presented, Heidegger is an anti-rationalist: he presents a purportedly complete account of human existence that excludes any faculty of reason. Nevertheless, we can reconstruct from Heidegger’s work a conception of reasons. To be specific, Heidegger’s account of authenticity and the roles that death and conscience play in that account provide the basis for an account of when a person has a reason to do or believe something.4 That is to say, Heidegger holds out the possibility that we might be able to accept the anti-rationalist critique of rationalism without losing reasoning from the picture of humanity. From this Heideggerian account of reasons without reason, we can look again at the question of public reason with fresh eyes. I have drawn this account of a faculty of reason from Susan Neiman’s work on Kant. (Neiman, Susan. The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant. Oxford UP (New York: 1994).) The three features—universality, unity, and systematicity—are meant to be minimal conditions. They provide the beginning of a complete account of a faculty of reason but not at all the whole thing. 4 Steven Crowell has already developed an account of rationality based on Heidegger’s conception of conscience. For the basic account, see: Crowell, Steven. “Conscience and Reason: Heidegger and the Grounds of Intentionality” in Transcendental Heidegger. eds. Crowell, Steven and Malpas, Jeff. Stanford UP (Stanford: 2007) pp.43-62. This essay does not address that work directly but implicitly extends it. 3 2 �To flesh out my interpretive assertion, I will begin with a brief overview of Being and Time, then present you with two key quotes that will serve as the focus for an interpretation of authenticity as the basis for having reasons. After that, I will conclude with some reflections on the relationship between Heideggerian reasons and public reason. In Being and Time the central question for investigation is: what is the meaning of being? Heidegger’s answer is temporality (H.1).5 Let’s take the question first. Heidegger initially demarcates being as what distinguishes entities as such from each other and what makes those entities intelligible to us (H.6). To say that temporality is the meaning of being is to say that temporality is the first basis on which entities are distinguishable. (If you are having trouble imagining what this means, consider that a basic property of matter is to persist through time despite changes in location.) His conception of temporality is abstruse and difficult to grasp, even for those who have studied it intently. At a first pass, temporality is the unfolding of past, present, and future in which the future takes priority.(§65, especially H.327-8) But Heidegger is not an eschatologist: the meaning of being is not to bring about some destined or desired state of affairs. Rather, the future is essentially what is not yet, what is possible but never actual.6 In time, I hope to make this essential futurity clearer. But to do that we must turn to the outline of Heidegger’s argument. The crux of Heidegger’s argument that temporality is the meaning of being rests on the claim that we ourselves stretch through past, present, and future, and are the fundamental source of all other distinctions among entities. We are the distinctively ontological entity, who asks the question of being and cares about answering it (H.12). In caring about that question, we open up a world of people, places, and things and find meaning within it. To pick out this distinctive character of our being, Heidegger coins the technical term ‘Dasein.’7 Heidegger uses the term—a common German noun for ‘existence’— in order to distinguish the biological interpretation of humanity—homo sapiens—from that which makes us truly human. Dasein is being in the world (H.53) and the entity for whom being is at issue (H.12). It is not for anything in particular (H.130) and is distinctive precisely because it can interpret its own existence all the way down to the most basic concepts (H.9). Dasein is in the world by both being determined by it and determining it in return. For this reason, Heidegger calls Dasein a thrown-project (H.199). We are thrown and socialized into a world with an established order, from the past, that we now, at the present, have to project ourselves into, so as to make for ourselves a future. In doing so we inherit complex distinctions among entities that we then have to apply to our own situations and sometimes even add, edit, or discard in order to make better sense of the world and who and what are in it. When we add, edit, and discard distinctions, we do not do it for ourselves alone but anticipate that it will make better sense of future situations as well. Indeed, it would be 5 Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. 19th edition, Max Niemeyer Verlag (Tübingen: 2006). I will provide references to Being and Time within parentheses. These will mostly point you to passages I am paraphrasing. The format for the page references is ‘H.#’ where the ‘H’ indicates the pagination of the published German text and the ‘#’ indicates the page. In any translation of Being and Time you can find the German pagination along the outside margin of the pages. In a few cases, I reference not the pages but the section of Being and Time. In that case the section number will be preceded by this symbol: ‘§.’ 6 Hence, Heidegger’s slogan: possibility is higher than actuality (H.38). 7 Heidegger initially defines the term at H.7 and spends a large section of the introduction characterizing Dasein’s special role in ontology. 3 �unjustifiable to offer a purely idiosyncratic concept for others to use because Dasein lives in an always already shared world. According to Heidegger, as we have it so far, the meaning of being is temporality because humans live by unfolding the phases of past, present, and future with each other. It is not that time is a container in which we exist but rather that humans create a past, present, and future through their interpretive social activities. According to Heidegger, the sense of time as a container is derived from the sense of time as unfolding through meaning-making (H.424-5). How, then, does Dasein make meaning and why is meaning-making connected to time? Here is the summary answer that we will spend the rest of the talk unpacking: Dasein makes meaning for itself as a movement from inauthenticity to authenticity (die Eigentlichkeit), and it is enabled to make this movement by its mortality. By ‘authenticity,’ Heidegger does not mean what we tend to mean by it, namely, being connected to one’s roots or being different for difference’s sake. Rather, inauthenticity bears these descriptions just as well as authenticity because by ‘inauthenticity’ Heidegger means being lost in the crowd, which one can be when one is trying to reconnect with one’s roots or trying to stand out just to stand out. Authenticity, at a first pass, is recovering oneself from the crowd, individuating oneself from others, and taking ownership over oneself (H.12, H.42-3). It is in this movement that Dasein becomes able to have reasons. What then is this movement like? We must start from a structural description of what it is like for Dasein to be in the world.8 Imagine yourself cooking dinner for your family. You are in your kitchen, surrounded by your supplies and tools. You have ingredients, a knife for cutting them, a cutting board on which to cut them, and so on. You also have a recipe that sets out the steps for cooking the meal. The meal, in turn, is the end-product of a sequence of steps or inorder-tos that employ your resources and tools. Moreover, the meal is for you and your family. You all are ends of the cooking but in a different sense than the meal is the end. You will appropriate the meal from the cooking activity to the eating activity. You are the end as consumer rather than product. In turn, the eating activity has the same structure: it serves to sustain you so that you can go on to participate in other activities. As far as this structural description takes us, it seems as though we are the executors of activities in order to be executors of other activities. Everything is for-something already given. Even you seem to be forproducing and for-consuming endlessly. But observe: this indefinite series of activities tells us nothing about how you benefit from the activities, unless we assume that merely participating in activities, whatever they are, is beneficial. Of course, that is a non-starter. A person may choose to forego eating and bring the series of activities to a close. Although it might be sad that she do so, it can nevertheless be good for her, in which case the distinction between beneficial and harmful collapses. Thus, the indefinite series of activities cannot be the whole story of our participation in these activities. Our activities cannot be merely in order to participate in other activities. We must at least be capable of participating in them for the sake of something final, something that brings the indefinite series to a third kind of end, the end of explanation or justification. In other words, we must be able to say why we participate in activities without the answer admitting of a further why-question. The world in which we live is not a holistic totality 8 This structural description (which philosophers also call a phenomenology) is based on §§15-18. Of note: Heidegger provides very little argument that the for-the-sake-of-which must be part of the description and that is the crucial move he makes against the reductive anti-rationalists. 4 �of in-order-tos. The world includes final ends or, in Heidegger’s vocabulary, for-the-sake-ofwhiches (worumwillen). In this description of daily life, we discover a holistic network of tools and activities in which we can participate for the sake of something beyond the products of those activities. Consider again these activities in relation to a for-the-sake-of-which. We do not engage in these activities merely as free floating individuals without any prior entanglements. On the contrary, at every moment we occupy at least one social role, whether we have chosen it or not. We are children, parents, students, teachers, citizens, politicians, clients, lawyers, and so on. Each social role brings with it a package of norms that guide the occupant toward the appropriate behavior and away from the inappropriate. These norms manifest themselves in what an occupant counts as satisfying the duties under that role and what others expect the occupant to do to satisfy those duties. For the most part these expectations will overlap and be independent of the specific personality occupying the role. Thus, we often express these norms via the impersonal pronoun, ‘one.’ For example, as a child, one heeds one’s elders. When entering a subway car, one waits for riders to exit before entering. As a lawyer, one does not divulge private information about one’s clients. In each of these cases, it would be inappropriate to act against the anonymous expectation except in extraordinary circumstances. To do so would be a basis for censure from anyone aware of the transgression (H.126-7). What one does, then, is general in two senses: I can be the ‘one’ at any time and I can encounter the ‘one’ in others at any time. We can follow the one’s norms without relating it to any for-the-sake-of-which because we can just mimic what others do. But, at the same time, I can never be the ‘one’ simply. I can only be the ‘one’ via a particular social role that establishes what is appropriate or inappropriate behavior for me at a given time. Even as the ‘one’ I cannot do whatever others are doing and count as following the social norms. I have always already followed certain paths rather than others. Consequently, the ‘one’ is unstable. Social norms are not only the rules I follow but also how I justify my actions. For example, as a teacher, if I am asked why I am granting a student an extension when her hard drive crashes, I can cite the norm that teachers should not punish their students for circumstances beyond their control. If I were asked that question and could give no answer or merely cited what other teachers usually do, I would have failed to justify my teacherly action. Similarly, if I am asked why I am a teacher rather than something else, I ought to be able to respond with more than, “Someone told me to do it.” But when we are first socialized into our social roles, that is the only answer we are prepared to give because up to that point we have simply been learning how to be guided by the ‘one,’ yet the ‘one’ does not provide the basis for an answer. Only a for-the-sake-of-which could. Precisely to this problem, authenticity provides a solution. Let us now turn to the passages at the heart of my interpretation of authenticity as the basis for having reasons. The first passage concerns Dasein’s conscience, the voice that calls Dasein back from its absorption in its everyday activities as the ‘one.’ In being a ground—that is, in existing as thrown—Dasein constantly lags behind its possibilities. It is never existent before its ground, but only from it and as this ground. Thus being-a-ground means never to have power over its ownmost being from the ground up. This not belongs to the existential meaning of thrownness. It itself, being a ground, is a nullity of itself. Nullity does not signify anything like not-being-present-at-hand or notsubsisting; what one has in view here is rather a not which is constitutive for this being of Dasein—its thrownness. The character of this not as a not may be defined existentially: in being its self, Dasein is, as a self, the entity that has been thrown. It has been released 5 �from its ground, not through itself but to itself, so as to be as this ground. Dasein is not itself the ground of its being, inasmuch as this ground first arises from its own projection; rather, as being-its-self, it is the being of its ground. This ground is never anything but the ground for an entity whose being has to take over being-a-ground. (H.284-5)9 That passage contains a lot of thought to digest all at once. I will elucidate it for you shortly. For now hold in mind these two key points. First, Dasein is a ground that it must take over. ‘Ground’ here could also be translated by ‘reason.’ And, so, we might interpret this to say that Dasein must become a reason for itself. Second, Dasein never has power over this ground from the bottom up. It lags behind its possibilities in two senses. It engages in certain activities rather than others before it ever considers whether those activities matter to it. And it is not the source of those activities. To become a ground then is precisely to struggle with which activities matter to it and how it can also be a source of them. The second passage comes from Heidegger’s analysis of death. As I mentioned above, Dasein’s mortality enables it to become authentic by disclosing to it how to make a responsible choice for what to do with its life. Here Heidegger clarifies the relationship between Dasein’s death and its array of choices: The ownmost, non-relational possibility [death] is not to be outstripped. Being towards this possibility enables Dasein to understand that giving itself up impends for it as the uttermost possibility of its existence. Anticipation, however, unlike inauthentic beingtowards-death, does not evade the fact that death is not to be outstripped; instead, anticipation frees itself for accepting this. By anticipating and, thereby, becoming free for its own death, Dasein is freed from being lost in possibilities that accidentally impinge upon it with the result that becoming free for death allows Dasein to understand and choose authentically, for the first time, the factical possibilities that lie upstream and ahead of the one that Dasein cannot outstrip… As a non-relational possibility, death individualizes but only in order to, as a possibility which is not to be outstripped, make Dasein, as being-with, understanding of the capacity-to-be of others. Since anticipation of the possibility which is not to be outstripped discloses also all the possibilities which lie ahead of that possibility, this anticipation includes the possibility of taking the whole of Dasein in advance in an existentiell manner that is to say, it includes the possibility of existing as a whole capacity-to-be. (H.264)10 Again this passage might be overwhelming. So, again, I offer two key points to hold in mind. First, the possibilities among which Dasein makes its most fundamental choice of what to do with its life “lie upstream and ahead” of its death. In so far as Dasein understands death, those possibilities transcend it, by which I mean they can last forever even if in fact they do not. Dasein knows itself to be finite but does not know the same about its possibilities. Second, the transcendence of the possibilities puts Dasein in authentic contact with others. By becoming authentic, Dasein recognizes others as similarly capable of authenticity and able to share in 9 Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. tr. Macquarrie, John and Robinson, Edward, Harper & Row (New York: 1962), pp.330-1. I adjusted the translation to make it clearer. 10 Ibid, pp.308-9. Again, I adjusted the translation to make it clearer. I discovered this crucial passage thanks to a comment in Page, Carl. Philosophical Historicism and the Betrayal of First Philosophy. Penn State Press (University Park, PA: 1995), p.141. Like Page I understand this passage as undermining the common interpretation of Being and Time, according to which Heidegger shows that eternal truths or goods are impossible. Unlike Page, however, I do not interpret this passage to leave open the possibility that human beings could know or understand anything as eternal. 6 �possibilities authentically with Dasein. Let’s now dig deeper into these thoughts and see how they give rise to an account of reasons without a faculty of reason. In the first passage Heidegger describes Dasein as both a ground for its existence and having to take over its being-a-ground. Dasein, of course, is not the ground, like a self-caused thing would be. Dasein is caused to be in a number of ways, including parentage and socialization. Nevertheless, Dasein is one of those grounds. But a ground in what way? Part of the answer to this question comes prior to this passage. Dasein’s conscience calls to it but says nothing (H.272-4). Instead, it points Dasein to its ability to become authentic and to the implicit choices it has not not yet owned. In turn, Dasein interprets the call as indicating its guilt. Heidegger does not mean “guilty” in any of its ordinary senses. Dasein’s ontological guilt is not original sin, moral wrongdoing, being the cause of certain events, or debts to others. Rather, Dasein is guilty in the sense of being responsible for its choices, where ‘responsible’ (verantwortlich) takes on its etymological meaning: able to give an answer (H.280-8). By heeding its conscience, Dasein takes over being-a-ground by interpreting itself as answerable for its choices. Conscience brings Dasein into a discourse, albeit a merely internal one so far. Intriguingly, Heidegger describes Dasein’s being-a-ground as a nullity. By this he means two important things. First, Dasein does not give itself the factical possibilities for its existence. And this goes all the way down. Conscience is silent because anything it could say would be expressed in a public language that one speaks and remains inevitably ambiguous. Precisely here we might expect that a faculty of reason could provide unambiguous content. But such a faculty could only express itself in a public language, which needs interpretation in still further terms. Second, Dasein negates possibilities. That is to say, Dasein is a ground for its existence by eliminating factical possibilities for itself. Dasein chooses by means of exclusion rather than invention. For the most part Dasein excludes without realizing it and, when asked, tends to defer responsibility for its actions to some authority. When it becomes authentic, it alters its relationship to the exclusions. It connects its exclusions to the pursuit of something worth it for its own sake and ceases to defer responsibility for its actions to anyone else. In this sense we should say Dasein alters its existence as a ground from being merely a cause of events to a reason for them. But we should not pass over these crucial and interesting claims without noticing how counter-intuitive they are. Human beings are endlessly creative. From the slightest pun to the inception of a whole new realm of activity (such as modern natural science), human beings seem to be more than merely a nullity. We do not only negate possibilities we add them. What then would justify Heidegger’s counter-intuitive claim? The answer to this question lies in the second passage. In it, Heidegger is discussing the relationship between Dasein’s anticipation of death and the factical possibilities on which it resolves in becoming authentic. The concept ‘possibility’ as Heidegger uses it encompasses any way that Dasein could be.11 At bottom, any description befitting of Dasein is a possibility for it.12 For our purposes, however, we should focus on the two kinds of factical possibility that are fundamental to a life-path. The first are the social roles discussed above. Dasein occupies at least one and usually multiple roles throughout its life, and these roles govern what it does daily as According to Heidegger, when we use ‘possibility’ in other senses—e.g., logical possibility (not in violation of the principle of non-contradiction)—we derive the meaning of ‘possibility’ from its meaning as applied to Dasein. 12 When we take note of history—the rise and fall of peoples, empires, and civilizations—we must distinguish between live and dead possibilities. ‘is a samurai’ is a description befitting Dasein but not live for anyone today. 11 7 �well as how it organizes its weeks, months, and years. Moreover, these roles are the sort of activity it can find enriching or fulfilling. They engage its capacities in a complete way. Dasein knows this because the possibilities can draw it out of the stultifying fear that attends the anticipation of its own death and they are worth pursuing unto death. They are not merely means to other states of affairs. Rather, Dasein can engage in them until there are no more states of affairs left to it. We might conclude, then, that social roles are the factical possibilities that we pursue for their own sake. But that would be imprecise. Social roles are constitutive of pursuing something for its own sake, but what makes a given social role a for-the-sake-of-which is not the social role itself. Instead, we find some aspect of the social role worth pursuing for its own sake. The social role engages us in charity or requires lifelong learning or puts us in contact with some other value or good that we take to be final. These values are only accessible to us through social roles but they are not reducible to them. These are the factical possibilities that Heidegger is discussing in the second passage: social role and ultimate value combined. By anticipating death, Dasein no longer sees its possibilities merely as means to other possibilities ad infinitum. Observe: although a given social role can be constitutive of something worth pursuing for its own sake, it is not essentially so. For example, I can choose a career as a mere means to supporting a loving, nurturing family. When Dasein is inauthentic or “lost in its possibilities,” all social roles look like mere means. The final goods that social roles can manifest remain hidden as long as Dasein ignores its own mortality. But when it confronts that mortality, Dasein reveals that aspect of social roles to itself. It frees itself for a choice by putting the social roles into a framework where a responsible choice becomes possible. Specifically, it frees itself from the condition in which nothing appears worthy of choice. This brings us to the two crucial claims that ground a Heideggerian account of reasons. First, the factical possibilities in question “lie upstream and ahead” of Dasein’s death. The German reads “vorgelagert sind.” I’ve used the hendiadys “upstream and ahead” to render the double-meaning of “vorgelagert.” The idiomatic German meaning of the adjective is “upstream” or “off the coast,” but it is derived from semantic pieces that mean something like “to be camped ahead.” So, we have here a metaphor for the conceptual and explanatory relationship between Dasein’s factical possibilities and death. On the one hand, “lies upstream” suggests a common philosophical metaphor for explanatory priority. If a is upstream from b then a explains b or some aspect of it, while b explains no aspect of a. Thus, Heidegger is claiming that Dasein’s factical possibilities explain some aspect of Dasein’s own death. On the other hand, the “lies ahead” suggests that these possibilities are part of Dasein’s future and, indeed, extend into the future beyond Dasein’s own death. But if the factical possibilities only become available for authentic resolution through Dasein’s anticipation of its own death, how can those possibilities explain any aspect of its death? And how could those possibilities transcend Dasein’s death? The answer to these two questions comes towards the end of the paragraph where Heidegger tells us that death, “as an un-outstrip-able possibility, makes Dasein…understanding of others. Recall that Dasein develops its basic capacities as it is socialized by others. Of necessity the socialization process subordinates Dasein to authorities who teach it the social norms. As a result Dasein always starts out as inauthentic and sees inauthentically the factical possibilities into which it has been socialized. However, when Dasein understands itself as capable of authenticity, it also understands that others have the same capacity. It follows that the socialization process offered more to Dasein than first met its eye. Dasein inherited factical 8 �possibilities that set its mortality in relief. Death too is a possibility; it is distinctive as nonoptional and final. Dasein’s factical possibilities can fit the finality of death, but they are not nonoptional. They present Dasein with a choice. Thus, the socialization process, in which Dasein inherits factical possibilities, explains how Dasein understands death as a basis for making meaning for itself and not just the cessation of its existence. Of course, the factical possibilities cannot explain the fact that Dasein dies. Nevertheless, they can explain how Dasein can distinguish death as a possibility that makes meaning possible, as opposed to impossible. Furthermore, the factical possibilities on which Dasein can resolve are not limited by Dasein’s death. Because Dasein understands them as inherited through the socialization process, it also understands that others have engaged in these possibilities authentically. And just as Dasein is the future to those who are no longer, so Dasein will hand down its authentic factical possibility to future generations. Or what is the other side of the same coin, Dasein shares its authentic factical possibility with others and knows that it can. Dasein’s authentic resolution individualizes it but at the same time brings it into a community which stretches before its birth and after its death. It commits itself to a common project with others with whom it works in concert. With this interpretation of the second passage in hand, I can now answer the above question about creativity. The answer comes in two prongs. First, Heidegger can explain creativity as a reshuffling of factical possibilities. When we seem to invent something new, we in fact draw upon a pattern or patterns from one or more areas of life and apply them to another area where the patterns had not previously applied (as far as we know). Even modern science, as Heidegger shows (§69b), is derived from possibilities already available. Thus, Dasein can be creative while merely negating given factical possibilities. Second, no factical possibility— however new—gets its content from an individual Dasein alone because every factical possibility is always already shared. Even the most innovative person offers her innovation to a community. What that offering means and whether it is a success depends not on the will and intellect of the individual innovator but rather on how the community takes it up. Thus, individual Dasein contributes no irreducibly unique content to the possibilities in a community. By itself, Dasein is a nullity. Based on the foregoing interpretation, we can reconstruct a conception of reasons from Heidegger’s conception of authenticity. A reason is a consideration in favor of forming a belief, drawing an inference, or taking a course of action. But not just any consideration in favor of something is a reason for it. I might have a desire to bash my neighbor’s mailbox with a baseball bat but that is not, by itself, a reason for doing so. A reason requires further grounding. We have to be able to trace it back to a source, a principle, a good. Unlike other considerations, a reason has a pedigree. Even when I perceive my desire to bash my neighbor’s mailbox as a reason to do it, it is a reason only if I can trace that desire to a principle that licenses satisfying it. (And I doubt any pedigree exists for such a desire.) We are subject to desires and impulses throughout our daily lives. Our thoughts, bodies, and decked-out environments elicit them. In turn, we have to sort through which ones to satisfy and which to suppress. For the most part we do this in an unconscientious way (which is not to say unconscious). We follow the impulses and desires that align with our tasks and suppress the ones that do not. When we reflect on what we are doing we perceive ourselves as having reasons for sorting through our impulses and desires as we do. But we rarely trace the complete pedigree of those purported reasons such that we verify them. This omission opens up the question whether what we take to be our reasons are in fact reasons. 9 �One way that a consideration might fail to be a reason for a person—a way central to a Heideggerian account—is that the person traces the consideration back to an external authority. For example, when I follow a recipe, I defer to the authority of the chef who wrote the recipe. The instructions for me are not reasons, as they are for the chef who can explain how and why they produce the final dish. And should the recipe fail, the chef is prepared to examine what went wrong and attempt to fix the problem. The chef, who takes responsibility for the success of the recipe, has reasons with respect to making the dish whereas I merely have considerations. Indeed, each step in the recipe, the dish, those whom the chef will serve, and the wider world of expert food-making, all manifest reasons for the chef, whereas I do not have those reasons. The world of mere in-order-tos is transformed by authenticity into a world of reasons. That transformation takes place because the chef takes herself to be an authority, in the sense that she is an author—albeit not the unique author—of norms governing proper food-making. Her authorship, however, is in no way a creation from nothing. She always engages with the norms that she has inherited, and is answerable to others who, like her, take responsibility for those same norms. The foregoing suggests a Heideggerian conception of rationality.13 According to it, someone has a reason for a potential action—mental actions included—when the state of affairs fits the norms governing a social role he authentically occupies. Accordingly, a reason is part of a chain of in-order-tos that someone relates to an activity worth pursuing for its own sake. This is the sense in which Dasein’s conscience makes it a ground for reasons. Its conscience calls it to relate the states of affairs in the world to whatever can bring an end to a series of why-questions. Heideggerian reasons, then, are always parts of lines of reasoning that reach a conclusive end. As a part of a line of reasoning, Heideggerian reasons are discursive. Moreover, Heideggerian reasons are constrained by publicly known norms. Since reasons are parts of responses to why-questions, they can be exchanged with others as explanations or justifications for actions or beliefs. And since the reasons are grounded by a resolution on social roles, the reasons a person may offer must be shown either to accord with publicly known norms for those roles—as, for example, a novel application of them—or improve on one or more of them—as, for example, refusing to implement corporal punishment as a teaching tool. Not just any series of statements offered to an interlocutor—even by authentic Dasein—qualifies as a line of reasoning. Dasein’s autonomy is not unlimited, despite lacking the law of reason. Instead, it is answerable to those from whom it has inherited its factical possibility and to whom it will hand it down. Heideggerian reasons are serially grounded, discursive and constrained. By contrast, mere considerations are serial but not grounded and discursive but not constrained. Consider the desire to bash a neighbor’s mailbox. I can connect that to a further consideration, such as venting anger or getting revenge. But those further considerations do not bring an end to why-questions. The considerations are ungrounded. Similarly, bare appeals to authority suffer the same defect. They fail to end the series of why-questions because we must ask what justifies deferring to that authority. Mere considerations are defectively serial. They also show a symmetrical defect with respect to discursiveness. I can offer a mere consideration to someone else, and they can recognize it as something that favors my action, in the way that desires always favor their own If this Heideggerian account of reasons has reminded you of Kant’s conception of autonomy there is good reason for it. In the concept of authenticity, Heidegger sought to retain the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy without relying on a faculty of reason that gives the laws for being autonomous. 13 10 �satisfaction. But the consideration is unconstrained by any norms that would distinguish the desire as licit or illicit. The interlocutor cannot share in endorsing the consideration. Again, the same goes for appeals to authority. The interlocutor must wonder why the authority offered should be binding on himself. Mere considerations offer explanations for actions but not justifications. You might be wondering why social norms offer justifications where mere considerations do not? After all, social norms are positive phenomena, instituted by human beings. Consequently, appeals to social norms seem like just another appeal to authority. Here the double-aspect of factical possibilities plays a crucial role. The social norms that constitute the social roles Dasein plays are always in service of the values that make the social roles worth pursuing for their own sake. Justifications in terms of social norms always take for granted that the norms continue to serve those values. If an interlocutor raises an objection that a norm no longer serves that value, then that breakdown must be repaired either by dispelling the objection or emending the norm. A moment of reflection on values such as charity, friendship, equality, and liberty reveals that they are multiple and not objectively prioritized. As Dasein pursues its factical possibility it will have to weigh values against one another when they come into conflict. Heideggerian reasons, then, are ultimately grounded in a choice for how to prioritize values. At this point, the differences between Heideggerian reasons and the traditional account of rationality become clear. As noted above the faculty of reason displays three central features: universality, unity, and systematicity. None of these features apply to Heideggerian reasons. First, Heideggerian reasons are not universal because they depend on a choice to prioritize values into a hierarchy that is not itself rationally required. Even though an interlocutor can recognize that a reason is binding for her friend, given his authentic resolution, the interlocutor herself, who resolves on a different factical possibility, might find that his line of reasoning does not bind her because they prioritize values differently. Heideggerian reasons, then, are not categorially universal, although they encompass at least all those who share an authentic factical possibility. Second, Heideggerian reasons are not unified: they do not trace back to any single principle. Whereas the faculty of reason is unified by a principle embodied in a concept such as the good or the unconditioned, Heidegger’s account of rationality is unified by Dasein’s ability to authentically resolve on some factical possibility. This ability, as we saw, is conceptually contentless—it is a nullity, the ultimate source of negation—and each person uniquely exercises it. The conceptual content derives not from the ability to become authentic itself but rather from the possibility adopted in its exercise. When Dasein reasons, it reasons back to its fundamental factical possibility and then can offer no further reason, should a disagreement persist. Dasein makes a Lutherian commitment in whose favor it can say nothing else. In Heideggerian lines of reasoning, not all roads lead to Rome. Finally, since reasons are neither universal nor unified, they cannot be systematic. It will always be possible that two lines of reasoning will be ultimately incompatible. For example, two appellate court justices might sincerely disagree over whether the norms of constitutional interpretation permit them to rule that every application of the death penalty is a cruel punishment. That they disagree does not indicate that at least one of them is mistaking what reasons they have. They each could exhaust the reasons they have without reaching the same conclusion. Since Heideggerian reasons are not universal, nor unified, nor systematic, Heidegger is an anti-rationalist, as I defined it at the outset. However, Heidegger is not a reductive antirationalist. He does not reduce the appearance of reasons to causes. Although Dasein has moods 11 �and desires that inform its authentic resolution, its resolution is not reducible to psychological drives or self-interest. In anticipating death, Dasein’s mood reveals what and who in the world matter to it. Moreover, even if Dasein’s mood were caused by psychological drives, Dasein accepts responsibility for its psychological make-up when it authentically resolves. By projecting itself into a factical possibility, Dasein becomes answerable for who and how it is: it will not excuse itself through its psychological make-up, even if that make-up plays a key role in explaining or justifying its actions or beliefs. And it treats this answerability as a reciprocal expectation among Daseins. Dasein does not privilege its own authenticity over the authenticity of others. A condition of authenticity is that Dasein enables or at least refuses to impede other Daseins’ ability to be authentic (H.122).14 Thus, the usual strategies for reducing reasons to causes—power, economic interest, or psychological drives—are all rebutted by Heidegger’s account of authenticity. In so far as Heidegger can treat the appearance of reasons as something like what we expect a reason to be, Heidegger has an advantage over the reductive antirationalist accounts. So far, I have sketched an interpretation of a Heideggerian account of reasons. The interpretation remains incomplete because I have not addressed some key kinds of reasons—in particular, theoretical reasons—that are not obviously assimilable to Heidegger’s account. Nevertheless, we have enough of the interpretation on the table to consider what conception of public reason the Heideggerian account grounds. First, anyone who has read Being and Time knows that Heidegger is skeptical of the value of discourse in the public sphere (H.127).15 In the public sphere, speakers pass along claims for which they themselves cannot vouch, offer truncated lines of reasoning, and flit from one subject-matter to another without spending enough time on them for anyone to acquire a useful understanding, let alone a reasonable one.16 Given Heidegger’s account of reasons, it is no surprise that he would be pessimistic concerning the value of public discourse. Clearly, not every participant in the discourse—and possibly few or none—will themselves be authentic. Those who are not cannot offer their own reasons but can only pass along reasons others have. As a result, members of the general public cannot decide whom to trust on a matter that is important but not part of their own factical possibility. Furthermore, speakers have a plethora of self-interested considerations in favor of manipulating one’s audience rather than informing them or following lines of reasoning with them. Under these conditions, we could be forgiven for suspecting that the speakers who have widespread exposure in the public sphere are bad actors, whose speeches are better explained by the theories of reductive anti-rationalists. Although we could be forgiven, perhaps we should not let those suspicions govern our interpretations of others in public discourse, especially those with whom we disagree. It is clear that Heidegger, even if he endorsed the Heideggerian account of reasons I have reconstructed here, would deny that it can support a conception of public reason. Heidegger himself would not rescue us from the morass described by Latour. So, to Heidegger, myself and you all, I would like to pose a question about the public sphere: is Heidegger’s pessimism inevitable? To be sure, even if we conceive of an ideal public sphere, replete with authentic agents exchanging lines of reasoning, we cannot imagine that the end result—even at the end of time—will necessarily be Again, those familiar with Kant will recognize this as a Heideggerian version of Kant’s Formula of Humanity. The word Macquarrie and Robinson translate as ‘publicness’ is ‘die Offentlichkeit.’ It is commonly used to refer to the public sphere and rarely to the abstract property of being public. 16 These descriptions are a gloss on Heidegger’s conceptions of idle talk, ambiguity, and curiosity, respectively. 14 15 12 �universal consensus on the solution to every dispute. The need for public reasoning will never be complete nor even approach an end like a hyperbola to its asymptote. This essential incompleteness follows from the lack of universality and unity. Heidegger himself recognizes this essential incompleteness, which is why he describes authentic politics as a kind of struggle (kampf, H.384-5). When reasons inevitably run out, all that is left is non-rational means of persuading others. It would be easy to assume that non-rational means of persuasion are, a fortiori, violent in the sense that they require some people to submit to a power they do not endorse by their own lights. This assumption seems all the more justified because, without a universal conception of reason, it is unclear whether there are any norms of discourse that would undermine a public discourse that oppresses authentic voices who have reasons to offer. If there are no universal norms then we have a strong reason to believe there is no foundation for a public discourse that can legitimate public courses of action. It might seem then that Heidegger’s pessimism is inevitable. However, I would like to close by offering initial considerations that would open up an optimistic line of investigation. First, we must recall that authenticity requires reciprocity. It is possible that we could derive universal norms of participation from the reciprocity that authenticity requires. If oppression inhibits Dasein’s capacity to be authentic, then authentic Dasein cannot endorse norms that oppress others. It would follow that an authentic public sphere would not prevent anyone from participating in it. Second, authentic Dasein is aware that its own authentic resolution is just one among many possible resolutions. Furthermore, it is aware that its own resolution puts it into a particular, limited perspective. Dasein does not have authentic access to all matters of public import. When it does not, it ought to be open to the reasons that others who do have to offer. By heeding the reasons that others can offer from their own authentic resolutions, Dasein accepts that rationality is not something given to us that we must discover but rather something at stake for us that we must forge. An optimistic view of a Heideggerian conception of reasons takes public reason as a collective challenge for us. And the question is: what resources does the Heideggerian conception—or any other conceptions that are live to the problem rationality poses—provide for us to meet this challenge? 13 � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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 paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 13 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/. Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on June 29, 2016 by Lee Goldsmith as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.<br /><br /><span>Mr. Goldsmith is an instructor of philosophy at George Washington University. His talk is about the issue of reason and the criticism of reason in the thought of Martin Heidegger. Mr. Goldsmith particularly examines Heidegger's work <em>Being and Time</em> and illucidates the critique of Reason writ large and the larger "struggle" within Heideggerean theory. His talk concludes with a potential grounding for optimism about a project of critical reason coming out of Heideggeran "reasons" rather than Reason itself. <br /><br />Mr. Goldsmith earned his Ph.D. from Northwestern University and his B.A. from St. John's College Annapolis.</span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldsmith, Lee 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-06-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Title A name given to the resource Reasons without Reason: Anti-rationalism in Heidegger’s Being and Time Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 83173 Subject The topic of the resource Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. Sein und Zeit. English Existentialism Reason Philosophy Graduate Institute Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/34517571309a49129c2749eb14abb287.mp4 8f83ddb45929deb134268cd7aafc1b94 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data streaming video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:03:10 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 Modern Technology and Modern Discourse Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered by Annapolis tutor Lee Goldsmith on June 12, 2024, as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldsmith, Lee 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-06-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Signed permissions form have been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Humanities Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boyle, Brendan Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Goldsmith_Lee_2024-06-12_ac Graduate Institute Summer lecture series Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/084ae2575470ab90ccad07c448780e40.pdf d794d6a4d5a33a41625cc40d4a34c413 PDF Text Text SUMMER2010 "LIFE OF THE MIND SERIES" Wednesdays, 7:30p.m. June 23 Matthew Linck Some Questions about the Philosophy of Nature June 30 Felicia Martinez On Wallace Stevens' "Of Mere Being" July 7 Jeff Smith The Political Interstices of King Lear July 14 Anita Kronsberg A viewing of the film of King Lear starring Scofield Followed by discussion July 21 Matt Caswell Michael Grenke Henry Higuera Michael Weinman What is Philosophy? July 28 Eric Stoltzfus Five fables of La Fontaine, translated and set to Elliott Zuckerman music by Elliott Zuckerman, and performed by Eric Stoltzfus, tenor, accompanied at the piano. With discussion. Marcel Widzisz A reading of Medea August 4 & company The movie on July 14 will be shown in the Hodson Conference Room in Mellon Hall. All other events will be held in the Great Hall of McDowell Hall. � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 1 page Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Graduate Institute Title A name given to the resource Summer 2010 "Life of the Mind Series" Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 Description An account of the resource Schedule of lectures and concerts in Summer 2010, sponsored by the Graduate Institute. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Lecture Schedule 2010 Summer 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Graduate Institute Lecture schedule Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/95c85110b1090d47146012753c0ccf53.pdf 8d2ca0f1ec424bdcf4c70a40899cad55 PDF Text Text ___________________________________________________________________________________________    Summer 2013 “Wednesday Night Lecture Series”    St. John’s College Annapolis    Join us this summer for a series of informal lectures, sponsored by the Graduate Institute      Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m., Great Hall  ___________________________________________________________________________________________      “The Very Pictures of Education:  On Rousseau’s Illustrations in Emile”  Wednesday, June 19         Jeff Black, Director of the Graduate Institute, St. John’s College, Annapolis    “Equality of the Sexes in Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae (The Assembly of Women)”  Wednesday, June 26    William. Braithwaite, Tutor, St. John’s College, Annapolis                     “John Huston’s ‘The Dead’:  A Film Screening and Discussion” (Reading the Dead from James Joyce’s  The Dubliners is highly recommended.  Time and location to be announced.)  Wednesday, July 3      Louis Petrich, Tutor, St. John’s College, Annapolis    “Miracles and Belief:  Is Belief in Miracles Compatible with a Scientific Understanding of the World?”  Wednesday, July 10       Joseph Cohen, Tutor, St. John’s College, Annapolis    “The Rise of the Private Self in Genesis One‐Three”  Wednesday, July 17      Amanda Printz, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Oglethorpe University    “On Courage”      Wednesday, July 24    Michael W. Grenke, Tutor, St. John’s College, Annapolis      Nietzsche, Hegel, and the Problem of History  Wednesday, July 31      Shilo Brooks, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Bowdoin College      ___________________________________________________________________________________________    � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 1 page Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Graduate Institute Title A name given to the resource Summer 2013 "Wednesday Night Lecture Series" Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013 Description An account of the resource Schedule of lectures and concerts in Summer 2013, sponsored by the Graduate Institute. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Lecture Schedule 2013 Summer 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Graduate Institute Lecture schedule Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/3128c4a576b3f77eff9629245912ece7.pdf 5bedb7ef94857db471bae3b54620c246 PDF Text Text McGuire, Terry From: Sent: Subject: Waters, Taylor Tuesday, June 10, 2014 1:15 PM Wednesday Night Lecture Series Summer 2014 Wednesday Night Lecture Series" St. John's College Annapolis Join us this summer for a series of informal lectures, sponsored by the Graduate Institute Wednesdays at 7:30p.m., Great Hall "On High Mountains: An Overview of Nietzsche's Perspectivism" Wednesday, June 18 JS. Black, Director of the Graduate Institute, St. John's College, Annapolis "Hume's Philosophy of Science" Wednesday, June 25 James M Mattingly, Georgetown University "On Reading Poetry Aloud: Some Lessons from Shakespeare's As You Like It" Wednesday, July 2 William Braithwaite, Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis "Machiavelli and Absolution" Wednesday, July 9 Stephen D. Wrage, United States Naval Academy "Mastery, Freedom, Friendship: Tutor and Pupil in Rousseau's Emile" Wednesday, July 16 Gianna Englert, Georgetown University "The Relationship of Art and Truth in Plato's Republic" Wednesday, July 23 Jamuna Reppert, Claremont Graduate University On the Humanity of Thucydides' Demosthenes" Wednesday, July 30 Andrea Radasanu, Northern Illinois University 1 � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 1 page Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Graduate Institute Title A name given to the resource Summer 2014 ["]Wednesday Night Lecture Series" Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014 Description An account of the resource Schedule of lectures and concerts in Summer 2014, sponsored by the Graduate Institute. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Lecture Schedule 2014 Summer 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Graduate Institute Lecture schedule Summer lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/5d7f2d9f47bc4e528ee18e259ed638b4.pdf 939646b6b90dc09cdecfc42c4e53fc6f PDF Text Text   ___________________________________________________________________________________________    Summer 2016 “Wednesday Night Lecture Series”    St. John’s College Annapolis    Join us this summer for a series of informal lectures, sponsored by the Graduate Institute      Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m., Great Hall  ___________________________________________________________________________________________      “Imagination and Leadership”  Wednesday, June 15         David Townsend, Tutor, St. John’s College    “A Good Answer:  Comment on Exodus, Chapter 3”  Wednesday, June 22  Andre Barbera, Tutor, St. John’s College    “Reason without Reasons:  Anti‐Rationalism in Heidegger’s Being and Time.”  Wednesday, June 29  Lee Goldsmith, George Washington University    “We Are, Nonetheless, Cartesians”  Wednesday, July 6  Anton Barba‐Kay, The Catholic University of America    “The Concept of Movement/Change in Ancient Chinese Thought and its Modern Application”   Wednesday, July 13  Brian Dougherty, The University of Maryland    All College Seminar  Wednesday, July 20  The Graduate Council, St. John’s College    “All in C Major:  The Opening of Bach’s Well‐Tempered Clavier”  Wednesday, July 27  Elliott Zuckerman, Tutor, St. John’s College    ___________________________________________________________________________________________    � 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 Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Description An account of the resource The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library 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. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 1 page Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Graduate Institute Title A name given to the resource Summer 2016 "Wednesday Night Lecture Series" Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Description An account of the resource Schedule of lectures and concerts in Summer 2016, sponsored by the Graduate Institute. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Lecture Schedule 2016 Summer 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 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Relation A related resource <p><a title="Reasons without Reason" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/762">Reasons without Reason: Anti-rationalism in Heidegger’s Being and Time</a></p> Graduate Institute Lecture schedule Summer lecture series