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DEPTH
AND
DESIRE
EVABRM-IN
St. John's College
Annapolis, Friday, August 31, 1990
�DEPTH AND DESIRE
Eva Brann
Annapolis, Friday, August 31, 1990
li5l y an old tradition the first lecture •)f the year is dedicated to
lQJ the new members of our college, to the freshman students and
the freshman tutors. It is a chance to tell you something about the
shape and the spirit of the Program that pverns St. John's College-
and not only to tell you but perhaps even to show you.
I think I am right in this spirit when I begin by examining
the class-name I just called you by: freshmen. A freshman, my
etymological dictionaries tell me, is a person "not tainted, sullied or
worn," a still-fresh human being, where "fresh" means, so the
dictionary points out, both "frisky" and "impertinent." Later on in the
year you will learn a weighty Greek word applicable to persons of
frisky impertinence. They are said to have thymos, spiritedness or
plain spunk, a characteristic necessary for serious learning. This
spirited frame of mind is perfectly compatible with being shy and
secretly a little scared. In fact, to my mind, it is a sign of quality in
newcomers to be anxious for their own diJnity in the way that shows
itself in spirited shyness. It is our business, the business of the
faculty and of the more responsible upper class students, to help your
spiritedness to become serious, to emerge from the shyness-- whether
it be of the quiet or the boisterous sort, to help you channel your
energy into a steady desire for learning and to direct your boldness
toward the discovery of depth and, moreover, to help you without
leaving you tainted, sullied, and worn out. I keep saying "help,"
because although great changes are bound to take place in you in
these next years-- do but behold the seniors: unsullied, untainted,
unworn and transfigured-- we none of us know who should get the
most credit besides yourself:
the Program, our teaching, your
friendships or just plain time passing.
At any rate, the spirit of the college is invested in
seriousness, a certain kind of seriousness-- not dead seriousness but
live seriousness, you might say. This seriousness shows itself on
many occasions: in deep or heated conversations in the noon sun or
at midnight, in marathons of effort and in the oblivion of sleep, in
devoted daily preparation and in glorious goofing-off, in the
1
�BRANN
DEPTH AND DESIRE
willingness to try on opinions and in the need to come to conclusions.
What does your school do to induce this very particular kind of
seriousness?
When you chose to come to St. John's you were, perhaps,
attracted by the fact that the mode of teaching normal in higher
education is quite abnormal here. I mean lectures. Only one lecture
a week is an integral part of the Program, on Fridays at 8:15 P.M.
Now the chief thing about a lecture is that it is prepared ahead of
time. For instance, I began working on this lecture in March. A
lecture Ol!ght to be the temporarily final word, the best a speaker has
to give you at the moment. It should not matter whether the surface
of the speech is brilliant or drab, as long as it is a deliberate and
well-prepared opening of the speaker's heart and mind to the
listeners. As such it carries authority. These authoritative occasions
are obviously important to the life of the school.
Yet our normal way is not the prepared lecture but the
focused conversation which is effervescent rather than prepared,
provisional rather than authoritative, and participatory rather than
reactive. Your tutors will not tell you but ask you; they will not
demonstrate acquired knowledge, but the activity of learning. One
reason why the teaching of new tutors-- and some of your classes will
be taught by newcomers-- is often most memorable to freshmen is
that their learning is genuinely original and keeps sympathetic pace
with yours. There is an irresistible but false local etymology of the
word tutor as "one who toots," perhaps his own horn. What the word
tutor really signifies is a person who guards and watches learning.
We are deliberately not called professors because we profess no
special expertise.
Since you will not be told things, you will have to speak
yourselves. What will you speak about? The Program wiH ask you
to focus your conversation on certain texts-- they might be books or
scores or paintings. These texts have been selected over the years by
us because they have the living seriousness I am trying to speak
about. To my mind texts, like people, are serious when they have a
surface that arouses the desire to know them and the depth to fulfill
that desire. Here then, is my announced theme for tonight: the
depth that calls forth desire.
To delineate that depth I must once again distinguish our
kind of conversation, the kind associated with such texts, from the
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�BRANN
DEPTH AND DESIRE
kind of fellowship to be found in other places. All over this country,
and wherever the conditions for some human happiness exist, there
are people who know all there is to know about some field that they
till with a single-minded love. This is the blessed race of buffs,
aficionados and those rare professionals who have had the grace to
remain amateurs at heart. They study history or race stock cars or
do biology or fly hot-air balloons. My own favorite fanatic is the
young son of a graduate of St. John's. This boy is persistently in love
with fish, with the hooks, flies, sinkers, leaders, reels and rods for
catching them, with the books for studying them, with the aquaria,
ponds, lakes and oceans for observing them. When I first met him
he looked up at me shyly and asked if I knew what an ichthyologist
was. Since I knew some Greek I knew the etymology of the word
and could tell him that it is a person who can give an account of fish,
so he was satisfied with me. This boy may have his troubles but he
is also acquainted with bliss.
This kind of concentrated bliss we cannot deliver to you,
except perhaps in limited extracurricular ways. Instead we, or rather
the Program, will drive you through centuries of time and diversities
of opinion, while depriving you of the freedom and the serenity to till
and to master a well-defined field of your own choosing. You will
study Greek and invest hours in mem01 izing paradigms, but your
tutorial is not a Greek class-- it is a language tutorial in which Greek
is studied only partly for its own virtues, and partly as a striking and,
for you, a novel example of human speecl1 and its possibilities. You
will study Euclid and demonstrate rna 11y prepositions, yet your
tutorial is not intended to make you geometers but to allow you to
think about the activity of mathematics. In short, you will be asked
to read many books carefully and to stcdy many matters in some
detail only to find them passing away, becoming mere examples in
the conversation. And these fugitive texts will almost all bear their
excellence, their worthiness to be studied exhaustively, on their face,
for we try to pick the ideal examples. This procedure is practically
guaranteed to keep you off-balance, even to drive you a little crazy,
since you will not often have the satisfaction of dwelling on anything
and of mastering it. How do we dare do this to you?
Here is a strange but unavoidable fact: Those who plow
with devotion and pleasure and increasing mastery some bounded
plot on the globe of knowledge often undergo a professional
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�BRANN
DEPTI-I AND DESIRE
deformation. They lose first the will and then the ability to go deep.
To be sure, specialists are often said to know their subjects "in
depth," but that is not the depth I mean. Let me illustrate with an
example I have a special affection for. I began my academic life as
an archaeologist, and the first thing archaeologists do is to dig deep
past the present surface of the earth, or rather they scrape it away
layer by layer. But with every stratum they scrape away they find
themselves at a new surface, the surface of a former age. They poke
into time-- a magical enough activity--but they do not pretend to
pierce the nature of things. For example, there would come up from
the depths of a well-shaft an ancient pot. I would catalogue it by
naming its form, say: kotvle, a kind of cup; by giving its dimensions:
H. 0.108 m.; diam. 0.135 m; by describing its proportions: deep
bodied, narrow-footed; by interpreting the picture painted on it: a
rabbit-- this is the pot-painter being funny-- jumping a tracking
hound from behind; by conjecturing about the provenance and the
stylistic influences: made in Attica under Corinthian influence; and
by assigning a date: third quarter of the seventh century B.C.
Was I required to consider what I meant by dimensions,
proportions, styles, images, funniness, influences, places? Not a bit-
that would have meant time out and profitless distraction from my
business, which was to know all about the looks and appearances of
the pottery of Athens in early times. What this Program of ours
offers you is exactly that time out, and that splendid distraction.
People will say of you, when you have graduated, that you have
4
�BRANN
DEPTH AND DESIRE
acquired a broad background. But your education will have been
broad only in a very incidental and sketchy way-- certainly not in the
fashion of a close-knit tapestry that is a continuous texture of
interwoven warp and woof. Many of the books you are about to read
do tie into one another. Sometimes a book written by an ancient
Greek will (I am not being funny) talk back to one written by a
modern American, or the opposite-- the strands that connect these
books seem to run back and forth and sideways through time. But
some books will stand, at least as we read them, in splendid isolation,
and all in all the texts we study do not add up to a texture of
knowledge: There is no major called "Great Books." How could
there be competence in a tradition whose moving impulse is to
undercut every wisdom in favor of a yet deeper one? There is not
even agreement whether this tradition of ours advances or
degenerates with time, whether its authors are all talking about the
same thing, though in a different way, or in apparently similar ways
about quite incomparable things.
Here is what the books do seem to me to have in common:
They intend to go into the depths of things. All the authors, even
those subtly self-contradictory ones who claim that there are no
depths but only surfaces, are deep in the way I mean. This desire for
depth, then, is what will hold your studies here together. There is a
word for this effort, to which it is my privilege to introduce you
tonight. The word is philosophy. The term is put together from two
Greek words, philos, an adjective used of someone who feels friendly,
even passionate love, and sophia, which means wisdom or deep
knowledge.
When I say that your school is devoted to philosophy, the
love of deep knowledge, I mean that all our authors want to draw you
deep into their matter, whether by words, symbols, notes or visual
shapes. Incidentally, in a few weeks a lecturer, a tutor from Santa
Fe, will come and contradict me; he has told me that he will say that
what we do needn't bear the name of philosophy at all.
Let that be a subject for future discussion, and let me come
to the heart of my lecture tonight. It is ;he question what depth is
and how is possible. I think we are all inclined to suppose that
literal, actual depth belongs to bodies and space and that people or
texts are deep only by analogy, metaphor .cally speaking.
I want to propose that here, as Sl often in philosophy, it is
5
�BRANN
DEPTH AND DESIRE
really the other way around: it is the body that is deep merely
metaphorically, as a matter of speaking, while the soul and its
expression alone are deep in the primary sense.
Certainly the depth of a body or a space is elusive. If a body
has a perfectly hard and impenetrable surface, its depth must be
forever beyond our experience-- a kind of hard, inaccessible
nothingness. On the other hand, let the physical body have a hollow
in it-- such caves are powerful allegories of depth and you will in the
next four years come across some famous holes: the grotto of
Calypso, the underground chamber in Plato's Republic, Don
Quixote's cavern of Montesinos. Now ask yourself: Where actually
is the depth? The containing boundaries of the hollow are all faces
of the body, and no matter how deep you seem to be inside the body,
you are still on its surface, just as I argued before about
archaeological excavations.
Now consider matterless bodies, geometric solids. Euclid
says in Book XI that a solid has length, breadth, and depth, but he
gives us no way to tell which is which:
it depends on your
perspective-- in fact all three dimensions are lengths delineating the
surfaces that he says are the extremity of the solid. What is inside
that solid, what its inwardness or true depth is, he does not feel
obliged to say. These are questions you might want to raise in your
mathematics tutorials: Can one get inside a geometric solid? How?
Bodies, I am suggesting, are either too hard or too involuted
or too featureless or too empty to have true depth. Only divine or
human beings and the texts they produce-- texts made of words,
notes, paint, stones, what have you-- can be literally deep or
profound. For I attribute depth or profundity to that which is of a
truly different order from the surface that covers and hides it. And
it must be the inside and foundation of just that surface, so that we
can gain entrance to it through that particular outside and through no
other. Every depth must be sought through its own proper surface
which it both denies or negates and supplies with significance: the
surface that hides its own depth is never superficial.
Human beings seem to me the most obvious example of such
depth. All human beings have a surface, namely the face and figure
they present. I personally think that in real life almost all people
also have an inside, their soul, their depth. But there are some
famous novels in which characters are described who are nothing but
6
�BRANN
DEPTI-1 AND DESIRE
empty shells. Against their impenetrable surface those whom they
attract by the insidiously unflawed beauty peculiar to facades that
hide nothing break themselves, or if they tear through, they fall into
nothingness.
However, these are fictions, and actual human beings have
by the very fact of their humanity an inner sanctum. We begin by
noting, casually, their face, their demeanor. As our interest awakens
we proceed to read more carefully, to watch their appearance
ardently for what it signifies. If we are lucky, they may open up to
us, as we do to them. If we go about it right, this interpretative
process need never come to an end, for the human inside, or to give
it, once again, its proper name, the soul, is a true mystery. By a true
mystery I mean a profundity whose bottom we can never seem to
plumb though we have a persistent faith }n its actuality. I think that
for us human beings only depths and mysteries induce viable desire.
For love entirely without longing is not possible among human
beings. Many a failure of love follows on the-- usually false-
opinion that we have exhausted the other person's inside, that there
is no further promise of depth.
It is not only in respect to living human beings that depth
calls forth desire. This college would not be the close human
community that it is if you did not get to know some human beings
deeply-- which is called friendship. But such love is only the essential
by-product (to coin a contradictory phrase) of our philosophical
Program, a program that encourages the love of certain para-human
beings. These para-human beings are the expressions of the human
soul, our texts, as well as the things they talk about.
Let me take a moment to ask wl>ether this particular desire
for depth I keep referring to is common among human beings or
even natural. I say it is absolutely natural and very common. You
will see what I mean when I tell you what I think is the nature of
desire. Desire seems to me to be a kind of negative form or a
shaped emptiness in the soul, a place in the spirit expecting to be
filled, a kind of psychic envelope waiting to be stuffed with its proper
contents.
Now take a long leap and ask yourself what a question is.
A question is a negative form or shaped emptiness in the mind, a
place in thought waiting to be filled, a psychic envelope ready to be
supplied with its proper message. Questions therefore have the same
7
�BRANN
DEPTII AND DESIRE
structure as desires. In fact questions are a subspecies of desire: a
question is desire directed upon wisdom or knowledge. Therefore I
might go so far as to say that this school teaches the shaping of
desire-- because here we practice asking deep questions. Now I think
that very many, probably all, human beings would like to ask such
questions if they only knew how. That is why the desire for depth is
both common and natural.
What we most often, or at least most programmatically, ask
questions about are those texts I have been mentioning. As I have
intimated, such a text, particularly a text of words, is a curious kind
of being, neither a living soul nor a mere rigid thing. What a book
might be, such that it could have genuine depth, is a question that
should arise over and over in the tutorials and the seminars. That
books do have depth is shown by the fact that they induce questions,
the directed desire to open them up. I want to end by giving a
sample of a deep text and a demonstration of the beginning of a
reading, a mere knock at its gate, so to speak.
The text is a saying by Heraclitus. Heraclitus flourished
about 500 B.C. He was early among those who inquired into the
nature of things, and he had a contemporary antagonist, Parmenides.
You will see from your sheets that Heraclitus said that it is wise to
agree that "All things are one. • Parmenides said things that, on the
face of it, seem similar, but whether he meant the same thing as
Heraclitus, or something opposite or something incomparable-- that
is a matter of ever-live debate.
In any case, Heraclitus and
Parmenides together embody the great principle of our tradition that
I mentioned before; you might call it the "the principle of responsive
differentiation." However, I shall not try to talk about Heraclitus's
actual wisdom tonight-- that along with the previous questions: "What
is philosophy?," "What is a solid?," "What is a cave?," "What is a
book?," I leave to future discussion. I shall attend only to the
preliminaries with which Heraclitus surrounds his wisdom.
Heraclitus's book is largely lost, though as far as we know it
was not a treatise but a book of sayings. Even in ancient times it
had a reputation for depth; the tragedian Euripides said of it that it
required a Delian diver-- the divers from the island Delos (which
means the "Manifest" or "Clear") were evidently famous for diving
deep and bringing things to light.
8
�DEPTH AND DESIRE
BRANN
The sayi�g I have chosen goes:
OVK IIJOU &:ua TOU Aoyou aKQU aaVTas
611oAoydv aoq�ov AaTw lv 1rav-Ta dva&
Transliterated it reads
ouk emou alia tou logou akousantas
homologein sophon estin ben panta einai.
On the surface this saying is in Greek and needs to be
translated. Since I have argued that surfaces are, like traditional
Japanese packaging, an integral part of the contents, they must be
carefully and patiently undone. Now to put Heraclitus's Greek into
English is, up to a certain point, not hard. Your Greek manual will
tell you about the "accusative absolute" and about various infinitives,
and your Greek dictionaries will give you the meaning of "listening,"
of "wise" (which you are already familiar with in philosophy), and of
"agree."
"Logos" is one of the
But then you look up logos.
tremendous words of our tradition, to which it is, once again, my
privilege to introduce you. Without even looking it up, I can give
you the following meanings: Word and speech, saying and story, tally
and tale, ratio and relation, account and explanation (that was the
meaning which occurred in the word "ichthyologist"), argument and
discussion, reason and reasoning, collection and gathering, the word
of God and the son of God. As you learn Greek you will see what
it is about the root-meaning of logos that makes this great scope of
significance possible.
But how are you to choose?
You are
caught in a vicious circle: Unless you know what Heraclitus means
by logos you cannot choose the right English translation, and unless
you discover the right English word you cannot know what he means
by his saying. However, sensible people find ways to scramble
themselves out of this bind.
Try a meaning that makes good
immediate sense: choose "reasoning."
Listening not to me but to my reasoning,
it is wise to agree that all things are one.
This yields a saying that is particularly pertinent to us, since
9
�BRANN
DEPTII AND DESIRE
it might be posted over every seminar door. For though we must
look into each other's faces, we must not get stuck on personalities.
Each seminar member has a right to say: "Never mind me, answer
my argument." Heraclitus is introducing a great notion into the
Western world here: Not who says it matters but what is said.
But there is more signifying surface to the saying. Listen to
its sound and notice that in the second line the word homologein
sounds like logos. "Agree" is a good first meaning but it does not
preserve the similarity of sound. Homologein literally means "to say
the same." Let me try that, and for "my reasoning" I will substitute
"the Saying."
If you listen not to me but to the Saying,
it is wise to say the same: that all things are one.
Now what sense does that make? What Saying? Whose saying other
than Heraclitus's own? Suppose the translation did make sense, then
Heraclitus is saying that there is a saying that can be heard beyond
his own, a speech to which we must listen, a speaking that it would
be the part of wisdom to echo in what we say. What impersonal
speech could that be? Heraclitus in fact tells us not what the logos
is, but what it says, for he bids us to say the same: "All things are
one." What if this saying, of which no human being is the author,
where a power whose saying and doing were one and the same?
What if its speech were an act? Let me play with a third, somewhat
strange, version:
Once you have listened not to me but to the Gathering,
it is wise similarly to gather all things into one.
Here logos is translated as gathering or collection. It is the power
that gathers everything in the world into a unified whole, the
organizing power we are invited to imitate by giving a comprehensive
account of the universe in speech. The logos speaks primally; our
logos becomes deep by imitating it.
I think by now the text has begun to draw us through its
surface into its depth. You can see that it demands of you the playful
seriousness I mentioned at the beginning, a seriousness that calls out
all your capacity for careful attention to surface detail as well as your
willingness to dive into the depths.
io
�BRANN
DEPTH AND DESIRE
Here I shall stop. But although I am ending, I am not
finished-- and neither, of course, are you. If you have in fact listened
not only to me but also to my argument, and if you are possessed by
the proper freshman spirit, now is your moment, the part of the
Friday night lecture that is the true St. John's:
the time for
questions.
11
�A NOTE ABOUT THE
TEXT
This lecture was written and
edited in WordPerfect 5.1.
All headings, subheadings,
and body text are set in
Times Roman. Typesetting,
editing, and printing were
done at the St. John's Print
Shop.
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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Depth and desire
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on August 31, 1990 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Brann, Eva T. H.
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St. John's College
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1990-08-31
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pdf
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English
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text
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Bib # 57332
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Taken from the St. John's Review, Volume XXIX, Number 3, 1989-90. It was originally the opening lecture of the 1990-91 academic year at St. John's College, Annapolis.
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Annapolis, MD
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<a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/326">Audio recording</a>
Deans
Friday night lecture
St. John's Review
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/21119542993fe09fa6502a1fcc860183.mp3
3d154a276049819d519e4760350993f9
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Description
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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wav
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01:03:39
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Music and the Idea of a World: On Plato and Schopenhauer
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Kalkavage, Peter
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 6, 2015, by Peter Kalkavage as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860. Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.
Plato. Timaeus
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Talking, Reading, Writing, Listening: A Lecture for Parents and Students
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Brann, Eva T. H.
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LEC_Brann_Eva_2011-11-04
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 4, 2011, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Michael J. Brogan
November 22, 2013
Dwelling in the Land of the
Confessions
It's surprising that a lover of wisdom should lavish as much attention on the particulars of his own life
as Augustine does in the
Confessions.
While any number of philosophers before him had sought to live
by the maxim inscribed in Apollo's temple at Delphi-yvm8t crcaU1:6v, know thyself-none known to
me had taken this as a directive to reflect on the contingencies of his own biography, let alone publish
his thoughts on such intimate matters as a vexed relationship with his mother, a childish loathing of
school, a troubled sexual history, or an enduring tendency to overindulge at the dinner table. In the
Phaedo, Plato does have Socrates recount how he lost his youthful enthusiasm for the study of nature
(96a-1 OOa), but in their exclusive attention to the evolution of his philosophical orientation, these
autobiographical remarks hardly compare with the astonishingly inclusive narrative of a sinner's
wandering path to God that Augustine gives us in the
Confessions.
Socrates, his account of his "second
sailing" notwithstanding, lives out the Delphic command not by brooding over his individual history or
unique identity but by enlisting dialogue partners in a collaborative search for the truth of those
experiences potentially shared by us all in virtue of our common humanity. To oversimplify a bit, he's
interested not so much in
who he is as in what he is, not in this individual man called Socrates but in
what it means to be a human being in general.
Even more pronounced is the contrast between Augustine and Plotinus, the thinker who
perhaps exercised a greater influence on him than any other pagan writer. The Neoplatonist's disregard
for merely individual selfhood is memorably captured in the testimony of his disciple Porphyry, who
writes that "Plotinus, the philosopher our contemporary, seemed ashamed of being in the body. So
deeply rooted was this feeling that he could never be induced to tell of his ancestry, his parentage, or
1
�his birthplace."1 No mere quirk of temperament, this reticence is governed by Plotinus's overriding
ambition to identify completely with the incorporeal intellect in its capacity for timeless contemplation
of the divine One. It's this aspiration that motivates his refusal to share even the bare facts surrounding
his origins as an embodied self.
For all that he owes to the self-effacing Platonic sage, however, Augustine himself has no
qualms about directing his gaze and ours to the particular circumstances and events of his unique,
unrepeatable, and still-unfolding life. Quite to the contrary, he writes in the confident hope, reiterated at
several key points in the Cotifessions, that by reflecting on that life, seeking out the narrative threads that
bind it into a unity, he and his readers might be drawn ever closer to the eternal, divine truth. But how
does a lover of wisdom--one, moreover, as indebted to Neoplatonism as Augustine acknowledges
himself to be-arrive at a hope like this one? How is it that he comes to see his embodied, time-bound
existence as no mere image to be forgotten as quickly as possible in the ascent to its divine original but
as something worthy of the most serious and sustained attention?
Now, one approach to the question immediately comes to mind. As an orthodox Christian
believer, the author of the Confessions fully accepts the doctrine of the Word made flesh. God himself,
on this account, took on all the characteristic features of human finitude: he was born of a particular
woman at a particular time and place, spoke a particular language, practiced a particular religion, lived in
relationship to particular human others-we could extend forever this list of "accidents" that
individuate the incarnate beings that we ourselves are and that Christians believe God in Jesus became.
While some of these properties and relationships are undoubtedly less important than others, who are
we to scorn the whole lot of them if God himself has deigned to take them on? Who are we to be
"ashamed of being in the body" if the Creator of all things, of corporeal substances no less than of the
spiritual, saw nothing shameful in becoming incarnate? If the humanity of Jesus Christ, indeed his very
flesh and blood, is indispensable to our salvation, shouldn't we at least have second thoughts about
2
�renouncing our own humanity, or attempting to locate it exclusively in a disembodied intellect that
manages to shed the burdens of finitude?
But of course these are very big "ifs"- too big, I think, for a community like ours whose
conversation appeals to no higher authority than natural reason. While Augustine believes he can find
in the writings of the Neoplatonists themselves the doctrine of the Word that was with God and that
was God, not even he claims to apprehend the incarnation of that Word on any basis other than faith.
My ambition tonight is to see how far we can go toward making sense of the intensely personal
approach of the Confessions without appealing to postulates drawn from sacred doctrine. While I suspect
that Augustine's unprecedented way of applying the Delphic maxim becomes fully intelligible only
against the background of his specifically Christian commitments, we might nevertheless begin to
understand the peculiar strategy he employs in the Confessions by considering the deficiencies that come
to light there of a philosophy conducted in a wholly impersonal key. However dazzling a glimpse it may
afford of the eternal truth, Neoplatonic introspection, we shall see, fails to open out onto what
Augustine calls "the way that leads not only to beholding our blessed fatherland but also to dwelling
therein" (7.20.26). 2
PART I
Before examining their limitations, however, I want to begin by briefly considering why the "books of
the Platonists" (7.9.13 ) were attractive to Augustine in the first place. His study of them comes directly
on the heels of his disillusionment with the Manicheism he had been espousing for the better part of a
decade. Disheartened by the moral and intellectual bankruptcy he has found even among the elite
members of that sect, he has also come to reject their sharply dualistic vision of good and evil as
coeternal principles locked in cosmic combat. Such a view, he concludes, is irreconcilable with his
dawning certainty that God must be beyond all change, corruption, or violation. Nothing can harm a
divinity worthy of the name, and this means that God could have no compelling reason to engage in
3
�battle with eternal forces of darkness. In fact, such forces are no more than the figments of an
overheated mythic imagination: for together with being immutable, God is by nature infinite; it makes
no sense, therefore, to posit a reality that would constrain in any way his power to implement his
perfectly good will.
With his Manichean convictions thus in tatters, Augustine finds himself not so much freed as
unmoored, drifting toward a radical skepticism that, for all its philosophical plausibility, can't possibly
quiet the clamor of his restless heart. It is in this state that he becomes newly open to the possibility of
reconciling with the Catholic Christianity in which his mother attempted to raise him, an orthodox faith
which, largely due to Bishop Ambrose's brilliant preaching on the allegorical sense of the Old
Testament, he has ceased to disdain as the bastion of simple-minded literalism. He realizes, for example,
that our being in God's image need not entail that he be confmed to a body like ours, as the Manichees
had mocked the Catholics for allegedly believing. At this stage, however, Augustine finds he can do no
better than replace such anthropomorphism with a less crude but no less materialist notion of God,
now imagined as a subtle body extended throughout infinite space, permeating and exceeding a created
world conceived on the analogy of a sponge submerged in a vast sea (7.5.7). To think in this way, he
realizes, commits him to the absurd view that an elephant, for example, must contain more of the
divine presence than a sparrow, yet he remains frustratingly unable to understand God or anything else
in nonmaterial terms. He writes: ''Whatever was not extended over, or diffused throughout, or
compacted into, or projected up to definite measures of space, or did not or could not receive
something of this kind, I thought to be completely non-existent" (7.1. 2).
It's this crucial error that the books of the Platonists enable him to overcome, not simply by
introducing him to an impressive theory of incorporeal being but by showing him a path leading to
nothing less than a direct experience of the purely spiritual, first within his own soul and ultimately in the
divine beingjtself. Taught to shun the external and direct his gaze inward, he eventually catches sight of
what he calls the "unchangeable light" above the mind. After ascending beyond bodies and the power
4
�to perceive them and onto the soul's rational faculty of judgment, he says that in realizing its own
mutability, this reasoning power
raised itself up to its own understanding. It removed its thought from the tyranny of
habit, and withdrew itself from the throngs of contradictory phantasms. In this way it
might find that light by which it was sprinkled, when it cried out, that beyond all doubt
the immutable must be preferred to the mutable. Hence it might come to know this
immutable being, for unless it could know it in some way, it could no wise have set it
with certainty above the mutable. Thus in a flash of its trembling sight it came to that
which is. Then indeed I clearly saw your "invisible things, understood by the things
which are made. " (7.17. 23)
Many of you will no doubt recognize the final sentence here as a citation of Paul's Letter to the
Romans (1: 20). By quoting Scripture, however, Augustine does not mean to imply any essential
difference between the experience he is recounting and the one described by Plotinus and his disciples.
As in the writings of those philosophers, the inward turn of Confessions 7 corresponds to a movement
away from absorbed attention to the particularities of the material world and toward the timeless,
intellectual contemplation of the "unchangeable light" at the source of all finite things. That eternal
light is one and the same for Plotinus as for Paul, for Augustine as for you or me. If our highest good is
indeed to gaze upon it, it's understandable that a thinker like Plotinus would regard attending to those
things that differentiate us individuals, the temporal accidents of birth and biography, as at best a
distraction from our true calling. In the famous treatise known as "On Beauty," Plotinus insists that
what we ought to be doing is chipping away like sculptors at everything exterior to the eternal light
within us. "Do you see yourself, abiding within yourself, in pure solitude?" he asks.
Does nothing now remain to shatter that interior unity, nor anything external cling to
your authentic self? Are you entirely that sole true light which is not contained by space,
not confmed to any circumscribed form . . . ? Do you see yourself in this state? Then you
have become vision itself. Be of good heart. Remaining here you have ascended aloft.
You need a guide no longer. Strain and see. 3
But what if "straining" isn't enough? What if "remaining here" proves too difficult? For all the
serene confidence that marks Plotinus's writings, even he and his disciples sometimes seem to
acknowledge the impossibility of simply willing the soul to arrive at and persist in its transcendent
5
�vision. Porphyry, for instance, claims to have had the experience just once, in his sixty-eighth year,4 and
while Plotinus says that for
comes "suddenly"
him "it has happened often,''5
he also characterizes it as something that
(exaiphnes)6 upon a soul that is all too quickly sent back down into the comparative
dullness of mere discursive reason.7 Now, I suppose it's possible (though personally I doubt it) that if
Augustine had experienced nothing worse than this inevitable slide from
nous to dianoia, from pure
contemplating to the difficult labor of thinking things through, and if, moreover, he had found some
way to reconcile the suddenness of the introspective vision with Plotinus's confidence in the sufficiency
of effort ("straining'') to bring it about, he just might have remained content with what the books of the
Platonists were able teach
him
.
But as he recounts in such compelling detail in the
Confessions, his
rapturous and reassuring vision of the unchangeable light is followed almost immediately by a plunge
back into currents of temptation that prove to be just as irresistible as they had been before. No
transformation of his life ensues, no conversion or reorientation of his misbegotten aims and ambitions
follows upon the ecstatic experience that liberates his mind. "I was borne up to you by your beauty," he
confesses, "but soon I was borne down from you by my own weight, and with groaning, I plunged into
the midst of lower things"
(7.17.23). In other words,
the tyranny of habit reasserts itself immediately,
and he succumbs to old patterns of feeling and acting despite seeing them more clearly than ever as
obstacles in the way of his deepest desire. The good he approves unreservedly in his mind he fails to
pursue with an undivided heart; unable to do what he wants, he does the very things he hates.
How depressing! Wouldn't we like to think that even a pale approximation of a 'vision like the
one Augustine reports would have a profound effect on the way we live our lives? Wouldn't it be easy
to love the truth and to do it if we were only certain what the truth was? But this is just the sort of
comforting illusion that Augustine indulged in until his ecstatic vision deprived him of what he calls
"that former excuse, in which I used to look upon myself as unable to despise the world and to serve
you because knowledge of the truth was still uncertain to me"
6
(8.5.11).
Now, approaching thirty years
�of age, he has attained the certainty he's long been seeking, and yet he discovers that he is just as
enthralled to his old, enervating habits as he ever was. Able to see the truth, he still cannot draw near
enough to bask in its radiance.
If we are at all persuaded of the authenticity of his testimony-influenced, perhaps, by an
uncomfortable awareness of our own failures to translate insight into action, to do the truth we knowwe have reason to wonder whether any mere vision, however dazzling, can set us on the sure path to
the good. Understanding alone is perhaps not enough to overturn long-settled habits of self-indulgence,
indolence, and despair, no matter how irrefutable the evidence becomes that these are precisely what
keeps us from the happiness we seek. To use one of Augustine's favorite images, it's as if we can
become enchained to ways of life we know to be toxic to our souls. He writes:
For in truth lust is made out of a perverse will and when lust is served, it becomes
habit, and when habit is not resisted, it becomes necessity. By such links, joined one to
another, as it were-for this reason I have called it a chain-a harsh bondage held me
fast. A new will, which had begun within me, to wish freely to worship you and find joy
in you, 0 God, the sole sure delight, was not yet able to overcome that prior will
grown strong with age. (8. 5. 10)
,
,
Now, we call "habits" those dispositions to feeling and action that come to be in us as a result
of repetition. What we do habitually we do not because nature compels us or reason convinces us but
simply because we have done likewise in similar situations time and again in the past. Here's a trivial
example. I'm in the habit of drinking a cup of coffee first thing every morning. I don't remember
making a deliberate choice to start doing this, butif ever I did, it must have been a long time ago: at this
point in my life, it's only a slight exaggeration to say that deliberate choice of any kind becomes possible
for me only after I've had that first cup. I suppose if I were to summon my inner resources I could
manage to break a chain now thousands of links long by choosing to have tea tomorrow instead. After
all, it's not my nature that determines me to drink coffee, as it is, say, the stone's nature that causes it to
fall or the fire's that makes it rise, but merely my long-settled habit-a practice become second nature, so
to speak.
7
�But might there be situations in which this is a distinction without any practical difference,
occasions when second nature constrains no less than first and habit takes on the character of
compulsion? For Augustine there were, and we need not have suffered from any of the conventionally
recognized "addictions," I think, to identify with his experience of habit as an iron chain holding him
back from goods he has to come to perceive with incontestable clarity.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observes that, unlike those powers that are in us by nature
(e.g., sense perception), the potencies for which precede our exercise of them, the virtues of character
are like physical or technical abilities in that they come to be in us only after we have been engaged in
the activities associated with them (1103a25f.) We become capable of courage, for example, only by
repeatedly doing courageous things, meaning those things the already courageous person does, just as
we become harpists by repeatedly practicing the harp under the tutelage of an accomplished player. As
we grow more accustomed to being at work in them, these activities become easier for us, more
pleasant, we could even say, more "natural" to us.
Unfortunately, though, this is at least as true, and probably more so, of bad actions as it is of
good: as Augustine knew all too well, a past defined by repeated indulgence in any kind of excess or
deficiency can make a future characterized by strength of will or self-control, let alone full-fledged
virtue, appear entirely out of reach. How I conduct myself today seems largely determined by what I
did yesterday, even when the memory of this recent past fills me with shame and regret over having
acted otherwise than I knew I should.
I want to turn now to Augustine's analysis of time to see what light it might shed on this
indebtedness or even enslavement of the present to the past, and also on the shape that a rehabilitated
future might ultimately take. My hope is that doing this will bring us a step closer to our goal of
understanding the significance of Augustine's autobiographical turn in the Confessions.
8
�PART II
Though it would take all night (at least) to do justice to his fascinating and intricate meditation,
the basic paradox of time Augustine identifies in Book 11 can be expressed in a few words. It seems, he
observes, that the present is the only time that actually exists, since whatever the future is, it is not yet,
and the past is no longer. Upon scrutiny, however, the present itself turns out to look like nothing more
than an extension-less boundary between those two nonentities, the past and the future. "It flies with
such speed from the future into the past," Augustine says, "that it cannot be extended by even a trifling
amount" (11.15.20). Hemmed in as it is on both sides by nonbeing, the reality of the duration-less
present itself falls under serious suspicion. Here is Augustine again:
[I]f the present were always present, and would not pass into the past, it would no
longer be time, but eternity. Therefore, if the present, so as to be time, must be so
constituted that it passes into the past, how can we say that it is, since the cause of its
being is the fact that it will cease to be? [11. 14.17, emphasis added]
Thus it appears that neither the future, nor the past, nor even, now, the present has a sure hold on
being: future and past are not, and the present is only in so far as it ceases to be. But Augustine is
unwilling to conclude from this that time is mere illusion. Should we decide that it exists only in a
secondary or derivative sense-a kind of moving image of eternity, as the Timaeus has it-it
nevertheless remains too fundamental to our lived experience, and our ways of talking about that
experience, simply to deny its reality altogether. The task is to try to understand what time is, if not in
itself then at least as it is for us. What we can say for sure, Augustine thinks, is that the past and future
depend for their being on the present; they "do not exist except as present things" (11.18.23), he says.
It seems no less true, however, that the present itself cannot be apart from the past and the future, for
what else could provide the present the "space" it needs to extend beyond the length-less and breadthless instant that exists, if it exists at all, only by rushing headlong into non-being?
9
�Characteristically, Augustine looks within himself for a way beyond the impasse. It's there, in
the soul or the mind, that future and past things acquire a kind of presence (and therefore beinj), as
correlates of the mind's acts of expectation and memory, respectively. It's also there that present things
achieve stability by being held in attention, an act of the mind that articulates itself beyond the point
like instant by looking back to a beginning and forward to
an
anticipated end. Whereas on initial
reflection time had seemed to vanish into the nothingness of a not-yet-existent future, a no-longer
existent past, and a perpetually self-destructing present, its claim to at least relative being can now be
redeemed so long as we're willing to pay the price of acknowledging its dependence on the mind's own
activity. The three times, Augustine says, "are in the soul ...the present of things past is in memory; the
present of things present is in intuition; the present of things future is in expectation" (11.20.26). Taken
as a whole, time can thus be described as a "distention of the mind" (distentio animz) (11.26.33) , a
stretching or swelling of present consciousness backward into a remembered past and forward into an
anticipated future.
While it's certainly possible to distinguish memory, expectation, and intuition or attention as
three separate acts of the mind, Augustine's analysis makes clear that to do this would be to engage in a
kind of abstraction. For in our lived experience of things, memory, expectation, and attention form a
single, continuous whole. The mind, he says, "looks forward, it considers, it remembers, so the reality
to which it looks forward passes through what it considers into what it remembers" (11.28.37). To
illustrate this dynamic, he reflects on the experience of reciting a psalm he knows by heart. Once he's
formed the intention to recite and is about to carry it out, the psalm, or rather, his recitation of it, is one
of the "things future," which is to say, it exists for the mind in the mode of expectation. The ray of
consciousness is pointed forward, so to speak, casting its light over the whole psalm as something to be
brought out into the open as an audible presence. As the recitation proceeds, the stock of expectation
decreases in proportion to memory's increase, until, having reached his proposed end, the speaker falls
silent and the psalm in its entirety exists by way of its resonance in the recollecting minds of its hearers.
10
�What happens between the beginning and the end of this process, namely, the ongoing
transferal of expectation's funds into the account of memory, corresponds to present time in its more
expansive, non-instantaneous conception. The act of the mind responsible for this making present
Augustine variously calls "intuition" (contuitus), "attention" (attentio), and "intention" (intentio). Present
consciousness, we come to understand, doesn't just passively register a now that arises only to perish
(or, more accurately, arises only lry perishing); on the contrary, the attending or, better, the intending
mind plays an active part in the unfolding of temporal events, as both Augustine's heavy reliance on
words with tend(}--stretch out-at their root, as well as his pregnant choice of the recitation example
powerfully suggest. About that recitation, Augustine writes:
The life of this action of mine is distended into memory by reason of the part I have
spoken and into forethought (expectatio) by reason of the part I am about to speak. But
attention (attentio) is actually present and that which was to be is borne along by it so as to
become past. (11. 28. 37, emphasis added).
It's worth hearing that again: what was to be is "borne along" by attention into the past. The Latin verb
here is traicitur, a passive form of traicio, which could also be rendered as "transports" or "conveys." It
combines the preposition trans-"across" or "along"-with the root verb iacio, meaning "throw," so we
might think of attention as the act of throwing an expected future into a recalled past. The sense of this
would be to emphasize how time for Augustine is not merely something that we suffer but is also,
perhaps even primarily, something that we ourselves do. It's hard to know how to say this: the mind
constitutes, enacts, unfolds, or perhaps lives time, in the transitive sense of an expression like "living
one's life." But whatever verb we finally settle on, the crucial thing to grasp is that the soul itself makes
an indispensable contribution to the experience or even the very being of time in shouldering an
expected future and bearing it along into a recalled past.
If the full significance of this activity does not come fully to light in Augustine's psalm example,
what he says toward the end of Book
11 leaves no
doubt about the ultimately moral horizon of his
11
�analysis. After describing the temporal process by which the action of reciting the psalm reaches
completion, he asserts that "[t]he same thing holds for a man's entire life, the parts of which are all the
man's actions" (11.28.38). (In fact, the scope can be widened even further to take in all of history, the
"whole age of the sons of men," though I'll keep our focus for now on the life of the individual.) Just
as I look ahead in expectation to the psalm I am about to recite, so too do I project a practical or moral
future for myself, setting about in the present on the task of converting into a happy memory what is
now only an aspiration to act in accordance with my conception of the good. In this way, "that which
was to be is borne along" into the past.
Of course, there are many ways for our moral intentions to misfire. However completely he
comes to rely on God's grace, Augustine remains sensitive to the constant vigilance, the intense daily
effort required of him if he is to
fulfill
his divinely reordered aims. Readers of Book 10 of the Confessions
know that his baptism did not render him immune to the temptation of taking it easy, of allowing
himself to be swept up by the rushing current of the merely instantaneous now instead of rising to the
challenge of actively living time, that is, of anticipating a virtuous future and then undertaking the
arduous task of carrying it through the present and into the past. "I am a burden to myself' (10.28.39),
he writes, vividly evoking his sense of this labor, the obligation imposed on us imperfect, temporal
creatures not to while away the time but to strive, with God's help, to close the gap between what we
are now and what we are called to be.
The difficulty of that task, as our discussion of habit has prepared us to see, seems to be directly
proportional to the distance separating what we will to become from what we have already been. In
other words, the more radically the future we project for ourselves departs from the past we recall, the
harder it is to bear that future successfully into the present. In the hopes of deepening our
understanding of this phenomenon, let's return once more to Augustine's recitation example. Forming
the intention to say the whole psalm from beginning to end involves calling it up to the forefront of his
mind from out of what in Book 10 he had called "the great cave of memory" (10.8.13). Only because
12
�he has already learned it by heart at some point in the past can he now look forward to reciting it in the
present. And this suggests, if the example is as paradigmatic of all temporal experience as I believe
Augustine means it to be, that anticipation is itself grounded in recollection, in other words, that the
projected future "borne along" by a present intention is first assembled by the soul from materials
drawn from its past. Augustine makes the point more explicitly in Book 10. Within the memory, he says,
I encounter myself and recall myself, and what, and when, and where I did some deed,
and how I was affected when I did it. There are all those things which I remember
either as experienced by me or as taken on trust from others. From that same abundant
stock, also, I combine one and another of the likenesses of things, whether things
actually known by experience or those believed in from those I have experienced, with
things past, and from them I meditate uponfuture actions, events, and hopes, and all these again
as though they were actually present. "I will do this or that," I say to myself within that
vast recess of my mind, filled with images, so many and so great, and this deed or that then
follows. (10.8. 14, emphasis added).
What this passage allows us to see, I think, is that temporal life, or the activity of living time, is
marked by a kind of circularity. In proposing a course of action to myself, I cannot but rely upon the
"abundant stock" of past experiences, either my own or those attested by others and found credible to
the extent that they are consistent with my own. In other words, before the anticipated future can be
borne along into the remembered past, the past must first be launched forward into the future as the
indispensable material out of which the soul shapes its expectation. Now, this is not to say that in acting
in the world we only ever repeat ourselves, or that the wheel of lived time rotates around a fixed point.
Augustine mentions here that as he deliberates he "combine[s] ...the likenesses of things" drawn up
from memory, thereby suggesting that the soul enjoys at least some degree of creative freedom in its
activity of conceiving for itself a future as something other than an exact replica of its past. But it's still
no use pretending that a path of total novelty is ever open to us; the future is inescapably indebted to
the past, expectation inevitably takes its stand on the ground of memory.
It's not hard to grasp that this poses a grave threat to the possibility of the deep and abiding
transformation the young Augustine came to recognize as his only hope for happiness. For if my
13
�memory teems with images of a life fundamentally inimical to the good; if the virtuous examples of
others seem too remote from my experience to be plausible or even attractive models for me; and if the
claims of the philosophers to offer an escape from time and all its woes have proved too good to be
true, then my desire for the happy life, no matter how firmly rooted in a clear vision of its reality and
goodness, seems fated to go unfulfilled. In their essentially timeless character, transcendent moments of
insight, like those Augustine attains by way of Neoplatonic introspection, are essentially cut off from
memory and expectation, mere interruptions of the circuit of lived temporality. As such, they remain no
more than isolated points of light, like individual stars in a vast night sky-beautiful, to be sure, but
virtually powerless to illuminate the ground beneath our feet as we stumble along in search of the way
that leads not only to beholding but to dwelling in the land of our desire (7.20.26; 7.21.27).
Augustine opens a window onto the potentially ruinous dependence of expectation on memory
in recounting a conversation he had with himself a few years before his final decision to seek baptism.
Approaching the age of thirty, he looks back with chagrin at all the time that has passed since his
teenage reading of Cicero's Hortensius first set him on flre with the love of wisdom. The bitter anxieties
and disappointments of those dozen years have left him more convinced than ever of the futility of a
life given over to worldly ambition. His disillusionment with the rationalist pretensions of the
Manichees and his deepening admiration for the philosophically sophisticated preaching of Ambrose
have inclined him, as he puts it, to "fix my feet on that step where my parents placed me as a child"
(6.11.18). He's going to do it, he really means it this time, he's going to put away what he calls his "vain
and empty concerns" by committing himself fully once and for all to the Catholic Church. Just notyet.
"[I]ime passed," he says,
and still I delayed to be converted to the Lord . . I loved the happy life, but I feared to
find it in your abode, and I fled from it, even as I sought it. I thought that I would be
too wretched, if I were kept from a woman's arms. I did not believe that the cure for
this disease lay in your mercy, for I had had no experience with that cure. I believed
.
14
�that continence lay within a man's own powers, and such powers I was not conscious
of within myself. (6. 11.20)
Notice what's holding him back. Though he has long suspected that the cares imposed by
married life are for him incompatible with the spiritual freedom he desperately desires, he also knows
himself well enough to realize that he lacks the strength to live without the comforts afforded by sexual
intimacy. In the terms of his metaphor, he suffers from a "disease" whose symptoms he knows how to
treat but whose cure, he has learned, lies completely outside his own power to effect. Whether or not
we think it makes sense to diagnose as an illness his inability to commit to celibacy, with a little
imagination most of us will be able relate to Augustine's predicament here. He knows exactly what it
would take for him to be happy, but bitter experience has convinced him that he's just not up to the
task. Nothing he finds in the spacious caverns of his memory allows him to envision for himself a life
of genuine health, and without the means to palliate the symptoms of his disease, he fears that taking
up residence in "God's abode" would serve only to increase his misery. Thus he shrinks back from the
decisive step, without, however, being able to resign himself to a future as fatalistically determined by
the past as his own seems certain to be.
Perhaps there is little we can reasonably say about the causes of Augustine's ultimate escape
from this desperate situation, at least if we want to keep open the possibility that it was indeed God's
grace that finally set him free. I think we can conclude, though, that whatever it was that finally lifted
the terrible burden from his soul in that Milan garden, the experience he describes as "a peaceful light
streaming into my heart" (8.12.29) would have been every bit as isolated and ineffectual as his Plotinian
visions of the eternal truth turned out to be had it not become possible for him to discern the
underlying continuity of his past life of unhappy wandering with the baptized future he was finally
empowered to project for himself. For as his analysis of time has shown us, to the extent that the
present remains divorced from the past that precedes it, it cannot but have the character of the instant
that is only by ceasing to be, the point-like now that suddenly-exazphnes-emerges out of nothingness
15
�only to vanish again just as suddenly. From such
an
instant, however charged with divine presence it
might be, nothing of lasting, practical significan�e is likely to follow-nothing more consequential, at
any rate, than the sort of wistful memory and infinite, impotent yearning that threatened to consume
Augustine in the wake of his disappointing experiments in Neoplatonic ascent.
In concluding, then, I want to suggest that Augustine's passionately personal reflection on the events
leading up to his fmal conversion is intended to recall and thereby reinforce the vital links between the
future opened up to him on that momentous day in Milan and even the darkest periods of his youthful
estrangement from himself and from his God. Though his conversion undoubtedly marks a new
beginning, even a kind of rebirth, it succeeds in doing what impersonal introspection had failed to do
because Augustine is enabled to see it as the culmination of a process that had begun in him long
before. The call he finally answers in deciding to seek baptism is the very same call that had never
ceased resounding in his heart, even when he was desperately trying to drown it out in the frantic
pursuit of sensual pleasure, emotional and intellectual titillation, and worldly success. In looking back
on his past, he comes to see that in the anxiety, disappointment, and doubt that marred his life of
secular striving, God himself had been calling him home.
You were always present to aid me, merciful in your anger, and charging with the
greatest bitterness and disgust all my unlawful pleasures, so that I might seek after
pleasure that was free from disgust, to the end that, when I could find it, it would be in
none but you, Lord, in none but you. For you fashion sorrow into a lesson to us. You
smite so that you may heal. You slay us, so that we may not die apart from you. (2.2.4)
Augustine meditates on his past in the Confessions to learn again this lesson of sorrow, which is
also, paradoxically, a lesson of great hope. From out of the caves of his memory he no longer draws up
the despair-inducing confirmation of his own weakness that had paralyzed him as a young man, but the
liberating assurance that God had always been with him, even in the depths of his sin. Recollections of
events in which that divine presence now seems unmistakable nourish his expectations of future
16
�assistance, giving him the strength to stand firm against present temptation in the confidence that his
conversion will turn out to have been the decisive event of his life, and not a mere prelude to another
aborted attempt or humiliating failure to change his ways.
But as his unsparing assessment of his present condition vividly demonstrates, he knows that
nothing is guaranteed. To be sure, conversion to the truth for him comes as a gift, but that giftperhaps like all gifts-is profoundly difficult for a creature with a long history of proud self-assertion to
receive. Ever present is the temptation to refuse or return it in the fatal conviction, born of pride and
despair, that there is no genuine good beyond what we can obtain for ourselves. The books of the
�
Platonists did nothing to disabuse Augustine of this error. "Strain and see," they told him, at once
puffmg him up by preaching the sufficiency of effort, and casting him down by showing him no more
than the way to behold the blessed country when his heart's desire was to dwell therein. The way beyond
beholding is a way of humility, and Augustine's searingly honest examination of his life is his attempt to
walk it.
Thank you.
1
Porphyry, "On the Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Work," in Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. Stephen
MacKenna (New York: Penguin, 1991), p. cii.
2
3
All Augustine quotations are from The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. John K. Ryan (New York: Doubleday, 1960).
Enneads 1.6.9, in The Essential Plotinus, trans. Elmer O'Brien (Indianapolis: Hackett , 1964 ), pp. 43-44.
4 "On the Life of Plotinus," p. cxxii.
s
6
7
Enneads 4.8.1.
Enneads 6.7.34.
Enneads 4.8.6.
17
�
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"While Augustine believes he can find in the writings of the Neoplatonists themselves the doctrine of the Word that was with God and that was God, not even he claims to apprehend the incarnation of that Word on any basis other than faith. My ambition tonight is to see how far we can go toward making sense of the intensely personal approach of the Confessions without appealing to postulates drawn from sacred doctrine. While I suspect that Augustine's unprecedented way of applying the Delphic maxim becomes fully intelligible only against the background of his specifically Christian commitments, we might nevertheless begin to understand the peculiar strategy he employs in the Confessions by considering the deficiencies that come to light there of a philosophy conducted in a wholly impersonal key. However dazzling a glimpse it may afford of the eternal truth, Neoplatonic introspection, we shall see, fails to open out onto what Augustine calls 'the way that leads not only to beholding our blessed fatherland but also to dwelling therein.'" - excerpt from lecture
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Dwelling in the land of the Confessions
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on November 22, 2013 by Michael Brogan as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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<a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/18">Audio recording</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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What does music mean? Examples from Bach, theory from Kant
Matthew Caswell
Is music about anything? Can music represent anything at all? That is, can it mean
something besides itself?
Much of our music may seem to bear meaning unproblematically, since it consists of
sung lyrics. Indeed, the association of musical tones with speech is primeval and enduring:
the oldest poems and prayers were at the same time songs, we are told. But if music as
music can represent, it doesn't do so in the manner of its ancient companion, speech. Like
musical tones, words are sounds, but these sounds are taken by us as tokens of concepts,
universals which we put to use in judgment, predicating the concepts of one another. There
has been great controversy across the ages over how exactly strings of words in a sentence
manage to mean something, but no one doubts that words have meaning. (It would be difficult
to articulate such a doubt to yourself, or to anyone else, for obvious reasons.)
We are less sure about tones. Since music is not a language of signs, it cannot be
translated or decoded into prose in a way that carries over its power as music. At the same
time, many of us would resist the claim that music is meaningless. Beethoven inscribed on his
Missa Solemnis: "from the heart, may it reach other hearts." The composer wasn't merely a
deft technician able to incite feelings in others; he took himself to be a thinker- that is,
someone with a communicable inner life. What is in our hearts as we make music, and what
do our hearts receive upon listening? In order to begin to answer these questions, we will first
survey three of the ways music can be thought to mean, or to represent, using as our
sourcebook of examples Bach's St Matthew Passion. In the second part of the lecture, we
will turn to the account of the meaning of beautiful art offered by Immanuel Kant, perhaps the
greatest modern theorist of the beautiful. As we shall see, Kant's deep metaphysics of
representation may be especially well-suited to making sense of the beautiful representations
of music. 1
1 Kant is thought not to have been a music-lover. Nevertheless, his brief remarks on music in the Critique of
Judgement are insightful. He argues that music is only beautiful in so far as it pleases through our reflection
1
�I.
BACH
At least three different species of musical representing can be found in the Passion. In
many of the oratorio's passages, combinations of these categories are mixed and blurred; our
analysis will to some extent abstract from this highly multifarious character of Bach's work.
Furthermore, our examples will all be taken from the recitative portions of the work, Bach's
setting of the scripture text. The recitatives, while ornate and dense with musical invention,
involve less complicated poetic and musical structures than do the song-like arias, chorales,
and choral numbers, making our task of analysis and organization a bit easier.
Type 1: Sound Imitation
Perhaps the simplest way for a musical sound to point beyond itself is by resembling
some other sound from the wider world. Think here of a timpani rolling in imitation of thunder,
or of a bassoon muttering in imitation of your grandfather's voice. Like a portrait of a friend is,
among other things, a likeness of our friend, the timpani roll sounds something like thunder,
and can therefore represent as a stand-in. This is the model of representation scrutinized by
Socrates in Book 10 of the Republic: representation here stands to thing represented as
image to original. Obviously, the objects artificially imitated by sound can only be things that
are already audible.
Let's first listen to a brief recitative passage, and then focus on an instance of sound
imitation within it. The Gospel text, recounting the disciple Peter's betrayal of Christ, in
English, is as follows:
on its "forms"; that is, melody, harmony, and even tone itself for Kant are not mere sensations but structured
objects of reflection. Even his critique of music's essential intrusiveness, and thus lack of "urbanity" (he
compares the inescapable spread of sound to the spread of an odor) is perceptive. Artists like Bach were
surely aware that much of their power lay in the audience's inability to "turn [its] eyes away" (KU, 330).
2
�And Peter remembered the words of Jesus to him, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny
Me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly. (Passion, §46, measures 5-12)
Now take a look at a moment about a quarter of the way through that selection- it's the
first example on your handout. In the second measure, the Evangelist hops through an
arpeggiated triad on the word "kraehen" or "crow", the sound of his voice recalling the sound
of a rooster's crow.
[see example #1, handout: §46, measures 7-8]
Directly mimetic moments like these are rare in the Passion. The tones, whose native tongue
is melody, are here compelled to play the part of mere noise. Though they point to something
by reminding us of it, they seem to mean little; they are not a language giving utterance, but
an auditory reminder. There is also something humorous in these moments: it is the comedy
of Bach's noble tones momentarily throwing on the low dress of inhuman, unspiritual sound.
One of the most charming things about this technique is that the dress can be thrown off as
easily and as quickly as it is put on.
At the same time, it should be noted that this imitative dress is still music's own. We
are not fooled into thinking a rooster has snuck into the church; Bach has pointed to the
animal's call from well within his musical world. After all, the sound here hear is a dominant
triad, and real roosters don't sing chords. 2 The tonal material of this imitation thematizes its
artful distance from its referent, ensuring that it is heard as an imitation. 3
I also will note here that there are more complicated and richer uses of sound imitation
in the Passion, but because they are not merely imitative, I'll return to their investigation a bit
later.
cf Kant's discussion of bird-song, and its imitation: KU, 302.
Any other sound imitations in the Passion? See the alto aria "Buss und Reu": "die Tropfen meiner Zaehren"
[the drops of my tears] are accompanied by a drip-dropping in the flutes (Passion, §1 0, measure 70).
2
3
3
�Type 2: Tone-painting
Can music point to anything besides other sounds? Consider the following recitative
section from earlier in the Passion. The Gospel text is as follows:
"And they sang the hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them: All of
you will be made to fail me in the course of this night. For its is written: I will strike the
shepherd, and the flock of sheep will be scattered. But after my resurrection, I will lead the
way for you into Galilee." (Passion, §20)
In the first verse of this passage we find a second species of musical representation. This is
the second example on the hand-out. Just as the disciples' motion up the mountain will be
narrated in the text, the cello accompaniment steps up the degrees of the scale, marked
staccato, through an octave.
[see example #2, handout: Passion, §20, measures 1-3]
The term of art for this technique is "tone-painting,"- there are in fact several of them in this
section- and they each involve a deceptively simple analogy. For the tones do not actually
"rise" in space. Perhaps because we feel the so-called "higher" tones more in our head, and
the "lower" in our chests, we associate the change in pitch with the up-down direction. More
fundamentally, tones in a melody constitute a heard order, and so are strongly analogous to a
set of discrete "places" or topoi to which one might move. This fact underlies the analogical
sense of our talk of musical "steps": because the scale, a determinate set of discrete pitches
in order, is already implied by the melodic or harmonic context, we hear the "rising" sequence
here not simply as a change in position, but as a step-by-step motion from one place to
another, without skipping any places along the way. Moreover, since tones recapitulate their
melodic function at the octave- as when men and women sing a tune together, they sing
exactly an octave apart- , we hear that our steps have taken us as far as we can possibly go-"all the way" to top of the mountain, so to speak. 4
There are in fact two 'arrivals' at the summit here: first the accompaniment leads us from C# to the C# in
the voice on the downbeat of the next measure, then the voice extends the climb to A, the root of the
dominant seventh chord pointing to a resolution in D. Together, both climbs make up a harmonic "?-station",
4
4
�This sort of tone-painting is knowing and witty. While the sound imitation of the
rooster's crow made use of an auditory resemblance, the tone-painting does not resemble,
but analogizes. We notice the analogy between the tonal motion and the locomotion noted in
the text, and smile at Bach's artistry in coordinating the two. One could imagine an entire
Passion oratorio composed this way, with the text continually illuminated or decorated with
musical analogies of the action. This would be an amusing, arch, and civilized work, but would
suggest that music's representational power is of a decidedly second-order nature. For the
musical "ascent" here tells us no more than the text already does on its own: its delight is in
the artistry-the cleverness, I want to say-- used in contriving the analogy. Indeed, like
musical sound imitation, tone painting is always heard as artifice. To take the melodic ascent
as a representation, one must intellectually connect the two sides of the analogy, which are in
themselves alien to each other. 5
Type 3: Musical ideas
What about this passage, a few moments later in the Passion? Jesus is speaking to
his disciples at Gethsemene, and says to them "sit you here, I will go go there and pray." This
is the third example.
[see example #3, handout: Passion, §24, measures 4-6]
Bach has Jesus stretch out the word "bete"-- "pray", as the strings execute a beautiful
cadence in the accompaniment. Is this measure of music a representation?
Let's take a closer look at the music. The first three syllables of Jesus' address spell
or "return" passage.
5 Tone painting typically makes use of the sort of spatial analogies music is ripe for, and therefore
often (I suspect always) involves a musical analogue of locomotion. These analogies are aided by the
conventions of the graphics of score-writing: when you look at the score for the above passage, you see the
signs for the tones arranged up an incline. Or look at the tone painting from a moment later, where Jesus
speaks of the scattering of the flock (§20, measures 8-1 0). We know that Bach did in fact devote special
attention to the appearance of the St. Matthew Passion score. The fact that this visual duplication of the
analogy is really only available to the musical insider with score in hand underscores tone-painting's
cleverness and humor.
5
�out a triad in B-flat, with a deep B-flat chord held in the strings. But as he lands on his fourth
syllable, "hier", the strings add an A-flat to this same triad, generating a mild dissonance, and
leaning unmistakably forward towards the next chord. The strings then resolve the
dissonance, drawing out a long, rich, major triad on E-flat, into which Jesus begins to speak
the word for prayer. 6 He leans through a dissonant F on the downbeat of the measure, and
then holds an E-flat through the first syllable, resting in the tonal home or center of this
passage. The accompaniment here begins to cycle through a series of chords, each casting a
different light on and around that same E-flat. Jesus' bass voice allows his words to be set in
the middle of the pitch-range of the accompanying strings. He is thus surrounded by the
chords which seem fo emanate from him. This effect is often called Jesus' "halo" of strings.
The effect through the first half of this 'bete' measure is of a slowly beating oscillation
of different gestures away from home. Then, just as Jesus finishes speaking, the strings
finally move more dramatically to a dominant seventh chord on B-flat, rooted on the fifth
degree of the scale, and featuring a poignant tritone dissonance between the top and middle
voices. The dissonant chord is resolved to the home triad, completing the periodic harmonic
journey.
The strings form this harmonic period in four voices, the top two moving contrarily
towards each other, and the bottom two moving contrarily away from each other. Contrary
melodic motion helps maximize the individuality of the voices, without frustrating their
harmoniousness. Indeed, the string voices in this passage seem to act on their own for the
sake of each other: gracefully making way for one another, or pausing to offer friendly
resistance. Here Bach compounds contraries within contraries, intensifying the harmonious
diversity of the motion. The crucial dominant seventh chord, unlike the other chords in the
sequence, is articulated across several overlapping rhythms, prolonging the tension in that
chord as we hear each voice move into place within the leaning whole of the chord. Bach
postpones the appearance of the tritone dissonance until the last possible moment. The
whole passage is balanced, natural, gentle, and whole. It is a graceful motion that has its end
in sight as it begins, but whose particular trajectory is not exactly determined, but rather full of
rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic contingency along the way. (Let's listen again.)
The whole passage seeks its home in E-flat. This home was established in the immediately preceding
chorale, "lch will hier bei dir stehen", which begins and ends in E-flat major. The Evangelist narration then
picks up with an F-chord, which functions as a secondary dominant. The F gets its seventh with the word
"Gethsemene", resolving to 8-flat, which will go on to serve as the dominant seventh in Jesus' prayer
passage.
6
6
�Is this a representation of prayer? Obviously, no sound imitation, as we saw in Type 1,
is at work here. Unlike our Type 2 tone-painting, the musical motion here does not resemble
some locomotion, by means of an analogy between tones and place. After all, a prayer is
neither a noise, nor is it a locomotion. And for this reason, we detect none of Bach's ironic
authorial cleverness in the connection between prayer and this cadence. We do not smile at
the artful touch: rather, we are moved by what may seem to be a glimpse of a true nature.
The lack of isomorphism connects the music and the thought more intimately: we are not
hearing something that sounds like a person praying, and we are not hearing prayer
illustrated or decorated, we are hearing prayerfulness made audible. Here, the music-- the
tones in time Jesus sings-- and the object-- a prayerful inner disposition-- are not thoroughly
alien to each other, but seem rather to be of a piece.
To say that the cadence "means" or "represents" prayer might be misleading. It would
not be possible, without the text, to deduce what in the world the cadence was "about." At the
same time, the things in the world it would be the perfect setting for are not limitless. This is
not Aeneas sinking his sword into Turnus' chest; it is not Hamlet castigating his mother; it is
not even Socrates cooling his feet in the stream. Although we can't spell out the rule
according to which, given either the thought or the music, we could derive or compose the
other, we might have the curious impression that no other moment than this one is as well
captured by this particular cadence in the strings and voice. In its contingency with respect to
any rule, it is particular, unlike the two previous Types of representation.
The text makes the notion of prayer explicit for the listener. There are other concepts
we might reach for in an attempt to articulate the meaning of the passage: above, I used the
words 'graceful,' 'gentle,' 'natural,' and 'whole.' But none of these words, and not even the
leading notion 'prayer' seem to get the music just right. Our concepts may be appropriate, but
they do not exhaust. This feature of conceptual inexhaustibility was also missing in the sound
imitation and tone painting examples. The sound imitation and the actual call of a rooster both
involve a quick rising figure: to some extent, they both bear the same sound. The motion of
the tones and the motion of the disciples are analogues: they are both step-wise changes in
place. Here, the act of prayer and the motion of the phrase are both .... something. We need
not remain silent about what that something is, but we know we won't be able to spell it out
satisfactorily.
There is also marked difference in the response of the listener at moments like these,
compared with the cases of sound imitation or tone-painting. While we might delight in the
7
�cleverness of either of the former, pleasure is more deeply involved in our apprehension of
the third type of representation. "Pleasure" is in fact not the whole story: there is a complex of
pleasures and pains in our hearing this passage- pains of longing, pleasures of
consummation. No one has ever been moved to tears by a sound imitation, nor by a
tone-painting.
Speaking of tears, I'd like to note another, more complicated case of musical
representation in the Passion, one in which the first and third types are brilliantly combined.
For not all imitable sounds are as cheeky as a rooster crowing. What about the sounds of the
human voice, especially that voice when it is involved in the inarticulate expression of
emotion- the laugh, the sigh, the sob--? Some have thought that musical meaning as such
derives from the refined imitation of emotionally expressive vocal sounds. I don't think musical
meaning can possibly be accounted for on such terms, but Bach will sometimes allude to
expressive sound imitation, at the same time that he transcends it. Take this passage, from
the close of the episode of Peter's betrayal we looked at above. It's the fourth example on
your hand-out.
[see example #4, handout: §46, measures 9-12]
"He went out, and wept bitterly'' -- Bach sets the last two words to a weaving, sinuous melody
in f-sharp minor, the key of the famous subsequent aria. On the word "weinete"-- "wept"-- the
line sinks from the tonic f-sharp through the upper half of the minor scale, landing on a
chromatic non-scale tone b#. This unexpected tone arrests our motion down the scale,
leaning sharply back up towards the scale-tone 5 (c#) which we have just descended through.
The Evangelist takes the opportunity of this unstable, hanging arrest to leap up almost an
octave, and to wind even more torturously than before back to the tonic and the fifth, framing
the final cadence. No one has ever wept so melodiously. Holding key tones over the beats,
and making bold moves between the beats, the cry becomes a passionate dance. As the
exquisite articulation of the melody takes over, and takes on a life of its own, the sound that
reminded us of crying becomes something else: not an imitation of an audible sign of anguish,
but a representing of the anguish of regret and penitence itself: sorrowful anguish made
audible. As in Jesus' prayerful harmonic period, we here get a glimpse of the otherwise
invisible. As in the earlier example, our apprehension is a complex of delectable pleasures
and pains. And in both cases, the fully musical idea, unpredictable according to any thinkable
8
�rule, moves us.
In the foregoing descriptions, I have in several places referred to the leaning tendency
of particular tones and chords, naming the former by their scale degree, and the latter by the
technical vocabulary of 'tonic, dominant, etc.' Analysis of the tonality of a piece is a crucial
task in attempting to make its particular meaning clear in speech. In this sense it is similar to
the analysis of the meter of poetic verse, the grammar of a sentence, or the logical figure of a
proof. The phenomenon of tonality, of the heard relational structure of tones, is all-important
to music, and so theoretically interesting, we might be led to say that the meaning of music is
simply tonal function. In Zuckerkandl's terms, the meaning of a tone or chord would then just
be its "dynamic quality." Simi·larly, music's rhythmic order in time unfolds through the cycling
of upbeats and downbeats, and we might add rhythmic quality- a tone's position in the
time-wave which it itself generates- as another element of musical meaning. On this
interpretation, music would not represent anything beyond itself, and our thinking about a
piece of music, if it were to remain non-fanciful, would be confined to reflection on the
movement and structure of the musical sounds themselves.
There is something incomplete in this conception of musical meaning, however. To be
sure, music cannot make Peter's anguish present to us without the means of tonality and
rhythm. 7 But I take it that an essential element of our understanding of such a passage, and of
our pleasure in it, is that something not exclusively musical is being made present. The
moving syntactic relations in time and tone enable music to 'make sense', as it were, but they
do not, on their own, make it beautiful. As Zuckerkandl is well aware, a tune may establish a
tonic center perfectly adequately and yet bore us to tears. In his treatment, the question of
music's meaning is separated from the question of music's beauty or greatness; and thus, the
word "beautiful" hardly appears in Zuckerkandl's wonderful guide into musical phenomena,
The Sense of Music. An alternative approach, which we will see is Kant's, would understand
the pleasure in judging the beautiful as itself the reception and contemplation of a particular
sort of meaning. Accordingly, we might understand the tedium or vapidity of some music, like
the sort we are subjected to in elevators, as an emptiness of meaning; while they are
rhythmically and tonally intelligible, these unbeautiful tonal utterances seem to say little or
nothing to us, and their deficiency of representational power is essentially linked with their
What about "atonal" music? We'd have to investigate case by case to see if such music deserved the title
"atonal," strictly speaking. Some allegedly atonal music may involve the search for new, non-diatonic
"dynamic qualities." Some may depend upon frustrating expected tonal structures at every turn, and thus
presupposing tonality as an implicit background (cf "non-Euclidean geometry").
7
9
�deficiency in pleasure.
To summarize: Deep pleasure in the apprehension of a representation whose meaning
is conceptually inexhaustible, a form in sound that seems to be the natural manifestation of an
inaudible truth- these are the features of what I want to call a musical idea in the fullest sense.
How does music achieve this representational power? What in us is at work as we perceive
it? And why does it feel so good? That is, why is it beautiful, and what does its beauty mean?
Maybe Kant can help.
II.
KANT
Kant's inquiry into taste and beauty makes up the first half of his third Critique, the
Critique of Judgment. Towards the close of the investigation, the question of beauty's
meaning leads Kant to a surprisingly expansive treatment of the ways in which representation
can happen. Namely, he finds himself required to rethink the relation between the poles of his
famous dualism of intuition and concept. The first Critique of Pure Reason developed this
Kantian duality, according to which spontaneous intellectual acts (the concepts) must be
brought together with given sensible forms (the intuitions) to make knowledge possible.
Concepts without intuitions are "empty"-- they are mere thoughts, unable to pronounce truths
or falsities about the world. Intuitions without concepts are "blind"-- they cannot be taken to
represent anything, and so strictly mean nothing. Everything we can know is articulable in a
judgment in which intuition and concept are thought together.
What Kant now points out is that the exhibition in an intuition of a concept, the "making
sensible" of a thought, is possible in two rather different ways (KU, 351). 8 The first way,
familiar to readers of the first Critique, he calls "schematic:' Here we take the intuition as
bearing the "monogram" or calling card of the concept, and accordingly take the particular
given intuition to be an "example" of the universal concept. 9
The second way of exhibiting pure concepts Kant here calls "symbolic." He cautions
the reader to observe that people usually use the word "symbol" incorrectly: the designation of
a concept by a sensible sign is not an exhibition, a making sensible, of the concept at all, but
a "mere characterization." In the latter, Kant writes, "the signs contain nothing whatever that
belongs to the intuition of the object." The only thing linking the sensible articulation and the
8
9
References noted 'KU are to Kant's Critique of Judgement, Akademie page numbers.
To be precise, in an empirical judgement, the intuition is an "example", in a priori, a "schema".
10
�referent concept, in this case, is the arbitrary or conventional act of our own intellect. The
so-called "symbols" of algebra are in truth mere 'characters' or tokens in this sense.
But a genuine symbol, according to Kant, is an intuition that represents by being
thought in an analogous way as that which it is the symbol of. Kant offers the following
example: a hand mill is a symbol of an absolute monarchy, while an organism is a symbol of a
constitutional monarchy. The rules according to which we reflect on the relations in each pair
are the same: the parts of the hand mill move through the mechanical force imposed by an
external impulse, as the members of the absolute monarchy are coerced by fear of the king;
while the parts of the organism are self-moved, according to an idea of the whole animal, as
the members of the constitutional monarchy act according to their systematic roles in the legal
idea of a constitution. (How much longer and more awkward that is to spell out, than it is to
present in the unexplained analogy!)
The hand mill and the animal allow us to see, they "submit to inspection", the different
sorts of monarchy, if we are willing to take them symbolically. It may help to be annoyingly
precise here, since the enmeshed relation between thing and appearance is especially knotty
where analogy is concerned: There is something about the monarchy which is is also present
in the handmill. It is that 'third' thing-- a sort of power relation-- that is directly 'made visible'
here; in other words, both the monarchy and the mill are examples of external force. At the
same time, the monarchy itself is indirectly made visible in the handmill, in so far as they both
bear the relevant power relation. Thus, the one is a symbol of the other.
Symbolic representation or meaning abounds in our language: a "sub-stance" doesn't
literally "stand under" anything 10 , but the spatial and causal relation articulated in an empirical
'standing under' is analogous to the metaphysical relation between a thing and its accidents;
just as that which "de-pends" on a cause doesn't literally "hang from" it (KU,352). It is striking
that Kant's examples of symbolic language (which work in German as well as English) come
from his Table of Categories, the "pure concepts of the understanding." Apparently we are
unable to speak these non-sensible thoughts except by analogizing them to sensible items
around us, although for most of us the symbols have petrified, and we are rarely aware of
their symbolic character. If this is true, it is likely that no speech is merely "characteristic,"
outside of the rarified realm of modern mathematics.
Kant's notion of symbolic representation will turn out to be crucial in his culminating
investigation of the beautiful as the symbol of the good, even later in the Critique. But for our
10
I know this etymology is spurious.
11
�purposes, I want to direct our attention to how Kant begins the thread of aesthetic meaning a
bit earlier, in his discussion of "fine" or beautiful art. There, Kant is occupied with articulating
the subtle role of concepts in fine art. We don't think a work of art is beautiful because we
recognize what concept it should be subsumed under. To judge that a poem is an Italian
sonnet, or that a painting is an impressionist rendering of an orchard, or that passage of
music contains a perfect cadence, all this tells us nothing about these works' beauty. These
judgments are "schematic," for they determine the given object as an example of the class, in
accordance with a rule. But judgments of beauty-- what Kant calls judgments of taste-- do not
use concepts this way. The beautiful object seems ideally suited for thinking over, for
contemplating, without it ever being decided once and for all what it is. It excites our minds
into a maximal activity, what Kant calls "free harmony," in which our imagination traces every
detail and our understanding ranges through a "wealth of thought," each activity propelling the
other. This harmony is "free" in that it is not in the service of rendering a determinate
sentence. Kant takes this "quickening," rather than being exhausting, to be self-strengthening,
a becoming-more-alive. He often relies on the term "play" to capture the leisure, spontaneity,
and energy of judging the beautiful. In Kant's conception, the beautiful is not relaxing, but
stimulating. We are not transfixed by beauty, but "linger" over it. It doesn't strike at a moment,
but unfolds across time in the extended activity of our reflection. 11
In this connection, it is worth noticing one of reasons Kant cites for ranking music
below the other arts. He writes that while the visual arts are "lasting," in so far as their forms
endure in space as we reflect on them, music is inevitably "transitory." Indeed, he observes
that we tend to find musical passages which do manage to endure by "involuntarily" lodging
themselves in our memory "annoying." But this criticism might be turned on its head: because
musical forms vanish as we linger over them- indeed they must do so to be present to us at
all- to have them in the ear is to be immediately aware that they pass us by, slip away, and
evanesce. This may, after all, be the source of beautiful music's particularly heart-breaking
power. Music makes intimately manifest the mortality of the "feeling of life" through which we
enjoy the beautiful.
Now, Although judgments of taste are free from conceptual determination, they are in
fact often rich with concepts, since they always involve the understanding. A beautiful
11 Much art, and much music in particular, has the effect of transfixing us in an overwhelming moment.
According to Kant, this is not art of the beautiful, but art of the sublime. Perhaps "Sind Blitze, sind Donner"
(Passion, §33, measures 104 ff) provides an example of the sublime in the Passion.
12
�landscape brings to mind the interdependence of the ecological whole and the efforts of
human cultivation. A beautiful horse may bring to mind the natural purposes of power and
speed, or the human purpose of war. And in the case of art, the artifice of the object always
gives some concrete conceptual direction to our reflection. After all, we only know it is art
because someone purposefully made it (KU, 303). Of course, many artificial expressions are
not beautiful. The representations of men and women on restroom doors point to a
determinate purpose, we quickly see what they mean, and our grasp of their meaning is what
allows us to see them as artificial in the first place. But they are not thereby beautiful, and in
fact the determinate nature of their meaning prevents the free harmony through which we
judge beauty from getting off the ground. Thus, beautiful art, in so far as it is beautiful, cannot
have a determinate meaning, for it cannot be read as an exhibition of an example according
to a specifiable rule. In his attempt to say what it is an exhibition of, to account for the in
principle unaccountable, Kant introduces his notion of "aesthetic idea" (KU, 314).
Readers of the first Critique know that "ideas", for Kant, are concepts of reason, in
which a totality or whole is thought The world, as the cosmic whole, is an idea; as is God, as
the highest being. Ideas are never given in experience, which is to say, experience always
falls short of them. An "aesthetic idea" is a totality for the senses; that is, a given sensible form
for which no concept is adequate. Kant describes how
the poet ventures to make sensible the rational ideas of invisible beings, the realm of the
blessed, the realm of hell, eternity, creation, and so on. Or again, he takes things that are
indeed exemplified in experience, such as death, envy, and all the other vices, as well as
love, fame, and so on; but then, going beyond the limits of experience by means of an
imagination that emulates reason by reaching for a maximum, he ventures to make these
sensible with a completeness that no example in nature affords. (KU, 314)
Now, by supposition, the mode of representation here cannot be "schematic," since the
intuition is not definable as a case of a rule. It must, rather, be "symbolic": in our judgment of
the given form, we take its elements to be related to one another in a way analogous to the
relation among the elements of the non-sensible ideal. Kant quotes a minor poet: "the sun
flowed forth, as serenity flows from virtue" (KU, 316). I don't know if this is really all that
beautiful, but let's give Kant some slack. It is not simply the case that the sun is to its rays as
moral contentment is to moral goodness. This would be a symbolic representation, but a
determinate one, like the handmill and the autocracy, in which the rule instantiated on each
side of the analogy could be discursively articulated. Kant's claim is that in running through
13
�the image of the sun, we find that no determinate articulation is adequate to capture the way
in which it is like virtue. Rather, we range through boundless partial characterizations,
stimulated towards further contemplation of the image. This is the free play of taste in the
presence of the beautiful, and it feels good.
Note that in this example, the poet has quite explicitly directed our reflection towards
what the image is to mean. But this is not necessary for symbolic representation in aesthetic
ideas. It may even be the case that the less explicit the directing of our reflection, the more
stimulating that reflection will become, since its scope will be less circumscribed. On the other
hand, to give too little direction risks disengaging the understanding altogether, falling back
into meaninglessness. The great artist strikes this balance perfectly, convincing us that the
sensible form means something, but letting that meaning escape any final determination.
Kant gives an interesting example of meaningless aesthetic experience earlier in the
Critique. "The changing shapes of the flames in a fire or in a rippling brook" are not beautiful,
according to Kant, even though they pleasantly engage the imagination (KU, 243). These
scenes, however, fail to call the understanding into activity, and so the play is one-sided. We
can easily call to mind musical versions of this formless flickering and babbling. One sign of
their one-sidedness is that these sorts of experiences are relaxing, they put us at ease by
releasing tension. They are a sort of massage for the mind. The beautiful, on the other hand,
wakes us up. For in the beautiful, the understanding is maximally active, striving to make
sense of the given form, to apprehend its meaning. Recalling Kant's famous formulation in the
first Critique, without concepts our aesthetic reflection is blind.
Once Kant interprets the forms of fine art as "aesthetic ideas", it becomes possible to
think of beautiful nature as meaningful in the same, subtle way. The real sun's streaming rays
give us far less conceptual direction than the poet's somewhat pedantic metaphor, but as we
take them up in a judgment of taste, our understanding is stimulated into the same sort of
harmonious activity. Even though we know the sun is no work of art, we reflect on it in taste
as if it were the expression of some meaning that escapes determination, as if some truth was
made sensible and submitted to our inspection in the concrete appearance. The intense
pleasure afforded by fine art, and by beautiful nature, lies in this delicate balance of
significance and ineffability: we feel it means something, we know its meaning can't be
articulated. Kant often tries to capture this tension in aesthetic judgment as such with his
claim that the judgment is one of "Zweckmassigkeit ohne Zweck''
("purposiveness-without-a-purpose," or, perhaps, "fittingness without a fit"). In light of the
14
�account of aesthetic ideas, aesthetic pleasure can be recast as a delight in this
'meaningfulness-without-a-meaning.' 12
If beautiful forms as such are aesthetic ideas, and aesthetic ideas always "strive
toward something that lies beyond the bounds of experience," the meaning of a beautiful form
must always point beyond the sensible, towards the supersensible. That is, through symbolic
representation art and nature both render the supersensible, sensible. When supposedly
"empirical" items like death and love are taken up by fine art, their representation directs us
towards an unconditioned principle, and thus towards the unseen supersensible ground of
these familiar features of life. Of course, we don't gain knowledge of these grounds by means
of art. Rather, our reflection is directed towards them, as we take the beautiful form to be a
glimpse of the unknowable.
Some readers have thought Kant's account of fine art as the exhibition of aesthetic
ideas puts so-called non-representational art beyond the scope of his theory. Instrumental
music, at least in so far as it could not be reduced to sound-imitation or tone-painting, might
seem to be a clear case of art that depicts nothing at all. But Kant's account is in fact a
challenge to many familiar models of what "representation" is in the first place. If we think of a
representation as an isomorphic stand-in, where the thing and its representation are related
as original and image, then it is certainly true that much beauty, including beautiful music, is
non-representational. 13 Indeed, nothing, according to Kant, is beautiful by virtue of its service
as an imitative copy. However, a thing-as-it-appears is not related to that thing-as-it-is-in-itself
as original to image. The appearance is not a copy. Rather, things have sensible
manifestations by appearing to us. The two aspects are not distinct beings, but rather
complementary standpoints. In the case of beauty, we take something supersensible as if it is
appearing. The form present to our senses is not an imitation of some absent thing, but a
present manifestation of the unseen, and in this Kantian sense a 'representing,' a Vorstellung.
Precisely because we can't fill in the content of the reference of the appearance though
aesthetic judgment, we can never say adequately what is being presented. But in our
reflection, the perpetually out-of-reach reference is always pointed to, sometimes with less
and sometimes with more guiding direction. In this way, all beauty is representational and
One great irony of the third Critique is that while its analysis of beauty begins by privileging nature over
art, Kant surprises his readers late in the book by revealing that all beauty, understood now as the exhibition
of aesthetic ideas, is a sort of art.
13 Alternatively, in a more modern mood, if we think of a representation as an arbitrary token signifier, beauty
is also non-representational.
12
15
�non-representational at the same time.
The notion of an aesthetic idea can help us make sense of the powerful and puzzling
way in which Bach's music has meaning. Jesus' cadential prayer passage is a symbol in
Kant's technical sense: in our contemplation of it, we sense that our reflection on its audible
elements is analogous to a reflection on the elements of an inaudible reality involving piety,
gentleness, and loving sound-mindedness. In other words, Bach has found a way to make the
holy, inner character of the speaker sensible, he has submitted that character to our
inspection. While we might well be provoked into articulating the meaning of the passage in
words, we know that just what Bach has articulated in tones will escape us. We can be told
that Peter wept, we can witness a depiction of Peter weeping, but Bach's recitative measures
make the invisible and inaudible interior of Peter's soul present to us in tones. This art of
aesthetic ideas promises to deliver truths to its listener; we feel we are close to understanding
something perhaps otherwise unknowable in listening. Because there is no rule according to
which these musical passages could be constructed and classified, we are unlikely to call
them "artificial", even though they are art. Rather, the sounds seem to arise from a
non-sensible principle as if they were natural. Accordingly, we sense that the connection
between representation and meaning is not a contrivance linking alien things, but a union of
what belongs together.
Our delight in the fittingness of the contingent, understood as meaningfulnesswithout-a-meaning, may help make sense of poetic pleasures and meanings as such. In a
great sculpture, the posture of the figure seems just right, so very just right as to be an
expression of an impossible-to-define principle. In his interview with the diabolical
Smerdyakov at the bench outside their father's house, Ivan Karamazov notices his
half-brother carefully drawing ,one foot along side the other, playing with the toe of his boot,
and then shifting the position of his feet back again, throughout their chilling, obscurely
conspiratorial conversation. Dostoevsky has worked his typical magic here: we couldn't have
predicted Smerdyakov would do this, and we don't know why Smerdyakov is doing this or
what it means, and yet in its unanticipatable contingency it seems so perfectly fitting that it
must have its source in the unseen nature that is Smerdyakov's character. We are moved by
indeterminate meaningfulness of the aesthetic idea. 14
The frozen gesture of the sculpture and narrated gesture of character have a power
14
Regarding Smerdyakov, see Kant's discussion of "the beautiful representation of the ugly."
16
�that trades on their indeterminately symbolic function: indeed, this is the way of gesture as
such. In his Doctrine of Right, Kant suggests that a handshake is an attempt to make the
intelligible act of a meeting of wills in a contract visible, in a symbolic gesture depicting the
two-sided unity of the agreement. He goes so far as to say that the parties thereby "manifest
the perplexity" of the intelligible act (MdR, 272). 15 Similarly, kneeling and bowing one's head
are not natural indications of humility and supplication; they represent the latter by means of
some analogy between the arrangement in space of our embodied selves and the attitude
(so to speak) of our minds. We thereby make our supplication visible. Bach's music can
similarly be seen as an audible gesture, a sequence of meaningful movements, giving Jesus'
piety the sensible form of a heard symbol.
The difference between mere motion and symbolic gesture16 helps capture the
difference between tone-painting, and what I've called musical ideas. The motion of bowing
one's head or taking one's knee takes place in space and time. However, Jesus' prayer
cadence does not analogize this motion (that would make it a tone-painting) 17 , but symbolizes
the same inner change manifested in the bodily gesture, but in tone and rhythm. Where the
pitch-painting takes place in the dynamically bare axis of up-and-down, the tonal gesture's
motions occur within a matrix of home, away, tension, and rest. The "fall" referred to in the
term "cadence" (Latin: cadere) is not a descent in pitch, but a falling-to-rest in the tonal field of
dynamic quality. Indeed some of the string voices in our prayer passage rise in pitch as they
"fall" to home. The tonal-rhythmic field gives us access to a symbolic gestural power that far
outstrips mere pitch-relation, and may far outstrip the material resources of every other fine
art. Because music is so rich with tensions and resolutions, pullings, failings, holding still,
balancing, imbalancing, and coming to rest, and because these motions and forces are
distilled and disembodied in tonal and rhythmic forms, music is perhaps the most intensely
and exquisitely gestural form of representation available to us. For this reason, whenever we
most want to make something spiritual manifest to ourselves, we will want to hear it in music.
January, 2015
MdR = Doctrine of Right, Akademie page number
Note that symbolic gesture can include non-motion (striking a posture), just as music can include silence.
17 Could the "lowering" of the soprano and bass voices in the second half of the "bete" measure be a subtle
painting of taking one's knee?
15
16
17
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The poet ventures to make sensible the rational ideas of invisible beings, the realm of the blessed, the
realm of hell, eternity, creation, and so on. Or again, he takes things that are indeed exemplified .in
experience, such as death, envy, and all the other vices, as well as love, fame, and so on; but then, going
beyond the limits of experience by means of an imagination that emulates reason by reaching for a
maximum, he ventures to make these sensible with a completeness that no example in nature affords.
Critique of Judgment §49, 314
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
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
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
What does music mean?
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Caswell, Matthew
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
2015-01-16
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 typescript copies of my lecture for circulation and archival preservation at 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
Music, Philosophy and aesthetics
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bib # 82004
Description
An account of the resource
Typescript of a lecture delivered on January 16, 2015 by Matthew Caswell as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/7060539b4319cc5b31a383b0ea88c34d.mp3
2b7a36e3c45c4c99e665093803f4c161
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:48:48
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/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brogan, Michael J.
Title
A name given to the resource
Dwelling in the Land of the Confessions
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-11-22
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 November 22, 2013, by Michael Brogan as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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. 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."
Subject
The topic of the resource
Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Confessiones.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Brogan_Michael_2013-11-22
Relation
A related resource
<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/13">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f7fe94bafdd022d99723e9c0c00c622a.mp3
1f4ce3433a83047357c2b6e828b8d191
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
CD
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:05:41
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/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brubaker, Lauren
Title
A name given to the resource
Wealth, Virtue and Corruption: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-01-21
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 January 21, 2011, by Lauren Brubaker as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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 herby 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 a typescript copy of my lecture available 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
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790. Theory of moral sentiments.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Brubaker_Lauren_2011-01-21
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6153a94099399c04243e0852a11b1f41.mp3
458b6f190232ae9ff3036ce7c7f5a4f4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:42:47
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/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Burger, Ronna, 1947-
Title
A name given to the resource
In the wilderness : Moses as founder and lawgiver
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-10-18
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 October 18, 2013 by Ronna Burger as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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. 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
Subject
The topic of the resource
Moses (Biblical leader)
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bib # 81124
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/8768a8901f95d5406e12d01727d4ce0f.mp3
551be10c642532426851a3ca2fb771b9
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:36:19
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/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Casey, Dylan Patrick
Title
A name given to the resource
Surprises and sweet spots : on discovery and recognition
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-02-08
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 February 8, 2013 by Dylan Casey as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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. 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
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bib # 80722
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1bb7aeca3be07f8c6e7a7a3ad7abda18.mp3
db6ab2cb4ebceac24eecb3f8b45f3777
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
CD
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:51:47
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
Casson, Douglas
Title
A name given to the resource
Stabilizing Currency: Locke on Money, Morality, and Natural Law
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-04-01
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 April 1, 2011, by Douglas Casson as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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 herby 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 a typescript copy of my lecture available 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
Locke, John, 1632-1704. Essay concerning human understanding.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Casson_Douglas_2011-04-01_ac
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1feb06e98eddf199ba6cd00432b64aa9.mp3
43a3c821426394d05562b9fc8d074add
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
CD
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:56:29
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
Davis, Matthew K.
Title
A name given to the resource
Is Man the Measure of All Things? Plato's Analysis of Relativism
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-01-13
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 January 13, 2012, by Matthew Davis as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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 a typescript copy of my lecture available 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
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Plato. Theaetetus
Relativity
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English
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LEC_Davis_Matthew_2012-01-13_ac
Friday night lecture
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67cf9a98edd0947ec6800a445824fd92
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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CD
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01:11:59
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Greene, Joshua David, 1974-
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Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive Science Matters for Ethics
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2011-11-11
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mp3
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 11, 2011, by Joshua Greene as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Greene describes his lecture: "How does the moral brain work, and how can it work better?... In this talk I'll review evidence old and new for the dual-process theory of moral judgment, according to which moral judgments are driven by both automatic emotional responses and controlled reasoning processes. I'll argue that these distinctive cognitive processes map onto competing moral philosophies, respectively typified by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. I'll then consider the respective functions of automatic and controlled processes. Automatic processes are like the point-and-shoot settings on a camera, efficient but inflexible. Controlled processes are like a camera's manual mode, inefficient but flexible. Putting these theses together, I'll argue that we often make poor use of our moral brains, using point-and-shoot morality to deal with problems it can't handle. I'll argue that when it comes to dealing with peculiarly modern moral problems, we should think more like Mill and less like Kant."
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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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 a typescript copy of my lecture available 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."
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sound
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Ethics
Psychology. Moral and ethical aspects
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English
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Bib # 79636
Friday night lecture
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6aa78d71bae7f018f0759372165b9a75
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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00:54:52
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wav
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Grenke, Michael W.
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What will heaven be like?
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2013-01-18
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mp3
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on January 18, 2013 by Michael Grenke as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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St. John's College
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
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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."
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sound
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Heaven in literature
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English
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Bib # 80720
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<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/29">Typsecript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6171391c274812c5059f802de70a0351.pdf
5e9528fe8de7bb3a235a70b32cb69f70
PDF Text
Text
What Will Heaven Be Like?
Michael W. Grenke
You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys.
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (p.viii).
A lecture prepared for presentation at
St. John's College, Annapolis.
January 18, 2013
�I am not a prophet. I am not here to report to you the facts about Heaven. To the
best of my awareness, I am not in possession of any private revelation that would grant
me a sure understanding of Heavenly matters. What I am is a reader of books, one who, I
hope, reasons while he reads. And what I want to share with you this evening is some of
my reasoning about the idea of Heaven as I believe that idea to emerge in a couple of
texts. The texts I have in mind are likely not known to all of you, and so I will have to
tell you about them. The frrst text, the text that provoked me to attempt this lecture is
Anton Chekhov's short story "In Exile."
Heaven: dark, cold, bare, hollow, and grumbling
"In Exile" is set in Siberia, a place where human beings go after they have been
judged. At the beginning of the story two men are sitting on a riverbank near a campfrre.
The older In;an is called Semyon and the younger man is merely referred to as the Tartar.
Semyon also has a nickname, "Preacher," and he is called by both names throughout the
story. Thus we have two men, one with two names and one with none. Preacher is old
(around sixty), lean, toothless, but still healthy-looking. He is drunk, and he is only
staying awake, and outside of the nearby hut, because he is afraid the men inside the hut
will ask him to share his bottle of vodka. The Tartar is young (around twenty-five). He
is pale and sick and he looks like a boy. Although he is weary and ill, he is awake for a
different reason. He is talking about how nice it was back in his home province and how
beautiful and clever the wife he left behind is.
1
�The Tartar does not like it in Siberia, and yet what I will try to show is that this
Siberia is an image of Heaven. My interpretation is made immediately more difficult, but
I hope not rendered null or, worse, perverse by Semyon's response to the Tartar's talk of
back home. "To be sure, it is not paradise here ... You can see for yourself, the water, the
bare banks, clay, and nothing else .... " (Chekhov, p.90). One could take this denial as
decisive, but I do not. First off, why say this Siberia is "not paradise"? Who would be
tempted to think that it was? And yet if I proclaimed that this auditorium is not Heaven,
the very proclamation would point to the idea of Heaven, and the next natural step for
thinking would be to explain how the auditorium differs from the idea I have of Heaven.
And so ifl consider Semyon's whole initial statement, the matter goes like this. The
Tartar is talking about another place that is nice and has beautiful and clever wives; it is a
place where he would rather be. Semyon responds by saying this place we both are in is
not Heaven, which presumably would be a place the Tartar should prefer, even to
Simbirsk province. The reason this place, this Siberia, is not Heaven is said to be
something "you can see for yourself," with your own natural senses. And what you can
see here is water, bare banks, clay (I will say mud hereafter), and nothing else.
Now what is wrong with these things, such that their presence tells our eyes that
this is not Heaven? Will there be no water in Heaven? This water we can see here is
partially frozen due to the season, but ten paces away it is flowing. The narration tells us
in the next paragraph that this river is dark and cold and that it is making grumbling
noises. If it were bright and warm and burbling would the situation be any different?
Perhaps any water is not good enough for Heaven. Its taste is bland; its transparency
does not delight or beckon the eye. It does not please our senses very much. The
2
�wetness perhaps also does not please, especially associated with the cold. Perhaps water
does not figure heavily in the dreams of happiness of any human beings other than the
desert dwelling.
The bareness of the banks does not give pleasure if we think of the eyes as
things that long to see something, for which the banks are a kind of nothing. Perhaps this
is why the banks are called hollow in their next narrative description. We are meant to
think of what is not there on the banks. Our eyes when they see the banks as bare are
seeking something. A power of vision that adds adjectives to nouns is already modifying
the world. The likeliest thing that our eyes are missing when they see the banks as bare is
vegetation. There is water bounded by soil, but there is no greening life as a natural
consequence. Whether our eyes expect this consequence or merely wish for it, the
absence still renders the banks bare, hollow to our vision.
Next comes the clay. I am mainly inclined to think ofthis detail as equivalent to
mud, but it does occur to me that clay is notoriously not a kind of soil that is good for
growing most plants. With this in mind the water, bare banks, and clay all work together
to give an image of lifelessness. The water raises the expectation of thriving life; it is one
of the preconditions. But this expectation is dashed by the bad soil, hence the bare banks.
But the clay bespeaks lifelessness at an even deeper level, and this is what makes me
want to treat the clay as just mud, not some special kind of mud. Dirt, dust, mud is what
everything solid breaks down into. Mud is an image of decay, an image of corruptibility.
Do our eyes see this too? Do our eyes see in mud a history of something that used to be
there, something higher, something nicer, something beautiful, something that promised
happiness? Do our eyes also see the threat of something yet to come, a breaking down, a
3
�passing away? We should perhaps recall the trouble that young Socrates seemed to have
with mud. He did not want to say that there is a form of mud (see Parmenides 130d).
Perhaps the sight of mud implies a threat to all such Platonic theories of forms?
'Our young Tartar responds to Semyon's invitation to look around in a simple and
characteristic fashion. He looks at this Siberia and proclaims "It's bad! it's bad!"
(Chekhov, p.90). The Tartar is not an ethnic Russian, and it should be noted his Russian
is not good. That may make his expressions simpler than they otherwise would be, but it
may also make him less open to the Heavenly qualities of this Siberia. Perhaps Siberia is
a Russian kind of Heaven.
After the Tartar's outburst we are given a little more description of the land about
this ferry site. It seems strongly significant that Semyon the Preacher is a ferryman. In
fact, the narrative later reveals that Semyon is the only member of the ferry crew who
stays and works at this site all year round. Semyon is the ferryman for this afterlife. We
are told in the narrative that at this moment the people on the other side of the river are
burning last year's grass. This may be a simple agricultural procedure, but it gives the
appearance that the land on the other side of the river is writhing with burning snakes. So
Semyon is the ferryman from where to where? This side of the river is Siberia, it is
Heaven. The other side is Russia proper, it is Earth, but it is also a field of writhing
flame. In this image Earth and Hell look the same.
Welcome to Heaven, You'll Get Used to It
4
�After that Hellish image, the Tartar looks around some more, especially at the
Siberian sky. Though it is a sky like any sky, full of just as many stars, they are different
stars, and the Tartar finds it lacking. He proclaims again, "It's bad! it's bad!" In response ·
to this second proclamation, Semyon announces his wisdom about Heaven. "You will
get used to it," he says. He is old and has been here for a long time, twenty-two years.
He knows this place; the Tartar is just in inexperienced newcomer. Semyon was not
always like this. He was the son of a deacon. He lived in Kursk. He used to wear frock
coats. Now he says he can "sleep naked on the ground and eat grass." So speaking from
his own experience, Semyon says "the time will come when you will say to yourself: 'I
wish no one a better life than mine."' (Chekhov, p.91 ).
How good is Semyon's life? When the seasons change all the other ferrymen
move on. They are said to wander about Siberia begging. Semyon stays put and operates
.the ferry. His going from bank to bank is a kind of image of change within
unchangingness. He compares his life to that ofthe fishes in the river. "The pike and the
salmon are under the water while I am on the water." Is this supposed to make his life
look like it occupies a kind of natural place? And how does Semyon understand the
motions ofthe fishes? Does he think they too just swim back and forth? Or does he just
think of their moving as constituting a kind of life that is in the place where it wants to
be? Fish want to be in the water. They are not wishing for something better. So too,
Semyon is where he wants to be. He says, "And thank God for it. I want nothing. God
give everyone such a life." (Chekhov, p.91).
Want Nothing
5
�In this last statement, Semyon reveals how one comes to see Siberia as a kind of
Heaven. His movement from bare bank to bare bank is a movement from nothing to
nothing. Training oneself to want nothing makes one fit for Siberia, for Siberia, to speak
broadly, has nothing in it that one could want. Wanting nothing might also be
appropriate for Heaven if Heaven is to turn out to be a necessary idea.
By necessary idea I mean two things that are not the same but are not wholly
unrelated. In the first sense, I mean by a necessary idea an idea that emerges out of the
working through of the logic of other ideas. In the case of Chekhov' s Semyon, Heaven is
the idea of a place of happiness, and happiness seems to require one to stop wanting
things. Thus Heaven might have to be a place like Siberia that has none of the things
human beings want. In the second sense, by a necessary idea I mean an idea that one
needs in order to think something that cannot be thought by means of other ideas. A
Heaven that is radically different from the Earth might be such a necessary idea. By way
of illustration ofthis second sense of necessary idea, consider Semyon's life as sketched
so far. One might be tempted to think of his life as a kind of Stoicism; some
commentators on the story have done just that. But Stoicism does not require an idea of
Heaven that is truly different from an idea of this world and its natural possibilities. The
freedom of the Stoic is really just the employment of one of nature's capacities, the life of
the mind, in order to avoid the vicissitudes of the rest of nature's capacities. If one's idea
of Heaven is just some perfection of the possibilities present in this world, then it is not
really differe~t from an idea of this world. I am not inclined to think Semyon is a Stoic,
however, because he repeatedly talks about his life as one for which he ''thanks God,"
6
�and he refers to lives lived otherwise as giving way to the Devil. However, it may be that
a Stoic, if he wants to live a life of the mind that gives him freedom, must seek thoughts
like that ofSemyon's Heaven, thoughts that don't lead him to want things. In the world
we live in, the very sight of things may give rise to our wanting them. If Heaven is
really to be free from want it may have to be free from worldly senses or sensibles.
Our young Tartar wants things. He wants his mother and his wife to come out to
him in Siberia. In response to this, Semyon says, "It's the Devil confounding you, damn
his soul! Don't you listen to him, the cursed one." Semyon classes the Tartar's desire for
mother and wife into the one category of "women" and also introduces the idea of
freedom. The Tartar thinks of these things as desirable natural goods. Because of his
different loves for his mother and his wife respectively he wishes them to come to him
and fill up the empty nothingness of Siberia. In a way, he wants freedom even more.
The freedom he wants is a species of justice, for he was wrongly convicted for the crimes
of others. Those crimes were committed by members of his own family, and his
wrongful conviction was also perhaps orchestrated by a member of his own family.
Semyon tries to convince the Tartar that each thing that people want carries with
it an evil that cannot be escaped. If you try, selectively to fill up the Siberian emptiness
with only the good things from back in Russia you will necessarily also bring in the
Russian evils. Each of the things that we are capable of desiring is also a vehicle of evil,
an imoad for the Devil.
Semyon lists many things that he does not want. "I want nothing, neither father
nor mother, nor wife, nor freedom, nor post, nor paddock" (Chekhov, p.91). The list
seems to articulate just a few examples. The first clause is decisive, "I want nothing."
7
�That is, Semyon's broad implied claim is that everything that we want in this world and
that we think will bring good and happiness into our lives will also bring evil into our
lives and ruin our happiness. Semyon allows no exceptions to this broad claim, for "if
anyone gives way to the Devil and listens to him, if but once, he is lost, there is no
salvation for him" (Chekhov, p.91). Semyon presents his own strict policy of wanting
nothing as the best there is. "And I wish no one a better life. I want nothing and I am
afraid of nobody, and the way I look at it is that there is nobody richer and freer than I
am" (Chekhov, p.91). In this context, Semyon makes a claim that "here you see I live
well, and I don't complain" (Chekhov, p.91). What he means by "live" in this sentence is
different from he means later throughout the story where the question of whether one can
"live" in Siberia is at stake.
Living in Siberia
Semyon does not offer here a theoretical defense of his claim that all the
things of this world that we think of as naturally desirable goods also bring evils into our
world. Instead Semyon tells the tale of a fellow exile whom he has known and watched
for many years. That man, Vassily Sergeyich, is not a foolish peasant like the Tartar;
rather he is a gentleman. But he is still a man who wants things and who tries
disastrously to bring only the good things to Siberia. That man came to Siberia fifteen
years ago, and he began his time rather auspiciously according to Semyon. Vassily tried
to abandon his former life as a gentleman to embrace a new life as a settler. He bought a
house and land (apparently this did not upset Semyon), and he determined to live by his
8
�own work "in the sweat ofhis own brow." This looked promising. Vassily was leaving
Russia behind him and making a life based upon what Siberia offered. Only "from the
very first"·Vassily took to riding out and checking the post from back home. This is
where the trouble started. Perhaps it should also mean that Heaven should receive no
mail from the earth. That is to say, even the interest of Heavenly beings in the lives of
the living may be a problem for Heaven.
The problem with checking up on the news back home may seem a small thing. It
may look innocuous to bring information into Siberia, but Vassily' s checking of the post
either reveals itself to be or transforms itself into a concern with money. When being·
ferried back from his journeys to the town that gets the post (the post is not in Heaven
proper), Vassily begins complaining that the people back home are not sending him
money. Semyon tries to dissuade Vassily and to nip the problem in the bud. "You don't
want money... What use is it to you? You cast away the past, and forget it as though it
had never been at all, as though it had been a dream, and begin to live anew... Now you
want money ... but in a very little while you'll be wanting something else, and then more
and more" (Chekhov, p.92). Seeming to prove Semyon correct, two years later Vassily
has his wife and small daughter brought out to him in Siberia. When they arrive, V assily
seems extremely happy. His wife is beautiful and Vassily cannot take his eyes off of her.
He proclaims to Semyon, "Yes, brother Semyon, even in Siberia people can live!"
(Chekhov, p.92). This claim, that one can live even in Siberia remains a bone of
contention between V assily and Semyon. Life, if one thinks of it as being happy while
wanting and pursuing the natural goods of this world, is what Semyon silently claims
cannot be done in Siberia.
9
�With the introduCtion ofhis wife into his Siberian life, Vassily undergoes a rapid
downward spiral. His wife starts losing her looks. Age and hardship will do that. Of
course we are all mud. He constantly feels the need for more and more money to
compensate his wife for her hardships with comforts and then with luxuries. He is
sending back to Russia more and more frequently for more and more money. Vassily
also takes to throwing lavish parties full of persons of status but also of dubious
character, such as politicians, in order to make life in Siberia "livelier" for his wife. Of
course, the predictable happens and Vassily's wife runs offwith another man across the
ferry back to Russia. Women will do such things. It is bound up in their natures.
Vassily wanted his wife with him in Siberia because he loves her. He loves her as a good
thing. She is beautiful and she is also the mother of his child. But beauty attracts
attention and interest and will draw other men. In fact just by being a woman, that is a
being of a particular gender, she will be an object of sexual interest. And by being a
mother, that is, a procreative being, she will have an interest in sex. And so the evil that
befell his life, looks to be the consequence of the good he tried to bring into his life.
Vassily chases after his wife and her lover back in Russia for days, with no
success. When he returns to be ferried back to Siberia, he flings himself upon the floor of
the ferry and beats his head upon its boards. Semyon laughs at Vassily's misery and.
reminds him of the phrase "people can live even in Siberia" (Chekhov, p.93).
The evil that Vassily brought into the Siberian paradise continues to go on in this
story for another eight years. In fact more evils keep streaming in. Vassily begins to
pursue securing his own freedom so that he can continue his pursuit of his wife. He
10
�wastes great sums of money pursuing his release from exile. He also grows old and ruins
his health. His happiness leaves his eyes as he walks about in tears.
Then a hopeful element enters the story. Vassily's daughter matures and this
restores cheer to his life. She becomes the "apple of his eye." Vassily is so taken up with
his daughter that he goes all over singing her praises. And because of her presence in his
life, Vassily returns to saying people can live even in Siberia, adding the sentence "Even
in Siberia there is happiness" (Chekhov, p.93). When this is happening, Semyon admits
that Vassily's daughter has good qualities: she is good-looking and lively. But he thinks
to himself, she is "young, her blood is dancing, she wants to live, and there is no life
here" (Chekhov, p.93). Semyon seems to be saying that young women have a nature we
can know about that leads on to evils that will follow them wherever they are. In a later
passage, after the official telling of the story ofVassily is over, Semyon says something
about the daughter that looks like a comment about all women. "They want petting and
ha-ha-ha! And ho-ho-ho! And scent and pomade" (Chekhov, p.94). There is a lot in this
ha-ha-ha and ho-ho-ho. The Tartar's own wife is young and beautiful. Vassily's wife
was beautiful, and she went the way of the other man. But as Semyon's story goes on, it
turns out Vassily' s daughter gets sick instead, she gets consumption. It seems she did not
succumb to the particular evil that Semyon thinks attends feminine nature; rather she
succumbed to the universal evil that attends all living things. Her very disease is named
consumption, as all transient beings are consumed by the passage of time. Sooner or later
being corruptible means one will become corrupted. This is the way of all flesh. It is the
wayofmud.
11
�Now Semyon tries to imply that her feminine nature is responsible even for the
young lady's decline in health. After saying that the young girl wanted to live where life
cannot be, Semyon simply adds, "And she did begin to pine, my lad" followed by a long
ellipsis. This pining is then by implication supposed to be the cause of the consumption.
And the pining occurs because the feminine nature is suppressed in circumstances where
is cannot pursue its natural course. Thus the thwarted feminine nature brings on the
disease. When female nature cannot bring on the evil that belongs properly to it, that
nature thwarted and frustrated brings on the evil that belongs universally to all living
beings; they do not last.
Vassily's daughter's illness, like his wife's infidelity, causes him to rush about the
world with a sense of urgency. This time he goes from doctor to doctor seeking some
cure for his daughter. When he hears of any new doctor Vassily rushes off to seek his
help. He even does the same when he hears of any sorcerer that might help. This sense
of urgency seems to belong to the nature of caring about beings that do not last forever.
If the object of our interest were eternal perhaps the interest would not involve us in any
sense of urgency. In a later episode when some men from the other side of the river call
for the ferry, Semyon responds very slowly. Ferrying is his life's work, it is his place in
the divine order, and yet he moves like "a man convinced that there was no necessity in
this world to hurry" (Chekhov, p.96).
Semyon concludes the telling of the story of Vassily by asserting that all the
rushing about will not save the girl. She will die. Even if the consumption were to be
cured, eventually she would die. And Semyon says that her death will be the ruination of
her father's life.
12
�One Hour of Happiness
After hearing this whole story, our young Tartar responds by saying "Good,
good." He does not seem to take from the story the lesson that Preacher intended. The
Tartar elaborates that having the things we want, such as Vassily's wife and daughter,
even if only for a limited time is good. "You say, want nothing. But 'nothing' is bad!
His wife lived with him three years- that was a gift from God. 'Nothing' is bad, but
three years is good" (Chekhov, p.94). The Tartar goes on to say "that if his wife came to
him for one day, even for one hour, that for such happiness he would be ready to bear any
suffering and to thank God. Better one day of happiness than nothing" (Chekhov, p.94).
With his response the Tartar raises a challenge to the notion that transience is an evil.
And this is important because transience may be the only natural consequence that
attends each and every one of the things of this world. He seems to be defending the
notion that the good things are good even if they do not last.
Semyon does not stay to dispute the matter. Instead, because of an instance of
transience, his vodka has run out, Semyon goes into the hut to go to sleep. Left alone
with his thoughts, the Tartar begins to imagine his wife coming to Siberia. Here we see
that Semyon' s story has had some of its intended effects. One of the first thoughts the
Tartar has seems to be about the way of mud. He thinks despairingly about how his life
will be able to live in Siberia where there is no food. Then his thoughts turn to the way
of women. He thinks how his beautiful, young wife, whom he also thinks of now as
spoiled and shy, will ever be capable of wandering about Siberia begging for alms. This
13
�thought is too terrible. Finally the Tartar drifts off into a sleep in which he dreams that
this Siberian Heaven is only a bad dream and he is really back home in Simbirsk.
The Tartar's sleep and his dream is broken up by another assertion of this-worldly
transience. Men on the other side of the bank are shouting urgently for the ferry. The
men repeatedly shout for the ferry to make haste, but the ferry takes its time. When the
ferry reaches the other side it is revealed that the reason for haste is Vassily Sergeyich.
His daughter's health has taken a turn for the worse and there is a new doctor that he
needs to rush and try. Semyon can be seen to be smiling now. He taunts Vassily even at
such an ugly moment. He throws Vassily's own words back at him. He stretches out the
word "live" and breaks it into two syllables. "Even in Siberia people can live- can liive" (Chekhov, p.96). This is a moment of triumph for Semyon, and he pours it on. Is
this a kind of cruelty on his part or is it merely a necessary harshness that belongs to the
strict either/or demanded by the way of Heaven? Semyon tells Vassily out loud, to his
face, "It is muddy driving now... You should have put off going for another fortnight. ..
and it's always been no use" (Chekhov, pp.96-97). This harsh treatment drives Vassily
off, or perhaps it is just the urgent need to get on with seeking out the new doctor.
After Vassily leaves, the Tartar in his halting broken Russian condemns Semyon
and praises Vassily. "He is good ... good; but you are bad! You are bad! The
gentleman is a good soul, excellent, and you are a beast, bad! The gentleman is alive, but
you are a dead carcass .... God created man to be alive, and to have joy and grief and
sorrow; but you want nothing, so you are not alive, you are stone, clay! A stone wants
nothing and you want nothing. You are a stone, and God does not love you, but He loves
the gentleman!" (Chekhov, p.97).
14
�This prolonged outburst would seem to be a challenge that must be answered, but
no one takes it that way. All the others just laugh at the Tartar and go back to the hut to
go back to sleep. All they mention and seem concerned about is that it is cold. The wind
'
has blown the door of the hut open and no one gets up to close it because "it was. too
much trouble." If cold is a kind of absence, it is a kind of nothing. Does it then belong to
a Siberian Heaven to be cold. In response to the others' complaints about the cold,
Semyon announces that "I am all right." Perhaps this is also a response to the Tartar's
accusation. When the Tartar who remains outside starts crying like a howling dog, all
Semyon says is "He'll get u-used to it!" The word "used" is broken and drawn out here
too, as the word "live" was earlier. In this case it may be a yawn that draws the word out
and breaks it. Then Semyon goes to sleep followed by the others. The last words of the
story are "The door remained unclosed."
A Divorce
For the moment let us set aside the judgment that seems to be called for by the
ending ofChekhov's story and take a look at another fictional depiction of Heaven. Here
I am on firmer ground, for C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce is explicitly a depiction of
Heaven. This is a work of fiction, a dream. It is not meant to give the facts about
Heaven, nor is it intended "to arouse factual curiosity about the details of the after-world"
(Lewis, p.x). Still the work has a very serious purpose and that is to fight against the
perpetual attempts of one sort or another to mingle the things of Heaven and Hell, to
marry them. Lewis writes that such attempts are "based on the belief that reality never
15
�presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or'; that, granted skill and patience and
(above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found;
that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow tum evil into good
without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to
retain" (Lewis, p.vii). This depiction by Lewis highlights one of the strengths of
Semyon's idea of Heaven; it is an absolute either-or. It demands that you say yes or no to
Heaven, not yes, but. . . Like Semyon, Lewis seems to think one cannot expect Heaven
just to be a place where all the good things of this world are present and cleansed of the
evils that seem always to attend them in this world.
Lewis depicts the attempt to embrace the side of evil as well as that of good as
similar to trying to make the inclusion of mathematical errors useful to the true
calculation of sums. He says "A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you
find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can
be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good" (Lewis, p.viii). As Lewis depicts it in The
Great Divorce, Hell is untruth an unreality and it cannot remain what it is and dwell
lastingly in the truth and reality that is Heaven. Thus if we want the things of Hell (or the
things of Earth) as they are, we are not ready to live in Heaven. The Great Divorce is a
total divorce. The epigraph for Lewis's book is a quotation from a sermon entitle "The
Last Farthing" by George Macdonald, the Scottish minister and fantasist. It reads as
follows: "No there is no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it- no plan to
retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Our Satan must go, every hair
and feather."
16
�A Bus Tour of Heaven
Most of what I have quoted above from The Great Divorce is from the author's
preface where he speaks in his own voice. In the text itself of The Great Divorce C. S.
Lewis appears a character. He is the first person narrator of the story, but he is also
depicted as a deceased spirit, a ghost. Lewis and a group .of other ghosts are down in
Hell, although they do not all recognize Hell as Hell. They catch a bus ride up to Heaven
and each is met by a Bright Spirit particularly suited to help them to let go of Hell and
come stay in Heaven.
This Heaven seems to be a very inhospitable and dangerous place for the visiting
ghosts. The greater reality of this Heaven is,portrayed by all the objects and beings
having much greater hardness and density than their co~terparts on Earth or in Hell.
Thus, for instance, Heavenly blades of grass do not bend and give way to the
insubstantial and light footsteps of the visiting ghosts. Thus walking in this Heaven is
agony and the ghosts must fear lest a rainstorm tear them to shreds with devastatingly
heavy and hard raindrops. One of the visiting ghosts is told "it will hurt at first, until
your feet are hardened" (Lewis, p. 39). Lewis himself"did not entirely like it" (Lewis,
p.24). A ghost called the Hard-Bitten Ghost points out just how unaccommodating this
Heaven is to beings used to living as they did on Earth. "You can't eat the fruit and you
can't drink the water and it takes you all your time to walk on the grass. A human being
couldn't live here" (Lewis, p.52). As if in answer to Semyon's claim that you'll get used
to it, the Hard-Bitten Ghost offers the following example: "What would you say if you
. went to a hotel where the eggs were all bad and when you complained to the Boss,
17
�instead of apologizing and changing his dairy man, he just told you that if you tried you'd
get to like bad eggs in time?'' (Lewis, p.55). This encounter made Lewis's ghost
"question the essential goodness of their country" (Lewis, p.57). How could Lewis not
question the goodness of such a Heaven? The things that we want and the things that we
think we want which seem to define our understanding of what is good. And yet those
things are not present in Semyon' s empty Siberian Heaven and they are not accessible to
us in Lewis's hardened Heaven.
Many of the visiting ghosts that came up on the bus reject this Heaven and choose
to go back down to Hell. A ghost called the Big Ghost is outraged by the Bright Spirit
sent to meet, for it is the spirit of a man who murdered one of the Big Ghost's
acquaintances. The Big Ghost claims he wants justice. "I only want my rights. I'm not
asking for anybody's bleeding charity" (Lewis, p.28). But the Big Ghost is advised by
his Bright Spirit, who, although a murderer, is one of the saved, to ask precisely for
bleeding charity. Justice, at least initially, looks like a principle that can be understood.
The contrasting principle here, charity or mercy does not look to be intelligible. If we
understand by justice giving to each that which is fitting (which is the one definition of
justice in the Republic that is not refuted by Socrates) then justice would seem to be an
adequate principle. George Macdonald endorses this principle in his sermon "The Last
Farthing"- "Righteousness is just fairness- from God to man, from man to God and to
man; it is giving everyone his due." There may remain great practical difficulties in
determining what the fitting is in each case, but the principle of justice is not in need of
some other principle to supplement or correct it. Mercy is not here a principle that
corrects justice, mercy is an alternative principle. The Big Ghost is told he does not
18
�deserve Heaven based on the principle of justice, because "You weren't a decent man and
you didn't do your best. We none of us were and none of us did" (Lewis, p.29). Thus
justice, a principle that could be rationally intelligible based upon the principle of the
fitting is not a part of Heaven. And mercy which might very well resist being made
intelligible is a part of Heaven.
An Episcopal Ghost whose Bright Spirit turns out to be one of his friends from his
school days is gravely disappointed to find that there is no place for intellectual inquiry in
Heaven. His Bright Spirit tells him, "I will bring you to the land not of questions but of
answers, and you shall see the face of God" (Lewis, p.40). The Episcopal Ghost wants to
hold on to the free play of inquiry, and he fears that the achieved truth of Heaven "puts an
end to intellectual activity" (Lewis, p. 41 ). The Bright Spirit tries to address this by
saying, "Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time
when you asked questions because you wanted answers" (Lewis, p.41). But the
Episcopal Ghost cannot see in such final answers as offered by Heaven anything that he
wants. Instead he chooses to return to Hell where he has a little Theological reading
group going and where "there is plenty of intellectual life" (Lewis, p.43).
Beyond justice and inquiry this Heaven seems to be lacking many other things,
activities, and relationships that belong to what human beings tend to regard as making
up the good things in earthly life. There is no place in this Heaven for poetry and music
and painting. As one of the Bright Spirits explains, "Ink and catgut and paint were
necessary down there," to create images pointing to a higher, truer reality, in the Heaven
that is that reality the creative arts are just "dangerous stimulants" (Lewis, p.85). Even
parental love as it might like to assert itself as being the surest and truest good is not
19
�allowed in Heaven. A female ghost comes up to Heaven to see her son who is one of the
saved. But she is not allowed to see him. She is met by the Bright Spirit of her brother
who explains to her that even the "highest and holiest feeling in human nature" does not
have the right of authority in Heaven. In the course of the conversation it is even implied
that God took the life of her son in part to try to make her relinquish her claims about the
height and priority of mother-love.
In the course the interview with this mother ghost, her Bright Spirit explains
something that pertains generally to all feelings, all the wants that belong to human
nature, that is earthly human nature. He says, "no natural feelings are high or low, holy
or unholy in themselves. They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go
bad when they set up on their own" (Lewis, p.lOO). Nature, earthly, human nature then
has no standing on its own in Heaven. This mother's problem consisted in putting forth
her own love for her child as the highest thing and leaving God out of the consideration.
Her brother explains that getting used to this Heaven involves a kind of thickening
process that will make one more real by giving God priority and centrality in all one's
relations to things. The brother says "the whole thickening treatment consists in learning
to want God for His own sake" (Lewis, p.99).
Seeing what is wrong in this mother ghost who puts her own love before love of
god is key to seeing the faults that keep all the damned from going to Heaven. George
Macdonald, who appears in The Great Divorce as Lewis's Bright Spirit and Teacher,
explains the one reason why the damned are damned. "Milton was right. ... The choice
of every lost soul can be expressed in the words 'Better to reign in Hell than serve in
Heaven.' There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery"
20
�(Lewis, p. 71 ). Holding on to something that can be thought of as belonging wholly to
themselves, which means holding onto something belonging merely to human nature or
to the naturally earthy realm, is what keeps human beings out of Heaven. Working
towards letting go of the kind of things you can claim are all yours is what it means to get
used to the kind of Heaven that Lewis depicts in The Great Divorce. In this depiction of
the thickening process that makes a spirit suitable for Heaven there is a final stage after a
long, difficult walk to the heavenly mountains. In those mountains there is a fountain and
drinking from that fountain cleanses away the last of one's earthly sickriess. "When you
have drunk of it you forget forever all proprietorship in your own works" (Lewis, p.85).
The Value and Intelligibility of the Idea of Heaven
Both of the ideas of Heaven that we encounter in these works of fiction suggest
that Heaven requires us to give something up; it is no small thing. What we might say we
are asked to give up is our human nature. For Semyon's Siberian Heaven we must
abandon all the wants that we have in this world. For Lewis's Heaven we must abandon
our sense that things are our own. For Macdonald a man must give every last farthing
until his personal resources are nothing. After this thorough giving up of our nature we
then begin anew, we can start afresh, we can be transformed into beings of a different
sort, suited to life in Heaven. That new life will belong not to natural beings but to
supernatural beings.
Perhaps that is the greatest strength of these images of Heaven, they drive us to
think about the supernatural. One of Lewis's Bright Spirits tells the Episcopal Ghost that
21
�this is the question, "The one question on which all turned: whether after all the
Supernatural might not in fact occur?" (Lewis, p.37).
What is the value and the intelligibility of the idea of the supernatural? The
supernatural cannot just be another phusis above or alongside the one with which we are
already familiar. That would tum out just to be the idea of our world extended to other
senses and capacities. Heaven could thought of as such a place outside of the range of
our powers of access, operating according to a nature or set of natures different from
those we know. Such a Heaven would be an unknown for us. We could not want it. But
conceptually it would just be another realm of nature waiting to be discovered and
revealed.
Perhaps a more adequate idea of the supernatural is to think of it as the breaking
or abolishing of nature and natures. (One might recall here the breaking of words in
Chekhov's story). A supernatural Heaven thought of as a place without natures could
seem on the surface to be familiar to us. We may be capable of being aware of things,
but withoutnatures could we have senses that add adjectives to things such as a sense of
vision that sees a bare or hollow bank? The things of such a supernatural situation might
have individual names, but could they belong to intelligible classes? But do we need
intelligible classes in order to act and to live? We might need such things if we tried to
live by the guidance of our human capacities alone. But what if we were given guidance,
orders, from something beyond the human? At the beginning of George Macdonald's
sermon, "The Last Farthing," Macdonald says, "There is a thing wonderful and admirable
in the parables, not readily grasped, but specially indicated by the Lord himself- their
unintelligibility to the mere intellect. They are addressed to the conscience and not to the
22
�intellect, to the will and not to the imagination. They are strong and direct but not
definite. They are not meant to explain anything, but to rouse a man to the feeling, 'I am
not what I ought to be, I do not the thing I ought to do!'" Perhaps the idea of heaven is
like this too. As such it is not exactly friendly to the intellect. It denies authority to the
intellect to judge and it resists the attempt even to be apprehended by the intellect.
In reading these fictional accounts I have been driven to seek an idea of Heaven
that is genuinely an idea of the supernatural. The difficulty of achieving such an idea
might be illustrated by the difficulty of assessing the ending of Chekhov's "In Exile."
The door to the hut is blown open by the wind. Is this wind a humdrum aspect of the
natural world, not deserving any special interest? Or is this wind a symbol or a message
from the unseen and unseeable supernatural forces that prevail in the world? Is the
failure to get up and close the door a proper, albeit unexpectedly proper, heavenly
repose? Is it an acceptance, to our surprise, of the empty cold that belongs to Heaven?
Or is it a sad pointer to the defeated and depleted lassitude that is the human truth behind
Semyon's want nothing attitude? Is there a clue in the Chekhov's negative phrasing of
the last word? He does not write that the door remained open, he writes that it remained
"unclosed."
23
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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Grenke, Michael W.
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What will heaven be like?
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2013-01-18
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pdf
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on January 18, 2013 by Michael Grenke as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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text
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Heaven in literature
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English
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Bib # 80676
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<a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/28">Audio recording</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c122c40a15791636b8fafab4cd0f42fd.mp3
73bc0af60004b5469695cf03bad0ae47
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Description
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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00:59:31
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Hanning, Barbara Russano, 1940-
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How Opera Began: And Why It Began in Florence
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2011-03-25
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mp3
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on March 25, 2011, by Barbara Hanning as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Annapolis, MD
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Opera. Italy. Florence. History and criticism.
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English
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LEC_Hanning_Barbara_2011-03-25
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<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7695" title="Typescript">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
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8b9e04ca635fafce166f99a4bcc184eb
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Dante's Ontology: What the Florentine Poet Can Teach Contemporary Philosophers
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Friday night lecture
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Harrell, Daniel
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Does Beauty Have a Place in Liberal Education?
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2010-09-03
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LEC_Harrell_Daniel_2010-09-03
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Harrell, Daniel
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Does music move?
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2013-02-15
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Sounds recording of a lecture delivered on February 15, 2013 by Daniel Harrell as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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sound
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Music, Philosophy and aesthetics
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English
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Bib # 80723
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<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/34">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Text
Does Music Move?
Daniel Harrell
Friday Night Lecture
St. John's College, Annapolis, MD
February 15, 2013*
Does music move?
Well, yes-if by "music", we meant the vibrations of sound that allow us
to hear what a musician plays: from instrument to air to ear.
Or yes again-if by "move" , we meant the way we can be moved by music:
from table-taps to tangos to tears.
But the question is harder to answer, if we ask it of music's movement in a
more elementary sense. -The sense in which we might say, of a rhythm, that it
quickens and slows; or of a melody, that it rises and falls ; or of a harmony, that
it departs and returns. And suppose we say all this about the first movement
of a symphony, not thinking twice about calling this a "movement". For we
talk as if we hear just that in the symphony- movement- and as if any piece
of music moves itself in moving us .
Our talking this way has a point. For if we didn't hear music move, would
we hear it at all? Without movement , music would seem no more than a series
of sounds.1 But there is a problem with our talking this way, despite its point.
And this is the problem I discuss in my lecture tonight . In its first part, I
explain what I take the problem to be. In its second part, I explain why I
take the problem to be important. In its final part, I offer two solutions to the
problem, in the attempt to deepen our sense of it.
I
The nature of the problem.
So what is the problem with our talking as if music moved? The problem, in
a word, is space: the space in which we hear music move. -The space that
allows it to quicken and slow, rise and fall, depart and return. For this space
*The formatting and notes of this copy are dated February 17, 2013. I thank Gabriela
Hopkins for helping me improve the lecture with comments and conversation about earlier
drafts . I also thank participants in the Question Period for further thoughts, some of which
appear in the footnotes of this copy.
1
For further discussion of this, see Chapter VII, "The Paradox of Tonal Motion", in
Victor Zuckerkandl's Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World ; and the section
"Movement" of Chapter 2, "Tone" , irt Roger Scruton's The Aesthetics of Music.
1
�2
Does Music Move?
makes something close to complete sense on the one hand, yet something closer
to nonsense on the other. 2
To see the sense it makes, we can start by comparing the movement we hear
in music, with the variation we hear in sounds more generally. Consider, for
example, the difference between a melody and a siren. Both involve a change in
pitch over time. And we might say, in that respect, that both rise and fall. But
unlike the siren, the melody does this in a kind of articulated space, usually
conceived as a scale. And this space gives us the impression of movement, from
one place to the next. We sense a change of place, in other words, within the
melody's change in pitch, as if having caused it.
As illustration, suppose we hear the beginning of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little
Star" on middle-C, where C is followed by the G a fifth above. Within this
change in pitch, we hear a change of place-from the first degree of a melodic
scale to the fifth; or otherwise put, from the i to the 5.3 And this change of
place gives us the impression of a movement having caused the change in pitch:
in this case, of a leap from the i to the 5, causing C to be followed by G.
Now suppose we hear the siren rise from C to G. We don't hear this rise
happen in the articulated space of a scale; and the continuity of the rise would
seem to preclude it, since the places in a scale are discrete. But this means we
are given no impression of movement by the siren's change in pitch, from one
place to the next. It's as if the siren rises only in time, not in space. True, we
can see, or at least infer, a change of place behind the siren's change in pitch,
in the fire engine, say, that produced it. But we don't hear any change of place
within the change in pitch, that might replace the fire engine as cause, and
turn what we hear as a signal into what we could hear as a melody.
Of course, we may not know about a musical scale, to account for the change
of place we hear in the melody. But this ignorance is only more evidence for the
sense made by the space of music's movement, in its own terms. And it reflects
a striking fact about what it means to understand music. For we can develop
an altogether discerning musical ear, while remaining all but illiterate about
what we hear. And becoming literate, by studying music theory, underlines
the sense music makes even without this theory. For the topography of this
theory-such as the melodic scale-is more discovered than invented, and in
the discovery, more inhabited than observed. One sign of this is the way we
are moved by music; for we are thus moved inwardly, in the space we inhabit
as selves. But I will now try to show this more explicitly. And my conclusion
2 For a defense of the necessity of thinking that music moves in space, but that the space
in question is metaphorical, see Chapter 4, "Movement", in Roger Scruton's Understanding
Music.
3 Strictly speaking, I refer here to the melody of "Twinkle, Twinkle .. . ", which predates
the words by some forty years in a French song called "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman". In a
more important strictness, what I call the beginning of "Twinkle, Twinkle .. . " is really the
second "event" in the melody. The first is a repeating of middle-C, within which we hear the
repeating of the i. But is this first event a movement? Does it involve a change of place? I
thank John Verdi for drawing my attention to this question after the lecture. I think this is
a movement, and can even be said to involve a change of place, but one that shows why the
melody is temporal rather than spatial. I say more about this in subsequent notes.
�I. The nature of the problem.
3
will be that it is because we inhabit what we hear, in hearing music move, that
the space of this movement makes complete sense. The completeness in this
sense has to do with the experience of inhabitance.
To begin to see this, recall the terms I used for the melody "Twinkle,
Twinkle." I identified its first two pitches by not~middle-C and the Ga fifth
above. This identification depends on two topographical facts in our perception
of notes, even outside a musical context. The first such fact is that we hear
a difference in pitch, whereby one note is distinguished from another, as a
difference in relative place: one note sounding higher, the other note lower.
This perception is also transitive: if one note sounds higher than a second, and
the second higher than a third, then the first will also sound higher than the
third. Our perception of pitch difference so gives every note its own position
along an axis of height. Hence my talk of the G a fifth above middle-C, to
distinguish it, say, from the G a fourth below.
Then there is my reference just now to the two G's on either side of middleC, along with my reference to middle-C itself, in order to distinguish that C
from every other C there is. This repetition of note letters reflects the second
topographical fact in our perception of notes: the phenomenon of the octave.
For while we distinguish notes by their difference in pitch, this difference reaches
a kind of limit at the interval called the "octave", where the notes sound the
same, despite their difference in pitch, and are thus given the same letter as
name. Exactly why we hear this sameness is hard to say: Aristotle ascribed it
to a perception of the whole number ratio two-to-one; while Victor Zuckerkandl
calls it a miracle. 4 But however it happens, the sameness we hear in notes, once
their difference in pitch reaches the octave, in effect contains that difference.
If we pass beyond it, we don't encounter new notes, but only new instances,
higher or lower, of old notes. The octave thus turns the axis of height, along
which notes are arranged by pitch, into a kind of circumference, which continues
to trace their increase or decrease in pitch without end, but always to the same
place again.
Yet this image, of notes now arranged into a circumference by the octave, is
not yet an image of the space in which music moves. For it only comprehends
the change in pitch involved, as we might conceive this change to carry us
along the circumference. But in hearing a melody, we again hear a change of
place within the change in pitch, such as the leap from the i to the 5 at the
start of "Twinkle, Twinkle . .. " . And this description reflects another pair of
topographical facts in our perception of notes, once we hear these notes in a
musical context. The first such fact is that we hear movement from note to
note, without having to hear any notes between. So in "Twinkle, Twinkle . .. ",
we hear a leap from the i to the 5, without having to hear the 2, 3, and 4 first.
And to hear them first would not complete the leap, as if to fill it in, but rather
transform the leap into a climb. Why this is a fact of musical perception may
4 Aristotle attributes the cause of the octave to the ratio 2: 1 in Book II, Chapter 3, of
his Physics, 194b28-29. Zuckerkandl calls it a miracle in his discussion of the octave in the
section "Scale" of Chapter VIII, "The Thue Motion of Tones", in Sound and Symbol.
�4
Does Music Move?
be as hard to explain as the octave. But as a phenomenon, it seems to involve
a sense of being oriented in the movement we hear from note to note. It's as if
we faced the note we were moving to, and reached it as a goal, heedless of any
notes on the way. 5
The sense of being oriented among notes is even clearer in the second topographical fact, which involves our perception of notes in musical contexts we
call tonal. It is this fact that forced me to shift from letters to numbers, when
identifying the leap in "Twinkle, Twinkle .. . " from the i to the 5. For in tonal
musical contexts-and the name "tonal" is derived from this fact-we will hear
one note as a kind of center, which orients us with respect to the other notes
we hear, as if to provide a place from which to face them. The central note is so
assigned the number 1 in analysis , and the other notes assigned other numbers
in reference to 1. Again, why we can hear a certain note as central is hard
to say. But the phenomenon, as Zuckerkandl would remind us, is dynamic, in
an orientation more felt than seen. We hear the central note as central, that
is, by sensing a stability in it relative to the other notes, as if it provided a
place to face them as a center of gravity. This second topographical fact so
informs the first : for we then move from note to note as if under the influence
of a gravitational pull, requiring effort to overcome, and supplying momentum
in success, in a deepened sense of having faced the note being moved to, and
reaching that note as a goal.
We can accommodate these facts of musical perception into the ear lier image
of a circumference of notes, arranged by pitch and bounded by the octave.
For once we hear one note in the melody as central, especially if we hear it
as a center of gravity, it's as if we were projected with that note inside the
circumference. And this projection allows us to move from note to note not
simply along the circumference, through every note between, but now across
the circumference, guided by the one note inside it as a center of orientation.
This image so gives a geometric form to the complete sense made by the space
in which music moves. For this is the sense in which we inhabit that space.
To be sure, the development of this sense, as shown by the specifically tonal
context in which we hear one note of a melody as central, depends on the like
development of a specific form of musical art-the art of tonality, to which we
owe the music of the West. But there would be no such art to develop, unless
the result made a difference to what we could hear; and in this case, to what
we could inhabit in what we hear. And much of tonal music's development can
be explained as a deduction from the features of a place we inhabit.
I spell this thought out briefly, in one example, for those familiar with this
5 It could also be noted here, in light of a previous note, that we hear the repeating of
the i at the start of "Twinkle, Twinkle . . . " in the same way: as a movement from origin
to goal, even though the origin and goal in this case are the same. This already suggests
there is something fundamentally temporal about our orientation in the perception of notes
in a musical context. For we would simply stay in the same place (on the i) except for the
repetition allowed by time, which distinguishes the place at one moment from the place at a
subsequent moment, and allows the staying to be the result of movement (in this case from
the i to the i).
�I. The nature of the problem.
5
development. If we inhabited the space of music's movement, it seems we
should not simply be fixed at a single center of orientation. We should rather
be able move that center, carrying it with us from place to place. And move
it we can-once tonal music developed the device of modulation, to carry us
from key to key. We might also expect the movement of that center to happen
along an axis of depth, away-and-back, not just to distinguish it from the upand-down movement between notes along an axis of height, but also from a
sense of perspective, which implicitly belongs to our sense of orientation when
we inhabit a place. And so we do move away and back-once tonal music
developed the harmony out of polyphony that modulation relies upon. We
might further expect the movement of the center to clarify our sense, as I
described this above, of the gravity felt at work in such a space. And clarified
it is-once the use of modulation effectively reduced the modes of chant to
the major-minor scale. We might finally expect the movement of the center to
deepen our sense that we inhabit one space, which contains the places moved
between, rather than many spaces distinguished and divided by those places.
And deepened it is--once the use of modulation forced upon the tuning of a
scale the leveling of equal temperament. For this restricts the notes of any key
to the notes in every key. And as Roger Scruton has strikingly described the
result, equal temperament thus "places the whole of tonal space within reach
of its every occupant." 6
Along with this deduction comes a plausible measure of the greatness in a
musical work. The greater it is, the deeper it carries us into the space of music's
movement. And by that measure of inhabitance, the best demonstration of the
complete sense this space can make, is found not in my account, but rather in
those masterpieces of music-such as Beethoven's Eroica-where this space is
explored to a kind of limit, in the conquest of it. 7
But as I said, the space of music's movement also makes a kind of nonsense. To see this, we can start by now comparing the movement we hear in
music, with motion as we observe this more generally. Consider, for example,
the difference between the movement of a melody, like "Twinkle, Twinkle ... "
again, and the motion of our hand in following that melody, as if to conduct
it. We could say that both rise and fall, and do so not just in time but in
space, through a discernible change of place. But there is a difference. For
as I mentioned earlier, we hear the change of place in the melody, such as the
leap from the i to the 5 in "Twinkle, Twinkle ... ", without having to hear any
places between. The movement happens discretely. By contrast, we see the
hand's change of place happen continuously, from place to place through all
the places between. And this continuity would seem a necessary feature of its
6 Roger
Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, p. 244.
also suspect that the space we are carried into so clearly and compellingly by tonal
music is what makes atonal music so off-putting for first-time listeners; it doesn't carry us
(at least at first) into any space. There is also a question, then, about what allows atonal
music to make sense once a listener does grow accustomed to it. If atonal music can carry
us into a space in which we hear it move, then is this a different space from tonal music or
not? I thank Sam Weinberg for bringing this issue up in the question period.
71
�6
Does Music Move?
motion. For if our hand got from place to place discretely, like the melody did,
skipping places along the way, then it would look to us as if our hand reached
each place not by motion, but rather by magic. Or at least we'd be tempted
to think there was something in the space where the motion occurred, beyond
just space, that was interrupting the motion, disrupting the continuity it would
otherwise have. But this is one reason, then, to think there isn't really a space
for the melody to move in. For if there were, then it would allow the melody
to move in it continuously rather than discretely.
But this reflects another difference-involving identity rather than continuity-between the movement of the melody and the motion of our hand in
following it. For the melody is composed of the notes it moves between, while
our hand is not composed of the places it moves between. And this explains
at once why the melody has to move discretely. For it has to become what it
is. And this means passing through only those notes that compose it, and that
distinguish it, thus composed, from any other melody. But then the melody
can only be what it is by becoming so, over an interval of time. And in this
sense, the melody is temporal rather than spatial, with an identity in time
rather than space. 8 But this is then another reason to think that there isn't
really a space for the melody to move in. For if there were, then it would allow
the melody to possess an identity in space; that is, it would allow the melody
to be what it is in space without having to become so, and to remain what it
is, unchanged, through every change of place.
But here is perhaps a stronger way to put the nonsense: If there really were
a space for the melody to move in, then there would be a melody to hear, in the
space where we hear it move. But there isn't. We hear the leap in "Twinkle,
Twinkle" , for example, without hearing anything making the leap. For we hear
this leap being made between unleaping notes, but nothing further to which we
might attribute the leap. And this is true for music in general-a fact reflected
in the unmoving notes on a musical score. Once the score is performed, we hear
a movement being made between the unmoving notes, but nothing further to
which we might attribute the movement. So we hear movement, but nothing
making the movement. Yet how, in that case, could there be any movement to
hear? And what could be making it?
Yet this is only the start of the nonsense. And the end of it implicates our
very inhabitance of the space in question. We can see this through an objection
to the analysis I just gave. True, the objection runs, we have a sense of the
space in which motion ordinarily occurs, that we cannot apply to the movement
of music. For applying it makes nonsense of the movement, by depriving this
movement of any object to which it might be attributed. But what follows
from this? Perhaps only that the space in which music moves, is not ordinary,
8 As I mentioned in an earlier note, another mark of the temporal identity of a melody is
the fact that a note can be repeated in it (like at the beginning of "Twinkle, Twinkle . . . "),
and we hear a movement in this repetition even though the place remains the same (making
the staying-in-place of the melody event-like rather than inertia-like). This implies that the
places in a melody are not just defined by the articulated space we know as a scale, but also
by the articulated time we know as beat, meter, and rhythm.
�I. The nature of the problem.
7
but extraordinary. And this is one way to understand my earlier defense of the
sense-the complete sense-made by this space. For this was not an observed
sense of space, but rather an inhabited sense of space. The sense, for example,
in which we face the note being moved to, and reach it as a goal. So if there
is a space for music to move in, which makes sense of the movement, then this
space will have to be conceived from within, as a matter of inhabitance, rather
than from without, as a matter of observation.
The objection has a point. But it makes the nonsense even clearer. For
what is it, finally, that makes an inhabited sense of space extraordinary? Here is
one answer. An inhabited sense of space is extraordinary, in not stopping short
of totality. That is, our inhabited sense of space implicitly includes everything
there is, known or unknown; anything captured in the word "Being". For it
is beings, finally, that we take ourselves to be surrounded by, and our own
being that provides the place from which to face them. This is why, despite
our sometimes talking as if there were more than one world, and even more
than one world we might inhabit, we can also talk intelligibly of the world, as
if there were only one. And it is our being-in-one-world, on this answer, that
grounds our inhabited sense of space.
But what happens, then, when our inhabited sense of space is divided?
- For example, between sleeping and dreaming, where it seems we inhabit two
spaces at once? We resolve the division, evidently, by conferring worldhood
on only one such space, taking it to contain the other such space. That is, we
credit only one space with the totality, and thus the reality, of inhabitance,
and regard the other space as merely part of this totality. The credit we give
to its own totality, then, is the credit we give to a dream. We still inhabit
the dream-and more alertly than we inhabit the bedroom in which we dream,
often with a sense that everything is put at stake in the dream, in a matter
of life or death. But in waking from the dream, we prove it part of a larger
space of inhabitance. And this gives the dream's apparent totality the status
of mere appearance; and our inhabitance of it, the form of an illusion. To our
relief, or perhaps our regret, what happened to us in the dream, didn't really
happen after all.
But if this is so, then it gives us reason to suspect the very same thing
of the space we inhabit when hearing music move. The space may well be
illusory, making all the sense- but also all the nonsense-of a dream. And
in that case, the greater the work of music, the deeper it carries us into the
dream. We hear the sound of Beethoven's Eroica surge forth in a concert hall,
seeming to make the whole world shake. Yet the musicians barely move by
comparison, while the notes they play move not at all. And we concert-goers
stay glued to our seats-entranced. And once the work is finished, in a triumph
of conclusiveness, we are released from the trance in a daze-and the desire,
perhaps, to have remained. For we leave the concert hall likely finding the
world we truly inhabit unchanged by what we heard, and nothing comparable
to its conclusiveness in the life we have to live.
This, then, is what I take to be the problem with our talking as if music
moved. Talking that way fails to distinguish our experience of music from a
�Does Music Move?
8
dream, in which nothing we experience really happens.
II
The importance of the problem.
I also take this problem to be important. To explain why, I discuss this problem
again, but now as a problem not simply with our experience of music, but more
generally, with our experience of the world. For we talk not just as if music
moved, but as if anything moved. Yet this too involves a kind of nonsense,
known since the time of Parmenides. And it proves to be the same kind of
nonsense we encountered in the movement of music.
To see this, recall my earlier analysis of why there really isn't a space for
a melody to move in. For the melody, in this respect, is temporal rather than
spatial. It is composed of the places it moves between, and can only be what it
is by becoming so. So there isn't a space, strictly speaking, for the melody to
move in, with the continuity or identity of truly spatial things, like our hand
in following that melody.
But while our hand may be spatial in this respect, the motion of our hand
is temporal, just like the melody. In a sense, it too is composed of the places
moved between, and can only be what it is by becoming so. But this implies,
on the earlier analysis, that there isn't really a space for our hand to move in,
or for anything to move in. There is only a space for it to be contained in, and
to occupy, over the course of its motion, at every place composing that motion.
Space, in other words, contains only the path of the motion, not the motion
itself.
But here again is perhaps a stronger way to put the nonsense. If there
really were a space for our hand to move in, then there would be a hand to see,
in the space where we see it move. But there isn't. All we see is the motion
being made from place to unmoving place, by something that occupies each
such place. We see nothing further, to which we might attribute the motion
between places, rather than just the occupancy of those places. So we see
motion, but nothing making the motion. Yet how, in that case, could there be
any motion to see? And what could be making it?
One answer, the kind Zeno might give, is that there isn't any motion to see.9
When we think we see something move, all we really see is that it occupies
different places at different times. And the appearance of motion in this, is
something like the appearance of motion on a movie screen, or in a flip book,
from a succession of images, each of a single place and time, that happens
too rapidly for us to detect. But this first answer leads to a second answer,
found for example in calculus, where there is a motion to see.10 When we see
something move on this answer, all we see, again, is that something occupies
9 For further discussion of Zeno's arguments
VI , Chapters 2 and 9, and Book VIII, Chapter
Considered Historically," in Bertrand Russell's
1 °For a further discussion of this answer, see
Lecture VII, "The Positive Theory of Infinity,''
World.
against motion, see Aristotle 's Physics Book
8; and Lecture VI, "The Problem of Infinity
Our Knowledge of the External World.
Lecture V, "The Theory of Continuity,'' and
in Russell's Our Knowledge of the External
�II. The importance of the problem.
9
different places at different times. Still, it can be proved that there are more
such places than we could ever arrange from one to the next. The places are
many enough, that is, to form a real continuum, beyond the mere appearance
of one. And this makes for a real continuity in the motion we see, giving it all
the reality it needs.
There is a sense, however, in which this second answer misses the point.
For the continuity in question belongs to the motion's path rather than to the
motion itself. And the way this path is proved continuous-for example, in
Dedekind-is by analogy to a line, undivided by time, where every place upon
it is present at once. 11 But the proper analogy for the motion itself would
seem to be a line divided by time, where only one place upon it is ever present
at once-the point right now, so to speak. But how could such a line prove
continuous, if it is made of only one point at a time?
The second answer so leads to a third answer, more philosophical than
mathematical, and found, for example, in Bergson. 12 This answer is distinguished from the first answer in taking the motion we see to be real, and from
the second answer in taking this reality to involve more than just the continuity
of the motion's path. But the promise of this answer comes at a price: for it
embraces the nonsense that makes the problem a problem. On this answer,
that is, there is nothing to see, in the space where we see anything move. And
this is because the space where we see anything move, is the space where the
motion belongs to us, rather than to anything we might see outside us. So
there is a motion to see, when we are the ones making it.
On this answer, in other words, motion occurs in the space we inhabit,
rather than in the space we observe. In the space we observe, we see only the
continuous path of a motion, occupied at every place by the thing that moves.
But in the space we inhabit, we see the motion itself, which is not simply
continuous, but indivisible. The motion in this indivisible sense stretches from
the beginning of its path to the end in a single bound, as if the entire path were
a single place for the moving thing to occupy. And we know this indivisibility
when moving ourselves. For in that case, we face the end of our motion at
the beginning of it, and reach the end as a goal, heedless of any places on
the way-just like in the movement of a melody. And the path we trace in
reaching that goal can be divided only by our changing the goal, in a motion
now different from what it was, but again indivisible. This too is like the
movement in a melody; for only further notes can divide the distance from
note to note, but thereby produce a new melody out of the old one, showing
the movement between notes in any one melody to be indivisible.
But what should we make of this answer? It makes the same appeal to
our inhabited sense of space that we encountered before in making sense of
11 Dedekind draws the analogy in Chapters II and III of his Continuity and Irrational
Numbers.
12 See, for example, Bergson's lecture "The P erception of Change" in the collection The
Creative Mind. There Bergson even connects his account of motion generally to the movement
in a melody. Zuckerkandl follows Bergson's lead in his own account of music 's movement in
Sound and Symbol.
�10
Does Music Move?
the movement in music, only now to make sense of motion as such. But does
it have the same problem? That is, can we show, or know, that we aren't
dreaming when we see anything move?
The question put this generally might seem absurd. After all, to suppose
we were dreaming when seeing anything move, would mean suspecting something illusory about our inhabitance of the world. But there is reason for this
suspicion. And it explains why a question like "Are we dreaming right now?"
has been raised in the history of thought-for example, by Descartes. 13 For
while we might not be dreaming right now, there is arguably nothing in our
inhabitance of the world to prove it. And we lack this proof, so the argument
goes, because we inhabit the world. If we had the proof, we would no longer
inhabit it, but merely observe it.
To see why this argument is worth taking seriously, consider, first , a striking
fact about optical illusions, such as the look of a stick half-plunged in water, and
seemingly half-bent by it. Our knowing the stick stays straight does nothing
to dispel the illusion. But why? One answer is that there is nothing in the
illusion to tell us it's an illusion, and if there were, then the illusion wouldn't
be an illusion. We so remain in the illusion, or inhabit it, as a matter of
perception, even if we stand outside the illusion, or merely observe it, as a
matter of knowledge.
This could also be said of dreams, taking "dreams" in the ordinary sense.
For our dreams so often contain implausible or even impossible events, not to
mention the sense in which all its events, once we wake up, prove unreal. So
why did they seem so real in the dream? Again, one answer is that there is
nothing in the dream, no matter how implausible or impossible, to tell us we
are dreaming, and if there were, then we wouldn't be dreaming. Not being able
to tell is what it means to inhabit the dream. And it is only when something
in the dream wakes us up from it, and puts us outside the dream to observe it,
that we can know it for the dream that it is.
We can give this same answer to the question of why our experience of
music would still seem so real, even if we were convinced-say, by my lecture
tonight-that it was only a dream. For there is nothing in the music to tell us
so, even if there is some account of the music to tell us so. And this is what it
means to inhabit the music, past the point of any account we might give of it.
This answer, then, points to perhaps the most decisive, if negative, feature
of our inhabitance of the world. There is nothing we might encounter in the
world-motion, for example-to tell us the encounter is illusory. For if there
were, then we wouldn't be having the encounter. So for all we know, we might
be dreaming. Arguing against this prospect, perhaps, is our sense that this is
the world, not just some world. But this sense can never be decisive. For the
cost of inhabiting the world, on this answer, is to be past the point of telling
whether it involves any illusions.
13 Descartes raises this question in his First Meditation. It is also discussed in Plato's
Theaetetus, 158b-d; and mentioned, but also dismissed, in Aristotle's M etaphysics, 10lla6. ·
�III. Two solutions to the problem.
11
This, then, is what I take to be the importance of the problem with our
talking as if music moved. For it illustrates a more general problem, with
our talking as if anything moved. Talking that way fails to distinguish our
experience of the world from a dream, in which nothing we experience really
happens.
III
Two solutions to the problem.
I conclude my lecture with two solutions to this problem, in the attempt to
deepen our sense of it. They are incompatible solutions, since they give contrary
answers, in effect , to the question "Are we dreaming right now?"
In the first solution, the answer to this question is yes, we are dreaming right
now. And the solution, then, is to make no appeal to the dream, when we try
to understand the world. We try to understand the world, in other words, by
making no appeal to the sense it makes only from a place of inhabitance-or
even better, by challenging that sense.
Thus described, the solution may sound unpromising; for how can we avoid
this appeal? Still, this is one way to characterize how we have tried to understand the world since Descartes. And we might call this first solution the
solution of science. A central example of it is the way we try to understand
motion, by means of calculus rather than introspection. But more generally,
the terms in which we explain the world, as a matter of observation, are not
the terms in which we encounter the world, as a matter of inhabitance-and
in many cases, such as quantum physics, could never be the terms of such an
encounter. Yet we take this discrepancy as a sign that the world has been
explained rather than erased. And we look for an explanation of our encounter
with music, not in Beethoven's Eroica, but rather in the mathematician's account of numerical ratios, or the physicist's account of wave phenomena, or the
neuroscientist's account of brain patterns, or the biologist's account of evolutionary adaptations, or even the Nietzschean's account of a sickness in the soul.
Despite the fact we don't encounter music as music in such terms, we credit
these accounts as attempts to explain that encounter. Which suggests that
we find nothing self-justifying in the encounter itself; nothing there to tell us
what's really going on- as if the encounter were just a dream. -Or, according
to this first solution to that problem, as if the encounter were what required
explanation, rather than what provided explanation.
This brings me to the second solution. My sketch of it will remind many
of you of Heidegger. 14 But I call it the solution of philosophy. For it embraces
our inhabitance of the world in a way that I suspect always distinguishes a
philosophic understanding of the world from a scientific one. In this solution,
then, the answer to the question "Are we dreaming right now?" is no. There
may be nothing to tell us this- true-but this doesn't mean we might be
dreaming; it rather means we aren't .
14 For a further account of Heidegger's actual answer, see Part One, Division One, Chapters
II and III of his Being and Tim e.
�12
Does Music Move?
This solution may already sound unprorrusmg. After all, there may be
nothing in a dream to tell us we are dreaming, but we are. On this solution,
however, it turns out we aren't, at least as a matter of inhabitance. For any
space of inhabitance is real, because it can be inhabited. And this means we
are always surrounded by beings, and always face them from a being of our
own, whether we find ourselves in a dream, in a symphony, or in the world that
contains them. True, we have reason to think otherwise, in thinking that these
smaller spaces are contained in a larger space that proves their own totality to
be illusory. But this assumes that any space of inhabitance lies in space. Yet
it is only a space of observation, on this solution, that lies in space. Any space
of inhabitance lies instead in time.
Perhaps this solution now sounds even more unpromising. For how can
there be any room in time for a space of inhabitance, when the only part of
time that ever exists is 'right now ', that instant between the no-longer and notyet at the seeming size of a point? Still, this very fact about time's evanescence
turns the illusion of motion into an object of wonder, if not astonishment. For
according to our earlier analysis, motion is what it is, only in time. But if time
exists only at a point, then how could we ever encounter a temporal whole
like motion---even in the form of an illusion? How could we even dream that
we hear the rise and fall of a melody, or see the rise and fall of our hand in
following it?
It is in offering an answer to this question, that the solution starts to look
more promising. And the answer is this. 'Right now' may be no larger than
a point. But this is still room enough to establish a space of inhabitance, in
providing a center of orientation. And this is the center from which the not-yet
lies ahead of us, the no-longer lies behind us, and the right-now is always with
us. And in being always at this center, we are always in the world, even when
we find ourselves in a dream, or a symphony. We inhabit even these smaller
spaces from the same center of orientation, where the not-yet is ahead of us as
a matter of expectation, the no-longer is behind us as a matter of memory, and
the right-now is always with us as a matter of attention. And in these terms,
temporal terms, any space of observation becomes a place of inhabitance.
It is also in these temporal terms that any place of inhabitance is real rather
than illusory. For this center of orientation, despite being a mere point in time,
comprehends a totality of time for each of us: from a beginning in birth that
no one else can share, to an end in death that no one else can know, in a span
of time without remainder. This is the center, then, from which the not-yet
ahead of us is a future to face ; the no-longer behind us is a past to bear; and
the right-now always with us is a present at stake. So in being always at this
center, at a point of totality, we are always in a world that is real, even when we
find ourselves in a dream or symphony. We inhabit even these smaller spaces
from the same center of orientation, with a future to face, a past to bear, and
a present at stake. This is why we can be released from their spell, without
having recovered from it. In this sense, again temporal rather than spatial, we
are not carried from the world by a dream or symphony, but concentrated in
it. And if our inhabitance of the world is temporal rather than spatial, then
�III. Two solutions to the problem.
13
we are surrounded by events rather than things, to which we are open rather
than closed, making dreams and symphonies possible, not impossible.
Or to summarize this second solution to the problem in conclusion: we can
only talk as if anything moved, much less as if music moved , insofar as the
space we inhabit in talking that way, makes complete sense of what we say,
without any room for nonsense. And this is the space we inhabit right now:
the space made possible by time.
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Harrell, Daniel
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Does music move?
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2013-02-15
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pdf
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on February 15, 2013 by Daniel Harrell as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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text
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Music. Philosophy and aesthetics.
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English
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Bib # 80674
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<a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/33">Audio recording</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/ff8c6af26bbe7a19d847f5e099b194f7.mp3
39188cd9ad0ee5b6a98350d0e2a811bc
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
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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01:09:43
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Kalkavage, Peter
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Principles of Motion and the Motion of Principles: Hegel's Inverted World
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2010-10-15
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on October 15, 2010, by Peter Kalkavage as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Phänomenologie des Geistes.
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Bib # 79789
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<a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3842" title="Typescript">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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