1 20 453 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d61ea06897940fff454edb23e47ecf7f.pdf cc8c65241993db0efb5a87604b754b8c PDF Text Text Marital Flaws and Moral Education in Pride and Prejudice It is my honor to give the Christopher B. Nelson Lecture tonight. Mr. Nelson is an alum of the college and was president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, beginning in 1991. His presidency was marked by consistent care for our community of learning and lasted for more than 25 years, a remarkably long tenure for a college president. I’d like to take this opportunity to invite you all to the question period after lecture, to be held in the Conversation Room. We call it the question period rather than the question-and-answer period for a reason, so adjust your expectations accordingly. By tradition, students are expected to ask the first few questions. The main plotline of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice follows Elizabeth Bennet, or Lizzy, the second oldest Bennet daughter, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a landed gentleman, as they go from immediate mutual dislike to Darcy’s infatuation with Elizabeth and reluctant proposal of marriage (which she rejects), to Lizzy’s change of heart and their ultimate marriage. The reader is privy to the growth in wisdom and maturity of Darcy and especially of Lizzy, as they transcend their own moral weaknesses. The main foil of the plot is Mr. Wickham, the childhood companion turned enemy of Darcy, who joins the militia and charms everyone in town at first, including Lizzy. His bad character is revealed privately to Lizzy by Darcy, and then publicly to the town after he runs away in scandal and debt. Wickham, though he himself never reforms, turns out to provide one of the means of reform for our protagonists. After being shown the falsehood of Mr. Wickham’s story about him, Lizzy realizes and regrets the glee she had taken in believing evil of Darcy. On Darcy’s part, after learning how repugnant his proposal is to Lizzy, because of what she had been told about his behavior towards Wickham, he realizes how obnoxiously prideful he had been behaving. As their eyes are opened to their own faulty behavior, both Lizzy and Darcy become better people. The story of their romance is inextricably connected to their moral education. Once they are married, they bring a bounty to the world. As their love for each other leads to their own moral virtue, they bring that virtue to others, softening hearts and uplifting minds and souls. [For a more detailed look at the Darcys, you can check out a previous lecture I gave in April of 2019, that focused on this couple.] 1 �The Darcys’ marriage is not the only depiction of matrimony that we get from the novel, however. Three other couples develop over the course of the action: Lizzy’s friend Charlotte marries the clownish Mr. Collins; Lizzy’s youngest sister Lydia runs off and eventually marries the deceptively charming Mr. Wickham; and her older sister Jane marries the honorable but overly diffident Mr. Bingley. If Lizzy and Darcy give the reader a model of how a virtuous and loving marriage can produce great fruit in the world, the other marriages formed show different ways in which marriages can be helpful or hurtful to the people involved and to the broader society. Preceding all of these marriages, though, is the foundation established by Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Lizzy’s parents. The novel takes place when the children are mostly grown, from Lydia at fifteen to Jane in her early twenties. The reader is thus introduced to the Bennets over twenty years after their wedding. The newlywed bloom has long worn off. The intensive work of raising young children is over. At the time of the novel, a steady stream of vignettes and conversations between the Bennets depict the state of their relationship. Austen has, however, given us something more than this episodic picture of the Bennets: through the characters of their five daughters, the fruits of their marriage over eight years or so of childbearing. In the characters of the five daughters, we see a reflection of the slow collapse of the Bennets’ marriage, from love and hope to indifference and near depravity. If Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage promises hope through an effusion of virtue, Austen reveals through the other Bennet daughters what can happen when a marriage sours, when affection evanesces, when the duty of love is shirked. The opening scene of Pride and Prejudice begins with the following exchange between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet1: “My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. 1 All quotes, unless otherwise noted, taken from: Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice, Penguin Books, 375 Hudson St, New York, NY 10014, 1996. 2 �“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.” Mr. Bennet made no answer. “Do not you want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently. “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” This was invitation enough.2 Mrs. Bennet proceeds to narrate the details – how Mr. Bingley, a single man of some wealth, will soon be taking on Netherfield Park, an estate within a few miles of the Bennets’ home, and how high her hopes are of securing him as a husband for one of her daughters. This introduction to the Bennets is full of charm and wit. Mrs. Bennet is introduced as Mr. Bennet’s “lady,” yet she has all the hallmarks of a scheming mother, heavily involved in the gossip of the town and trying to get her husband interested and involved. For his part, Mr. Bennet seems resigned to her chattering ways, but ready to tease her when he can, for his and the readers’ amusement. The novel begins with this lighthearted depiction of a middle-aged married couple with all the well-worn patterns of mutual behavior that such a couple evokes, played up for laughs, or at least the amused smiles, of the reader. Some two thirds of the novel later, as the Bennets’ youngest daughter Lydia is on the point of moving to Brighton to become a kind of “militia groupie”, Austen delivers this sobering statement, from the point of view of Lizzy: Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort...Elizabeth...had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband...she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage...3 The change in tone is notable, between the quaint opening scene of a comfortable couple to the stark depiction of the plight of the children who were 2 3 Austen, p5. Austen, p. 198. 3 �raised in such an “unsuitable” marriage. The cause for this sober reflection is the anticipated chaos that Lydia’s unrestrained behavior will bring to the family, and, specifically, to the marriage prospects of eldest sister Jane. Lizzy has already heard from Mr. Darcy that the foibles of her family have been the main reason for his determination to separate Jane from Mr. Bingley, when the latter was of a mind to settle down with Jane. Lizzy can only imagine the further problems that her youngest sister Lydia’s behavior will bring to them all. As we learn later, and as Mr. Bennet himself affirms, Lizzy’s worries were right on point. Lydia ends up running away with the unsavory Mr. Wickham, which brings disgrace to the whole Bennet family until the situation is resolved, finally through the efforts of Mr. Darcy himself. One way of approaching Pride and Prejudice, then, is as a story of how critical the suitability of marriages is for the education and formation of the children who spring from them. As Aristotle tells us in the Nichomachean Ethics, “...it is no small matter whether one habit or another is inculcated in us from early childhood; on the contrary, it makes a considerable difference, or, rather, all the difference.”4 An upbringing in virtue is critical for the ability of a person to live a life of virtue. Austen seems to agree with Aristotle to some degree, but rather than a philosophical exhortation, she gives us a story. On the one hand, the reader is treated to the positive example of Lizzy and Darcy, whose relationship leads to great flourishing for everyone around them. Lizzy’s parents, the Bennets, can be seen as a foil to the main action of the story, a kind of negative example of how a marriage that seems to be perfectly appropriate, but is actually “unsuitable”, can lead to problems for those around them, most notably, the children. What sort of marriage qualifies as “unsuitable”? Mr. Bennet, “...captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection to her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished forever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.”5 Mr. Bennet, we are told, currently spends his days in 4 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Ostwald, Martin, trans. Library of Liberal Arts, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 07632, 1962. 5 Austen, p. 198. 4 �the country or with his books, and teases his wife for his own amusement. Though he avoids the worse fate of taking solace in the more unsavory pleasures of life, he also avoids exerting himself to restrain his wife in her ignorance and smallmindedness. One painful example of Mr. Bennet’s lack of intervention occurs at the Netherfield Ball, where Mrs. Bennet speaks loudly and long on her hopes for Jane’s marriage to Mr. Bingley. This conversation is mortifying to Lizzy, who attempts to quell her mother’s speech. Lizzy’s attempts have a predictable lack of effect on her mother, who continues to boast about the putative upcoming wedding. One can imagine another scenario in which Mr. Bennet, keen to protect his wife’s reputation, gives her a look or quiet word, which Mrs. Bennet would be obliged to respect. Alas, his inaction allows Mrs. Bennet to embarrass the family. This sort of correction never comes, regardless of repeated instances of inappropriate behavior by Mrs. Bennet. Moreover, under the constant confusion provided by Mr. Bennet’s jokes and idiosyncrasies, Mrs. Bennet becomes ever more fretful and silly. Consequently, we are told, Mrs. Bennet is exposed to the ridicule of her own children, who cannot respect her, as is exemplified in Lizzy’s mortification over her mother’s speech at the Netherfield Ball. Lizzy attempts not to notice the “continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum” which she witnesses in her father, who, though likely unable to “enlarge the mind” of his wife, could at least have reined her in, so as to protect her from the scorn of her children.6 We don’t get quite as much insight into Mrs. Bennet’s perspective, but it is safe to say that she is regularly frazzled by her husband and his games. She herself is energetic in the pursuit of husbands for her daughters and, thus, a means for future security for them. Because Mr. Bennet’s estate is entailed upon a male heir, which the Bennets have never managed to produce, the daughters will be left with very little to live on when Mr. Bennet dies. Mrs. Bennet is frustratingly shortsighted in her idea of what would make a good husband for them. Money and general amiability seem to be the only qualities she cares about. Still, she is the only one of the parents to take the situation seriously. One wonders why Mr. 6 Austen, p. 198. 5 �Bennet is not more exercised by the need to make sure his children are well provided for after his death. The Bennets’ marriage began in captivation, youth, and beauty, with respect, esteem, and confidence. Over time, their relationship unraveled, erasing the foundational affection they had for one another. One can imagine a realization on his part over time of the small-minded woman he had married, leading to the decrease and eventual loss of all of those qualities of respect and affection. Lizzy sees for herself how her mother’s lack of restraint and her father’s constant teasing has led to problems for the children. Austen puts these problems on full display for us in the narrative, through the personalities and actions of the five Bennet daughters. We can imagine that the first child, Jane, came fairly early on in the marriage. At the time of the novel, Jane is twenty-two years old, and the marriage is likely about twenty-three years old. From the eldest two, Jane and Lizzy, who are routinely described as well respected by the neighbors, through Mary and Kitty, who are less well respected, to the youngest, Lydia at fifteen, who has no ability or desire to restrain her passions, we can see the unfolding of the problems of the Bennets’ marriage. By the time Lydia comes along, Mr. Bennet has given up his hopes of “domestic felicity” and settled in for years of using his wife for his own sport, thus exacerbating her fretful and emotional temperament. In this lecture, I will examine each of the sisters in turn, taking what clues I can from Austen’s descriptions and imagining the turn of mind inspired by each phase of the Bennets’ marriage. Jane Bennet The eldest of the Bennets’ daughters, Jane is professed by all to be the most beautiful young woman in the area. Unlike in her mother’s case, Jane’s beauty is linked with both goodness and good sense. Towards the end of the novel, when Lizzy is listening to Mr. Bingley’s effusions of joy and hope in his future marriage to Jane, Lizzy muses that their happiness will, in fact, be well founded because of: “...the excellent understanding and super-excellent disposition of Jane...”7 7 Austen, p. 289. 6 �We have abundant evidence of her good sense and disposition in how she handles the drama surrounding her relationship with Bingley. At the first ball they see each other, when both Mr. Bingley and his sisters single her out, Jane is gratified by the attention, though in a quieter way, we are told, than her mother. Rather than the loud triumph we hear from Mrs. Bennet, Jane privately gushes to Lizzy, but keeps her cool around the rest of her family and friends. Lizzy approves of this self-restraint, thinking that “since Jane united with great strength of feeling a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner,” she would be guarded from “the suspicions of the impertinent.”8 In a society in which neighborhood opinion holds such power, Lizzy is grateful that Jane, at least, will not be feeding the gossip mill. Notably, Lizzy’s best friend Charlotte sounds a warning to Lizzy that Jane, in exhibiting such apparent complacency, is at risk of being misunderstood by Bingley himself, who might not know her well enough to realize that she is partial to him. It turns out that Charlotte is right to worry, as Bingley is easily persuaded by the interfering Darcy that Jane is not interested in him. This leads to Bingley leaving Netherfield, never to return, or so his sister communicates to Jane. The complete lack of self-interest in Jane’s interactions with Bingley, while objectively laudable, is subjectively risky, given the difficulty of communication between people in this, or really in any, era, especially in matters of love. In her initial attraction to Bingley, Jane exhibits some growth and maturity from her past, according to her sister and confidante, Lizzy. Her “super-excellent disposition” plays out in a strong inclination to only see the good in people and to discount or reason away the bad. Apparently, this has led her, in the past, to fall for young men who are unworthy of her. Lizzy tells Jane, “...you have liked many a stupider person [than Bingley]... Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eye. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life.” In response, Jane says, “I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.” Lizzy responds, “I know you do; and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others... But to be candid without ostentation or design – to take the 8 Austen, p. 20. 7 �good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad, belongs to you alone.”9 The two sisters disagree in their evaluation of several people towards the beginning of the novel, including Bingley’s sisters and Darcy. Lizzy sees how Bingley’s sisters lose interest in Jane as soon as she leaves the room. Jane believes, however, that they are amiable and true friends to her, until their disregard is fully displayed to her as they rudely dismiss their friendship when they are all in town. At that point, to her credit, she doesn’t make any more excuses for them, but does maintain that, given the evidence presented to her, her confidence in their friendship was as natural as Lizzy’s suspicion, and “...if the same circumstances should be repeated again, I am sure I would be deceived again.”10 We see even more of Jane’s goodness when Wickham alleges that Darcy has ruined him by denying him a position that Darcy’s father had intended for him to have. Upon being presented with a general support of Darcy’s goodness by Bingley, we learn that “...though Jane would have defended either or both, had they appeared to be wrong, she could no more explain such behaviour than her sister...she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley’s regard; and yet it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Mr. Wickham. The possibility of his having really endured such unkindness was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing therefore remained to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and to throw into the account of accident or mistake, whatever could not be otherwise explained.”11 When more evidence comes to light, in the form of Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth detailing the history of Wickham’s immoral and destructive behavior, Jane is shocked, but not, in the end, disbelieving. She accepts that Wickham’s behavior has been bad, though not without working through all possible other explanations. Lizzy’s hard-headedness on this point wins the day in the end, and Jane must admit to the evil that Wickham has perpetrated. In contrast to her mother, who never seems to be able to give up a prejudice, Jane can change her Austen, pp. 14-15. Austen, p. 127. 11 Austen, p. 74. 9 10 8 �opinion on the basis of evidence. Her tendency is to believe others to have good intentions, but she uses her reason and will accept facts when they are clear. Her father notes her intelligence as well. After the two elder sisters return from a trip, Mr. Bennet is grateful for their return, feeling the loss from the evening conversation of “much of its animation and almost all its sense, by the absence of Jane and Elizabet.”12 Jane wants all the world to be good and is ready to believe in people. When Lizzy vigorously claims that her friend Charlotte and the buffoonish Mr. Collins are a disastrous match, Jane is the one who brings calm to the conversation, insisting that Lizzy doesn’t know everything about their relationship and shouldn't be so quick to judge. Jane is more correct than Lizzy on this point, and Lizzy revises her opinions on the marriage somewhat when she visits the Collins’ home. As a final note on Jane’s character, when Wickham’s perfidy is finally exposed to Lizzy and then Jane, Jane insists that the sisters should not reveal the information to the neighborhood, because shooting down his reputation could keep him from reforming himself. Lizzy agrees, but for different reasons. She doesn’t want the trouble of trying to change people’s opinions when they are so set in favor of Wickham. Later, Lizzy regrets not publicizing his misdeeds but Jane does not. Her principles are unchanged: shooting down someone’s reputation would cement him in his badness, and that would leave no room for reform. In Jane, we see the child born from the early affection of the Bennets. Mr. Bennet, recall, was captivated by Mrs. Bennet’s youth and beauty and fooled into thinking that good humor would be present as well. Early on, in his own foolishness, he doesn’t see the foolishness of his wife. Jane, springing from this phase of the Bennet marriage that is marked by affection, beauty, liveliness, the appearance of good humor, and naiveté, exhibits some of these traits herself. Jane, who is physically and morally beautiful, looks for moral beauty in everyone around her: ready to see goodness, ready to like everyone. When presented with stark evidence of bad behavior, she will reluctantly admit to it, but never gives up hope for moral reform. Unlike Mr. Bennet, she doesn’t lose hope; and unlike Mrs. Bennet, she is intelligent and teachable. Jane, who is clear-sighted about the 12 Austen pp. 52-53. 9 �possibility that she could be deceived, would rather risk deception and believe in the possibility of good. Elizabeth Bennet We get to know Lizzy the best of all the sisters. She and Darcy are the main couple around whom the action focuses, and hers is the main point of view given to the reader. She is lively, intelligent, a keen observer of people, and clearly her father’s daughter. Like him, she is continually amused by the foolishness and folly of the people she encounters. Lizzy places a high value on friendship and amiability. When Darcy insults her at the beginning of the novel by rejecting her as a dance partner –not to her face, but within range of her hearing – she feels the sting of the insult, but also revels in the absurdity of the situation. “She told the story however with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.”13 Later, when she encounters Darcy and his cousin at the Collins’ home, she teases Darcy in the presence of his cousin, about his unwillingness to dance with anyone at that ball. Her delight in the absurd is given free rein in her relationship with Collins, the inheritor of the Bennet estate and a “mixture of pride and obsequiousness, selfimportance and humility”.14 She avoids being alone with him for as long as possible, because she knows that he has decided to propose marriage to her. Once she is forced to listen to him, though, she is torn between “distress and diversion” and nearly bursts out laughing at one point, as the pompous Collins describes being “run away with” by his feeling.15 She cannot respect him in any way because of his complete lack of good sense, but is not disgusted by him, so much as amused. Things change when her best friend, Charlotte, ends up marrying Collins. Lizzy is dumbfounded at the news. She finds Charlotte’s decision to accept his proposal disgraceful, and she loses esteem for her friend. It turns out that his foolishness is laughable until someone she cares about takes him seriously as a marriage prospect. Charlotte explains to Lizzy that she only asks for a comfortable Austen, p. 12. Austen, p. 61. 15 Austen, p. 91. 13 14 10 �home and that she believes her prospects for happiness are as good as any. Charlotte has bound herself to a man of immense foolishness for the sake of comfort and security. In Charlotte's view, marriage is a kind of transaction in which companionship is agreed upon for the sake of security. Lizzy cannot agree with this view; it cuts against the grain for her. Despite her own parents’ dysfunction, she holds marriage in high regard, as a partnership between two people who have affection for each other and, critically, who improve each other. She is therefore quite pained by Charlotte’s decision to marry Collins, but after visiting them in their settled home, she comes away, if not favorable towards the marriage, then at least accepting that Charlotte has made the best of the situation. Lizzy’s opinion of marriage is also challenged by Wickham, who began showing a preference for Lizzy but later shifted his attention to a newly rich young woman, by the name of Miss King. Lizzy’s horror at the way her friend Charlotte settles for a foolish husband out of pragmatic considerations is notably absent in her response to Wickham’s turn towards Miss King based on what are clearly monetary considerations. Rather, Lizzy defends Wickham in a conversation with her aunt. Lizzy maintains that a young man must think of his living and that it is perfectly reasonable for him to pursue a relationship with Miss King. Her attitude towards him doesn’t change until she finds out from Darcy just how mercenary Wickham is. Once she understands that he is essentially devoid of morals, she can only feel grateful for anyone who is spared marriage to him. When Lizzy’s youngest sister Lydia tells her and her sisters that Miss King has been forbidden from marrying him, Lizzy is happy for the young lady. When Lydia cruelly dismisses poor Miss King as too ugly for him, Elizabeth was shocked to realize that she herself would have shared in Lydia’s sentiments before learning of Wickham’s character defects. This moment is an interesting one for Lizzy. Throughout the novel, from beginning to end, she is routinely embarrassed by her family. In the episode recounted earlier in this lecture, when her mother, at the Netherfield Ball, talks loudly about Jane’s prospects with Bingley, her mother is within earshot of Darcy, who clearly takes in the whole conversation. Elizabeth tries multiple times, in vain, to get her mother to quiet down. “Elizabeth blushed and blushed again with shame 11 �and vexation.”16 At that same event, her sister Mary performs at the piano with ostentation and Elizabeth “was in agonies.”17 Her father, upon Lizzy’s hint, abruptly and rudely removes Mary from the pianoforte, and Lizzy is further chagrined at his ham-handed way of handling the situation. She also finds the scorn that Darcy’s and Bingley’s sisters have for her family intolerable. All this is in contrast to Lizzy’s father, who is explicitly said to “enjoy the scene”18 as her family is further embarrassing her. Lizzy is her father’s daughter to some degree, but her fierce love for her family may resemble her mother more than her father. She wants them to be respected and respectable. She cannot enjoy the scene of them exposing themselves to ridicule, even the ridicule of people she herself does not like. The moment when she realizes that she and Lydia had harbored similar coarse feelings toward Miss King comes at a time when she is beginning to realize that, however much she sees her family as liable to produce scorn and embarrassment, she herself is not immune from censurable folly. This brings us to her relationship with Darcy. Throughout the first part of the novel, Lizzy and Darcy are living in two different worlds. While Darcy is falling in love, however reluctantly, with Lizzy, she is cementing her implacable hatred of him as a selfish man whose cold nature (as she believes) led him to destroy the prospects of Wickham, a man for whom Darcy was supposed to provide support. Elizabeth is determined to dislike him and even says as much to Charlotte, when Darcy has asked her to dance. When Charlotte suggests she might actually enjoy the dance, Lizzy says, “To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an evil.”19 This tendency to lean into her bad opinion of people is in tension with her high opinion of marriage and desire to have her family be respected and esteemed. Twice, Lizzy is warned that her opinions are verging on the cynical. First, in a conversation with her sister Jane, Lizzy praises Jane’s virtue for refusing to pine over Bingley’s departure from Netherfield. When Jane disclaims any special virtue, Lizzy responds that Jane must allow her to extol Jane’s virtues. “There are few people whom I really love and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see Austen, p. 86. Austen, p. 87. 18 Austen, p. 89. 19 Austen, p. 78. 16 17 12 �of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and the little dependence that can be placed on either merit or sense.” Jane reproves Lizzy at this point, “My dear Lizzy, do not give way to feelings such as these. They will ruin your happiness.”20 Jane, in her tendency to emphasize the good in people, sees the danger that her sister may fall into a dejected cynicism. Later, Elizabeth’s Aunt Gardiner, a particular confidante of hers, says something similar. As the two are conversing, Lizzy gives in to her feelings of disappointment over Bingley’s departure from Jane. “I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.” Her aunt warns her, “Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment.”21 In these two instances, Elizabeth is warned that she is in danger of falling into something like her father’s disappointment with life. As the second child of the Bennets’ marriage, one would imagine that she was born at a time when the Bennets are just beginning to realize that they are not as compatible as they had thought. Mr. Bennet was perhaps beginning an effort to correct his wife, after observing negative traits that he could not ignore, and perhaps Mrs. Bennet was beginning to feel peeved by his lack of responsiveness to her flights of emotion. As the child of this time in their marriage, Lizzy is appropriately hyper-observant of human follies and foibles, laughing at them when she can. She still loves her family, though, and doesn’t wish to laugh at them. She feels the pain of growing up with a ridiculous mother and takes family respect seriously. Jane and Aunt Gardiner both see that Lizzy might fall into the trap of disappointment with others that will, in Jane’s words, ruin her happiness. If Jane resists the temptation to protect herself by being suspicious of the motives of people who appear to like her, Lizzy’s temptation is the opposite: towards a cynical heart. Mary Bennet 20 21 Austen, p. 117. Austen, p. 132. 13 �The third child of the Bennets, Mary, is a moralizer. She is the sister considered least beautiful and the one who spends the most time with books. When Lydia is describing the pleasures of following the militia to Brighton, Mary says, gravely, "Far be it for me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I would infinitely prefer a book.”22 I suspect many of us would sympathize with her on this point. On other points, though, Mary has a tendency to be overly moralistic, to the point of not recognizing the humanity of the people around her. When Lydia and Wickham run off together and as the family are absorbing the fullness of the disaster, Mary quietly speaks to Lizzy about the solace they can take in musing on the moral lesson the situation provides. Though Lydia is in desperate straits, her plight teaches them how important a woman’s reputation is, and how “one false step will involve her in irretrievable ruin.”23 This musing is all the more remarkable because Mary does, in fact, appear to be consoled in thinking of this and similar moral extractions. It seems that the messiness of life is too much for Mary, and that removing herself to the abstractions of moral lessons gives her comfort. We see Mary's abstract rationality at work in many places throughout the novel. Within the first few pages, as Mr. Bennet is teasing his wife, he appeals to Mary to weigh in on the conversation. ’What say you, Mary? for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books, and make extracts.’ Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”24 A few pages later, we see her able to say more. Mary it is, who spells out the difference between pride and vanity, a difference that becomes something of a theme throughout the novel as Elizabeth and Darcy, among others, struggle with finding the line between appropriate pride, inappropriate pride, and vanity. “’Pride,’ observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, ‘is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and Austen, p. 187. Austen, p. 240. 24 Austen, pp. 8-9. 22 23 14 �that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.’”25 Note that Mary has come to these conclusions “by all that I have ever read,” rather than from human experience. She is pretty good at reading books, but not so good at reading people. She disagrees, for instance, with Lizzy’s decision to walk three miles to see Jane, when Jane falls ill at Netherfield. “I admire the activity of your benevolence,” she says, “but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.”26 The outpouring of sisterly affection that is so natural to Lizzy, and even to Jane, is absent from Mary. Instead, she relies on her moral analysis based on what she has read. It’s not surprising, therefore, that she is the sister who most takes to Mr. Collins. “[Mary] rated his abilities much higher than any of the others; there was a solidity in his reflections which often struck her, and by no means so clever as herself, she thought that if encouraged to read and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very agreeable companion.”27 She admires his solid reflections, by which she must mean his abstract moralisms, detached from common sense or human feeling. Collins, who, as Mary accurately notes, is less intelligent than she, comes off looking completely ridiculous again and again. Mary is sometimes ridiculous but mostly just seems out of touch and somewhat boring. When Jane and Lizzy come back from Netherfield after Jane’s illness, “They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough bass and human nature; and had some new extracts to admire, and some new observations of threadbare morality to listen to.”28 “Thorough bass” is a musical notation technique in which the lowest line of vocal accompaniment is listed, along with certain notations Austen, p. 19. Austen, p. 29. 27 Austen, p. 107. 28 Austen, p. 53. 25 26 15 �which indicate the chordal harmony that goes with the lowest note. This amounts to a sort of code that the keyboardist must interpret in order to accompany the vocalists. Mary, by studying “thorough bass and human nature” seems to put the interpretation of people on a level with the decoding of harmonies. Human nature, in her mind, is a puzzle to be solved using techniques that one can learn from academic study. Musical performance is, for Mary, one realm in which she strays into the ridiculous. As much as she cogitates about pride and vanity, she cannot escape her own vanity, wanting to be seen as “accomplished” at music. We are told that she was always “impatient for display” but that she has “neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached.”29 Anyone who has ever taken music lessons will have heard about the distinction between technical proficiency and musicality. Mary lacks musicality, that sense of the wholeness of the piece, the ability to enter into the music with her heart and soul. She tries, but her manner is “affected”. Thus, no one really wants to listen to her obvious efforts to put on a show. They’d rather listen to Lizzy, who doesn’t play well, but plays with heart. Mary’s hard-won technique falls on unappreciative ears. Mary was perhaps born into another phase of the Bennets’ marriage, one in which the couple was starting to separate emotionally from each other. Mary’s habit of taking consolation in rationality may mirror her parents’ dealing with their disappointment in each other by distancing themselves from the messiness of human interaction. One might imagine Mr. Bennet beginning his practice of fleeing to his library around the time little Mary came into the world. Catherine Bennet Kitty is a follower. In her late teens, she is slight, delicate, and irritable. Our first encounter with her in the novel is when Mrs. Bennet tells her to stop coughing. Mr. Bennet, amused by the foolish request -- which seems to presume that Kitty has control over when she coughs -- says, “’Kitty has no discretion in her coughs...she times them ill.’ ‘I do not cough for my own amusement,’ replied 29 Austen, p. 23. 16 �Kitty, fretfully.”30 Not motivated by virtue, study, or rationality as are her older sisters, and not a particularly strong personality like her younger sister Lydia, Kitty is left adrift. Her irritability is a sign of displeasure with the world and indicates a sense of injustice, of being put upon by her family. She finds her emotional home by following Lydia, the biggest personality in the house. Kitty is swept up into Lydia’s world of sociability. She goes to balls, gossips about the militiamen, and is devastated when it is too rainy to walk to town. When Lydia entertains the oldest sisters by recounting her and Kitty’s exploits, Kitty is always there as a sidekick, prodding Lydia on and adding details to fill in the story. Kitty and Lydia are often lumped together in the narrative. Their minds are described as “more vacant than their sisters’”.31 The only thing they have learned to care about at a ball is whether they have partners for each dance. According to Mr. Bennet, they “must be two of the silliest girls in the country.”32 Their response to Mr. Collins’ introductory letter to Mr. Bennet at the beginning of the novel is described together: “neither the letter nor its writer were in any degree interesting.”33 Throughout the main body of the novel, they are treated as something of a unit, with Lydia being the leader and Kitty the follower, but both described explicitly and implicitly as ignorant, idle, and vain. This unity begins to dissolve when Lydia goes to Brighton with Colonel Forster and his young wife, a trip that had been imagined originally as something Kitty and Lydia would do together, in the company of their family. Bitterly disappointed that she cannot travel with Lydia, and deprived of Lydia’s company and natural leadership, Kitty falls into a slump, weeping with “vexation and envy.”34 After several weeks, she finally begins to recover. When Lydia and Wickham run off together, Kitty reveals that she had known about the attachment, after the fact, through a letter from Lydia. She is excited by Lydia’s news and her own inclusion in Lydia’s secret at first but soon Austen, p. 8. Austen, p. 26. 32 Austen, p. 26. 33 Austen, p. 56. 34 Austen, p. 197. 30 31 17 �feels the weight of the family’s dismay and worry. Unlike the absent Lydia, she is regularly exposed to her mother’s dramatic displays and is immersed in the family’s fear of what will become of the two lovers if they are not persuaded to get married. The distance between Kitty and Lydia is exemplified in an exchange with her father, as Mr. Bennet flippantly refers to the possibility of Kitty also running away someday. “’I am not going to run away, Papa,’ said Kitty fretfully; ‘if I should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia.’”35 Mr. Bennet then hyperbolically threatens to keep her sequestered at home until she can spend her time more rationally. Kitty, who does not know how to read her father’s mood, weeps. In the last pages of the novel, Kitty is slowly absorbed back into the family, no longer part of a unit with Lydia. We find out at the end that she spends most of her time away from her parents, living with the Darcys and Bingleys. With excellent examples of moral virtue and good sense to follow, Kitty is on the way to being saved by the final page. Lacking agency and feeling unappreciated and ill-used, Kitty was likely born into a time of increasing disillusion in her parents’ marriage. The Bennets, having passed through the happy early stages and having discovered that they are not compatible, were not sure where to turn. Kitty’s peevishness may come from this penultimate stage in the Bennet’s relationship, as they realized that the tendency to rationalize, as shown in Mary’s character, was not helping, and slid further into disappointment. Lydia Bennet Her mother’s favorite, the youngest Bennet daughter is the cause of much difficulty in the novel. We hear early on that “Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humored countenance; a favourite of her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high animal spirits and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attentions of the officers...had increased into assurance.”36 Her “high animal spirits” and “assurance” come out of the page at every moment. 35 36 Austen, p. 249. Austen, p. 40. 18 �When Mr. Collins is reading to the family from Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women, Lydia breaks in with a random piece of gossip about the militia, not even bothering to pretend that she had been listening to him. Though it is pretty clear that no one in the room was interested in Mr. Collins’ reading, nor in Dr. Fordyce’s advice to women, Lydia’s rudeness is somewhat shocking. After Mr. Collins’ unsuccessful proposal of marriage to Lizzy, Lydia gleefully tells Charlotte, “I am glad you are come, for there is such fun here!- what do you think has happened this morning? - Mr. Collins has made an offer to Lizzy this morning and she will not have him.”37 Her excitement is on display, revealing her ultimate selfishness – Lizzy's pain, Mr. Collins’ humiliation, and the family’s disagreement over the whole thing are of no account to her, except as news she can use as gossip. When Lizzy and Jane return from Jane’s stay in London, Lydia and Kitty “treat” their older sisters to lunch, but don’t have the money to pay and so Lizzy and Jane end up paying. The reason, we hear, is that Lydia has spent her money in town on a bonnet, which her sisters criticize as ugly. Completely unconcerned, Lydia says she’ll just “pick it apart” at home and see what she can make of it.38 She’s impulsive, thoughtless, and completely secure in her sense of herself. Lizzy worries about Lydia when she goes to Brighton, both for Lydia’s sake and for the impact her misbehavior might have on the reputation of the family. Lizzy warns her father not to let Lydia go to Brighton with Colonel Forster, but never envisions the possibility that Lydia will run off with Wickham, until it happens. Imagine the episode with Lydia and Wickham as a larger--scale version of her purchase of the bonnet. With the bonnet, Lydia wastes her money on something ugly, doesn’t have any regrets, and plans a way to make it right by working on it. In Wickham, she wastes her attention on a man who will never be able to support her, who doesn’t think twice about ruining her reputation by living with her while having no plans to marry. By the end of the novel, we hear that, although they do end up marrying, the glamor of the relationship has worn off. As 37 38 Austen, p. 97. Austen, pp. 184-185. 19 �with the bonnet, Lydia doesn’t regret or give up on the marriage, but works tirelessly to get handouts to support Wickham’s debts. Lydia and Wickham are the only people we hear of who are never redeemed by the Darcys. Even Darcy’s thoroughly offended aunt, the arrogant Lady Catherine, eventually comes around to the powerful combination of grace, intelligence, and sheer goodness that the Darcys offer by the end of the novel. However, Wickham and Lydia seem unable to reform in any way. His profligacy and her thoughtlessness can only be contained and managed, with significant expense, by the Bingleys and Darcys. There is something winning about Lydia’s carefree approach to life, though. Unlike her husband, she is not a schemer. She wants to live life with gusto and has no patience for moralizing or self-control. She leaves a predictable path of destruction in her wake, and it’s easy to be disgusted with her, but it’s hard not to find something almost innocent in her single-minded, amoral approach to life, which leaves all thought of either the past or the future behind. In Lydia, we see a reflection of the end stage of the Bennets’ marriage, the stage at which they are portrayed in the time frame of the novel. By the time Lydia was born, Mr. Bennet had given up on any hope of having a truly loving relationship with his wife. He had given up rationalizing her behavior or trying to find the key to getting through to her. He made no effort to restrain her worst impulses. At this point, Mr. Bennet was content to use his wife for his own amusement, then avoid her when the amusement wore off. He exhibits no care for how their relationship and his wife’s lack of both good sense and self-restraint might affect the future or their children until Lydia’s escapade brings it home to him. For her part, Mrs. Bennet has settled into being a slave to her own passions with her flights of self-aggrandizing emotion. Lydia resembles both of her parents to some degree: thoughtless of the future like her father, a slave to her own passions like her mother. She is less prone to show-stopping anxiety than her mother is, but also less caring. Mrs. Bennet, for all of her faults, genuinely wants the best for her children. Her idea of what is best is flawed, to be sure, but this care for her family is notable in the face of Mr. Bennet’s attitude of avoidance and laziness. 20 �Unsurprisingly, in this final self-centered stage, their marriage ceases to bear the fruit of offspring, and they are stuck without a son. Whatever may happen between them physically, there’s no real, meaningful relationship there. They’ve reached the end of the line. Summary and Conclusion In the exquisite novel Pride and Prejudice, Austen gives us a panoply of marriages and families, while focusing on the main story of Darcy and Lizzy. In their story, love and good sense unite. Theirs is a marriage presented as morally uplifting, and productive of real joy for themselves as well as for nearly everyone around them, including the reader. With the Bennets, we get a very different and complex picture of moral formation and education; namely, through the characters of the young women who were born into that marriage and who were formed in childhood by the Bennets. Because of the family’s circumstances, they are very often living their lives in a complex interrelationships. Mr. Bennet doesn’t spend large amounts of time in upper crust society or working for a living, as he might were he from a different social class. Mrs. Bennet doesn’t farm out the girls’ education to a stream of caretakers, as she might were she of a different temperament. The Bennet family lives and works together. In this crucible of an upbringing, one can imagine the importance of the marital situation on how the girls are formed. The Bennet’s marriage begins with beauty and naiveté, moves through various attempts to manage the relationship, and ends in exploitation and victimhood. It begins with the assumption that they will have a son and ends in procreative failure, the daughters in danger of being left destitute. The conceit of this lecture has been that each of the Bennet sisters was born into and formed by a different phase of their parents’ marriage, so that the character of each child reveals something of what the parents were going through over time, distinct rings, as it were, in the trunk of the Bennet family tree. Jane, the oldest, is beautiful and somewhat naïve, but is mostly marked by essential goodness. She errs on the side of being wrong about people rather than imputing evil to another. She’s willing to be cheated but not to be unvirtuous, to suffer ill rather than to commit it. Lizzy, acutely aware of and amused by the faults 21 �of others but unable to see her own, has high standards for marriage and people in general; the vitality of the novel stems from the realization of her high standards in the unlikely person of Darcy. Mary, the middle child, loves reason and lives through books and platitudes, jealous of attention but clearly avoiding the messiness of life. Kitty is irritable, searching for answers and finding them in whoever is the strongest personality around. Finally, the youngest sister, Lydia, is indulgent and indulged, living in the present for pleasure and the satisfaction of her own whims. She is not completely depraved, I would argue, because of her lack of duplicity, but she spends her life scrounging money to pay the debts of her scoundrel husband. It is important to note that Austen is showing us not immutable caricatures but a moral spectrum: from the terribly good Jane to the simply terrible Lydia. The foundation laid by the Bennets’ marriage is formative, but not completely determinative. With the possible exception of Lydia, the characters are not stagnant, but undergo development. Real changes come as a result of real love and relationships, most notably Lizzy and Darcy’s connection. By the end of the novel, their union bears much fruit. It leads to Lizzy’s self-knowledge and reformation, as she realizes and abjures her own prejudices. It leads to Jane’s marriage to Bingley, since neither the diffident Bingley nor the self-controlled Jane would have broken through the gulf between them without Darcy and Lizzy. Their union also leads to Mary’s coming out of her shell, as she is forced to take care of her mother and to live in society without being overshadowed by her sisters. We also hear at the end of the novel that they rescue Kitty, by exposing her to good examples and taking on her education. And, though Lydia never really reforms, she and Wickham are supported by Jane and even somewhat by Lizzy, which allows her to coexist in society. In Pride and Prejudice, we see a complex interplay of social interdependence, in which the foundation of the Bennets’ collapsing marriage leaves its mark on the characters of the children raised within it. We also see the emergence of the Darcys’ more fruitful relationship, which turns things around for nearly everyone. As we move into this semester, you might turn your eye upon your own character. What sort of roots have shaped you? How might your 22 �encounter with the Great Books allow you to take moral extractions, as Mary so loved to do? When do you feel a lack of agency, like Kitty, or — perish the thought— fall into self-indulgence as Lydia does? Do you also have moments of goodness and beauty like Jane, or shocking moments where the veil of your own vanity is pulled aside, as Lizzy did? In our conversations both in and out of the classroom, I wish for you all the warmth and good humor that exudes from the pages of this sparkling novel, and the friendships that allow us to live life fully and fruitfully, to the betterment of our community. Thank you. 23 � 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 pdf Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 23 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marital Flaws and Moral Education in <em>Pride and Prejudice</em> Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on August 28, 2026, by Annapolis Dean Suzy Paalman as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Ms. Paalman offers the following description: "The main story of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice concerns Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy as they move from mutual dislike to eventual marriage and happiness. Throughout the novel, these two characters provide the occasion for each of them to grow in self-understanding and virtue. In the background of the novel lies the shaky foundation of the Bennet family and the problematic marriage of Lizzy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Theirs is a relationship in which each of them exacerbates the flaws of the other, leading to progressive deterioration. The story of this decline can be read in the characters of their five children which range from the virtuous Jane to the profligate Lydia. This lecture will examine the five sisters as a snapshot of the history of the Bennets’ marriage." Ms. Paalman's lecture is the first formal lecture of the academic year. Previously referred to as the Dean's Lecture, this lecture is now called the Christopher B. Nelson Lecture. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paalman, Susan R. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-08-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> 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 Austen, Jane, 1775-1817. Pride and prejudice Moral education Married people Marriage in literature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Paalman_Susan_2026-08-28 Christopher B. Nelson Lecture Deans Friday night lecture 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/n6-lcj1zf9A?si=ZMSGFS3fJQ4jp0iM">https://www.youtube.com/live/n6-lcj1zf9A?si=ZMSGFS3fJQ4jp0iM</a> 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 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/n6-lcj1zf9A?si=ZMSGFS3fJQ4jp0iM" title="How to Win Wars">How to Win Wars</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on April 8, 2026, by Edward Luttwak as part of the LCDR Erik S. Kristensen Lecture Series. <br /><br />The Kristensen special lecture series, jointly sponsored by St. John’s College and the United States Naval Academy, honors LCDR Erik S. Kristensen (AGI00)—an alumnus of the Academy and the St. John’s Graduate Institute. Kristensen, a Navy SEAL, was killed in the line of duty while leading a search and rescue mission in Afghanistan in 2005.<br /><br />The annual memorial lecture series to honor Kristensen was initiated by a 1992 St. John’s College graduate, Lt. Michael Zampella, along with friends and family, and is supported in large part by the Navy SEAL Foundation, Inc., Eye-Street Kristensen Klassic, and the Navy SEAL Family Foundation. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Luttwak, Edward Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2026-04-08 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Military art and science War Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Luttwak_Edward_2026-04-08 Kristensen lecture series https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/82d3adf3bd2824dc3d05b5a3d932c232.mp3 5ea45bec598a9a1197854763e088046a 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 wav Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:03:23 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 On Becoming Free Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on February 10, 1995, by Annapolis tutor Steven Crockett as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Crockett, Steven Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1995-02-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Liberty Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Crockett_Steven_1995-02-10 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c4d8dd44662c753cfea35bfa921c3d56.mp3 19e929070d3a1d7b0e5317461bb86cca 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 audiocassette Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:58:48 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Structure and Guises of Thumos Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on March 29, 1996, by Annapolis tutor Michael Dink as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dink, Michael Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-03-39 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound recording Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Homer. Iliad Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Dink_Michael_1996-03-29 Friday night lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/eT4j_8FXcj4?si=4DwXN0Nrt9SVyDcj">https://youtu.be/eT4j_8FXcj4?si=4DwXN0Nrt9SVyDcj</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/eT4j_8FXcj4?si=D4BQ6JDGpchAE7Z9" target="_blank" title="The Nature and Power of Numbers" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Nature and Power of Numbers</a><a href="https://youtu.be/e17Q-D6ZQp8?si=-oE0QAVsHfhgsBOQ"></a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on February 13, 2026, by Annapolis tutor Brendon Lasell, as the 2026-26 NEH lecture.<br /><br />Mr. Lasell offers the following description of his lecture: "Diophantus begins his <i>Arithmetica </i>by saying that he has 'tried to establish the nature and power of numbers.' After a short general introduction, he goes on to pose and solve hundreds of difficult problems about numbers. We will explore whether numbers have a nature and how it can be established, looking at examples of the kind of work Diophantus does with numbers." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lasell, Brendon Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2026-02-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Diophantus, of Alexandria. Arithmetica Algebra Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Lasell_Brendon_2026-02-13 Friday night lecture NEH lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/r7vBlmfIAkQ?si=dhzCT8j3Gia6BcBs">https://youtu.be/r7vBlmfIAkQ?si=dhzCT8j3Gia6BcBs</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/r7vBlmfIAkQ?si=dhzCT8j3Gia6BcBs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span class="s-lg-book-title">Montesquieu’s Persian Letters: Cartesian Rationalism, Rebellious Souls</span></a><a href="https://youtu.be/e17Q-D6ZQp8?si=-oE0QAVsHfhgsBOQ"></a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on February 6, 2026, by Annapolis tutor Janet Dougherty, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.<br /><br />Ms. Dougherty offers the following description of her lecture: "<span>Usbek, the most prolific writer in Montesquieu’s epistolary novel <em>The Persian Letters</em>, is in voluntary exile from his homeland and his harem. During his sojourn in Europe his perspective as a stranger provides the freedom he needs to develop an understanding of good government completely different from Persian despotic rule. His ideas cohere into a sort of Cartesian political science. But while these ideas diverge continually from an endorsement of despotism, he feels more and more compelled to impose his will on his wives and their guards. Usbek’s hope to be loved by the women he oppresses endures alongside his enlightened views of law and government. Eventually his wives openly rebel; the collapse of the seraglio leads to Usbek’s collapse. I will argue that Usbek’s blindness to his despotic authority derives from his Cartesian method of inquiry. His enlightenment is linked by ‘a secret chain’ to his deepest prejudice. Montesquieu is pointing to a more thorough science of human, i.e. erotic, beings."</span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dougherty, Janet Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2026-02-06 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de, 1689-1755. Lettres persanes. Descartes, René, 1596-1650 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Doughterty_Janet_2026-02-06 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/463476f4d3ecae136b50b47821ced3af.pdf 46eecc8e44bfbc7e33bd52a26848e094 PDF Text Text Gargantua’s Gaines Jonathan Tuck A lecture delivered at St. John’s College, Annapolis January 16,2009 This lecture is dedicated to the memory ofBrother Robert Smith. 1 �(A GargantHa’s Games In the first twenty-four chapters of Gargantua, Francois Rabelais describes the birth, childhood and education of the giant whose name is also the title of his book. Chapter 22 begins as follows: Then, most lazily mumbling a snatch of grace, he [Gargantua] washed his hands with fresh wine, cleaned his teeth with a pig’s foot, and chatted joyfully with his men. Then, when the green cloth was laid out, they brought out plenty of cards, plenty of dice, and enough boards for checkers or chess. There he played: Flush, Grand slam. Trump, Primiera, Beggar my neighbor, Odd man out. Tarots, Backgammon, Shuffleboard, Hopscotch, Lawn billiards. Coddling the hare. Trudge-pig, The moping owl. Gossip, lend me your sack, Marseilles figs. The false clown. Quoits, Chaw-turd, Barley-break, Whirlygig, .. Fast and loose. Pick-a-back to Rome, Fart-in-throat, Billy boy, give me my lance. Frogs and toads. The greedy glutton. The pigeon has flown. Fatass, Lady, I wash your cap. Baste the bear. Cross questions and crooked answers. Butting rams. The madge owlet. 2 �Flirts on the nose. Larks. After playing well, sifted, passed, and bolted the time, it was time to have a little drink—that was eleven gallons per man—and, right after banqueting, to stretch out and sleep two or three hours on nice bench or a nice big bed, meanwhile to think no evil or speak no evil. (p.1.22, pp. 50-54. All quotations from Rabelais are identified by book and chapter numbers and by pagination in the translation of Donald Frame, U. of California Press, 1991.) Now those of you who have read The Chronicles of Gargantua and Pantagruel, or at least Book I of it, known as Gargantua, will realize that I have seriously misquoted and mi ^represented this passage. I only gave thirty-six of the games that Rabelais lists. The true number is 216, three fiill double column pages in Donald Frame’s excellent translation, plus parts of two other pages. There are many such lists in Rabelais’ work, but this is one of the longest. What on earth can be the point of such an enumeration? Perhaps in approaching this question, I can also more generally suggest some of Rabelais’ strategies, his designs on us, his readers, and some of the reasons that we should cherish his strange but wonderfill book. In reading such a list, or in hearing it read, we feel a mixture of perplexity and pleasure. Where does die pleasure come from? Perhaps we are gladdened at the thought that there can be so many games, real or imaginary, in the world, or that our author can think of so many. Plenitude, copiousness of imagination, is an emblem of the abundance of nature itself perhaps, or at least of human nature, since the games are human artifacts. And if some of the games are imaginary, so much the better. No human, of course, could actually play all these games in a single afternoon; but remember that Gargantua is a giant— Rabelais is telling a tall tale. In fact, there was a lengthy oral and wntten 3 �tradition about the giant Gargantua in the Touraine, the region where Rabelais lived—a cycle of tales comparable to our yams about Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill. Gargantua’s adventures (and those of his son, Pantagruel) often have some of the almost surreal, daimonic, out-of-control quality of these folk tales. Paul Bunyan is a hero of sorts, but not a comfortable one; we may not feel for him the normal empathy that we would expect to have for the protagonist of a conventional narrative. Perhaps we’re not altogether sure that he is the “good guy,” or that he feels as humans do. Such a question can certainly arise about Gargantua, whose pranks include stealing the bells of Notre Dame to use for the neck of his mare, and drowning 260,418 nameless Parisians by casual urination. But as often with Rabelais, this is only cartoon violence. We do not pause to mourn for the drowned Parisians, any more than we fear for Wile E. Coyote when he plunges off a cliff. Gigantism here may be monstrous or hyperbolic, but as we come to learn, it may also be an emblem for the possibilities of humanity, a literalizing of human greatness, power, and freedom. No longer is humanity cowering and subservient, dwarfed by the stature of our ancestors or our God. Instead, we may consider Rabelais as a Renaissance humamst, hyperbolically portraying what Pico della Mirandola called “the dignity of man.” But perhaps I’m waxing hyperbolic myself. The list of games lacks the grandeur and nobility of an epic catalogue—the catalogue of the ships in Hiad Book II, for example. There the purpose was not simply to amass a multitude, but to order it. The list of games, by comparison, is a mere heap; the sequence seems arbitrary and the whole effect is grotesque. Though at the outset, the narrator mentioned cards, dice, and board games, many of the games enumerated are of a different kind altogether—^hop-scotch and lawn-billiards, for example. Others seem to be children’s role-playing games, a kind of �make-believe. Some of them seem to be made up on the spot. We are reminded of the list given by Jorge Luis Borges: The ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia called the Heavenly Emporium ofBenevolent Knowledge. In its distant pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the emperor; (b) the embalmed ones; (b) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’shair brush; (1) et cetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that from a distance resemble flies... (“John Wilkins’ Analytical Language,” in Selected Non-Fictions, p. 231.) The implication of any list is that its elements are units, of like kind. The wild heterogeneity of Rabelais’ list of games raises the question of what kind. What is a “game,” anyway? If an imaginary game is enumerated in the list, does the act of listing it give it existence? And if so, is that act of creation peculiar to games—do we think that an imaginary game is as much a game as a “real” game, or perhaps more so? Is any game “real”? Would the act of listing some other kind or class of beings call its items into existence? What power does the teller of this story implicitly claim to have, and does he really have it? Rabelais, in listing so many games, implies but does not mention yet another game, the one he is playing with us, his readers, and with language itself. The power exerted by listing and naming is illustrated in another list of Gargantua’s activities as a younger child: He was always wallowing in the mud, getting his nose dirty. Messing up his face, wearing down his shoes at the heel, gaping after flies, and running happily after butterflies...he pissed on his shoes, shat in his shirt, blew his nose on his sleeves, sniveled in his soup and made a mess everywhere...He sharpened his teeth with a clog, washed his hands with soup, combed his hair with a goblet, sat between two saddles with his tail on the ground,... �farted for fat, pissed against the sun, hid in the water for rain, struck while the iron was cold...flayed the fox, said the monkey’s paternoster, returned to his sheep, turned the sows out to hay...put the cart before the oxen, scratched himself where he did not itch, drew worms from his nose, bit off more than he could chew, ate his white bread first, shod grasshoppers... offered the gods straw for wheat... ate cabbage and shat leeks...counted without his host....always looked a gift horse inthe mouth...hoped to catch larks if the skies fell, made a virtue of necessity, cared as little about the shaven as the clipped... (I.ll, pp.30-31) In this enumeration, which I have once again drastically abbreviated, a list of actual forms of toddler mischief somehow metastasizes into a Sancho Panza-like list of proverbial expressions. Some, but perhaps not all of them, seem to be there because they are metaphors for activities that are ill-advised or counterproductive. I think many of the * items on the list are there only because they are vividly concrete and nonsensical. The list lists for the sake of listing. Whatever this is, it is not narrative as we usually understand it. Language seems to have taken on a life of its own. When poets make lists—epic catalogues, for example—they are often lists of proper names: warriors or nymphs, rivers or cities or other place-names. It seems to be the act of a true poet to love exotic, resounding but ultimately meaningless names—think of Whitman or Sandburg or Stevens, rolling out a polysyllabic Native American proper name, tasting it, luxuriating in its sound alone. Rabelais has some of this poetic impulse too—he is one of the greatest French prose stylists, primarily because there is a wild, anarchic energy in his language. Consider the first introduction of one of his main characters: In the abbey at that time there was a claustral monk named Friar John of the Hashes, young, gallant, fiisky, cheerful, very deft, bold, adventurous, resolute, tall, thin, with a wide open throat, well fixed for a nose, a great dispatcher of hours, a great unbridler of masses, a 6 �*5 fine polisher-off of vigils, to sum it all up briefly a real monk if ever there was one since the monking world first monked in monkery... (1.27, p.66) The word “monk” is repeated partly in derision—Rabelais, as will become clear, is no admirer of the monastic ideal as we usually think of it, despite being techmcally a monk himself. More to the point, the sound of the word “monk” becomes a jingle, an incantation, even a sensual act. Rabelais loves words, especially nonsense-words, madeup words, ridiculously long words, spoonerisms, bad puns, and words in resonant, learned-sounding foreign languages. When Gargantua takes the bells of Notre Dame for his mare, the Faculty of Theology sends its oldest sophist, Janotus de Bragmardo, to recover them. Here is an excerpt from his oration, which is generously sprinkled with outrageously bad Latin: “Ozuw's clocha clochabilis, in clocherio clochando, clochans clochativo clocharefacit clochahiliter clochantes’’’ (1.19, p.45). Roughly translated: “Every bellable bell, in belling bellery, belling hellishly makes the bellers bell.” Of course Rabelais offers no such translation; he expects us to be a learned audience, even as he mocks learning itself. The same zest for languages emerges in a scene in the second book, known as Pantagruel, where we first meet Panurge, who will become the manic sidekick of Pantagruel, the son of Gargantua. Note in passing that the name Panurge is taken, without gloss or explanation, from the Greek word Ttavoupyog, one who will do anything, a rascal or scoundrel. (The same Greek etymologizing is present in many of Rabelais’ names—^for example. King Picrochole, the villain of Book I, the Xerxes-like figure whose dreams of world conquest trigger the war between himself and Grandgousier, Gargantua’s father. Clearly we are expected to recognize that “Picrochole” is derived 7 �r from TciKpog, “bitter” and ^o^c,, “wrath.”) When Pantagruel and his companions first meet the mysterious stranger Panurge, he hails them successively with fourteen little one- paragraph untranslated orations in German, in an imaginary language from the Antipodes, in Italian, in Scots dialect, in Basque, in Lantemese (another imaginary language), in Dutch, in Spanish, in Danish, in Hebrew, in Greek, in Utopian (a third imaginary language)^ in Latin, and finally in French, which turns out to be his native tongue (11.9, pp. 163-166). We might think that the linguistic dispersion of the human race, after the Tower of Babel, is no cause for rejoicing; but the sheer profusion of languages^ their plenitude, seems to be celebrated here. Panurge, who as his name implies will do or say anything, in any language, and Rabelais, his creator, both take pleasure in the fact of language and languages, for their own sake. Both are profound scholars in their own way, and both are highly irreverent toward scholarship. Even so, there is also a moral lesson: Each of Panurge’s elegant polyglot addresses is to the same effect: “Please, for charity’s sake, give me something to eat and drink.” And each time, his listeners focus on the philology instead of giving him aid. In this scene, Rabelais implies, there is a universal language of physical need that transcends the Babel of linguistic differences among humans. Generosity is simple and unlearned, but it trumps the learning of the wise. Since we are now entered on the subject of Rabelais’ view of learning, I should certainly mention that the list we began with, the list of Gargantua’s games, is actually given in condemnation of Gargantua’s idleness, to show that his education is being neglected. The young giant is naturally possessed of many intellectual virtues, but it seems that they are misdirected. We get an early glimpse of his natural curiosity and 8 �desire to learn: At the age of five he embarks spontaneously, with the energy of a Bacon or a Faraday, on a course of experimentation whose object is the discovery of the perfect ass-wipe. After a long list of candidates tested and rejected, Gargantua announces proudly that the softest, warmest and most delightful thing to wipe your ass with is the downy feathers of a young, live goose. This discovery delights his father, but in tide following years Gargantua’s potent intellect is left to fust unused. A sophist named Thubal Holofemes proves unequal to the task of the education of a noble youth. The two lists I gave, of games and other proverbial activities, are both given as evidence of the waste of the young giant’s time. So his father the King engages a true humamst tutor with the appropriate Greek name of Ponocrates—“the power of work.” We then get an enthusiastic seven-page description of the best educational regimen, both in music and gymnastic. Not an hour of the day is to be wasted. Even at dmner, Gargantua and his tutor discuss the origins and properties of everything they are served, complete with a citation of pertinent passages from “Pliny, Athenaeus, Dioscorides, Julius Pollux, Galen, Porphyry, Oppian, Polybius, Heliodorus, Aristotle, Aelian and others” (11.23, p.56). The concern for education is passed on to the next generation: In Pantagruel there is a famous letter to the hero from his father, Gargantua, setting forth his own omnivorous zest for learning and his wishes for his son to feel the same. Referring to his own education, Gargantua says: The time was still dark, and smacking of the infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who had brought all good literature to destruction; but, by God’s goodness, in my own day light and dignity has been restored to letters...Now all branches of learning are reestablished, languages restored: Greek, without which it is shameful for a man to call himself learned; Hebrew, Chaldean, Latin; truly elegant and correct printings are now customary, which were invented in my time by divine inspiration.. .The whole world is full of erudites, of veiy learned 9 �teachers, of very ample libraries; and in my judgment, neither in Plato’s time, nor Cicero’s, nor Papinian’s, were there such facilities for study as we see now... As for the knowledge of nature’s works, I want you to devote yourself to that with care: let there be no sea, stream, or spring, whose fish you do not know: all the birds of the air, all the trees, shrubs, and bushes of the forests, all the herbs of the earth, all the metal hidden in the bowels of the depths, the precious stones of the Orient and Southern Hemisphere: let nothing be unknown to you. (II.8, pp. 160-161) The vaunting and exultant spirit of the Renaissance seems to breathe forth, completely unironically, in this passage, perhaps the most famous in Rabelais’ work, although not necessarily the most typical. The book as a whole seems to be a medley of different genres—by turns a mock epic, a romance, a satire, a folk tale— but one genre to which it clearly alludes here is the humanist treatise on the education of the ruler. The tradition starts with Plato’s Republic and Xenophon’s Cyropaideia, both recently rediscovered in the grand retrieval of classical texts. It continues with books as varied as Machiavelli’s Prince, Erasmus’s Education ofa Christian Prince, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, The Book ofthe Governor by Sir Thomas Elyot (from whom the twentieth­ century poet Thomas Steams Eliot claimed he was descended). Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, and a book called The Schoolemaster by Roger Ascham, tutor to Queen Elizabeth L All of these works, in different ways, exhibit a vivid confidence in the power and possibility of human learning. The trope of educational reform is used as a way both to hand down the received tradition and to rethink it. Young Gargantua, having fallen initially into the wrong hands, must be rescued from a rigid but perfunctory scholastic education. What we might call the “progressive” aspect of Rabelais’s humanistic educational prescriptions is taken up again by Montaigne, in his chapter “Of the 10 �•1 Education of Children,” and we can thence trace its effects all the way to Rousseau, to Dewey, and to our own curriculum. It’s always hard to tell when Rabelais is being sincere, or what he really cares about; but I want to claim that the right kind of education is very close to his heart. He himself had made the wrong move of entering the Franciscan order in his youth. Not only did the austerity of the corded Friars disagree with him, but at this time and place, at least, they were actively hostile to the new learning and the Greek and Latin texts that conveyed it. It was not necessarily safe to be a Humanist in early sixteenth century France—several of the greatest scholars fell victim to the Inquisition. After Erasmus published a commentary on the Greek New Testament, the priestly scholars of the Sorbonne caused a law to be passed forbidding the teaching of the Greek language anywhere in France. Rabelais was later able to disengage himself from the Franciscans and throw in with the Benedictines, who were more tolerant of his intellectual adventurousness, up to a point. Even so, he seems to have drifted away from the Church more and more, as he found powerful patrons and won the favor of the King himself. He took all knowledge for his province, even the carnal kind: In middle age he studied and practiced medicine—a more earthy and secular occupation—and he seems to have fathered several illegitimate children. This may be as good a time as any to address the issue of Rabelais’ obscenity. The story of the search for the perfect ass-wipe may have caught your attention, or the somewhat raunchy names of several of the enumerated games. Rabelais sometime seems to exhibit an inexhaustible, childish joy in the portrayal of the sheerly physical— interestingly, at least as often in excretion as in sexuality. I have observed that for some �* k '* I) ■' ; -t readers of his books, scatology and other kinds of explicitness can be a significant stumbling block. Isn’t he being merely nasty—^rubbing our noses in it, as it were? I’m not sure that I can undertake a full-scale defense of Rabelais on this score, and as an aficionado of scatological humor. I’m not even sure that I want to. But here are a few observations: Rabelais’ world is a comic world, a carnival world, as his great modem critic Mikhail Bakhtin has shown. Carnival, etymologically, means “farewell to flesh”— not only to meat-eating, at the beginning of Lent, but to many other kinds of fleshly activity; and we value more that which we must forsake. The carnival world is characterized by inversion—the rule is misrule. Kings are reduced to beggars, and beggars are temporarily crowned king. This comic world is also a comic-book world, crude and exaggerated. Whatever truth it has is true only in context, and by a kind of necessary contrast with its opposite. I think that Rabelais would have heartily approved of a children’s book published in 1993, whose title was an incontrovertible truism: - Everyone Poops. On its first appearance the book aroused a firestorm of protest: Yes, everyone does, but what is the point of dwelling on it? Rabelais might answer this way: The point is to elicit that very response. If you are among the dainty-minded, perhaps you need to examine your own motives for seeking to deny your own physicality. It is not a particularly safe thing to do; the physical world has its way of taking its revenge on those who deny its importance. In this way as in so many others, Rabelais is a provocateur. One of the games that the book Gargantua plays with its readers is to make them self-conscious about their responses to it. Another physicality much celebrated by Rabelais is the heroically excessive consumption of alcohol. Notionally at least, wine is a venue for the intersection of the w 12 �physical and the spiritual—not only a sacrament but a source of wisdom. Early on in the Gargantua, just before the birth of the hero, a whole chapter is devoted to phrases used by drinkers to urge each on; Frame translates its title as “The Palaver of the Potted.” There is also, throughout the Chronicles, a lot of very enthusiastic eating, overeating, farting, and belching, as well as much talk about sexuality (though very little of it actually happens within the story). In short, one of the master images of the Chronicles is physical metabolism. I want to claim that Rabelais uses it partly as a metaphor for cognitive activity: intellectual intake, processing and output, learning, reading, interpreting, writing. I have used the word “omnivorous” in describing his zest for learning; that such a usage is still common—we devour books and drink in learning— shows that the metaphor is not strange to us. The chronic allusiveness of Rabelais’ book—^perhaps exceeding even that of Montaigne—shows his intellectual metabolism at work, processing what he reads. It is an ancient trope, reaching back at least to Plato, to refer to one’s own books as “children,” attempts to perpetuate oneself in a bid for a qualified kind of immortality. But we might think of a book as a less glorious kind of bodily product: Montaigne ironically refers to his chapters as “excrements” (111.9, “Of Vanity,” near the beginning). Perhaps the scatology of Rabelais is playing a similar game with us. Even excrement has its uses after all, not only for catharsis but as a means to future fertility. We can see the metaphors of eating and drinking in the Author’s Prologue to Book I, which I have distributed to you as a handout. [The text is appended.] I want to spend a little time on this Prologue, which seems to me to anticipate many of the themes of the whole work. The speaker is presumably M. Alcofidbas Nasier, Abstractor of the 13 �•“ “ ' 'J ■A Quintessence, the anagranunatic pseudonym Rabelais used for the first two books of his Chronicles. In reading Rabelais, as in reading Chaucer, Cervantes and many other storytellers, we must be wary of identifying the persona of the narrator with the actual author. He addresses us at the outset as “Most illustrious topers” and “most precious poxies.” We are “topers,” drinkers, consumers both literally— since he later urges us to read with the book in one hand and the bottle in the other—and metaphorically, according to the metaphor of metabolism. We are “poxies” perhaps because of the book’s occult curative powers. (The prologue to Book 4 will spell out this metaphor more fully; we remember that Rabelais was in fact a physician.) Despite this earthy beginning, the first paragraph plunges immediately into an ostentatious classical allusion—^appropriately, to Plato’s Symposium, where there is truth in wine, and where the highest things may be talked of in the midst of pleasure and laughter. But as we will see, the Prologue, like the rest of the book, will continue to employ allusions to Plato and other classical authors, in ways that will turn to be more and more suspect. In the same way that Socrates resembled a Silenus, so too does Rabelais’ book: grotesque and misshapen on the outside, but containing within itself divine and precious wisdom. The “outside” is identified in the third paragraph with the title, by which the book should not be judged. The juxtaposition of lofty learning and earthy physicality is perfectly summed up by such titles as On the dignity ofcodpieces and On peas with bacon cum commento. (Both titles appear again in Rabelais’ work, the first in Chapter 8 of Book I and the second in Book II, in a long list of the titles of the books supposedly in the theological Library of St. Victor in Paris [11.7]. A few—but only a few—of the other titles in the list refer to actual works.) W 14 �The word/flesh duality of the titles corresponds to the two possibilities the Prologue discusses: If the story the narrator is about to tell has a higher, spiritual significance—like the allegorical meanings some readers found not only in Scripture but in Plato, Homer and Ovid as well—then patience and leamedness are needed to extract it; we must bum the midnight oil, as it were, puzzling it out. But if it does not point beyond itself to some precious marrow of meaning contained within, we can simply enjoy it as itself, as a fiction, an ephemeral entertainment. The description of Socrates by Alcibiades seems to privilege the claim of a higher significance; we should disregard the rough and grotesque exterior of the Silenus-like Socrates in order to view the valuable content inside. The reference to the Republic in the third paragraph is more equivocal. In Plato’s version, Socrates’ characterization of the dog as a philosopher is already a joke, but at least it refers to the socially useful function of the dog. In performing his assigned task of guarding the house, he barks at those visitors he does not recognize, thus proving that all dogs by nature desire to know. Rabelais’ dog, however, shows his philosophic nature in performing a merely appetitive, private, metabolic function. And after all the labor of breaking the marrow bone, the speaker of the prologue asks us, “What is the hope of his endeavor? What good does he aspire to? Nothing more than a little marrow.” It sounds here as if our expectations, and those of the dog, have been frustrated. The forbidding exterior of the bone did not hold the golden images of the gods after all. But wait—there is another inside to the marrow, even after its extraction from the bone. It may not look like much, but it is exceptionally delicious. And if we are willing to wade through two formidable passages in Galen—sort of an intellectual version of the bone’s tough 15 �exterior—we discover that marrow is the most nutritious food in nature. But it is still food for the body, not the soul. Ironically, the image of the philosopher-dog offers only a a fleshly reward. Paragraph 5, however, gives us the allegorical significance lurking behind the literary image of the marrow, that is, “abstruse doctrine,” “lofty sacraments and horrific mysteries.” In passing we get a brief allusion to yet another Platonic dialogue, this time the Meno, in the phrase, “in the certain hope of being made more astute and brave by the said reading.” “Certain hope” in itself sounds a bit conflicted. We remember that at Meno 86B, Socrates does not confidently assert that we will be made better, braver and less useless by actually searching for what we do not know; but he will fight, in word and deed, to defend the claim that we will be made braver and better by supposing ft is necessary to search. The process of reading “these exquisite books” may be more openended than we hoped; perhaps we should not have expected that “abstruse doctrine” and “horrific mysteries” would offer us any closure or enlightenment. But are they even there to be found? In the very next paragraph, the prologue veers back in the opposite direction with no explanation or excuse: “Do you believe in all good faith that Homer.. .ever thought of all the allegories with which he has been calked...? .. .If you believe it, you come nowhere near my opinion by either hand or foot...” What happened to the marrow we were meant to search for inside the bone? “These were as little thought of by Homer as were the sacraments of the Gospel by Ovid.” It seems that Homer’s precedent, not Plato’s, will now be decisive for the speaker of the Prologue. The beginning of paragraph 7 manages to confuse us completely: “If you don’t believe that, on what grounds will you not do so with these merry new chronicles, although, while dictating 16 �them, I had no more thought of it than you..If you don’t believe what? Aren’t there too many negatives in this sentence? And even if the author had no deep meaning in mind, are we thereby absolved of the need to look for one? Do wine and oil never miy? Paragraphs 7-9 seem to dismiss the possibility of a higher spiritual sense. But in Paragraph 10 we get yet another reversal: Demosthenes was reproached by one sourpuss claiming that his orations smelled like the clean up rag of a filthy dirty oil-seller. Therefore interpret all my deed and words in the most perfect sense; hold in reverence the cheese-shaped brain that is stuffingyou with these fine idiocies, and, as best you can, always keep merry. “The most perfect sense” reminds us of the “perfection” of the marrow in Paragraph 4. Surely “perfection” must imply greater refinement or a higher degree of spirituality? But here we seem to be told not to look beyond the merry surface, on penalty of being pretentiously learned, like Demosthenes. Wine, not oil, was expended in this work’s composition. The book is no longer like a Silenus whose inside belies its outside. The frolicsome title is a true indicator of the content; the robe does make the monk. But the injunction to “interpret all my words and deeds in the most perfect sense” still sounds like a plea for a reading that, as St.Augustine would say, furthers the reign of charity. Once again, at the prologue’s end, how we are to interpret what we read is made both a theme and a problem. Has the Prologue in any way settled the question of how we are to read the book? I claim that it has raised the question and left it open. Phony, ostentatious learning is lampooned in this passage, but true and fully assimilated learning is needful in order to read it at all. In appearing—at least at the Prologue’s end—to disclaim any deep 17 �It « « intention for his book, may Rabelais not be practicing a little reverse psychology? “Don’t put beans in your ears.” “Don’t look for deep significance in my story.” Or in Mark Twain’s words: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. It’s appropriate that I quote from Huckleberry Finn, because it, like Tom Jones, Don Quixote and Gargantua (a book which I believe Fielding, Twain and Cervantes all knew and loved), certainly does have a motive, a moral and a plot. One of the motives of all four books is to make us more self-conscious about how we read, and how we interpret what we read. The theme of interpretation is always cropping up in Rabelais’ work. In Gargantua, we see it again almost immediately after the Author’s Prologue. In Chapter 1, we are told that the genealogical records of Gargantua were unearthed in a farmer’s field, in a “huge, stout, big, gray, pretty little moldy book smelling more but not better than roses,” which the narrator was able to decipher by “practicing the art by which one can read invisible letters, as Aristotle teaches.” In addition to the genealogies, the volume contained a treatise entitled “The Antidoted Friggleffaggles,” a long poem in ottava rima, with many initial letters of lines omitted, as if the rats had nibbled at the manuscript. The poem is, so far as I or any commentator I know of can tell, entirely gibberish. What is the purpose of its inclusion? Who knows? Perhaps to make us laugh, at others who might think it means anything or at ourselves once we realize it doesn’t. Perhaps to knock us off kilter right away, to destabilize the reader. There is a similarly long and portentous poem at the end of Book I, symmetrically framing the Gargantua by imposing another interpretive task on the reader. The Chapter (number 58) is entitled “A Prophetic Riddle.” It is not quite the same as the 18 �“Frigglefraggles,” however. Here we are given what sounds like an apocalyptic annunciation of the dire torments that the round earth will suffer at the end of days, to try the faith of the true Christian elect—^including deluges of waters, violent blows to the globe itself, and the darkening of Heaven’s light. At the poem’s conclusion, Gargantua and Friar John have a brief exchange on the meaning of the poem. Gargantua claims that it is all about “the continuance and upholding of divine truth.” The monk, however, gives a contrary interpretation: The poem is about a tennis match: the deluge of waters is the perspiration of the players as they inflict blows on the round globe, the tenms ball. Heaven’s light is darkened at the end of the day, when the game is suspended by the coming of evening. The first book leaves us exactly there, and we are not told which is the “true” interpretation. What would it mean for either reading to be “true”? Would Rabelais’ book be better if he privileged one reading over another, the sacred reading over the earthy, trivial one, or the other way around? I want to adduce one more example of the way Rabelais continually makes interpretation both a theme and a problem. Chapter 38 of the Gargantua was particularly loved by Brother Robert Smith, who taught me how to begin to read this crazy book. It recounts how, during the Picrocholine War, six pilgrims are frightened by the battle and take refuge in a garden, hiding “between the cabbages and the lettuce.” Gargantua arrives with his army; and feeling in need of refreshment, the young giant goes into the garden and takes greens to make himself a salad. The hapless pilgrims are carried off in his hands, deluged when he washes the greens, and swallowed whole, like the prophet Jonah. But they manage to find safety in the recesses of Gargantua’s teeth and avoid being washed down by an enormous draft of pinot noir. Prodding his gums with their 19 �staffs, they cause him to dislodge them and spit them out; they then endure several other tribulations, including near drowning by another of Gargantua’s ruinous urinations and being caught in a wolf net. Once they finally escape, the six pilgrims reflect on their experience and find that all their torments had been predicted, point by point, in Psalm 124, which they proceed to quote in the Vulgate version and gloss from one phrase to another. Here the “text” to be interpreted is the pilgrims’ physical experience, and the interpretation is furnished by another text, that is, the Holy Scriptures. But in order to find clarification, the pilgrims must be willing to read the psalm in a certain way. Should it matter to them, or to us, that the psalm seems to speak of the experience, not of these six pilgrims but of the children of Israel? Does one interpretation exclude another? There is a longstanding hermeneutic tradition that the Bible can have different meanings on different levels. As the old rhyme puts it, Littera gesta docet; Quid credos allegoria; Moralis quidagas; Quo tendas anagogia. In translation: The literal sense teaches deeds, the allegorical sense teaches what to believe, the moral sense teaches how to act, and the anagogical sense teaches where we are tending toward. This fourfold tradition, grounded in the interpretive practices of St. Paul and St. Augustine, among others, allows us to take episodes in the Hebrew scriptures as both historically true and prophetically referring to episodes in Christ’s life, while simultaneously applying to our own moral lives. A whole system of Biblical typology emerges: For example, when Moses strikes the rock with his staff and brings 20 �X forth water, he foreshadows the piercing of Christ’s side by the spear, bringing forth life­ giving blood. Things can both be themselves and simultaneously symbolize other things. Clearly this possibility of multivalent meanings is the basis for using scriptures as a kind of fortune-telling tool, as Augustine does at the climax of his conversion narrative in the Confessions. We might ask ourselves if it is also the basis of our taking any book seriously and appropriating it for our own purposes. If the pilgrims’ interpretive method has such a distinguished and sacred history, how can we cope with Rabelais’ Chapter 38, which appears to ridicule it? The pilgrims are miniaturized in a way that might seem to belittle them intellectually; but to themselves, they are foil-sized, their tribulations are genuinely terrifying and their deliverance is genuinely miraculous. They are the normal-sized humans; their stature, we have to admit, is the same as our own. Nonetheless, we are invited to look at them through the eyes of a giant, and the portrayal gives them a charming daintiness, a bit like Gulliver’s Lilliputians, but presented far more sympathetically. It is instructive generally to compare Swift’s use of scale with that of Rabelais. Swift’s portrayal of both the tiny people of Lilliput and the giants of Brobdingnag maintains a very consistent and precise set of ratios in comparing each race to Lemuel Gulliver. Though the reader’s eye may be directed to see in different ways, no character changes size. The giants of Rabelais, on the other hand, seem to have a bewildering mutability, as if the author felt free to change the scale at will and without announcement. Compare the episode of the pilgrims in the salad with another near the end of Book 2. Here, in Chapter 32 (p. 238), the narrator claims to have climbed into the mouth of Pantagruel, whom we might expect to be of roughly the same size as his father Gargantua. Inside his mouth, the narrator finds a 21 �whole new world, with its own sun and moon, and with such large cities as Larynx and Pharynx, mountain ranges, meadows, fields, country villas, tennis courts, and so forth. He enjoys himself so much that he stays inside there for four months. This episode is brilliantly analyzed by Erich Auerbach in one chapter of his great critical work Mimesis. I cannot do justice here either to the complexity of the episode or to Auerbach’s treatment of it; I only want to use it to illustrate the way the physical stature of the giants is subject to continual revision. Clearly, Pantagruel in this chapter is far bigger than Gargantua in the chapter of the pilgrims in the salad. Both, however, are far bigger than the Gargantua who seems to be able to associate on equal terms with normal-sized human beings like Friar John, or the Pantagruel who sails in a normal-sized ship in Books 4 and 5. It cannot be the case that the size of Gargantua is simply irrelevant; so much is made of his gigantism that we are positively invited to wonder how big he is, and what his size represents. But once again, we are given no stable and comforting viewpoint from which to look at him. At one moment a giant can be a whole parallel universe, and we are left wondering if we as humans are microcosms, containing multitudes and mirroring all possible outer experience within ourselves. At the next moment, the same giant is only slightly larger than ourselves. Size itself becomes another treacherous signifier. If indeed it points beyond itself, we might expect to find moral or intellectual greatness in Grandgousier, in Gargantua or Pantagruel; and indeed, sometimes they behave with admirable piety and magnanimity. But then there are the other, more disquieting episodes. Changing scale is another game that Rabelais’s book plays with the reader. 22 �It should be clear why Rabelais is now fashionable again, among the post-modem theorists of textuality, to use their trendy word. The stories of Gargantua and Pantagruel continually call attention to themselves as texts, in need of interpretation. Even the choice not to interpret, to read only for amusement or for escape, is itself an interpretation. The interpretive choices we make tell us as much about ourselves as about the book we are reading. The wildly various history of the interpretation of Rabelais’ own book would delight him, I think. Early in the twentieth century he was being hailed as a precursor of the Enlightenment, frankly pagan, at best a Deist, an apostle of Reason. Later in the twentieth century it was claimed that he was a reforming evangelist and a crypto-Protestant —even though he was roundly vilified by his archenemy, John Calvin. Later still, he was seen as a man of his own time, a sincere (if somewhat anticlerical) Catholic. His book is put in the tradition of late medieval folk literature and then characterized as a severely classical epic, an imitation of the Aeneid, or an oddly prescient anticipation of modernism, a grotesque experiment whose style was taken up by Sterne, Joyce and Nabokov. Sometimes he is funny or ribald, at other times pious and sincere, sometimes genuinely and deeply learned, at other times dry and almost unreadable in his mockery of false or pretentious learning. Which Rabelais is ours? We are free to choose. The problem of interpretation becomes, for Rabelais, another occasion for the reader to affirm his human freedom by exercising it. The intent of the Chronicles is made explicit near the end of Book V, in a passage I especially want to claim as genuinely Rabelaisian. In response to the puzzling Oracle of the Bottle, the priestess Bacbuc tells Panurge and his fiiends, “You yourselves be the interpreters of your own undertaking”(y.45, p.710). In the same way, the 23 �Protestant reformers of the Church claimed the right to interpret the Scriptures themselves, guided by the spirit. But the necessity and the difficulty of interpretation are inescapable, whether the text is Scripture or a very secular fiction like Gargantua, or even the text of Nature itself. The great image of freedom at the end of Gargantua is the Abbey of Theleme (from the Greek Gekripa, “will” or “free will”), with its motto FAYCE QUE VOULDRAS, “DO WHAT THOU WILT” (1.57, p.l26). The Abbey, which Gargantua builds to reward the trusty Friar John, stands monastic discipline on its head. It is a haven, without walls, for beautiful and noble young men and women, who are free to leave at any time. While they are there, they are not governed by vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience—^rather they are free to marry, they are to “be rich and to live at liberty.” They are not governed by hours or clocks or bells, but by their own pleasure and good sense. True worship consists not of slavish adherence to an externally imposed regimen, but in liberal and generous living, taking pleasure in God’s gifts. Human fallenness can be redressed, and the goodness of human nature can be restored, through the right application of reason and the right kind of education; as Virgil says to Dante at the top of Mt. Purgatory, “Henceforward take thy pleasure for thy guide” {Purg. XXVII. 131). The power of the closing image of the Abbey, whose way of life is lovingly described for six chapters, is then qualified in the first book’s last chapter. I have already described the “prophetic riddle” which can be read either as a terrifying description of the persecution of the elect or as a description of a tennis match. The riddle is actually found on a bronze plate, at the foundations of the Abbey of Theleme. If the Abbey stands for our interpretive freedom, there seems to be a problem or an enigma at the very basis of �that freedom itself. The solution of the enigma is dichotomized by Gargantua and Friar John into two possibilities, one serious and one playful. There is also a playfulness in the interplay of the two possibilities, one of which is literally a game, a game of tennis. It was not an accident that I began with a list of Gargantua’s games. Game and play are central to Rabelais because it is his free playfulness as a wnter that opens a space for our free interpretation. In making our own hermeneutic choices, we are obliged to become more self-conscious about the activity of reading. The playfulness of the text also keeps us off-balance, and therefore alert, as we continually adjust to the changes of tone, of narrative mode, of allegorical level. We must remain nimble; as soon as we lapse into any interpretive routine, the book forces us to revaluate what we thought was the right way of reading. As readers, we are invited to play the narrator’s game; but every game has rules, and part of this game is to figure out, at any given moment, which game we are playing and what its rules might be. “Seriousness” is a hallowed word for us at this college; we consider it a term of highest praise, and justly so. But playfulness is not inevitably opposed to seriousness. The seemingly paradoxical Latin phrase serio ludere, “To play seriously,” exemplifies an ideal of Renaissance thought that has not lost its value. For Nicholas of Cusa, for Marsilio Ficino and the Neoplatonists, for the Humanists More and Erasmus (one of whose disciples was Rabelais), the highest seriousness could be attained only through playfulness. Perhaps the irony of Socrates is another example. Rabelais teaches us always to be learning, but to wear our learning lightly and with laughter, so that we can learn better. All work and no play makes Johnnie a dull student. The playfulness of 25 �Rabelais often seems to be anarchic, grotesque and bewildering; but bewilderment may be a cousin of the wonder in which philosophy begins. 26 �Author’s Prologue [to Book I, Gargantua] [1] Most illustrious topers, and you, most precious poxies—for to you, not to others, my writings are dedicated—Alcibiades, in Plato’s dialogue entitled The Symposium, praising his master Socrates, incontrovertibly the prince of philosophers, among other things says he is like the Sileni. Sileni were in olden times little boxes, such as we see nowadays in apothecaries’ shops, painted on the outside with merry frivolous pictures, such as harpies, satyrs, bridled goslings, saddled ducks, flying goats, harnessed stags, and other such paintmgs imagined at will to set everyone laughing (such was Silenus, master of good old Bacchus); but inside they preserved fine drugs such as balm, amergis, amomum, musk, civet, precious stones, and other valuables. [2] Such he said was Socrates, because, seeing him from the outside and estimating him by his external appearance, you wouldn’t have given a shred of an onion peel for him, so ugly in body was he and ridiculous in bearing, pointed nose, glance like a bull’s, face of a madman, simple in maimers, rustic in clothing, poor in fortune, unlucky in women, inept for all offices of the commonwealth, always gibbering, always dissembling his divine learning, but, on opening the box, you would have found inside a heavenly drug beyond price: superhuman understanding, wondrous virtue, invincible courage, matchless sobriety, certain contentment, perfect assurance, incredible disesteem for everything on account of which humans so lie awake, run, labor, sail, and fight. [3] To what purpose, you may well ask, does this prelude and essay point? It’s inasmuch as you, my good disciples, and few other unoccupied madmen, reading the merry titles of certain books of our creating, such as Gargantua, Pantagruel, Tosspint, On the dignity of codpieces. On peas 'with bacon cum commento, etc., too easily judge that inside there is nothing treated but mockeries, tomfooleries, and merry falsehoods, seeing that the outward sign (that is the title) is commonly received without further inquiry as derision and jest. But it is not fitting to assess the works of humans so lightly, for you say yourselves that the robe does not make the monk, and a man may wear a Spanish cape who in courage has no relation to Spain. That is why you must open the book and carefully consider what is expounded in it. Then you will recognize that the drug contained inside is of quite other value than the box promised, that is to say that the matters here treated are not so foolish as the title above claimed. [4] And, even in case in the literal sense you find these matters rather jolly and corresponding to the name, you should not stop there, as the Sirens’ song, but interpret in a higher sense what peradventure you thought was said casually. Did you ever pick a lock and swipe some bottles? Son of a bitch! Call back to memory the way you looked. Did you ever see a dog coming upon some marrow bone? That is, as Plato says. Book 2 of The Republic, the most philosophic animal in the world. If seen one you have, you were able to note with what devotion he watches it, with what care he guards it, with what fervor he holds it, with what prudence he starts on it, with what affection he breaks it, with what diligence he sucks it. What leads him to do this? What is the hope of his endeavor? What good does he aspire to? Nothing more than a little marrow. True it is that this little is more delicious than the much of all the others, because marrow is the food elaborated to perfection by nature, as Galen says, iij Facu. natural., and xj De usu parti. [5] After this example it behooves you to be wise enough to sniff out and assess these exquisite books, to be light footed in pursuit and bold in the encounter; then by careful reading and frequent meditation, break the bone and suck out the substantific marrow— that is to say what I mean by these Pythagorean symbols, in the certain hope of being �made more astute and brave by the said reading; for in this you will find quite a different taste and more abstruse doctrine, which will reveal to you some very lofty sacraments and horrific mysteries, concerning both our political state and our domestic life. [6] Do you believe in all good faith that Homer, writing the Iliad and Odyssey, ever thought of all the allegories with which he has been calked by Plutarch, Heraclides Ponticus, Eustathius, Comutus, and what Poliziano stole from them? [7] If you believe it, you come nowhere near my opinion by either hand or foot, which affirms that these were as little thought of by Homer as were the sacraments of the Gospel by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, as a certain Friar Booby, a real bacon-snatcher, has tried to demonstrate, on the chance that he might meet up with folk as crazy as he, and, as the proverb says, a cover worthy of the pot. [8] If you don’t believe that, on what grounds will you not do so with these merry new chronicles, although, while dictating them I had no more thought of it than you, who peradventure were drinking as I was? For in the composition of this lordly book, I neither wasted nor ever employed any more or other time than that which was established for taking my bodily refection, that is to say eating and drinking. And indeed that is the right time for writing these lofty matters and this profound knowledge, as Homer well knew how to do, the paragon of all philologists, and Ennius, father of the Latin poets, as Horace testifies, although one boor said that his songs smelled more of wine than of oil! [9] One no-good says as much of my books; but shit on him! The fragrance of wine, how much more appetizing, laughing, inviting, heavenly, and delicious it is than that of oil! And I shall glory as much in people’s saying about me that I have spent more on wine than on oil as Demosthenes did when they said of him that he spent more on oil than on wine. To me it is due honor and glory to be called and reputed a good fellow and jolly companion, and in that name I am welcome in all good companies of Pantagruelists. 10] Demosthenes was reproached by one sourpuss claiming that his orations smelled like the clean up rag of a filthy dirty oil-seller. Therefore interpret all my deeds and words in the most perfect sense; hold in reverence the cheese-shaped brain that is stuffing you with these fine idiocies, and, as best you can, always keep merry. [11] So now rejoice, my loves, and merrily read the rest, all for the ease of your body and advantage of your kidneys! But listen, you donkeypricks (may boils and blains rack you!), remember to drink to me in return, and I’ll drink to you all on the spot. (translated by Donald Frame; paragraph numbers have been added.) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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. 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 Gargantua's Games Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on January 16, 2009, by Jonathan Tuck as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Mr. Tuck describes his lecture: "Gargantua and Pantagruel, by François Rabelais, is one of the great masterpieces of European literature. It was published serially, beginning in the 1530's. It is a wild, brawling, bewildering, crazily funny book, notorious in its own time for its alleged atheism and obscenity. Its influence on subsequent prose fiction has been enormous, and it was a crucial event in the formation of the modern French language. Rabelais was a hugely learned man, a humanist and a disciple of Erasmus, and his book is enthusiastically strewn with allusions to Plato, Homer, and other Greek authors that had been newly rediscovered in the early Renaissance. But few learned authors have worn their learning as lightly as Rabelais, and the book is also uncannily modern, edgy and subversive. Until recently it was a fixture on the reading list at St. John's. I hope to show that it is a book we cannot do without. The lecture will not presume any previous acquaintance with the book, and it will be R-rated (for language)." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tuck, Jonathan Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-01-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item 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 Rabelais, François, approximately 1490-1553? Gargantua et Pantagruel Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Tuck_Jonathan_2009-01-16 Friday night lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/e17Q-D6ZQp8?si=KHXK2yyc4yFOEjg1">https://youtu.be/e17Q-D6ZQp8?si=KHXK2yyc4yFOEjg1</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/e17Q-D6ZQp8?si=-oE0QAVsHfhgsBOQ">On How to Be Judgmental About Eros</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on January 9, 2026, by Annapolis Assistant Dean Ron Haflidson, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.<br /><br />Mr. Haflidson offers the following description of his lecture: "In Genesis, when the Man first meets the Woman, he says: 'This one at last, bone of my bones/ and flesh of my flesh…'. Then, the narrator adds, 'Therefore does a man leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife and they become one flesh.' In <i>The Symposium</i>, Aristophanes offers this pithy summary of the origin of love: 'Before…we were one, but now, because of our injustice, we have been split up and scattered by the god…We were whole, and the name for our yearning for and pursuit of wholeness is Love.' Both stories identify three moments in eros. First, in the present, there is an encounter with another with whom one feels an immediate and intense unity. Second, that experience of unity is partially explained by a strange, forgotten past. And then, third, that experience becomes a task for the future, as the lovers labor to make it an ongoing, sustained reality. Despite this cluster of similarities, there is also a difference with much at stake: in Genesis, the erotic heroes are a married man and woman, while Aristophanes most praises the intergenerational male couple. In terms of what it’s like to be in love, these two stories share much in common, but when it comes to judging which couple best fulfills the potential of eros, they diverge. A guiding question of this inquiry, then, is what criteria are at work in making these judgments?" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Haflidson, Ron Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2026-01-09 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Bible. Genesis Erōs (The Greek word) Judgment Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Haflidson_Ron_2026-01-09 Friday night lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/K6U7trlSIJQ?si=4nVvP1w8R5XvrF5b">https://youtu.be/K6U7trlSIJQ?si=4nVvP1w8R5XvrF5b</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/K6U7trlSIJQ?si=Nj7qxN542s-Jj8Hg">Learning and Contemplation—Matisse</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on November 14, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Matthew Linck, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.<br /><br />Mr. Linck offers the following description of his lecture: "Our encounter with <span class="markj21w4u2gv">Matisse</span> will be an occasion to think about learning. Paintings look like themselves, but they can remind us of other things (for example, other paintings). Aristotle says that when we see this as that, we learn. The “this is that” moment happens spontaneously; but we can also seek it out—seek learning—and ask, “What does this look like?” This requires looking around, searching for likenesses and making connections. But even if one painting reminds us of others, by looking like many others, that which a painting most looks like is itself. And so this requires us to think about what it means to see one painting by itself and what that would mean for learning. <span class="markj21w4u2gv">Matisse</span> will help us with this question, and thus help us with a question about contemplation." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Linck, Matthew S. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-11-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Matisse, Henri, 1869-1954 Art and philosophy Contemplation Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Linck_Matthew_2025-111-14 Friday night lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/sZUIy9oR8QE?si=-HN3Ldl_VaP9Ijks">https://youtu.be/sZUIy9oR8QE?si=-HN3Ldl_VaP9Ijks</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/sZUIy9oR8QE?si=-HN3Ldl_VaP9Ijks">Platonic Thumos and Rousseauan Amour-propre</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on October 24, 2025, by Professor Mark Shiffman, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.<br /><br />Mark Shiffman (A89) is Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Saint Patrick’s Seminary in California and Director of the Institute for Philosophy, Technology, and Politics. He is the author of <em>What is Ideology</em>, with scholarly work spanning the fields of ancient philosophy, political theory, and the Catholic tradition. <br /><br />Professor Shiffman offers the following introduction to his lecture: "Ambition, competition, dignity, and pride are phenomena central to an adequate political psychology. Plato calls the root source of these passions <em>thumos</em> and Rousseau calls it <em>amour-propre</em>. Can both the commonalities and the differences between what the two authors mean by these words help illuminate the political developments of our time?" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shiffman, Mark Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-10-24 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Political psychology Thymos (The Greek word) Plato Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Shiffman_Mark_2025-10-24 Alumni Friday night lecture 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/0c_RLKHU7L8?si=UlpuI97hJ8ZN4G7N">https://youtu.be/0c_RLKHU7L8?si=UlpuI97hJ8ZN4G7N</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/0c_RLKHU7L8?si=UlpuI97hJ8ZN4G7N">‘Foams Forth to Him His Infinity': The Puzzle of Phenomenology's Ending</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on October 10, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Khafiz Kerimov, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.<br /><br />Mr. Kerimov offers the following description: The final lines of Hegel’s <em>Phenomenology of Spirit</em> are not his own. Hegel ends the book with a quotation from Friedrich Schiller’s poem "Friendship" ("Freundschaft")—and misquotes it in a number of ways. Hegel's closing gesture invites a range of questions: why conclude with a quotation at all? Why a poetic one, and why Schiller’s "Friendship" in particular? Why misquote Schiller's poem? While I will touch on all of these questions in my lecture, my chief goal is to examine how this misquotation operates as the culminating moment of the Phenomenology and how it fulfills the book’s overarching project. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kerimov, Khafiz Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-10-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805. Poems. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Phänomenologie des Geistes Phenomenology Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Kerimov_Khafiz_2025-10-10 Friday night lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/_mCcruLVxCk?si=VQ3Yb9QwQodj_A3-">https://youtu.be/_mCcruLVxCk?si=VQ3Yb9QwQodj_A3-</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/_mCcruLVxCk?si=Iso0N6mhZnRioH42">Between the Book of Nature and the Phenomena: Regarding the Origins of Galileo’s Natural Philosophy</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on September 26, 2025, by Annapolis Dean Joseph Macfarland as part of the Formal Lecture Series.<br /><br />Mr. Macfarland offers the following description: "According to Galileo, the grand book of the universe standing before our eyes is written in the language of mathematics, in the characters of geometrical figures. On account of this conception of nature as fundamentally mathematical, he is taken to be a sort of founder of modern science and philosophy. By one account, the subsequent rapid progress of mathematical methods entails a forgetfulness of, or distrust of, mere appearances. The things known objectively, that is, mathematically, are not what they seem. This way of thinking seems fitting to the replacement of the Ptolemaic system by the Copernican one. The lecture will consider a few examples of how Galileo takes in what is before his eyes and thinks about it, and it will consider some limits to his efforts to account for phenomena mathematically. These characteristics of his natural philosophy will be viewed within the context of his attempt to secure a freedom to philosophize. The lecture will focus on his <em>Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican</em>, with attention to his letter to Christina of Lorraine. No familiarity with either text will be presupposed." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Macfarland, Joseph C. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-09-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Physics Galilei, Galileo, 1564-1642. Dialogo dei massimi sistemi Christine, of Lorraine, Grand Duchess, consort of Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1565-1636 Mathematics in nature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Macfarland,_Joe_2025-09-26 Deans Friday night lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/6JtMriQmN-Y?si=WvQd7tkOMI_sOzcL">https://youtu.be/6JtMriQmN-Y?si=WvQd7tkOMI_sOzcL</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/6JtMriQmN-Y?si=g2ssUx9SZrHF-d_T" title="A Timely Untimely Education">A Timely Untimely Education</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on September 19, 2025, by Santa Fe Dean Sarah Davis. <br /><br />Ms. Davis offers the following description: "I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.” Nietzsche opens <em>The Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life </em>with this quote from Goethe. It appropriately frames Nietzsche’s own meditation, which does not just walk us through different ways to relate to the past, giving us a schema for making sense of history, but invigorates and leads to a quickening within us. But how? This lecture investigates Nietzsche's claim that the "excess of history" in modern times compromises the health and vitality of human life. It then considers <em>The Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life</em> itself as presenting an alternative way to relate to history. Finally, it asks how, if at all, this alternative informs a St. John's education." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Sarah Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-09-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben History--Philosophy Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Davis_Sarah_2025-09-19 Deans Friday night lecture 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/dcxOD61TXK8?si=JcqrX2VOcjlB9BqQ">https://youtu.be/dcxOD61TXK8?si=JcqrX2VOcjlB9BqQ</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/dcxOD61TXK8?si=JcqrX2VOcjlB9BqQ" target="_blank" title="The Womb of Time: Drama as Pregnancy in Shakespeare and Elsewhere" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Womb of Time: Drama as Pregnancy in Shakespeare and Elsewhere</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on September 12, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Nicholas Bellinson as part of the Formal Lecture Series. <br /><br />Mr. Bellinson offers the following description of his lecture: "What kind of relationship to time underlies the urge to attend the theater? Shakespeare points to this question in various plays through the metaphor of time's pregnancy. Over and over, his characters stage this very relationship to time, as we will see in four plays: <em>Othello</em>, <em>Hamlet</em>, <em>As You Like It</em>, and <em>Love's Labour's Lost</em>. We will then ask what philosophical attitudes arise when we consider time to have or not to have the metaphorical capacity for pregnancy." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bellinson, Nicholas Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-09-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Pregnancy in literature Time in literature Time--Philosophy Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Othello Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Hamlet Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. As you like it Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Love's labour's lost Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Bellinson_Nicholas_2025-09-12 Friday night lecture Tutors 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/FHc2L4K6T2Q?si=C9r6EVi-VOppNFlQ">https://youtu.be/FHc2L4K6T2Q?si=C9r6EVi-VOppNFlQ</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/FHc2L4K6T2Q?si=C9r6EVi-VOppNFlQ" target="_blank" title="Deception and Self-Deception in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments" rel="noreferrer noopener">Deception and Self-Deception in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on September 5, 2025, by Professor Thomas Merrill as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Thomas Merrill is an associate professor for American University’s School of Public Affairs, and the associate director for the university’s Political Theory Institute, with research interests in political science and governance. He previously served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, and his most recent book, Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment, was the winner of the Delba Winthrop Award for Best Recent Work in Political Philosophy. <br /><br />Professor Merrill offers the following introduction to his lecture: Smith’s <em>Theory of Moral Sentiments</em> seems to offer a morality perfectly suited for bourgeois modernity: secular, sympathetic, and based on our transparency to each other. Yet upon examination, Smith’s moral world is shot through with deception and self-deception on several levels. This lecture uses Smith’s treatment of deception and self-deception to uncover the narrative structure of the <em>Theory of Moral Sentiments</em> and highlights the idea of generative errors—mistakes and deceptions that have unintended but positive consequences—as a key theme of Smith’s thought. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Thomas W. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-09-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Smith, Adam, 1723-1790. Theory of moral sentiments. Self-deception Deception Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Merrill_Thomas_2025-09-05 Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/5fd5792a3cd54e994d90f730803c298e.pdf 8039c10578a06aff77e5633ad05bb28a PDF Text Text A Meditation on Multiplication It is my honor to give the Christopher B. Nelson Lecture tonight. Mr. Nelson is an alum of the college and was president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, beginning in 1991. His presidency was marked by consistent care for our community of learning and lasted for more than 25 years, a remarkably long tenure for a college president. I’d like to take this opportunity to invite you all to the question period after lecture, to be held in the Conversation Room. We call it the question period rather than the question-and-answer period for a reason, so adjust your expectations accordingly. By tradition, students are allowed to ask the first few questions. There have been two times in my life that I remember being genuinely confused about what multiplication is. The first time, I was probably about six years old, excited by the prospect of learning the thing called a “times table.” What is this mysterious thing that puts lists of numbers together with x’s in between, equaling bigger numbers? I remember asking my mother what multiplication was. She said something like, “It means to take something a certain number of times, so that “2x3=6” means taking two three times. Two, four, six!” Her clear response was very satisfying to me and paved the way for much success in my young career. As I went through my elementary and then junior high school days, various elaborations on the main idea of multiplication came up. I learned to multiply fractions and decimals, to find areas by multiplying lengths and widths, and take powers of numbers: first squares, such as three squared equals nine, then cubes, then higher powers. By the time I reached high school, the applications of the simple tool of multiplication had, well, multiplied! Without my noticing it, I had completely left the realm of taking something “a certain number of times.” Throughout my college and graduate career in the sciences, multiplying in one way or another was second nature. Then, I came to St. John’s… which brings me to the second time in my life that I remember being genuinely confused about multiplication. Our freshmen have already begun their study of Euclid, which will continue for most of the freshman year. Euclidean geometry suffuses the program, coming up in Plato, Kant, Apollonius, Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Lobachevski, among others. My own time with Euclid began in my first year as a tutor, with a freshman math class. After wrestling with triangles, rectangles, circles, and ratios, 1 �we arrived at Book VII, the first book focusing on numbers. “Ah,” I thought, “What simplicity! What clarity, after the messiness of ‘same ratio’...” Part of the clarity came from Definition 15: “A number is said to multiply a number when that which is multiplied is added to itself as many times as there are units in the other, and thus some number is produced.” (Euclid, p. 157) This brilliance of clarity evoked memories of my six-year-old self, just beginning to encounter multiplication. My mom’s explanation to me was vindicated by Euclid himself. Alas, my simple pleasure in the clarity of this definition was short lived. I began to think over the previous books of Euclid. My class and I had been comparing the sizes of triangles, rectangles, and parallelograms for weeks. I suddenly realized that I didn’t really understand how we had been comparing these areas. In my own mind, with years of experience multiplying length by width to find the area of a shape, I had been tacitly assuming that something like this multiplication was at the root of all our comparisons of areas. I had noticed, of course, that Euclid was not using numerical comparisons, but rather was proving areas to be equal in principle. But the implications of how he was treating areas didn’t sink in until I saw Definition 15. Why did he only need to define multiplication when he wanted to think about numbers? Why hadn’t Euclid defined multiplication earlier? Wouldn’t it make sense that the way we calculate areas would be discussed at some point, while he is working so diligently with areas of various sorts? Filled with puzzlement about multiplication once again, I realized that Euclid had never calculated the area of anything, that my modern-educated mind had read into Euclid something he hadn’t done: namely, finding extent of an area by multiplying length by width. So I attempted to take that next step myself. How would I use Euclid’s Definition 15 of Book VII to calculate the area of a rectangle, for instance? Can I multiply length by width using definition 15? My lecture tonight will begin with this question. Once again, Euclid defines multiplication thus: “A number is said to multiply a number when that which is multiplied is added to itself as many times as 2 �there are units in the other, and thus some number is produced.” Can I treat length and width in the same way as I treat numbers? If I can, I would have to somehow add length to itself as many times as there are units in the width, to produce the measure of an area. Can I use this process to find an area? There are two problems that I can see with using the language of “adding to itself” when multiplying length and width. First, there is the problem of dimension. If I’m thinking about this process as adding the same length to itself a number of times, thus producing a longer length, why do I have any reason to think that I would somehow get a measure of area? In other words, how will I relate the measure of the longer length, one dimension, into the measure of an area, two dimensions? Second, there is the problem of finding a unit in a given length, which, unlike a number, doesn’t come with a given number of units. How do I know how many times to add length to itself if my width isn’t labelled with a unit measure? I’ll address these questions each in turn. The first problem we confront is the problem of dimension. Let’s start with a simple example. I have a rectangle with length that is three times longer and width two times longer than some length. I will take this third length, that is, half of the width, to be my unit. We’ll leave the problem of how I can find a unit for my length and width for now and just assume we can do it. Following Book VII, Definition 15, I multiply the length by the width. I take the length, which is three units, and add it twice, that is, the number of units that are in the width, ending with a new length that is six units long. On what basis do I think that this long breadthless length would have anything to do with finding a measure of the area of a rectangle formed from my two starting lines? How can I turn one dimension (length) into two (area)? Let’s look at the problem more closely. I have a rectangle of length three and width two (Figure 1), and I’d like to find a measure of the area. I can draw vertical parallel lines at right angles upon the rectangle at each unit length as well as one horizontal line at the unit width, dividing up the width (Figure 2). I can say now, using Euclid Book II, Proposition 1, which states that the rectangle contained by two straight lines is equal to the rectangles that would be formed if one of the straight lines is divided, that the area of my original whole rectangle is equal to the areas of all of the smaller rectangles added together. (Euclid, p. 37) 3 �At this point, I can refer to the square area based on the unit length as “an area of one” (Figure 3). Since the lines encompassing my smaller areas are all equal, I know that these smaller areas are all equal to each other, that is, they are each an area of one (Figure 4). When I add up all the unit areas, I find that I have six unit-areas, or a final area of six (Figure 5). By restacking my boxes, I can go one step further and represent this area by a rectangle that has a width of our unit and a length of six units, thus bringing the comparison to the line that is six units long into focus (Figure 6). It doesn’t seem coincidental that the same answer, six, came up both when I multiplied length by width and got a longer line of six units, and when I added up the smaller unit areas in the rectangle. In both cases, I’m taking something of three units twice. In the first case, I’m taking a length of three twice, to get a length of six. In the second case, I’m taking a set of three unit-areas twice, to get an area of six. There is nothing in my procedure that relies on the particular numbers I choose. If my length had been 29 units and my width four units, the process would have been the same, just with more divisions. In other words, I seem to have found a procedure showing that the number I get when I multiply the number of units in my length by the number of units in my width will be the same as the measure I get for the area of my rectangle. I haven’t produced two dimensions out of one but I have found a reliable connection between the one-dimensional measure of multiplied length and the area that will come from those two lines, if they are set up geometrically as the length and width of a rectangle. The procedure depends only on finding a unit that measures both the length and the width. My assumption at the beginning was that the width and the length were both multiples of some other length, which I used as my unit. But what if my rectangle doesn’t have this feature? What if there are no built-in units for me to work with? Let’s turn now to the problem of finding a unit. First, we’ll spend some time with Euclid’s definition in the Greek, to be sure that we understand what he means by a unit (Figure 7). In Book VII, definition 1, we learn that, μονάς ἐστιν, καθ᾽ ἣν ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων ἓν λέγεται. (Euclid, vol. 2, p. 279) (Figure 8) 4 �μονάς ἐστιν: a unit is... The Liddell and Scott lexicon entry for μονάς, as in unit, lists it as the feminine substantive of the adjective “μονος,” meaning solitary, alone. Implied in the word for unit is the idea that it is “one who stands alone.” (Figure 9) μονάς ἐστιν, καθ᾽ ἣν: a unit is that according to which... καθ' is a modification of κατά, because of the rough vowel which comes next. κατά is a preposition, and, as is true for most prepositions, can have many meanings depending on the context. In this case, it is followed by an accusative relative pronoun, ἣν, meaning "which” in English. A good translation of this could be "according to which” or “as to which”. (Figure 10) μονάς ἐστιν, καθ᾽ ἣν ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων: a unit is that according to which each of the beings... ἕκαστον means “each” or “every”. τῶν ὄντων is a participle in the genetive case, so "τῶν ὄντων” is the object of "ἕκαστον.” The participial nature of it is usually rendered in English with the ‘ing’ suffix. The root “ὄντ-” in the Greek is the participial stem of the verb “to be.” It appears to be a substantified word, something like, “the beings” or “the things that exist”. What sort of beings does Euclid mean? Should I take "τῶν ὄντων” to refer to mathematical objects, to numbers, or to something more broadly interpreted? Taken on the surface, "τῶν ὄντων” seems to refer to anything that is, anything that could be called “one.” Jacob Klein, a former dean of St. John’s College and a philosopher of math, spent a good bit of time investigating the question of what sort of thing is addressed by "τῶν ὄντων”. His conclusion after much study was that Euclid really meant what he said: each of the beings, each of the things that are, anything that can be called “one,” is included in the definition of unit. The scope of our definition just became much broader than anticipated. While I might have been justified in thinking that my work involved only mathematical objects up to now, the introduction of number has brought in the wider world, including each of the things that exist. Each of them? Really? This seems to be at least one surprising result of our examination of this definition. I suppose it makes sense. If I can apply number to anything, that is, if I can count anything, then anything ought to be within the scope of the work. (Figure 11) μονάς ἐστιν, καθ᾽ ἣν ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων ἓν λέγεται: a unit is that according to which each of the beings is called one. This is the natural translation of the straightforward ending, “ἓν λέγεται,” or “is called one”. 5 �If we have a unit, we must have a “being,” one of “τῶν ὄντων” which we are calling “one” according to the unit. If I consider a being in the world, the fact that I can refer to it as “a being,” or “one thing,” is not taken for granted in this definition. Rather, that fact of my ability to call it one is associated with the unit in question. If I have a triangle, the unit is a triangle, that according to which I call it one triangle. Likewise, if I have a sheep, a hamburger, or a sheet of paper. In those examples, the units are sheep, hamburger, and sheet of paper, respectively. (Figure 12 – blank) The fact that there is a unit for these things shows that each of them possesses integrity. Are there some things for which a unit is not available? Things which don’t have the integrity of unity, which cannot be called one? How about water, air, sand, gravel? A lake can be counted as one, but is there any such thing as “one water”? We can have one grain of sand, but can we have “one sand”? Substances that flow are very hard to count. We tend to make due with an invented unit: one cup of water, or a 40-pound bag of sand. In these cases, the beings in question just don’t fall into units easily. Therefore, I need to find another, often arbitrary, way according to which I can refer to them as one. In these cases, I’m using the integrity of the cup or the bag as my unit. In Definition VII.2, we find that, “A number is a multitude composed of units.” (Euclid, vol.2, p.277) I may have three sheep, twenty sheets of paper, or six cups of water. We count beings with numbers, which are made up of units. Each thing counted, then, must have some sort of integrity, something by virtue of which we can name it and count it, either natural or arbitrary. What would that unit be, in the case of a length or width? Does a length have a natural unit, like sheep, or would I need to find something arbitrary, like my measure of a cup of water? Recall that, if I’m going to multiply length by width in order to calculate an area, I need to add length to itself as many times as there are units in my width. Is there anything ready to hand by which to count it? It doesn’t seem so, since there are no natural divisions in breadthless length. Perhaps I can invent a unit, find something like my cup of water. I’ll just cut my width in half and call the half of my width my unit. Does the half of the width have integrity – is it a being that can be called one? Maybe, but it sounds doubtful. 6 �For one thing, what stops me from dividing the width into four, or seventeen, or one hundred? Even assuming I can invent a unit for my width, which one should I pick? Depending on what my unit is, whether a half or a hundredth of my width, that unit will yield the number of times I’ll be adding my length to itself to produce an area. Which unit I choose, then, is critical in determining what area I’ll find. It seems that I’ll need to do something more than just invent a unit. Perhaps I can discover a unit, find some natural division, some reason for calling this part one of the beings “τῶν ὄντων.” If I had a good rationale for picking a unit of length, I could find how many of these natural units are in the width and then take the length that many times to find my area. How will I discover a being lurking in breadthless length? If I can compare my two lengths, that could help. If my width can be divided into a certain number of units into which my length can also be divided, then I might have some confidence that I’ve found the correct unit. Let’s say that I divide my width into 100 parts and take one of those parts and see if I can divide my length into an even number of those parts. What if that piece doesn’t go into the length evenly? Maybe then I try reapportioning the width into 200 parts, or 1,000. Can I be confident that I will eventually find a part that will also divide my length into an even number of parts? The answer, as we find in Book X of Euclid, is no. Definition 1 of that book defines commensurable magnitudes, as those which are measured by the same measure, and incommensurable magnitudes as those which cannot have any common measure. By “magnitude” he just means something having size, so a magnitude could be a length or an area, or some other mathematical entity with a determinate size. Euclid proceeds, in that very long book, to find and categorize several different kinds of incommensurable magnitudes. It turns out that even if I could put my suspicion to rest, the suspicion that a section of a width will never have the integrity of a unit, I now must admit that I may never be able to find a common measure between my length and my width. Our search for a unit by which we could measure the length and width of some area has failed. The process we outlined before, which depended on the length and width having a unit in common, will not work for every case. One commonly invoked example of a failure to find a common measure for length is the side of a square and its diagonal. (Figure 13) In modern parlance: if 7 �the side of the square has a length of one, the diagonal is “irrational” with respect to the side, and has a length delineated as the square root of two (√2 ). There is no common measure between one and the square root of two, and no way to count out the square root of two. To visualize this, imagine I had a geometrically exact ruler of length two. (Figure 14) If I measure the side of my square with this ruler, it would come to exactly halfway along the ruler, for a length of one. If I measure the diagonal with this ruler, (Figure 15) it would be quite far past the length of one. To find out exactly how much past one it would go, (Figure 16) I could subdivide my ruler into tenths. I’d find that the diagonal would come to slightly over one and four tenths of the length of the ruler. To find out just how much over one and four tenths the diagonal is, I could make even smaller subdivisions of my ruler. I would find that the diagonal came to just over one and forty-one hundredths of the ruler. To find out just how much over one and forty-one hundredths the diagonal is, I could make even smaller subdivisions of my ruler. I would find that the diagonal came to just over one and four hundred fourteen thousandths of the ruler. This process would never end, if I’m trying for mathematical exactitude. If I’m not working with a mathematical object, but with a physical square and diagonal, this process would come to an end whenever I decided to end it, at whatever level of precision either my ruler or my patience would call for. (Figure 17 – blank) The point is, I didn’t have to go very far to find an example of two lengths which do not have a common measure. So, if I’m looking to find the area of a rectangle made by two given lengths, and I’d like to multiply the lengths, how will I know whether there is a common measure between them or not? How will I know whether I have something like my original example-- in which half of the width goes into the length evenly -- or something like the side and diagonal of a square? My hope of being able arbitrarily to make a unit that would be usable for both my length and my width has been dashed. Given these difficulties, one might be forgiven for wondering why anyone would believe that multiplication of length by width would even be possible. And yet, we do it all the time. How is it possible? One answer has to do with the realm in which we are working and the precision we require. As I mentioned in the example of the side and diagonal of a square, I may be working in the physical world, perhaps just trying to figure out how big my plot of land is, or my tablecloth. In these sorts of cases, it doesn’t 8 �matter so much whether I can find a unit or not. If I have a table that is three feet long and two feet wide, I can happily use my unit, the arbitrarily chosen “foot.” What if the length and width don’t come out to an exact foot measure? Then I come up, arbitrarily, with inches and smaller subdivisions of inches. If my concern is to figure out if my tablecloth will cover my table completely, I really don’t need to measure the length and width of my tablecloth with much precision. If the length is three feet five inches plus a little more than an inch, I can just include that slopover in my estimations. The key word here is “estimation.” In the physical world, every measurement is an estimation, by its nature. I hold a ruler or tape measure up against the table. Implicitly, I know that the edge of the table is not precisely given, nor is the position I place the ruler on going to be completely determined. Baked into my measurement is the sense that there is always some amount of sloppiness. The job is to minimize the sloppiness to the point where it doesn’t matter for the job at hand. With strictly practical problems, I can use my procedure without worrying about whether my unit is natural or whether it goes into my length and width an exact number of times. If I’m working with mathematical objects, though, the story is different. Mathematics promises to be absolutely precise: if I say the length is two feet in a math problem, it will be two feet, not two feet and a smidge. When I am committed to finding what can be proven to be true, not just what gets the job done in the world of tablecloths and land, I need to be sure that my units are real units and that there is no extra bit. What has happened in between Euclid and our own time that leads us to think we can multiply lengths? A full picture of the development of mathematical thought during those hundreds of years is too much to handle in one lecture. Mr. Lasell will be speaking in the spring on some aspects of it, so look out for that lecture. For my purposes here, I’ll jump to the 17th century and René Descartes. Our sophomores will read his Géometrie in the spring semester, in which he spells out a method that he says is “la même que la Multiplication,” (Descartes, p. 3) that is, “the same as multiplication”. Let’s take a look at what he does. He begins La Géometrie with the broad claim that “any problem in geometry can easily be reduced to such terms that a knowledge of the lengths of certain straight lines is sufficient for its construction.” (Descartes, p. 2) He goes on to say 9 �that solving arithmetic problems--that is, problems involving numbers--involves only a few operations, namely addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, broadly understood. He then makes the analogy to geometrical entities, such as lines and shapes, which I’ll call, generically, magnitudes. The implication is that as solving numerical problems involves only these four operations, solving problems of magnitudes will also use some few analogous operations. Adding and subtracting geometrical magnitudes are done in a similar way to adding and subtracting numbers; those operations don’t present serious difficulties. Adding a line to a line makes a longer line in a similar way that adding a number to a number makes a bigger number. Descartes realized, as we have, that multiplication is different (and similarly for division, which I won’t be discussing). Rather than try to fit geometrical multiplication into something like numerical multiplication, taking one line the number of times as there are units in the other line, he goes a different way. For simplicity, I’ll call his procedure “geo-multiplication.” He presents this geo-multiplication in an offhand way, as if the connection to numerical multiplication is clear. Here is his description of what he says is “the same as multiplication”: “…taking one line which I shall call unity in order to relate it as closely as possible to numbers, and which can in general be chosen arbitrarily, and having given two other lines, to find a fourth line which shall be to one of the given lines as the other is to unity...” (Descartes, p. 2) He elaborates further with an example, which we’ll take step by step. In the example, he is proposing is to find the multiplication product of two lines, BC and DB. (Figure 18) In the spirit of this lecture, we can think of this operation as finding the area of a rectangle with the given length and width. The naming of these two lines by including the letter B in each one implies that the two lines are touching. Sure enough, in his drawing, Descartes puts the two lines together. (Figure 19) He begins by dividing off a portion of one of the lines to be multiplied (DB) with the point A, and calling the line BA “unity,” analogously to “one” (Figure 20). He gives no procedure for where to mark off our “A” here, and, in fact, declares that it can be taken arbitrarily, at any point on the line BD. We’ll get back to this point later, but for now, let’s just put our A here and keep going. 10 �He joins A and C, (Figure 21) and draws ED parallel to CA (Figure 22). Because E occurs past C in this diagram, we’ll just extend the line BC until it hits E (Figure 23). Now, we’ve done it, according to Descartes. We’ve geo-multiplied two lines, BC and BD. The product turns out to be the line BE. To understand this, we will need to do a little more work with Euclid. If you’ve studied Euclid already, you may remember that one of the properties of similar triangles is that their sides are proportional. In this diagram, the triangle BAC is inside the larger triangle BDE, with the bases being parallel. Because the angles of the triangles are equal, we know that those two triangles are similar to each other (Figure 24). Thus, we know that the sides are proportional, or DB is to BA as EB is to BC (Figure 25) That is, if DB is three times as long as BA, we know that EB will also be three times as long as BC. Once we have proportional sides, we know, by Euclid VI.16, that the rectangle formed by the lines at the outside of the proportion, DB and BC, is equal in area to the rectangle formed by the lines at the inside of the proportion, BA and EB (Figure 26). The rectangle on the left is formed from the two lines I had wanted to geomultiply: DB and BC. The rectangle across the top of the figure is formed from the lines EB and BA, or BE and the line which we previously defined as unity, or one (Figure 27). Descartes has found a way to build a rectangle with a width of one and the length of which gives me the area of the first rectangle. This is essentially what we did before, with our restacking of the rectangle that was six units in area. (Figure 28, then 29) In this way, using an arbitrary unit, the measure of the line BE can be thought of as a representation of the size of the area of the rectangle BD, BC. There is a further comparison between numbers and magnitudes that lies underneath the procedure he uses (Figure 30). In Book VII, Proposition 19, Euclid proves that for any four proportional numbers, the multiplication of the extremes produces a number which is equal to the multiplication of the means. (Euclid, vol.2, p. 318) This proposition is part of a series of propositions in which Euclid proves analogous things about numbers that he proved in Book VI for geometrical magnitudes including length. Book VII.19 is analogous to Book VI.16, in which he proves that the rectangles formed by the extremes are equal to the rectangles formed by the means. In using the rectangles formed by the means and extremes to come to a rectangle whose area can be represented by a length, he is using a process that can also be used with numbers and multiplication. 11 �Now back to our original question about finding the area of a rectangle. We had already solved the problem of dimension, of how to relate the repeated addition of a line to itself to the designation of an area. We were left with the problem of the unit. Descartes has found a way around the problem of not having a natural unit in lines. He’s developed a procedure for finding the area whether or not the two lines encompassing the shape are commensurable or not. His procedure involves making an arbitrary unit from one of the lines involved in the problem, connecting the two lines in the shape of a triangle, and using proportions to find the result. So far, so good. I’d be willing to bet, though, that almost no one in at least two hundred years has actually gone through this technique in order to multiply length by width. There is another step we need to get us to where we began, with the multiplicity of ways of multiplying that I learned in grade school and beyond. This further step is provided by the German mathematician Richard Dedekind, an author our juniors will be studying. I’m not going to go into the details here, because they are beyond the scope of this lecture. In short, Dedekind developed an idea of number that went beyond counting numbers to a filled-in number line, allowing any magnitude to be represented with digits of some sort, with numbers after a decimal point going on as long as necessary. The square root of two can be expressed as 1.4... pi can be expressed as 3.14... and so on. Once Dedekind’s work led to the number line, and a magnitude was refigured as digits, it was only a matter of time before what we used to call simply “numbers” would come to be referred to as “whole numbers” or “counting numbers,” to distinguish them from “irrational numbers,” “transcendental numbers,” “repeating decimals,” et cetera. When we represent magnitudes with digits, the process of getting to an area can be simplified from Descartes’ triangles, ratios, and equal rectangles, to a simple technique for decimal multiplication. For example, (Figure 31) I can multiply one hundred seventy-three by thirtysix and pi by the square root of two in a very similar way. I just change pi and the square root of two into an approximation from the number line, approximations that are developed through other processes that we won’t go into here. I ignore the decimals for the moment, multiply each digit together as a number being taken as many times as there are units in the other number, and add them all up. I can then replace the decimals according to rules developed in a sensible way and I have my result. Solving the two problems happens in ways that are nearly indistinguishable. 12 �We’ve come full circle: geo-multiplication can be performed using digits, with a similar process to numerical multiplication, with no awkward triangles needed. We just do the multiplication and move the decimal place around to where it belongs. The methodological distinction between geo-multiplication and numerical multiplication has vanished. Descartes’ claim that what I’ve been calling geo-multiplication is “the same as multiplication” seems to be vindicated. But what would I say if someone asked me what I was doing in each case, what I meant by “multiplication” for each problem? In the first case, I think I’d say that I’m taking the first number the number of times that there are units in the second number. Rather than doing thirty-five addition problems, I’m using the much quicker method shown on the slide, but the concept is the same. In the case of pi and the square root of two, the technique is the same, but what I’m doing is far more complicated and is really not the same thing at all. I’ve hidden the distinction and a significant amount of mathematical theory under the simple technique that looks so similar. Is the process Descartes outlines really “the same as multiplication” as he says? If what we mean by multiplication is finding the answer to a problem, using the technique that we call multiplication, then yes, I’m doing essentially the same thing when I multiply whole numbers as I am when I multiply magnitudes. If what we mean by multiplication, though, is taking the multiplicand the same number of times as there are units in the multiplier, the answer must be “no.” It is true that Descartes comes up with a representation of the area of a geometric figure that can be spoken of in terms of a length. He does this, though by declaring an arbitrary unit for each problem. That term, “arbitrary unit,” would be an oxymoron if we were following along with Euclid. Euclid’s unit, “that according to which each of the beings is called ‘one,’” seems not to be arbitrary at all, but to be closely tied to the integrity of the thing in question, as we’ve said. Descartes has avoided the use of units, and given us a tool that can find areas with geo-multiplication. This tool has been developed by later mathematicians to the point that literally a child can learn how to use it. As a society, we put a high store on learning “how to do math” by which we mean, in part, how to multiply decimals. The number line is introduced to five- and six-year-olds. It is truly marvelous that things that seemed insurmountably difficult a few hundred years ago are now routinely taught to kids. (Figure 32 – blank) 13 �At one level, I am all for simply appreciating the power of geomultiplication. I’m in awe, as much as anyone, of the beauty and simplicity of mathematics. I also love me a good problem-solving technique. On the other hand, I can’t shake this gnawing suspicion that we have hidden something important, namely, the importance of the distinction between a natural unit and Descartes’ arbitrary unity. The distinction between numbers and geometrical magnitudes has been obscured. What we think of that obscurity might relate heavily to what we think mathematics is. I don’t know if I had ever asked myself what mathematics is before I got stuck on the problem of multiplying magnitudes. Since I started asking the question, I’ve heard a lot of responses, which tend to fall into three broad categories: mathematics as a useful tool, as a body of non-contradictory knowledge, and as our access to the truth. I’ll take each of these in turn. Mathematics as a Useful Tool A tool is a device that achieves a particular goal. It is usually specific to the task at hand, such as a hammer, that is designed to beat a nail into a plank of wood. Viewing mathematics in this way highlights that aspect of tricks, techniques, and methods. Depending on the question I’m asking or the need I’m facing, I’ll use a different method. If I’m putting up a zip line in my back yard, I may need some trigonometry to make sure I’m getting the right angle of descent, so I’m neither zipping too fast nor too slow. Mathematics as a tool is a means to an end. It is subservient to whatever the problem is that I’m trying to solve. Taken more broadly, mathematics can be used not just to solve immediate problems, but to give an account of natural phenomena. Much of the math that we do on the program falls into this category, more or less, of finding the mathematical reasoning that will give an account of phenomena at hand. Galileo wants to understand motion, Euler wants to describe a vibrating string, Bohr wants to penetrate the atom, et cetera. In general, when mathematics is used as a tool for understanding phenomena, the goal is to have an account that can be verified, usually through predicting the phenomena. If I describe the motion of a vibration in the way Euler does and the plucked string follows that motion, I can be confident that my tool is working well. If not, I can go look for another technique. There’s an ad hoc character to this description of math, though, that seems to imply too much independence of the techniques from each other. There is no essential connection between tools designed for different purposes. A hammer and 14 �a screwdriver both fit my hand, but other than that, they aren’t really related to each other; they don’t depend on each other. Techniques of mathematics are not independent in the way a hammer and screwdriver are. Differential equations, calculus, algebra, and geometry all fit into each other. Euler's differential equations and Bohr’s atomic equations both rely on algebraic manipulation. In this way, different kinds of mathematics are like countries on a continent rather than tools in a toolbox. Each one is delimited by boundaries, but all go together in an underlying logic. There is another way in which the metaphor of mathematics as a tool breaks down. Consider the hammer and the nail. Independent from a hammer, a nail is a human artifact. It could be considered a tool itself, a device constructed to achieve a certain end. However, when we use mathematical techniques to build an account of nature, we are not working with one human invention to manipulate another human invention, like we are when we use a hammer to hit a nail. Nature is beyond us, not made by humans. When we examine individual parts of it, we are pulling out a piece of what we imagine to be a whole. It would be strange to approach pieces of a natural whole with mathematical techniques that have nothing at all in common with each other or, worse, were mathematically contradictory to each other. We see, then, that the relationship between the different branches of mathematics makes some sense if we are thinking of it as a way of understanding nature. We don’t want our understanding of nature to be disparate and particulate, so we likewise don’t want our mathematics to be thoroughly partitioned into incompatible realms. This leads us to our second way of thinking about mathematics. Mathematics as a Non-Contradictory System This account emphasizes the logical dependence of each branch and method of mathematics upon the other and upon some underlying way of thinking. As we noted, the mathematical methods used for each situation are not completely independent from each other, but form a larger body of study. Aristotle, in the Organon, maps out syllogistic reasoning in detail, the kind of reasoning used for geometrical proofs and, similarly, in algebraic manipulations. This is the kind of reasoning that deduces true statements from other statements. For example, if we say that all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, we can deduce that Socrates is 15 �mortal. Synthetic knowledge begins with statements from which other statements are derived in a logical system. If line AB is neither less than nor greater than line BC, then it must be equal to it. If force equals mass times acceleration, then half of force also equals half of mass times acceleration. It is critical that none of the deductions is in doubt. If I determine that AB is not less than BC, I cannot then say that it must be equal to it. There is another possibility to rule out: it might be greater than BC. Likewise, I cannot change the equation in such a way that the equality doesn’t hold in all cases. If I’m completely certain about all of my deductions, then I end up with an edifice of statements, each one leading to, stemming from, or interlaced with the others. I can begin with any statement of geometry or any version of my equation and derive many other things. The question is, where do those original statements come from? For a geometrical system, we want to know where the set of definitions, postulates, and common notions comes from. For an analytic or algebraic system, we want to know where the original equations and the rules of operations come from. For example, in geometry, how do I know that equals, when added to equals, produce equals? It seems like this must be true, but is it simply that I can’t imagine the exception? The original statements for any mathematical system may simply be human constructs or symptoms of human limitations of imagination or intellect. Or, they may be true simply, connected with physical or logical necessity. If we don’t know where the original statements come from, we come to think of our mathematical edifice as floating in mid-air, so to speak. It could be selfcontained and logically consistent but have no foundation outside of our imagination. Do we have any way of judging the truthfulness of the original statements? Is it possible that our edifice of mathematics is simply contained within my mind, based on foundations that may or may not be true? Euclidean geometry was the only game in town for centuries. The definitions, postulates, and common notions were toyed with and reworked, but were essentially accepted as true and foundational in themselves. In the nineteenth century, Lobachevsky famously rejected Euclid’s fifth postulate, which states that lines that are angled towards each other at less than two right angles will eventually meet. He subsequently showed that the geometry that followed from this rejection was self-consistent and robust. What are we to make of the fact that 16 �two systems of mathematics with different fundamental assumptions are both selfconsistent? Mathematics as Our Access to Truth In the first possibility I outlined, math as a tool, I was sketching a portrait of a very external process. The mathematician has some problem to solve or phenomenon to describe, and wants something to help with that specific matter. The result was an ad hoc and disparate view of mathematics, a toolbox with different and unconnected tools, each one useful for a specific task. In the second possibility, math as a self-consistent system, my sketch was very internally focused. The mathematician has a few foundational principles and makes deductions and connections to produce a large mathematical edifice. The result was an integrated whole that may or may not relate to anything outside itself. Neither possibility is completely satisfactory. The handy man or woman might be satisfied with using math as a tool, but at some point, someone will ask how the tools are connected. The student of mathematics might be fascinated by the beautiful connections between theorems and equations, but at some point, someone will ask what the equations are good for. To connect the external and the internal, the foundational principles of mathematics must be grounded in reality. Mathematics must be seen not as useful simply by chance, not just self-consistent in the mind, but approaching something true. As Pontius Pilate famously asks, “What is truth?” It’s unclear from the Gospel of John whether Pilate’s question is genuine or dismissive. The claim that there is a truth to things and that we can approach this truth is a very large and interesting claim, and underlies the further claim that mathematics is one of the primary ways we have to approach it. There are several authors in the program who seem to hold versions of this view. I’ll outline three approaches here, presented under the names of authors who seem emblematic of each approach, namely, Plato, Galileo, and Kant. Plato For the purposes of this lecture, I will treat Socrates as something of a mouthpiece for Plato, the author. Socrates’ project, as it plays out in the dialogues, is a search for wisdom. He looks for wisdom among men, through conversation. He questions people who are willing to discuss fundamental things until the interlocutors come 17 �to an agreement; about the meaning of some important term, such as virtue or justice. If the interlocutors can discard contradictory notions, they will be getting closer to an expression of what virtue or justice is, for example, even if they never get to a full definition. Language, then, reflects reality by giving us a way to the invisible forms which give solidity and integrity to the world. In the Republic, Book VI, Socrates uses the image of a divided line to help the interlocutors understand how to approach this invisible structure of reality. (Plato, p. 190) Part of the line is concerned with the physical world, and is divided into two parts, one corresponding to the natural things and the other to the images of natural things. The other part of the line is concerned with the invisible world, which is only approachable through the intellect. It is divided into two also, one part corresponding to the forms and the other to geometry and calculation. If the analogy holds between the two different regions of the line, mathematical objects would relate to the forms themselves similarly to how images and shadows relate to objects in the world. (Figure 33) In Socrates’ language, the geometers, in their use of drawings of geometrical shapes, are “…are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind.” (Plato, p. 191) This exercise gives them a route into the invisible reality of things. The more one studies geometry and calculation, the closer one would be to understanding the forms. Perhaps we start to discern the kernels of excellence in human activity similarly to finding the form of a triangle in the slope of a zipline between two trees. Our minds become accustomed to sifting out contradictions, so that our gaze is sharp enough to see what justice is, with the right interlocutors. Galileo To set the stage for Galileo, we need to acknowledge a shift from the pagan philosophers and thinkers, such as Euclid, to those rooted in Judeo-Christianity. The Hebrew book of Genesis tells the story of creation, ending the sixth day with the creation of man and woman, made in God’s image and with his likeness. This account of the world as a created thing, coming from one mind, was central to Hebrew thought and was later spread widely through Christianity. Reality, in Judeo/Christian thought, does not consist in separate forms which give integrity to the world. Rather, the world has come to be through the power of one mind, 18 �through the God of the universe, who brought everything, including humanity, into being by speaking it into existence. Johannes Kepler, (Figure 34) who lived around the same time as Galileo, says in Chapter 7 of his Astronomia Nova, “It is true that a divine voice, which enjoins humans to study astronomy, is expressed in the world itself, not in words or syllables, but in things themselves and in the conformity of the human intellect and senses with the sequence of celestial bodies and of their dispositions.” (Kepler, p. 41) In other words, God’s voice is responsible for both humans and the planets. This voice expresses itself in the things themselves, both the astronomical objects and our human senses and minds. We are made to understand the universe. Galileo must have been heavily influenced by this mindset as he went about his study of motion. (Figure 35) In his essay The Assayer, which is quoted at the beginning of our junior laboratory manual, he says, “Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth.” (Galileo, p.4) For Galileo, Kepler’s voice of God shows itself as a philosophical book, the book of the universe that surrounds us. We are part of that universe in a particular way, in that we can understand the language and read the book. The language is mathematics, the letters are the figures of geometry. We can interpret the physical world through math, learning more about reality and, perhaps, about God himself, by reading his book. Mathematics is essential to the whole project and gets us as close as we ever could be to understanding our world. Kant Kant came into the conversation after Hume had made a strong case for mathematics as an internal activity of humans, something that does not get us closer to the truth of things, but is that is purely self-contained. Kant takes this idea of internality quite seriously. He works hard to make the connection that Hume had rejected, the connection between the internal and external, between mathematics as a mental activity and mathematics as an approach to truth. He believes that he does bridge this gap, though how he does it is difficult to say, though our juniors will be 19 �taking a stab at it next winter. One thing Kant doesn’t do is claim that we can achieve knowledge of the thing in itself through our senses, reason, or mathematics. (Figure 36) In the Prolegomena, he says, “And we indeed, rightly considering objects of sense as mere appearances, confess thereby that they are based upon a thing in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances, viz., the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown something.” (Kant, paragraph 32) The “thing in itself”, in his language, is always out of reach for us. If by mathematics approaching truth you mean getting through all the layers to the essence of what something is, Kant would not agree with that. Still, he does claim to put math on a firm foundation, saying that we can approach the world and find objective truths in it. Mathematics, then, is both internally and externally facing for Kant. Our own internal mathematical apparatus, filled in and broadened out, is our way of working with things in space and time. We may not be able to get at the thing in itself--we cannot truly bring the external world inside of us or export the internal descriptions to the outside--yet we do truly interact with the external world in some way, which involves the use of mathematics. As we encounter the world, the unapproachable noumena in the world and the apparatus of mathematics in the mind come together as phenomena. Encountering elements of the world simply as phenomena, we can grasp things, visualize them in motions that follow certain laws, and describe those laws mathematically. The project of understanding the natural world that was so important to Galileo can continue, if, as Kant would have it, we understand that we are not really getting at the reality of things in themselves. (Figure 37 – blank) Conclusion What has happened to my original question about multiplication? Recall that we had gotten to the point of wondering what material difference eliminating a sense of a natural unit would make. Why not simply applaud Descartes and move on? If mathematics is only to be used as a tool and nothing else, I don’t think it matters much. We use mathematical operations such as multiplication as tools in the way we want to, not worrying about whether the tools connect with each other. If mathematics is an internally consistent system, it matters more whether our units 20 �are arbitrary or natural. The easiest way to reconcile the two is to say that units are arbitrary and numbers are best represented on the number line. It doesn’t really affect how I see the world around me, since this premise relies only on having an internally consistent mathematical system. Whether or not there is any connection to something real in the world is beside the point. What if I believe that mathematics is a, or perhaps the, way into learning the truth about things? This is the case where it matters most whether I call my units “that according to which the beings are called one” or not. If my way of understanding the world comes through mathematics, and if I’ve said in my mathematical system that units are simply arbitrary, then I might at least wonder if the beings, the things that are, have any kind of integrity to them. If I prefer the Kantian approach, I can always hold onto my belief that any such thing in itself has integrity, is a real thing, even if my mathematical work relies upon arbitrary units. For the Platonic and Galilean approaches, would I assume that because I have come to the point of using the number line as a reflection of what is real, what I call a thing is arbitrary? In other words, if I’ve left off using natural units, does that say that nature itself has no units? If I have other reasons for wanting to say that nature does have units, that there are beings with their own integrity in the world, what do I do with a mathematics that doesn’t recognize this anymore? I began this lecture with a naive curiosity about how multiplication came to be used with lengths rather than with numbers. My mother’s Euclidean explanation of multiplication morphed over the years of my education, under the layers of learning how to perform operations and when to use which mathematical tool. I, myself, am persuaded that math is not simply a tool, nor is it simply a selfconsistent system, unconnected with what is real. I’m left, then, with this final question: If mathematics really is a route into what is true, what is it telling us about our world? FINIS 21 �Bibliography Descartes, René, The Geometry of René Descartes, tr. David Eugene Smith and Marcia L. Latham, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, NY, 2016. Euclid, The Thirteen Books of Elements, tr. Thomas Heath, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, NY, 1956. Galileo The Assayer, Opere I, tr. Stillman Drake, web.stanford.edu. Kant, Immanuel, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Tr. Paul Carus, The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, 1912. Kepler, Johannes, Astronomia Nova, tr. William Donahue, Green Lion Press, Santa Fe, NM, 2008. Plato, Republic, Book VI, 510d, tr. Benjamin Jowett, Digireads.com, 2016. 22 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 pdf Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 22 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Meditation on Multiplication Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on August 22, 2025, by Annapolis President Suzy Paalman as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Ms. Paalman offers the following description: 'We learn as young children that multiplication is taking a number a certain number of times, to form the times tables. As we learn more, the meaning of multiplication subtly changes, even as the methods of doing actual problems don't really change much. For instance, we learn early on to multiply length by width to find the area of a rectangle. How is finding the area of a shape related to taking numbers a certain number of times? This naive question will lead us to ask about the relation between number and magnitude, using Euclid and Descartes for help. In the end, our inquiry will come to mathematics as a discipline. The question, "What is multiplication?" will lead us, in the end, to the question, "What is mathematics?"' Ms. Paalman's lecture is the first formal lecture of the academic year. Previously referred to as the Dean's Lecture, this lecture is now called the Christopher B. Nelson Lecture. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paalman, Susan R. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-09-22 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> 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 Multiplication Mathematics Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Paalman_Susan_2025-09-22 Christopher B. Nelson Lecture Deans Friday night lecture 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Hyperlink A link, or reference, to another resource on the Internet. URL <a href="https://youtu.be/C0yBZMyVfIU?si=9vGm6K0T9XrIeFqa">https://youtu.be/C0yBZMyVfIU?si=9vGm6K0T9XrIeFqa</a> 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/C0yBZMyVfIU?si=9vGm6K0T9XrIeFqa" target="_blank" title="A Meditation on Multiplication" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span>A Meditation on Multiplication</span></a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on August 22, 2025, by Suzy Paalman as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Ms. Paalman offers the following description: 'We learn as young children that multiplication is taking a number a certain number of times, to form the times tables. As we learn more, the meaning of multiplication subtly changes, even as the methods of doing actual problems don't really change much. For instance, we learn early on to multiply length by width to find the area of a rectangle. How is finding the area of a shape related to taking numbers a certain number of times? This naive question will lead us to ask about the relation between number and magnitude, using Euclid and Descartes for help. In the end, our inquiry will come to mathematics as a discipline. The question, "What is multiplication?" will lead us, in the end, to the question, "What is mathematics?"' Ms. Paalman's lecture is the first formal lecture of the academic year. Previously referred to as the Dean's Lecture, this lecture is now called the Christopher B. Nelson Lecture. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paalman, Susan R. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-09-22 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource YouTube video Subject The topic of the resource Multiplication Mathematics Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Paalman_Susan_2025-09-22 Christopher B. Nelson Lecture Deans Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c1dd9dc27d89edcf00bb910706d2e8f8.mp4 592d22a220fc730420865d2d95e68dc3 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data mov Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:52:53 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 Madness/Enchantment: Don Quixote and the Contest of the Real Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on August 30, 2024, by Annapolis tutor Nicholas Bellinson as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bellinson, Nicholas Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616. Don Quixote Quixote, Don (Fictitious character) Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Bellinson_Nicholas_2024-08-30_ac Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f68576416f58398baca5ae895fda7b8e.mp3 7995fb76510eb53c92c3299e714d82ee 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 audiocassette Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:02:45 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource How Theory Informs Practice: Virtues and Rules in Aristotelian Practical Philosophy Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on May 2, 1986, by Dr. Stephen Salkever as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Salkever, Stephen G., 1943- Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-05-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound recording Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics. Theory (Philosophy) Practice (Philosophy) Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Tape 854 Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d00787df1d02ff1a9b6f39c6cb3f919e.mp3 7d980e145c65feb7817754ec5fad3a6b 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 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="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&amp;sort_dir=d">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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple 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 audiocassette Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:11:43 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 Is Knowledge True Opinion with a Logos? Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on January 17, 1986, by Annapolis tutor Stewart Umphrey as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Umphrey, Stewart, 1942- Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-01-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound recording Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Plato. Theaetetus Knowledge, Theory of Philosophy, Ancient Plato Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Tape 605 Friday night lecture Tutors