2 20 453 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/164921526a5b1b5b74b1819c9682343e.mp3 a821fe95dfd4dd7b945fd98f4cc1c13f 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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.) 53:41 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Storytelling and Philosophy: The Ring of Gyges Description An account of the resource Recording of a lecture delivered on November 8, 2002, by Jacob Howland as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Howland, Jacob 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 2002-11-08 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. Republic Gyges, King of Lydia, -approximately 648 B.C. Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Tape 45 Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a8c8690c64ceb1bd7f61fd2eac6d22af.mp3 fb868fc60ce201ae66d19791f917eebf 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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.) 57:56 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 Cells and Genes Are Parts of Animals: Aristotle in the Late 20th Century Description An account of the resource Recording of a lecture delivered on September 16, 1994, by James N. Jarvis as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jarvis, James N. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-09-16 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 sound recording Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Aristotle. De partibus animalium Cytology Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Tape 1347 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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. 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.) 01:06:58 URL https://youtu.be/ca-ZKJugQnA?si=cB7IuvD-uUOHabaQ 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/ca-ZKJugQnA?si=cB7IuvD-uUOHabaQ">On Written Speech</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on February 7, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Mary Elizabeth Halper as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Ms. Halper offers this description: "There are two kinds of speech: the speech we speak and the speech we read. This lecture is on the latter. By way of comparison with spoken speech, and with help from Plato's Theaetetus, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, the lecture will reflect on written speech as such, what it offers us and what it asks from us." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Halper, Mary Elizabeth 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 2025-02-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has permission to make this item available online. 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 Speech Written communication Plato. Theaetetus Plato. Phaedo Plato. Phaedrus Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Halper_Mary_Elizabeth_2025-02-07_ac 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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. 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.) 00:43:39 URL https://youtu.be/zaOtM2cdiGQ?si=-IbDPGZmi-uNCcNw 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/zaOtM2cdiGQ?si=-IbDPGZmi-uNCcNw">The Power of Solitude in Sophocles’ Philoctetes</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on March 28, 2025, by Dr. Emily Austin as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Dr. Austin is an Associate Professor of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago, with research interests in Greek literature, especially Homer and depictions of solitude in ancient Greece. Her first book, Grief and the Hero: the Futility of Longing in the Iliad, explores the nexus of grief, longing and anger in the Iliad. She is currently working on a second book, Solitude and its Powers in Ancient Greece, which identifies surprising moments when ancient Greek poetry conceives of solitude as a good thing. Dr. Austin offers this introduction to her lecture: "Sophocles’ Philoctetes presents its lonely hero as incomparably wretched. Yet this suffering figure also claims that his isolated survival is something uniquely heroic. This lecture explores the tension between debasement and nobility in Sophocles’ play, taking seriously Philoctetes’ claims to heroism, which are unparalleled in the poetic discourse of his time." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Austin, Emily P. 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 2025-03-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. 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 Sophocles. Philoctetes Solitude in literature Heroes in literature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Austin_Emily_2025-03-28_ac Alumni Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fbd8839cb4b572ec64c78088e73b5058.pdf df9eea89af0e9f98fe1d716904906161 PDF Text Text On Written Speech Mary Elizabeth Halper 7 February 2025 Prelude As beings who have some hold on the workings of logos, we are blessed with two chief miracles, which, for all their mundanity, are no less miraculous. These are spoken speech and written speech. This lecture is on written speech as such. There is a temptation to suppose that the speech we read and the speech we speak are not all that different. Haven’t we heard it said – or perhaps have said ourselves – that the written speech we spend so much time with has its own voice? Isn’t it held as an aspiration that we enter into a conversation with these bundles of written speech we call books? And don’t we mark it as an achievement to find that some sample of written speech speaks to us? All these are familiar ways to conflate written speech with spoken speech. These are ready temptations, perhaps because we suspect that written speech needs such a conflation to come out fairly when compared to spoken speech. For when we start comparing the two, spoken speech seems to claim a distinct advantage. In the first place, spoken speech precedes written speech in time, both for our species and, usually, for each of us individually. After this first priority, many more and invidious distinctions suggest themselves: Spoken speech sounds; written speech is silent. Spoken speech is responsive, adaptable, immediate; written speech is impassive, indifferent, distant. Spoken speech is free; written speech is fixed. The one is alive – a child of the very breath that sustains us. The other is dead – dark marks dug onto a fair, flat surface. Perhaps such a stark hierarchy so simply delivered has already begun to rankle. Good. But hold – for in this unjust relief we may see through the supposed deficiencies of written speech to glimpse its distinctive character, 1 �its unique capacities. Let us compare the two, yes. But let us compare them as two, permitting ourselves neither any easy elision nor derisive ranking. In this endeavor, I will need help. And for that help I turn to Plato. As I said, this lecture is on written speech as such, not on any particular written speech. Nevertheless, I will recruit three Platonic dialogues – incidentally three of the four dialogues in which some written speech is present. It is not incidental, though, that Plato’s writings should be my allies and my touchstones. For the crucial difference in the powers of spoken and written speech is their very stuff: they are, after all, written speeches of spoken speeches – mostly spoken by a man who, within the dialogues, never wrote (or nearly so) and all written by one who, within the dialogues, never utters a syllable. I Let us start with the marks made by writing, since the most obvious difference between spoken and written speech is that the latter is visible. Written speech is inscribed speech, made from some definite system of figural characters. And since we are hewing close to the differences between spoken and written speech, let us narrow our sight to phonetic script systems. For unlike other forms of scripts – say, unvocalized systems or ideogrammatic systems – phonetic scripts aim to imitate the sounds of spoken speech, and thus offer us a place for the most delicate of distinctions. Phonetic scripts are the ones with which many of us are most if not exclusively familiar. English and French both, with some slight modifications, use the Latin script, which is phonetic. And, of course, Greek is written in a phonetic script. A and B or alpha and beta – the first two characters in these systems, these alpha-bets – announce their phonetic character straight away. What makes a script phonetic is that it can represent all the relevant sounds – that is, all the significance-bearing sounds of a language. And for that, you need characters for vowels and consonants. Being, as we are, finite and bound at some point to replenish what we expend, any sound made with breath has a start and a stop. We can modulate the sounds we make with our breath by shaping our mouths in different ways, and we can start and stop that sound with even more numerous and varied configurations of our tongue, teeth, and lips. The differently shaped sounds are vowels, and the sundry ways to pick up or leave off those sounds are 2 �consonants. There is an asymmetry here: Consonants, while they are the principal source of variety in our speech, cannot by themselves be spoken. As their class name tells us, they can sound only with some vocalization of a vowel. Their being sounded depends upon other sounds. A complete sound with its peculiar starts and stops is a syllable. An image for us: As with a line, the extremities of which are different in kind from it, a syllable’s length is its vowel sound and the consonants are the points wherewith it may begin or end. Phonetic script captures this heterogeneity by providing characters for both the vowel sounds of a language as well as the ever-attending consonants. But in that very capturing, it also erases this heterogeneity by providing what is always sonically dependent with a graphically independent character. To look at the character α and at the character β, nothing in their written shapes give any indication of their ontological asymmetry, or perhaps we should say, hierarchy. It certainly doesn’t look like β depends on α; as far as their inscribed form is concerned, they are equally letters. As written elements of speech, they offer no hint of the difference that makes all the difference when they are spoken together. With respect to their graphic character, they are as indiscernible as points – one is no different from the other. To return to our image: whereas a vocalized syllable has a continuous magnitude, like a line, a written syllable makes no such pretensions: it is as a collection of proximate points. Between the audible syllable and the visible collection of letters, some transmutation has occurred. We might think of the letters as composing the syllable, or the syllable as being decomposable into letters. But that’s not quite right, as it is not quite right to think of the line as composed of points. In spoken speech, the syllable is no piecemeal composition – it is a continuous whole. The vowels and consonants are always already together, discernible to the ear but only within the sounding of the whole syllable. Only in written speech are the elemental vowels and consonants discrete parts as independent letters. There is, then, no simple correspondence between a vocalized syllable and its written counterpart. Moreover, in becoming discernible to the eye, these literary elements of the syllable are excluded from the perceptible mode of the syllable itself. We do not – cannot – hear the letters, we can hear only the syllable. If we want to claim that the syllable is braided together from the literary elements – as Socrates suggests in the Theaetetus – then we have a speakable braid woven from silent strands. And these letters cannot be sundered from their syllabic 3 �sounding; clearly the consonants are unable to be either voiced or spoken, and even the vowels, though able to be voiced, will not be significant unless they undergo this strange transmutation and become a whole syllable, no longer a merely a letter. The way to know the whole – the syllable – and the way to know its parts – the letters – are completely exclusive. But we must not forget that the syllable is itself a part of a word. What becomes of literary parts and their syllabic wholes when considered in the more capacious context of a word? What kind of whole is a word? It seems that there may be two ways to reckon the material of a word: two irreducible ways to take apart the same word, two systems of division that have no common measure. The word as spoken has as its smallest meaningful part the syllable. And in the word as written, the letter plays that elemental role. When speaking, you cannot cut up Theaetetus’ name any finer than its four parts “The” - “ai” - “te” - and “tos.” But as a name scratched or printed on a page, it clearly has ten parts (or nine, if you’re counting in Greek). Here we encounter another asymmetry between spoken and written speech. The syllabic parts of a whole multi-syllabic word correspond immediately to the spoken word. When we know each of the syllables of a word, we recognize the word. There is a continuity between the syllabic parts and the whole word; the way to know the syllabic parts is the same way to know the spoken word. But not so with the literary parts. When we analyze the word into its elemental letters, we make a break that cannot be so seamlessly mended. We have divided past what perception can put back together. We have new parts, parts of a different kind than their whole. Yet, what we know by the parts does not seem to increase our knowledge of the whole. Knowing the letters does not add to what we know by the syllables. In knowing how to aggregate letters we do not come to know anything more about their aggregate. Or, to return to our image of the line: picking out some points on the line does not tell us anything more about the line than what we got from encountering the line itself. So what do we know when we know the parts proper to written speech? We do not gain knowledge of something perceivable about the word – that knowledge is exhausted by knowing its syllables. If not of something perceivable, then perhaps we gain knowledge of something intelligible, something strictly intelligible. For all that a phonetic alphabet corresponds to significant sounds, I hope I have complicated the notion that the written word is an imitative repetition of the spoken word. There is a discontinuity between written and spoken 4 �speech. Consider, again, consonants – when written, they gain an independence that was impossible for them when they were perceptible to the ear. But how? By what kind of act? This split through the being of spoken and written speech is accomplished by thinking. The consonants’ independence is a theoretical one, a work of abstraction, the result of thinking now acting apart from perception. Consider these two descriptions, again from Socrates in his conversation with Theaetetus: Socrates describes thinking as “soul... conversing, itself asking and answering itself” and this in silence and before oneself alone. He also gives a description of speaking as “what makes one’s own thinking evident through sound with words and phrases, pressing his opinion into the stream through his mouth as into a mirror or water.” Spoken speech is an image of thinking shaped in the medium of what flows, as breath flows through our mouths, over our tongues, past our lips. The medium of the image is essential to the image: spoken speech expresses thinking as flowing, and flowing as a stream does. We can, in spoken speech, get ahead of ourselves. Our spoken sentences can run headlong, and sometimes on and on. It can even feel as if our spoken speech is outstripping the thinking it communicates. Spoken speech gives expression to the venturesome, precipitate, ecstatic character of thinking. But Socrates’ first description of thinking does not quite fit with this image. Thinking possesses another characteristic – one that cannot be captured with the image of a flowing stream, but perhaps is better imaged as an eddying whorl. Thinking can turn around on itself. It has the power to arrest the direction of its flow. It is capable of repose and riposte. Thinking as reflexive and recursive, as silent and self-considering – this is the activity of thinking uniquely exercised in written speech. In making written speech independent from spoken speech, thinking earns a kind of independence for itself. In written speech, thinking separates what in sounded speech is inseparable, and in doing so it makes a place for this distinctive activity. The discontinuity between written and spoken speech arises from thinking making room for itself. Perhaps then it is not so surprising after all that written speech adds nothing to our knowledge of the word already perceived through spoken speech. Written speech is not an addendum to spoken speech, but an independent desmesne with its own mode of signifying. And the special significance that belongs to written speech shelters the soul’s silent, selfconcerned activity. With written speech, thinking makes for itself a home in 5 �which it may return to itself, a place where it may freely play out its peculiar ability to turn around and face itself. Perhaps you suspect that you are catching the bitter scent of solipsism. In focusing on the discontinuity of thinking, in describing written speech as thinking’s self-made home, have I in fact locked thinking away in an isolated cage of its own making, condemning it to a frictionless spinning of selfconcern? Has this interpretation of visible speech made the thinking therein opaque, impenetrable, impermeable and thus unable to be shared? No – at least, I hope not. But the path now open may be even more unsettling. II Let us begin again with another asymmetry: Spoken speech is to speaking not as written speech is to writing. I’ll say that again: spoken speech is to the act that generates it not as written speech is to the act that generates it. Of the first pair, speaking is primary. Speaking is the place of the speech’s fullest being. Spoken speech apart from speaking – like a recording or a recitation – is a residue of the real thing, clearly derivative and diminished. Even the likes of Phaedo reporting so poignant a conversation as the one had on the day of Socrates’ death cannot escape the loss of some of the living speech. And I think we can all recognize the loss of something essential when we listen to a recording of living speech – perhaps one reason why we do not allow anyone to record our seminars. Speaking belongs to a moment, a context, an occasion, and a speaker. The source of spoken speech’s integrity and significance is in the speaking. None of this is so for written speech and writing. Far from being primary, writing is a sort of antecedent accident to the written speech – merely the way to bring about what is the real thing. Written speech is no residue of the act of writing, its lingering after-image; written speech is the fulfillment of the writing. Writing is for the sake of having written, and written speech is in its very structure meant to be complete, to be whole. To borrow some terms from the study of grammar, we might say that while the progressive aspect is proper to spoken speech, written speech belongs in the perfect aspect. And under this perfect aspect, written speech is also capable of independence. The discontinuity we observed in its material parts – its letters – appears again in its form. Written speech is made to be apart from its writer. The generative activity of written speech is exhausted in its generation. And 6 �because of this, it can bear being severed from its source. Once written, the speech includes all that it is to be, and thus bears its own integrity and significance. Because written speech is bounded, definite, and meant to be definitive, it admits of revision. Because written speech is discontinuous with the act that produces it, a new, distinct act of writing can work upon the same written speech. And because it is independent of the acts that produced it, it can be returned to again and again. Once the written speech is set down, it abides. It abides for the writer: ready to be recast if necessary (and we all know from our own experiences with writing that revising is almost always necessary). And, if all goes well, it abides for the reader: ready to be taken up again and again. This repeatability is not the same hollow hearsay we get in a report of living speech; or the reedy playback of a recording of living speech. Written speech allows – invites – a repetition of a different kind, and an indefinite number of them. By virtue of being separable and perfect in its separability, written speech can repeat in a way unavailable to spoken speech. Consider again Phaedo’s repetition of Socrates’ final day to Echecrates. Phaedo may affect Socrates’ manner when reciting Socrates’ words, but to Echecrates they are Phaedo’s words in some ineliminable way. Consider now reading Plato’s Phaedo: the signals of quoted speech (such as quotation marks and set phrases of “he said” and “he replied”) bracket the speech itself, and we in turn can easily bracket them. That is, in written speech the quoted speech appears as the quoted speaker’s; through written speech we can encounter the quoted speech more immediately. It seems difficult if not impossible for Phaedo to disappear into the speeches as he relates them to Echecrates. Whereas it is quite easy for us to completely lose sight of Phaedo when we read the Phaedo. It is even possible to – in fact, often, it is difficult not to – forget that Socrates’ quoted speech and Phaedo’s direct speech are in fact Plato’s written speech. We might debate fiercely (and likely fruitlessly) about just whose speech Plato’s written speech really is – but to the extent that this debate would be gripping, it is predicated on our detecting in Platonic dialogue some lively source at work, some provocative origin of the speeches. It may belong peculiarly to Platonic dialogue to bring us into intimacy with that source as much as it bewilders us about its identity. But this repetition of that origin – a repetition that brings us closer to rather than reminding us of our distance from that source – is an essential, peculiar characteristic of written speech itself. 7 �Written speech’s power to remain, independent and perfect, means it also has the power to preserve. Xanthippe, being shooed out of her husband’s cell, leaves with these parting words: “Socrates, now is the last time your companions will talk to you and you to them.” Xanthippe’s words are as penetrating as they are accurate. She is right. At least, we grant that she is right as far as Socrates’ spoken speech goes. But many if not all of us feel, at least for a moment, that she is not wholly right. Socrates speaks to us still, our soul longs to claim, each time we read the Phaedo. There – in the written speech – a sliver of a soul remains alive, saved from the grasping reach of death. Whether that bit belongs to Socrates or Plato matters less than that it can belong to us again when we read. In abiding, in remaining, the life of written speech is essentially an afterlife. Written speech, then, may seem to offer its writer a play for – and a play on – immortality. The story may go like this: a writer summons up speech from within her soul; she sets it down in writing; she picks it up again in rewriting; at last, she sends it away for whatever readers it may find. The speech, now affixed to parchment or paper, is free from her and also free from the death that will inevitably come for her. Her speech lives on in a new body – a repeatable body – and the original life it had in her may be relived for as long as it remains able to be read. This is a lovely story, and one that writers may sing to themselves over and over to bring comfort in the often toilsome, taxing labor of writing. It is a lovely story for us readers too. When we pick up what an author has set down, we can for a moment share the writer’s life, acquire an intimacy with her that overcomes the intervening time and space, which otherwise would be abysmal. But perhaps this story is too lovely. For it seems that the writer’s chance at an afterlife through writing depends on a reader reading. Perhaps it is truer to consider the living thought of the author as intermittently preserved in the written speech. That is, the written speech is an inert vessel, an embalmed body, keeping the living source in stasis until a reader comes along to quicken it. The reader then reanimates the written speech, makes it capable of speaking again, like the dead that drink of Odysseus’ blood offering. And like Odysseus, we readers may have to sacrifice so that the the speech can live again and its writer live on after a fashion. The written speech is then like a corpse or a shade; the afterlife it provides its writer is occasional – relying on the occasion of being read– but to the extent that it is still a kind of life, still a possibility for communion, this more sober story 8 �is still a noble one. That written speech relies on a reader prompted us to tell a more sober story. Thinking of written speech as a corpse more ennobles the reader’s activity, which then becomes a kind of near-divine act of resurrection. But if the original speech is to keep its integrity, that is, if we are not to diffuse the integrity of the speech-corpse as we infuse it with our own spirit, then the written speech cannot be simply a dead body, no matter how well-preserved. As much as we want the writer to live on in her written speech, so much are we deterred from taking written speech to be dead. Written speech as a shadowy imitation of the once-living helps with this unease. Our reading reanimates the written speech by setting in motion some residual morsel of the once-living soul that made the speech of itself. In reading, we call the imitation into a connection with its original and therewith assure ourselves somewhat that the written speech preserves the original thinking. We are brought to this middling position because we want written speech to grant continued life to its original source in such a way that preserves both its liveliness and its originality. We want the living speech of the writer to live again in us, but if the living speech is dormant until we take up the written speech, then the written speech without any reader is still dead. Then again, how could it not be? If written speech is to preserve, it must stay the same – it cannot grow or adapt or give off new shoots. The difference between dead written speech and dormant living speech is supplied only by a reader. So what else is a reader to consider herself than a resurrector or a shade-summoner? What else indeed. Let us ask again: how could written speech not be dead? Both the lovely and the sober story, show a lingering affection for and privileging of spoken speech – a return to the notion that written speech is only an imitation of spoken speech. If we want to say that in the written speech we hear the writer speaking to us, then we’re modeling written speech off of spoken speech. Indeed, in our haste to secure for the writer/speaker a life in her written speech, we may be doing just what Socrates hopes to avoid on his final day. He advises Simmias and Cebes to care rather for the speech than for the speaker, lest he, Socrates, departs as a bee that has left its stinger behind. To insist on keeping the speech attached to the speaker is to keep the stinger even as the bee buzzes off, in fact, buzzes off now to die. Instead of securing life for the writer, we keep only a remnant – a shred of her shade or a crumb of her corpse. 9 �In the stories I have just told, the writer’s thinking escaped her own mortality by taking on a new body in the written speech. But here’s a new story: a writer summons up speech from within her soul; she sets it down in writing; she picks it up again in rewriting; at last, she sends it away for whatever readers it may find. The speech now separated from the author’s mortal coil is a working of the soul separated from a body. The written speech is no new body; it is a soul concentrated and separated in an act of articulated thinking. And what is it to separate the soul from the body? It is to die. And that song that authors might sing to themselves as they write? It is not a consolation for a death to come, but for the dying that makes written speech possible. Now, this is unsettling, indeed, but let us not blink at it. If death is the separation of the soul from the body, then the result of death is twofold: a corpse and a soul by itself. But as we saw with written letters, the decomposition of the whole does not conserve all of its parts. For the bodysoul composite is lost as well; the particular self that lived all its life as this body-soul composite does not survive the separation. I will remain silent on whether this is the truth of our lives, but I do propose that it is true about written speech. Writing is a practice of dying and being dead, and written speech is living thinking itself by itself. It does not grow or change or adapt, but that is not because it is dead. It endures precisely because it is always and only what it is. Writing separates thinking from the thinker, not as dead thoughts requiring resurrection, but as living thinking. In this separation, the thinker – the writer – is left behind. Far from being an expression of the writer, or a self-reported record of a thinker’s thoughts – the working of the soul in written speech is separated not only from the body, but also from the writer’s self. The speech that seemed to be the writer’s proves to be its own. Written speech annuls its own parentage: its genesis is accidental to its being. So the writer, in writing, becomes to the written speech a no one. The speech of the writer, as written speech, does outlive the writer, but at the cost of no longer belonging to the writer. Written speech separates the speech from the writer finally – this is the ground of the features we saw earlier: written speech’s perfect aspect and its preservative power. Written speech does preserve its original source, its true parent. But written speech’s true parent is not the writer; its truth birth and its everlasting life is in the thinking that never was anyone’s. 10 �And in this, written speech again proves a peculiar kinship to thinking. It is because thinking belongs to no one that written speech has this possibility. This is perhaps a less obvious feature of thinking than its recursive power. But when it exercises this power, when it delights in its own activity, thinking belongs only to itself. Thinking in its silent, self-concerned activity, thinking that commits itself to written speech is anonymous. The only self of significance is thinking’s self, the self it discovers when concerned with its own activity. This is not to say that no thinker is required – as it cannot be said that no writer is required for there to be written speech. Rather, it is that no particular thinker is required. Whatever is thinkable is in principle thinkable by any thinker. Thinking may be contingent on the myriad of intricate details that go into making any one thinker just who she happens to be, but thinking in itself, thinking for itself, is unconcerned with its contingency. Thinking strains to be, and however it happens to come to be matters little to its being. Thinking is a concentration of the soul, the soul attending to its own activity – not as belonging to a particular body, not even as belonging to a individual self. Thinking is soul gathering itself to itself by separating itself from the self it is as jointly principle of thought and principle of a particular life. This power of soul to gather itself apart from itself is marvelous, yes, but not extraordinary. That our sinews and bones may be so movable that by them we may both walk and sit, so affected that in them we may feel both pleasure and pain – this is an ordinary marvel too. The ordinary marvel of thinking is always ready to spring up. That real thinking is so rare and so difficult is not because thinking itself is scarce or shy. Thinking is difficult because it demands a bit of dying. III Perhaps you are yearning for that moment – some several minutes ago – when you were worrying about solipsism. Even the acrid odor of self-imprisoned thinking may smell sweet compared with the stench of thinking as dying. Or perhaps you are wistful for the moment – some fewer minutes ago – when you were entertaining that lovely story in which the writer and the reader are joined through the medium of graphically preserved thoughts, overcoming all manner of distance to commune: the generosity of the writer and the gratitude of the reader united in a beautiful moment of grace. This is indeed 11 �a lovely story, and it is so because love seems to be at its heart. Your preference for life and love can hardly be held against you. And you have experience on your side. As a devotee to the written word, you have likely experienced the feeling of some slumbering part of your soul thrilling to life when you track a thought through a thicket of written speech, or the feeling of warmth and solace when you discover a deep kinship with a writer. These are dear moments, and I would consider it a painful blow against the account just given if it is unable to support them. Let me first address the stench of death: To say that thinking demands a bit of dying is not to say that thinking is death. Dying is the soul separating from its concern with the body, the soul grasping independence from the impingements of individual existence. This is not death as an irreversible state, but it is dying as an activity in which the agent, the thinker, is busy with becoming irrelevant to the act of thinking. This activity is not permanent, but intermittent. The kind of dying that thinking takes is an interruption of concernful being in the world as an unrepeatable individual, not the end of all possibilities for that individual. And this feature of discontinuity is mirrored in written speech. So, likewise, to say that writing is a practice of dying and being dead is not to make it into some sinister ritual. The act of writing is also a feat of becoming irrelevant. The act of writing is the act of making the agent, the writer, irrelevant to the written speech. To be done writing is to be done making a difference to the written speech. Once the written speech is complete, that is, once it is living thinking itself by itself, it cares as little for the particularities of the writer as of its reader. This indifference of written speech grounds its power to be an occasion for anyone to think. On this account, to sense your soul sparking to life when you become absorbed in written speech is rather to detect thinking absolving itself of its concern with all the contingencies of your being. You may still be unsettled about thinking as dying, but I hope the notion is no longer noxious. Yet, to the extent that this account has become less noxious, the status of love in it has become obnoxious. That is, it seems that there is simply no room for any intimacy between writer and reader if the written speech makes all their individuality obsolete. And lest any of you surmise that this is merely a romantic desire to keep kinship with the writers you love best, we must also consider that written speech itself has incorrigible particularity. Not only is it written in a particular language, but it is the particular arrangement of particular words. Those particularities are 12 �constitutive of the written speech, even as the speech is supposed to mirror the anonymity of thinking. So how can we have both love and thinking, both particularity and anonymity, both individuality and ideality? This is the hard problem remaining to us, and to address it, I will turn to Plato’s Phaedrus. Socrates encounters young Phaedrus heading out of Athens’ walls and accompanies him to the countryside, speaking of Phaedrus’ recent rendezvous with Lysias. This Lysias has been giving speeches, and Phaedrus seems to have been captivated by them, in particular one about why you should give erotic favors to the one who does not love you rather than the one who does. In fact, Phaedrus is carrying a copy of this speech written down. After he reads it to Socrates, Socrates critiques Lysias’s speech and offers his own version of the argument. Then Socrates critiques his own speech and makes another – a majestic palinode – vindicating the divine madness of eros. But before returning to Athens, Socrates takes up the subject of speech itself, concluding with a critique of written speech. Even from this paltry synopsis it should be clear why the Phaedrus is a fitting dialogue to consider. Not only is love its great theme, but it also includes the most extended reflection on written speech that Socrates ever gives. As much as the Phaedrus is fitting, however, it is also potentially fatal to the account of written speech offered in this lecture. For Socrates’ account of erotic love and of written speech seems to keep them forever apart. By Socrates’ argument only living spoken speech, only dialogue is compatible with erotic love properly understood. To the extent that it is an image or imitation of dialectic, written speech may support a kind of loving friendship – philia – between the writer and the reader by sharing in common with the reader what is understood by the writer. But this is the only way written speech may be worthwhile. Speeches like Lysias’ are a misguided use of written speech, just as misguided as Lysias’ conception of erotic love. And it must be granted that Lysias’ speech does seem like it is an instance of written speech as I’ve described tonight. Although the speech is attributed to Lysias, the giver of the speech can be anyone and the speech can be given to anyone. The conceit of the speech is a non-lover persuading a non-beloved to take on the trappings of a lover/beloved relationship. But insofar as nothing but absence of love marks the writer, and nothing but absence of a relationship to the writer as a lover marks the audience, the speech by anyone to anyone is a speech of no one’s. And this aspect of anonymity is most manifest in the speech as written. If we imagine the speech as spoken, 13 �we must imagine it as spoken only as a set speech, only as a recitation of something already formed and formed in abstraction from any particular situation. If we try to imagine the speech as given from someone in particular to someone in particular, then the content of the speech belies its delivery. The particular giver of the speech, as the non-lover, could not have in mind any particular beloved as the addressee without calling into question his status as a non-lover – any particular affection on his part would undermine his claim to be a non-lover. This speech in praise of loving the non-lover is, and must be, utterly impersonal. Its danger is two-fold: not only does it get erotic love spectacularly wrong, but it also seems to have a seductive power: the speech captivates Phaedrus, so much so that Socrates titles him a lover of speeches. Perhaps Phaedrus delights in it because it can become his as much as it began as Lysias’. Indeed, he first attempts to reproduce it in his own words before the written speech is spied out by Socrates. The impersonality of the speech, made concrete by its being written, is the source of the allure for this lover of speeches, even more than the impersonality of the suggested love relationship is supposedly alluring for the non-lover and non-beloved. Phaedrus is drawn to the speech because it is no one’s, and the non-love is attractive because it cannot involve anyone in particular. But just as the ground for the allure of non-love is the promise of control, so also control is the ground for the allure of impersonal speech. Nothing of you is at stake, nothing of you needs to be entangled in an impersonal speech or a non-love affair – you simply get what you already know you want and you need suffer no affect. And on this understanding of love, to love speech is to collect it, confine it, freeze it in one’s soul for memory to fish out at a whim. As the danger is two-fold, so is Socrates’ critique of Lysias’ speech and Phaedrus’ reception of it. Socrates first deals with the content of Lysias’ speech, erotic love; and then he attends to Lysias’ speech as speech, and particularly as written. Written speech plays no part in the rehabilitation of erotic love, and erotic love plays no part in the assessment of written speech. Given our interest in written speech, let us look to Socrates’ second critique first. Socrates’ critique of written speech begins with a story about its genesis. Theuth, the Egyptian god of many a techne, presents to Thamus, the Egyptian god-king incarnation of Ammon, an array of inventions for Thamus’ judgment, including his invention of letters. Upon submitting this invention for Thamus’ appraisal, Theuth lauds it as a drug – a pharmakon – for mem14 �ory. But Thamus responds to the invention as if it were a poison – again, pharmakon – written speech will weaken, he predicts, not strengthen memory. Written speech is helpful not for memory but for reminding, and the faith put in this recollection from without will enervate the power to recollect from within. The supposed moral of this myth is that written speech is medicinal only for those who already know what is in the written speech and a poison dressed up as a drug for those who do not know. This pharmaceutical written speech, Socrates continues, can only say the same words over and over to whoever picks it up. That is, it cannot respond adequately to continued inquiry, it cannot discern between the reader it will help and the reader it will harm, and it cannot defend itself against malignant interpretation (nor, we must imagine, can it confirm just interpretation). The target of Socrates’ critique is a insensitive, indiscriminate, and impotent written speech, a written speech that is strictly instrumental, a technical written speech. And with it goes a technical way of reading. Technical reading adopts the posture of user to the written speech. Even the chilling term “consumer” is too lively for this kind of reader, inasmuch as consuming suggests at least the possibility of metabolizing the written speech. Technical reading carts written speech along as a tool to be leveraged. Even when that tool is carried within the soul, that is, even (or perhaps especially) when the written speech is memorized, the technical reader’s relationship to it is wholly extrinsic. Technical reading may internalize the speech but only to the extent that it makes part of the soul external to the rest. Technical written speech is made for use, and technical reading makes of us users. But from this wreckage of written speech, Socrates offers a glimmer of hope. There is, he says, a legitimate brother to the just-critiqued kind of writing: it is the written image of the living, breathing speech in the soul of the one who understands. This written speech, by virtue of the dialectical art that generated it, inscribes the living speech of the writer in the soul of the reader. The reader’s soul is thus inscribable because he too has the capacity for the dialectical art. By virtue of the writer’s kinship of soul with the reader, this written speech will plant seeds that flower and fruit perennially. The dialectical affinity between writer and reader allows written speech to overcome its defects; the capacity for true understanding shared by writer and reader allows written speech, despite its constitutive discontinuity, to be a method of communion. Socrates rescues written speech by making it the thing in common among friends, among those who are alike in their love 15 �of wisdom. This noble written speech is the sort about which we told our loving, lovely story, and it alone, according to Socrates, is clear, perfect, and serious. This written speech alone is clear – but clear like a transparent window; it is perfect – but perfect as knowledge is perfect and as learning is imperfect; and it is serious because it has a lofty function to fulfill. That is, the whole of written speech’s redemption rests on the one who makes it and the one who takes it up – written speech itself is not redeemed. The critical difference between technical written speech and its legitimate brother is with respect to the father: if it is sired by one who has come to know through the dialectical art, then it can be used to reach others who need only reminding of that art to recover their own knowledge. And on this model, the graphic character of the speech is only ancillary – much like a mother is considered merely a receptacle for the formative seed of the father – the written speech is merely a medium and never the message. Likewise, when the reader takes in the speech, he does not adopt the sons of this writer-father, but sires his own soul-sons. That is, what flowers and fruits in the soul of the reader is his own thoughts. The legitimate reader of the legitimate speech is reminded of what he already knows, brought to awareness of his slumbering knowledge by the scribblings of the legitimate writer. This recollection on the part of the reader is indeed from within, but the written speech remains wholly without. Thus legitimate written speech is just as much made for use as its bastard brother, and it just as much makes of us users, however nobler. So here is Socrates’ response to our riddle about written speech: We were in love with speeches in the wrong way. Because of our misguided love, we mistook written speech to be something worthy in itself, possessing its own unique relationship to thinking. The problem grew out of our misunderstanding of the nature of written speech; our mistake was in making it more than a tool for extending spoken speech. According to Socrates, written speech is at best a technique for uniting lovers of wisdom in friendship and at worst a seductive sham of wisdom itself. We can attain the best and avoid the worst, only if we recognize that the most written speech can be is a useful imitation of living, spoken speech. That, I surmise, is Socrates’ answer. But is it Plato’s? Or rather, is it the Phaedrus’s answer? Within the dialogue, eros and written speech are accidentally thrown together in Lysias’ speech. Socrates’ effort throughout the dialogue is to separate them. But what Socrates attempts to divide 16 �within the dialogue is ultimately and irrevocably united in the whole that is the dialogue itself. What is only accidental within the dialogue becomes necessary as constitutive of the written speech that is the dialogue itself. From within the dialogue, it seems only coincidence that Phaedrus meets Socrates, that Phaedrus happens to have just this speech of Lysias; but if not for these, there could be no Phaedrus, the dialogue we read. From within the dialogue, Socrates’ speeches on eros and his treatment of written speeches are united only by Phaedrus’ lingering interest in written speech; but were we to read only the one or the other, we would violate the integrity of the dialogue. That the dialogue is written speech accounts for its capacity to transform contingency to necessity and bind otherwise lonesome pieces into a genuine whole. Socrates himself alludes to this capacity of written speech when he first critiques Lysias’ writing. Before he launches his more comprehensive reproof of written speech, Socrates names some features of well-written speech that Lysias’ speech lacks. But what Socrates identifies only as a sign of good style, I believe, is a possibility that discloses the perfection of written speech. This feature is anagke logographike or logographic necessity, which I would gloss as the necessity belonging to speech written thinkingly. The -ikos ending indicates the art or science corresponding to the root word. So we have logo – speech – graph – as written – ike – in an way that belongs to a craft or a science, or, in a way dictated by thinking. When all the parts and particularities are put together by the rule of thinking, then the written speech possesses logographic necessity. Then there is nothing accidental, nothing extraneous, and nothing meaningless in written speech. When every letter, every word, every relationship between every word, every relationship between every sentence is just as thinking demands, then the written speech becomes like a living creature – to use the image Socrates does. The likeness to a living creature holds not just with respect to the composition of the animal but also to the life of that animal. For animals have whatever head or feet they have arranged the way they are because of the kind of life the animal leads. The whole determines the part as an element organized for the living of the whole. Logographic necessity allows written speech to live. If written speech can attain logographic necessity, it need not be only an imitation of living speech as spoken. It has the possibility of life on its own terms, with as much a dignified relationship to thinking as spoken speech has. Note that written speech lays claim to necessity not by scrubbing itself 17 �clean of contingency, but by submitting every bit of its possible peculiarity to the bidding of thinking. Likewise for thinking. The anonymity of thinking is not the absence of personality, as if what is needed is to ignore your unique specificities. Thinking is not an abstraction from your contingency, but the concentration of your ownmost activity. Thinking absolving itself of its concern with all the contingencies of your being is at once you offering all your contingencies to be absolved. Thinking as an interruption of your concernful being in the world takes you being concerned with thinking. For just as much as thinking is no one’s, no one can do it for you. This paradox, that the absolution of identity demands absolute involvement of your most intimate self, is not only the paradox of written speech, not only of thinking; it is also the paradox of erotic love. In his fabulous palinode, Socrates reveals that the true end of erotic love is not the premeditated possession of a body but a spontaneous striving for beauty. Its true character is an all-consuming madness that cannot be moderated without being negated. I will trace just one – one! – of the many mythic images Socrates enlists to wrangle the mystery of erotic love. The immortal human soul is originally and essentially a winged denizen of an intelligible hyper-heaven, but it is recurrently and inescapably dragged to the earthly plane and bound in gross flesh. When, thus bodily incarcerated, a person falls in love, the lover’s attraction to the beloved is due to the soul’s attraction to the divine ideas it left behind when it became captive to a body. The lover’s captivation with the beloved frees the soul from its sclerotic seclusion in a body. The more the lover devotes himself to the beloved, the more his soul is nourished by what it strove after in its life apart from the body. The lover fully in love bears in his soul both a repetition of how it was before the lover was born and a presentiment of how it will be after the lover dies. The soul is transformed by this nourishment, returning to the winged form it had when it was most wholly itself, that is, when it was utterly detached from any of the particularities of the lover. Yet, the love is begun and continues in the particularities of the lover and beloved. Their idiosyncracies are not a one-off instigation to the love, to be dismissed once the love is underway. They are the continual occasion for the love, recurring prompts to the soul to collect itself into anonymity. All these peculiarites of their persons are poured into the soul’s striving to return to the ideas, to return to the place where peculiarities cannot be recalled. And in this way erotic striving is a rehearsal of dying. Soul gathering itself to itself from the self it is in its individuality, soul 18 �collecting itself into anonymity – I previously named this thinking. We see now that it can also bear the title eros. The wild spontaneity of self-concerned thinking is the divine madness of erotic love. And thinking and eros must be an undertaking of the whole self. All your unrepeatable particularity, the plenty of your contingency and complexity, every intricacy of your identity, all of this must be at stake for thinking to be love and love to be thinking. Coda As with all consummations in this corporeal plane, this one too is short-lived. We must eat; we must sleep; we must stretch our legs – and you will soon, very soon, I promise. And beyond the necessities of food and rest, we are subject to distraction by any manner of thing, diverted from even the most absorbing moments of love and its little deaths. Nevertheless, if we can hold out a little longer, we have a few loose ends to tie off. In my rapturous rush to the height of love and thinking, I seem to have left written speech behind. Of course, in Socrates’ story, spoken speech is the dialogical intercourse between the lover and beloved. But in my story, written speech is not the speech shared between lover and beloved – written speech is the beloved. Here is a last story: The writer glimpses the written speech, a hint of an idea bearing a silent promise of a beautiful whole. The writer pursues the written speech, devoting herself to finding just the words required, to arranging the sentences and paragraphs or lines and stanzas just as the idea, the thinking, her love bids her do. In turn, the reader picks up the written speech and finds herself captured by an intimation of its beautiful wholeness. She strives after this whole, devoting her attention to the words, their arrangement in sentences or lines, and their arrangement in paragraphs or stanzas. In this ardent attention to even the smallest moment in the movement of the written speech, she is summoned into thinking. The written speech is not the common thing among friends, but the same beloved of two lovers. The writer and reader are bound in their loving and echo each other’s dying. Their kinship is compelled by the written speech that arouses each soul into being what it was always to be: in love with and alive in thinking. 19 � 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. 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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. 19 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 On Written Speech Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on February 7, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Mary Elizabeth Halper as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Ms. Halper offers this description: "There are two kinds of speech: the speech we speak and the speech we read. This lecture is on the latter. By way of comparison with spoken speech, and with help from Plato's Theaetetus, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, the lecture will reflect on written speech as such, what it offers us and what it asks from us." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Halper, Mary Elizabeth 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 2025-02-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has 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 Speech Written communication Plato. Theaetetus Plato. Phaedo Plato. Phaedrus Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Halper_Mary_Elizabeth_2025-02-07 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/09513a3f349c344ce24591b2aa4462a8.pdf cbbc452f9f9d08abb1423114093f6946 PDF Text Text Foundational Urgency and Institutional Inertia* Greg Recco In his Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre writes: “man has to struggle not only against nature, and against the social environment which has produced him, and against other men, but also against his own action as it becomes other” (CDR 124). In what follows, I will discuss the reality indicated in this last clause, this tendency of human action to work against itself by establishing structures that block access to the ends it aimed at, what Sartre calls “counterfinality.” Many familiar features of contemporary life exhibit this paradoxical character on a grand scale, perhaps most of all the institutions of government and of the market. These are historic accomplishments and have often seemed to be the only means to attain peace and prosperity. But they have also developed into impediments to human flourishing and freedom. Sartre’s famously recalcitrant text will serve as a guide. It is distinguished by its simultaneous focus on the precise logical shape of social forms and on concrete description of lived social realities “from the inside.” His accounts are unsentimental and unsparing, and it’s difficult to think of anyone who works harder to expose the inherent difficulties of realizing the goals he promotes. In particular, I want to trace out his distinctive account of group action, from the background of inert social formations against which it asserts itself, through its sustaining and diversifying itself into the quasi-vital form of the so-called “organization,” and finally, devolving into its rigid and inert form, which he calls the “institution.” Before these three main parts of the lecture, and by way of introduction, I will discuss some related matters in Plato’s Republic. I do this in part because I presume this audience is generally familiar with that book, * Lecture delivered at St. John’s College, Annapolis on January 10, 2025. 1 �and also because nearly every major theme of Sartre’s work is one that any serious student of the Republic ought to recognize as relevant and important. Part 1: Images of the City Let’s begin with three accounts of the basic character of the city from the Republic. In Book 1, Thrasymachus portrays cities as defined by exploitation: the rulers make laws that they say are just but that serve them at the expense of the ruled. Later, in Book 5, Socrates presents the city as a single sensitive organism, affected by a pain or harm felt in any part, and concerned as a whole to address it. Later still, in Book 8, Socrates portrays cites as protean, changing shape when a group within the city takes power and remolds the regime around its particular ruling principle. Each of these three images of the city (ruse, organism, shapeshifter) highlights something significant. As for the first, Thrasymachus presents his account as something obvious. “Don’t you know,” he asks Socrates incredulously, “that some cities are ruled tyranically, some democratically, and some aristocratically … and that the ruling element is the stronger?” (338de). Since all types of city alike proclaim the laws to be just, if the ruling or stronger element sets down laws that give it an advantage, what is proclaimed to be just is simply whatever is advantageous to them. Stripped of Thrasymachus’ boasting and his abusive language, it’s plausible and even accurately describes many Greek cities riven by internal conflict or stasis. Thucydides’ accounts bear witness to how brutal this factional antagonism became during the war. We’ll return to the question of revolution in relation to Socrates’ account in Book 8 and later in the lecture. But first, it’s worth noting some of Thrasymachus’ unstated presuppositions. The main one, on which Socrates’ response turns, is of course the unexamined nature of the central term “advantage.” This lies somewhat outside our purview, though we’ll return to it later in a different context. Of more immediate interest is the fact that the range of possible constitutions— 2 �tyranny, democracy, aristocracy—is taken for granted, as is the unity of the ruling element in each, and these twin presuppositions are related: in effect, Thrasymachus takes the types of ruling groups and regimes for granted because he assumes they are mutually defining. It’s not clear that much stands behind his analysis besides the fused ideas of class interest, exploitation, and naïveté: the stronger class exploits the weaker and persuades the naïve among them that their being exploited is justice. In Book 5, Socrates presents a different picture. After asserting that whatever unifies the city and binds it together as one is its highest good, he makes an analogy. He says: “when one of us wounds a finger, presumably the entire community—that community tying the body together with the soul in a single arrangement under the ruling part within it—is aware of the fact, and all of it is in pain as a whole along with the afflicted part; and it is in this sense we say that this human being has a pain in his finger” (462c). To be a feeling organism is to identify as a whole with any feeling part—to behave, that is, as a community. Socrates suggests that promoting a similar fellow-feeling among citizens could thus realize the city’s good by binding it together as one. With respect to this second picture of the city, one might well ask just why this mutual sensitivity is necessary. Nothing like it was required in the so-called “healthy city” founded in speech in Book 2. There, mutual benefit and mutual need were evident to all. Harm or pain was not something that needed to be felt, since need was perceived directly: all the arts practiced in the city addressed obvious need by obvious means. What changed since that time, presumably, is that the city’s very success allowed it to grow. This meant an increase in both the population and the number of sorts of jobs: both of these tend to undermine the possibility of mutual awareness. The larger and more differentiated city needs threads of self-awareness to knit together its self- 3 �alienating parts. And those threads don’t grow up naturally in the city, as they do in animals; they must be artificially produced and artfully deployed somehow. This sort of city must make for itself its own “nervous system.” A third picture of the city with respect to the question of its form is offered in Book 8, and it is the most complex by far. I will list only a few of its key features. Having completed the description of the identity and education of the ruling class in the city, Socrates investigates the other forms of constitution as promised back in Book 4. This reopens the question of the variety of constitutions that Thrasymachus introduced earlier as an obvious empirical fact. Socrates’ account, by contrast, is pseudo-historical or mythopoetic: the variety of forms is presented as a sequence, which Socrates calls on the Muses to narrate, in the manner of a poet. It is modeled after the Ages of Man from Hesiod’s Works and Days and accordingly differs from Thrasymachus’ account by distinguishing five instead of three regimes, adding oligarchy and the so-called “timocracy” to what Thrasymachus put under the single name “aristocracy,” as well as adding a fourth symbolic metal and an age of heroes. This further differentiation is ultimately due to the identification of a “formal cause” in each case: oligarchy, for example, is not essentially the rule of some or few, but a society organized around the single principle of wealth, like ours today. Socrates’ account is also dialectical or tragic, in that each regime is vulnerable to, or even ultimately responsible for, its own destruction. This is true throughout the series, but is made most explicit in the cases of oligarchy and democracy, both of which are said to suffer from an insatiate desire for their defining principle, which is also the cause of that destruction. Socrates’ account of the collapse of the oligarchic regime may be the clearest. For one, the so-called rulers have no interest in ruling, and no aptitude or appetite for it, either, and so he refers to them not as rulers, but simply as “money-makers.” Furthermore, the city is no longer 4 �one, but divided into rich and poor, inasmuch as it allows citizens to fall into complete poverty and lack of necessary resource. This is no accident, as the oligarchs actively pursue the project of getting even richer through impoverishing any they can. Socrates presents this characteristic activity of oligarchy as something with a side effect: it tends to produce a class of dangerous potential revolutionaries, people with nothing to lose and everything to gain from a change of regime. And he describes the oligarchs themselves as unconscious of this danger: they individually extract wealth from others “with their heads bent down, not seeming to see those men” (555e). Through their own action, then, they unwittingly became their own worst enemies, creating the conditions for their destruction. In part, it’s because their desire and its object were both pursued as something limitless: like a pure quantity. But the account also highlights the way that individual acts can have systemic repercussions. Finally, it’s worth considering another thread in the story: in a self-congratulatory mood, the oligarchs would probably describe their signal virtue as moderation. In much the same manner as he rudely asks Cephalus about his wealth when the latter prides himself on his character, Socrates doesn’t make much of this talk of moderation, and accurately describes what oligarchy really holds up as the good. Whatever it may say about itself, the real meaning of this form of government is limitless wealth for a few and its associated and widespread poverty for the rest. This picture of the city that emerges from Book 8 is considerably more elaborate than Thrasymachus’ account of exploitation. It doesn’t simple-mindedly deny that obvious reality, as he supposes, but it gives it a different context and a different fate. For one thing, the dominant party in the oligarchy (along with its self-serving self-understanding) is in a way produced by the regime; the honor-lovers of the timocracy sought to please themselves and hoarded money 5 �privately, it’s true, but the change into a regime explicitly defined by a minimum property qualification is a fundamental transformation in the very meaning of being a ruler; if there were any real honor-lovers among them, one imagines they would have felt this as the degradation it was. For another thing, and directly contrary to Thrasymachus’ definition, it is the oligarchs’ pursuit of their supposed “advantage” that undoes them. Anything like the organism’s perception of harm characteristic of the second picture of the city seems to be lacking; the oligarchs seem to enrich themselves almost mechanically, numb to the harm they are doing to their regime and to themselves. Part 2: Fractious Unity as Action’s Shadow Turning now to Sartre, let’s study further the phenomena of action’s self-sabotage. Let me first identify some of his particular terminology: what we will be studying in general he calls “matter as inverted praxis,” the social forms we’ll next study he calls “collectives,” and these are characterized by a structure he calls “seriality.” Concerning “matter as inverted praxis,” he has a couple of striking historical examples ready to hand. The first is the example of agricultural deforestation leading to flooding, which he takes from René Grousset’s history of China, the second, the devaluation of Spanish currency due to the importation of precious metals in the 16 th century, for which he relies on Fernand Braudel. In both cases, Sartre highlights how deliberate action directed at meeting human need “inscribes” itself, as it were, into the matter it works on. That worked matter can then turn against us, presenting us not with the reflection of our own activity as we understood it, but with the face of an enemy. As for the first example, each individual peasant in an effort to make use of the land he worked for planting crops cleared trees from it, but the aggregate effect of these individual 6 �actions over centuries was to create a landscape especially vulnerable to destructive flooding. Sartre indicates the dramatic character of this inversion of praxis as follows: If some enemy of mankind had wanted to persecute the peasants of the Great Plain, he would have ordered mercenary troops to deforest the mountains systematically. The positive system of agriculture was transformed into an infernal machine. But the enemy [fueling the machine] was the peasant himself. Yet, taken in the moment of its living development, his action does not include this rebound, either intentionally or in reality. In this particular place, and for this particular man cultivating his land, all that existed was an organic connection between the negative (removal of the obstacle) and the positive (enlargement of the arable sector)…. [H]uman labour, [then], is enriched with new meanings precisely to the extent that it eludes the labourer through its materiality. (162, 164) It’s worth noting in passing that the correction of this individually produced material selfsabotage necessarily becomes a common project. With characteristic brevity, Sartre says this correction entails “large-scale public works, population shifts, the implacable authority of the leaders, etc.” (165). The brief “etcetera” stands in for the manifold social ramifications of this reorganization, and particularly their ambiguity. The material rebound of a mass of individual actions prompted a collective response, but thereby it also occasioned new tasks, new configurations of cooperation, new centers of organization and power, and these had their own materiality, their own fixity, imposed their own exigencies, and so on. The second example of matter as inverted praxis concerns the effects of Spain’s success at extracting gold and silver from the Americas. In the last decades of the 16 th century in particular, the discovery and exploitation of silver mines in Peru vastly accelerated this ongoing project, which included perfecting the techniques of extraction, refinement, transport, and minting into currency. The result of this acceleration was an unsuspected disruption and weakening of the Spanish economy, and indeed the economy of the Mediterranean in general. In 7 �broad terms, this kind of monetary phenomenon is now widely understood, but imagine living it without that knowledge, bewildered, and as if cursed. The same opposition between individual action and aggregate result that we saw in the case of deforestation is present here, too. Sartre writes: Here, and for this particular merchant, whatever the circumstances and however prices may fluctuate, it is still true that he will be richer this evening if he gets an extra thousand ducats. But in the process as a whole it is not the case that collectivities are enriched by accumulation…. While for him every new quantity increases his wealth, in the national community it devalues the unit. (171, 173) In general, then, our involvement and commerce with matter, our praxis, tends to reveal a hidden connectedness to our action, one that is in principle unsuspected and can even run directly counter to our aims, with repercussions for social structures. Sartre sums up the principle as follows: Thus materialised praxis (the minted coin, etc.) has the effect of uniting men precisely to the extent that it separates them by imposing on everyone a meaningful reality infinitely richer and more contradictory than they anticipated individually. Materialised practices, poured into the exteriority of things, impose a common destiny on men who know nothing of one another, and, at the same time, by their very being, they reflect and reinforce the separation of individuals. (179) This uniting has been the main theme in these examples of matter as inverted praxis, inasmuch as they reveal a common threat calling for a common response, but the aspect of separation has so far been mostly implicit. Let me turn now to Sartre’s direct engagement with this latter theme in his discussion of collectives constituted by seriality. He elaborates it by means of a graded sequence of examples. We’ll consider only the first and simplest: the gathering of commuters lining up at a bus stop, and the audience of a radio broadcast. 8 �At a Parisian bus stop, commuters gather. Though they have come together in the same place, they mostly ignore one another. Their purpose is the same for each, but not shared. Their isolation from one another might almost seem to be a natural product of the city itself, which concentrates people in a mass, but at the same time tends to diversify and alienate their pursuits and ways of life. The city’s unity is present to all of them as something abstract, indifferent to these differences. People at the bus stop may deliberately adopt this indifference, buying a newspaper to read so as not to have to interact with others. In this sense, their “isolation is a project” (258). They are all waiting for the same bus, and are thus united by this single material object, but the bus addresses them, as it were, as interchangeable, and thus addresses each one as inessential. Also, there is a limited number of seats available and a real likelihood that there will be no room for some to board the next bus. In Paris in the 1950’s, the system was to take a numbered ticket upon arrival at the stop and to board the bus in the order of arrival. This particular system happens to elucidate the social form in question neatly: the commuters gathered at the stop in this way are constituted as a series. In a first take on this notion of series, Sartre refers obliquely to Peano’s axiomatic definition of number by means of a successor function rather than through a general definition. If we allow the exception of zero as a starting point, it can be said that every whole number is the successor of another. The statement is universal in form, but it doesn’t exactly assert a common feature of each, except its difference. Each number, then, is defined, not by itself, but through all the others. In the human realm, whatever the mode of ordering, the meaning of being constituted as a member of a series is the same: each is defined not by a common feature, but by being the other of all the others. At the bus stop, this means exclusion: my taking a seat can always mean depriving another of a seat, and every other who is earlier in the series can be the last one 9 �allowed to board, and thereby deprive me. The rule that decides our respective fates—the number on the ticket—is both perfectly clear and perfectly arbitrary, and thus, in following it, we all accept and share the same otherness. In the earlier examples, too, we can see this structure of serial alterity at work. Every deforester is a flood-producer, every spender a devaluer, each is the other of all the others, working against them and himself in his very work, “with his head bent down,” as it were. Consider, next, the experience of listening to a radio broadcast. Superficially, my behavior resembles the role I take up in turns in normal conversation with others: while they are speaking, I am listening. But there’s a crucial difference: in listening to a broadcast, I am utterly passive, even if I am moved to “talk back” or even shout. My speech has no influence over what’s being said, and not just accidentally. A voice on the radio, as such, is something over which I can have no influence. Perhaps I can write a letter to the broadcaster or the government complaining about the content. But this has no effect in the moment, and even with sufficient time, it can only have an effect if many, many others also do the same (and if their voices count). I can, of course, turn the radio off or change the station. But this, too, fails to alter what is essentially at issue. Sartre writes: This purely individual activity changes absolutely nothing in the real work of this voice. It will continue to echo through millions of rooms and to be heard by millions of listeners; I will merely have rushed into the ineffective, abstract isolation of private life, objectively changing nothing. I will not have negated the voice; I will have negated myself as an individual member of the gathering. (272) What’s really at issue, then, what really makes the bad broadcast unbearable for me as a listener, is this shadowy gathering of other listeners, distant from me, unreachable. I may fear the voice will convince them, and in this, I feel my utter powerlessness. To have the effect I imagine 10 �opposing to that of the powerful voice, I’d have to persuade each of the other listeners one by one, in their millions. And I, as another listener, am the same for them. If they are listening to the broadcast that says things I favor, they, too, listen impotently, imagining me, unreachable, in the thrall of the alien voice. Sartre writes: “when … one listens to the voice in impotent anger, one no longer listens to it for oneself … , but from the point of view of Others” (273). Finally, unlike the gathering at the bus stop, this one involves in principle an indefinite number of others. Nothing in the voice itself tells me how many are listening or which are convinced; it merely adumbrates a diffuse mass of mutual alterities, a plurality of isolations. Just as in the case of the bus stop, the radio, as a materialized praxis affected by seriality, unites people at the same time that it reflects and reinforces their separation. Each is constituted as the other for all the others and, within the system, within the vast reality that is broadcast media, that is all they can be to one another (indeed, even if they’re on the same “side”). In the cases of deforestation leading to flooding, and imports of precious metals leading to devaluation, the counter-finality is clear: both achieved something opposed to what they aimed at and in each case it was clear what was to be resisted, even if the how of it wasn’t. The two cases of collectives, the bus stop and the radio, are more ambiguous. Even in their relative simplicity, they testify to the manifold, ramified, subterranean bonds of our connectedness. That, at least, is not to be undone. But must the mode of our connection be separation and powerlessness? How can these be overcome? Part 3: The Group, or Immaterial Matter Sartre starts his examination of the group with an example that is conceptually simple, if historically very specific, the storming of the Bastille. It’s the first of a kind of three-part narrativization of the development of the concept of a group, but it isn’t meant to have a 11 �universal or foundational status. Nonetheless, because of its relative simplicity, which I will amplify by further simplification, it’s a clear example of how a group can come into being despite, and as a reaction against, dispersed seriality. This group is formed through a kind of fusion. In July of 1789, the people of Paris were already being treated as a hostile entity; the city was surrounded by an army, and though the king insisted its presence was for the purpose of protection against roaming bandits, the situation inevitably led to Parisians themselves being fired on and killed. This led residents to loot arsenals for arms with which to defend themselves. Though retrospectively, this would take on the color of a revolutionary act, Sartre insists it should not at first be understood as an organized common action: “It was a collective action: everyone was forced to arm himself by others’ attempts to find arms, and everyone tried to get there before the Others” (355, my emphasis). They were not unified, but a few key features of their situation soon occasioned their spontaneously acting as one and thereby becoming one. For one thing, the encirclement of the city by troops on the king’s orders and the posting of notices of this action throughout the city served to designate them as a unit. Next, the electoral assembly sought to form militias within each district of the city, ostensibly for the purpose of avoiding “disturbances,” but actually for disarming people who had previously been arming themselves out of their individual fears; this, too, “helped the gathering to perceive its reality as an organised being” (356). Finally, the apparent misinformation by an official which resulted in an angry crowd opening boxes they were assured would contain arms only to find nothing but rags enraged them; it seemed to imply that they were being treated as a unit, only one worthy of being deceived. A practical result of all this was an atmosphere of real unrest in which Parisians would regularly go out into the streets and constitute gatherings, “anywhere, anyhow” (369), 12 �though without any clearly defined purpose. The most frequent result of such directionless gatherings was a march, followed by panic and flight as they were dispersed and pursued. It is in imaginatively describing the experience of someone caught up such a situation that Sartre finds the ground of the crucial transformation. If I reside in the Quartier Saint-Antoine and my lived experience of residing there is the alienated urban attitude embodied in slogans such as “every man for himself,” and if also I hear rumors that the militias or the soldiers are planning to enter my district and “flush it out,” putting all its residents in danger, I live between two perspectives. The former is the isolated perspective of chacun pour soi, and the latter is a sort of unification of the neighborhood as a single object for what Sartre repeatedly refers to as a “third-party” perspective, mediating between the neighborhood and the government, both of which I’d speak of in the third person. But if I happen to be in the street when some shots are fired, and find myself running for my life, and others are running, too, I find myself serially engaged in the very action that I simultaneously perceive from the latter perspective as the organized action of my neighbors. It is from the practical fusion of these two perspectives—one within the situation and one without, one immanent and one transcendent—that the so-called “fused group” comes into being. I may at first have been trying to do what the others do out of a kind of panicked imitation, in order not to get left behind and be exposed to the pursuers as a single individual, but I end up doing something we can all construe as a common action. On this account, proximity, mutual visibility, mortal urgency, and sufficient numbers conspired to make it possible for a group to spontaneously constitute itself as one, in practice, and to discover a new common aim for its fresh unity: to get to the Bastille, disarm it as a center from which the soldiers might attack the district, and use it as a source of weapons, perhaps even as a stronghold. 13 �Again, those who were caught up in this developing and consequential action were helped to adopt this new perspective by both the inescapability of danger and the prospect of success as the crowds grew more numerous. Previously, in seriality, quantity itself was something as if “bewitched”—more gold flowing in made mine worth less, and more people seizing weapons could mean none left for me. Now, in the group, self-endowed with a common aim, the meaning of quantity is transformed into something positive. Here, when anyone—from their unifying third-party perspective—sees others joining the ranks, they are also seen by the others in the same way. Each adds to the other’s strength, again, giving hope of success. Furthermore, and crucially, anyone with the “totalizing” perspective of the third party, that is, the perspective that sees the group as a whole with a common aim, is in a position to direct the group. This is in a way a view from without, but it’s not a view “from above” in the sense of constituting an external authority. Indeed, every member of the fused group possesses that perspective and is in a position to direct it, and the group depends on this kind of distributed perception and direction. If I see that we are running into a trap, I may shout “Stop!” as I am stopping, and the group stops. This has the grammatical form of an order, but it’s not quite right to say it compels obedience. Sartre writes: “Who would be obeying? And whom? It is simply the common praxis becoming regulatory of itself in some third party” (380). In the serial interchangeability of this role, it seems scarcely different from what Aristotle describes in his Politics as “ruling and being ruled in turn.” This felicitous and spontaneous group is not the last word in common action: the urgency with which it came into being is prone to subside, especially if the group is successful at driving back or dissolving the threats that prompted its unification. While the group was originally constituted as a means to survival, if it itself is to survive, it must preserve its efficacy beyond the 14 �moment of obvious threat. This it can only do by transforming itself fundamentally, into what Sartre calls a “statutory group,” by means of an essential act. Each member swears a solemn oath, affirming that he will continue to act on behalf of the group, and submitting himself to its jurisdiction if he should not, thereby binding not only himself, but all the others to perpetual solidarity. The group thus survives by making itself a potential wielder of the violence with which it was originally threatened, artificially repeating, as it were, the life-and-death urgency of the moment of its foundation and extending it into the future. This, too, is something like a matter of necessity, in that the group is always liable to lapse into one or another mode of failure and nothing guarantees that it won’t: on the one hand, any member might defect, at any time; on the other, anyone who takes up at a given time the role of directing the group may abuse that authority and use the group for his own ends. The oath or pledge faces both these dangers by placing all on the same level of authority and responsibility to one another. By means of the pledge, the group makes itself its own tool and tries to give itself the status of enduring substance. By the very means it uses—that is, the threat of deadly violence for traitors—the group becomes a potential instrument of terror, even when that possibility is concealed by great affection, or, in the republican slogan, “fraternité.” While the resurgence of that implicit threat of fraternal terror in a long-established group would be a sign of decay into authoritarianism, for the group that has just formed itself in response to a deadly threat and for which any betrayal could easily revive that threat, it is understandable in its necessity. What can the surviving group become? Part 4: Two Futures: Organization and Institution Just as in Book 8 of the Republic, the analysis of types of group here follows a logic that is not historical, but is presented nonetheless as a sequence of transformations: the fused group is 15 �simplest and for that reason, it’s easy to understand the statutory group formed by means of the pledge as a kind of transformation of it. In this final section, we’ll fit two other forms into this story, organization and institution, and present them as two futures made possible by the pledge. Having survived the moment of urgency and won for itself the leisure of relative stability, the group has made itself capable of a further transformation, into an “organization.” The word itself has a telling ambiguity, naming both an activity of structuring, and the thing itself that is structured. With reference to the first, active meaning, the group whose members have pledged to stay in it is no longer defined by the single urgent and common goal of immediate survival; it can diversify its activity, turn to different tasks, and assign them to different members. This division of labor is in a way given by the overall relation of the group to things, and that’s as much as to say that its internal complexity is equivalent to the complexity of its dealings with the world. But this is necessarily a developing and ever-incomplete relation, for reasons we’ve already seen. And it acquires a new, reflexive character as the second, passive sense of the word “organization” comes into play: the organization, as a particular way of distributing tasks, as something structured, is thereby something inertial, something like a materialized praxis. Like worked matter that can turn against us, the organization’s own structure is something it will forever have to grapple with, insofar as that is something it has made itself responsible for. Let’s first consider the active, verbal sense of organization, and then point out aspects of its passive structure that leave it vulnerable to transforming into an institution. First, the pledge gave everyone in the group juridical power over the others, but that power was negative and abstract: “Don’t do anything that would go against the group,” it says; this is negative in that it’s a prohibition and abstract in that it doesn’t specify the “anything against the group” any further. The organization, by contrast, gives a regulatory power that is 16 �positive and concrete, through the idea of each member’s having or performing a function: “Do this that the group requires,” it says, positively demanding a particular action. One belongs to the group in so far as one carries out a certain task. This is not so different from Socrates’ casual discussion of the minimal, “healthy” city of Book 2, which mostly involves listing a variety of jobs. Second, in the organization constituted in this atmosphere of mutual regulation of differentiated tasks, rights and duties are not separate. What counts as “my due” is due to me for the sake of our common objective; it’s something I demand both from the group and for the group. I have a right, as it were, to be made capable of carrying out my duty. A specialized job may require specialized training or support. Whatever the group demands, it must demand in a way that does not make my accomplishing it impossible. In Republic Book 1, Socrates distinguishes between arts that serve and what he calls the “wage-earner’s art,” by which the practitioner of one of the other arts procures something for himself, a fee or wage. The doctor who both treats patients and receives a fee, he says, practices two arts. To say that, in the organization, rights and duties are not separate is to say that no such distinction is present here. Socrates’ reasons for introducing the wage-earner’s art are complex, but I’d argue they mostly have to do with responding to Thrasymachus’s claim that all cities are exploitative and that what the city says is just is, for the ruled, only ever “the good of another.” The organization, by contrast, is not essentially—or better, it is essentially not—a situation of exploitation. The fact that it could ever exist is a fact of great historical significance. In the organization, all are equally rulers and ruled: there is no gap, say, between one who organizes and one who is organized; no one accepts their functional role as fundamentally different from that of an organizer. We both have our jobs. 17 �Third, and finally, the organization depends essentially on individual practice, in a specific sense. As a simple example, take a particular position on a team in a well-defined sport; the individual midfielder, say, makes moves that in one sense have their meaning elsewhere, that is, in the way they are taken up by the other players on the team to realize the team’s common objective. But in another sense, they represent something like a guess that can only be made by someone who sees the field, her teammates, the opposing team, etc., from her individual position. Her move, accordingly, should not be a rote performance of a completely determinate function, but an individual transformation of the field of possibilities; that is what is really demanded from her, and that means something like a transcendence of function. The team needs not just a midfielder, a goalkeeper, etc., but good ones, not the minimum, but excellence. All this by way of saying that organizationally differentiated function can only specify in a general way what one’s job is. It is a hypothetical necessity, never a categorical one, and the choice of means is surrounded with a kind of halo of indeterminacy. To use Sartre’s terms, the work of the organized group is a “totalization” and not a “totality”: it’s a perpetually renewed project of becoming-whole, not a completed project of being-whole. The goal of the organized group is an essentially open project. When all goes well, it harmoniously combines the logical moments of universality (through the common objective), particularity (through the differentiated functions), and singularity (through the role of individual praxis). The simple example of a team sport is useful for bringing out this need for individual practice and the free transformation of roles that can occur from moment to moment, in other words, “organization” as a self-structuring action of the group on itself. But the result of this activity carried further is something materialized, something inertial, something potentially counter-final. In a more complex and established organization, there are bound to be 18 �disagreements between sub-groups about what to do, and about who or what department is necessary, or adequately staffed, or overfunded, and so forth. While the issues are fundamentally “objective structures of the practical problem that has to be solved,” they can also become subjective tokens of internal division. The group must produce its own ways of dealing with all this, its own organs of mediation, supervision, inspection, something like the “nervous system” imagined in Republic Book 5. Sartre asks us to imagine a high-level bureaucrat appointed to an ad hoc position created to deal with a crisis of city traffic. Many distinct goals are at play and the crisis involves how they conflict with one another in the world: there’s a need for parking, but there’s also a need for streets to be open for driving. The specific knowledge required to succeed here is relatively more logistical and combinatorial than others, and any effective solutions will likely involve consequences for many others, indeed, for everyone in the city (grouped or not). In itself, a mediating or even supervisory role like this is no contradiction to the notion of organization; jobs can be differentiated laterally or vertically. But the meaning of those differentiations, initially neutral, tends as though of itself towards two modes of failure: a concentration of unaccountable power, or a disavowal of the moment of individuality. Ultimately, both are rejections of freedom in favor of what we’re calling “institution.” To the extent that our “traffic czar” is appointed as an expert, he can become identified with and wedded to his own solution. His individuality is plainly essential for the role, but that is still the very thing that makes this sort of betrayal a real possibility. Through the pledge, paradoxically, what eludes the member is being-in-the-group, in the full sense of being; one who was just a “mode of a substance,” in Spinoza’s sense, would not need to swear an oath not to have a separate reality, but a free person must. When that merely implicit tension comes to the 19 �fore, it can happen that freedom—the very thing the group sheltered, nurtured, and developed— becomes afraid of itself. Free individuality can come to be seen as an obstacle, and the group can imagine itself as originally pure and in need of purification. In the vehemence of punishment towards one who has betrayed the group, Sartre claims, we can see a psychological projection of this imagined purity: “In a traitor, everyone finds … his own permanent possibility of betraying and being betrayed, and believes he is destroying it forever” (589). In our example, a person in a high-level role can end up giving a shape to the group’s “solution” that belongs to him more than to the group, and may even set ineffective practices and structures in stone. Alternatively, the role could be sacrificial, set up in order to fail in such a way as to deflect blame from others who are wedded to structures that would have to change and from which they benefit. An occupant of this latter position who looks to the future of his career may do all he can to disavow responsibility, to dissociate his individuality from it, perhaps by appealing to putatively objective metrics, rubrics, and standards of evaluation that exonerate him, assuring the public or his superiors that no one could solve the problem as it exists. Both these failure modes are possible anywhere, but the second can also be prompted by having to be a mediator of a different sort, not in an administrative, but in a “public-facing” role. For itself, the organization may be an ongoing project of totalization; for those outside it, it is a totality. For example, the “users” of a service, such as the postal service, see and often treat the individuals who do the job as inessential instruments, if not simply as obstacles to their freedom. Membership in the group is thus experienced in a different way. If you’re a clerk, someone may say to you “do your job!” but not mean it in the same regulatory way as a sworn group member, a colleague, who is equally subject to such an order from you. Being treated by a customer in this way as a sort of “drone” can have an effect: as a mediator between the group and those outside it, 20 �you can become motivated to seek protection behind the public’s perception of your inessentiality. Stated like this, it might sound like a matter of individual psychology or selfconfidence. Maybe. But the experience of self-alienation described here can result from doing one’s job as it is defined. The postal service, after all, is meant to handle everyone’s mail, and in trying to unify disparate domains fraught with their own conflicting material demands, in being faced with a collectivized public, an organized group can respond to this pressure by freezing, asserting its current material configuration as essential. The motto of an employee at this nexus, their saving word, is: “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s our policy.” The organization’s self-protective response to threats, again, is to freeze its own selfdeveloped organs, functions, and powers—to transform them into “institutions.” To save itself, the community tries to recover lost unity through sclerosis. It becomes a “degraded” group, composed of ambiguously situated persons whose safety is meant to come from the rigid definition of their role, or from their role being shielded from external criticism, or at least from criticism from the sides or below. When a position or a practice becomes uncriticizable by any third party without completely disrupting the whole, the group has frozen into an institutional form. The mutuality of regulatory third parties in the statutory group and in the organization has been lost. In this, the meaning of the pledge is completely altered: it is now mere submission to an untranscendable other, violence without reciprocity. Sartre writes: “The moment of common degradation in which the institution emerges is precisely that in which everyone aims to expel freedom from himself in order to realize the endangered unity of the declining group as a thing” (606). And a few pages later: “The institutional system presents itself, by a permanent mystification, in its inorganic-being,” in its thinghood, “as the real unity of the declining group” (608). At many levels, in small and large ways, but especially and most consequentially at the 21 �most authoritative and most mystified levels of the state and civil society, this kind of degraded system is what human praxis has made of itself today. We seem to exist for it, rather than it for us. It’s the real thing, and we are only its servants, unless we’re among the ever-diminishing number of those to whose benefit it has been carefully bent. If this were the only arrangement that is possible, then Thrasymachus might be right about cities, or the account in Book 8, saying that it will all end in tyranny, might be prophetic. But I think we can understand this selfprotective myth of thinghood, this disavowal of freedom, this willed isolation and return to seriality, not as fate or a curse, but as freedom’s own product: our “own action,” as Sartre puts it, “as it becomes other.” If we can understand it in that way, if we can struggle against it, it can never have for us anything like the meaning of destiny. A better world is possible. 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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 Foundational Urgency and Institutional Inertia Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on January 10, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Greg Recco as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Mr. Recco offers this description: This lecture will examine the difficulty of sustaining collective action. In working together, we respond to exigent circumstances, but the social structures we thereby create have exigencies of their own. To the student of history, it can even seem inevitable that temporary triumph yield to eventual failure. Central chapters of Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason will help illuminate essential reasons for the tendency of effective groups to turn into ineffective institutions, and some remarks on Plato's Republic (particularly Books 1 and 8) will frame the inquiry. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Recco, Gregory 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 2025-01-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has 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 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980. Critique de la raison dialectique. Plato. Republic Political science--Philosophy Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Recco_Greg_2025-01-10 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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. 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.) 01:35:16 URL https://youtu.be/CdEe-YRO8T4?si=loVmlE29_IM0Peyo 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/CdEe-YRO8T4?si=loVmlE29_IM0Peyo">Thucydides on Peace, Peacemaking and Peacemakers</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a November 20, 2024 lecture and Q&A session by Karl Walling of the U.S. Naval War College. The conversation with Dr. Walling centers on the problem of peacemaking in the Peloponnesian War, and Thucydides’ preference to often call what some name peace, a mere truce. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Walling, Karl-Friedrich, 1957- 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 2024-11-20 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. 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 Peace-building Greece--History--Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Peace Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Walling_Karl_2024-11-20_ac 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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. 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.) 00:50:55 URL https://youtu.be/AN1u-Lu1JVQ?si=djRxQwgjCfSj_KXX 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/AN1u-Lu1JVQ?si=djRxQwgjCfSj_KXX">Aristophanes' Clouds and the Power of Logos</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on November 15, 2024, by Stephanie Nelson as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Dr. Nelson (SJC Annapolis, 1983) is Professor of Classical Studies at Boston University and a Visiting Tutor at St. John’s. Her most recent book is titled, Time and Identity in Ulysses and the Odyssey (2023), and explores how each work benefits from being read alongside the other. Professor Nelson offers this introduction to her lecture: It is not too much of a stretch to say that Aristophanes’ Clouds is primarily about two topics: logos and the gods – and about Socrates’ relation to them both. Aristophanes, in his most serious playful manner, challenges us to think about who gets to be a god, and even, this lecture will suggest, proposes the Logoi as the real gods of human experience. The play thus asks us to consider both the nature of gods and the nature of logos, and in so doing juxtaposes the way that Socrates views the relation of logos and reality to the way the comic poet sees the same question. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Stephanie A. (Stephanie Anne), 1958- 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 2024-11-15 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. 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 Aristophanes. Clouds Logos (Philosophy) Gods, Greek Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Nelson_Stephanie_2024-11-15_ac Alumni Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/8baa0060f818c33d1bc332b1cc02fbff.pdf b6db715ecdf7824532eadb3a05d114f7 PDF Text Text Footnotes to Aristotle St. John’s College, Annapolis Friday Night Lecture September 13, 2024 by Graham Harman This lecture will begin with exposition and end with what might sound like wild speculation. Alfred North Whitehead famously remarked that “[t]he safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” 1 Although my title tonight is a rephrasing of Whitehead’s remark, I don’t mean it to imply that he was wrong. The two greatest philosophers in the Western tradition are Plato and Aristotle, or maybe Aristotle and Plato. I tend to be suspicious of anyone who ranks them too quickly, so let’s leave that an open question, or maybe consider it as fodder for discussion after the lecture. Since I’ve already quoted Whitehead on behalf of Plato, let’s consider a powerful piece of testimony on the side of Aristotle. This comes from Julían Marías, a Spanish philosopher from the school of José Ortega y Gasset, in his history of philosophy: the first one I ever read. As Marías puts it there: “Whenever philosophy has established real contact with Aristotle, it has immediately become more precise and serious.” 2 One problem faced by any case for the importance of Aristotle is his reputation as a dull and dry purveyor of sterile classifications. Bertrand Russell, for instance, tells us that the Nicomachean Ethics “appeals to the respectable middle-aged,” that it is useful in “repress[ing] the ardours and enthusiasms of the young,” and that “to a man with any depth of feeling it is likely to be repulsive.” 3 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 39. Julián Marías, History of Philosophy, p. 372. 3 Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 147; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 1 2 �In response to Russell, I would say that while it is true that the surviving works of Aristotle lack the pathos and literary flourish of the Platonic dialogues, it is questionable whether Aristotle is either respectable or middle-aged in his outlook. In fact, in Aristotle I see a rather strange thinker who has been overly domesticated over the centuries. Throughout this lecture, I’ll be defending the virtues of strangeness in human thought. But the first clue that Aristotle is more offbeat and edgy than is usually believed can be seen in his often bizarre, endearingly morbid sense of humor. In his De Anima (or On the Soul) there is the odd remark that touch is the most important sense, because it is the only one that destroys us if we do it too hard. 4 In the Rhetoric, we find the chilling examples he gives of good luck: first, “such as if all of a man’s brothers are ugly but he is good-looking,” or this one: “if someone who regularly made a journey were the only one not to, while others did for the first time– and were killed.” 5 And finally, there is one of my favorite passages in the entire history of philosophy, from the Metaphysics, Book Gamma, Chapter 2: “For if it does not belong to the philosopher, then who will be the investigator of whether Socrates and Socrates seated are the same?” 6 On the whole, I find it easy to believe W.D. Ross when he reports that Aristotle had a “mocking disposition which showed itself in his [facial] expression.” 7 As Johnnies tend to know, Aristotle wrote a lot of great works. But since my real passion these days (and as far back as my Annapolis days from 1987 through 1990) is systematic philosophy, my concern tonight will be with the Physics and the Metaphysics. 8 We know the usual way of distinguishing these works from each other. The Physics refers to physis, or nature, thereby continuing the great tradition of speculative theories of nature launched by the pre-Socratics. The title Metaphysics, however, was presumably coined by Aristotle’s later editor Andronicus of Rhodes, and Aristotle, De Anima, p. 76. Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, 1362a. 6 Aristotle, Metaphysics, p, 48. 7 W.D. Ross, Aristotle, p. 7. 8 Aristotle, Physics; Aristotle, Metaphysics. 4 5 2 �simply referred to ta meta ta physika, or what comes after the physics. 9 Since the prefix meta- can also refer to matters beyond physics, and thus beyomnd nature altogether. Let’s assume that the details of this story are accurate; I have no direct archival evidence to challenge it, not do I have any wish to do so. My purpose, instead, is to give a different interpretation of the difference between the Physics and the Metaphysics. Here is that interpretation. The Physics is about the continuous, and the Metaphysics is about the discontinuous, also known as the discrete. The continuum, or συνεχές, refers to an unbroken stretch of anything: so unbroken, in fact, that it consists of no definite number of pieces. The examples of continua given in the Physics include time, space, and physical motion. Any continuum is divisible into as many parts as we please. We can say with equal accuracy that this lecture tonight is made up of three parts, or seventy-nine, or twelve million. We can put as many numbers as we want on the number line between zero and 100. The discrete, by contrast, is that which is independent, autonomous, and which cannot be arbitrarily sliced up however we wish. The best example in the Metaphysics, of course, is primary substance, or πρώτη οὐσία. But Aristotle gives another example of discreteness, one that may be surprising: qualitative change. If a stone is worn away in a river, this does not happen gradually and continuously: in some moments a chunk breaks off the stone, while in other moments nothing happens at all. But I would go even further than this. This quarrel between the continuous and the discrete is not only central to Aristotle’s philosophy, but is one of the central intellectual distinctions in our entire intellectual history. Before diving into Aristotle, allow me to give some examples. For more than a century, the foundations of physics have been troubled by the incompatibility of its two central pillars: quantum theory (for electromagnetism as well as the strong and weak nuclear forces) 9 Peter van Inwagen, Meghan Sullivan, & Sara Bernstein, “Metaphysics.” 3 �and general relativity (for gravity). In 2012 I sat on a panel with the Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger, who would later win the Nobel Prize for teleporting photons across the Danube. At dinner afterward, I took the liberty of asking him about the most promising avenue for unification of quantum theory and general relativity. He responded as follows: “I haven’t the foggiest idea. But since some of the world’s most intelligent people (if I may immodestly say so) have worked on this problem without success for more than a century, it will probably be something completely from out of left field.” What exactly is that problem? It is often explained as it was in a 2022 article in The Guardian: “Physicists agree that the theory of quantum mechanics applies to very tiny particles, and Einstein’s theory of general relativity applies to larger objects.” 10 A similar explanation is given by prominent American scientist Michio Kaku in one of his helpful physics bestsellers, The God Equation. 11 As rules of thumb go, this one is not so bad: it is true that quantum effects (such as the indeterminacy of position and momentum) are most easily observed at the level of tiny entities such as particles. Meanwhile, general relativity is most useful at the scale of astronomical events involving gigantic masses and vast stretches of time, where the effects of gravity on space-time become most obvious And yet, this rule of thumb isn’t entirely accurate. The probabilistic effects of quantum mechanics are observable even at the relatively large scale of atoms and molecules, and could even be detected at the level of mid-sized everyday objects (dogs, shoes, airplanes) if the wavelengths of such objects weren’t too short for quantum effects to be easily measured. Conversely, general relativity applies to the bending of spacetime by all masses, not just extremely large ones. Your own body distorts nearby space with its mass, though the effect is too tiny to be noticeable. 10 11 Stephen Buranyi, “Do We Need a New Theory of Evolution?” Michio Kaku, The God Equation, p. 141. Kindle edition. 4 �Shifting the focus away from small and large objects, the tension between quantum theory and general relativity is better understood in terms of the opposition between the discrete and the continuous. Quantum theory treats the world as made up of tiny chunks, as with photons of light, while general relativity treats it as a continuous bending of space and time, as with starlight bending when it passes near the sun’s gravitational pull, confirmed by Arthur Stanle Eddington in his measurements during the 1919 solar eclipse. The central problem is that of the interaction between the continuous and the discrete; this is the reason for the deadlock faced by physics for more than a century. While quantum theory tells us we’re living in a world full of sudden jumps and tiniest units, general relativity envisions the cosmos as a continuous bending. How can discrete particles move through a spatio-temporal continuum? We might also speak of evolutionary biology, and the conflict between the continuous and the discrete in that field. In 1972, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould introduced their concept of “punctuated equilibrium” in opposition to what they called the “phyletic gradualism” of Darwin’s tradition. 12 According to Eldredge and Gould, species change does not happen through the slow work of natural selection, but occurs rather suddenly in geological time. The great American biologist Lynn Margulis (and you really should all read her if you haven’t already) added her own theory of sudden change to the mix, through the idea that evolution occurs through symbiosis between previously separate life forms. 13 We could also add Thomas Kuhn’s theory of science as consisting of punctuated “paradigm shifts” rather than gradual and cumulative triumphs of rationality. 14 And if architecture is more your style (and I had to learn it on the fly when hired by SCI-Arc eight years ago) we can also speak of the dispute between the jarringly discontuous architecture of the 1988 Deconstructivism show a the MoMA in New York, and the 1993 Niles Eldredge & Stephen Jay Gould. “Punctuated Equilibria.” Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet. 14 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 12 13 5 �appearance of a countercurrent in favor of smoothness and continuity in architecture: inspired by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and especially visible in the style of Zaha Hadid. 15 In fact, scratch the surface of any intellectual conflict, and you are likely to find some version of the dispute between the continuous and the discrete. To understand why this topic matters, there is no better place to turn than Aristotle’s own works. Aristotle on the Continuous Aristotle develops his idea of continuity through a critical assessment of Anaximander’s apeiron, which refers to the cosmos as a single indeterminate whole, a boundless expanse without qualities or parts. Aristotle rejects this by noting that nothing is ever just one: does the apeiron not even have a size or shape? If it does, then its size and its shape are something in addition to its unity. Consider the following simple case, using a number other than one. If I say there are five apples and five bananas sitting on the kitchen counter, the number five is the same in both cases, though of course the apples and bananas differ greatly from each other in qualitative terms. Apples are round and red, bananas are oblong and yellow, just to start. The quantity also tells us nothing about the condition of the fruit: whether it’s underripe, ready to eat, or already blackened or oversoft. If we turn our attention to a single banana, it’s fine to say that the banana is one thing, but only if we recognize that this same banana also has hundreds, perhaps thousands of qualities (yellowness, oblongness, curvature, etc). This means that while the banana is one thing, it is also many when viewed from the standpoint of its qualities. As trivial as this may sound, it eventually becomes an important point for Leibniz in Monadology §8, and Leibniz will become important for us tonight as well. 16 15 16 Philip Johnson & Wark Wigley. Deconstructivist Architecture; Gilles Deleuze, The Fold. G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, p. 214. 6 �In the days before subatomic particles were discovered, it was thought that atoms were indivisible: pure units without parts. But in 1897 J.J. Thomson discovered the first subatomic particle: the electron, known for its tiny mass and negative electric charge. In 1911 Ernest Rutherford discovered that atoms are not uniform, but have a tiny nucleus made up of protons, which are much larger than electrons and have a positive charge. In 1932 James Chadwick discovered the neutron, which is essentially just a proton with a neutral rather than positive charge. Then in 1964 it was theorized independently by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig that even protons and neutrons are made up of smaller particles, called “quarks,” whose existence was experimentally proven in 1968. Hence we no longer say that atoms are the smallest unit of nature, but can say instead that physical matter is made of quarks and electrons. This bit of recent scientific history would not have bothered Aristotle at all, since of course he didn’t believe in the existence of uncuttable atoms anyway: as we know, the word atom literally means that which cannot be cut. And we know that Aristotle thought matter to be continuous, meaning that it can be cut into smaller and smaller pieces as far as we wish, without ever reaching some ultimate, uncuttable unit. If he were alive today, he would presumably think that both quarks and electrons could still be divided into smaller units ad nauseam. At any rate, Aristotle did not embrace the idea that the apeiron could be one in the sense of being purely simple and without parts; as we have seen, nothing exists that does not have multiple qualities. Yet he did accept the idea of the continuum, referring to a continuous stretch of anything that can be divided infinitely downward as far as we please. In his own words: “the continuous is divisible without limit.” 17 This is obvious enough in the case of the number line, which contains as many numbers as we want it to have: there is no obstacle to our putting hundreds or even millions of numbers on the line between the neighboring integers 1 and 2. But this seems to mean that every 17 Aristotle, Physics, p. 4. 7 �continuum is always multiple, not one, which seems contradictory. This multiplicity of the continuum had already caused problems in the eyes of Zeno of Elea, since it entailed that there are infinitely many points between any two given points, leading him to reject the existence of motion. For Aristotle, by contrast, the reality of motion had to be protected at all costs, since his entire philosophy is in some sense designed to explain motion. Be that as it may, he doesn’t discount the idea of an unlimited apeiron as simply false. He does think this concept is sometimes useful, because if we decide that the unlimited doesn’t exist, he says, then “many impossibilities result,” just like when “we posit that it does exist.” 18 In particular, if we deny the existence of the unlimited, Aristotle thinks that three impossible consequences follow. First, there will be “a start and an end of time.” Second, magnitudes, or quantities will not always “be divisible into magnitudes” in their own right. And third, “number will not be unlimited.” 19 Since all of these points are interesting, let’s take them one at a time. The first impossibility is that without the unlimited, there will be “a start and an end of time.” Aristotle’s shock at this notion is always difficult for us moderns to grasp. Both our monotheistic religions and our state-of-the-art Big Bang astrophysics tell us that the universe was created at some point in time, and will come to an end at some later point in time. But of course that is not Aristotle’s conception of the world. As he sees it, there has always been time and always will be time. It is worth recalling that he does not think the same about space. In his view, space only extends as far as the outermost sphere of the heavens: namely, the rotating spheres where premodern physics said that all the stars were located, moving around the earth in unison at a distance further from us than the planets. 20 Aristotle, Physics, p. 45. Aristotle, Physics, p. 49. 20 On the modern replacement of this theory see Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Inﬁnite Universe. 18 19 8 �The second impossibility concerns magnitudes, or quantities. Take any number: four, for example. We can slice four into a pair of twos or into four separate ones. But we don’t have to stop there. We can cut up the ones into ever-tinier fractions, meaning that our original number four can be carved up into as many smaller units as we wish. Given this ability to keep dividing things into ever-tinier components without end, something like the unlimited must exist. Without it we would eventually arrive at the ultimate smallest units of mathematics, which do not exist. Aristotle’s view is that this is true not only of number, but also of time, space, and matter. All of these are examples of continua, meaning that they can be split into pieces as small as we wish without ever arriving at a smallest part. From this endless division of numbers into smaller parts, we advance to the third impossibility, which concerns the increase of numbers through addition. I was just a small child when my mother taught me how to count to 100; I remember becoming discouraged and starting to cry somewhere in the low seventies, thinking that we would never reach the goal. While for many children 100 symbolizes an immense quantity of anything, it’s obviously a paltry sum compared with numbers used even for everyday purposes, such as financial transactions, and that’s to say nothing of higher mathematics. Indeed, just a few years after my traumatic march to 100, I took childish delight in imagining ever larger numbers, simply adding zeroes and other digits to an initial numeral, or engaging in mental exploits of repeated doubling or tripling. Such cases show that the limitless must exist, since otherwise we would eventually arrive at a highest number and not be able to go beyond it. Note that this cannot be refuted simply by saying “infinity.” For one thing, infinity is technically not a number. For another, the mathematician Georg Cantor proved in the nineteenth century that there are infinitely many different infinities, all of different sizes. 21 21 Georg Cantor, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transﬁnite Numbers. 9 �At first glance, Aristotle’s points about division and addition might seem to be the same. We can divide any number into as many pieces as we like, or add to any number as much we like; both procedures have no limit other than personal patience. But Aristotle notes a crucial difference between them. 22 In the case of division the total amount is already contained in the starting point, while in the case of unlimited increase it is not. To give an example, when we take the number four and begin cutting it indefinitely into tinier pieces, we never get beyond the four that we already had at the start; we are merely subdividing an already known quantity, no matter how minutely we explore its interior. Yet when we play the reverse game of increasing the number four as far as our imagination will take us, we immediately get beyond four and even reach numbers absurdly greater than our initial one. The unlimited cannot be some greatest encompassing cosmic whole, since for every quantity, no matter how large, there is always a larger one. In other words, there is no infinite container that holds everything, but every finite amount of matter, number, space, and time contains an infinite amount of increasingly tiny units inside itself. This is one of my favorite counterintuitive points in the Physics. Yet by conceding the existence of limitless divisibility, Aristotle seems to have fallen directly into Zeno’s trap. It is impossible to reach the dorway, since between us and the door there exists an infinite number of halfway points; it is impossible for Achilles to pass the turtle in a footrace, since whenever Achilles runs to where the turtle was, the turtle will have run some incresaingly infinitesimal distance past that point. Zeno’s underlying point is that if space is infinitely divisible then motion will be impossible, since we cannot possibly move through an infinite number of points. The problem is that Aristotle also holds that space is infinitely divisble, which seems to commit him to the impossibility of motion as well. Of course, we know that Aristotle has a strategy for escaping this predicament, and it is one of the keys not only to his Physics, but to his philosophy 22 Aristotle, Physics, pp. 52-53. 10 �as a whole. This involves his distinction between the actual and the potential, one that is familiar to us today from everyday language and experience. The classic example is the celebrated acorn: it is an actual acorn but a potential oak tree, meaning that its acorn-qualities right now are not the full story of its reality. Although an acorn is not currently an oak tree, and a kitten is also not currently an oak tree, the status of “not being an oak tree” is obviously different in the two cases. We can think of the acorn as a repository of forces not currently expressed, but that might someday shape it into a lofty, sturdy oak; a kitten, presumably, will never grow into an oak tree without horrific genetic manipulations that lie beyond the scope of present-day science. The same holds for a human infant who is capable of very little at present, but might someday lead a large bank or artificial intelligence laboratory, or perhaps a street protest against these same institutions. Likewise, there is the infamous San Andreas fault, not far from where I live. Although quiet at this moment in 2024, the fault is likely to be the site of a major earthquake at some point in the next fifty years, presumably causing widespread destruction. Ultimately, what Aristotle is after with his discussion of the actual and the potential is an account of motion, which he famously defines as the activation of what is potential insofar as it is potential. 23 When an acorn grows into an oak tree, this involves the activation of what used to potential in the acorn, whereas the kitten had the potential to be an oak. As another example, consider a piece of bronze sitting on a worker’s table in Athens. We can say that it is actually bronze and actually located in Athens rather than somewhere else. Hence there is no way to actualize its bronzeness and its presence in Athens, since both of these are already accomplished facts, not future possibilities. If we want the bronze to change in some way, we need to draw on its potentiality rather than its actuality. In this spirit, we can say that the bronze is potentially a sword and potentially located in Miletus, and if we have the proper metal-working skill and means of transportation, we 23 Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 189. 11 �can actualize these potentials. For Aristotle, the activation of potentials is what motion means. However, we need to keep in mind that for Aristotle “motion” refers to any sort of change, whether it be an acorn growing into an oak or a person becoming old and tired. It is not like modern physics, where “motion” refers exclusively to the movement of objects in space. This difference between potential and actual has a good case to be called the center of Aristotle’s philosophy. At one point he even describes being not as unified, but as “twofold.” As he puts it: “Everything changes from what is potentiality to what is actively.” 24 On that note we return to Zeno’s paradoxes, which Aristotle addresses by way of his actual/potential distinction. Zeno is correct, Aristotle says, that it would be impossible to reach the doorway if we actually had to pass through an infinite number of points in between. Our movement to the door would not be continuous and eventually successful, but would “come to a standstill,” since we could never even reach the next point on our way to the door, let alone the door itself. 25 There is no “next” point, after all, since between where we are and even a close nearby point there are infinitely many other points in between. The reason motion really does occur is that the path from our current position to the doorway is not actually made of an infinite number of points, but only potentially so. 26 (VIII.8) In other words, splitting any length of space into separate points is something we do as a kind of mental exercise; it does not really govern our motion in space. This means that Zeno’s examples fail. The so-called paradox of the arrow is another of Zeno’s most famous, and Aristotle challenges this one as well. Imagine that an archer fires an arrow directly at a target. Obviously, the fired arrow always appears to be moving. But if we closely consider any particular moment of its flight, the arrow must be in some definition position, which means that it is motionless in that point. Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 199. Aristotle, Physics, p. 164. 26 Aristotle, Physics, p. 164; emph. added. 24 25 12 �But if it is always motionless at any given moment, how can it also be moving? Predictably enough, this leads Zeno to claim that the arrow does not actually move, and that (once again) all motion is just an illusion generated by our senses. Aristotle rightly notes that this argument relies on a questionable assumption. Namely, the arrow paradox “results from assuming that time is composed of nows.” 27 In other words, Zeno reasons that in any distinct temporal instant, the arrow must occupy some definite spatial position. But Aristotle does not think that time is made of distinct instants, any more than he thinks a line is made of indivisible points. Euclid’s geometry would later define a point as “that which has no part,” and beyond this, we already know that no matter how closely we place two points together, we can always add an unlimited number of additional points between them. 28 This is why Aristotle contends that the same principle applies to time and space, not just magnitude. 29 In the case of the arrow paradox, there is no definite number of moments between the time the arrow is fired and the time it strikes the target. No two nows can be contiguous for the same reason that no two points on the number line can be: we can always add another now between any two nows that seem to be consecutive. Aristotle makes some additional remarks about time in much the same spirit. Since he views time as a continuum, there can be no definite “now” in which something begins to happen. The moment of falling in love or turning toward the dark side can never be pinpointed exactly, for the simple reason that nothing in time can ever be located in a single instant. He also makes the crucial point that our sense of time is rooted in our observation of change. As he notes, “when we ourselves do not change in our thought or do not notice that we change, then it does not seem to us that time has passed.” 30 (IV.11) This is important because many philosophers seem to think of time Aristotle, Physics, p. 120. Euclid, The Thirteen Books of the Elements, p. 153. 29 Aristotle, Physics, p. 102. 30 Aristotle, Physics, p. 76. 27 28 13 �as something like a wind tunnel: as if it were a disembodied force that caused things to change, when it is really just our way of measuring change. To repeat, if there were truly an infinite number of halfway points between me and the door, Zeno would be correct: not only could I never reach the doorway, I could never move at all. For there would be an infinite number of halfway points between my current position and even a close nearby point. Aristotle’s response was that only in a derivative way can we conceive of space as made up of distinct parts: the continuum is actually one, but potentially many. From an Aristotelian standpoint, Zeno’s paradoxes pose no threat to the existence of motion. By introducing his concept of potentiality, Aristotle has no need to say that the continuum actually has an infinite number of parts to it. It is enough to say that we can potentially divide the continuum into as many pieces as we please: in our minds, that is. But the world in which motion takes place is continuous, unfolding over undivided stretches of space. If I want to walk to the door, I simply walk to the door. There is no actual infinity of points I must cross in order to do so. The shift from Zeno’s to Aristotle’s understanding teaches us that motion is real. This means that Aristotle’s extensive physics of motion (which includes all forms of change, not just physical movement) is able to get off the ground. As we know, it would become an extremely useful tool not only in the ancient world, but also in early Islamic civilization and then in Medieval Europe, before being rejected decisively by seventeenthcentury physics. Aristotle on the Discrete Looking back on the pre-Socratics, we can see that their apeiron counts as a continuum, even though the pre-Socratics never explicitly defined it that way. Like the number line, it is boundless, in the sense that it extends without limit in every direction, and also consists of no definite number of parts. How, then, can we move from the boundless apeiron to the multitude of individual beings we 14 �see all around us? At least two pre-Socratic thinkers offered origin stories in which the apeiron was broken up into countless pieces. 31 According to Pythagoras, the apeiron inhaled the void, leading to something like tiny bubbles or vacua separating parts of the apeiron from each other, yielding what we know today as individual things. Anaxagoras gives us a different version, in which nous or mind caused the apeiron to rorate so rapidly that it vibrated excessively and finally broke into tiny pieces: the homoiomeraeiai. In those pre-Socratics who believed in the apeiron were adopting a basically continuous model of reality, while those who believed instead in ultimate physical elements (whether water, air, number, atoms, or four separate elements) were advocates of a discrete conception of the world. Aristotle is the first person we know of who divided them into these two groups: a decision probably motivated by his own joint fascination with the continuous (the Physics) and the discrete (the Metaphysics). Speaking of the Metaphysics, potentiality and actuality also continue to play an important role in this work, though a different one. Aristotle is quick to inform us that the question here is no longer about objects being unable to move through an actual number of intermediate points. The important issue in the Metaphysics is qualitative change. Namely, if an object were nothing more than its current, actual state, it would never be able to change at all; potentiality is therefore needed as the engine of all transformation. Of course, this is not an imaginary concern aimed at a straw man opponent: Aristotle was engaged in dispute at the time with a rival philosophical school, the Megarians, who held that a thing is no more than its sum total of current activities. The Megarians were named after their small home city of Megara, which still exists to the west of Athens today. The leader of the school was one Euclides, a former student of Socrates. Aristotle summarizes their doctrine in the Metaphysics as follows: “someone who is not building is not capable of building, but 31 See Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Ancient Philosophy. 15 �someone who is building is capable if and when he is building, and similarly in the other cases.” 32 In simpler terms, no one is a house builder unless they are building a house at this very moment. But Aristotle is unconvinced. He complains that according to the Megarian teaching, when someone stops building, “he will not possess the craft,” meaning that they will no longer be builders once they stop, or even while they take a lunch break. But this is absurd, because “if he starts again immediately, how will he have learned again how to make use of this craft?” 33 In other words, there is a big difference between a master house builder who currently happens to be asleep, and those of us who are awake and may even have tools in our hands, but have no idea what to do in order to build a house. Far from being an outmoded way of thinking, the Megarian approach is tacitly adopted even by some recent authors. A good example is my late lamented friend, the French philosopher Bruno Latour. The method he helped develop for the social sciences is called Actor-Network Theory; it maintains, like the Megarians, that everything is equivalent to its sum total of actions here and now. 34 As Latour puts it, objects (which he calls “actors”) can only be defined by their actions. There is no other way to define an action than by asking what other actors it modifies, transforms, perturbs, or creates. 35 A thing is the effects it has on other things, and nothing more. In this way, Latour and his colleagues devised a technique for analyzing any situation by focusing on what things do, rather than getting lost in speculation about what their hidden properties might be. And as a method for the social sciences, it has yielded many fruits. One of these fruits is that Latour is able to attack theories that try to explain reality with such fuzzy abstractions as “Science,” “Society,” or “Capitalism.” Instead of these terms, the Actor- Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 145. Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 145. 34 Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social. For an admiring but critical commentary see Graham Harman, Prince of Networks. 35 Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope, p. 122. 32 33 16 �Network theorist tries to look more concretely at what every human and non-human actor is doing in a given situation. For instance, the French historian Fernand Braudel (much admired by Latour) writes a history of capitalism that does not take this economic system for granted, but actually looks at the European development of local markets into regional markets, regional markets into national ones, and finally national markets into international monopolies. 36 When one thing transforms into another, Latour insists that we explain each step, and not just say that the later ones existed in advance in the earlier ones. We cannot say that a cake is “already there in the recipe,” since from raw ingredients to the final cake there are a number of steps that must be properly executed, and these must be specified. We could certainly call the ingredients “a potential cake,” but for Latour this idea of potentiality risks intellectual laziness. He would agree with the Megarians that we should focus solely on actual things and what is needed to turn them into different things. And in the case of the house-builder discussed by the Megarians, Latour would surely agree that a house-builder is simply whoever is building a house at this very moment. 37 Aristotle counters such ideas by insisting that if everything were completely actual, then nothing could ever change. At the moment of writing these words I was typing on an Apple MacBook Air computer while sitting at our dining table in Long Beach, California. Yet this is no longer the case. I am now on a journey into my distant undergraduate past in Annapolis. Forty-eight hours from now I may be at the supermarket in Long Beach instead. Aristotle would say that all this is possible only because I have the potential to change my current situation; without such potential, I would have been forever frozen in the act of sitting at home and typing. In similar fashion, a happy person is potentially sad, and a dusty little pearl-fishing village called Dubai was potentially a wealthy world metropolis, which is exactly what it became. These Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 3 vols. For another interesting defense of the Megarians see Nicolai Hartmann, “The Megarian and the Aristotelian Concept of Potentiality.” 36 37 17 �scenarios are not properly accounted for by either he Megarians or Latour. We surely all remember the difference between potential energy and kinetic energyfromn high school physics: whenever something occurs in the world, it is because one or more entities were previously in a position to make it happen before it actually did. A vase was stationed precariously on a windowsill ten floors above the sidewalk and thus it was able to fall in a strong wind; an athletic young girl had abundant energy stored in her muscles and for this reason was able to climb the tree in front of the school. I’d like to lay special stress on Aristotle’s passion for movement and change since, in recent decades, his theory of enduring individual substances has unfairly earned him the reputation of a boring philosopher of stasis. He warns us against a tendency that is still widespread today: the frequent proclamation that “everything is in flux,” all is changing constantly, nothing remains the same. Aristotle responds that this statement isn’t quite true, since nature contains rest as well as movement. Just as importantly, change in nature is not usually gradual or continuous: if a stone is worn away by a river, this happens in jumps rather than continuously. That is to say, a stone being worn away in a river does not lose the same number of particles in every second; instead, sometimes nothing changes, but all of a sudden a significant piece of the stone is broken away. Likewise, when we read Edward Gibbon’s great multi-volume work on the decline and fall of Rome, we do not find an equal amount of Roman decline on every page; there are specific moments in Gibbon’s history where decay is unusually rapid or severe, and others in which it is even reversed for awhile. 38 The renewed embrace of radical flux and flow in recent philosophy has unjustly diminished Aristotle’s reputation as an innovator. But he is nothing if not a philosopher of movement. Substance 38 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 3 vols. 18 �Alongside his insights about motion, what Aristotle has to say about primary substance, prote ousia, discrete individual entities, is of equal interest. Of the two groups of pre-Socratic thinkers, those who focused on ultimate physical elements (water, air, atoms) were downward reductionists who dissolved everything into its smallest pieces. While it can be very useful to know what something is made of, this can also lead us to overlook important features of the original substance. For instance, we know that water both puts out fires and quenches thirst, though neither of these capacities are found in its smaller ingredients, hydrogen and oxygen. I call this form of reduction “undermining,” since it dissolves individual things in favor of their smaller components or perhaps their causal backstories. 39 Later in ancient Greek philosophy we find the Sophists, frequently attacked by Socrates and Plato. One of them, Protagoras, is famous for saying that “man is the measure of all things.” This amounts to the upward reduction that I all “overmining,” since it shifts attention from the inherent constitution of things to the question of how these things affect the human mind, or possibly how they affect everything else, as in Latour’s Actor-Network Theory. The right way to avoid these two extreme methods is to focus on things that are neither the smallest nor the largest components of the cosmos, and this is exactly what Aristotle does. For this reason he is often mocked as being obsessed with “mid-sized everyday objects,” though we can easily turn this formula against his critics by saying that they are obsessed either with “tiny-sized physical objects” or “largesized cosmic wholes.” Medium-sized things also have an important place in philosophy. Like most trailblazers, Aristotle is sometimes inconsistent about his central topic. In the Metaphysics he not only asks the question “What is substance?” at least five times, but gives slightly different answers in each case. At times he insists that nothing is more a substance than anything else: the sun is more powerful and durable than a dragonfly, but the dragonfly is just as much a dragonfly as the sun is the sun, and hence they are equally substances. At other times he speaks of 39 See Graham Harman, “Undermining, Overmining, and Duomining.” 19 �substance in the comparative terms of one thing being “more” or “less” substance than another. For instance: “substance seems to belong most evidently to bodies. That is why we say that animals and plants and their parts are substances, and also natural bodies, such as fire, water, earth, and each thing of this sort.” 40 Later he stresses that whatever is natural is somehow more substance than a table or anything else put together by human artifice. For Aristotle, substance means many things. It is a unity over and above the sum of its parts; it is a somewhat inscrutable thing which can never be adequately defined in words, since things are concrete while definitions use universals; it has the capacity to have opposite qualities at different times; and it has abundant reserves of currently unexpressed potential. But perhaps most importantly, the concept of substance is needed in order to ensure that the discreteness of reality is taken just as seriously as its equally real continuous character. According to Aristotle, “everyone” in his time agrees that earth, water, fire, plants, and the sky are substances. So too are “bodies in general and the things composed of them, both animals and divine beings, and the parts of these. Each of these is said to be a substance because it is not said of an underlying subject but rather the other things are said of it.” 41 (Delta 8) The grammatical differene between nouns and adjectives make this easy to understand. We say “the car is green,” not “the green is car”; this shows that we recognize the car as the underlying substance and its color an accidental quality that can be modified if we wish. While some have criticized Aristotle for assuming that the structure of language is an accurate guide to reality, he is certainly correct that the car appears to us as a more robust thing than its green color. Normally, we do not see enduring colors taking on the form of different objects, though it is quite common for objects to change color. 40 41 Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 105. Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 79; emph. added. 20 �Furthermore, just as we saw in the case of the apeiron, an object cannot simply be one, since it will always have multiple qualities; yet a substance must also be one so as to unify its many qualities. As Aristotle puts it: “of all things that have several parts and where the totality of them is not like a heap, but the whole is something beyond the parts, there is some cause of it.” 42 By way of example, he notes that a “syllable is not its phonetic elements, BA is not the same as B and A, nor is flesh fire and earth. For when they –for example, the flesh and the syllable– are dissolved they no longer exist, whereas the phonetic elements do exist, and so do the fire and the earth.” 43 Though we no longer share the widespread ancient Greek view that fire and earth are indestructible physical elements, we can still take his point that the whole is something more than its sum total of parts. Despite its unity, a substance must always be composite as well: not only in the qualities it possesses, but also in the parts of which it is formed. In this way Aristotle brushes against the later notion of emergence. 44 Although a substance has parts, it is not reducible to them, since otherwise it would be a mere collection rather than a unified substance. If someone tried to name a new substance composed jointly from France, red pepper, and the music of Mozart, we would quickly conclude that these three random objects do not form a unified substance with emergent properties of its own. It is rather different if we list water, tomato paste, kidney beans, and spice: in this case we are inclined to say they are unified in the substance “chili.” Although Aristotle surely would not recognize chili as a substance, I am inclined to do so, given that chili has a certain je ne sais quoi not found in its ingredients when taken in isolation. And conversely, the ingredients should also be treated as substances, since of them has an independent reality that is not entirely transformed the chili as a whole. Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 141. Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 132. 44 See Manuel DeLanda, “Emergence, Causality, and Realism”; Niki Young, “Object, Reduction, and Emergence.” 42 43 21 �But we have just touched on an interesing problem. For is it really the case that the various ingredients of a whole both retain their independence and simultaneously belongs to the larger substance of which they are ingredients? For example, if a berry bush is a substance, then is each of the individual berries also a substance? In one passage Aristotle does say that the parts of animals and plants are substances just like animals and plants themselves. 45 But a more characteristically Aristotelian answer comes when he says “it is only when the whole has been dissolved” that the parts can exist as substances in their own right. 46 In terms of our example, this means that individual berries are not substances unless they are picked. Until that occurs, they are only “potentially” substances, since they remain subordinated to the unity of the plant as a whole, which is considered the only substance on the scene until berry-picking occurs. Quite aside from berries, it is easy to see why Aristotle might think that a liver or kidney could be treated as part of a unified human substance, and might think as well that these organs only become independent in cases where overall bodily function breaks down. Organ transplants were unknown in his time, but familiar to us today: a healthy organ is removed from a deceased donor and shipped elsewhere to be transplanted into a needy recipient. During its period of transit from one body to another, the organ could easily be viewed as an independent substance. Since Aristotle would make the same point for the parts of plants, we can see his willingness to think that the status of “substance” is always temporary and contingent. As mentioned, Aristotle has a tendency to favor nature as the ultimate authority on what counts as a substance and what does not. Berries may exist as substances once they are picked, but a raspberry pie could never count for Aristotle as a substance, given his general suspicion of artificially produced things. In our own time, we are less likely to share his prejudice in favor of nature. Today’s 45 46 Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 105. Aristotle, Metaphysics, p. 82. 22 �world is brimming with artificially produced objects that nonetheless behave like substances: chemical molecules synthesized in laboratories as in the case of medical drugs, important “transuranian” elements such as plutonium that are rarely found in nature, not to mention airplanes, cars, drones, robots, and medical prostheses, along with the European Union and the International Olympic Committee. The fact that complex machines do not occur naturally in forests does not automatically entail that coffee grinders are less deserving of the name “substance” than strawberries. This is especially clear once we recall the centuries of careful breeding and fattening needed to produce the highly edible, but perhaps more tasteless bright red strawberries we purchase in supermarkets today. In our own time, when natural science is usually viewed as the gold standard of knowledge, it might seem antiquated that Aristotle praises philosophy as the superior discipline. The reason he gives (despite his own scientific accomplishments) is that only philosophy is concerned with substance. I take his point to be as follows. Given that substance is what endures despite all changes in it qualities, and given as well that we cannot define any substance in words, there is something elusive about it that makes it difficult to measure adequately or paraphrase in exact prose language. That makes substance a good match for philosophia, which is always the love of a wisdom that can never fully be had rather than a direct form of wisdom itself. By contrast, the natural sciences will always favor that which is more tangible and directly discernible; substance itself is neither of these things, but is somehow deeper than all its visible or testable features. The adoration of precise quantitative measurement in the sciences is one of the reasons modern thought dismisses Aristotelian substance as outmoded, or as not very useful. But how might this dismissal be reversed if we increase our awareness that knowledge is not the only form of human cognition? There are really only two kinds of knowledge, in the end. If someone asks us what something is, we can either tell them what it is made of (which amounts to undermining), tell them what it does (which amounts 23 �to overmining), or tell them both at once (which I call “duomining,” a term borrowed from the credit card industry, where it has the appropriately sinister meaning of data-mining and text-mining someone simultaneously). Some social networks can predict with 90 percent accuracy where you will be tomorrow, and some credit card companies have algorithms that use changes in spending patterns to predict divorce several years in advance. All of this is knowledge. But a full picture of human cognition requires knowledge to be supplemented with philosophia, aesthetic sensibility, practical know-how, political instincts, personal empathy, and what psychoanalysis calls the “truth” of symptoms, along with other intuitions and skills. The fact that some things exist only in shadow does not make them less real than the things that sit in direct sunlight. None of this means that we need to agree with Aristotle’s own hierarchy, which places philosophy on top of science. I for one do not agree, just as I would not agree that a globe of the earth is “better” than a street map of Los Angeles; obviously, which of the two is better depends on what you are trying to do. But present-day society is so enamored of the exactitude, the concrete achievements, and even the monetizable industrial results of natural science that philosophy has reached something close to the historical low point of its prestige. This can be seen from the fact that so many present-day philosophers try to be recognized as “scientific” in their thinking, while few scientists aspire to be called philosophers anymore, unlike in previous centuries. Although it is often assumed inc ontemporary philosophy that Aristotle’s theory of substance is dated, it does have many powerful features. Some present-day philosophies wish to treat substances (or discrete objects more generally) as nothing more than arbitrary chunks torn out of a primal whole by the human mind alone, as if the world really were just a continuum. 47 Yet this position contradicts itself by assuming in advance that the mind is independent enough from the whole to be able to perform the work of creating individual things from whole cloth: in other words, 47 See Thomas Nail, Being in Motion; Thomas Nail, “Is Nature Continuous or Discrete?” 24 �there are no specific objects unless a human mind is there to produce them. These contemporary theories are actually traceable to Anaxagoras, and his view that a powerful mind causes the whole to rotate, vibrate, and shatter. But who uphold such views need to explain how, in a supposedly unified cosmos, the mind was different enough from this unity to be able to produce the discrete in the first place. The Problem of Interface To summarize, Aristotle views time, space, motion, and number as continuous, but substance and qualitative change as discontinuous. This leaves us with the question of how these two domains could ever interact, since otherwise they would represent two separate and parallel worlds with two different sets of rules. In a world of perfect continuity, individual substances would exist only as delusions of the senses, which is precisely what Parmenides and Zeno thought. And in a world of perfect discreteness, nothing could interact with anything else: everything would remain isolated in its unique individuality, which is precisely why Leibniz said monads (his name for substances) have no windows, and why he called upon divine intervention as the only possible solution for how his monads could communicate. 48 If two things are continuous, this means that they blend into one; if two things are separate, this means they do not touch at all. What interests us, and certainly interests Aristotle as well, is the intermediate case where two object touch without blending together. Aristotle’s term for this middle case is “contact,” a concept he never sufficiently develops. The problem is knowing exactly where contact occurs. Of course, common sense sees no problem here: I am a substance, my friend is a substance, and it is easy for us to make contact simply by shaking hands. But difficulties soon arise. For one thing, I am not the same as my hand and my friend is not the same as his hand, since in 48 G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy. 25 �both cases the hand is merely part of each of us. Thus we could say no more than that shaking hands is merely a contact of hands, not of people, and then we would need to know how a part of me (like my hand) can have any effect on me as a unified being. Beyond that, we cannot even say that the two hands touch while shaking. After all, the hands do not meet in some sort of obscene total surface contact, but only at a limited number of points along the outer layer of skin, so that now we need to know how those limited points on the skin are able to affect the hand as a whole, and so on. The contact between two things is more problematic than the physical assumptions of everyday life would lead us to believe. Descartes faced an analogous problem when trying to determine where his two finite substances (mind and body) could possibly meet. His theory was that the soul is contained in the pineal gland of the brain, whose function was then mysterious, though today we know it to produce melatonin. 49 Although Descartes’s solution was wrong, he was perfectly right to ask how two totally different kinds of things could ever meet. What, in the end, is contact? This is what the problem of interface means. It is interesting to note that a similar problem arises in a philosopher not often associated with Aristotle: I speak of Henri Bergson in France. Much like Aristotle, he too faces the problem of how the discrete and the continuous could somehow interact. For Bergson, the first term of the duality is inner experience, also known as endured time, or durée, which is qualitative and continuous: in short, the swirling realm of his wife’s cousin, Marcel Proust. 50 The second and opposite term is the realm of what Bergson calls space, characterized as quantifiable and made up of discrete points and discrete entities. For Bergson, the interface between these two opposites takes place along a one-way street. For it is the flowing inner self of durée that must somehow learn to make contact with the discrete and quantifiable outside world. In fact, Bergson gives us three separate terms for 49 50 See René Descartes, The Passions of the Soul. Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will; Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, 6 vols. 26 �this interface: simultaneity, the second self, and endosmosis. But if there is any case in which the world adapts to us by becoming more smooth and flowing than usual, Bergson does not discuss it, at least not in his debut book Time and Free Will. Speculative Conclusion But now I would like to work towards a conclusion, admittedly a speculative one. One of the valuable points we can take from the Physics and the Metaphysics is that the continuous and the discrete both exist; neither can be reduced to the other. This is why the problem of their point of contact or interface is so important. Two continua cannot make contact, since if they are different from each other in the first place, then they must make contact at some definite, discrete point of intersection. Maybe the easiest way to see this is to return to the correspondence between Clarke and Leibniz, which at least in my time was still on the St. John’s seminar list. 51 Famously, in this correspondence Clarke defends Newton’s conception of time and space as absolute and empty containers. Leibniz responds with good arguments, saying (among other things) that it would make no sense to ask “what if the universe had been created ten minutes earlier?” or “what if the universe were fifty feet further to the west?” Time and space are not absolute and independent, but must be interpreted in terms of the entities that fill them. It may have been a losing proposition in the days of Newtonian hegemony, but following Einstein’s general relativity, and the bending, twisting, and folding of space by mass, Leibniz looks much better now. His point, at any rate, is that continua intersect only by way of the discrete elements that fill them. The unified space-time of Einstein and Minkowski is not a counter-example, since if this unified space-time exists then it is just one continuum, and attempts to link it with another would still require discrete entities in both simultaneously. 51 Samuel Clarke & G.W. Leibniz, Correspondence. 27 �Conversely, I would say that two discrete entities cannot touch directly, but can only meet in a continuous medium. Although it is usually harder to convince people of this second point, I will explain here why it strikes me as inevitable. First, it is worth remembering that a number of thinkers across the centuries have recognized that there is a certain danger in speaking of individual things, since a pure individual would have to be completely cut off from everything else. For two things to be in relation entails that they are not only individuals. In the 1940s the French physicist Louis de Broglie, already a Nobel Prize recipient for demonstrating the wave nature of electrons, noted “how interesting the notion of interaction is, from the philosophical point of view, since it implies a certain limitation on the concept of physical individuality.” 52 Here he is dipping his toes into deep philosophical waters. Unlike de Broglie, there are others who refused to limit the concept of individuality in any way, and it drove them to a delightfully extreme idea: we know it under the name of “occasionalism.” Although this term immediately makes most people think of seventeenth century French Cartesianism, occasionalism actually began in medieval Iraq, through a formerly liberal theologian named Abu Hasan al-Ash‘ari. His idea was that God is not just the only creator, but the only causal agent at all. Fire does not burn cotton; God burns cotton. Along with this challenge to direct causation between worldly beings, al-Ash‘ari also upheld another occasionalist doctrine concerning time. Namely, time is made of discontinuous instants, with the world vanishing and being recreated in every such moment. Most people are more familiar with the European variants of this doctrine in Malebranche, but also in Spinoza, Leibniz, and Berkeley, and again in the twentieth century with Whitehead. Occasionalism is usually rejected, even mocked today, for its apparently extrvagant theological solution to the problem of causation. But I would point out that David Hume and Immanuel Kant are still very much respected mainstream philosophers in our own time, and 52 de Broglie, Continu et discontinu en physique moderne, p. 115. The translation from French is my own. 28 �they simply adopt an occasionalism by other means. Instead of God, the monopoly on causation is given to the human mind instead. But the real solution should not be taxonomical; we should be able to account for causation as being indirect but still local. Yet perhaps you still do not see a problem to be solved. After all, there seems to be no difficulty in shaking someone’s hand, pushing a car when the engine stalls, trains coupling together in a railyard, breakfast cereal touching the sides of its box, touching the roof of your mouth with your tongue, or witnessing inanimate masses that slam together in the asteroid belt. Where’s the supposed problem? Let’s begin by recalling that modern philosophy has been rich in so-called “representationalist” theories of truth, referring to the view that when we open our eyes and look at the world we do not see things, but representations of things. John Locke is one of the most prominent representationalist philosophers, and Richard Rorty one of the best-known antirepresentationalists. 53 The case for representationalism has numerous detractors, though it is rather simple: note that while fire is able to burn forests and cook food, fire as an image in my mind cannot do either of these things. Accordingly, we can think of our relation to the world as an act of translation, one in which we render the forms of the world in terms that are relevant to humans. But dogs also see the world in a doggish way, parrots in a way of their own, and so forth. The result is that no living creature makes direct contact with the world, but only an indirect contact that is distinct to their species, and perhaps even to each animal individually. All that we encounter directly is a representation of reality. The German philosopher Markus Gabriel dismisses this as “interface skepticism.” 54 But many philosophers still defend a representationalist theory, myself included: in my case for the simple reason that a perfect perception or perfect mathematical of fire is not itself a fire. Nor can we say that the difference is simply that real fire exists in something calls “matter,” while John Locke, An Essy Concerning Human Understanding, 2 vols.; Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. 54 Markus Gabriel, Fields of Sense, p. 14. 53 29 �my idea of fire is a “form” extracted from matter. No one has ever seen or encountered such a thing as “matter,” except in the relative sense that clay is a kind of matter for making bricks, though compared with its smaller constituents is form rather than matter. As I see it, the main historical motivation for theories of matter was to create a neutral medium of support in which forms can exist and then be extracted by the mind without alteration. I would propose instead that reality is nothing but forms wrapped in forms, sealed in forms, frozen in forms, and that these forms are always subject to translation when moving from one place to another. In any case, if representationalism is true, then it cannot be limited to creatures with minds. Why not? Because inanimate objects are every bit as finite as humans, even if they are not “conscious” in the way that animals are. The term “finitude” is used by Martin Heidegger in his interpretation of Kant, as a way of defending the view that humans cannot touch reality directly. 55 Let’s consider for a minute why finitude is so important. The ecological philosopher Jakob Johan von Uexküll made a powerful argument that even though all living creatures in a given region share the same surroundings (Umgebung), they do not share the same environment (Umwelt). 56 This differs for each creature, depending on its capacities. His most famous example is the tick, that infamous parasite that falls from trees and sucks the blood of its host; one of them nearly killed my father last year. According to Uexküll, the tick’s entire environment consists of just three factors: first, it senses butyric acid, found in the sweat of mammals, and this causes it to loosen its grip on the tree and fall onto the mammal; second, it uses its sense of heat to find a place on the mammal’s body where blood is close to the surface; third, it uses its sense of touch to bite though the skin and suck the blood of its host. Such limited horizons for this creature! But while humans have a much richer 55 56 Martin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Uexküll, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans. 30 �existence than this, we are still confined (as in Kant’s philosophy) to perceiving three dimensions of space, a linear and irreversible time, and events that have causes rather than appearing at random. Although many people can be persuaded to accept the theory of finitude in the cases of humans and animals, they tend to recoil in horror if asked to view inanimate things in the same way. Am I claiming that stones and dust have minds? But that’s not the point. The point is that nothing like a “mind” is needed to interact with the world in a finite, limited way. If the tick’s existence seems sadly limited, try to imagine the even sadder state of a flame when encountering a cotton ball. The flame is presumably not “conscious,” yet it still interacts with a very limited range of the cotton ball’s features: namely, the ones that are relevant to the its flammability. In other words, the flame is still finite rather than infinite in its interactions with the world, just like living creatures. It follows that no thing makes direct contact with another thing, but only with a restricted sample of its properties. From this we see that one discrete entity cannot make full direct contact with another; an interface of some sort must be involved. The same is true of the discrete points placed in a continuum, such as the numbers on a number line. We can never specify two numbers that directly touch on the number line, because an infinity of numbers can always be placed between any two given numbers. Since no two discrete entities can ever touch, they must somehow become continuous in order to touch. And here is where the unusual speculations begin. I would say that there are two different ways in which entities become continuous with each other: let’s call them “exterior” and “interior.” The exterior way is the one we usually think of. Two things in the world meet and somehow affect each other, or maybe just one affects the other. I once wrote an article about the grim scenario of a midair collison between two airplanes. 57 The way I interpreted this event was not in the usual way, as a physical impact between two independent pieces of material, but as the temporary unification of 57 Graham Harman, “Time, Space, Essence, and Eidos.” 31 �the two aircraft into a single substance. This new substance then had grave downward causation on its parts before they quickly separated, in new and severely damaged form. Such downward causation (often called “retroactive causation”) has been explored by such philosophers as Manuel DeLanda and Roy Bhaskar. DeLanda speaks of the “mechanisms through which a whole provides its component parts with constraints and resources, placing limitations on what they can do while enabling novel performances.” 58 Bhaskar, for his part, declares that wholes are “capable of acting back on the materials out of which they are formed.” 59 This gives us another reason not to undermine things by dissolving them into their tiniest pieces, since the whole will always haunt the elements of which it was made. We need only consider that Steve Jobs was one of the two original founders who built Apple from the ground up, only to see himself fired by the corporation in 1985. Or think of the way that a bomb (the whole) destroys its components (the parts). Stephen Jay Gould wrote about the constraints with which organisms try to rule their component cells, with cancer marking an unfortunate failure of this process. 60 The point of these discussions of downward causation has been to shift our focus to what happens on the inside of objects I mentioned earlier that Leibniz would become important for us tonight, and that moment has come. For who has ever given a more serious theory than Leibniz, not just of how substances seem from the outside, but of what goes on in their interior where all their perceptions occur. But I am arguing for something a bit different. Let’s say that I perceive a flower. According to the representationalist theory of truth, it is fair to say that we perceive not a flower, but a flower-image. The flower may also encounter some oversimplified version of me, but let’s leave that topic for another occasion. Following the claim about two objects becoming one through causation (however briefly), both the flower and I the observer are parts of a larger object. In cases DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society, pp. 34-35. See also Graham Harman, “DeLanda’s Ontology.” Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science, p. 114. Cited in DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society, p. 34. 60 Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, p. 695. 58 59 32 �of hallucination or severe misperception there would be no real flower to which its image correspinds, but this also does not concern us at the moment. In any case, I the observer and the flower-image are both positioned inside the larger object made of us both, as if in the hollow of a tree or the interior of a building. We can call this interior a “sphere” in tribute to the contemporary German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, who built an entire worldview from the notion of isolated yet interlocking spheres, beginning from the initial mother-child dyad and growing outward from there. 61 Of course, I do not just encounter the image of a flower in this sphere, but the images of many things simultaneously: flower, mountain, dog, sunset; this may or may not be a special feature of living beings, but this topic too must be left for another time. Initially at least, I am just perceiving these images without anything further happening. We might call this interaction it a modus vivendi, in the sense of finding a way to get along with something or someone, pending final resolution of whatever tensions might be present. Along with Sloterdijk’s term “sphere,” we can also borrow the related term “atmosphere” from another German philosopher, the recently deceased Gernot Böhme. (Leibniz, Sloterdijk, Böhme: it’s interesting that so many German names are linked with the interior of entities.) In any case, atmosphere refers to the general ambience of a situation, as opposed to whatever individual things might happen to occupy it. 62 Amidst our modus vivendi with numerous images at any given moment, there is also the more general ambience in which all theae images are bathed. A knife means something very different in such atmospheres as a supermarket deli, a cutlery store, a stage play, or a beach. Our immediate contact is not with the knife-image, but with the atmospheric Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres, 3 vols. His theorization of the mother-child relationship makes it as crucial for philosophy as Melanie Klein (1882-1960) did for psychoanalysis. See Melanie Klein, The Psychoanalysis of Children. 62 Gernot Böhme, The Aesthetics of Atmospheres. 61 33 �continuum that allows me to touch that image in differing ways. 63 Here we find the figure-ground structure of Gestalt pyschology. These opposite terms distinguish between whatever in the visual field grabs our attention and commands our interest (figure), and the more amorphous remainder that does not capture our attention (ground). Stated more simply, it is the experience of architectural interiors, with their dual character as atmosphere and legible surface. What makes this figure-ground structure so important is that I am a discrete entity and the flower-image is a discrete entity, meaning (according to the argument of this lecture) that we should not be able to make contact at all. But all images appear in a more general atmosphere, and this is characterized by its continuity, which serves as the medium for me to perceive the flower. But, as mentioned, our modus vivendi with various images is not just an endpoint, but also a potential beginning. Since we are surrounded by images rather than the things themselves, we seem to be trapped in a world of phantoms; worse yet, these phantoms might even seem to be nothing more than “bundles of qualities” (in Hume’s sense) rather than unified images. 64 In other words, we are usually confined to a literalist world. I take Hume to be the arch-literalist, since literalism is the attitude of taking a thing to be identical with whatever sum total of qualities it possesses. Strictly speaking, if an object changes its qualities even a little bit from one moment to the next, it has become a different object altogether, since the bundle is no longer the same. This was rejected in advance by Aristotle, with his meditation on substance and accident; Socrates and Socrates sitting down are indeed the same substance. But it is seldom recognized that it was also rejected by phenomenology in the twentieth century. Edmund Husserl does not agree at all that an object is a bundle of qualities: quite the contrary, since a thing can show us numerous adumbrations, qualities, See also the related notion of “levels” in Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, p. 114 and Alphonso Lingis, The Imperative, p. 5. 64 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 63 34 �or profiles while still remaining one and the same object. 65 Stated differently, both Aristotle and Husserl allow for a dualism of object and quality that Hume could not even consider permitting. But an even better way to de-literalize the world is seen in the case of metaphor, which I take to be of the greatest importance for philosophy. When one thing is metaphorically compared with another, there will of course be some basis in shared qualities, since otherwise we will not compare them. But there’s more to it than that, since the closer the similarity between two things, the less likely there is to be a metaphorical relation between them. For example, during the Cold War NATO used the term “Whiskey Class” to refer to more than 200 Soviet medium multi-purpose submarines. But the stark similarities between all these Soviet watercraft (the use of diesel-electric power, the carrying of four cruise missiles) gives us nothing more than a literal comparison; we are focused on shared bundles of qualities, and solemnly judge that all of the submarines fall under the Whiskey Class rubric. Conversely, if we compare two random objects with few or no shared qualities, we will be too confused to have a metaphorical experience: for example, “a jellyfish is like ten miles of asphalt highway.” Try as we might, it is not very likely that we will be able to mentally perform this strange hybrid being. Yet how different things are with metaphor, omne of my favorite being Homer’s “wine-dark sea.” This cannot be paraphrased as if Homer were saying: “Have you ever noticed that the Mediterranean is the same color as wine?” That paraphrase would perhaps be false, and in any case would be rather boring. Instead, the trivial fact of their similar color is used as a pretext to identify the sea and the wine more generally. We will think of the sea as having a number of other wineproperties: intoxication, danger, and oblivion come to mind, though no metaphor can ever be exhausted by a prose list of similarities between objects. Note as well that unlike literal statements, metaphors are irreversible. We can also say “sea-dark wine,” and this too is a metaphor, but not the 65 Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, 2 vols. 35 �same one. In the first case we have a sea with wine-qualities, and in this second case we are speaking of a wine with sea-qualities. In other words, in “wine-dark sea,” the sea is playing the object role, and the wine is playing the qualities role. To strip the qualities away from one object and force them onto another necessarily creates a certain tension. We have a more or less vivid sense of what the qualities of wine are, but no real sense of what a wine-like sea would be, since it is being produced in this metaphor for the very first time. This requires an intense personal effort that is usually foreign to literal statements; this effort draws us into the act of creating a new object in our minds. And since the wine-like sea is so elusive, we step in and perform it ourselves, as if we were a wine trying to shoulder the burden of sea-like qualities. We are like method actors pretending to be a rock, a tree, or a mafia don, with the added complication that we are not just pretending to be the sea, but also a sea with wine-qualities. The mental effort required to compress the various unspecified wine-qualities into the empty form of a masean helps explain the more powerful emotions that result from metaphorical experience than from literal statement: in the metaphor, our entire being is wrapped up in trying to create the wine-dark sea. In the terms of speech act theory, it is a performative experience rather than a constative one: a statement that is not a mere description of fact, but one that implicates me in its consequences. I am no longer the jaded perceiver who places the image of a sea side-by-side with the image of wine. Instead, I have been causally impacted by my performance of the wine-like sea. The literalism of my modus vivendi with images has been replaced with with a new version of me, even if temporarily so. This is the role played by the object/quality polarity that literalism denies. The philosophy of recent centuries has often asked us to conceive of human beings as transcending the world around us, rising above it so as to make critical assessments of the world rather than naively dealing with it. I would say instead that transcendence is the wrong metaphor for what we do. A better one is to say that we are like moles tunneling through the interiors of objects, 36 �and leaving one only so as to enter another. We are more defined by what we take seriously in our modus vivendi than by what we rise above. It may seem like we are now a long way from Aristotle, but it was his great heir Leibniz who drove us more than halfway to where we are now. I now look forward to discussing these matters with you. Thank you. 37 �Bibliography Aristotle. De Anima: Books II and III (With Passages from Book One). trans. D.W. Hamlyn. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993. ——— The Art of Rhetoric, trans. H. Lawson-Tancred. London: Penguin, 1992. ——— Metaphysics, trans. C.D.C. Reeve. 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How the Atomist Error Was Born,” Aeon, May 18, 2018. <https://aeon.co/ideas/is-nature-continuous-or-discrete-how-the-atomist-error-wasborn>. Last accessed on March 1, 2024. Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time, 6 vols., trans. D.J. Enright & C.K.S. Moncrieff. New York: Modern Library, 2003. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Unviersity Press, 1981. Russell, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2009. Sloterdijk, Peter. Spheres, Vol. I: Bubbles, trans. W. Hoban. New York: Semiotext(e), 2011. ——— Spheres, Vol. II: Globes, trans. W. Hoban. New York: Semiotext(e), 2014. ——— Spheres, Vol. III: Foam, trans. W. Hoban. New York: Semiotext(e), 2016. Uexküll, Jakob von. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans with A Theory of Meaning, trans. J.D. O’Neil. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2010. van Inwagen, Peter, Meghan Sullivan, & Sara Bernstein. “Metaphysics,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman, eds. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/metaphysics/>. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. New York: The Free Press, 1978. Young, Niki. “Object, Reduction, and Emergence: An Object-Oriented View,” Open Philosophy 4 (2021), pp. 83-93. Zeller, Eduard. Outlines of the History of Ancient Philosophy, trans. S.F. Alleyne & E. Abbott. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1980. 40 � 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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. 40 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 Footnotes to Aristotle Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 13, 2024, by Graham Harman as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Professor Harman is an alum of the Annapolis campus of St. John's. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the Liberal Arts Co-Ordinator at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, with teaching stops around the world focused on philosophical thinking, architecture, and art. He has repeatedly been included on ArtReview’s Power 100 list of the most influential figures in the contemporary art world. Dr. Harman gives the following description of his lecture: "The title of this lecture is a riff on Alfred North Whitehead's famous remark that Western philosophy can be considered as a series of footnotes to Plato. The lecture will interpret the difference between Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics as a difference between the continuous and the discrete, and will seek to develop further Aristotle's notion of "contact" as how two things meet (thereby bridging the gap between the continuous and the discrete)." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harman, Graham, 1968- 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 2024-09-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Aristotle. Physics. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Philosophy Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Harman_Graham_2024-09-13 Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7977">Video</a> 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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. 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.) 00:49:43 URL https://youtu.be/ZDL2_UzYup4?si=6FuJucfv1oAxOri3 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/ZDL2_UzYup4?si=6FuJucfv1oAxOri3">Pursuing the Tiniest Bits of Matter: The Legacy of Democritus from Quarks to Cancer</a> Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on October 18, 2024, by Cynthia Keppel as part of the Formal Lecture Series. <div> <div>Dr. Keppel, a St. John's Annapolis alum, leads the Physics Division at Jefferson Labs, where she and her colleagues study the structure and dynamics of the fundamental building blocks of matter. She is both a nuclear physicist and a cancer researcher, with numerous patents and scientific publications across both fields. </div> <div> </div> <div>Dr. Keppel offers the following description of her lecture: "Humans for ages have pondered the question 'what is everything made of?' I will discuss why physicists have for centuries been interested in this question and pursue understanding of the tiniest particles known to humankind, and how an understanding of these particles continues to advance a breadth of human knowledge and endeavor."</div> </div> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Keppel, C. (Cynthia), 1962- 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 2024-10-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Type The nature or genre of the resource YouTube video Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Atomism Matter Democritus, approximately 460 B.C.-approximately 370 B.C. Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Keppel_Cynthia_2024-10-18_ac Alumni Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/7e49dffe8bcaf732df79ede319512000.mp4 2f34209fda31748f510d7178672d2c1b 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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 wav Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:59:49 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Philosophical Challenge of Early Art Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on November 8, 2024, by Allen Speight as part of the Formal Lecture Series. <div>Professor Speight (SJC Annapolis, 1984) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Graduate Admissions at Boston University, with a teaching focus on the philosophy of art and culture. Alongside his interest in early art, he has written extensively on Hegel and German Ideology, and is a previous Fullbright Professor of Leuphana Universität Lüneburg in Germany. His most recent book was as co-editor and contributor on Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Philosophy (2020).</div> <div> </div> <div>Professor Speight offers this introduction to his lecture: "Since the modern discovery of Paleolithic cave art in 1879, scholars have pondered its origin and significance. The remarkable paintings and etchings that line the walls of caves at Altamira, Lascaux and Chauvet and hundreds of other sites around the world prompt both wonder and reflection: what can images produced tens of thousands of years ago tell us about the nature of human making and our responses to it? This lecture will explore a range of philosophical questions posed by early art, including the nature of mimesis, the roles of sight and touch, and the relation between symbol and figurative art."</div> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Speight, Allen 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 2024-11-08 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. 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 Art, Prehistoric Rock paintings Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Speight_Allen_2024-11-08_ac Alumni Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/441ed53c308a67d455ac90da286577d3.pdf 675a1025b70141d87c4dc16b8388ad85 PDF Text Text The Erotic Theme in Thucydides' Peloponnesian War Paul Ludwig Lecture presented at St. John's College, Annapolis December 5, 2003 Thucydides' account of the war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians is unromantic. There are a couple of places in the history where matters having to do with love-or at least sex-pop up. For reasons he leaves us to figure out, Thucydides thinks it very important that-near the peak of their civilization's development-the Greeks started to exercise naked, while the barbarians never did. \Vhen we imagine how strange it would be to go jogging with no visible means of support, or to wrestle, doing takedowns and throws and half-nelsons in the buff, we can agree with Thucydides that such behavior is at least distinctive. In addition to this brief encounter with Greek nudity, the history describes in detail one person-to-person love affair: the story of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the legendary founders of the democracy at Athens, a daring couple that slew the tyrant. Thucydides debunks this founding myth. A very widespread interpretation would have it that the way Thucydides debunks Harmodius and Aristogeiton is by exposing their erotic relationship; that is, he reveals that their tyrannicide was motivated not by a public desire for liberty but by a private, personal, perhaps even tawdry, love affair. I'm going to argue against this interpretation, but it seems to be too many readers' first take. The short refutation is that the Athenians already knew that Harmodius and Aristogeiton were lovers. (So the alleged expose was not news to anyone.) The Athenians seem not to have denigrated but celebrated the fact that their love broke out of the private realm and spilled over into public affairs. Apparently, love wasn't supposed to be merely private at all-and this idea might fit together with their public nudity. The very greatest exponent of the most highly sophisticated version of a public love affair is Pericles himself in the Funeral Oration: Pericles exhorts each citizen to carry on an erotic affair with the city of Athens. And starting with Pericles, I will try to 1 �show tonight that the theme of eros is a thread running throughout much of the history. And that if you pull at this thread tenaciously enough, eros opens up Thucydides' work like only a few other themes can, and the history yields up some of its riches. Pericles in the Funeral Oration is making the case that the citizen-soldiers who risked (and lost) their lives for Athens made the right choice. It is for the living to be dedicated to the same spirit, albeit they may pray for a safer outcome for themselves. Eros is going to be his key to making this case. (In the following passage I have broken a couple of the lines like poetry to show a rhetorical parallelism; there is no line break in the original). Do not in word alone inspect the profit-which anyone could expound at length to you who know it yourselves no worse than he, telling how many good things depend upon defense against enemies, but rather, actively contemplate [theomenoi] the power of the city, day after day, and become lovers [erastai] of it [the power or: "of her," Athens], and when she seems great to you, take it to heart that daring men, men who knew what was needful, and who, in their actions, were sensible of dishonor, acquired these things; and if they ever failed in an attempt, they deemed it unworthy to deprive the city of their excellence, but gave themselves away as their finest favor to her. (2.43.1) Inspecting profit or benefits-what your country can do for you-remains on the level of calculation; profit could never inspire a citizen to lay down his life. A disinterested contemplation of the power of the city and her grandeur evoke an emotion very different from the ordinary human desire for gain. Contemplation evokes eros and tum the citizens into lovers, erastai-the same word Plato will use in the Symposium and other dialogues to mean men who fall in love with boys and trail around after their beloveds hoping to get a smile or a wave, some token or sign that the beloveds acknowledge their existence. What Pericles means by "lovers" is not merely citizens who feel love or eros toward an unusual object-a city. Rather, he's asking them, on the basis of this unusual eros that they will feel, to play, in relation to the city, the social role that lovers play toward a beloved. They are to serve her chivalrously, sacrifice for her, perhaps die on her behalf (the way Greek lovers fighting side 2 �by side sometimes died for one another), and, in this game of courtship, compete for her favors, and rival one another to show her which of her lovers is the most worthy. Neither of the two motivations mentioned, profit or eros, which are on such vastly different levels, asks the citizen to make an unself-interested or altruistic sacrifice, as for example an appeal to duty might have done. Instead, the last word in the passage, favoreranos or contribution, is a service done in hopes of a return. Few cavaliers rescue the damsel in distress out of sheer philanthropy: they want their virtue noticed, they want to be rewarded handsomely, perhaps even to be loved back: they want at least a kiss on the cheek. So what do Pericles' citizen-soldiers get in return? Pericles almost implies that, at the highest level of this sort of love, the pleasure of contemplating Athens might suffice. Love is enough. But his explicit statement of what citizen-soldiers get in return is honors bestowed on them by the city. The dead, he says, "won praise which never grows old" (2.43.2). That the lover of Athens gets something out of it, namely honor, is important because this unusual form of patriotism that Pericles envisions, this civic passion of eros, has to compete against, and win out over, the other desire he mentioned, the desire for profit or gain, as well as other common, low, or merely selfish desires. An important word in Greek for low, selfish attachments generally is oikeion or oikeia: "one's own." The word is related to the words for house and home, and often means private matters as contrasted with public affairs. [Our leaders] have a care for their own private matters [oikeia] at the same time as political affairs, while the rest, people with permanent jobs, have no small understanding of politics. And the man who refuses to participate in politics? We alone [among the Greeks] do not consider him to be minding his own business but rather to be simply useless. (2.40.2) Pericles assumes a distinction between the few and the many, a distinction that Athenian democracy may have transcended. The normal assumption is that wealthy statesmen, who do not have to work for a living (they don't have "permanent jobs"), neglect their own (ta oikeia), that is, their homes and families, in favor of the public good. Ordinary folk, on the 3 �other hand, are assumed to be too self-centered and intent on private gain to care much about, or sacrifice much for, the common weal. Pericles characterizes Athenian democracy as breaking down this distinction, since all have a share in ruling. The many, who are not independently wealthy and for whom private gain is therefore a major concern, are expected to break out of their selfishness and participate politically. The key to doing that is not grimly to undertake to fulfill their patriotic duty, but rather to open themselves to the experience of a kind of patriotism that is a falling-in-love, and which is intended to be a joy. Achieving this higher love does not mean suppressing the lower desires. That is how the Spartans regard duty to country. At Sparta, someone is always watching you. Male Spartans rarely retreat behind closed doors to see their own families because they sleep in a kind of men's club. The amount of private property they are supposed to own is fixed. With Spartans being in many respects deprived of the private, the city is all that they have left. Athens reverses all this. Pericles' chief claim is that laws suppressing the private are unnecessary for Athenians, who, unlike the Spartans, can be trusted with a wide freedom in their private lives (2.37.2-3) and yet will still, when the time comes, freely and willingly risk their own for the common good (2.39.4). Athens therefore achieves the same (or better) civic sacrifices as Sparta does, but at less cost to her citizens' humanity (2.39.1). Pericles says that Athenians can be trusted with acquisitiveness not only in their desire for beautiful things and in their pursuit of wisdom, but even in pursuing wealth itself (2.40.1). Athenians know how to keep wealth in its place: money has no political significance because voting rights are not restricted to wealthy property-owners (2.3 7.1 ). The poor in Athens are not prevented from working their way out of poverty; indeed, they are positively shamed into doing so (2.40.1). Where Spartans are taught how to endure pain, the Athenians substitute the freedom to act in accordance with pleasure (2.37.2). Only the self-sacrifice of people who have something to give up, who have "a clear knowledge of the pleasures" that they risk losing, is truly admirable (2.40.3). For a Spartan to embrace pain merely because he has never been allowed to experience anything better is not real courage. 4 �Why can the Athenians be trusted with pleasures and with acquisitiveness? Because they are acquisitive of a higher pleasure: The love of honor [to philotimon] alone never grows old, and the better enjoyment ... is not material gain as some say, but receiving honor (to timasthai, 2.44.4). In the cases of the ones who died, specifically the enjoyment of riches and the hope of enriching themselves later in life did not stand in the way ofrisking their lives now (2.42.4). This was not because wealth is not a good, but because honor is a greater good. Moderating the lower desires does not mean suppressing them but rather allowing a higher desire to override the lower ones. Can this Athenian freedom to follow one's heart truly permit the higher love-object, the city, to lure Athenians away from the attachment to their own? According to Pericles, the answer is Yes: freedom has been quite effective at enabling ordinary Athenians to see that "their own" is not the highest good. Here it might help to introduce another term, the opposite of oikeion-the allotrion, meaning the alien, not one's own, but the other's. Pericles shows how Athenians are better fighters than other Greeks are with (I think) less exaggeration than might first appear. Pericles assumes that the general run of humanity all fight harder in defense of their own home soil than they fight on foreign soil, when they come as invaders in someone else's land. The peculiar virtue of Athenians, according to Pericles, is that ... invading the [land] of our neighbors we fight without difficulty on alien ground [en tei allotriai] against men who are defending themselves in the midst of their own fperi ton oikeion] and for the most part we conquer. (2.39.2) In their fighting, at least, the Athenians have overcome the distinction between home and abroad, between "one's own" and "the other's." Nor is this distinction erased only in their fighting. Look what Pericles says about the foreign goods and foreign commodities that come into the Athenian marketplace, the hub of a vast naval empire: 5 �On account of the stature of our city, all things come into her from every land; whence it happens that for us, reaping the goods produced here is no more familiar [oikeiotera, "no more our own"] an enjoyment than reaping those of other people. (2.38.3) Athenians love foreign goods, and perhaps even foreign fashions, at least as much as they love their own. This brings up a distinction between two senses of the oikeion, one's own. Earlier, we saw how private individuals were supposed to allow the love of the community to override their attachment to their own. We now seem to be talking about Athenians allowing what is good but foreign to override (or at least to take a place in their hearts equal to) their love for Athenian goods. As the individual is one among many in the community, so the community is one among many in the world. In the first sense of oikeion, a higher entity (Athens) overrides individual "ownness." In this second sense of oikeion, a yet higher entity (the whole world) overrides Athenian "ownness"-overrides Athenianness. Perhaps Athenianness will henceforth mean universality. Iif so, that would fit together with Greek public nudity againwearing no clothes, shedding all that is not natural, letting go of all that is merely customary, local, or parochial. For Athens to become universal, to embrace the whole world, could occur in at least two different ways. First, Athens could try to take over the world. It is true that the patriotism Pericles envisions goes hand in hand with imperialism. To be worthy of winning the kind of love the citizens are supposed to feel for her, Athens is practically compelled to go forth and struggle with other cities to prove that she is the fairest of them all. One of the clearest statements of this imperialism is we have forced every sea and land to become the highway of our daring, and everywhere we have set up eternal [aidia] monuments to both good and evil. (2.41.4) The etemality of the monuments means that after Athens is gone, people will still be talking about Athenians, just as we are still talking about them tonight. Thus the honor that Athens 6 �wins for her citizens goes beyond locally-conferred honor; it has an international aspect and expands to encompass honors from all over the world. For the whole world is the tomb of illustrious men, and not only does the epitaph on gravestones signal it in their own land [en tei oikeiai]; but also, in lands not belonging to them, there dwells an unwritten marker in every mind if not in fact. (2.43.2-3) But this imperial way of becoming universal would seem to be at odds with becoming truly universal. Imperialism might mean imposing one set oflocal or parochial customs on the whole world. A belligerent imperialism would make the rest of the world like Athens. An alternative way of becoming universal would make Athens like the rest of the world. This second way was just barely suggested by Pericles' boast that reaping Athenian goods was an experience no more "their own" than reaping other people's goods. It was a hint that Athenians might be desirous of bringing the rest of the world to Athens rather than bringing Athenianness to the rest of the world. In any case, it now appears that letting a higher desire override a lower desire involves a principle that could set in motion a process the end of which would be difficult to predict. It is one thing if our love for our community overrides the love of our "own." It is quite another thing if some love for a yet higher entity overrides our love for our community, for that would seem to entail a loss or weakening of our patriotism. But inspiring a more intelligent patriotism that would unlock the true sources of patriotic service was the main point of the Funeral Oration; awakening patriotic service was the whole point of making patriotism erotic, the whole point of placing love of country on this sliding scale of loves-of higher loves that override lower loves-in the first place. So if a love higher than patriotism is now overriding patriotism, we may have to raise questions about what Pericles thinks he is doing in the Funeral Oration. The thread we have been following about eros and the oikeion, one's own, silently connects the book 2 Funeral Oration with a book 1 speech delivered by the Corinthians at the Peloponnesian congress. At this congress, the Corinthians try to convince Sparta to declare 7 �war on Athens. The Corinthians give voice to one of the questions we have been pursuing: just how effective the freedom to follow one's heart has been at overcoming the distinction between "one's own" and "the other's," between home and abroad, in the Athenian mind. Very effective, the Corinthians say, and strange and dangerous too. The Corinthians characterize the Athenians in the following way: In their city's behalf, they treat their bodies as if completely alienated from them [allotriotata]. And on deeds in her behalf they use their intellect, though it is their ownmost [oikeiotate]. (1.70.6) The Corinthians are astonished by the Athenians' reversal of all ordinary assumptions. Body is the Corinthians' definition of an individual's "own." The body is the only possession that cannot be given away or alienated without also destroying the individual himself. Yet Athenians behave as if bodies were held in common. The Corinthians are also astonished by the fact that Athenians regard their minds as their "ownmost." Mind can be made to conform with the common: minds can all register the same idea at the same time; hence the success of the mind control exercised at Sparta. Athenians, by contrast, are allowed the freedom to exercise their own minds to the fullest extent, and yet somehow their minds still tum back to the public good ("They use their intellect on deeds in her behalf, even though it is their ownmost"). In both body and mind, the Athenians treat their own as if it were everyone else's. But this reversal of expectations about one's own and the other's link up with the imperial foreign policy we were discussing before. Just as, domestically or vis-a-vis fellow citizens, the Athenians treat their own as if it were everyone else's, so in their imperial policies do they have the disconcerting habit of considering other people's property their own before they have even taken it: When they fail to prosecute their schemes, they feel deprived of what is their own [oikeia]. But when they do invade and acquire something, they regard it a small deed compared with things to come. . . . For them alone, hoping and having are the same .... (1.70.7, emphasis added) 8 �The match-up between Sparta and Athens, say the Corinthians, is one between stick-at-homes and people who essentially live abroad (apodemetai, 1.70.4). Apparently, the Spartans see only their own. The Athenians have lost the exclusivity of that attachment to what was originally their own; they now see the whole earth as their own. This erotic patriotism that we learn about in the Funeral Oration, this courtship style of citizenship, undergoes an implicit critique in the remainder of the history. I stress implicit because the fault is nowhere attributed to Pericles. Thucydides' explicit judgment of Pericles is very high praise, and it might be said that Pericles' management of affairs was better, more prudent, than his own Funeral Oration. But as we'll see, there is a point-by-point conformality in later events (especially the events surrounding the Sicilian expedition) that all look back to the Funeral Oration as the place in the history where erotic citizenship first becomes aware of itself or first becomes a consciously-chosen project. Between the book 2 Funeral Oration and the book 6 Sicilian expedition, there intervene at least two major places where the erotic thread becomes discernible, and while we do not have adequate time to spend on them, it would be remiss not to look briefly at one of the great speeches in the history, by the otherwise unknown orator Diodotus in the debate over the fate of the Mytilenians, who had rebelled against the Empire. Diodotus' opponent is Cleon, one of the leading politicians after Pericles' death, one of those politicians of whom Thucydides says, in his eulogy of Pericles, that they were more on a level with one another, and therefore had to cater to the pleasures of the people in order to stay in power. In this debate, Cleon is in favor of massacring the entire adult male population of the rebel city Mytilene and selling the women and children into slavery. Diodotus is arguing against this genocide. Forget about justice, Diodotus says in effect, all is fair in love: the Mytilenians rebelled because they were acting under the influence of an erotic passion for liberty. Capital punishment in such a case is ineffectual, he says, because greater forces are at work in human nature than any rational deterrent. "It is absolutely impossible-and the mark of great 9 �simplemindedness to think-that there is any hindering, whether by strength of laws or other fear, human nature rushing eagerly to commit an act." Men are driven to take risks because they are mastered by something ineradicable (or "incurable"). And what masters them is hope and eros everywhere, the latter leading, the former following on-[eros] conceiving the plot, [hope] guaranteeing the resources for a good fortune--do the greatest harm and, though invisible themselves, are stronger than visible terrors. And fortune in addition to these contributes no less to the excitement: unlooked-for, she is there, leading men on to gamble with inferior means, and this is no less the case with cities, in proportion as they concern the greatest things: freedom and empire .... (3.45.5-6) If we are to believe Diodotus, eros is more widespread in political affairs than we imagined. Athens with her erotic citizenship would only be making use of---or arousing-erotic passions that could be awakened in any city to a greater or lesser degree. Just as individuals under the influence of eros will gamble their livelihood and sometimes their lives, entire cities are now said to experience a communal erotic passion, and cities will gamble everything, risking even the political annihilation Cleon has in store for them, when faced with the greatest temptations. The great prospect of winning their freedom tempts the Mytilenians to gamble. The other great temptation is said to be the prospect of ruling over other cities as an imperial power. It is difficult not to apply Diodotus' concept of eros to the temptation which the Athenians themselves will later undergo: the temptation to increase their empire by undertaking the Sicilian expedition. In the seventeenth year of a war in which they were having trouble holding on to the empire they already possessed, the Athenians begin to debate whether to sail against Syracuse in Sicily in order to win a whole new empire. This was precisely the kind of new acquisition that Pericles had warned them against: his strategy was, don't do anything foolish, Athens will easily outlast Sparta in this war. But we will have to consider whether Pericles' warning was 10 �not unrealistic in view of the erotic passion that Pericles had made use of-or perhaps aroused-in the Athenians. It could be argued that eros was a cat let out of the bag, something which must take its course whether Pericles was around or not, while the success of Pericles' conservative strategy and his warning were dependent on Pericles' being around. But Pericles died of the plague just two and a half years into the war. The debate over the Sicilian expedition pits the conservative Nicias against the flamboyant, young, beautiful and imperialistic relative of Pericles: Alcibiades. Nicias warns the older Athenians that their young men, meaning young men like Alcibiades, are infected by eros, or rather by dyserotes: dysfunctional or "sick" loves for (as he says) far-away things (6.13.1). To his way oflooking at it, the young Athenians no longer love their own; they love places and things that are far away. But when Alcibiades and the pro-expedition side seem to be getting the better of the debate, Nicias reverses course and pretends to support the mission. He hopes to dissuade the assembly by staggering them with the immense cost needed to equip his vision of a vast, unsinkable armada (6.24.1-2; cf. 6.21-3). Contrary to his intention, however, contemplating that vision of their own military might awakens the desire to use it (cf. 6.31.1 ). This is the moment when it happens: Eros fell upon all alike to sail forth. [It fell] upon the elders, [who thought] that either they would subdue whatever they sailed against or that a great force would in no way be overthrown. [It fell] upon the young men through a longing for far-away sights and spectacles [ops is kai theoria], being of good hope, as they were, of corning back safe. And the great multitude and the soldier intended to earn money, in the short run, and besides that to acquire power whence wages might accrue to them eternally [aidion]. (6.24.3) This passage brings together, into a coherent whole, many of the things said earlier about eros by Nicias, Diodotus, and Pericles. First, just as Nicias said shortly before, the young men do indeed fall in love with far-away things, not with their own country. Second, Thucydides notices an optical or contemplative aspect: opsis and theoria. This contemplative eros, their desire to look at Sicily, corresponds to Pericles' exhortation to gaze at (theomenoi) or 11 �contemplate their own city. Third, the "good hope" or hopefulness following close on after eros, answers to Diodotus' description: eros leading, hope following on. The Corinthians, too, although they did not know they were talking about eros, remarked this hopeful character of the Athenians: hoping and having are the same to them. Fourth (and a great deal turns on this interpretation), the eternal wages seem to answer ironically Pericles' Funeral Oration: what was supposed to be a desire for eternal (aidia) monuments becomes a desire for eternal (aidion) gain. The gain or profit that eros was supposed to override now becomes one of the main motives in the erotic Athenian policy toward Sicily. Whether or not these echoes are deliberate, this passage seems to contain the outcome of Pericles' project. The liberation of acquisitiveness did not permit all Athenians to raise their sights; it did not enable them to seek to acquire higher things. The mass of people never liberated themselves from the desire for material gain. Now, there are three classes mentioned in the passage: the old, the young, and the multitude. I'm going to skip the old men: they are concerned primarily with security; interpreting their eros is complicated and depends on a close reading of the speeches in the debate. Perhaps we will have time for the old men in the question period. I'm going to treat the young and the multitude one at a time. First, the multitude. Not the higher love of a beautiful Athens, but what Athens can do for them, motivates the majority of Athenians. Not only can they not leave profit and their own behind for a higher love of Athens, but profit is their number one concern. Each intends to use Athens' military might to ensure his own source of income in perpetuity. Private gain, as opposed to the common good, is leading Athens on a fatal path. We recall that the ordinary distinction between the honor-loving few and the gain-loving many was a distinction that Athenian democracy was supposed to have transcended. Pericles had implied that honor was the higher pleasure not only for the elites but for every Athenian. Probably the wealthy elites of Athens did indeed desire honors more than profit. Since the elites were wealthy already, they could afford to seek honors rather than profits. Thucydides' judgment on how the war was lost singles out these two culprits, profits and honor, and he seems to divide again the classes that 12 �Pericles had united. Thucydides writes that the Athenians conducted their policies in accordance with "private honor-loving and private gain" (2.65.7). There was of course a notable example of a wealthy man who was motivated by both of these desires, and that was Alcibiades, who needed both money and reputation, the money to support the reputation (6.15.2-3). But conducting war for private monetary gain is the special contribution of the masses to Athens' fall. But a single group of Athenians, the elite young men of the officer class (officers because the passage distinguishes them as a separate social and economic group from the great multitude and the soldier) did indeed achieve a contemplative eros worthy of, if not identical to, what Pericles had envisioned. Thucydides does not describe the eros of the elite young men, at this crucial moment of the Sicilian expedition, as a desire for honor or selfglorification, despite that most notable exception among them: the honor-loving Alcibiades. Instead, he records the peculiarly open, militarily useless motive of sight-seeing. They desired to see "far-off sights and spectacles." The word that Thucydides chooses to describe the young men's passion to see, theoria, properly means a "spectator event," including theatrical performances, religious processions, and games such as the Olympics. Observing these events in an official capacity at state expense was one of the perquisites of being Greek, of ruling an empire, and of being upper-class. If a citizen was on a theoria, he was on a junket, getting paid to travel to foreign lands and see places and sights that he had always wanted to see, in addition to being wined and dined by the locals. The odd thing about the young Athenians' being overcome by this desire now, on the eve of the Sicilian expedition, is that theoria is a mission undertaken in time of peace. In the deadly struggle that awaits the young men, there will be no leisure to look. Their detachment from reality is a dangerous delusion about how amenable the world is to their own desires, a delusion at once characteristic of an erotic fantasy, and worse than useless in practical politics. The beguiled young men, for their own safety, ought to have been feeling sterner emotions as they sailed off to Sicily, from which few out of many ever returned. Anger at an injustice or fear for the safety of their own homeland 13 �would have served them better. Even acquisitiveness, which the many felt, would have stood them in better stead for the rigors to come. A near total lack of selfishness characterizes this eros, in which beautiful sights take precedence over acquisition and replace even the desire to win glory. Pericles had recognized the generosity inherent in contemplation, and he had hoped to harness it to civic ends, but in the event the contemplative eros proves difficult to harness. Now one might get the impression from this that Thucydides disagreed with Pericles about eros, either on practical or theoretical grounds. For example, Thucydides may have thought that a concept of citizenship in which eros was unleashed was wrong on moral or even religious grounds. It has, in fact, often been pointed out that Thucydides ends his Melian narrative where his Sicilian narrative begins, even though chronology would not have made such a close connection necessary. The Melian dialogue and its narrative show Athenian imperialism at its very worst, ruthlessly crushing the small island nation of Melos, and committing against its population the genocide that Diodotus' speech had narrowly averted from the Mytilenians more than a decade earlier. Perhaps Thucydides made the Sicilian narrative follow closely upon the Melian narrative in order to show that eros, like pride, goeth before a fall. Eros, like Ate (madness or ruin) was traditionally one of the attendant daemons of divine justice, sent from heaven to mix up the minds of those whom the gods would destroy. Although Thucydides has, up till now, merely reported the use of the word eros in other people's political rhetoric, having waited till this critical juncture, he now uses eras in his own name, to describe the moment in Athenian politics when their imperialism finally overreached and laid itself open to a crippling blow. The hubris that it would not have been difficult for his readership to discern in the speeches and deeds of the Athenians on the island of Melos is followed close on by the infatuation of the Athenian public for a much larger island and one not so defenseless. This "tragic" depiction of eros might have been all that Thucydides intended, if the unfinished history had broken off after the loss of the Sicilian expedition. The story would have been as simple as: "hubris punished." Instead, the history 14 �continues on for another book; the Athenians rebound from their loss and gamely battle on, displaying many of the admirable (if also questionable) character traits they also showed before and during the Sicilian expedition. So while Thucydides shows the potential destructiveness of political eros, he nevertheless does not portray its consequences as being precisely tragic. But perhaps Thucydides is critical of erotic patriotism in some other way; perhaps Thucydides disagreed with Pericles over what eros is and what its power is. This hypothesis contains more than a grain of truth, in my estimation. For example, Thucydides' stress on the private selfishness of the multitude and on the soft, impractical sight-seeing of the elite young men would seem to mean that he thought erotic patriotism-citizenship-as-courtship-was problematic or vitiated in ways that Pericles did not perceive. Nevertheless, the view of eras that emerges from the Funeral Oration, and the view of eros that emerges from the history as a whole, share remarkable similarities which overshadow their differences. The criticism implicit in the current passage should not be understood to mean that Thucydides simply dismissed erotic patriotism as an ill-conceived rhetorical flourish, appropriate for a Funeral Oration but lacking practical consequences in real politics. On the contrary, Thucydides carefully catalogues, with a kind of awe, how the Athenians engaged, to all appearances, in just such courtship behavior as Pericles had intended. In their preparation for the Sicilian expedition, in the period following the fatal debates, the Athenians engage in an extraordinary allocation of resources, an almost thoughtless generosity or liberality of expenditure (6.31.15), and total commitment to the task, all of which have the distinct character of an erotic courtship, or wooing, of Athens. What follows is a paraphrase. The entire city went down to the Peiraeus on the day of departure. The immensity of what they were about to undertake struck them more fully at the last minute, but they took courage when they saw the sheer magnitude of their armed might. Foreigners, and the rest of the crowd who were not going, came for the spectacle, which was at once worthy of description and so incredible as to be beyond the mind's capacity to grasp it. The armada was 15 �the most expensive and splendid ever to come into existence up to that time (of those from a single city and with Hellenic forces; 6.30.1-6.31.1). Costly figureheads and furnishings were used in the ships. Each man outfitting a trireme exerted himself to the last degree to make his ship excel the others in splendor and speed. Among the land forces, a zealous contestation, one against the other broke out over arms and bodily apparel. Strife among themselves was raised wherever any of them were posted; and it seemed, to the rest of the Hellenes, more in the likeness of an exhibition of power and wealth than a preparation against enemies (6.31.34). Once the fleet had sailed out, the ships raced one another as far as Aegina (6.32.2). This intense rivalry, to the extent of preening themselves on the beauty of their equipment and their apparel, and fighting over such items, perhaps more than any other single feature resembles the actions of rival lovers vying for the hand of a beloved. One thinks of the behavior of peacocks and the altercations of bachelor males of many species during the mating season. To all appearances, and like the suitors whom Pericles exhorted them to become, the Athenians pay their court to the city Athens, wooing her in a contest in which each strives to show himself worthiest, emulating his competitors in hopes of having the honor of presenting her with a more splendid gift than anyone else could give. We are forced, however, to put this remarkable description together with the earlier criticism contained in the last passage quoted. Whatever the case with the wealthy outfitters of triremes, Athens did not hold the first place in the hearts of the multitude and of those hoplites who engaged in peacock altercations over their arms and apparel; their greatest desire was to earn money and acquire a source of eternal pay. What has the appearance of being a rivalry to serve the common good (perhaps it was an appearance which fooled even those caught up in it) turns out, on closer inspection, to be a rivalry to serve a host of private goods, private goods which happen to be temporarily congruent. Now Thucydides does not stop here but goes on to explore both the good and bad effects of citizenship-as-courtship to the bitter end of the Sicilian debacle. In brief, Alcibiades is one of three commanders chosen for the expedition. But before the ships set sail, an affair 16 �of bad omen occurs. The herms, or small statues of Hermes that guard private homes and sacred places, are mutilated all over the city in one night. This sacrilege also calls to mind accusations that religious mysteries have been profaned in private homes, a kind of black mass, probably only to ridicule and show contempt; but Alcibiades is implicated in the profanation of the mysteries. So the expedition sets sail under a cloud, and before it can accomplish much, Alcibiades is recalled to Athens to be put on trial for his role in the sacrilege, which has now become, in the public imagination, a full-blown plot to overthrow the democracy and bring back the tyranny that had once existed in Athens, only this time with Alcibiades at the helm. His re-call leads to a disaster because Alcibiades really is a talented general. Thucydides says that Alcibiades' public management of the war was very good-this even though Thucydides had also praised the conservative Periclean strategy of no new acquisitions until after the war, and condemned Athens for doing exactly the opposite, for doing exactly what Alcibiades is doing now, after Pericles' death. How do we fit these two statements together? Apparently, there were several ways to win the war. Pericles' way was the safest and surest. Alcibiades' strategy was risky but also quite possible or even likely. But it would take nerves of steel. So, if you must be daring, be daring with a daring leader, don't be daring with a timid leader. But the Athenians got spooked about Alcibiades and his monarchical intentions and decided to put him on trial, removing him from the command of the war, which then fell to the conservative Nicias, who ended up losing the entire expedition: men, materiel, everything. And Thucydides explores this debacle of citizenship-as-courtship through the one explicit, ordinary love affair (if any Greek love can be considered ordinary) in the book, the story ofHarmodius and Aristogeiton. Now as I said a very widespread interpretation of the Harmodius and Aristogeiton account is that Thucydides debunks the founding myth by exposing their eros. In short, 17 �because we modems know that eros is merely private, we assume the Greeks knew that too, hence to attribute the tyrant-slaying to eros instead ofto patriotism is enough said to debunk it. But this totally misunderstands the political character of Greek love that we have been seeing throughout the history. Everyone knew Harmodius and Aristogeiton were lovers-that did not debunk the myth at all. In fact they were celebrated as lovers. Their myth operated to show Athenians how love could provide a path to public deeds. You can read what I claim was the ordinary interpretation of the myth ofHarmodius and Aristogeiton in Plato's Symposium, in Pausanias' speech. In short, defending a boy's honor from a tyrant's lust is dimly symbolic of defending Athens' honor from-well, from a tyrant's lust: both are the work of passionate men who do not suffer an insult readily and who are willing to defend themselves and their own. So if Thucydides is not blowing the cover of Harmodius and Aristogeiton by exposing their eros, what does he intend to accomplish by stressing their eros? For he does stress it, relentlessly. In the following quotations, the English words "erotic" and "erotically" translate the Greek words erotike and erotikos. To understand the first quotation, it is important to remember that Hippias is the actual tyrant, Hipparchus is his brother, and their father Peisistratus was the previous tyrant. The daring deed of Harmodius and Aristogeiton was attempted on account of an erotic incident. ... When Harmodius had become radiant through the bloom of his youth, a man of the commoners, Aristogeiton, a citizen of middle rank, had him as his lover [erastes]. When Hipparchus son of Peisistratus attempted [to seduce] Harmodius but failed to persuade him, Harmodius complained of him to Aristogeiton. [Aristogeiton], smarting with pain erotically and fearing Hipparchus' power, lest he should take away Harmodius by force, immediately began plotting ... the dissolution of the tyranny. (6.54.1-3) Thucydides relates that although Hipparchus subtly revenged himself against Harmodius for not giving in to his importunities, finding an occasion to insult his sister publicly, nevertheless the tyranny exercised by this family had generally been benign, with the rulers exercising virtue and understanding. But now, at the last minute before Harmodius and Aristogeiton set 18 �in motion their plan to kill the tyrant Hippias and dissolve the tyranny, they mistakenly think their conspiracy is betrayed and that the tyrant has been warned. If they cannot not kill the tyrant himself, they want at least to revenge themselves against Hipparchus, the tyrant's brother, who started the whole thing: Immediately without circumspection they fell upon [Hipparchus], as especially happens in a passion: the one's [passion] being erotic, the other's on account of being insulted. They began striking him and they killed him. (6.57.3) It was with this sort of character, through erotic pain, that the beginning of the conspiracy and the irrational daring came to Harmodius and Aristogeiton out of their great alarm at the moment. For the Athenians the tyranny was harsher after this. (6.59.1-2) Not only did Harmodius and Aristogeiton not destroy the tyranny at Athens (it endured three more years until the Spartans put it down), they were instrumental in changing a benign tyranny into a harsh one. And of course the beloved, Harmodius, over whom the struggle was conducted, was lost to his lover Aristogeiton anyway since Harmodius was killed on the spot. (Aristogeiton escaped briefly only to be caught, tortured, and executed.) Now why does Thucydides stress their eros? Why does he bring up the old story of Harmodius and Aristogeiton at all in this new context of the Sicilian expedition? The witch hunt against Alcibiades is conducted in accordance with an analogy in the Athenian mind between Hipparchus (whom the Athenians mistakenly think was the tyrant back then) and Alcibiades, who is currently suspected of aiming at the tyranny. Popular leaders or demagogues (politicians who are Alcibiades' competition) speak in favor ofrecalling and arresting Alcibiades. These popular leaders are, in the public mind, the new tyrannicides, the latter-day analogues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who vanquish the new threat to Athenian freedom. The Athenians think they are replaying the drama of Harmodius and Aristogeiton during the Sicilian expedition. However, Thucydides turns this analogy on its head. The demagogues actually hope that by driving out Alcibiades they will themselves be able to seize preeminence in Athens (6.28.2, 6.29.3). Thucydides makes a point of saying that the 19 �harshness ofHippias' tyranny did not cause the tyrannicide. Rather, the botched attempt at tyrannicide caused the tyranny to grow harsh from that point on. The Athenians have mixed up cause and effect. Point for point, the alleged plot of Alcibiades against Athens does not cause the demagogues to arrest and recall him. Rather, their arrest and recall of Alcibiades causes him to plot against Athens after escaping the arresting officers (which is what he does). The eros for Sicily and Aristogeiton's eros for Harmodius are analogues. In wanting Sicily so much that they feel eros for it, the Athenians are likely to put the state at risk. Just as Aristogeiton harmed Athens through his erotic daring, so the Athenians now are in the process of harming Athens again. In feeling eros, both cities and individuals are vulnerable to fears and pains which make them lash out (as well as embrace) without circumspection. Now we are in a position to recognize how systematic Thucydides' critique of erotic citizenship has been all along. What was to all appearances a productive competition between and among rival suitors for the hand of Athens that we saw operating in the massive preparations for the Sicilian expedition, just as quickly degenerates into a destructive competition in the wake of the expedition's departure, namely in the actions that Alcibiades' rival politicians take against him. The problem with the eros surrounding Harmodius was that he already belonged to one suitor, while a rival suitor looked strong enough to take him away. An analogous problem occurs with the politicians' eros for Athens. Just as Aristogeiton could not bear the thought of his beloved wrested away by Hipparchus, so the demagogues (6.51.1) cannot bear the thought of a triumphant Alcibiades returning with Sicily in hand, prepared to offer Athens such a jewel for her crown that she might be tempted to give herself into his hands perpetually. Citizenship-as-courtship only works so long as the courtship continues and the beloved (the city)remains equally aloof from all suitors-equally aloof, in this case, from all of the politicians. As soon as one suitor is poised actually to win the contest, the other suitors are not likely to bow out gracefully. Even if the unrequited suitors could perceive that a marriage or permanent alliance with the successful suitor was in the best interest of the beloved, erotic desire is often so possessive that a disgruntled suitor would be willing to do 20 �harm to the beloved's interest rather than give her up. This is exactly what Alcibiades does later in the history, during his exile after escaping trial. He attempts to bring Athens to her knees in order to show her how much she needs him. He proves very successful at doing this. Alcibiades gives his definition of patriotism while offering his services to the Spartans (6.92.2-4). As he does elsewhere, Alcibiades puts his O'Ml characteristic twist on an idea that seemed benign in its Periclean version: I do not think I deserve to be thought bad by any of you ifl, who once seemed to be a patriot fphilopolis ], now go against my own city by force, in company with her worst enemies .... The true patriot fphilopolis] is not one who refuses to attack his city, though he lost her unjustly; rather, he is the one who will attempt to take her back by any means, on account of desiring [epithumein] her so. (6.92.4) Alcibiades' patriotism is erotic and, at least by this point in the history, aggressive. Let us try to take stock of the love theme in Thucydides. In exhorting the citizens to conduct themselves as lovers, Pericles discerns perhaps the sole motive that could incline perfectly free individuals, habituated (as he says) to their O'Ml private interest and toward pursuing pleasures, to take the good of another as their O'Ml good. In the self-forgetting of eros, people in love, then as now, were routinely seen to neglect themselves. (The most striking example of courtship given in the Symposium is that lovers often would camp out for the night on the beloved's doorstep (183a 6).) Eros makes people willingly enter into bonds that would otherwise look like slavery. Eros is at once perfectly free and perfectly committed. And, as we said, Thucydides seconds Pericles' claim that patriotism-and political behavior more generally-can be erotic, by including Diodotus' speech and by depictii:?-g the citizensduring the preparations for the Sicilian expedition-wholeheartedly engaged in just such courtship behavior-at the very least, that is what they think they are engaged in. Ordinary, non-erotic patriotism, by contrast, is probably based preponderantly on a love of one's own. No one ever told the Spartans, for example, to fall in love with Sparta- 21 �yet the Spartans remain fanatically committed to their own city. They love her because she is their own. They do not love her romantically. Pericles, in basing patriotism on an erotic response to the power of Athens and her grandeur, disdains a patriotism that is a parochial, subjective sentiment or unthinking affection for the surroundings in which one grew up. Our country is a lot like our parents, and we might as well face it, we do not select our parents and love them with the free choice by which we select a beloved and love that person. We are stuck with our parents. Pericles' Athenians are supposed to perceive that mere parochial attachment, being stuck in a given patch of ground, is a low motive for patriotism when opposed to the real merit and greatness of a city. If another city were better, they would face a difficult choice between which to love, but fortunately Athens is the fairest of them all. There is, as I started saying, another type of love that has traditionally been thought to constitute patriotism, a love implicit in the very word patriotism and its root,patria: land of our fathers (not to mention "land where our fathers died"). This love is not erotic at all; it is the filial love and filial piety a child is supposed to feel toward its parent. Pericles eschews this love, changing the type of love away from the love for a "motherland" or "fatherland"-in favor of the more active, energetic passion of the lover. A lover or suitor seems to have designs on the beloved; he wishes to win the game of courtship against all the other suitors, and take possession of the beloved. But the political analogue, taking exclusive possession of Athens, would be tantamount to tyranny or at least monarchy. How did Pericles know that an Alcibiades would not come along to take him at his word? Again, we have seen how Pericles attempted to transcend the love of one's own. Perhaps, as we earlier surmised, the highest eros, for Pericles, would not be selfishly possessive but would content itself with contemplating the beloved. Many written sources describing pederasty, that important personto-person type of Greek love, do indeed seem to speak of stopping short of bodily congress, stopping short of bodily possession or incorporation, and of instead remaining content with contemplation alone: gazing at the beloved. A contemplative love for a city might look something like the Platonic eros near the top ofDiotima's ladder oflove in the Symposium- 22 �for example, she mentions contemplating the beauty in customs and laws (210c 2-3). These would include political institutions (as Pericles also saw), and they would locate the eros of the Funeral Oration on a high rung on the ladder of love. But in support of the traditional kind of patriotism, we have to note that filial love also worked well to the extent that it was antityrannical. A person who feels filial love toward his city protects it against others and against himself. The child's feelings for its mother, like the citizen's feelings for his motherland, are protective: citizens feeling filial patriotism would be jealous of politicians who were essentially suitors, and they would resist tyranny analogously to the way a child resists when its mother takes a new husband. The demagogues at Athens resisted Alcibiades, and patriots feeling filial love would resist him too. But unlike the demagogues, a citizen who felt filial love would not be desirous of becoming his mother's new husband himself. One of the clearest examples of this is in Plutarch's Life of Caesar (32.6): the night before Caesar crosses the Rubicon to attack Rome, he dreams of committing incest with his mother. Rome was hispatria but also, Plutarch implies, his motherland, and an entity toward whom to feel eros was a crime. So Pericles' switch of the types of love that constitute patriotism was fraught with risks although we also saw its potential for high returns. It is instructive to see just how unusual it was for a statesman to place patriotism on an erotic basis. Even in the context of a society whose athletic nudity brought the material basis of eros into the public view, a society which told itself that love should forge a path to public deeds, as in the myth of Harmodius and Aristogeiton-even in this context, Pericles was attempting to do something exquisitely rare. Just how rare- and how close to Platonic love-Periclean Athens was reaching, appears when we consider the mother of all paradoxes, the observation that when eros finally descends upon the elite young men, they fall in love not with Athens, as Pericles intended, but with a foreign land. Perhaps one should amend that slightly: they fall in love with their idea of what experiencing the sights and spectacles of Greater Greece might be like. Perhaps the most patriotic interpretation of imperialism generally, is that the citizens love their country so 23 �much that they wish to adorn her with a jewel in her crown. They may feel deeply that their country deserves such a foremost position among nations. They dream of being the one who confers the rightful honor on their country, winning the jewel for her. But the jewel may be attractive in its own right. These Athenians, the elite young men, are attracted to the jewel. This, at least, was predictable. The beautiful and the good are not always home grown. Pericles' project to let a higher love override the attachment to one's own, works in their case, but that higher love overrides not only their attachment to their own personal "own"; it also overrides their attachment to Athens' own. Their eros overrides the oikeion in both senses. If, in loving Athens, they are to follow their hearts, then they must also follow wherever their hearts may lead. Why not follow one's heart to Sicily? The ordinary love ofpatria must open up to include every place or land that merits appreciation. Again, in filial patriotism, the citizen and his motherland are stuck with one another. But romantic love is fickle, and eros likes to play the field. Now, the elite young men have not forgotten themselves to the extent of forgetting that they are Athenian. They remain hopeful of a safe return-to Athens. But they have forgotten themselves to the extent that they are forgetting their duty: under the influence of eros, they are forgetting themselves qua patriots, since patriots would first see to it that their city took no harm. Ultimately, erotic patriotism tries for too much. Athens errs in a direction opposite from Sparta's error. Just as Sparta errs in attempting to stamp out the struggle of the human mind to transcend parochial limits, so Pericles' transcendent patriotism implies a disembodied mind that forgets the local and particular requirements of community. In an attempt to be universal, Periclean Athens must give up her own, give up her self: she must give herself up. Pericles' vision is humanly and philosophically superior to the Spartan way; the only matters in question are his vision's security and safety, its achievability, the ability of citizens to find a modus vivendi with these high expectations, and its sustainability or longevity. These factors prove decisive politically, but they do not exhaust the philosophic questions toward which this 24 �political history of Athens points in same the way a shadow points toward its concrete object. No one can consciously and seriously accept the proposition that the only reason he loves his community is because it is his own. The human mind will strive to claim that its own is also good. But likewise it would take a quite extraordinary person, a Socrates in fact, truly to love whatever things he loves, only for their beauty or goodness, and not because they are his own. Socrates neglected his own children, and hung around other people's children, because his own children were not the most beautiful and intelligent children in the neighborhood-which in a neat way shows the monstrosity of this perfectly rational eros. Greek pederasty (there's that public nudity again) allegedly brought quite a number of adult males, at least within a certain stratum of society, halfway round to a Socratic position: pursuing beautiful boys and educating them, perhaps even while someone else pursued their sons and educated them. Possibly such a perfect reciprocity as this is only an imaginary limiting case of tendencies and aspirations within Greek pederasty: its ideal form. Notwithstanding such peculiarities (and partly because of them), the tiny Greek cities, and Athens in particular, stake some of the strongest claims to universality of any societies we know. Yet they fall short, leaving us to ponder the further question of whether the eros that inspired them may have found its fulfillment, and the universality toward which that eros pointed, may have been achieved, not by those communities as wholes, but by some of the individuals within them. 25 �Pericles' Funeral Oration I) Do not in word alone inspect the profit-which anyone could expound at length to you who know it yourselves no worse than he, telling how many good things depend upon defense against enemies, but rather, actively contemplate [theomenoi] the power of the city, day after day, and become lovers [erastai] of it [the power or: "of her," Athens], and when she seems great to you, take it to heart that daring men, men who knew what was needful, and who, in their actions, were sensible of dishonor, acquired these things; and if they ever failed in an attempt, they deemed it unworthy to deprive the city of their excellence, but gave themselves away as their finest favor to her. (2.43.1) 2) [Our leaders] have a care for their own private matters [oikeia] at the same time as political affairs, while the rest, people with permanent jobs, have no small understanding of politics . And the man who refuses to participate in politics? We alone [among the Greeks] do not consider him to be minding his own business but rather to be simply useless. (2.40.2) 3) The love of honor [to philotimon] alone never grows old, and the better enjoyment ... is not material gain as some say, but receiving honor (to timasthai, 2.44.4). 4) Invading the [land] of our neighbors we fight without difficulty on alien ground [en tei allotriai] against men who are defending themselves in the midst of their own [peri ton oikeon] and for the most part we conquer. (2.39.2) 5) On account of the stature of our city, all things come into her from every land; whence it happens that for us, reaping the goods produced here is no more familiar [oikeiotera, "no more our own"] an enjoyment than reaping those of other people. (2.38.3) 6) We have forced every sea and land to become the highway of our daring, and everywhere we have set up eternal [aidia] monuments to both good and evil. (2.41.4) 7) For the whole world is the tomb of illustrious men, and not only does the epitaph on gravestones signal it in their own land [en tei oikeiai]; but also, in land not belonging to them, there dwells an unwritten marker in every mind if not in fact. (2.43.2-3) The speech of the Corinthians at the Peloponnesian conference 8) In their city's behalf, they treat their bodies as if completely alienated from them [allotriotata] . And on deeds in her behalf they use their intellect, though it is their ownmost [oikeiotate]. (1.70.6) 9) When they fail to prosecute their schemes, they feel deprived of what is their own [oikeia]. But when they do invade and acquire something, they regard it a small deed compared with things to come . . . . For them alone, hoping and having are the same . . . . ( l. 70. 7, emphasis added) �Diodotus' speech during the Mytilenean debate 10) Hope and eros everywhere, the latter leading, the former following on-[eros] conceiving the plot, [hope] guaranteeing the resources for a good fortune-do the greatest harm and, though invisible themselves, are stronger than visible terrors. And fortune in addition to these contributes no Jess to the excitement: unlooked-for, she is there, leading men on to gamble with inferior means, and this is no less the case with cities, in proportion as they concern the greatest things: freedom and empire .... (3.45.5-6) The Sicilian expedition 11) Eros fell upon all alike to sail forth. [It fell] upon the elders, [who thought] that either they would subdue whatever they sailed against or that a great force would in no way be overthrown. [It fell] upon the young men through a longing for far-away sights and spectacles [opsis kai theoria], being of good hope, as they were, of coming back safe. And the great multitude and the soldier intended to earn money, in the short run, and besides that to acquire power whence wages might accrue to them eternally [aidion]. (6.24.3) Harmodius and Aristogeiton 12) The daring deed of Harmodius and Aristogeiton was attempted on account of an erotic incident. ... When Harmodius had become radiant through the bloom of his youth, a man of the commoners, Aristogeiton, a citizen of middle rank, had him as his Jover [erastes]. When Hipparchus son of Peisistratus attempted [to seduce] Harmodius but failed to persuade him, Harmodius complained of him to Aristogeiton. [Aristogeiton], smarting with pain erotically and fearing Hipparchus' power, lest he should take away Hannodius by force, immediately began plotting . .. the dissolution of the tyranny. (6.54.1-3) 13) Immediately without circumspection they fell upon [Hipparchus], as especially happens in a passion: the one's [passion] being erotic, the other's on account of being insulted. They began striking him and they killed him. (6.57.3) It was with this sort of character, through erotic pain, that the beginning of the conspiracy and the irrational daring came to Harmodius and Aristogeiton out of their great alarm at the moment. For the Athenians the tyranny was harsher after this. (6.59.1-2) Alcibiades at Sparta 14) I do not think I deserve to be thought bad by any of you ifl, who once seemed to be a patriot [philopolis], now go against my own city by force, in company with her worst enemies.. . . The true patriot [philopolis] is not one who refuses to attack his city, though he lost her unjustly; rather, he is the one who will attempt to take her back by any means, on account of desiring [epithumein] her so. (6.92.4) � 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. 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Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Title A name given to the resource St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context formallectureseriesannapolis Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 27 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Erotic Theme in Thucydides' Peloponnesian War Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered by Paul Ludwig on December 5, 2003, as part of the Formal Lecture Series. A handout given to lecture attendees is included with the typescript. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ludwig, Paul W. (Paul Walter), 1963- 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 2003-12-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make typescript copies of my lecture 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 Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War Eroticism in literature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Ludwig_Paul_2003-12-05 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a5f4ba6f0429f7b5db5370a7d7575356.pdf 2a601a227a7ae0096ca3708834e70355 PDF Text Text History and Existentialism in the Raj Quartet" Paul Ludwig This lecture is going to be about History, a discipline we don't teach at St John's, and Existentialism, a school of thought we don't recognize at St John's, all in a series of novels, the Raj Quartet, that are not on the St John's list of Great Books. Students who are already swamped with work and busy parents alike may be forgiven for thinking that a major project ofreading about the last days of British rule in India is not in their immediate future-let alone the Raj Quartet's four massive volumes averaging four hundred pages each. Nevertheless, I hope to tempt you, as India has seduced many a Western adventurer before you, into reading at least the first volume, entitled The Jewel in the Crown, which stands on its own as a separate novel. I secretly know that if you read the first one, you will get hooked. Students will then get in trouble with the Dean or with the Director of the G.I. as they attempt to fit in, between tutorial and seminar, a little side reading on the second volume, The Day of the Scorpion. How can I justify leading you so far astray? Luckily, modern technology comes to our rescue: there is a movie version. And this is one case in which watching the movie is not a sign of intellectual shallowness. The title of the movie is identical to the title of the first volume, The Jewel in the Crown, although it is important that you should know the movie covers the events of all four novels, the whole Raj Quartet. You can find the videotapes in our College library, as well as in many catalogue companies who sell BBC shows to us Americans. The movie is so good, that it is hard to realize-while watching it-how much better the books are. When it first aired as a television serial on weekday evenings, the streets of °Friday Lecture delivered at St John's College, Annapolis, on November 5, 2004 (Parents' Weekend). �London were deserted, so they say, as they had not been since the Blitz. Everyone was indoors watching it on TV. For those wary of the production values of 1970's BBC broadcasts (everything looked like Doctor Who) the production of The Jewel in the Crown aired in 1984 and caught the wave, as it were, when British film-making was coming into a kind of ascendancy in their absolute fidelity to historical period. So if you are pressed for time, as you are, and if you want to take a short rest from reading, you're in luck. If you get hooked, though, and find you have to start reading the books, don't say I didn't warn you. The movie version captures only a small portion of the drama of ideas, but it captures amazingly well the drama proper (the story-Jine), the characterizations, the mood, and what I can only call, the wonder. I will try to convey some of each of these, and while I want to focus on the drama of ideas, therein lies a problem. If you really wanted to learn about the history of the British in India, you could learn more accurate information faster by going to a history book. And if you really wanted to learn something about Existentialism, you could read a philosopher. In fact, some philosophers on the Program, namely Kierkegaard and Heidegger, have been labeled Existentialists by academics at other, more shallow institutions. So what I said at the beginning was not strictly true. We do study "Existentialists" at St John's, we simply do not want to prejudice our reading of them by calling them that. And even though Existentialism is said to have influenced a lot of literature-Dostoevsky is supposed to be another "Existentialist"-surely reading novels is a backwards kind of way to get into Existentialism. Another, deeper problem, is that a very respectable opinion, probably held by quite a number of you, goes something like this: "novels are works of art; they don't intend to foist ideas on us. Trying to derive philosophical ideas from stories is like milking a billygoat; you treat the story as something that it's not and hence inevitably fail to appreciate it for what it is." One of my warmest memories of being a freshman tutor is of sitting around after an archon meeting chatting informally with other younger tutors 2 �about the Odyssey, when someone made the mistake of wondering what a certain incident in the Odyssey was really about. Our archon, a senior tutor and an excellent reader of literature (but he shall remain nameless), interrupted the conversation, saying "Anyone who thinks the Odyssey is about something, is a jackass!" It was a great way for a young tutor to come to realize that there was more than one opinion about how to read at St John's. "Poetry asserts nothing." That is the classical expression of the senior tutor's sentiment. My own opinion is that poetry, literature, can make assertions, and that the classical statement, "poetry asserts nothing," was partly intended to defend poetry, to screen poetry from censorship, by pretending that poetry has less to say than it really does. And indeed, the author always can hide behind his characters and say: "I wasn't the one saying that-one of my characters said it." Sometimes the author might be saying that in all truth. But other times, we don't have to believe him. I admit, though, that this opinion of mine partly derives from weakness-I need a good story to keep my attention from flagging. History does not do it for me unless it is written by a master at narrative. And I am so lazy that I learn philosophy better from literature and only later go to the philosophers themselves to compare notes and decide if I have learned anything solid. So a novel has to be a good yarn before it can teach. It has to be good poetry first. And if that is all you want in a novel, you, too, have come to the right place. The Raj Quartet has all that you are looking for, and more. So before getting into history and philosophy, let me start by showing that Paul Scott, the author of the Raj Quartet, can write. For me, wonder is the primary experience of reading the Raj Quartet. So let us start with some of the wonder. Before looking at the first passage, I should say just briefly that I did not discover this wonder on my own: I had people who showed it to me. The Raj Quartet has been on a kind of informal St John's reading list among tutors for many years. And this is proof that St John's tutors do not only read great books. One rather basic reason why tutors read other books is that we could never find other great books if we never read anything 3 �but what someone has alleged to be great. In the opinion of the tutors who preceded me and showed me the wonder of the Raj Quartet, the Raj Quartet is a great work of world literature, as great as, hold onto your hats, War and Peace. Two of my predecessors were our former college librarian, Kitty Kinzer, and a tutor, Beate Von Oppen-her niece recommended the Jewel in the Crown to Beate as something to read during an airplane journey: that is how chance can put you on to something important. Study of the Raj Quartet became formal at Annapolis two years ago, with a faculty study group of thirteen tutors, funded by a grant from Ambassador Adolph Schmidt. So what I said earlier about the Raj Quartet not being on the Program is only true in a literal-minded way. Two of the faculty members of that study group have since passed away, and they are the same two who introduced these books to the College: Kitty Kinzer and Beate Von Oppen. I would like to dedicate this lecture to them. So first: the wonder. I will read three very brief passages from the first volume, The Jewel in the Crown. They are printed in your handout, and I apologize in advance if I butcher them. The main story is set in 1942, but the three passages are historical flashbacks to several earlier Indias. The first passage is about native India, divided into many small kingdoms: the Brits are already in the land, trading and defending their trade with armies, but there are many kingdoms they have not taken over yet (some of which in fact they would never take over). What I like about the first passage is the way the Indian names for trees somehow still convey something to us, even though most Englishspeakers have heard of maybe one or two of these trees, at most. This is the first passage on the handout 1: 1 Paul Scott, The Raj Quartet, Volume I, The Jewel in the Crown (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, [1966] 1998), pp. 67-8. The succeeding volumes, also published by University of Chicago Press in 1998, with their original dates are as follows: The Day ofthe Scorpion (1968), The Towers o/Silence (1971), andA Division of 4 �The [MacGregor] house stands in the middle of the garden, protected from the outside world by close-formed battalions of trees: neem, pipul, gol mohur, tamarind, casuarina and banyan; it goes back to the eighteenth century and was built by a prince who conceived a passion for a singer of classical music. To build a house and install a woman in it is an expensive way to beg her favours. It was said that he came to visit her morning and evening, and that she sang to him . . . and that he became enamoured finally only of her voice and was content to listen while she instructed the pupils he permitted her to receive. Scheherezade told stories to postpone the hour of her execution. The singer sang to guard her honor. When the singer died the prince grieved. People said he died of a broken heart. The house was deserted, closed. Like the state it decayed, fell into ruin. The prince's son succeeded to the gaddi. He despised his father for his futile attachment to the singer. He would let no one live there. He built another house nearby, the Bibighar, where he kept his courtesans. He was a voluptuary. He emptied the treasury. His people starved. An Englishman at his court was poisoned and so the new prince was deposed, imprisoned, his state annexed [by the British], and his people were glad of it until time lay over the memory of the old bad but not the badness of the present. The decayed house of the singer was rebuilt by a red-faced Scottish nabob called MacGregor who feared God and favoured Muslims, and was afraid of temples. The story goes that he burned the Bibighar to the ground because he said it had been an abomination. the Spoils (1975). Henceforth the volumes will be referred to as Jewel, Scorpion, Towers, and Division. 5 �At least one hundred years separate this India of the Maharajahs, the Indian princes-father, son, singer and courtesans--from the India where MacGregor, a merchant and a "collector," is carving out a fortune and acting as the de facto ruler of Mayapore. The only thing you need to know about the second passage is that even by MacGregor's time, English womenfolk have not come to small interior states like Mayapore yet-white women are found only in the big British-built coastal cities like Calcutta. The British tell themselves that MacGregor destroyed the Bibighar-which literally means "house of women"-because keeping a house full of courtesans was immoral. But a little later in the novel we learn a different version of the story. Competing perspectives, we shall find, are going to be typical of the Raj Quartet. Here is the second passage on the handout2 : But then this was the European version of the tale. . . . [MacGregor] burned Bibighar, not, according to the Indian version, because it was an abomination in his eye and the eye of the Lord ... but because he fell in love with an Indian girl and lost her to a boy whose skin was the same colour as her own. There are two versions of the Indian account of the burning of Bibighar. The first is that he discovered that the girl and her lover met in the Bibighar, and that he then destroyed it in a fit of jealous rage. The second is that he told the girl she would have to leave the MacGregor House and live in the Bibighar. He took her there and showed her the repairs he had made to it and the furnishings and clothes he had bought for her comfort and enjoyment. When she asked him why she must leave the MacGregor House, he said: Because I am going to Calcutta to bring back an English wife. So that night she stole away with her true lover. When he 2 Jewel, pp. 140-1. Spoken by the character known as Sister Ludmila. 6 �found that she had gone, he ordered the Bibighar to be burned to the ground, and then utterly obliterated. Not only are there two versions of the story, British and Indian-there are two versions of the Indian version! Like a good historian, the author, Paul Scott, tries to tell all sides of the story. Like Herodotus, Paul Scott knows that truth is hard to get at, and what people say about an event comes to be as important as the event itself. People's versions take on lives of their own. Now, in reality, of course, Scott himself is making up all three versions. He is showing us what doing a history would be like, rather than showing us a real history. You may have noticed thatlhave broken my promise and started talking about history already, when I was supposed to be only showing that Paul Scott is a good writer. And Herodotus, whom I mentioned, is clearly a program author, so what I said at the beginning about St John's not teaching history was not strictly true. That would the third tintruth I have told tonight-so far. Not only do Johnnies read some historians, but Johnnies are constantly learning to act as historians themselves-historians of intellectual history-by interpreting the evidence of original sources: and in roughly chronological order, to boot. But what Johnnies emphatically do not do is to try to place authors into the context of what other historians have alleged about their times: the political, social and economic history of their times that may--or may not-have influenced the author's ideas. Our philosophy is: better to err on the side of allowing the authors to be too original than to chop them down to size to fit a prejudgment about their alleged context. One ofthe philosophies of history presented in the Raj Quartet will explicitly disagree with the St John's philosophy. The Existentialist philosophy of history partakes of what is known as historicism. Historicism in its most extreme form doubts whether any originality is possible; it understand us all to be products of our social, political and economic contexts. So, I apologize for dragging philosophy and history into it ahead of time, but these get so intertwined with literary art in Scott's novels that it is hard to talk 7 �about his art without saying what the novels are about, getting into their ideas. The narrator of The Jewel in the Crown initially appears to be an omniscient narrator: he seems like Paul Scott himself. But in fact this narrator is gradually revealed to be a historian (himself with a limited viewpoint) who has returned to India in 1963, long after Independence was granted by the British. This unnamed historian has come back to learn about what happened in those last days before Independence, specifically what happened on a mysterious night in 1942, when an Englishwoman was raped during political unrest. The narrator's use of competing perspectives, British vs. Indian, Indian vs. Indian-a technique sometimes called Perspectivism-goes together with another narrative technique, which I will call the Telescoping of time. In the brief passages we are reading, four different time-periods are present. We have already talked about the eighteenth century Indian princes and the nineteenth century merchant-imperialists, but I left out a sentence in which the historian in 1963, visiting the MacGregor house as part of his investigation, hears a young girl taking classical music lessons; she is singing the same songs now, in 1963, that the classical singer sang to her prince inthe eighteenth century. Eighteenth century, nineteenth century, 1963: these are all frame and background for the story proper, which takes place in 1942. Like a telescope closing up, time past and time future are always present-in the Raj Quartet-in time present. And the fascinating thing, the wonder that sends a shiver up the spine, is that many of the same sorts of occurrences are repeating themselves in all four time periods. Not just the music: an illegitimate love affair is veering toward tragedy in three of the four periods. Consider the third passage on the handout. Here we are back in the India of the princes again, when the voluptuary son gets the last word over his father. Don't blame me for taking these passages out of order: Scott himself deals with these occurrences out of order. He wants us to go back and ponder the earlier ones armed with what we know from the later ones. Recall that the singer's house fell into ruin, after her death, before 8 �MacGregor came along to rebuild it, but the Bibighar, the "house of women" or prostitutes, flourished. This is the third passage on the handout3: In those days, when Mayapore was a kingdom, on that side of the river there were no other buildings, and so those two houses were marks on the landscape, monuments to love, the love of the father for the singer and the love of the son for the courtesans, the son who despised his father for an attachment which, so the story goes, was never consummated. Day by day I think the son climbed the tower of the palace or to the highest room in the Bibighar to survey that other house, the singer's house, to glory in its decay, and said to himself, Such is the fate of love never made manifest." The tale of the last days of Britain's India empire is going to be the tale of a love never made manifest, an erotic attraction to India that could only be consummated in a kind of rape but could never dare to admit to itself that it might be love, for that would have led to an open embrace or dalliance that would have put the English and the Indians on an equal footing, undermining the ethical pretext of the "civilizing mission" that had become the way the British justified their empire to themselves. Surprisingly, Paul Scott or his narrator is not on the side of the father who did not consummate his love, but on the side of the voluptuary son, who at least made his love-such as it was-manifest. So: Scott can write prose with a touch of poetry. But can he spin a yarn? Let us look briefly at the story-line. 1942. An English girl has come to live in the MacGregor House. Her name is Daphne Manners. She has lost her family in the Blitz, and has been driving an ambulance during the bombing of London. She comes to live in India with an Aunt, 3 Jewel, p. 139, another of Sister Ludmila's musings. Emphasis in original. 9 �Lady Manners, the only family she has left. The story of Daphne's revulsion with all things Indian is too detailed to go into, but it is beautifully told. She initially stays with her Aunt, the widow of a Governor, in the predominantly Muslim city of Rawalpindi. Just when she thinks she might be growing to like India a little bit, she journeys to predominantly Hindu Mayapore where her Aunt's Indian friend-also a titled LadyLady Chatterjee, widow of an Indian who was knighted for his service to the Raj, lives in the MacGregor House, one of the only Indians on the British side of the river. Mayapore is now split into the British town north of the river, and the Indian town south of the river. Daphne's descent into ever-greater alienness, first into Islam and from there into Hindu territory is accompanied by extreme revulsion, not only or primarily with the poverty and living conditions but with the utterly alien cultures, what the locals consider good food, and the ways of life and death. The MacGregor House is one of the few places in Mayapore where Indians and British mix socially and only then at carefully contrived drinks parties. Daphne brings with her progressive liberal notions about the meaninglessness of racial distinctions as well as an unprejudiced heart that attempts to find the human in the other. But she finds her fellow Brits in India to be living in a land that time forgot; their attitudes toward race and their resistance to eventual self-rule for India are essentially nineteenth century holdovers living on into the twentieth century. Daphne is determined to appreciate and eventually love every aspect of India that she possibly can, and we gradually realize that this girl who is too tall, clumsy, average-looking, near-sighted, and naive.has capacities for cultural assimilation which give her what can only be called moral grandeur. If Daphne were ever to fall in love, she would make her love manifest. She falls in love with a young Indian named Hari Kumar. And here is the first twist: Hari, too, has just come to India. He grew up in England, .son of an Indian father who admired British ways, assimilated, made and lost a fortune, committed suicide, and left his eighteen-year-old son stranded at his elite English boarding school with no 10 �money. Hari, too, has just come to live with his Aunt, and Hari is, if anything, more revolted by India than Daphne was. This is because Hari is, if anything, the most English character in the book. In everything but skin color: in attitudes, outlook, character, he is utterly English and utterly at sea in India. He is so English that he is even upper-class (thanks to his boarding school education); he shares the hauteur of the ruling British but .in India he can never be one of them. Somewhere on the ship over to India, it happened. Although Hari had scarcely noticed he was brownskinned before (he had white friends, he was accepted in England), at some point near the Gulf of Suez, his fellow British passengers began to exclude him and socialize only among themselves, with their fellow whites. People who would never have felt that way at home, became, as India approached, frightened or racially conscious for the first time, and joined ranks against him, expecting that he too would now join his own kind. But Hari has no kind, unless it is the British themselves, for Hari is as far from an Indian as it is possible to be. And this is one of the historical and academic glints that decorate and inform the novels, because Hari Kumar (in England he was called Harry Coomer) is one of the "brown-skinned Englishmen" whom the historian and planner of empire Thomas Babington Macaulay envisioned in a famous speech before the British parliament on how Indians should be educated: to create "a class of persons Indian in colour and blood, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect ... who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govem."4 Paul Scott merely takes Macaulay at his word and shows us such a person. But what will happen to such a person if the British ever decide to leave India? Not British enough for the British, not Indian enough for "the millions we govern," Hari is destined to be forever a loose end in the incomplete project of empire. 4 Compare Jewel, p. 248, with Division, p. 301. See also John Keay, India: A History (New York: Grove Press, 2002), p. 431. 11 �Did I start philosophizing again? Sorry. With these novels, it's hard not to. When Hari finally scrapes up courage to cross the river into the British town, he feels like he has come home: clean lines, uncluttered streets, ordered civic life. When he enters a pharmacy, his heart leaps up to discover brand-name items that he is used to. (If you have ever been lonely in a foreign country, you will know how much those commercial items can mean to a traveler). But when he attempts to purchase a bar of soap, he encounters only contempt and prejudice, particularly when the memsahibs (white ladies) hear him speaking (aping, as they see it) upper-class-accented English. An Indian does not belong in the British town, unless he is the servant of a white. Hari literally becomes a man without a country, or without a community. Hari concludes (Jewel, p. 242): his father had succeeded in making him nothing, nothing in the black town, nothing in the [British] cantonment, nothing even in England because in England he was now no more than a memory ... . This language of nothingness will loom very large. For nothingness (as in Jean-Paul Sartre's title Being and Nothingness) is just what an Existentialist thinks we ought to think about ourselves. That we are nothing, on our own, nothing but a web of influences, totally determined by our backgrounds: our genes, our race, our religion, our upbringing, · our height and sex even. There is no escaping those determinants, or at least: no way to be certain we have free will. Every choice we make can be traced to those all-powerful factors. So philosophy is going to be right up front in the story-line. O.K., maybe I should drop even the pretense of "just telling the story." It can be done, but I can't do it. As you have probably guessed by now, Hari and Daphne will become illegitimate lovers. They meet at a racially mixed party at the MacGregor House. They have trouble from the start-not because of the outward pressure from the different 12 �communities they belong to, the English and Indian communities, both of which consider interracial love to be taboo. That is the least of their problems. Their problems are internal: the communities they both come from-their backgrounds-have predisposed them (it is so unconscious that it is like a genetic predisposition) to accept the taboo. Theory alone, theory that racial distinctions are meaningless, is not enough. It is very hard to put the theory into practice. Part of Hari's situation is that "a dark-skinned man touching a white-skinned woman will always be conscious of the fact that he isdiminishing her."5 When Hari beings to fall in love with Daphne, he deliberately attempts to put her off, warn her away from him, by behaving on one of their illicit dates the way he imagines a middle-class Indian male would behave. Since the English won't let Hari be English anymore, since he must be Indian, he will behave like the English stereotype of an Indian male: outwardly polite, but underneath selfish and aggressive, eating with his fingers, treating the servants like dirt, making the girl conform to his wishes, playing Indian music which he hated (and expected her to hate) on the gramophone. But he underestimates Daphne, who by this time has come to love many aspects of India: she particularly likes Indian music, which she says is the only musiC in the world that is conscious of breaking silence. Daphne does not mind lndianness if Hari wants to be Indian; she is only worried why he is acting so strangely. When a moment comes in their relationship when Hari should touch Daphne, she recalls (Jewel, pp. 410-11): He was afraid to. He was too conscious of the weight that would have made touching a gesture of defiance of the rule ... , and he didn't have that kind of courage, and so I was deprived of my own. The defiance had to come from him first, to make it human, to make it right. 5 Scorpion, p. 217, spoken by the villain Merrick. 13 �For Daphne to provide the defiance of the taboo would further unsex Hari (Jewel, p. 411 ): a ruling memsahib taking a hapless Indian by the hand. Hari and Daphne are stymied by their awareness that a brown man with a white woman must be "taking advantage of her" in some way or another. A general thesis put forward by less liberalminded Brits is that "an Indian will always take advantage of an English person who is friendly." And there is some truth to the thesis, since indeed the ruling caste of whites always does hold the keys to all advancement for a ruled caste of browns. It follows that Indians always want something. It also follows that any union between the two of them must be exploitative. One night-a dangerous night because there is civil unrest in Mayapore: Gandhi and the Indian National Congress party leadership have been interned by the British because the British, after all, have a war to fight with the Japanese, and Gandhi's noncooperation movement is not helping-on that night, the night of the civil unrest, Hari and Daphne are sitting together in the deserted Bibighar garden. The ruined "house" of women where love was at least made manifest is gone, only a garden remains, which has become a kind of informal public park. Daphne takes Hari's hand briefly to light her cigarette (Jewel, 416): After a while he said, "What were you trying to prove? That you don't mind our touching?" I said, "I thought we'd got beyond that." "No," he said, "we can never get beyond it." The "gesture of defiance" that needed to come from Hari finally materializes when he takes away her cigarette (which he considers a disgusting, Indian-made cigarette). He grabs her wrist and throws the cigarette away. "That catching hold of my wrist was like 14 �the impatient gesture of a lover. For him it was like that too." Once the boundary is crossed, their desire breaks through the dam. Unbeknownst to the couple, a group of Indian men, rioters who have come in from the country during the political unrest, are watching them in the darkness of the garden. For these men, a taboo is broken when they see a black man touching a white woman. They catch the couple unawares, forcibly restrain Hari, and rape Daphne. Hari himself is now a prime suspect in the rape because no one will believe that an English girl was in the garden alone with an Indian, consensually. What will happen to Hari? Enter the philosopher, stage left. The British District Superintendent of Police, Ronald Merrick, who hauls Hari in for questioning, and subjects him to brutal torture, attempting to extract a confession, also proceeds to give a philosophic account-a reasonable explanation-to Hari: an explanation of all the problems that Hari has been experiencing and thinking about since he came back to India and especially since he met Daphne. "Wait," you're saying, "a philosopher who tortures? I don't remember Socrates ever doing that." But this is a very different kind of philosophy, a philosophy that recognizes no distinction between contemplation and action. Merrick wants Hari to confess to the crime, a crime he knows Hari did not commit. Or does Merrickknow it? It turns out that, for Merrick, there may be no firm link between committing a crime, and being guilty for it. Contrary to the reader's expectation of ordinary police corruption or ordinary racism, Merrick proceeds to reveal to Hari a full-blown philosophy of history and human agency. You will notice that this lengthy philosophizing is integrated into the story-line. I did not put it there. Oh, I admit that we readers do not actually learn everything that was said in that jail cell until the second volume, The Day ofthe Scorpion, over a year later when Hari is interviewed, still in prison. But that just gives you incentive to read volume two, and not stop at volume one. 15 �Hari later recounts how Merrick began to talk. Merrick's philosophy is a philosophy of the so-called "situation." "He said history was a sum of situations whose significance was never seen until long afterwards because people had been afraid to act them out" (Scorpion, p. 297). "They preferred to think of the situations they found themselves in as part of a general drift of events they had no control over ... ". The rajBritish rule in India-has felt itself swept along by just such a current or drift since well before the onset of World War II: attitudes are changing and British power in India is unraveling. History itself seem to be drifting in the direction of liberation, and raj functionaries both of the civil and the military passively assume there is nothing they can do to stem the tide. Tonight, a white and a brown, Merrick and Hari, find themselves in position to reaffirm the raj's power. To prevent their moment together from sinking into the general drift, Merrick believes both he and Hari must avoid the passivity of the aforesaid rajwhites, those who "couldn't face up to their responsibility" for their situations. Curiously, the passive majority are probably correct about the hopelessness of taking control of the moment, in Merrick's view: "He didn't think he could go so far as to say you could change the course of events by acting out situations you found yourself in .. ". At most Merrick and Hari will have the satisfaction of knowing they did all they could to stem the tide of the liberalizing drift: "you'd ... take what steps you could to stop things drifting in the wrong direction, or an unreal direction." Merrick insists Hari should take responsibility. "That's what you've got to admit ... your responsibility for that girl getting [raped]. If you were a hundred miles away you'd still be responsible" (Scorpion, p. 298). Surely this is a very odd notion of responsibility that Merrick has. But Merrick practices what he preaches: he, too, is willing to take responsibility for a something he didn't commit. Merrick says he will take responsibility for the liberal whites' misrule, even though Merrick himself has obviously contributed nothing to the raj's drift toward liberalization and eventual liberation. Precisely taking responsibility for situations that are not one's fault is what Merrick 16 �recommends. This notion of "responsibility" is unusual, and its usage goes back to a philosopher other than the fictional Merrick but one equally controversial (drum roll, please): the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Merrick's philosophy conforms point by point with Being and Time, Division Two, Chapter 2: "Dasein's Attestation of an Authentic Potentiality-For-Being, and Resoluteness" (there's a mouthful), especially section 60. Now I am going to do what you "poetry-asserts-nothing" types feared. I have perfectly good words on the page of the novel to interpret, but instead of letting them speak for themselves, I am going to drag in a philosophical text. But my claim is that we are driven to it. It's not that the novel cannot speak for itself. (It does speak for itself.) Rather, the novel is giving us a chance to enrich our understanding of philosophy, too-we have the chance to go back to Paul Scott's own sources and learn what he knew. And, in keeping with my own personal lazy way oflearning philosophy, I feel driven to confront Merrick's "Existentialism" with that of a known "Existentialist," just to see ifI'm learning anything solid. I should also add that the Heidegger connection is not my own discovery. Another of my predecessors at St John's, Eva Brann, has pointed out the Heideggerean roots of Merrick's philosophy in the course of publishing numerous articles on the Raj Quartet. After one of our study group meetings, Beate Von Oppen was telling me about how the Raj Quartet found its way to St John's. "I was the first," she said, in her part German and mostly British accent. "Then Eva eclipsed me." In the scholarly literature on the Raj Quartet, no one has yet made the Heidegger connection, so St John's is ahead of the curve on that one. One scholar did notice similarities with Jean-Paul Sartre, so I will have more to say about Sartre later. 17 �But first, Heidegger. Heidegger defines the term "Situation"6 as "definite factical possibilities" that are disclosed when a person becomes resolute. This is the fourth passage on the handout. The only thing you need to know is that "Being-There" (Dasein in German), is Heidegger's special word for human being: the kind of beings that are "there" in a fuller, more fundamental way than animals or things are "there." And yes, the Peter Sellers movie "Being There," which some of you have seen, is a reference to Heidegger's theory. The novel by Jerzy Kosinski that the film was based on (the novel was also called Being There) was a parody of Heideggerean existentialism. Here is the fourth passage on the handout: In the term "Situation" ("situation"-'to be in a situation') there is an overtone of a signification that is spatial. ... [S]uch an overtone is also implied in the 'there' ofDasein [Being-There]. Being-in-the-world has a spatiality of its own .... Dasein 'makes room' in so far as it factically exists .... Just as the spatiality of the "there" is grounded in disclosedness, the Situation has its foundations in resoluteness. The Situation is the "there" which is disclosed in resoluteness-the "there" as which the existent entity is there. It is not a framework present-at-hand in which Dasein occurs, or into which it might even just bring itself. Far removed from any present-at-hand mixture of circumstances and accidents which we encounter, the Situation is only through resoluteness and in it. 6 Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, [1927] 1962), p. 299 (pages cited refer to the marginal pagination, i.e. to the original German text). The German for the capitalized English "Situation" is Situation, for small-case "situation," Lage. Emphasis in original. 18 �The inauthentic grasp of a Situation is that a Situation is a "mixture of circumstances and accidents" that we encounter. When Merrick says that most people prefer to think of Situations as part of a general drift of events they have no control over, he refers to this inauthentic grasp. Merrick's term "unreal," as in "drifting in ... an unreal direction" corresponds to Heidegger's terms "inauthentic" and "ungenuine" (Heidegger, p. 297). For Heidegger, our understanding of historical significance results from resoluteness. What does he mean by resolute? We resolve on a course of action, we make a decision, a resolution (like a New Year's resolution), and we stick to our decision, come what may. The resolute individual has made an unalterable decision-oddly, for Heidegger, a decision without grounds. Ordinarily, we let the facts determine what we should resolve to do. We work within the framework of possibilities permitted us by facts. Heidegger reverses this: rather than letting the facts determine what we should resolve to do, "[r ]esoluteness does not first take cognizance of a Situation and put that Situation before itself; it has put itself into that Situation already. As resolute, Dasein is already taking action" (Heidegger, p. 300). Such taking action exposes for the first time the "facts," or as Heidegger would say, the "facticity" with which a person must work. "The resolution is precisely the disclosive projection and determination ofwhat is factically possible at the time." (p. 298; emphasis in original) Analogously, Merrick emphasizes "enactment" as the only way of knowing the facts about what the historical situation is. Enacting this particular situation-Merrick means playing at master and slave-is the way to understand its significance. Ordinarily, we might want to examine the facts first: are brown people really the slaves of whites? Is Merrick really Hari's master? But no (Merrick and Heidegger say) disclosing facts like those always presupposes a stance, a decision you have made, a resolution. In modem parlance, this Heideggerean idea has trickled down into our ordinary speech and way of looking at things: we call it "commitment." How you view the facts depends on your prior commitment. The Liberal commits himself to finding the races equal; when he examines 19 �the evidence, he finds it supports his commitment. The racist commits himself to finding the races unequal; when he examines the evidence, he finds it supports his commitment. In the Existentialist philosophy, the prior decision lights up the world, reveals the facts for the first time. There are no pure or uncommitted facts. Ordinarily, Merrick says, the significance of Situations is "never seen until long afterwards because people [have] been afraid to act them out." And later: "It wasn't enough to say he was English and I was Indian, that he was a ruler and I was one of the ruled. We had to find out what that meant." (Scorpion, p. 298) Now we are in a position to think more about Merrick's radical new concept of guilt: that we should all admit guilt precisely for those things we're not responsible for. For Merrick, accepting responsibility is the inner truth of taking action, or enactment. Hari ought to take responsibility for the rape of Daphne, even though he didn't commit it, because the rape of Daphne by some Indians somewhere is symbolic of the situation in which all Independence-minded Indians and all liberal whites everywhere conspire to create: the liberal whites by their egalitarian behavior are practically assuming that Hari can have their womenfolk; and Hari, by acting in kind at their invitation, is practically assuming it too. The real situation (in Merrick's view-and we have already seen the evidence for his view) is that no black man can touch a white woman without feeling the sense that he is violating her. Their sexual union must always be a rape, even if neither party wills it to be such. The best Hari can do is face up to this situation. The same sense of guilt or responsibility is also the inner meaning of resoluteness for Heidegger. Resoluteness is defined as the "self-projection upon one's ownmost Being-guilty . .. " (Heiqegger, p. 297; emphasis in original). Guilty of what, for what? Merely guilty-primordially so, Heidegger says. " 'Being-guilty' also has the signification of 'being responsible for' ["schuld sein an"]-that is, being the cause or author of something. . . . These ordinary significations of "Being-guilty" ... can go together and define a kind of behaviour which we call 'making oneselfresponsible' ..." 20 �(p. 282; emphasis in original). Conscience proclaims us guilty, and conscience is the manifestation of care or of solicitous, concernful being in the world. Whenever we care for or feel solicitous toward other people or things, we feel a call of conscience which does not have a specific grounding in any act we may or may not have committed. Heidegger's (and Merrick's) notion of guilt now becomes slightly more plausible. Particularly when we suddenly realize that we have been carelessly accepting a situation made by others, i.e. not exercising our human freedom, we feel guilty. Ifwe realize we have been drifting with the current (remember, the liberal members of the raj were letting themselves drift), we suddenly feel guilty; if we then use that guilt to become resolute, to say, I'm not going to drift anymore, I'm going to be a free chooser, and make my own way in the world, then we are close to becoming resolute the way Heidegger wants us to. Close-but we're not quite there yet. For this is the truth aboutfacticity, i.e. the set of facts (sex, height, biographical givens, social roles, customs ingrained in us by our peculiar sect or nationality): none of these facts were acts of our own free will, we made none of them but rather are stuck with them, and we are seemingly determinedbv them. We are "thrown" into them, and our natural mode is to get lost in them, not to exercise our determining freedom. But herein lies the rub: there is no evidence we can ever get free of them. There are no facts, prior to making a commitment, that show us that we have free will. On the contrary, the facts all add up to show us that we have no free will, that the only choices we make are really predetermined for us by our genes or by the way our moms brought us up or by the things our dads told us. Merely rebelling against our mom or dad is no escape: then you're simply reacting against them and letting them determine you in a way equal, but opposite, to the way they would have determined you directly. The only way in which we can get outside of the facts that determine us is to make them our own. Admit responsibility for them, admit guilt precisely for facts not of our own making. That is the only way out. Step one: come to admit that you are totally indebted-to your sect, your nation, your genes-feel these facts as debts, things lacking. 21 �Realize you are a nullity, a nothing. Step two: take responsibility for these facts (even though they are not your fault), make them my own, make them your fault. Heidegger calls this "Being-the-basis of a nullity" (p. 283). "Being-a-basis" means never to have power over one's own Being from the ground up (p. 284). In understanding the call of conscience, in taking responsibility, Dasein listens "to its ownmost possibility of existence. It has chosen itself' (p. 287; emphasis in original). A Heidegger scholar has ventured an example: existential guilt is indebtedness to culture (among other factors), his example is: being brought up feminine.7 A woman may feel she has no possibilities she can truly call her own: every role is preordained for her by the culture. To have none of one's own possibilities is to be a nullity. However, she can take over these public, pre-scripted roles in her own way, making them her own. She achieves this by accepting responsibility for them, thereby becoming the basis for (i.e. the author of) her own nullity. Embrace your nothingness. This is the only way out. This is an exercise of freedom-the only freedom open to you or her or anyone. In much the same way, Merrick wants Hari to accept responsibility for the facts that make him what he is: black, dependent, inferior, coddled by a white elite, attracted to a white girl-a rapist whether virtually or actually. This is the only freedom open to him. When Hari "fails" to live up to this freedom, Merrick claims he has more contempt for him than ever. Hari is merely pretending the world does not exist (Scorpion, p. 304). Now before getting back to the story-line-we will get back to it soon: ifthe "poetry-asserts-nothing" people in the audience can stay awake just a little longer-we will visit one more philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, whose more popular, not to say vulgarized, rendition of Heidegger's ideas helps make them easier to understand. There 7 Dreyfus, Hubert L., Being-In-The-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1990). 22 �is in fact no evidence that Paul Scott had read (or read about) the philosophy of Heidegger. "But there it is," you will say, "that is just what we were worried about: you have dragged in a philosopher to distort a literary text, a philosopher the author didn't even read." Yes, but: there is evidence that Paul Scott read and grappled with Jean-Paul Sartre. In fact, Scott devotes several pages to wrestling with what he explicitly calls Sartrean "engagement" with the "historical situation" in an important non-fiction essay in which Scott explains why he writes at all. 8 So even though Sartre is not mentioned by name in the Raj Quartet-it would have been anachronistic since Being and Nothingness first appeared in 1943, too late for the 1942 Indian milieu in which Merrick gives voice to its major tenets, Scott himself was reading Sartre in the 1960's and ?O's when he was writing the Raj Quartet, and he made the ideas a part of his art. In addition, the same ideas were around even in 1942 albeit in a more thoroughgoing, and less popular, form than Sartre's. Heidegger's Being and Time had been first published in 1927 and republished in 1935. It will probably remain forever a matter of debate what influence, if any, Heideggerean existentialism wielded over the rise of Nazism and fascism in Europe. But Paul Scott, Heideggerless or not, was smart enough to see that a philosophy that was Left-wing in Sartre, could just as easily be Right-wing as it had been in Heidegger, and so he made Merrick into a kind of British fascist. To claim even more for him, Paul Scott's power of imagination was so great that he often extrapolates from Sartre, happening upon formulations that seem to owe more to their original source in Heidegger, in much the same way that the Greekless Shakespeare took liberties with North's translation of Plutarch, making changes that coincided with the original meaning. 8 Scott, "Literature and the Social Conscience: The Novel," in Paul Scott's collected lectures and essays: Shelley C. Reese, ed,, My Appointment with the Muse. Essays, 1961- 75 (London: Heinemann, 1986). 23 �Quickly Sartre. Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness provides concrete examples where Heidegger was studiously abstract. For both Heidegger and Sartre, human being has no fixed essence but only an existence: a "standing out" (Latin: ex stare), hence the term "existentialism." Humans "stand out" from the way things "are" in favor of the way things might be. Heidegger calls it "projecting possibilities." Sartre emphasizes the negative; he calls it "nihilation": annihilating the actual in favor of the possible. Both Sartre and Heidegger seek a way out of the determinism inherent in the assumption that man's nature is essentially fixed, and that he is part of a causal chain. While Heidegger thinks the resolute individual can add nothing but a style or manner to the role which history has prescripted for him or her (all you can do is "make it your own"), Sartre by contrast holds that man has "absolute freedom," albeit sometimes within very narrow bounds-precisely the bounds of the historical situation. 9 A master and a slave have very different facticities. One seems to have unlimited scope of freedom, while the other seems to have little scope at all. Sartre would not disagree. But within these vastly differing scopes, the .freedom that both master and slave can exercise is absolute. No one forces the slave to continue being a slave: he can resolve to make a break for freedom, risking death, at any time he chooses. He may, of course, not succeed, but the choice will have been his own in a way precisely equivalent to the way his master's choices are his own. Even if escape turns out to be impossible, his freedom to make the attempt was absolute. The "Situation" restricts the range of his choices, but it does not so pre-determine the outcome of the choice or choices left to him as to vouchsafe to him foreknowledge of this outcome. Here is the crucial part: the slave can never know his escape attempt is doomed until he has made the attempt, i.e. committed 9 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, trans. Hazel Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), especially pp. 6- 35. 24 �himself. The one, absolute choice that we all have, that remains no matter how strict our circumstances, is the choice whether to commit suicide or go on living: to be or not to be), but that one choice is absolutely free. So for Heidegger, there is basically no such thing as freedom, while for Sartre, freedom is absolute. One more example: consider a man who wishes to climb a rock but says, "That rock is unclimbable." His statement exposes him as the kind of being who attempts things, like climbing. That is, he projects possibilities out ahead of himself("! might be able to climb the rock."). Otherwise put, the man mentally "annihilates" the unclimbed rock-he imagines it as climbed. That is, he negates the unclimbedness of the rock. Now, the true fact about the rock's unclimbability can never be known until the man actually resolves or decides to attempt to climb the rock. Resolutely trying, he may fail, but whether he succeeds or fails, he will have exercised his human freedom. If he were to decline to climb the rock on the grounds that he somehow "knows" in advance that the rock is unclimbable, he would be in what Sartre calls "bad faith." Only in resoluteness can any such "fact" about the rock be disclosed (Sartre, pp. 482, 488-9). Now, I promised that Merrick's philosophy would have explanatory power: that it woald give a reasonable (if existentialism can be called reasonable) accounting to Hari of the problems Hari has been experiencing and thinking about since he came to India, or at least since he fell in love with Daphne. And so it does. Merrick claims that if Hari will only take responsibility for the rape, Hari's whole situation will be revealed to him, and he will at last understand it. In this Merrick turns out to be correct. When asked in his later prison interview whether he might indeed have tried to take advantage of Daphne sexually, Hari confesses (Scorpion, p. 250): 'I may have done for all I know. My behaviour at that time left a lot to be desired.' 25 �'I'd forgotten how to act in that kind of company. Or ifl'd not forgotten, trying to act as I remembered I should act seemed-artificial.' Hari was half-way to being an Indian, or half-way to being his stereotype of what an Indian was. We recall that Daphne herself admitted that Hari had to get mad and grab her wrist, get rough, throw her cigarette away by force, in order to find strength enough to break the taboo against interracial touching. Hari's confession that he might indeed have tried to take advantage of Daphne sexually is corroborated by what actually occurs in their first and only sexual union, in the deserted Bibighar garden the night of the political unrest. As Daphne herself recounts, Hari cannot initially act out or "enact" their union as anything other than the very rape which the taboo says their union must be (Jewel, p. 417, emphasis added): There was nothing gentle about the way he took me. I felt myself lifted onto the mosaic. He tore at my underclothes and pressed down on me with all his strength. But this was not me and Hari. . .. [H]e made me cry out. And then it was us. "But this was not me and Hari"-the sentence is important, because it shows that Daphne does not wish to believe for a moment that Merrick's racial situation is in fact all-determinant here. But our novelist is toying with just how close to being correct, if not entirely correct, Merrick is. Daphne's assertion that this was not the real Hari sounds like-or takes the form of-a characteristically pathetic rationalization by a white girl who has fallen in love with an Indian only to find herself taken advantage of. Hari and Daphne are in a communal vacuum: he because he is a black Englishman whom Englishmen shun, she because she is crossing the color line. Paul Scott wishes to show 26 �just how difficult it is to create a sense of self beyond these racial selves that their communities have constructed for them. After the "real" rapists leave them, Daphne in her delirium thinks she is alone, having "this idea that Hari had gone off with them because he had been one of [the rapists]." The communal ideology is strong enough to make Daphne subconsciously adhere to the scenario for which Merrick asks Hari to take responsibility. Like Daphne, Hari accepts Merrick's version of the situation-for a few hours. Merrick pretends during the interrogation (a policeman's trick) that Daphne went ahead and incriminated Hari. Merrick offers to let Hari confess to a lesser charge and avoid punishment for rape, for surely he can prove that Daphne agreed to meet him, that she wanted him? Merrick is correct in his assessment of how Hari will feel at Daphne's betrayal. Hari later realizes to his humiliation that he actually believed Merrick was telling the truth and that Daphne had given evidence against him. But we the readers know that Merrick's lie corresponds to a kind ofreality. Daphne did betray Hari in her mind, however briefly. Just as Daphne had believed, briefly, that Hari was one of the rapists, so Hari, for a few hours, believed that Daphne, as an English girl, would consider him, an Indian, one of the rapists. And, we know as well, their sexual union was a rape, if only for an instant. It all fits into a seamless "situation." After more torture, Merrick offers Hari water and helps him drink it. Then Merrick tells Hari if he were honest he would admit he was grateful for the water and would thank Merrick for it. He gives Hari another drink. "'After a bit I heard myself say [thank you]'" (Scorpion, pp. 300-1 ). Merrick says they both "know" where things stand now. In other words, by enacting the situation of master and slave, Hari has learned something about himself, just as Merrick said he would. Enactment is disclosive. During the night, Hari wakes up and calls for help. '"The name I called was Merrick.'" Only because Merrick is no longer in the cell with him, no longer there to "help" the dependent Indian, does Hari have time to reason things out. Hari first decides to 27 �confess to the rape charge. That is the attractive course because he could add thereby something of his own to his enemies' attempt to destroy him. Destroying himself would be the only course left in which he could "exercise his own free will" (Scorpion, p. 302). He is now at the level of Sartre's suicide: to be or not to be. Then Hari comes once again to realize his own nothingness. "I thought, well anyway what's going to be destroyed? Nothing. An illusion of a human being .... [A] nonentity ...". Hari now has the two principal components of Sartre's existentialist philosophy: free will and nothingness. When Hari finally revolts against Merrick's Situation, it could easily seem to the reader that Scott has taken pains to show the victory of liberalism or humanism over the existentialist philosophy of the situation. For example, Hari in his prison cell comes to the realization that (Scorpion, p. 302; emphasis in original): ... no one had any rights in regard to me. I was the only one with rights. . . . I wasn't to be categorized or defined by type, colour, race, capacity, intellect, condition, beliefs, instincts, manner or behaviour.... So who had the right to destroy me? Who had the right as well as the means? The answer was nobody. I wasn't sure that they even had the means. This reads as a classical liberal, modern vindication of the rights-bearing self. It would be easy to assume from this that a rights-based liberalism here wins out over Merrick's existentialism. But it is only in and through an existentialist engagement with the situation that Hari achieves this vindication of his own rights and individuality. He asserts: "[T]he situation about Hari Kumar was that there was no one anywhere exactly like him. So who had the right to destroy me?" Part of his reasoning is as follows: "I saw ... something Merrick had overlooked. That the situation only existed on Merrick's terms if we both took part in it. The situation would cease to exist if I detached myself from it" 28 �(Scorpion, p. 303). Hari has realized that the master-slave dialectic needs a slave: that is why Merrick has been so motivated to reduce him to slavery, so that Merrick himself can be elevated to mastery-what he regards as his proper position. Take away the slave and you take away the master-slave situation. But when Hari says Merrick's situation ceases to exist, he does not intend that no Situation of any sort exists any longer. On the contrary: Hari refers to "the situation" many times throughout his prison interview, endorsing the concept in his own right and without irony, sometimes infuriating his interrogators with his mystifying assertions about what ''the situation" is and what it entails. When they try to prevent him from talking about the situation, Hari says that it is impossible for him to forget the situation (Scorpion, p. 283). He says (Scorpion, p. 292; emphases added): ... you begin to see that I am the least important factor and that without intending to you're asking questions about what I call the situation. That's why you're annoyed and accuse me oflying, because the situation threatens to be more than any conscience can cope with. Hari's silence, his refusal to participate in Merrick's version of the situation, not only incriminates him but also contributes to the prosecution of the five other prisoners innocent of the rape in the Bibighar garden. When this is pointed out to him, Hari replies: "Yes, I had to consider that. It was part of the situation." When Hari's testimony is finished, he notes with irony that the clerk had been sent out of the room during the part that incriminated Merrick. He suggests, "That's part of the situation too, isn't it?" (Scorpion, p. 305) Hari has been converted to existentialism by Merrick lock, stock, and barrel. He merely disagrees with Merrick over what the situation is. Or rather, Hari' s resoluteness subjectively discloses a situation different from the situation disclosed by Merrick' s 29 �resoluteness. Let us look closer at the situation as disclosed to Hari. He finds the tin mug that Merrick gave him water out of. He puts a towel around his middle, covering his naked, lacerated body. He walks up and down his jail cell, holding the tin mug. Like his Hindu grandfather, who had become "sannyasi"--disavowing all responsibilities in his old age to take up a beggar's cup and go out into the world to acquire merit-, Hari now reminds himself of the "good Indian" his relatives·have been trying to make him become since his return to India. The idea of sannyasa-the disavowal of all responsibilitiesconnects for Hari with the idea that Hari is not answerable to anyone but himself: since he has no responsibilities, no one has any claims over him. "No one had any rights in regard to me." He comes to a decision to be silent, confessing nothing. Hari vindicates his existential freedom: "it seemed like a way of proving the existence of Hari Kumar .. "(Scorpion, p. 303; emphasis added). It is crucial to see here that Hari does not truly become an Indian. ("I don't know whether that made me a good Indian," p. 303). He, an Englishman, does not appropriate Indian values such as sannyasa in any direct or simple way. Rather, he takes from sannyasa only what he needs and only what the historical situation permits him to take. His appropriation oflndian cultural values is momentary, transient, and opportunistic, and it takes place in and through a Liberal philosophy of rights that is not Hindu but comes from John Stuart Mill and the tradition Hari learned in England. Nevertheless, the existentialist would say that Hari' s appropriation of Indian cultural values is as authentic or genuine as it could be: the situation disclosed to Hari what there was to appropriate, and he appropriated it. Well, I'm almost done. But here, at the end of the lecture, we have come to what I consider to be the core of the Raj Quartet's philosophical concerns, and what Paul Scott admits in his lectures and essays is his philosophical purpose in writing the kind of "moral dialogue" that we have been reading here. (I should stress that the wording of the following questions is my own wording, not Scott's wording, but I claim they are his 30 �questions.) Can someone from one culture genuinely come to understand and embrace the people and place of another culture, or must members of one culture always appropriate "the other" in a mode determined by the culture they come from? That is to say, can Daphne really embrace Indianness and understand it? To what extent does a culture constitute (and therefore determine) the self that belongs to it, and to what extent is the self free for self-fashioning? Remember that one culture, one community is about to abscond: time is running out on the raj. A legion of characters in the novels we have not examined find themselves suddenly without roles when their society absconds. Scott portrays characters struggling to find a core of moral agency or individuality in themselves that has not been constructed for them by their history. That is, they seek a self that is properly their own. They struggle to come to terms with the sheer extent of moral determinism that comes of their involvement in a great historical process (the retreat from empire and the Indian Independence movement). Only through historical theory can they explain their conundrums to themselves and to the reader. The Raj Quartet presents several such historical theories (I have concentrated on only one.) Paul Scott elsewhere expresses distaste for the historicist philosophy of history known as existentialism. He clearly was ambivalent about it, since existentialism contributed to the moral depravity of Merrick. Yet it also contributed to the existential freedom of Hari. Somehow despite his distaste for it, existentialism spoke deeply to Paul Scott when it came to the philosophic wonder implicit in the questions he posed. 31 � 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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 paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 31 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 History and Existentialism in the Raj Quartet Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered by Paul Ludwig on November 5, 2004, as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ludwig, Paul W. (Paul Walter), 1963- 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 2004-11-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make typescript copies of my lecture 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 Scott, Paul, 1920-1978. Raj quartet Existentialism in literature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Ludwig_Paul_2004-11-05 Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b8804c1112e284fa3fc7f105c055d8aa.mp3 cb10610c5c9d716b94cc88ac1be031ce 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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.) 01:09:31 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 History and Existentialism in the Raj Quartet Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered by Paul Ludwig on November 5, 2004, as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ludwig, Paul W. (Paul Walter), 1963- 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 2004-11-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make typescript copies of my lecture available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Scott, Paul, 1920-1978. Raj quartet Existentialism in literature Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Ludwig_Paul_2005-11-05_ac Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/dee2fb6ff274920925db4b23c6df1af5.mp4 755bd884dee10b6f65d6e541f11028e8 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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.) 00:57:25 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource What's Wrong with History? Description An account of the resource Recording of a lecture delivered on September 27, 2024, by Annapolis tutor Zena Hitz as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Ms. Hitz offers this description of her lecture: “In a St. John's seminar, we do not approach the readings historically, that is, ‘in a context.’ Instead, we ask them questions, as we might ask living people questions, and engage them in conversation and shared inquiry. Is this simply the way we prefer to read? Or is something wrong with a historical approach to a great book? If so, what?” Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hitz, Zena, 1973- 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 2024-09-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: make a recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a recording of my lecture available online; make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp4 Subject The topic of the resource History--Study and teaching Education, Humanistic Facts (Philosophy) Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Hitz_Zena_2024-09-27_ac Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7999">Typescript</a> Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a717b1e684ad9e325d1ea2534817085d.pdf db7f1f3bd76004dbc18ee24430e772d4 PDF Text Text What's wrong with history?1 Zena Hitz Nothing so subtly distracts human beings as an environment of vestigially thoughtful speech and uninterpretable objects of reason emitting a persistent rational gibberish. — Eva Brann, Paradoxes of Education in a Republic I want ﬁrst of all to welcome back all of our alumni to St. John's this Homecoming weekend. It is a bit strange for me to give this welcome, as I am myself welcomed back, as a member of the class of 1994 whose reunion year this is. In light of that I'd like to dedicate this lecture to two of our classmates who we've lost in the past few years, each of whom we lost suddenly and well before their time. Michael Miller was a quiet student. Like many such students, his habit of silence masked serious and extensive reading, imagining, and thinking. He read large volumes of literature into the years after graduation, wrote ﬁction and reﬂections, and shared with a lucky few his thoughts in conversation. He worked as a switchboard operator at a hospital, for which he had been trained at the college switchboard (which we used to have), and was a devoted and loving husband and father. In preparing this lecture I was greatly helped by the college's para-curriculum on history, including Leo Strauss, "Political philosophy and history", Journal of the History of Ideas 10.1 (1949), pp. 30-50, reprinted in What Is Political Philosophy? (Chicago, 1957); Jacob Klein, "History and the liberal arts" and "Phenomenology and the history of science" (both reprinted in his Lectures and Essays), Harvey Flaumenhaft's lecture, "History in liberal education: Hindrance or help?" (2001) and Eva Brann's "The Student's Problem" (1967); as well as a forthcoming essay by Mary Elizabeth Halper, "Jacob Klein on the Problem of History for Liberal Education." 1 My interest in the topic was sparked by teaching the Graduate Institute History tutorial for the ﬁrst time, and I am especially inﬂuenced by Nietzsche, "The Use and Abuse of History" and Husserl's The Crisis of the European Sciences, trans. D. Carr (Northwestern, 1970), as well as Husserl's 1910 lecture "Philosophy as a Rigorous Science." I did much of the reading and thinking connected with the lecture while on leave at the James Madison Program at Princeton, and was helped by conversation with the other fellows. Lastly I was aided by Liam Koﬁ Bright's short essay, "Facts vs. opinions" (https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2024/03/facts-vs-opinions.html) and by many wonderful conversations with Aschely Cone and Jordan Poyner. �Eddie Ames was what we call a transfer student. He studied aerospace engineering for three years before becoming bored and disaﬀected. After traveling around the country, he enrolled as a January Freshman at the age of 26. As a St. John's student he used his STEM education to help his fellow students through their Newton and Maxwell. After St. John's he enlisted in the Army, and served in civil aﬀairs units overseas. After the Army he became a math teacher, and nursed his mother through years of dementia. He had a passion for Shakespeare and Mozart, whose work fed and consoled him until the very end of his life. For these two men, and for so many others, the College was not simply one launching pad among others. It was, or is utterly indispensable to the development of a rich and nourishing inner life, and a foundation for loving service to others. I consider it the privilege of my life to be a part of the education of human beings like them. ____________________________ Hard Times, a novel by Charles Dickens, begins with a short speech, given by Thomas Gradgrind, a father and headmaster of a school (as his name suggests): "Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!" What Gradgrind means by facts is brieﬂy illustrated in the following classroom scene, when a student addressed as girl number twenty cannot properly deﬁne a horse. The schoolmaster turns to a another student: 'Bitzer,' said Thomas Gradgrind. 'Your deﬁnition of a horse.' 'Quadraped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in spring; in marshy 2 �countries, sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' Thus (and much more) Bitzer. 'Now girl number twenty,' said Mr Gradgrind. 'You know what a horse is.' The realm of facts from which this answer is drawn seems to oﬀer accounts of matters of common experience that are concrete, digestible, objective, and correct. Numbers are used when possible. The facts range from the obvious—horses have four legs—to the hypothetically practical, numbers of teeth, how to care for hooves, how to judge age. Hypothetical practicality seems to me an earmark of a fact. I suspect in general that the realm of facts is the realm of the useful. So much is suggested in Dickens's novel. Mr Gradgrind's closest associate is Mr Bounderby, owner of the local mill, the wealthiest man for miles, identiﬁed as a self-made entrepreneur. With Mr Bounderby's help, Mr Gradgrind eventually enters Parliament. The realm of facts, it is suggested, is closely intertwined with the realm of utility, and utility with wealth and power. Mr. Bounderby squeezes as much out of his mill-workers as he can. In that way—admittedly loose and hard to explain—the realm of facts is not only a resource for various practical concerns, but a system of rule, even a kind of tyranny. In Hard Times, the realm of facts and utility are contrasted with the world of feeling, sentiment, and the imagination. Without these, the story suggests, human life will be small, impoverished, and hostile to human excellence, even to basic forms of moral order. I ﬁnd this story moving, and perhaps even true to life. But the danger that facts present to the sentiments or to the imagination is not my chief concern. Rather, I want to try to understand better certain practices and principles at the College. As the newcomers to us will have begun to understand, even by now, a fact is an unwelcome oﬀering in our conversations. This can be a surprise or a struggle to many, and a scandal to some. Most notoriously, we neglect historical facts, or 3 �"context" as it is often called. In support of our ancient practice, I seek to undermine the realm of facts as a source of explanation or understanding, as much as possible, on terms that lovers of facts—let's call them "friends of the facts"— might understand. I will begin with facts in general, but in the second part of my lecture, as my title suggests, I will turn from facts as such to speciﬁc diﬀiculties that the study of history presents for liberal education. For now, the facts. I. A statement of fact always represents a human judgement. The fact about the weather is the judgement of a meteorologist, or the observant and experienced layperson. The fact about the year in which William the Conqueror invaded England is the judgement of a historian. The fact about what a Greek word means, or what counts as a rule of Greek grammar, is a judgement made by a philologist or a grammarian. The fact about how to get from Annapolis to Cape Henlopen, land of dolphins, is the judgement of an experienced driver. These days, such judgements may be processed and mediated by machines. Those machines are not just imitations of human judgement. They rely on human judgement, that is, they require real human judgements as inputs. Without human judgements as a basis, the machines produce useless gibberish.2 Some judgements have a kind of immediacy and concreteness that bears truth with them. I open the drawer at my freshman lab station, and there are a pair of tongs. "There are tongs in the drawer!", I proclaim. I know that it is true, as it is right before my eyes. If others are around, and doubt me, I can gesture toward the tongs, bidding all to gather near and share my immediate, overwhelming experience of the presence of tongs in the drawer. If others are not around, I may ﬁnd myself alone See Shumailov, I., Shumaylov, Z., Zhao, Y. et al. AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data. Nature 631, 755–759 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07566-y . Retrieved 10/6/2024. Open link: https://rdcu.be/dWaMe 2 4 �with my fact, a fact that others may doubt or ignore or even scoﬀ at. "Ohhh" they say, "Tongs in the drawer! Sure! Are there also little furry goblins?" The example is silly, but my intention is serious. Judgements arising from immediate experience are perhaps the most vivid we have. And yet, that vividness— the radiance of the truth of the judgement—is not always shareable with others. If I am reporting on the contents of the lab drawers to anyone without access to the room —and there are hundreds, thousands, billions of people without access to our lab rooms—they must rely on some authority implicit in my report. Most things we call facts are not the objects of our immediate experience. Their truth is usually unavailable, and that is when we most especially use the word "fact": to communicate a claim to knowledge not shared by our audience. When we state "facts", we hide the original judgement, whether ours or someone else's, under an air of authority. A statement of fact, generally speaking, is a demand for agreement on a question when the ground or basis or evidence for the judgement is not available. Often, the reliance of factual judgements on authority does not matter very much. That is because such judgements are eminently practical. Consider the judgements arising from immediate experience that guide us through our day-to-day lives, often beneath our notice. What we judge to be in the kitchen cupboard guides what we buy at the supermarket; how many people are in the ﬁshbowl at 10:30 guides where we will sit in between classes; the reading listed on the the oﬀicial seminar list guides what we read for seminar; my judgement that I need a cigarette guides my decision to smoke one. "Go get tongs from the drawer in the lab room" may or may not mark a successful endeavor, depending on whether the underlying judgement was correct or not. Likewise, my friend in the passenger seat giving me directions to Cape Henlopen will be immediately tested as to the reliability of their judgement. If they are wrong, we will be lost or stranded; if they are right, all will go well. 5 �That certain facts are immediately tested in practice shows that my earlier claim that facts are unwelcome in our classrooms is not strictly true. It is permitted, indeed necessary, for us to oﬀer judgements about what is likely to be true as a matter of fact, when the consequences will surface in short order: "There's colored chalk across the hall" or "I think that if we cut the ﬁsh this way, we won't damage its heart" or "The passage we are talking about is in the third chapter" or "I think that noun is in the genitive", or "That interval is a major third," or "That planarium has been cut too many times. It is dead!" Yet in daily conversation and in everyday writing, outside the college, facts are used not in this simple, practical way, but as a claim to authority on broader questions of human life, moral or political, or questions about the ways of nature. If such facts are justiﬁed, it is by further facts: "studies" for instance or "science" or "historians". Facts are the judgements of experts, presented where those experts, or their expertise, are absent. Suppose we were to answer the opening question in our seminar with facts. The tutor asks, "Why is Achilles so angry?" and a student answers: "The progressive threat response in mammals is mediated by a system that runs from medial amygdaloidal areas downward, largely via the stria terminalis to the medial hypothalamus, and from there to the dorsal half of the periaqueductal gray." Or, the tutor asks: "Why are there two stories of creation at the opening of Genesis?" A student describes a study suggesting "that the neurological networks underpinning God representations amplify human empathetic responses." "Is Don Quixote crazy?" Well,"increases in the chemical dopamine can cause hallucinations, delusions and disorganised thinking". (By the way, I did not draw on any expertise in neuroscience to write these responses—they are, of course, from Google.) I could answer in a similar style, not drawing on neuroscience, but on history. Why is Achilles angry? "The Greeks" had a "shame culture". Why are there two 6 �Genesis stories? "Philological evidence shows that there are two diﬀerent authors." Is Don Quixote crazy? "Knight errantry was widely admired in early modern Spain." (Here the ﬁrst claim is bullshit, the second is true, and I fabricated the third one from scratch.) What has gone wrong? First of all, as I've suggested, the appeal to a fact is an appeal to authority. Secondly, and more surprisingly, because it is an appeal to authority, a statement of fact does not convey learning at all. That a statement of fact is a claim to authority can be illustrated by two contrasts. Consider ﬁrst of all matters of common experience. Oak trees come from acorns. The sun rises each morning in the east. Matters of common experience are generally available and extremely useful in thinking about things, especially with others. Now, they may not be always strictly true—how many acorns are gobbled by squirrels, and never become trees? And what assures the relation between the sun and the sky in the long term? Still, these claims are "true enough", or as Aristotle puts it "true always or for the most part." Yet I doubt we would call these matters of common experience "fact." Consider next the enunciations to the propositions of Euclid: for example, "Circles are to one another as the squares on their diameters." We spend as much time as it takes in class demonstrating the proofs that Euclid oﬀers for these claims, and sometimes oﬀering alternative proofs, and sometimes questioning the terms or the methods of the proof. We might describe this activity as a pursuit of truth so far as the objects are concerned. Yet I think we would not describe those enunciations, however luminously true and well-justiﬁed, as "facts." If I am on the right track, then a fact is not simply something true about the world. There are truths that we do not tend to call facts. Sometimes we examine these truths, as we do with an enunciation in Euclid. Sometimes we take them for granted, as we do with matters of common experience. By contrast, to call something 7 �a fact is a claim to knowledge, and hence, a claim to authority. When we accept that authority, and trust in the fact, we give the speaker a certain status, the status of a knower. A knower may be able to oﬀer an explanation or justiﬁcation of the proferred "fact." But the explanation is frequently also in factual terms, or an appeal to further, generic authorities: "studies" have shown, or "scientists" think. That makes a factual claim a kind of oracle: a voice from a rock that mysteriously speaks a truth, whose source we cannot evaluate or understand. So much supports our common experience at the college. A statement of fact pretends to an authority which stands outside of community of the classroom, and so it smothers the ﬂame of serious and collaborative conversation. The questions which open our conversations are not answerable by facts. They are not, as is common in other forms of schooling, questions set to test our mastery of some material, laid out on a grid for the purposes of competitive box-checking.3 We ask real, open-ended questions, motivated by a desire to understand. The conversation might undermine the basis of the question, or begin to build a way to answer it. We may even go around in circles for a time. Only rarely does an answer emerge, and then usually only when something technical or concrete is at stake. With experience, I think it becomes obvious to most of us, if not all, that the forms of conversation opened up by the exclusion of facts are exciting, fascinating, edifying and wholesome. Forced to appeal to resources we can share, we read more carefully. When we seek words and phrases whose meaning we understand, as matters of common experience—say, "downward tendency" instead of "gravity", a term mediated by experts—we must speak more carefully and more thoughtfully. Our thinking becomes transparent, available to be heard, disputed, or added to by others. 3 On which see the wonderful discussion in Eva Brann, "The Student's Problem" (1967). 8 �_______________ Now, if we think again about our Euclid propositions, it becomes clear that what is presented in our classes as an invitation to examination, inquiry, or study can be presented as a fact in another context. Shortly, the freshman will turn to Euclid's famous proof about the relation of the sides of right triangles. It is likely to be familiar to us already, as a fact. Our fact has a pretentious title "The Pythagorean Theorem", as if that told us anything about it, and it has a snappy-sounding modernized formula: a2 + b2 = c2. What is the relationship between the factual claim, used as a weapon by know-it-alls in schools around the world, and the piece of Euclid's writing that we discuss in class? Here is a simple answer: The know-it-all's fact is dead, whereas Euclid's proposition, when a single person works through it, or several of us together, is alive. It is more alive, I think, even than my vivid experience of the tongs in the lab drawer. Like all living things, it takes time to come to understand it, and new aspects of it emerge over the course even of years. (I had a student in freshman math once who presented an alternate proof by baking cakes in the shapes of right triangles and the squares on their sides. She cut up the squares and lay them on top of one another to show their equality. Is that a good alternate proof, or not? Why not?) By contrast, a fact, when it is not simply a tool for establishing authority or jockeying for status, may point to something true, and even deeply true. But it has been dessicated, dried up, like astronaut's ice cream, and it has traveled far away from its source in a person's thinking and judgement. It might even be a mere disconnected symbol whose meaning has been lost, like a stray name tag from one of those huge and awful academic conferences, like the American Philosophical Association. In Plato's Phaedrus, which we read, by long tradition, at the end of freshman year and senior year, Socrates tells a story of the invention of writing in Egypt. Its 9 �inventor, the god Theuth, claims that it will help people to remember, but the god serving as king, Thamus, objects: For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn, by the neglect of their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have found a medicine not for memory but for reminding. You furnish your students with the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they have heard many things without teaching and will therefore seem to know a lot, despite being ignorant for the most part and diﬀicult to live with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise. (Phaedrus 275a-b, my translation.) Facts, like writing, are knowledge in storage, dessicated understanding stored up to be rehydrated or restored to life at a later time or place. They are stand-ins or representations for a living understanding, such as the active judgement of the living human being that originates it. Once put outside a person in ink on a paper, or in encoded pixels, the origin falls from view. As Socrates goes on to say, the disembodied record of the judgement is rolled around everywhere, like ﬂotsam and jetsam on the sea, able to be claimed by anyone, whether they have the understanding it represents or not: Socrates: Writing, Phaedrus, has this fearsome quality, and is truly like painting; for its oﬀspring stand like living beings, but if one asks them something, they preserve a solemn silence.It is the same with words and speeches; you might think they spoke with a certain wisdom, but if you question them, wishing to learn about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing. And every word, when once it is written, is rolled and tossed about everywhere, alike among those who understand it and those who have no concern for it, and it does not know to whom to speak or not to speak. When sounded falsely or unjustly reproached it always needs its father's aid; for it has no power to defend or to help itself. (275d-276a) 10 �Is there any better description of the condition that we live in? We swim in sentences without knowing who spoke them or why. Free-ﬂoating claims can lodge in our minds, like spores. We can repeat them as if we know and understand their origins in real human thinking and judgement, but nothing will stop up our mouths and prevent us if we do not. Their automatic authority motivates us to cling to them when the going gets tough, and when we fear diminishment or loss of status. Worse than that: Our technological habits suggest that we believe that learning consists in the minimal acquisition of these dried up and dead judgements. To be used, like the directions from a global positioning system, one doesn't even have to learn the facts in question, but only to act on their assumption. Our thoughtless habits of deference and obedience to machines make it easy to forget that not only all true judgements, but all interesting judgements, originate in a living activity. We make these judgements when we get to know a subject matter by reading, study, and observation, by imagining and examining possibilities. If we do not cultivate these living activities of learning, in ourselves or in others, we risk becoming circulators of dead sound and symbol, exposed to an endless and unresolvable struggle for power and status. Of couse, it is not quite right to call facts "dead". What is dead remains so. In our study of Euclid-- or in the whole mathematics program -- we enter into the living origins of dead facts, the mathematical ﬂotsam and jetsam in which we swim as a matter of course. We could say we "reviviﬁed" dead learning—although it has a creepy resonance, as if we were making zombies. Or we could use our founding dean, Jacob Klein's phrase, following Edmund Husserl, that what we do is "desedimentation", scraping oﬀ the deadening shell of the fact exchange, and seeing the truth of things, as vividly as if it were before our eyes.4 4 See especially Klein's "Phenomenology and the History of Science", with references. 11 �I have suggested that the most visible eﬀect of the use of facts in our classrooms, and the most obvious complaint to make about it, is the threat that the use of authority makes to our spirit of collaboration and openness. Our careful listening, to the voices of the books and to one another's voices, is interrupted by a demand for assent. Yet this argument against facts in the classroom is too weak. I want to suggest that the appeal to facts at best distracts, and most commonly disrupts, the use of our active powers to learn and to understand. To see this more clearly, I turn at last to history proper. II. I suggest we make rough and ready distinction between scientiﬁc facts on the one hand, and historical facts on the other. (Academics use the phrase "rough and ready" when they mean "crass and incomplete.") The realm of scientiﬁc facts, to speak simply, seeks to explain everything that happens—at least, everything material—in terms of what things are made of, the most immediate causes of motion and change, and in terms of the laws of nature, laws which are often or usually mathematically conceived. One of the very greatest privileges of studying at St. John's is the privilege of thinking through, over a period of years, in great depth, the claims of this scientiﬁc realm. You who are freshmen will observe living beings, at ﬁrst with just your eyes and some old books, before turning in the second semester to the mathematics of materials and attempting to see materials more closely through various contrived observations. Sophomores will work through the relation between observation and mathematics in ancient and modern astronomy, and then consider the origins of algebra, the great engine of mathematical explanation. Juniors will gaze into the heart of mathematical physics, and seniors will explore the great complications it faced in 12 �the twentieth century. Each of you, in other words, will have ample opportunity to think through the explanatory claims of science and the status of scientiﬁc fact. What about historical facts? The nature of history and historical study gets much less attention in our curriculum. Those Graduate Institute students who choose the History sequence will work their way through a set of reﬂections on history and its nature. Otherwise, we have an essay by Nietzsche to be read in the second semester of senior seminar, "The use and abuse of history for life." It is this essay that guides the remainder of this lecture. A warning: I will focus on points with which I am sympathetic to Nietzsche, or where he has taught me something, or where his formulation is particularly vivid and true. Yet in the end I have disagreements that would separate the view I am trying to illustrate from his. Given the short span of a lecture, a muddle may result, and the question period may be the place to try to resolve it. Nietzsche mocks his contemporaries, the historically learned Germans of the nineteenth century as "walking encyclopedias", as "dragging around with [them] a huge quantity of indigestible stones of knowledge, which then, as in the fairy-tale, can sometimes be heard rumbling around inside of [them]."5 The craze for ingesting information, facts, for a historical or scholarly approach to everything, has dehumanized them. For Nietzsche, the indiﬀerent collection of an endless stream of historical facts is a sign of a kind of disorder, a misuse of learning. He describes Mozart and Beethoven, for instance, as "engulfed by all the learned dust of biography and compelled by the torture-instruments of historical criticism to answer a thousand impertinent questions."6 Mozart and Beethoven are composers of music. Their music is why they matter, as opposed to other central European males alive in the late "On the uses and disadvantage of history for life" §4, in Untimely Meditations, trans. R.J. Hollingdale. (Cambridge, 1983)78-79 6 Ibid. §7, p. 97 5 13 �eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Nothing about their biography explains what matters about their music. Consider another example, one that Nietzsche does not mention but one with which I'm sure he was familiar. In the nineteenth century, continuing unto the present day, scholars of Plato sought to discover the order in which Plato had written the dialogues, and so to give an account of the development of his thought. So, one might be told, some dialogues are early, others middle, and still others late, and the distinction would reﬂect changes in view on a more or less biographical basis— youthful idolatry of Socrates, the mature development of Socrates' ideas, the ﬁnal rejection of Socrates. The motivation for the theory is not, for the most part, evidence from outside the dialogues, but rather, the apparent conﬂicts scholars ﬁnd between various theses expressed in them. Adherents of the developmental model of the dialogues do not enter into the conversations of Socrates or the other interlocutors and so into the practice of philosophy. They cherry-pick theses and invent stories about how each develops from the other. Just as the Mozart biographers diminish unearthly music to the banalities of life, so do these scholars diminish and demean the great model for philosophical conversation and for the philosophical life. So far, we have suggested that a historical approach to books or to music might be pointless or distracting. For Nietzsche, the historical approach is worse than a distraction: it is destructive. He continues his earlier complaint about Mozart and Beethoven: Does [the engulﬁng and torture of the composers with biographical detail] not mean its premature death, or at least paralysis, when that, the living eﬀects of which are not yet exhausted, is subject to curious investigation of the countless minutiae of its life and works, and when problems of knowledge are sought when one ought to learn to live and forget all problems?7 7 Ibid. 14 �"Forgetting all problems" perhaps makes more sense with music than with the dialogues of Plato. We are meant to listen to music, to perform it, to compose it, but not to study it; likewise, Plato invites us to practice philosophy, to face philosophical problems, to think about how to live—not to examine whether a moment's indigestion might have made him forget to apply something called the theory of Ideas. Nietzsche claims that 19th century Germans—"walking encyclopedias"— cannot "live", which I take to mean, they collect words without ingesting them or taking them to heart. They are not inspired to live out philosophy, to write music or poetry, but to summarize everything in a book and hold it at arm's length. By contrast, we can ingest Mozart's music as Beethoven did, composing music that responds to it on its own terms. Or we can ingest Plato's dialogues as Aristotle did: as the soil for further growth, as something in the light of which one might act, think, or create.8 Nietzsche's insight here is that a historical approach to certain ﬁgures or topics can be a kind of deliberate deadening. If facts are dead thinking, by burying art or thinking in facts, we make war on what matters. But for Nietzsche, smothering real thinking and creativity is not the only thing history does. He thinks that history, properly practiced, is essential for life. What does he mean by proper practice, and why does he think it is essential? He distinguishes three types of salutary history: monumental, antiquarian, and critical, brieﬂy described in the passage that follows: Each of the three species of history which exist belongs to a certain soil and a certain climate and only to that: in any other it grows into a devastating weed. If a man who wants to do something great has need of the past at all, he appropriates it by means of monumental history; he on the other hand who likes to persist in the familiar and the revered of old, tends the past as an antiquarian historian; and only he who is 8 See the ﬁrst chapter of George Steiner, Real Presences. (Chicago, 1991) 15 �oppressed by a present need, and who wants to throw oﬀ this burden at any cost, has need of critical history, that is to say, a history that judges and condemns. Much mischief is caused through the thoughtless transportation of these plants: the critic without need, the antiquary without piety, the man who recognizes greatness but cannot himself do great things, are such plants, estranged from their mother soil and degenerated into weeds.9 Monumental history looks to the past for inspiration. Antiquarian history looks to steward the history of a place or a community, as a way to care for that place or community. Lastly, critical history seeks to uncover a wrong of the past in order to correct it in the present and to build a diﬀerent future. All three forms of history, for Nietzsche, must be undertaken with moderation. The wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong amount, would have toxic eﬀects. All the forms of history that Nietzsche praises are a part of practical life, the life of action, driven by present concerns and in light of the future. It is evident from the tripartite division of history that he sees the value of history as political, or as belonging to a community or a political community in a special way. Sometimes he calls such a community a "culture". Monumental history matters for the formation of participants and leaders in political life, by shaping their aspirations and inﬂaming their desire to imitate the virtues of their forbears. Antiquarian history is a mode of stewardship. If an interest in one's ancestry is a mode of commitment to one's family, an interest in antiquarian history is a mode of commitment to the buildings and customs of one's community.10 Critical history is a mode of improving one's political community, of liberating it from something from the past that strangles its growth or its ﬂourishing. Nietzsche, op.cit. §2, p. 72 I remember once visiting a small town in the Lake District of England called Grasmere. The church there had a custom, many hundreds of years old, called "Rushbearing". On a particular day, the townspeople brought rushes to cover the ﬂoor of the church. What was remarkable was that the historical pamphlet on the tradition contained no explanation whatsoever. They could speculate that the rushes were to cover odors or moisture, but why bring them on one day a year with pomp and ceremony? Antiquarian history prizes memory above understanding. 9 10 16 �Why would history be limited to the practical and the communal, or subordinate to what Nietzsche calls "life"? (It is diﬀicult to see what he means by "life", but I hazard that he means the use of the active and creative powers of the mind and heart.) Nietzsche is not so much placing a limitation on history, as noticing that that a limitation is necessary. History is already necessarily limited. Consider for a moment everything that has ever happened. It is by no means all historical. What I ate for breakfast this morning, or a year ago, or twenty years ago, is not historical. It is simply a past happening. When we tell a history, we make a selection. Even if we choose to write a history of breakfast, or, even a history of breakfast in the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centures —even then, my own breakfast might not be exemplary or interesting, that is, it might fail to be of historical interest. The act of selection is made in the present in which the history is told, although of course, the selections of the past will also have determined, for instance, which books of the past have survived into the present. In his essay on history and the liberal arts, which I recommend, Jacob Klein makes this point about the necessary selectivity of history, and another point that seems to me related. Klein observes that, potentially, there is a history of absolutely anything. We could tell a history of Friday Night Lectures, a history of podiums, a history of public lectures, a history of audiences or auditoriums, or a history of receptions in between lectures and question period. I ﬁnd the breadth of matters to which history can be used to be mysterious. There is not a geology of everything in principle, nor is there a science of nutrition for anything you can think of. For what kinds of inquiry is this true? There is certainly a philosophy of anything in principle, and a poetry likewise; there has also been thought to be a mathematics of everything, and a physics or chemistry of everything. 17 �Does every form of inquiry that has universal application also rely on a principle of selection? Not necessarily. Suppose there are universal and necessary laws of nature. The universality of their related sciences—physics or chemistry— might just consist in the application of laws to an unlimited variety of particular situations. In the case of philosophy, the disciplines within it are thought to have some internal ordering or other, for instance, logic lays a foundation for the study of nature, and the study of nature for ethics, in one familiar view. Our "selection", in these other disciplines, does not provide order and limits where there was previously none, but relies on an order within the discipline itself. Does history have laws? I believe that laws of this kind have been sought, and were sought with particular intensity in the 19th century. I am skeptical that they can have been found. What history may yield instead is rather matters of common experience, formulated by careful reﬂection on sets of events. Such a science of history, the kind that I think is practiced by Thucydides or Herodotus, Tocqueville or Tacitus, is not so much a "science" as a repository of practical wisdom, truths only as general as 'oak trees come from acorns' or 'the sun rises each day in the east.' Perhaps wealth provides for a leisured class, as Aristotle suggests in the opening of the Metaphysics, or, in the aphorisms with which Thucydides' history is larded, "war is a violent teacher"(3.82) or "it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy." (4.108) The works that come closest to seeking or ﬁnding laws of history on our curriculum are Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in the junior seminar list, and the Marx readings that the seniors will begin shortly. In my current state of ignorance, I suspect that these two authors have in the end, like other historians and political theorists, have not discovered universal laws of history. Rather, they have only pointed out 18 �rules of thumb to guide large-scale practical judgement—what Aristotle called practical wisdom. Theirs is not a law-governed science at all. Now, you will have seen, at this part of the lecture I have become hand-wavy and lazy. Let me try to take a stab at one more suggestion as to why history may be necessarily a practical endeavor, rather than a theoretical one. Aristotle famously claims that poetry is more philosophical than history, since it aims at the universal: It is clear from what has already been said that the work of the poet is not to tell what happened, but the sorts of things that might and could happen, because they are likely or necessary. For the historian and the poet diﬀer not by writing verse or prose -- Herodotus' writings could be put into verse and it would no less be a kind of history, in verse or without verse. The diﬀerence is this, that the one tells what happened, the other what might happen. For this reason poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history, since poetry is more universal, and history speaks of the particular. It is universal, then, for a person of a certain sort to say or do certain kinds of things, either as is likely or as is necessary. That is what poetry aims at when it gives names, whereas the particular is what Alcibiades did or what he suﬀered. (Poetics 1451a35-b10) If I am right in my instinct that there are no laws of history, so that no science of history could explain every particular, as is the ambition of natural science, history can only collect particulars. Further, it can only assemble particulars for a particular purpose, lest it be overwhelmed by a trillion irrelevant trivialities. It seems to me natural that this would be a practical endeavor, just as the multitude of facts we use in everyday life are most evident in practical endeavors. Recall at the outset of the lecture, facts seemed to have two uses: the attainment of practical goals, and the claim to authority. What is history for? To help us to think about what we ought to do. We ought to demand a transparent usefullness of any history, an account of its aims, a purpose in the present moment. 19 �III. Where does this leave us? As two of my colleagues asked me yesterday: Is history all bad? Or is it sometimes good? It seems to me that we have good reason to think that we are subject to endemic forms of distraction, illusion, and enchantment, not the enchantment that makes Cinderella a princess, but the enchantment that turns Odysseus' companions to swine. We have an inbuilt inclination to seek historical answers, such as the biographical pseudo-answers to why we ﬁnd one thought or another in the dialogues of Plato. Our search for collections of irrelevant facts can overwhelm our attention and lay waste to the precious time in which we live our lives. I do not believe this search can ever be fruitful, in the absence of universal laws of history that could promise to explain all the happenings that have ever happened and all the doings that were ever done. I will confess, however, to having found history very useful in studying old books. To be so useful, it seems to me, it must help us to see what our friends, the books and authors, themselves saw. Our principle of selection, our terms of use, would then be the fundamental questions that we share with the authors of the books. In other words, when history is used well, it is subordinate to our shared interest with the books and authors, the love and zeal for fundamental questions. Until our fundamental inquiries are done, until we achieve mutual understanding with all of the humans from the past with whom we speak in conversation, it seems merely optional to seek out such nuances. For our attitude to the past is shaped by its own sort of selﬁsh concern, the concern for how we ought to live, and how we ought to understand the world around us, in light of that concern. 20 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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 paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 20 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 What's Wrong with History? Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 27, 2024, by Annapolis tutor Zena Hitz as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Ms. Hitz offers this description of her lecture: “In a St. John's seminar, we do not approach the readings historically, that is, ‘in a context.’ Instead, we ask them questions, as we might ask living people questions, and engage them in conversation and shared inquiry. Is this simply the way we prefer to read? Or is something wrong with a historical approach to a great book? If so, what?” Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hitz, Zena, 1973- 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 2024-09-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: make a recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a recording of my lecture available online; make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource History--Study and teaching Education, Humanistic Facts (Philosophy) Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Hitz_Zena_2024-09-27 Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/8001">Video</a> Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/878390a9a8f683cb4951c2b93b7fa3bf.mp4 381be463e37e70dac1c5e6a6c84fb751 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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 mp4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:00:05 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 Know Thyself in Dialogue with Others: A Case for Cross-Cultural Philosophy Description An account of the resource Video recording of a lecture delivered on November 1, 2024, by Bret Davis as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Bret W. Davis is Professor and Higgins Chair in Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, where he teaches courses in Asian, Western, and cross-cultural philosophy, with previous research and teaching stops in Germany and Japan. Professor Davis has published articles on numerous philosophical topics, and is the author of Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (2007) and Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism (2022). Professor Davis offers this introduction to his lecture: “Know thyself” is a motto of philosophical inquiry not only in the West but in many traditions. What does it mean to know oneself? There are different types of self-knowledge, revealing different aspects of the self. One important aspect of the self is how our thoughts, feelings, and values are shaped by the culture and tradition in which we were raised. Another important aspect of the self is how we are capable of critically reflecting on and creatively developing our culture and tradition in dialogue with others. Our selves are both shaped by and shape our cultures and traditions. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Bret 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 2024-11-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. 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 Self-knowledge, Theory of Cross-cultural communication Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Davis_Bret_2024-11-01_ac Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1ebd03dc7ffa2e52436d7654e0f7c622.mp3 ee3f50efed1ba6f0a46d3973746d95d3 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. Click on <a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. 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. 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Title A name given to the resource Caesars: From Plutarch to Shakespeare—and Beyond Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on March 22, 2002, by Christopher Pelling as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Dr. Pelling is Regius Professor of Greek emeritus at the University of Oxford. Note: the recording started slightly after Dr. Pelling began speaking. This lecture is also part of the Steiner Lecture Series. The Andrew Steiner Memorial Lecture fund was created by the family and friends of Mr. Steiner, an alumnus (class of 1963) of St. John’s College, Annapolis. It was established to attract scholars from different disciplines and worlds, recognizing Andrew’s great intellectual versatility. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pelling, C. B. 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 2002-03-22 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Julius Caesar Plutarch. Caesar Plutarch--Influence. Caesar, Julius--In literature. Rome--In literature. Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Pelling_Christopher_2002-03-22_ac Friday night lecture Steiner lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b27f228af8885305d2eefc307393d4a2.pdf 2d2f9bc5c0f94061c40217f5f410e879 PDF Text Text NEH Milton Lecture 1 Argument Not Less But More Heroic: Milton's Advent'rous Song in Paradise Lost Thomas May, tutor February,11,2005 As the opening lines of this solemn invocation to Paradise Lost lay out the poem's tragic theme of"Man's First Disobedience and the Fruit ... whose mortal taste/ Brought Death into the world, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden ... " we can hear in them echoes of the beginnings of the great epic poems of the classical age that precede it: "the rage of Peleus' son Achilles ... hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,"2in the Iliad; "the man of many devices who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the citadel ofTroy,"3 in the Odyssey; and finally, "Arms I sing and the man who first from the coasts of Troy, exiled by fate, came to Italy and Lavinian shores ... till he should build a city ... and the walls oflofty Rome,"4 in the Aeneid. This last differs from its Greek antecedents both in setting a limit to and in defining a purpose for the struggles of its hero, and Virgil's conditional tone-' till he should build a city' -has further resonances with Milton's lines, "till one greater Man/ Restore us and regain the blissful seat." Our poet then calls upon the same "Heavn'ly Muse" who inspired Moses 1 I wish to thank both.the National Endowment for the Humanities and the College for making it possible for me to explore the writings of Milton through these past two years, and for providing funding for four of my colleagues to join me in a seminar that read Lycidas and Paradise Lost last semester. 2 Iliad l. 1-3, Homer ;The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles (Viking Penguin,1990). All further citations are from this edition. 3 Odyssey 1.1-3, Homer: The Odyssey, trans. A.T. Murray, 2 vols. (Loeb, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press; London: William Heineman, 1960). 4 Aeneid 1.1-2, Virgil, trans. H.R. Fairclough, 2 vols. Loeb, Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press; London: William Heineman, 1960). All further citations are from this edition. May, Thomas L0613 Argument Not Less But More Heroic 0060 PSHOP $2.99 11111111111111111111111111111111111 1 �on Mt. Sinai and then later dwelt in Solomon's Temple on Mt. Sion, where the sacred brook of Siloa flows nearby, holy places that supercede Mt. Helicon-"th' Aonian Mount"mentioned later-and the fountain of Aganippe, haunt of the muses of classical poetry. At "Siloa's Brook" the long opening sentence comes to a partial stop with a semicolon, before the poet proceeds: I thence Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous Song That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme. (1. 12-16)5 This startling word 'advent'rous' alerts us to the nature of the song we are about to hear and by implication the character of its bard, suggesting an endeavor full of risk and peril, one that is daring, possibly even rash. 6 This poet, by contrast with his predecessors, intimates that it is not enough for him to present as hero an ideal man, some solitary and absolute sort of individual, capable of prodigious deeds and superhuman endurance in the midst of conflict; an 'advent'rous song' requires something else, something more. This difference even is even more explicit in the proem or prologue to Book Nine, when, as the poet leaves the long conversation between Raphael and Adam related in the previous four books, he announces that he " ... now must change / Those notes to Tragic,"(9.5-6) continuing: ... Sad task, yet argument Not less but more Heroic than the wrath Of stem Achilles on his Foe pursu'd Thrice Fugitive about Troy Wall; or rage 5 Complete Poems and Major Prose ofJohn Milton, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York: Odyssey Press/ Bobbs-Merrill, 1973). All citations and quotations of Milton's poetry are taken from this edition. Hereafter cited as Hughes. 6 OED 2,3,4. 2 �Of Tumus for Lavinia disepous 'd, Or Neptune's ire or Juno's, that so long Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's Son ... (9.14-20) He remembers Achilles for the implacable avenging wrath that consumes him in his pursuit of Hector around the walls of Troy; Tumus is recalled as the jilted fiance of Lavinia and for his jealous rage at Aeneas, who is mentioned only obliquely as 'Cytherea's Son;' similarly, Odysseus is styled as the 'Greek perplex'd,' i.e., tormented and plagued, by Neptune's ire. How are we to take this? Is this curious summary meant to dismiss the three greatest classical epics just as we are about to be presented with the climactic temptation and fall of man? I don't think so. The more attentively I read Paradise Lost, the more echoes and reverberations I hear with the three great classical epics we read together in our first two years here; I wonder if Milton's purpose isn't rather to rehabilitate heroic antecedents such as these. Sometimes his allusions are tinged with irony, as I think is the case in the passage I just cited, but irony of this sort can prompt us to reconsider and reassess what we think and feel about characters like Achilles, Odysseus, or Aeneas, without permitting us simply to discount them. Early on in the course of our NEH study group on Milton, at a moment when we had just noticed one of these epic echoes-one like" ... say first what cause / Mov'd our Grand Parents in that Happy state ... to fall .. " (1.28-30), at the beginning of Paradise Lost Book One, with the Iliad's "What god drove them (i.e., Agamemnon and Achilles) to fight with such a fury?"- one ofmy colleagues asked with a hint of exasperation, "What is he doing?-he can't just play around with things like this!" This remark struck me as being both fair and true, a rightful 3 �insistence that poets should not be simply permitted to do whatever strikes their fancy; they ought to be held to some standard of poetic justice. If we consider for a moment the answer to each of these epic questions' Apollo,' in the case of the Iliad, and 'Th'infernal Serpent' in Paradise Lost-we might gain some sense of what Milton is doing. Later on in Book One of Paradise Lost, soon after Satan summons his defeated legions with the majestic command, "Awake, arise, or be forever fallen," (1.330), as they gather on the plain of Hell, we learn that the names of all the fallen angels were blotted from the heavenly record after their rebellion from God, and that later, after the Fall, men came to adore "Devils ... for Deities" (1.373) and gave them the names of all the "various Idols through the Heathen World."(1.375) So, this means that Apollo, the son of Zeus and Leto, whose anger at Agamemnon for failing to honor the request by the priest Chryses for the return of his daughter prompts him to smite the Achaean armies with a fatal plague at the opening of the Iliad, turns out to be merely one of that nameless horde of apostate angels who appear in Paradise Lost in the catalogue of devils, Milton's counterpart in Paradise Lost to Homer's catalogue of ships in the Iliad. And, by the way, the Greek gods come last in this catalogue, far behind Moloch and Chemos and Baal and Ashtaroth, the horrible and magnificently obscene gods of the Ammonites, Moabites, and peoples of Canaan, all enemies of the Israelites and the living, invisible God of Milton's poem. Moreover, his prolepsis in calling the fallen angels by their names as pagan deities as named and worshipped by postlapsarian humankind also contrasts dramatically with Adam's account to Raphael in Book Eight of how, at God's invitation to him to give all living things their names, he" ... nam'd them, as they pass'd, and understood/ Thir Nature ... (8.352-53); the postlapsarian naming of 4 �bad angels by the sons and daughters of Adam does not participate in the same knowledge and insight with which God endued Adam's original, innocent apprehension of the unfallen created order. I should mention here that this is only one of many such instances in Paradise Lost, where so often we are first given the fallen version or perspective on things, the one closest to us as readers, as children of our fallen "Grand Parents" Adam and Eve, before we are given the truer but to us remoter original. This amounts to nothing less than an epic deflation, a gigantic put-down of the gods of antiquity who figure so largely in the epics of Homer and Virgil. But if Apollo is nothing more than some dissembling fallen angel turned false god, what of the heroes of Homer and Virgil; what of Achilles and Odysseus and Aeneas? Are they similarly debunked in the course of Milton's poem? By associating and contrasting these classical heroes with the chief figures of Paradise Lost, with Satan, with the Son of God, with Adam and Eve, Milton raises the same questions that are with us from our first seminar on the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid: What is a hero and what is worthy of being considered heroic? It is important to note at the outset, however, that despite the historical precedence of the ancient epics to Paradise Lost, it claims to tell the story that is really prior, of the first man and woman and their fall, the causes for this, and the remedy that will ultimately transform their (and our) tragedy into a divine comedy in which restoration is effected and redemption is possible. Thus, the ultimate terms of heroism here range from the transcendently and divinely heroic to the demonically evil and debased, with the possibility of a genuine human heroism newly realized that reflects knowledge of these ultimate terms as the fruit of the poet's great argument. 5 �In the passage we just looked at, we saw that in raising and answering the question that introduces the narrative of the poem-'what cause? ... Th' infernal serpent'-Milton introduces the character of Satan, who dominates the first books of the poem and whose implacable envy and revenge against what he calls "the Tyranny of Heav'n"(l .124) prompt him to undertake his odyssey from Hell to our newer world, either to waste it utterly with Hell fire or to possess it as an empire (2.364-66), a demonic project that mimics elements of both the Aeneid and the Odyssey. It is difficult in these early books not to find Satan at least somewhat attractive and sometimes immensely entertaining, in spite of the numerous cues that Milton gives to warn us about his true nature. Consider, for example, the names of Satan, beginning with the aforementioned "Infernal Serpent", to "th' Arch-Enemy, and thence in Heav'n call'd Satan" (1.80-81), "th' Apostate Angel" (1.125), "th' Arch-fiend" (1.156), "the lost Arch-Angel" (1.243), "their great Sultan" (1.348), and "Arch-Angel ruin'd" (1.593)-these all occur in Book One--and this is not an exhaustive list! Each tells us something of what Satan is and that he certainly is not good, but like Eve, it is hard for us not to be fascinated and taken in by him, perhaps because of Milton's calculated grandiloquence. If such is meant to deter us, we might be tempted like the poet William Blake to say: The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was A true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it. 7 More influential in our initial assessment of Satan perhaps are his own stirring words that he uses to rally the fallen angels: 7 William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. xvii. 6 �What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield And what is else not to be overcome? That Glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me. (1.105-111) His refusal to compromise or concede, his indomitable courage and enormous sense of honor and personal worth may remind us of Achilles at first, until we remember that Achilles' wrath against Agamemnon is neither immortal nor unlimited. At the height of his rage in Iliad 9, he tells the embassy of Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax that he will not think of arming for bloody war again, not till the son of wise King Priam, dazzling Hector batters all the way to the Myrmidon ships and shelters, slaughtering Argives, gutting the hulls with fire. (9. 795-798-emphasis mine) Later, the climactic scene in Iliad 24 shows an Achilles capable of marveling at the majestic nobility of Priam, who comes to ransom the body of his fallen son Hector (567), and who spares the life of the old king despite himself when Priam inadvertently enrages him with his suggestion that the Achaean prince can enjoy the ransom just paid, when he returns to his native land (652-669). By contrast to these heroes, Satan claims to possess "a mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time"(l.253), to which he adds, in two of the most famous lines of the poem, The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell ofHeav'n. (254-255) This inalterable hatred against heaven originates in the umbrage he takes at the Father's proclamation to the full company of angels that his only begotten Son, "the powerful Word" (7.208-9) through whom all things were made (6.836-38), is "Messiah King anointed" (5.664), an announcement that Satan finds unbearable, for he "thought himself 7 �impair'd" (5,665) i.e., lowered in rank and esteem among the company of heaven. The epic voice tells us in the following line (666!) that Satan, "Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain," is at that moment inspired to launch his rebellion and perpetual war against heaven. After his defeat in a three day long epic battle, related in Book Six of Paradise Lost, and his expulsion into Hell with the rebel angels, he builds his great capital Pandemonium and resolves almost immediately to 'enlarge his honor and empire' by conquering the new world that he has just heard about. Many readers have also noticed parallels between Satan's heroic journey to discover this new world, related through parts of the narrative of Books Two, Three, and Four, and the account that Virgil gives us of Aeneas' flight with his countrymen from Troy and his struggle to establish the new kingdom that will serve as the basis for Rome. By contrast it is significant that Satan undertakes this quest alone and as the ultimate in impious projects, one that is meant to thwart the divine will and to destroy the inhabitants of earth by fraud. When at the opening of Book Six he alights on Mt. Niphates, ready to initiate his destructive program, he pauses dramatically to consider his situation, only to find that Horror and doubt distract His troubl'd thoughts, and from the bottom stir The Hell within him, for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step no more than from himself can fly By change of place ... (6.18-23) In our Milton study group, one of my colleagues pointed out that Satan's inner tumult here, initially wordless, is reminiscent of Plutarch's description of Caesar's deliberations before he crosses the Rubicon: ... he wavered much in his mind when he considered 8 �the greatness of the enterprise into which he was throwing himself. He checked his course and ordered a halt, while he revolved with himself, and often changed his opinion 8 one way and the other, without speaking a word. Despite the great journey he has undertaken, Satan paradoxically finds himself trapped and confined within the limits of his fixed mind, for once at a loss for words, and as he gazes first towards Eden and then heaven, try as he might, he is unable to make a heaven out of his inner Hell. Remembering "what he was, what is, and what must be/ Worse ... " (4.25-26), he at last gives utterance to his inmost thoughts in a speech that begins with 9 lines originally intended for a tragedy Milton proposed to call "Adam Unparadiz'd." In the eighty-one lines of this soliloquy, Satan demonstrates the truth of La Rochefoucauld's maxim that "whatever discoveries one may have made in the land of self-love, there is still a lot of uncharted territory." 10 Chronologically the first lines written for Satan in Paradise Lost, these lines give us a sense of how Milton originally conceived his matchless villain. Satan recognizes the enormity of his offense against "Heav'n's matchless King,"(4.41) whom he acknowledges as his creator-contradicting his claim to the angel Abdiel later in the poem that he is "self-begot, self-rais'd-and confesses that "lifted up so high/ I s'deined subjection" (49-50). This word "disdain" returns again later in the soliloquy as he considers the possibility of repentance and pardon, in order to escape the ever lower hellish deep that threatens to devour him: 0 then at last relent: is there no place Left for repentance, none for Pardon left? 8 Plutarch, "The Life of Caesar" from The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. John Dryden, rev. Arthur Hugh Clough (New York: The Modem Library) p. 874. 9 Edward Phillips, The Life ofMilton, in Hughes, op. cit., pp.1034-35. 10 Francois, due de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes et Reflexions Diverses. (Paris: GamierFlammarion, 1977), maxim 3, p. 45. (translation mine) 9 �None left but by submission; and that word Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd ... (4.79-83-emphasis mine) What is so terrible for Satan, so forbidding in this word disdain? Its primary meaning is to think unworthy of oneself, to despise or treat with scorn, 11 and Satan's sense of impairment, of his diminished status beneath both the Father and the Son of God, drives him not only to cut himself off from "Heav'n's free Love dealt equally to all"(4.68), but, as he confesses here, to seduce a third of his fellow angels from the allegiance and service they rightfully owe to God. In proposing to himself what it would mean to repent and obtain pardon, he can only imagine that his own "high thoughts" would soon prompt him "to unsay what feign'd submission swore" (4.95-96). Like Claudius in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Satan brings himself to the very threshold of repentance but in his great pain and anguish can sustain no firm purpose of amendment. In the painful course of this long deliberation on Niphates, Satan shows what Hume later on will assert in his Treatise, that "'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger." 12 And like Caesar, who ultimately casts aside his misgivings to cross the Rubicon and move on Rome to pursue empire and personal power, Satan rejects hope and contrition to embrace the evil that he calls his good, to win by deceit and hold by fraud "Divided Empire with Heav'n's King" over "this new World" (4.111-14). He comes to Eden as an "arch-felon" (4.179), a terrorist whose mind is set on the destruction of the blissful, sweet, newly created world that he can appreciate but not abide. "That fixt mind/ And high disdain"(l.97-98) that II 12 OED 1 David Hume, A Treatise ofHuman Nature, II,3. (Oxford, Clarendon Press,1968), p. 416. 10 �distinguish him from the outset of the poem persist through all his outward transformations: from stripling cherub to cormorant to toad and finally to "monstrous Serpent on his Belly prone/ reluctant"(l0.514-15) in Book Ten, the form he first takes on to deceive Eve but then finds himself stuck in when the explosion of hisses from his fallen angel followers, similarly and horribly and aptly transmogrified, greet him at the end of his triumphant return to Hell. In his fixity and self-professed unchangeableness, Satan distinguishes himself not only from the classical heroes of antiquity, but also from Adam and Eve, and the entire company of heaven loyal to the Father, including the Son of God. We need next to consider the last of these, for in looking at the Son of God and then comparing him with Satan, we can lay out the two extremes of transcendent heroism and unsurpassed villainy, the ultimate terms of the created order. It is important first to note that God the Father is "Omnipotent, Immutable, Immortal, Infinite, Eternal King," "Author of all being"(3.372-74), and "invisible amidst. .. glorious brightness" (3.375-376); while the Son, "the radiant image of his (the Father's) glory" (3.63) is the "Only begotten Son" (3.80), suggesting a being in essence different from the Father, 13 a unique and mutable creature, albeit the first-born of creation, in the relation to the Father of an inferior to a superior. 14 I apologize if this seems to be a needlessly abstruse digression on Milton's anti-Trinitarianism, but it helps to explain two features of Milton's presentation of the Council of Heaven in Book Three that most readers find strange, if not troubling. 13 John Milton, Christian Doctrine, trans. John Carey, vol.6, p. 210 from Complete Prose Works ofJohn Milton, ed. Don M. Wolfe et al., 8 vols. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1953-1982). 14 Ibid., pp. 275-276. 11 �First, the Father and the Son are depicted there as having a conversation in the presence of the loyal angels, in which the Father, prompted by the sight of Satan winging his way towards Eden, tells the Son how the desperate revenge of Satan will pervert man through guile to fall, and goes on to explain how the mitigating factor of this deception warrants the mercy and justice that He will show man after the Fall. Orthodox Christian theology about the Trinity, with its formal profession of the unity of substance attributed to Father, Son, and Spirit, as formulated in the Nicene Creed, would most likely deter the poet from presenting such an exchange, but here the Son is a creature, though the first born and highest of all creation, and he learns in the presence of the angels what is hidden in the depths of his Father's foreknowledge. If the Son were to know everything by virtue of his own consubstantiality with the Father, this celestial conversation would take on the aspect of a strange court masque with the king and the crown prince as the principal players, or of a duo recital for the benefit of the angels -and us readers, something I don't think Milton means to do here, however strange we may find this scene to be. Second, as the sacred conversation continues, the Father explains that once man has fallen, with the vigor of his original goodness being "forfeit and enthrall'd"(3.176), justice demands that "He with his whole posterity must die" (3.209), adding ... unless for him Some other able, and as willing, pay The rigid satisfaction, death for death. (3.210-12) This long exposition on the need for atonement for the sin of Adam and Eve culminates with the Father's hard, direct question addressed to the entire company of heaven: Say Heav'nly Powers, where shall we find such love, Which of ye will be mortal to redeem 12 �Man's mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save, Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear? (3.213-16) The silence that follows this question -"the Heav'nly Choir stood mute"(3.216)-is the most dramatic event in this scene up to this moment, until the Son of God offers himself as the proxy for disabled humanity, with the dramatic words Behold mee then, mee for him, life for life I offer, on mee let thine anger fall; Account mee man; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee Freely put off, and for him lastly die Well pleas'd ... (3.236-40) Notice here that Milton differentiates the "mee" of the Son's dramatic offer by adding and extra "e" to the spelling, something he does elsewhere with the pronouns he, ye, and she, as if to simulate the emphasis Greek achieves with the accented or by adding the particles 817 or over the enclitic for additional stress; or like the use of moi as a stressed pronoun in French. Yet the Son's 'mee ... mee ... mee ... mee' is not the selfaggrandizing or vain-glorious egotism that we hear later from Satan, when discovered in the garden by the angel guards Ithuriel and Zephon, who do not recognize him, he asks: Know ye not then said Satan, fill' d with scorn Know ye not mee? ... Not to know mee argues yourselves unknown ... (4. 827-30) Rather, the Son's proposal is to empty himself of all that is rightfully his for the sake of mankind, which is the sacrifice of "glory ... freely put off... "(3.239-40) in the incarnation, and which necessarily entails his own death, so that his emphatic mee is a rhetorical 13 �measure both of the desperate condition of a fallen world and the heroic love of the Son for mortal man. 15 Moreover, the Son's words here echo those found in an incident related in Book Nine of the Aeneid, during the bitter war that erupts between Aeneas and the Rutulian prince Tumus for the hand of Lavinia, after the Trojans have landed in Italy. 16 Two Trojan soldiers, Nisus and Euryalus, are a devoted pair of lovers who set out from the besieged Trojan camp through enemy lines to gain help from Aeneas, who is away. Nisus, the older, cannier veteran of the two, hears the cry of Euryalus his innocent, spirited cohort, as he is caught by a Rutulian patrol after impulsively wrecking havoc in their camp. Nisus, in trying to deflect the avenging wrath of the Rutulians from his young comrade onto himself, cries out: On me-on me-here am I who did the deed-on me tum your steel, 0 Rutulians! Mine is all the guilt; he neither dared nor could have done aught; this heaven be witness and the all-seeing stars! He but loved his hapless friend too well! (Aeneid 9. 427-430) This cry of 'on me, on me ... mine is all the guilt' sets the poetic precedent for the Son's cry during the Council of Heaven, but there is a sense in which Milton, though writing his poem seventeen hundred years later, scoops Virgil by having the Son offer himself for all of fallen humanity shortly after the creation of the world. It can be seen, too, that the Son's magnanimity combines elements of the experience, generosity, and selflessness of Nisus with the innocence and beauty ofEuryalus, providing a standard of heroism that is 15 Stanley Fish calls this "the poem's first truly heroic act." Stanley Fish, Swprised by Sin. (Cambridge; Harvard Univ. Press, 1998), p.86. 16 Alastair Fowler also points out this echo in a note to 3.236-38, The Poems ofJohn Milton, ed. John Carey and Alastair Fowler (London and New York: Longman, 1968), p. 574. Hereafter cited as Fowler. 14 �at once poignant and extraordinary, perhaps we might say transcendent. Whatever the case, the Son at this point emerges as the outstanding hero of the poem. In reading Paradise Lost for seminar in junior year, we completely skip over Book Six and nearly all of Book Seven, the very heart and center of Milton's poem, where Raphael recounts for Adam and Eve both the Son's aristeia in the Battle of Heaven against Satan, the central epic episode of the poem, and his work as the "Omnific Word"(7.217), effecting the will of the Father in Creation. We should note here that the exact center of the poem, whether we take the ten-book division of First Edition of 1671 or the twelve-book division of the Second Edition of 1674, with its additional fourteen lines, is placed at the climax of the Battle of Heaven in Book Six, when the Son appears in the "Chariot of Paternal Deity"(6.750) and single-handedly defeats the Satan and his cohort of fallen angels, who throw themselves headlong into the bottomless pit. 17 It should be needless to say that in a work of such length and complexity, it is doubtlessly significant, the result of great art and deliberateness, that the center is placed here. What then of Adam and Eve? We meet them before the Fall, in Book FourTwo of far nobler shape erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native Honor clad In naked Majesty ... Lords of all, .. .in their looks Divine The image of their glorious Maker shone (4.288-292) Despite their common heroic bearing and natural dominion over the garden, they are not equal: For contemplation hee and valor form'd, For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace, Hee for God only, shee for God in him (4.297-299) 17 The central line in Edition I occurs at 6.761; in Edition II at 6.766. Ibid., pp. 441-442; cp. Fowler,441-442 15 �'Valor' suggests the sort of strength and bravery that makes one equal to conflict and battle, while 'softness,' at least before the Fall, is simply meant to imply mildness and gentleness, 18 rather than weakness or timidity. 19 As in Heaven with the Father, the Son and the angels, so too in Paradise there is a hierarchical order, here expressed in Adam's "gentle sway"(4.309) and Eve's "coy-i.e., quiet, modest20 -submission"(4.311). In the first words we hear between the two of them, Adam marvels that they should enjoy freely such unmerited happiness, while following the "delightful task"(4.437) of tending the garden and obeying God's" easy charge"(4.421) -to refrain from eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Eve seconds this and claims herself the happier of the two in enjoying Adam's preeminence, something we tend to forget-or don't want to believe- in the course of her long account of first awakening on the day of her creation. Is it the case that such perfect harmony between the sexes, though without equality, is something that can only be imagined by a poet who claims to be the beneficiary of extraordinary inspiration? If we grant this for the sake of the poem, we might be tempted to think that the created world of Eden is simple and perfect and static, but this turns out not to be the case. The angel Raphael, sent by the Father to warn Adam of the danger that Satan presents to his happiness, first shares a meal with Adam and Eve, and in answer to Adam's question about how an angel can partake of earthly fruit, gives an account of a dynamic created order in which corporal nutriments, endowed with various forms, are· equally capable of nourishing different forms of life, which all having first proceeded 18 OED 2 OED 3 20 OED 1,2. 19 16 �from the Almighty are meant by degrees and over time to return to him. The importance of this for Adam and Eve is made explicit when Raphael continues: And from these corporal nutriments perhaps Your bodies may at last tum all to spirit, Improv' d by tract of time, and wing' d ascend Ethereal, as wee ... (5.496-499-emphasis mine)) Happiness takes time, may increase over time-indeed is meant to-yet the metaphysical and moral dynamics of the created order are such that each stage is capable of only so much and no more-Leibniz would say only so much at any given moment is compossible. This is what it means to eat right. Note, too, that the ascent is to the angelic order. Raphael then tells Adam and Eve that in time they ... may at choice Here or in Heav'nly Paradises dwell; If ye be found obedient, and retain Unalterably firm his love entire Whose progeny you are. (5.499-503) In this first of six warnings that Raphael gives Adam in the course of their long conversation, 21 he sets out clearly what is at stake in obedience and disobedience, suggesting the dynamic of growth that presupposes both a hierarchy of perfection and the continuity of unchangeable love. Later, in Book Seven, Raphael relates to Adam and Eve the conversation that the Father has with the Son just prior to creation. After characterizing Satan and the fallen angels as "Self-lost"(7.154)-a divine correction of Satan's earlier claim to be "self-begot, self-rais'd "(5.860), he proposes to create Another World, out of one man a Race Of men innumerable, there to dwell, Not here, till by degrees of merit rais'd They open to themselves at length the way Up hither, under long obedience tri'd, 21 The others are found at 6.897-912;7.542-547; 8.166-178;8.561-594;8.633-643. 17 �And Earth be chang'd to Heav'n and Heav'n to Earth, One Kingdom, Joy and Union without end. (7.155-161) In his final angelic admonition, the most succinct and the one given to Adam alone, Raphael says: Be strong, live happy, and love, but first of all Him whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command; take heed lest Passion sway Thy judgment to do aught, which else free Will Would not admit; thine and of all thy Sons The weal or woe in thee is plac't; beware. I in thy persevering shall rejoice, And all the Blest: stand fast; to stand or fall Free in thine own Arbitrement it lies. Perfet within, no outward aid require; And all temptation to transgress repel. (8. 633-643) 22 'Arbitrement' is the capacity to decide for oneself; in a word, free choice. The warning 23 ends with two imperatives: require, i.e., ask or demand as a right, no outward help; and resist any enticement to break the law set down. We can only infer from this that Adam and Eve are fully capable, self-sufficient, and perfect, so far as repelling any temptation to break the "sole command"(7.47) is concerned. We know even before we reach it that Eve and Adam will both fail the "trial. .. unsought"(9.366) that Adam realizes will come, indeed must come, and of which he warns Eve as she leaves him alone, in Book Nine. Just as Homer displays Achilles in single combat against Hector and Virgil presents Aeneas alone against Turnus, Milton, in the second great epic episode of the poem, presents Eve as protagonist alone against Satan, now incarnate in a "spirited sly snake"(9.613), endowed with speech, intent on her ruin. After Eve recovers from her amazement at hearing "Language pronounc't / By Tongue ofBrute"(9.553-4), she asks 22 23 OED 1 OED II.5 18 �the serpent how he became capable of speech, and he replies vaguely but enticingly, attributing his "strange alteration"(9.599) to eating the "fair Apples"(9.585) he found after coming by chance upon a "goodly Tree"(9.576) in the garden. She then follows him to the Tree of Knowledge, which she immediately recognizes as the one forbidden, telling the serpent that it is neither to be eaten nor touched, under pain of death. In reply Satan takes on the role of advocate for cosmic justice and human entitlement, like "some orator renowned/ In Athens or free Rome" (9 .670-71 ), and in what is to be his last speech in Paradise, he rises to an eloquence that appears to provide incontrovertible proof of the native virtue of the interdicted fruit, raising formidable arguments against its ban and for its wholesomeness. 24 The most compelling of these is based upon the simple specious proportion stating that-in eating the fruit-as change from serpent: change into serpent with logos:: change from man: change into god. 25 We know that this is specious from Raphael's discourse earlier and from our reading of Genesis-and also from our status as the hapless descendants of Eve, as 'the fruit of that forbidden tree.' The true proportion expressing the change that has taken place in Satan and is about to take place in Adam and Eve is: archangel : archangel ruin' d : : man : fallen man. Eve knows the first ratio of this second proportion from Raphael, but she believes she sees the evidence for the first ratio of the first transformation before her eyes and hears it in her ears. But she ignores the contradiction between the ultimate term of the first, satanic proportion-'god '-and Raphael's earlier discourse about the possibility of 24 Barbara Lewalski , in Paradise Lost and the Rhetoric ofLiterary Forms (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1985) note 43, p.357, states that the false analogies that Satan leads Eve to make are "evidently original with Milton." 25 cp. Fowler, note ix.710-12, p. 898. 19 �gradual, ordered ascent to the angelic order. Besides, it is noon, she is hungry, and the savory smell of the fruit beckons, so she pauses to deliberate, her private musings ultimately giving approval to what, for her, the serpent has proved. She first plucks the fruit "through expectation high/ of knowledge"(9. 789-90), and then, serpent-like, she greedily engorges it a far remove from her earlier rural repast (9.4) with Adam and Raphael, and she forgets Raphael's discourse on the natural and gradual improvement to be gained by eating in accord with the divine command. The effects of the fruit on Eve are immediately apparent: she worships the tree, praises experience as "Best guide"(9.807), speculates about whether God has seen what she has done, and then deliberates over whether or not to "keep the odds of Knowledge"(9.820) to herself by not sharing the fruit with Adam, to draw his love the more to her, now his equal, or better yet, his superior. Experience is not such an effective teacher, or so it seems. Eve's first impulse here is not to imitate her own experience of the serpent's apparent generosity. But second thoughts cause her to worry that if God has seen her, she will die alone, and Adam might re-wed, happily, a second Eve; fearful, jealous thoughts that prompt her to decide firmly that "Adam shall share .. .in bliss or woe."(9.831) The epic battle here lost by Eve is not one of "fabl'd Knights/ In Battles feign'd"(9.30-31) but one of words and will, and natural grace disregarded and abandoned. When Adam finds her at the Tree of Knowledge, Eve recounts what has happened but adds the lie that she did it all "chiefly" for him, and now she bids him to eat "Lest ... different degree/ disjoin us"(9.883-84). Adam's inward musings, like Eve's on the cusp of her Fall, show the paradoxical character of his decision: 20 �... how hast thou yielded to transgress The strict forbiddance, how to violate The sacred Fruit forbidd'n! some cursed fraud Of Enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown, (9.902-905) Unlike Eve, however, Adam is not deluded by the seemingly miraculous transformation of the serpent, but just as he earlier gave irrefragable arguments for why they should not separate before, only to let Eve go off, he now abruptly adds: And mee with thee hath ruin'd, for with thee Certain my resolution is to Die; How can I live without thee ... ? (9.907-909) Another Eve could never repair the loss of the one who stands before him-or so he imagines- and "The Link ofNature"(9.914) that draws him to her also commands his inward assent, even as he hails her as "advent'rous Eve' (9.921). Well, what else might he do? He might recollect something he heard from Raphael. Earlier, when Raphael gave Adam and Eve the account of the Fall of the rebellious angels, he told them of the "dreadless Angel" (6.1) Abdiel, who in his efforts to dissuade Satan from his disastrous course urged him to "hast'n to appease/ Th'incensed Father, and th'incensed Son,/ while pardon may be found in time besought."(5.846-48) Adam no more recalls this exemplary advice than Aeneas remembers his duty to the gods and his Trojan countrymen while trysting with Dido during the royal hunt and storm outside of Carthage, 26 or Paris his combat oath when he beds down with Helen while Menelaus ranges the battlefield before Troy. 27 As Adam eats the fruit in "This happy trial of... Love" (9.975), Eve joins him, repeating her "former trespass" (9 .1006), and the two complete together "the mortal Sin / Original" (9.1003-4) in a kind of idolatrous, sacramental meal. The force of the fruit 26 27 Aeneid 4.129-172. Iliad 3.437-454 21 �quickly inflames carnal desire in them both, and they consummate the Fall with a gross coupling that has aspects of both rape and meretricious seduction; this "glorious trial of exceeding Love"(9.961), so hailed by Eve, culminates with the transient 'link oflust,' sealing their disobedience with sex as a second pagan sacrament. They lapse into a restless sleep and awaken to guilt shame, and estrangement that leads them to mutual recrimination, "neither self-condemning"(9. l 188). Each is now isolated and alone, though together, in Paradise. Later, after the Son is dispatched from heaven by the Father to apprise Adam 28 and Eve of the judgment against them and of the mysterious promise of the seed, thus 29 tempering Justice with mercy, Adam, now alone, laments what he can only see as "the end of this new glorious World"(9.721). With its one hundred twenty-four lines it is the longest and darkest soliloquy of the entire poem, wherein Adam, at the prospect of all future generations cursing him, wishes for death and submits to the justice of his punishment. In the end he acknowledges that all his reasonings .. .lead me still first and last conviction: own But to my On mee, mee only, as the source and spring Of all corruption, all the blame lights due; So might the wrath. Fond wish! Couldst thou support That burden heavier than the Earth to bear, Than all the world much heavier, though divided With that bad Woman (9.830-837) Recall the words ofNisus and the Son that we considered earlier, words of deep love and selfless heroism; it is difficult not to hear the stressed accusatives of Adam's words, in their despair at his impotence and in his contempt for Eve, as the 28 29 Paradise Lost l 0.179-181) Ibid., 77-79. 22 �dark inverse of those antecedents. When Eve approaches him, he upbraids her for being as false and hateful as the serpent. For her part, in profoundly moving, lyrical lines, she professes her love for Adam and begs for forgiveness with words that resonate with the promise of hope and restoration offered earlier by the Son: On me exercise not Thy hatred for this misery befall 'n On me already lost, mee than thyself More miserable; both have sinn'd, but thou Against God only, I against God and thee, And to the place of judgment will return, There with my cries importune Heaven, that all The sentence from thy head remov' d may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe, Mee mee only just object of his ire. (10. 927-936) Eve, in acknowledging her sin and pleading for Adam's forgiveness, first reaffirms the order established from the beginning of' Adam for God and she for God in him,' the created order that has been fractured by their sin. Then, perhaps remembering Abdiel's injunction to 'hast'n to appease/ Th'incensed Father, and th'incensed Son,' she resolves to go alone to the place where they both have received the divine judgment, to implore the divine mercy that Adam cannot even imagine, overwhelmed as he is by his hellishly dark vision of divine justice. In words that most nearly echo words of the Son to his the Father, 30 she offers to take upon herself the entire burden of guilt that Adam despairs even the two of them together can sustain. Her final words 'Mee mee only just object of his ire' correspond most nearly to the Son's as he says to the Father," .. .life for life/ I offer, on mee let thine anger fall." (3.236-237) Yet, while this offer is utterly, heroically 30 cf. Joseph Summers, The Muse's Method: an Introduction to Paradise Lost (Binghamton, New York: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1981), pp. 179-80. Summers rightly contrasts the Son's and Eve's use of the stressed accusative "mee" with Satan's use of"I," though we have seen that Satan uses the "mee" -to very different purpose-as well. 23 �generous, it stems from but one impulse among a host of conflicting emotions that Eve feels. Eve's heroism here is a nascent, fallen heroism. It nevertheless has its effect: Adam is moved slowly to relent in his anger and first advises Eve to bear her own punishment first, but he then imitates her generosity in wishing that all might fall upon himself, finally suggesting that their proper task is to "strive/ In offices of Love "(9.959-60) to lighten each other's burden of woe. Eve next proposes desperate measures-an end to sexual love between them, to render them childless, and joint suicide as a form of euthanasia-but Adam, perhaps reminded by Eve's earlier selfless impulse of the Son's promise that her seed will bruise the serpent's head, now urges what she had just before, that they both return to the place of judgment humbly to confess their faults in deepest sorrow, "with tears/ Watering the ground." (10.1101-1102) Significantly, the poet does not give us their words, but as Book Eleven opens, the prayers of Adam and Eve are received in heaven, where the Son renews his pledge to serve as advocate, and the Father dispatches the angel Michael with a cohort of cherubim to "send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace. "(11.117) To this end, the remaining two books of the poem are devoted to Michael's education of Adam, through a series of visions and lecture/ narratives in which he is shown the nature of death and the ultimate victory of the promised seed. There is not time enough now to consider the lengthy course that Michael gives Adam before the expulsion from the Garden of Eden; let it suffice here to notice Adam's response to what he learns: ,Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best, And love with fear the only God, to walk As in his presence, ever to observe His providence, and on him sole depend, 24 �Merciful over all his works, with good Still overcoming evil, and by small Accomplishing great things, by things deem' d weak Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise By simply meek; that suffering for Truth's sake Is fortitude to highest victory ... (12.561-570) With these final words, Adam seconds those of the poet earlier in his proem to Book Nine, where Milton holds up what he claims is "the better fortitude/ Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom"(9.31-32) as the proper subject for heroic song. Courage, bravery, and fortitude are what epic bards traditionally sing about; in Greek poetry, tharsos ((courage, confidence, boldness) and thrasos (courage, confidence, rashness), with andreia (manliness, strength, bravery) designating the word for this virtue that Plato and Aristotle use; in Latin poetry, virtus (manliness, virtue, bravery, courage) andfortitudo (physical strength, moral bravery, courage), in all three languages one of the four cardinal virtues. We saw the paradigm instance of this in Paradise Lost before, at the Council of Heaven, in the Son's volunteering to empty himself in order to redeem man, by taking on human flesh with all of its vulnerability and mortality after the fall, becoming small in order to accomplish great things. Adam has come to understand that obedience may ultimately demand the greater fortitude, from the heroic examples of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and preeminently, Messiah, all presented by Michael in his account of the career of the seed, steadfast despite the reversals brought about by Cain, Tubal-Cain, Nimrod, Pharaoh, and Rome-and ultimately by Satan, Sin and Death. 25 �Michael, in his final reply and last words in the poem, calls this "the sum/ Of wisdom"(12.575-76), higher than all earthly knowledge of the stars and "all Nature's 31 works" (12.578), as if to say with Pascal: Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance . Of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality Will always console me for ignorance of physical science. (23/67) It is not enough, however, merely to have such wisdom and knowledge; Michael continues: ... only add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, add Love, By name to come call'd Charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A paradise within thee, happier far. (12. 581-87) 'Answerable,' i.e., responsible, knowledge shows itself in action, in deeds, as the fruit of this highest wisdom that Michael recognizes in Adam. Michael's words here follow almost exactly those found in 2 Peter 1. 5-8, except for the final verse, where Peter writes: For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (KJV) Michael instead gently reminds Adam that he must leave Paradise the place, taking it with him as an inner state, as if to suggest that the fruitfulness of the Garden of Eden can be extended to wherever wisdom and the greater fortitude of acts of charity consonant with it are done. We can thus see how Michael's final words are equivalent to this verse from 2 Peter, as adapted to the circumstances of Adam, who has just been brought from 31 Pascal's Pensees, trans. Alban J. Krailsheimer (Harmondsworth, New York: Penguin Books, 1984) p. 36. 26 �despair at the loss of Paradise, a despair that prompted Eve to propose a deliberately 'unfruitful' barrenness, to the prospect of an even greater happiness that comes with possession of "a paradise within."(12.586) And what of Eve? She has slept through all of this, Michael having "drencht" her eyes with a soporific before his conversation with Adam began. At Michael's urging, Adam hastens to the bower where Eve has been sleeping, only to find her already awake, and advised by her dreams of all that he has learned, "For God is also in sleep."(12.611) Eve is given the last words quoted, as beautiful and lyrical as any in the poem: ... but now lead on; chiasmus In mee is no delay; with thee to go, go stay Is to stay here; without thee here to stay Is to go hence unwilling; thou to mee stay go Art all things under Heav'n, all places thou, Who for my willful crime art banisht hence. This further consolation yet secure I carry hence; though all by mee is lost, Such favor I unworthy am voutsaf t, By mee the Promis'd Seed shall all restore. (12. 614-623) Eve at once accepts and approves their banishment from Eden, and urges Adam to lead the way, thereby reversing their roles during the catastrophe of the Fall. The flowing iambic motion of"In mee is no delay; with thee to go," interrupted by the affectingly simple chiasmus that follows, with its stop-start alternation of"go ... stay ... stay ... go," convey both a sense of the restored order she professes in her relation to Adam and the incipient joy that she feels in the newly discovered " paradise within." Her words also both echo and anticipate the words of Ruth the Moabite woman to her Hebrew mother-inlaw Naomi as they set out from the security of Moab to return to Judah: 27 �... whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge ... Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried ... (Ruth 1.16-1 7) Eve's final lines indicate that she is at once "though sorrowing, yet in peace"(l 1.117), and her final two stressed accusative 'mees' reverberate with her earlier offer to take full responsibility for the Fall and with the Son's offer to save mankind, to the extent that the two almost seem here to merge in her final line 'By mee the Promis'd Seed shall all restore.' This is the last spoken line of the poem, but it is not the last that we hear. The final five lines, with their deeply touching image of Adam and Eve as they depart Paradise, show that they are now, again, together alone: Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon; The World was all before them, where to choose Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide; They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow Through Eden took thir solitary way. This penultimate word 'solitary' seems to be in tension with the 'hand in hand' of the line before, just as 'wand'ring' in that line is with 'place of rest' in the line before it. These tensions may strike us as both troubling and true, the very crux of the matter in an 'argument ... more heroic.' Thank you for your fortitude and attention. 28 � 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. 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Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Title A name given to the resource St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context formallectureseriesannapolis Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 28 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 Argument Not Less But More Heroic: Milton's Advent'rous Song in Paradise Lost Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on February 11, 2005, by Thomas May as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource May, Thomas Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-02-11 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 Milton, John, 1608-1674. Paradise lost Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_May_Thomas_2005-02-11 Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7879" title="Recording">Recording</a> Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/42b0e58b253147ab2ae973941b502cec.pdf 6d01ecdf2d4e5a7eda6d12bdbe144e39 PDF Text Text kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture Tragic Pharmacy: The ‘Noble’ Lie and the Fall of Kallipolis Kevin M. Kambo I. Introduction One of the special joys for an enthusiast of Plato is reading the receptions of and responses to the divine teacher (and his school(s)) that are strewn across the history of philosophy. One notes with fascination how Neoplatonists celebrated feast days to Socrates and Plato, while in the high Middle Ages, Platonism, in the Latin West, came to be associated, among a fair number of writers, with having some fundamental errors from which Aristotle delivers us. Somewhere in between we find figures like Augustine, who attacks the skepticism of the Platonists in Contra academicos, though he praises (up to a point) the Platonists in the Confessions and arguably baptizes Platonic recollection in De magistro. These varied appraisals continue into the 20th Century. E. O. Sisson, one time president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, calls the Republic, “that original charter of Fascism”;1 for Karl Popper, “Plato recognizes only one ultimate standard, the interest of the state. … The criterion of morality is the interest of the state. … This is the collectivist, the tribal, the totalitarian theory of morality”;2 though Whitehead famously reflects, “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.” For my part, I confess partiality to Charles Péguy’s judgement that “it cannot be imagined that any man ever, nor any humanity, in a certain sense–which is the right sense–can ever intelligently boast of having surpassed Plato. I will go further. I add that a cultured 1 2 E. O. Sisson, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Society (1939), 87. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies I, 107. 1 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture man, a really cultured man, cannot even imagine the meaning of a claim to have surpassed Plato.”3 What occasions such a range of evaluations? One reason is the distinction—or, for some, the failure to make the distinction—between prescriptive and forensic reading of Plato. Those who take Plato as merely or immediately prescriptive receive what is found in the text at face value. Socrates is taken, straightforwardly, to be Plato’s mouthpiece, with his words in any particular dialogue essentially reduced to a Platonic treatise on a theme: his conclusions present Plato’s beliefs, his arguments reflect Plato’s reasoning. On such readings, everything else in the dialogue is merely cosmetic or simply a foil. Any tensions, contradictions, or impasses in the mouth of Socrates would also get reduced to be, only, contradictions and confusions in the mind of the author; we would have to foreclose, presumptively, the possibility that Plato might be using the tensions and impasses to make a larger point. This is the kind of reading found in Sisson and Popper, of which Whitehead is critical. A forensic reading, by contrast, approaches a Platonic dialogue as a multi-layered puzzle that invites the reader not only to discuss but also to experience the question of seeming and being: what merely appears to be going on probably does not account for all that is happening. Thus, one cannot relegate the non-Socratic parts to being non-essential workers; to get at the whole one must search for easily overlooked clues, interrogate different speakers, attend to the ambient conditions, and so on. In short, reading a Platonic dialogue is not unlike crime scene investigation. And, in the Republic specifically, Plato, like many a mystery author, drops, so to speak, a body: the ‘corpse’ of Kallipolis. In attempting to solve the mystery of the fall of Kallipolis forensically, I wager, we better understand Plato’s politically philosophy than if we read the Republic merely prescriptively. 3 Charles Péguy, “The Search for Truth,” in Basic Verities. 2 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture To solve a death, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot would have us approach the cause through investigating the dead person’s character; similarly, that other efficient and competent undoer of knots, Bertie Wooster’s man Jeeves, untangles troubles by invoking what he calls the Psychology of the Individual. Taking my cue from these venerable predecessors, I suggest that the fall of Kallipolis is made intelligible through considering the psychology of the city. II. The Usual Suspects, and a Tell in the Tale One of the central issues concerning the deterioration of Kallipolis is inevitability. Socrates appears to construct the idea city, including in it multiple safeguards for stability, but the city is still doomed to fail. Standard explanations for this ineluctable fall focus on failure(s) related to application of the eugenic algorithm, the nuptial number—of geometric precision—that determines the right and just seasons for coupling in the city. First, there is the possibility that the algorithm cannot preserve the city because, Socrates notes, “Since everything that comes to be must decay, not even [a city] so constituted will last forever” (546a).4 Not even the nuptial number can hold back the entropic forces dragging the city towards political heat-death. Commenting in the Politics, Aristotle colors himself unimpressed by this reasoning, since it attributes decay to nothing inside the city but to forces external, and does not explain why this city should fail.5 Entropy ex machina makes for disappointing writing; when Socrates describes the decline of the other regimes, however, he appeals to internal reasons. Our second suspect concerns the limits of applying the nuptial number in history. Socrates says, “Even though they are wise, the people you have educated to be leaders in your city will, by using rational calculation combined with senseperception, nonetheless fail to ascertain the periods of good fertility and of infertility for your 4 5 The translation used is C. D. C. Reeve’s Hackett edition, with some minor adjustments. Politics 1316 a 17 ff. 3 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture species” (546a-b). The number is perfect and intelligible in itself, but application is reliant on sense perception, which is fallible; mistakes will be made. And then there is the argument that geometry will be unable to control or conquer eros (see 458d), meaning it will not be possible to get the timings perfectly right all the time. After all, in geometry beings keep their shapes and boundaries, neatly and tidily; but with eros, as the Symposium and Phaedrus reflect, beings change shape, shrink and expand, are shaken and stirred, are pierced, burned, and melted. Erotic dynamism is bound to frustrate geometric presumption. That said, none of these explanations pass the smell test, for the simple reason that they all assume that the marriage algorithm could ever apply. Rather than accept the standard accounts, I opt for a dramatic perspective, taking Kallipolis’ arc from founding to fall as a single, coherent action or plot. The eugenic algorithm is concerned with controlling coupling with an eye to producing the best offspring. The algorithm, therefore, assumes the presence of gold, silver, and bronze souls to sort; that is, the algorithm runs on the myth of metals, also known as the noble lie. But, as Eva Brann points out, “The myth must not only somehow be believed at the outset if the city is to be founded, but it ought in fact not to be a lie at all, if the city is to breed true. For if men are not born from a common parent and with pure souls easily assayed, the guardians cannot control the new generation and ensure the stability of the city. Its first natural birth will refute its foundations.”6 Precisely because they are trying to apply the algorithm, it would appear that the lie is believed by the rulers of the city. The price of this belief is that they therefore cannot see that the algorithm does not work; indeed, it has never worked. The nuptial algorithm that is meant to protect the city by preserving and consolidating the rule of the gold souled, generation after generation, needs to be applied to real persons. But, the 6 Eva Brann, The Music of the Republic, 126. Emphases in original. 4 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture real persons do not have souls whose character can be charted along a simple, clear, linear hierarchy that can be easily sorted into three classes. Every application of the eugenic algorithm ‘sorts’ sets of souls that do not correspond to its categories; the application of the algorithm is therefore hollow or empty. To the extent that the algorithm continues to be employed, the leaders of the city are not exercising much control over the progeny of the city. Thus, we glimpse Plato’s daimonic genius: the leaders who think themselves to be eugenic puppeteers are, in truth, themselves chasing shadows on a cave wall. Precisely because they have come to believe in Kallipolis’ founding lie, they are unable to recognize the chains by which they have bound themselves. The city’s protective device is revealed as ineffective on account of the very act that established it. In fact, I shall argue that the noble lie, from which flows the ironic situation of the nuptial algorithm, seeds instability, whose rotten fruit is the city’s decline and destruction. III. Lies, Damned Lies, and ‘Noble’ Lies The so-called noble lie is another sore spot in the Republic. For a significant number of interpreters, it is proof positive that Plato is a consequentialist, perhaps even a clumsy one. The reason for the discontent is Socrates’ apparent endorsement of the ‘right sort’ of lies. “It is appropriate, then,” he says, “for the rulers—if anyone—to lie because of enemies or citizens for the good of the city” (389b). In view of such passages, Julia Annas tells us, “We should notice Plato’s readiness to legitimize the telling of lies in the interests of some higher end. It is an early sign of … his readiness to revise the content of morality in the interests of establishing morality.”7 For Malcolm Schofield, the lie is about “how to persuade the individual to do something required 7 That said, she also attributes some question-begging to Plato, claiming that for Plato the lies are good because the people lying—the guardians—are good. She also thinks the lie is essentially harmless. Introduction to the Republic, 108, 167. 5 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture by the good of the city.”8 And C. D. C. Reeve proposes, “Those who believe [the noble lie] do not come to believe a real lie. For the belief benefits them, and leads them towards the good itself, not away from it.”9 Given that I am implicating the noble lie in the fall of the city, I am less certain that Plato is as sanguine about the deception as he is painted to be. Socrates calls the lie the gennaion pseudos (414b), which is most often translated as noble lie. How long it has been so translated I do not know, but this rendering is not the only possibility. Popper labels it the “lordly lie”;10 Nietzsche, more poetically, “the actual lie, the genuine, resolute, ‘honest’ lie”;11 and for Giovanni Ferrari, “The lie is grand or noble (gennaios) by virtue of its civic purpose, but the Greek word can also be used colloquially, giving the meaning ‘a true-blue lie,’ i.e., a massive, no-doubt-about-it lie.”12 I prefer “Grand Lie,” both to emphasize the scale of the con and to preserve moral ambiguity—grand can be applied to criminal acts (gamers, think Grand Theft Auto) as well as to beautiful activities (partisans of Jeremy Clarkson, think The Grand Tour). The grand lie is occasioned by the evolution into the feverish city. The prior, healthy city is proposed to be complete in its simplicity, as far as everyone has a role in it and it is stable. Glaucon complains, however, that it is a city of pigs, on account of the significant limitations on human desire, and advocates for expanding the scope of human ambition and pleasure. His is the Angelica Schuyler critique: we shall never be satisfied, humanly, in the healthy city, and thus need expansion. This expansion brings with it new acquisitiveness, which leads to conflict ad extra, war, and presumably ad intra, competition and strife. It is under these conditions that the grand lie is proposed to stabilize and control the energies in the city. In trying to work out what the just city 8 Malcolm Schofield, “The Noble Lie,” 158. Emphasis in original. It is, of course, unclear how lying counts as persuasion. 9 C. D. C. Reeve, Philosopher-Kings, 211. 10 Open Society, 140. 11 Genealogy of Morals, III.19. 12 Giovanni Ferrari, Plato: The Republic, trans. T. Griffith, 107 n. 63. 6 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture looks like, Socrates speculates, “The having and doing of one’s own, of what belongs to one, would be justice” (434a). The grand lie is an attempt to impose, on the citizens, the view that they are where they should be. The citizens’ hopes, ambitions, and desires are easier to manage if they believe that there is a place for everyone and that everyone is in his place; the grand lie is aimed at convincing the citizens that each ‘deserves’ his lot, his specific place in the order of things. Lies are allowed in the city as a necessary, medicinal evil. At an important moment, Socrates explains, “What about when we are dealing with enemies, or with so-called friends who, because of insanity or ignorance, are attempting to do something bad? Isn’t [a lie in words] a useful drug (pharmakon) for preventing them?” (382c). The relevant background is Cephalus’ claim that part of justice is being honest and returning what is owed, a claim that Socrates challenged with the problem of whether one would return a borrowed weapon to the insane. Faced with the potential threat of an armed madman, the suggestion or assumption seems to be that fraud is a better means than force for managing the situation; as a drug, lying appears to be less violent and more civilised than physical restraint. Later, Socrates continues, “It follows that our rulers will then have to employ a great many drugs (pharmakois). … It looks as though our rulers will have to employ a great many lies and deceptions for the benefit of those they rule. And you remember, I suppose, we said all such things were useful as a kind of drug (pharmakou)” (459c-d). This drug for managing interpersonal frictions is also useful politically. As drugs or pharmaka, lies are a human invention. They are occasioned by human weakness, the limits of our wisdom and/or virtue to deal with threats to our peace. The gods are safe and secure; according to Socrates, they are good and can suffer no harm, their friends are good, and their enemies have no power over them. As such, they have no need for lies, nor do lies have any attraction for them. We lie because we are afraid and need a protective device or drug. 7 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture The grand lie is precisely such a device. Faced with the threat of civil strife and destruction of the city, the rulers opt to protect the peace by administering a potent drug whose aim is to reduce and restrain destabilizing forces in the city. To the extent that citizens come under the power of the grand lie, the less likely they are to challenge the city’s ordained structure and procedures. One must keep in mind that Plato’s evaluation of pharmaka is often equivocal; he is sensitive to the ambiguities of the term. In the Phaedrus, for instance, the god Theuth famously invents the written word, proposing it as a pharmakon for memory, an invention that will make us better at remembering and therefore wiser. The Egyptian philosopher and king, Thamus, however, dares to demur. He judges that the written word will habituate us to having ideas on hand externally rather than internally, which will make us worse at remembering. And, because of our collecting and hoarding writings outside the soul, we would be more likely to amass things in a disordered manner, without a grasp of their relationships within an ordered whole. We might have more information at hand, but we would be likely to be more confused than to be wiser. Theuth’s drug, while useful in some ways, would nevertheless have undesired effects, unforeseen by its uncritical inventor. That pharmakon is ambiguous, bringing both advantages and disadvantages. We witness a similar duality in the Phaedo. The first line of the dialogue invokes the day when Socrates drank the pharmakon, the potion that was the instrument of his execution. Plato plays on the two meanings of pharmakon, leaving open the question of whether the potion is a medicine or a poison. In the Phaedo, this question is explored under the theme of purification. Socrates’ friends are certain that death is an evil, and have arrived to console Socrates as they lament his passing. But, they find the philosopher remarkably hopeful that his death will be a purification and transition to a better condition. The poisonous pharmakon turns out to be purifying—at least for Socrates. Also, we note, Athens is trying to purify itself by turning Socrates 8 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture into a sacrifice or scapegoat, a pharmakos, whom it is violently expelling from the city. But, given Phaedo’s observation that the public execution was delayed lest the city be polluted, we might assume that Plato is less than bullish about the purifying effects of human sacrifice, legally sanctioned or not. So, there are reasons to be sceptical that the grand lie, Kallipolis’ pharmakon, is politically purifying and stabilizing. To grasp this pharmakon better, it is worthwhile to recall its details, so that we can work out its consequences. IV. The Grand Lie In its content, the grand lie has two basic aspects, one descriptive and the other proscriptive. The citizens of the city are to come to believe that they are all the children of a single mother, and that they differ primarily according to which metal—gold, silver, iron or bronze—determines the subspecies of their souls. They are sorted into three political classes according to the value or preciousness of the metal in their souls. As we have already discussed, this lie is aimed at protecting the stability of the city, which it does in two ways: first, in view of their common mother, the citizens are connected to the same land and are bound together under a common fraternity. Second, on account of their intrinsic differences, the citizens are sorted according to a natural hierarchy derived from the maternal soil. The myth of metals thus provides ‘scientific’ reasons for both political unity and class diversity in the city, and The Science, of course, is to be believed, as it brings, from the earth, peace to men of good will. So much for a description of what is to be accepted. There is also a task: with great lie, comes great responsibility. Socrates elaborates, “The first and most important command from the god to the rulers is that there is nothing they must guard better or watch more carefully than the mixture of metals in the souls of their offspring” (415c). This first command, the prime directive 9 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture tied to the founding of the city, is that constant vigilance must be exercised over the sorting of offspring. To protect the city, the rulers must protect the continuation of the (false, merely seeming) hierarchy. It is in view of this mission that, on my reading, that the city is compelled to live out certain consequences of the grand lie, namely the three waves Socrates proposes. Keeping in mind the ambiguous character of pharmaka, I propose that each wave is double edged. The first wave is the co-education of and shared leadership by men and women. This appears to be a straightforward good: a liberating education for both sexes, and leadership based not on one’s biology but on one’s merits—advancement for ladies and gentlemen of achievement, Lost in Thought and Rescuing Socrates for everyone capable. And yet, the justification for this wave is curious. The co-education of men and women is a way of underlining that what matters most is psychic metallurgy. Education is ordered to refining the ore of one’s soul. To drill this point home, more or less every other difference between individuals gets relegated to something, let us say, immaterial. Thus, for example, Socrates insists that men and women will exercise naked together. By stripping both sexes and treating them as almost undifferentiated, the city boldly commits to ordering itself and understanding its elites, especially, according to the categories of the grand lie. In this stripping away of all other differences, there is a sense in which the city does away with the private/public distinction. One’s soul determines one’s education, and one’s education defines one’s role in the city. To get the fullest education means becoming more and more a servant of the city; one is not educated for one’s personal freedom, but for the freedom of the city. Still, Socrates immediately has to grant something to what he calls erotic necessity. Reflecting on the young guardians as they exercise naked, work on Euclidian proofs, sing in choir, make fun of midshipmen, and perform Baconian dissections together, he concedes that they might 10 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture not be sensitized simply to each other’s souls. It is likely that as a particular pair becomes aware of each other’s strength, courage, intelligence, and wit, they might start talking and not be interested in just talking. It is probable that one fateful hour, as they translate the saucier bits of Antigone together, they, like Paolo and Francesca, will read no more. In response to the erotic necessity driving this state of affairs—or rather, this taste of love affairs—Socrates authors the second wave of Kallipolis, the sharing of spouses and children. It is easy to see how this wave flows from the prime directive of the grand lie as well as the interactions brought about by the first wave. The business of this wave is, predictably, to protect the stability of the city, primarily by fostering unity among the elite class. The wave centers the metals of the soul and, by further relegating the significance of corporeal ties, entirely does away with the natural family for the sake of strengthening the political family. Unity is fostered horizontally, with each generation viewing its members as siblings, and intergenerationally, as the older generations look to the younger ones as all their children (or younger siblings) and the younger ones look to their elders as their parents (or older siblings). By making the unity and cohesion of the elites stronger, the city and its peace are further protected from faction. Civil strife, not infrequently, comes from warring families and vendettas or cycles of violence and vengeance between them. By eliminating natural families, one significant source of civil strife is neutralized. Furthermore, agents in the younger generations are less likely to rise up in revolution against their elders, since the ruling class will have many allies across generations and many among the heirs apparent will know that they are being groomed to take over rule. There is an intelligible succession plan. The costs of this wave are easy to discern. As we have seen, there is the effective obliteration of natural or blood ties for the sake of a pseudo-nature. Then there is the eugenic, false lottery that manipulates coupling according to the nuptial algorithm. The victims of this new lie 11 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture wrongly believe pairings to be ordained by providence. And, finally, there is the disappearing of the unfit children, for whom, one assumes, a powerful city like Kallipolis would be able to care. More on that later. At this point the city needs to run a significant education system that is meant both to underline the idea that one’s soul metal is the critical factor in one’s relationships with other people in the city and, I believe, to sort out souls like a centrifuge so as to make sure that the right ones inherit executive power. On top of this, there is a rather penetrating and expansive surveillance apparatus that tracks the elites, with an eye both to protecting the idea that souls have a metallic core and to manipulating the eugenic lottery for the sake of producing useful progeny for the city. These needs make for a sophisticated system, which cannot preserve itself and therefore requires custodians. Given the system’s complexity, it needs to be in the care of persons both subtle and intelligent. Given the system’s goals (i.e., the stability of the city), it needs to be operated by people who will prefer the good of the city before their individual interests or the interests of any subordinate society within the city. The city needs leaders who marry insight, practical ability, and love for the common good. Hence, Socrates’ third wave. Rule by the philosopher-kings is rule by the wise and the just, i.e., those in whom wisdom and virtue, in view of the city’s good, are well developed. The education of the guardians who will become philosopher-kings is comprehensive: physical training makes them hardy and capable of perseverance through difficulty; musical training makes them lovers of order and harmony; the quadrivium makes them intimate with the nature of number in itself (arithmetic), in space (geometry), in time (music), and in space and time (astronomy); and philosophy advances them as lovers of the true and the good. These would seem to be the ideal sorts of people to receive the reigns of the city; one can intuit that their numerical training would allegedly prepare them well to 12 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture apply the nuptial algorithm. The plan sounds reasonable. Does this wave also have a second edge? The principal problem, from my perspective, is that those who have been raised to be the most devoted truth-lovers are the ones who have to become most intimately joined to the lies of the city. This combination will have psychological costs. V. Saving the City To make the situation of the philosopher-kings more palatable, Socrates renders it in heroic terms. He says, at one moment, “In a suitable [constitution], [the philosopher’s] own growth will be fuller and he will save the commonweal (ta koina sosei), as well as himself” (497a), and at another, “We must take good care in all these matters, since, if we bring people who are sound of limb and mind to so important a subject [sc. philosophy], and train and educate them in it, justice itself will not find fault with us, and we will save both the city (ten polin sosomen) and its constitution” (536a-b). Kallipolis is, presumably, a suitable constitution and a regime in which training and education are well attended to. In this city, the philosopher-kings are portrayed as saviors of the city, the protectors of its peace, its deliverers. But, the theme of saving the city is a complicated one; indeed, it is a popular theme in Greek tragedy. Consider the Oresteia. Agamemnon slew his daughter, Iphigenia, for the sake of saving the city; Orestes kills his mother partly for the sake of the city; and Athena presides over the suit of the Eumenides again for the sake the city, powers who threaten to destroy the city unless Orestes is executed. Things are similar with the Oedipus Cycle. Oedipus promises to discover and destroy the polluting presence so as to save the city; in Oedipus at Colonus, the body of the stricken king has power to save cities; and in Antigone Creon opposes his niece for the sake of preserving and thus saving the city. Plato, we saw, composes the death of Socrates as an attempt to save the 13 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture city by eliminating a corrupting influence. And we see this trope even beyond the Greeks: in the Gospel of John, Caiaphas explains, “You do not understand that it is expedient for you, that one man should die for the people, lest the whole nation perish,”13 i.e., the death of Jesus of Nazareth is ‘necessary’ to save the city; and, similarly, the deaths of Joan of Arc and Thomas More are ‘necessary’ to preserve the peace of the city. The theme of saving the city is central to many tragic plots. And as the above examples show, saving the city is not infrequently connected to the need for a pharmakos, a saving sacrifice to be destroyed precisely to achieve the desired salvation or rescue. My interest, in bringing out the double-edged aspect of Socrates’ three waves, was to prepare the way for an articulation of the various forms of human sacrifice that are needed to preserve the grand lie, the lie that saves the city from destabilization and destruction. In the first wave, the sacrifice required is that of our individuality and corporeality. One’s place in the city is determined essentially by one’s soul-ore; there is not much room for pursuing personal ambitions and projects, especially the more precious one’s soul is. Also, the city obliterates all psychological differences between men and women and it would have its citizens believe that physiological differences are relevant merely to reproduction and nothing else, insisting on men and women exercising naked together. With this immolation of the corporeal dimension of interpersonal relationships, we anticipate the sacrifices demanded by the second wave. The natural bonds between parents and children are repudiated as dangerous, a consequence of sacrificing corporeality in the first wave. The sacrifice of personal freedom evolves into the eugenic lottery; guardians are not allowed to pair off according to their own lights, but, rather, are manipulated into thinking that couplings are following some providential order. And, there is the 13 John 11:50. 14 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture disappearance—likely exposure—of the unfit children. I suspect that these children are killed not because they are useless nor because they are a drain on resources, but because their presence proves, in a vivid and visceral manner, the falseness of the grand lie. Unfit children, who come from all classes and resemble none, demonstrate that human beings do not geometrically reproduce according to the city’s sub-kinds. Each unfit child refutes and repudiates the grand lie; as material proof of the emptiness of the grand lie, these children need to be eliminated. But perhaps what is most directly distorting is the sacrifice of reason or rationality that is required of the philosopher-kings themselves. Socrates judges that the grand lie would be most efficacious if the rulers themselves fell under its sway: “How, then, could we devise one of those useful lies we were talking about a while ago, a single grand lie that would, preferably, persuade even the rulers themselves; but, failing that, the rest of the city?” (414b-c). Glaucon is sceptical that they will be able to deceive the founders, but suggests he has a device for bringing the later rulers under the power of the lie (415c-d). But, later in the dialogue, Socrates poignantly reflects, “Won’t we say that a soul is maimed if it hates a voluntary lie, cannot endure to have one in itself, and is greatly angered when others lie; but is nonetheless content to accept an involuntary lie, does not get irritated when it is caught being ignorant, and bears its ignorance easily, wallowing in it like a pig?” (535d-e). Yet, surely the grand lie is such a necessary, involuntary lie. Socrates’ words suggest that the philosopher-kings would have to betray themselves, pervert what is most divine about them, their reason, for the sake of serving and protecting the city. They make a sacrifice of their rationality that dooms them to wallow in the squalor of falsehood. The Republic constantly reminds us that lies are hateful to the gods, utterly alien to divine nature. But, the vocation of the philosopher is to be as godlike as possible. The philosopher-kings, then, are tragically bound, on account of the grand lie, to frustrate their pursuit of their proper end as lovers of wisdom. 15 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture The grand lie and its consequences thus require human sacrifices, of different sorts, from the citizens of the city. Even those who rule the city are not spared; in a way, of all the citizens, the grand lie requires the leaders to be most unfaithful to their human nature. Those who were portrayed as controllers and custodians are in reality controlled and prisoners; the rulers of Kallipolis are enslaved by the lie, for the lie. The grand lie generates its own perverse offspring— namely, more lies, more manipulation, and even physical violence—all for the sake of preserving itself. Those who employ the useful lies and violence see these as necessary sacrifices for the city, not unlike the people of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” In the words of Wilfred Owen, the guardians of the city have internalized “the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori”; it is sweet and meet these sacrifices be made, in this case, for the sake of the motherland. But the grand lie is empty, we recall, and so these sacrifices cannot be efficacious; they cannot preserve and maintain an order that does not exist. As Brann notes, with every crop of natural births the hollowness of the grand lie is made more and more manifest. Indeed, the dramatic framing of the Republic offers clues that are meant to inoculate us from the grand lie. We are given, for example, the family of Cephalus. The patriarch hosting the evening’s discussion offers a summary of his family’s history in the city, noting how his grandfather was a very hard worker, how his father was prodigal, and how he himself is something of a mean between the two. From these details alone we see that fathers do not easily produce sons with souls like their own. Saliently, when Polemarchus inherits Cephalus argument about the nature of justice, the son develops the father’s definition in a more aggressive and combative direction, again showing that the souls of father and son are different. And then we have the sons of Ariston, Glaucon and Adeimantus, who are Plato’s brothers. Given that their apparent susceptibility to some aspects of 16 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture tyrannical living, Plato may be suggesting that his brothers are not like him. With Cephalus’ line we get the problem of variable descent, and the sons of Ariston give us horizontal variety between brothers, which once again stresses that a father has not produced sons who share the same basic soul-form. And towards the end of the main account of the just life, Socrates opts to characterize the declension of declining regimes along the lines of fathers who produce sons who are unlike them. This framing, at the beginning and at the end of the dialogue, reminds us that the grand lie is empty, which makes the sacrifices made for its sake only more absurd. In the mostly misleading explanation that Kallipolis fails because of the failed application of the nuptial algorithm, Socrates works out how mixture will find its way into the offspring and corrupt the generations and therefore the city: “The intermixing of iron with silver and bronze with gold will engender lack of likeness and unharmonious inequality, and these always breed war and hostility wherever they arise. We must declare faction to be ‘of this lineage,’ wherever and whenever it arises” (547a). If my reading is correct enough, there will necessarily be intermixing with every new crop of births. With every new season of offspring, more and more unlikeness and unharmonious inequality will enter into the city with a multiplier effect. Two main consequences follow from these conditions. First, those who inherit rule cannot be assumed to possess the neat and tidy stability of golden guardians. The courage, temperance, and love for truth and the common good in them will inevitably contain impurities. Not only are the leaders not perfectly golden, their offspring will not be such either. Thus, it is inevitable that eventually rulers will not be as interested either in the truth or in the common good of the city. These leaders will not be as attentive to protecting the pedagogical and eugenic priorities of the city. They will not be reliable. Second, with time more and more souls will ‘wrongly’ be assigned to classes lower than they ‘deserve’. These souls will likely notice some of the fraud and violence that maintains the stability of the city, 17 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture and take issue with being ruled by governors whose souls are not better—and are in fact even worse—than theirs. If it is explained to them that their rulers inherited gold souls from a previous generation, some will become resentful on account of being ruled by those who would be essentially Nepo babies. The more natural births occur in the city, the more the grand lie will likely be uncovered and the more keener intelligences will suspect that each one is not in his place, that each deserves his lot. If they attend to the sacrifices that the city demands, it seems inevitable that someone will question the efficacy of these sacrifices and come to resent Kallipolis for requiring them. To the extent that people become aware of the unlikeness of souls and the inharmonious inequality of the city, they are primed to revolt against the established order and to return strife and faction into the city. Natural births are threats to a city whose stability has been founded on the grand lie. Because human beings are naturally jealous of their interests, the fraud and force of Kallipolis mean that the city is ripe for rebellion. The grand lie makes Kallipolis vulnerable. VI. Tragic Fall The grand lie was introduced to stabilize the city. In the attempt to order and control the city, it introduces more disorder and servility into the city. The maintenance of the lie demands violence, in the form of more lies and killing. If these disorders are discovered, the city would be delegitimized and made unstable. And with every crop of new births, the more likely it is that the lie and the violence that sustains it will be discovered and rebelled against. On my reading, then, the lie is unsustainable. Kallipolis thus has a dramatic arc that moves from ‘noble’ founding to destined fall. This doomed arc is a tragic arc. In the Poetics, Aristotle defines tragedy, among other things, as “a representation of an action of a superior kind, great and complete in itself … effecting, through pity and fear, the 18 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture purification of such emotions.”14 And when sketching the tragic figure, he proposes, “We are left, then, with the person in between: a man not outstanding in virtue or justice, who falls into ruin not through vice or depravity but because he errs in some way.”15 The arc of Kallipolis is a superior action, the complete plot of a great city. And the city is also a tragic figure. As human—and not divine—it suffers from human weaknesses that make it vulnerable to instability and needs to employ saving devices to protect itself from dissolution. But, by grounding these saving devices in falsehood, the city’s stability is grounded on something empty and therefore ultimately inefficatious and unsustainable. In many Greek tragedies, mere suffering is not automatically tragic; the tragedy comes from an inadequate or deficient response to suffering. Sophocles’ Oedipus and Creon, for example, respond to evils in the city; Euripides’ Medea and Hecuba respond to evil suffered personally; and likewise with Aeschylus’ Orestes. The grand lie of Kallipolis is also a response to danger or suffering, viz., instability, but it is a response that brings with it its own evils and disorders. This response is hindered by the kind of tragic error or fault Aristotle describes. The treatment of tragedy in the Philebus is presented as the coupling of greatness with overestimation of self. The tragic figure has power, but overestimates his excellences, whether those are his means, his strength, or his wisdom and virtue (48b-50e). By acting without an accurate estimation of himself, he ends up being destructive both to others and to himself. This outline is an apt description of Kallipolis, which is a grand city that, nevertheless, overestimates its wisdom and virtue by thinking it can tame or control falsehood, but in the end is the one mastered and controlled. 14 15 Poetics 1449b. Poetics 1453a. 19 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture Kallipolis is revealed as what we might call an Oedipal city. It is a great city with great rulers, while at the same time blind. The grand lie, the great device that was designed as a cunning and effective way to address one of the principal sources of strife and instability in the city, viz., the desires of different and unequal people, is the same device that reduces the capacity of the city (and the rulers) to see what might be going wrong in the city, weakening the ability of the city to respond adequately. Like Oedipus, Kallipolis is doomed from its birth; the very act that establishes the city is an action that eventually undermines its founding. For Aristotle, a well-executed tragic plot will have the tragic figure’s reversal of fortune coincide with the revelation and recognition of the figure’s actual situation. Kallipolis’ arc might even produce such an effect: on my reading, the grand lie will continually introduce disorder into the city until such a time as when the violence born of the lie will be challenged, exposing the emptiness of the lie. By the time this revelation occurs, it will be too late to save the regime, as the rulers and the constitution would be discredited. Still, while the recognition arrives too late for the protagonist, it is meant to be purifying for the audience. In the terms of the Poetics, this purification is achieved through fear and pity, and in the Philebus witnessing tragic self-overestimation should occasion self-examination. Along these lines, I suggest that the trajectory of Kallipolis is meant to invite the reader to consider his own city. The story of Kallipolis’ rise and fall raises the question of what grand lies might be operative in our cities, and cautions us both against the violence that is done in the name of maintaining the city and against a naïve belief in the stability of a city that is supported and protected by violence. VII. Conclusion 20 �kkambo@udallas.edu | SJC Friday Night Lecture Here at the end, let us reconsider our beginning. Those who read Plato as a consequentialist are limited by their immediately prescriptive approach, the assumption that what is found in Socrates’ mouth corresponds to what Plato wants us to believe. I have attempted what I called a forensic approach vector, attending to details beyond Socrates’ statements, and reading the doom or fate of Kallipolis as the consequence of a coherent, compelling logic that is initiated at the city’s founding. Having done this, is there anything so say about what Plato might be telling us? In my view, the Republic articulates, quite effectively, the pressure of compelling necessities that lead us to invent or devise political lies. Furthermore, by presenting founding lies as necessary even in the best possible regime, I believe Plato is rousing us to consider the place and price of political lies in every regime. In the Apology, Socrates warns Athens by contrasting death and vice as predators. He observes that some people are so fixated on escaping death that they are caught by vice, on account of the unscrupulous means by which they avoid death. Something similar might be operative here. Plato appears to be exploring how political lies, devices by which we attempt to outpace instability and disorder, probably end up being the shackles that doom us to be overtaken by violence, to be forced into sacrificing ourselves and others. These sacrifices, allegedly necessary and apparently redemptive, are actually destructive of justice and right order. We cannot, therefore, afford to be naïve about the justice of the regimes in which we find ourselves—nor, perhaps more importantly, about ourselves as complicit in these regimes. Plato is less a consequentialist, then, but more a tragedian. 21 � 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. For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a>. 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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. 21 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 Tragic Pharmacy: the "Noble" Lie and the Fall of Kallipolis Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on November 3, 2023, by Kevin Kambo as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Professor Kambo describes his lecture: "In Plato's Republic, Socrates suggests that the best regime is doomed to fail. This failure is often attributed to inevitable errors in the rulers' eugenic calculations. I propose that the city's constitution must decline not because the eugenic calculations go wrong, but because the calculations have always been wrong, and this on account of congenital errors in the city's establishment.  In this dramatic arc, from noble founding to destined fall, the reversal perhaps reveals the city to be a tragic figure. The Republic, then, would not be, as some read it, a prescription for authoritarianism or totalitarianism, but a reflection on political lies, human sacrifice, and the tragedy of politics." Professor Kambo is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kambo, Kevin 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 2023-11-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: make a recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a recording of my lecture available online; make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library; make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Plato. Republic Utopias Political science--Philosophy Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Kambo_Kevin_2023-11-03 Relation A related resource <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7990" title="Lecture recording">Lecture recording</a> Friday night lecture