21 20 453 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b9bcfd75efadecc06c24f158e91742cf.mp3 2875359ba5fcf90ddb403595f8c6c859 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:46:37 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 58313 Title A name given to the resource Why read books? Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on August 20, 1996 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-08-20 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 Reading Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/bfdbb6f8e7fbb2806e62c103d4270c32.mp3 53739bf1d32198e1f4edc8cb3f2ce6f2 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:48:07 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 53170 Title A name given to the resource For the first time Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 01, 1995 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1995-09-01 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 Beginning Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/cff1a32fe5ffd839cc243e915723b83c.mp3 76f94a6a12c5277a5c37f9a513225e67 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:48:39 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 64017 Title A name given to the resource The past-present Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 02, 1994 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. 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 1994-09-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource History Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f9465c92e03a930e136a8f37c472f086.mp3 e10f7e4e6c5d3797c6b8f3814539d8dd 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:44:32 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 10309 Title A name given to the resource Telling lies Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on August 27, 1993 by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. 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 1993-08-27 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 Truthfulness and falsehood Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/38200fd7c406391596a25251f1c7cad7.mp3 541ed2683130d587bc4c79dc78d37afc 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:01:21 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Brann_Eva_1983-08-18_ac Title A name given to the resource Against Time (part one) Description An account of the resource Audio recording of part one of a two-part lecture delivered on August 18, 1983, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. The second part of the lecture was delivered on August 25, 1983. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. 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 1983-08-18 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 Time Philosophy, Modern Relation A related resource <a title="Against time (part two)" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/316">Against time (part two)</a> Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/edf751d064ff28012445edd4d5929c84.mp3 17ddf7b73e53cd0a282d3bdadcae7fdd 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:59:58 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 10108 Title A name given to the resource On the Imagination Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 18, 1977, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. The first few sentences of Brann's lecture are cut off by recording problems, just after the word, "Tonight." In Brann's lecture transcript, this paragraph reads, "Tonight I shall commit the deliberate indiscretion of trying to say what may be, all in all, unsayable. Let me, therefore, begin with a little disquisition on ineffability." Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. 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 1977-11-18 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 Imagination Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2e712cf6ffbdf618790e699e961dda6e.mp3 1e9d6dc5c4d2a41546b04b3325072635 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:40:16 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Brann_Eva_1972-10-06_ac Title A name given to the resource The Poet of the Odyssey Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on October 6, 1972, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. 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 1972-10-06 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 Homer. Odyssey Greek literature Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/55e6aa8f496fa78a421d25bf54284ef0.mp3 d715f6cabf822c3afed8083364d2ef02 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:08:08 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Brann_Eva_1972-05-05_ac Title A name given to the resource On Thomas More's Utopia Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on May 5, 1972, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brann, Eva T. H. 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 1972-05-05 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 More, Thomas, Saint, 1478-1535. Utopia More, Thomas, Saint, 1478-1535 Deans Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/19c02cf635eb8116d89244da67d4731e.mp3 0426157eadd61836521e45ac12d522ef 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:59:19 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 82439 Title A name given to the resource Privacy and the Constitution Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 19, 2014, by William Braithwaite as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Braithwaite, William 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 2014-09-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Privacy, Right of United States. Constitution Civil rights Language A language of the resource English Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/5dc058c6cfef0128419bc15f29965c81.mp3 9b63842d0917bebd51394ff605511fc0 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.) 00:57:42 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Beall_James_2015-12-04_ac Title A name given to the resource Leibniz's Monadology and the Philosophical Foundations of Non-Locality in Quantum Mechanics Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on December 4, 2015, by James Beall as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Beall, J. H. (James Howard), 1945- Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-12-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Relation A related resource <a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/319">Typescript</a> Subject The topic of the resource Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716 Quantum theory Bell's theorem Language A language of the resource English Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b5562b510a3c8b9abe85507676a7f7c5.mp3 f27f132b272bfd29851a3c3ccd518644 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:00:40 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/. Title A name given to the resource Lucretius on the Nature of Things Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 13, 2012, by Margaret Kirby as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kirby, Margaret Anne, 1956- Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-04-13 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission: To make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. To make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. To make an audio recording of my lecture available on the St. John's College web site. To make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Subject The topic of the resource Lucretius Carus, Titus. De rerum natura Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Kirby_Margaret_2012-04-13_ac Relation A related resource <a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/38">Typescript</a> Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/dc3b74af041e0df8574f11049a1c06b0.MP3 1897c9ec32131e3b216e3b75b292058d 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:42:57 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wells, Jonathan Title A name given to the resource Poetry reading from "Train Dance" Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-01-27 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on January 27, 2012 by Jonathan Wells as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission: To make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. To make an audio recording of my lecture available on the St. John's College web site." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80190 Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f3d57d059c1b0eb58f38e28063913d62.pdf 1a2e35a6300a360db81e7aaf0d341e8f PDF Text Text Melodies and Faces: A Meno Meditation* Mr. David Stephenson St. John’s College Annapolis, MD November 2, 2012 �Lecture on Meno Argus, Odysseus's old hound dog, wags his tail once before he dies. His master has returned after twenty years. Odysseus hides a tear. He has to conceal who he is, until he can take back his house and win the respect of everyone in his household, including Penelope. Hardly anyone can be expected to recognize him or acknowledge him without a challenge. "Move the bed into the hall," says his wife, fully aware that the tree from which he carved it is still anchored to the earth. Why test him like that unless his welcome is in doubt? Because, I suppose, memory always needs testing: we're never entirely sure that what we recall mightn't deceive us. That friend I ran into at an alumni meeting--so much has changed in appearance--hair longer or shorter than I remember, a few strands of gray or white, furrows now line the face, the voice more grainy or gravelly. Is the new suit needed to broadcast prosperity? Or just a larger appetite? Above all, how has life changed us? Either the friend or me, the observer? Is either one of us the same person? Yes and no. Tout ca change, tout c'est la meme chose. But some sameness is important--not rigid identity, but an underlying kinship. Recognition has a way of restoring us to ourselves and grasping something new as well. Recognition Literature and scripture are full of such scenes. Joseph conceals himself from his brothers as long as he can. Thomas doubts the presence of Jesus Christ until he can feel the wounds. Abraham pretends his wife Is his sister. Elektra is prompted to identify her brother, Orestes, by a lock of his hair; Rosalind adopts a disguise for protection, then finds other uses for it; Edgar, too, needs to hide behind a false identity, until he can reveal himself to his blind Lear. Hardest to recognize are characters like Iago, because he conceals his motives, not just appearance. But a play is where you might expect to find disguise. That's what actors are good at. It's what they do best. So when the playwright notifies the audience of a false identity we always take notice. It's a special event when the imposter is unmasked, the spy discovered, the intentions of the secret enemy or secret lover are exposed. Most famous example of all, perhaps is Proust's "Madeleine:" dipped in lime blossom tea, tasted in a moment of sad repose, the taste of that cookie and that tea slowly, almost reluctantly, opens the door of memory to Marcel's childhood, and then to volume after volume of reminiscences. The whole town of Combray wakes up, centered around his mother, his father, friends and relatives, above all Schwann, whose tragic love affair with Odette provides the source for most of the developments in the first book of Remembrances of Things Past. We can't limit examples to literature, or to what has been described in print. The need to �recognize and identify reaches all levels of our life, from primitive cells that form our bodies up to national, familiar, racial, tribal, political and even aesthetic characteristics. Why should Socrates ascribe learning to a kind of recognition in philosophy, to where truth and not just motive is at stake? Because, I think, Meno has found a serious objection to Socrates's whole endeavor, one that threatens philosophy at its core. It is what Socrates calls a "trick argument,"an "ëristikos logos,"--a debating ploy, if you will--but one that must be confronted and refuted. Otherwise no philosophy is possible. Here is the argument: if you don't know the truth, how can you ever discover it? For you must know it already if you are to recognize it when you meet it, even the very first time. Otherwise you are dependent on others to give you the criterion for truth, and rely on their authority, for which there is no absolute assurance. One has to take this challenge seriously. The very possibility of philosophical inquiry hinges on our ability to defeat it. Meno Meno holds this weapon in reserve until Socrates backs him into a corner. His first address to Socrates is bold and confident: "Are you able to tell me, O Socrates, whether virtue can be taught..." This sounds like little more than an attempt to make fun of Socrates: "Do you have in you what it takes to beat me in debate...," or, maybe a bit less aggressively: "Please, Socrates, give me an argument that will defeat others and gain admiration." For that is the extent of Meno's interest: winning. He couldn't care less about the truth. He is not alone. Athens is at a crossroads. Is Meno serious? Cynical, to be sure. He admires Gorgias and the Sophists, who have captured the attention of the youth of Athens, with their boast of superiority in speech, their ability to answer any question and persuade multitudes. The examples that remain of their orations are smooth and pleasant to listen to, full of half-rhymes and rhetorical flair: flashy and showy. Just the kind of speech that would attract an audience lacking principles. Rhetoric is king, and oratory a show. Meno is perhaps a typical admirer, and wants to go into business on his own, He's committed to winning debate by any means. In such circumstances, it is not hard to see how a true cynic like Meno assumes that the only judgment worth heeding is popular acclaim. There is no goal but verbal conquest, no authority but opinion. How did such a market place of ideas arise in Athens at that time? Not only is it a symptom of Athen's decline; it signals the end of the greatest era of Athenian hegemony. She has sunk low since she and Sparta together defeated the Persians fifty years ago. �The subsequent split from Sparta and the protracted feud that followed sapped Athens's strength and resources. The plague devastated its population, the Sicilian expedition killed off the flower of her army. The crushing blow: almost all Athenian ships--the fleet that had been her strength--were destroyed by the Spartans under command of Lysander, cutting off Athens's source of grain and tribute. Fortunately, despite defeat, the puppet government installed by Sparta was soon replaced by a democracy again. But democracy has its dangers: in a free market place of ideas, who is to say which are worthwhile and which merely the flavor of the moment? Perhaps, the most encouraging result of Athens's loss of political power in the region, one might say, is that it prepared the way for triumphs in philosophy, much more lasting and significant in the eyes of the world than her earlier military conquests. We've inherited her ideas, not her colonies. Together, these defeats and catastrophes forced her to an ultimate surrender only two years before this conversation is supposed to have taken place between Socrates and Meno. Plato had turned thirty at the time of this dialog, and Aristotle was to be born thirty years hence. So, despite Athens's losses on the battlefield and ocean, her most lasting effect on the world was just beginning. Not without cost: Socrates will be condemned to die in three years by a nervous jury of Athenians, egged on by accusers like Anytus, whose threat to Socrates in this dialog prefigures the vendetta that will accuse him of impiety and immorality. It is some compensation that Plato survives to preserve his memory and ideas, and Aristotle to develop them further and challenge those that need challenging, Without them the loss would be great. As he states in the Phaedrus, Socrates is chary of the written word. He never wrote down anything himself. So maybe he had to die to live on in print at the hands of his friends and disciples. Judging by the testimony of the dialogs, Athens now becomes the world's free theater of ideas, with the drawbacks and advantages of that freedom. Its marketplace is the marketplace of words, where sophist, philosopher and statesman compete for attention and favor. And so Meno's address to Socrates with which this dialog begins--"Can you tell me, Socrates (the Greek could be rendered even more forcefully--"do you have proof..."), whether or not virtue can be taught...?"--may well have the air of hostility, or at least of challenge and bravado. It soon becomes clear that Meno is at best merely looking for ammunition, for arguments that will help him win the verbal contest with others. When Socrates punctures his balloon--gets him to admit that he himself has "spoken about virtue hundreds of times, held forth often on the subject in front of large audiences...[but] now I can't even say what it is"--Meno hauls out the crucial, if cliched, argument--the "eristikos logos"--that prompts Socrates to invoke Pindar and engage the slave boy as witness. Yet, even in the face of this evidence, Meno disclaims any interest in the essence of virtue: what he needs is some lines he can steal from Socrates, lines that will help him in debate, not in the search for knowledge. Winning is all that matters to him (and to much of his audience). It's all show. A contest. Whoever gains the audience's favor may get some disciples as well--money for his lectures, even fame--join the ranks of Gorgias and �Protagoras, travel Greece, Italy, Asia minor, selling rhetoric. If you doubt the ugly mood at Athens at this time, consider Aristophanes's play, "The Clouds," produced during the Peloponnesian War twenty years prior to the time of the Meno dialog. The litigious propensities of the populace in general become the butt of rather vicious parody: an old man enrolls his son in what Aristophanes takes to be a school of sophistry led by Socrates, thereby hoping to escape his creditors in the law courts. But, the joke is, that as soon as he argues his father out of debt, the son decides he is also justified in beating him up. Not so hard to see how, in such a climate, Socrates could be indicted for "impiety," and, in fact, in the defense recorded at his trial, he himself mentions the play as one of his silent accusers. The "trick argument" We have to take Meno's trick argument seriously, and weigh Socrates's response. If Meno is right, then knowledge is futile. It doesn't exist unless we can recognize it, and we can't recognize it without prior knowledge. A dilemma! On the face of it, Socrates does defeat Meno's objection, by introducing the assumption that we are born with all knowledge implicit in us. We have merely forgotten what we knew and need reminding. But, consider the cost of this assumption: nothing ever new; never an advance in knowledge, just rediscovery of what we learned in a previous life. And how did we learn that? No, we have to think twice before we embrace the theory of recollection in its entirety, even if we can reconcile ourselves to the possibility of a conscious life before we were born, and the loss of that memory at birth. A permanent, changeless universe is the result, though it does remove the objection on which Meno's argument depends, since the truth already resides in us forever, only hidden. All we need to do is bring it to consciousness. On any given topic we both know and don't know the truth. What will remind us? An image, a word, a shift in point of view? There lies the skill of the teacher. For we must remember that a teacher cannot just tell us the answer. If we merely repeat a sentence without fully understanding it, it isn't really our own sentence. Even if correct, it's what Socrates calls "true opinion." To become knowledge, it must be "tethered,"as he says. We must be able to "give an account," explain its connection with other things we are confident of, use logic to explain how this opinion participates in our common understanding and derives its conclusions from proper inference and argument deduced from shared principles. So, despite Socrates's repeated attempts to split Meno's opening question into two--to consider the definition of virtue before determining how and whether it can be taught--we end up with the latter question as the central one: can anything be taught? Now, there's a �question in which we have a special interest. Virtue may require special means, since it must include a pragmatic element, but the question of what teaching in general may be, that demands our full attention. How is any learning possible? Go to the experts, is the obvious answer. Ask them for the truth and memorize their answers. Yes, but, of course, we have to be sure their wisdom is wisdom, and reputation alone for wisdom is not enough. That is, if a passive grasp of what you are told is all you want, then, yes: ask those who say they know the truth. You don't even need a teacher. Information is available to everyone--on the Internet, in books. Learn the current vocabulary, and you can fool a lot of people about what you know. If, however, you want to own that bit of information, if you want to be able to say why it earns your conviction and respect, then you need more than the presumption of authority. You must be able to "give an account"" of the reasons why it persuades you beyond doubt. At that point, you become your own authority. There is a price to pay for such knowledge, but it is the only kind truly worthy of its name. The price is inefficiency. How much simpler and quicker to take the assurance of one who broadcasts his superiority, who has a reputation, one that has cost years of effort and study to acquire and maintain. Much easier to trust the reputation, join the disciples of Gorgias, whose persuasive powers, at least, have gained him a flock of acolytes. A few rhetorical tricks can persuade the casual listener. But, if we want to be secure in our knowledge, we have to trace every major argument to its roots ourselves, or, even better, in the company of honest like-minded seekers after the truth. "Dead Books" To repeat Meno's question, but with honest intent: how do we look for new knowledge? Galileo imagines three seekers after truth: one a disciple of Aristotle called Simplicio; one a proponent of some new ideas about Nature--Salviati; the third a wise and critical thinker named Sagredo. The last has advice we might all take to heart: "Pray let us enjoy the advantages and privileges which come from conversation between friends, especially upon subjects freely chosen and not forced upon us, a matter vastly different from dealing with dead books which give rise to many doubts but resolve none." Is he talking about us? He could be, perhaps. St. John's is a strange school, and misunderstood more often than not. We take a devious route. If you want to find out something, one might expect to consult those who claim they know the truth. That's not us. You'll have a hard time finding an expert here. You won't find another school so full of amateurs. But "amateurs" ought to mean "lovers of wisdom"--philosophers, that is, true students. That's why our school is so often misrepresented: Because our name and our reputation �paint us the opposite of what we are. We're not a religious institution dedicated to promulgation of the Gospel, and we have no intention of limiting wisdom to the teachings of "the Great Books." We read those books because they are worthy partners or even opponents. There's no book we don't argue with and about. It's a tough fight debating with Aristotle or Descartes, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Most people don't know who we are. Our name and our reputation deceive many. "St. John's," seems to be a declaration of allegiance to the fourth gospel of the New Testament, does it not? As for our other best known description as "the great books school," that inevitably makes many people--like Sagredo--think that we base our teaching on outdated manuscripts, that the Iliad, Almagest and Principia are our textbooks, and Plato, Aristotle and Newton our teachers. This all depends on what you mean by "textbooks" and "teachers." Teachers and their texts are usually regarded as sources of information, of vocabulary and method, rather than a voice asking us to think for ourselves. But Plato only teaches us if we argue with him, and with others who defend him. And Aristotle doesn't seem quite so old fashioned once you sort the wheat from the chaff; if you take care to distinguish his mistakes from his insights, you might well learn how to do that for yourself when the latest best seller or political debate captures your attention for a moment. As to our religious connection, all of you know that we try to read and talk about the Bible with no more and no less reverence than we read and discuss any other book. Faith imbues that book with special meaning for some, so we have to learn how to define and communicate across the bounds of faith. That's another version of how seriously to judge a claim to authority. In retrospect Sagredo's critique turns into a question: "What kind of reading and teaching promotes learning?" And if the authors of the books we read are not authorities, how can they teach us anything? Whose authority can we trust? Recognition--the backbone At Homecoming and on parents' weekend it is not unusual to run into former students and friends without being sure who they are, Such encounters prompt an unusual state of mind: one of simultaneous knowledge and ignorance, of familiarity and strangeness. I remember the face, and yet the hair has grown gray or disappeared or changed so radically in style that it is hard to see how anything remains to recognize. The face may well have darkened or broadened, acquired new lines and furrows, added or subtracted a beard, glasses, jewelry. How can we possibly identify an acquaintance after so long an absence and so many changes in shape and color? There may be a gene for such recognition, but I don't have it. My wife does. Despite the forgetfulness of time, she identifies a chum from high school or even elementary school that she hasn't seen since childhood. I'm usually left with no more than a nagging �impression of familiarity without any apparent reason for it, no single feature prompts a name or the memory of an action or of some feature that will help me identify the stranger. Recognition plays a part in music as well, especially where the tune does not rely on text. And our ability to recall a tune when transposed to a different key, or even when decorated with trills and other ornaments proves the existence of a profound access to the essence of melody. How else can we explain the delight we take with theme and variation, with jazz and improvisation of all kinds? (Play examples, e.g. First variation of Beethoven's riff on "God Save the King"). Our ability to identify melodic similarities reaches deep, and can form the basis of theoretical analysis. (Consider 3 tunes--one from Borodin quartet, Rusalka's aria; "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"). A descending scale forms the backbone of each of these, and despite their obvious differences, they also cannot conceal the kinship this skeleton provides. What connects and what distinguishes different melodies is the basis of enormous insights into musical theory. Bach discovered that you can stretch out a melody or compress it, even turn it upside down: we still recognize it. The one transformation that escapes us is reverse order of tones. Play a tune backwards and few if any of us will recall its original. (Example, maybe: first phrase backwards of "God save the king..." i.e., "My country, 'tis of thee...") Unlike faces, music belongs to time and time belongs to music. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin experimented with such retrograde melodies in the Eighties, and generated controversy as a result of what came to be called "backmasking." What were they hiding? Did there songs contain a covert message? Were they spies? Delivering coded reports? They meant all in fun, but some people saw a potential threat in their games. For us this proves only, that music advances forward in time, never the reverse. So symmetry plays little part in a melody as it does in a face, since we don't hear it as such. Spoken or sung, words fall in between these extremes: time and tone inhere in poetry; less so or not at all in prose. And forced verbal symmetry only becomes a riddle, a palindrome. Contrast this with melody: Whatever identifies it belongs to time--not just to succession in time, as does speech--but to measured time, to rhythm. Faces, on the other hand, belong to spaces, though they do need orientation to be recognized. Not temporally: What turns out to be essential to our perception of a face is uprightness: vertical orientation. A face upside down somehow loses its identity, much as does a melody played backwards. Where Melodies display their profiles bit by bit and only in time; faces sound all their notes and tones in space, and all at once. What about thought embodied in words? Like melodies in time or faces in space, words may actually obscure the truth if their orientation doesn't suit us. Rhetorical manipulations can distort the message intentionally or unintentionally. Does the form of myth that Socrates favors or his mode of questioning distort or amplify the truth? I suspect that his images make clearer his ideas--for example, maybe we do often sit in some kind of cave of our own heritage and custom until someone helps us rise, turn and escape. Such a myth may reveal the truth of our condition better than a more traditional depiction in terms �of politics and education. Or perhaps the dialectical method is what brings us face to face with the truth most immediately by circumventing our prejudices. It is worthwhile hunting down the forms of discourse that clarify meaning and distinguish them from others that may distort or obscure the text. The powers of recognition affect our lives in all kinds of crucial ways. Even our cells--the very elements of our bodies--need to identify one another. And sometimes such kinship is misleading, as when a cancer cell pretends benign kinship rather than danger and hostility to the body it inhabits. The cells we see growing out of control: they are our own cells, aren't they? Could they possibly be harmful? In a Darwinian world, it is important to distinguish true friends from enemies as soon as possible. Back to the Meno. The Meno--how is learning possible? Is the struggle to identify aging faces similar to what goes on when try to learn something? In the dialog in which Meno is his principal interlocutor, Socrates says 'yes:' it is just a matter of recollecting what we have forgotten, since, before we were born we met all knowledge, and merely need to recall it. Now, it is true that the effect of arriving at the truth may resemble the pleasure we feel at meeting an old friend whom we may have forgotten in his or her absence. But, if the only way we discover anything is by recalling it, then we never learn anything new. We know everything knowable already; it just slips our minds until someone or something reminds us. Mired in the past, we never advance, always playing "catch-up." Such seems to be the consequence of embracing Socrates's suggestion that learning is just recollection. Moreover, this theory doesn't really explain how, even in a previous state, our soul ever found out anything. Were we told the truth, and just accepted this passively? What kind of experience unavailable to us in this life on Earth discovers the truth to us before we are born? And why is it no longer open to us? And if not confronted during our lifetime, how can we ever understand it outside our mortal existence. The stultifying consequences of relying on a literal reading of Socrates's tale of recollection must have given him at least some doubts. It is Meno's attack on learning in general that prompts Socrates to respond in this way. For Meno has delivered a nasty blow to education: how, indeed, can we learn anything worth knowing if we don't already know it well enough to recognize its truth? Does truth prevail upon us with reliable signs of its validity? And why are they reliable? No, one might well follow Meno blindly into the abyss that ascribes all knowledge to authority, to the force of rhetoric or politics, to belief, not knowledge. Knowledge, according people like him, is just information. We "learn" by dictation. Someone in authority tells the "truth," and we adopt it until another contradicts with greater force, that is, one might be tempted to say: with greater truth. �But even if Socrates's myths and demonstrations are his means of combatting defeatist formulas like the one Meno dredges up at this point, how are we to take them? If literal, the myth of recollection leaves us in a static world of fixed and finite knowledge: we never discover anything new, just recover what we already knew but forgot. Is there a less restrictive way of understanding "recollection?" Some way that encourages us to explore and find out for ourselves? One thing we must agree on: any assertion must acquire a verbal form for us to be capable of weighing and examining its truth. In the Theatetus, Socrates speaks of himself as a "midwife," someone who merely assists at a birth, someone who helps decide whether the birth of an idea that produces real offspring or just a "wind egg." Here arises the possibility of a real advance in knowledge, for whatever idea this verbal "child" represents inherits nothing from the "midwife," but solely from the "parent," the one who first puts the idea into words. So, Theatetus does not have to rely on previous existence or experience to articulate the truth. His definition of knowledge, for example, may be evaluated independent of its "parentage," as soon as it is born into verbal form. Here is one way out of the dilemma presented by the theory of recollection: learning is not just recognition of something already known, but can be the birth of something new in the soul. Thus also the slave boy in the Meno dialog: once he has been shown a line upon which to build the double square, he must examine it and test it to make it knowledge and not just true opinion--"tether it" so that it won't run away, as Socrates says. You don't really know anything unless you can account for it with a logical argument that ties it down and makes it yours. How important is it that the slave boy received help to discover the proper line? It doesn't detract from Socrates's refusal to claim ownership of this line as long as the boy accepts the diagonal as a mere candidate for what is sought, one that ignores any influence of the teacher, of Socrates. The line is like a hypothesis--it gains acceptance with testing. The more we wrestle with a hypothesis, the more it persuades us. There is another advantage to be gained from this "maieutic theory" expounded in the Theatetus: one discovery can prompt others. Thus, the diagonal that solves the problem posed by Socrates in the Meno has properties interesting to explore. Were the slave boy encouraged to examine this line in relation to the sides of the square he might possibly notice that they are not commensurable: no line, however small, can measure both side and diagonal precisely. Here could begin a whole new science, one which makes clear the essential mathematical difference between arithmetic and geometry. Surely it is no accident that we discover Theatetus at the start of his dialog eagerly exploring the nature of incommensurability as expressed by surds: what we would call square roots and their relations: the incommensurables. The recollection myth (I think at this point I can call it a myth) recurs in the Phaedo. But there it is the face of death, not ignorance that inspires the tale. It is the day assigned to �Socrates's execution, and Socrates realizes that he must find a way to comfort the friends and disciples he will leave behind when he swallows the poison. So he must convince them that he will survive death: the soul lives not only before birth, as the theory of recollection requires, but after death as well. Immortality! But forgetfulness as well. The same dilemma confronts us as in the Meno. Our mortal life never teaches us anything, says that dialog, at best recalling what we learned before we were born. The world of ideas fixes us forever the same, nothing new ever greets us. One more dialog comes to mind, when we search for the answer to the question of how learning is possible: the Phaedrus. An indirect answer, perhaps, but a compelling one: "Beauty alone has this privilege," says Socrates, "to be most manifest to sense and most lovely of them all" (i.e. of the forms of the virtues, like temperance, justice and wisdom-c.f. 250d). That is, we fall in love because we see the form itself of beauty, and by this passion can recognize the fact that we have come face to face with an ideal, with a platonic "eidos," or form, something usually obscured by our bodies, by failures to describe it in language, by the conflict of needs and desires, by the distractions and exigencies of everyday life. Now, Socrates maintains that sight is the clearest sense, and the faculty that affords us the best glimpse of beauty. But I wonder what music has to contribute to the longing for virtue, knowledge and wisdom. What appeals to the eye and what appeals to the ear should have something in common, if we call both the sight and the sound "beautiful," even if that common thread of beauty eludes words. Socrates does not mention it, so focused is he on dialectic and discourse, but experience can sometimes be better shared without relying on textual explication. Try to tell someone who has never been in the water how it feels to dive or to swim. No, you have to get your feet wet to know what swimming is. Many of us think of music as song. The latest hit is almost always identified with its text. But the marriage of words and melody is always uneasy. It is tempting to consider the music as derivative: first came lyrics, then we "set them to music," much as we might add illustrations to a story. Hardly ever does the music come first. If we go back a few hundred years, however, we find a different story. The seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of our own millennium brought about a revolution. Instrumental music freed itself from text, made it clear that words could get in the way. In prior centuries, a band might decorate a dance or a dinner, but I doubt anyone thought of celebrating the music for its own sake, other than to provide a pleasant background. We've come a long way since then. A symphony or a sonata doesn't sound incomplete because lacking text. In fact, words would interfere and distract from the purely musical experience. Think how silly it would be to add words to a Beethoven symphony, e.g. "Beethoven's Fifth...Gives you a lift." An advertising jingle at best! Opera? Well, yes. It evolved during the same time that instrumental music branched out on its own. But there's always a shaky marriage between text and music, and in practice �almost inevitably we regard the words as primary, the music as at best commentary and illustration. We do associate musical gestures with energy and passion, but with little precision. Is an aria delivered with love or anger? To find out for sure, we consult the plot, character and lyrics rather than the melody or rhythm. The music can, of course, compliment the passions called for by the drama, and raise the level of enjoyment far above cliche or awkwardness in the words sung. In which case we might well choose to ignore the textual details, retaining only its general sentiment. But to omit all reference to the character's role and the immediate circumstances of plot would defeat the purpose of the opera. As for listening to music without words, much of the richness of that experience depends on transformation and recognition: on our extraordinary ability to detect similarities in a melody even when transposed to a different key or mode, decorated with trills and other musical flourishes, stretched out or compressed in time, altered rhythmically: in short, to recognize a melodic profile. So song writing or musical drama must always present a struggle between two very different arts: a fruitful struggle, perhaps, but always a rivalry. Whatever can be expressed in words will almost inevitably capture our attention first, since that can prompt debate in words. But something immediately displays its absence if we eliminate the music and read a libretto like a drama. Can the same thing be said were we to hear an opera without words, or even sung in a language we don't understand? As is true of most operas we're likely to hear. An article in the July issue of "New Scientist" (?) talks about new technology to help identify nuances in facial and vocal expression that convey subtle but significant information about emotions, nuances that we are aware of perhaps only half the time but are reliable indicators. Companies have already invested in instruments--e.g. special glasses--to amplify and interpret such cues in order to increase sales. Scary! Not quite so frightening, perhaps, if we recall (from the tale of Odysseus's dog, Argus) that animals are quite adept at simple recognition of that kind: of mood and attitude as well as physical identity. Peculiar to mankind is a much deeper and more subtle kind of recognition. We at least try to glimpse the face of truth and the melody of justice! (Or the face of justice and the melody of understanding.) Our powers of recognition extend all the way from cell to sensation to thought. Socrates would be suspicious of the claim to musical recognition, if for no other reason than the difficulty we have talking about pure music without relying on cumbersome technical jargon. The problem is more acute with the printed word than with sheet music, for words can signify silently, music can not. It is not necessary to translate a sentence into speech-spoken speech, that is--for it to mean something, whereas silent music is no music at all. Except in the case of poetry, it is not the experience of hearing speech that is important, whereas it is precisely perception of the pitch, timbre, dynamics and rhythmic profile that makes music what it is, Thus, our pleasure in listening to a concert may be complete �simply in listening to it, but there is always something missing when we read a dialog. Reading it aloud wouldn't help much. We can't share thoughts in the same way as we share music. Music comes alive with performance. A dialog must be generated anew from principles and ideas, melted in the cauldron of conversation before it comes to life again. None of this denigrates the power of music, but it does make a spoken dialog a more precarious mode of communication, in which the reader or auditor must participate as an act-er not as an act-or. That is, one can only play a genuine part in a Platonic dialog by confronting its ideas directly, seriously, honestly, refuting them where possible; adopting them where necessary, and always with another person to respond, argue and speculate on his or her own behalf. Perception of a dialog alone is not enough. One must join in, and not just pretend to. Everyone's knowledge and understanding are at stake. Immortality So, as far as the Meno is concerned (or any other Platonic dialog, for that matter) we have to interpret, not swallow whole. It's not gospel. Indeed, when I'm listening to Plato, the gospel itself isn't "gospel," for that requires a faculty of judgment none of us are born with, and hence has to be granted us by divine dispensation. As Kierkegaard says, when Plato speaks no special monitor provides the condition necessary to understand what is said. We can discover his meaning for ourselves, and without Plato's help. My own attempt to wrestle with the dialog is for my benefit, no one else's. I harvest what I can from that struggle, taking care not to fall too easily under the spell of Socrates (who does indeed perhaps resemble the torpedo fish to which Meno compares him--I have to be careful not to be numbed by his wonderful myths and images). Reading the gospel as "gospel," however, requires privileged access. Many of the dialogs, including the Meno, refer to a kind of immortality, insofar as they focus on the soul and its being and existence and fate. Our bodies grow, age and perish; the elements of memory, passion and reason that we want to identify with soul evolve in a different way, for, although some faculties may weaken with age, knowledge accumulates, and to some extent makes up for losses in speed and power. So, one is tempted to follow Socrates's lead in ascribing a life to the soul distinct from the body. But what kind of life? Do we survive as ourselves after death? With all the personality and memories we call our own exclusively? Could we have existed preformed and preinformed even before we were born, as Socrates claims in the Meno, Republic and other dialogs? And, if we are not to take either of both of these hypotheses literally, how are we to interpret them? We have already mentioned the disadvantages that accompany an assumption of all knowledge preexisting in us before birth: the rigidity involved in permanence, the lack of possibility of growth, of true discovery and learning. If, with Aristotle, you assume the existence of an omniscient mind of some kind, then we are perpetually groping towards something that always exists, however elusively, out of our reach. The truth does not �grow; it is we who grow towards it (if we are lucky and persistent). Plato's intellectual cosmos seems to take a similar stance: "the soul has learned all things." But, to corroborate this myth, Socrates engages Meno's slave in a demonstration that leads further than the myth itself. For it looks as if the boy really learns something, something we don't have to assume he already knew but forgot, despite Socrates's insistence. The one part of the demonstration we must hold on to is the birth of the new geometric notion in his head, and, consequently, the curiosity and insight that birth must invoke. It is even possible, that, were he not a slave, the boy might have pursued some of the thoughts that inevitably spiral out from this discovery of the square's diagonal, in the way that Theatetus must have done under the tutelage of Theodorus: new thoughts about incommensurability and number and geometry. And so knowledge can grow and advance without the memory inherited from a prior existence, which could well turn out to be more an impediment than a help. Of course, such new knowledge must be evaluated and tested. That is how it crystallizes into true knowledge. To begin with, it threatens to run away, like the statues of Daedulus (which were so lifelike, they could escape without warning.) It must be '"tethered,"as Socrates explains in the latter part of the dialog, it must be supported by argument, by a "logos," an account that answers potential objections or misunderstandings, that links one bit of knowledge to another to build a coherent whole. Just presenting the argument as a whole doesn't work. Each individual must make the connections himself or herself for it to advance from opinion to knowledge. So, the Socratic myth that best introduces the possibility of a true advance in knowledge is rather the one that makes the teacher a "midwife" rather than a lecturer. Or maybe I could suggest another myth to supplement this one: a gymnast. Socrates is your opponent, a worthy opponent. Don't let him distract you or flatter you with his charming tales and images. You must wrestle with him and his ideas if you want to discover your own. No. He's not present? Then, let someone else take his part. Gymnastics and music: some of you may recall how these two disciplines played a major role in the education of the young in Socrates's republic. There they were intended to balance the soul at an early stage of learning, before our full skill in verbalization has developed. But even after we have developed the ability to speak and argue, gymnastics and music continue to support the advance of understanding, each in its own way. Gymnastics becomes more a struggle with words and ideas than with bodies, transforming itself into dialectic. Music evolves into the participation in what I have to call the spiritual legacy of mankind, in an experience that transcends the separateness of individuals to share the best of imagination, thought and perception we all inherit from a universal past: universal because it has no specific interest in physical desire and necessity. The musical world cannot be measured nor limited by scientific tools, but only enjoyed by the human being as a whole. To relish the full experience, you have to listen and think at the same time. But for us to take part in this artistic resource in music--as in the legacy of argument and �discussion--we need notation, we need to capture and preserve the experience in some symbolic form that can inspire performance. For music, this requires a notation; for philosophy we need the printed word. Socrates himself doubts the efficacy of print. Too dumb and inflexible. Lysias's speech, for example (in the Phaedrus) gets torn to shreds by the subsequent dialog. But it also spawns competition on the part of Socrates to elevate the discussion with image and argument: e.g., by introducing the charioteer, Thoth, the Egyptian god of hieroglyphics, and Typhon, the windy abductor, who may still haunt the grove where he and Phaedrus find shade and conversation. In the end we have to question Socrates's own concern for privacy. After all, he refused to write anything down, and, as he seems to assert at the conclusion of the Phaedrus, warned others against the soullessness of print. Without a speaker, speech becomes a fossil. Don't freeze your speech. It will be misread and misunderstood and won't be able to defend itself. It always needs an advocate. So, had Plato not dared to disobey his mentor, we would all be at a loss, not only for the opinions expressed in the dialogs, but for the chance to challenge and modify and develop them, make them our own, take a step forward in philosophy, progress beyond where we were. The danger of misstep and mistake is always there, yes, but that's what friends (and even enemies!) are for: to help us when we stumble. There's another reason we have to be grateful for print and paper. Over the centuries we have accumulated a great legacy of literary, philosophical and musical works. We can participate in our inheritance whenever we choose--actively in the case of philosophy; passively for most of us in the case of music. Philosophy is in its nature never complete, always searching. Music, on the other hand asks for performance, yes, but not for substantial changes. It is enough just to become a part of that world created by gifted composers in the past, and we do so whenever we listen attentively. We have no interest in changing or developing an argument in music, as we do in discussing prose. Sharing in the musical experience is our aim, not improving it. Participating in our artistic inheritance is a form of immortality, one accessible to all of us. Conclusion There are several different ways in which we can learn, then. We can adopt the vocabulary of another person, naming things and ideas with sounds and groups of letters that have been accepted as common reference to those things and ideas. That is the level of simple information. If we don't know the name of an animal we saw, we can describe it until our description recalls a picture to our interlocutor, and prompts a name: "large, heavy, gray, with a nose hanging down in front like a hose..." "Oh, you mean an elephant" For such recognition all you need is someone who speaks the same language. But with a concept like "justice," you need an especially thoughtful correspondent, one who can develop the idea both in opposition and in agreement. That's part of the "tethering" �process. It's clear that the latter approach is the one that might expand the bounds of knowledge, building but not dependent on a common vocabulary through which we can conduct the dialog. So, yes, we need both types of learning and teaching, and the right balance between the two kinds of knowledge isn't always easy. If I am drawn more the latter, that is because it alone includes the possibility of advance in our human desire to grow, to find new planets to visit and new ideas to explore. The other kind--information-becomes easier to find every day. But it's borrowed knowledge at best: a "statue of Daedulus, if you will, that we can admire at a distance. To dwell with it long enough for it to become part of ourselves, to become "second nature," so that we can explain and demonstrate well enough to engage and convince others: that requires more effort than we may be willing to give it. But if we don't tie them down well, these "statues" will run away. We'll be left with mere information, with hearsay, not knowledge. The serious pursuit of music and gymnastics--of their mature form in art and dialogue--can achieve the balance of thought and experience which was what Socrates sought to create in both child and adult. The prescription of both gymnastics and music for education does not cease when we move into adulthood and acquire skill at putting our thoughts into words. I may disagree with Socrates here to some extant, because he seems to be all too quick to discard what our eyes and ears can contribute to the well-being of us as sensitive as well as rational creatures, capable of perception as well as thought. Dialectic can embody elements of the both disciplines in a mature form: let gymnastics graduate into the art of wrestling with words rather than bodies; let music become the search for harmony in general, for the reconciliation of differences. But gymnastics should continue to exercise our bodies in its original form as well, and music to delight and lead our sentient selves into the participation in the beauty and truth which our most talented and ingenious predecessors have made accessible to all of us whenever we want. Human wisdom, the creations of the human mind and spirit, belongs to all of us; we take nourishment from it when we will.** * The title page was added by the catalog librarian at the Greenfield Library. The title of the lecture was taken from the St. John’s College 2012/2013 lecture schedule. ** The last line was transcribed from the recording of this 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 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. 16 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephenson, David Hanford Title A name given to the resource Melodies and Faces: A Meno Meditation Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-11-02 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on November 2, 2012, by David Stephenson as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Subject The topic of the resource Plato, Meno Learning Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80766 Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/57">Audio recording</a> Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/bc11adaf741c26ae8787a32c7cfdc1ce.mp3 4c9f6a15f6d2dae9dba3b4aa35c14a4f 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:00:31 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephenson, David Hanford Title A name given to the resource Melodies and Faces: A Meno Meditation Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-11-02 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 2, 2012, by David Stephenson as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Subject The topic of the resource Plato. Meno Learning Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Stephenson_David_2012-11-02_ac Relation A related resource <a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/58">Typescript</a> Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/18bfeaae49243500a7c1d258d4201518.mp3 b79a3597744b296a9a0171bbae7d590e 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 CD Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:07:25 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Selcer, Daniel Title A name given to the resource Thought, Image, and the Printed Page in Early Modern Europe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-10-26 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on October 26, 2012, by Daniel Selcer as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Selcer_Daniel_2012-10-26_ac Subject The topic of the resource Materialism--History Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a5984db38d7e1d414ea286914b7b2afd.mp3 0c86aa642e8994f1e8e7e523873aac3e 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 Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data wav Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:55:21 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scott, John T., 1963- Title A name given to the resource Resentment, Injustice, and the Appeal to Providence in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-01-10 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on January 10, 2014, by John Scott as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Subject The topic of the resource Smith, Adam, 1723-1790. Theory of moral sentiments. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Scott_John_T_2014-01-10_ac Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/db50401157cf0299c23c7ce8d620768b.pdf 5853abe246489a8673a534d93b39c5dd PDF Text Text The Anger of Achilles, and its Source: A Reading of Book One of the Iliad Adam Schulman St. John’s College, Annapolis September 7, 2012 Anger—sing goddess the anger of Peleus’ son Achilles. Why is it that “anger” is the first word of the first great book of Western civilization, and of the St. John’s College curriculum? Why did Homer choose to write an epic poem of some 15,000 lines about the anger of Achilles? Why should anger be an important theme, if not the central theme, of all of classical literature? How might reflection on anger form at least the startingpoint, if not also the core, of a liberal education? These are questions I hope to illuminate, and perhaps to answer, through a reading of the first book of the Iliad, with some passages from later books. Let me first summarize the events depicted in Book One of the Iliad. After invoking the muse and announcing his theme—the anger of Achilles—Homer tells the story of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, a quarrel he says was set in motion by Apollo. Chryses, a priest of Apollo, comes to the swift ships of the Achaians bearing an immense fortune, to ransom back his daughter, evidently captured in a previous raid on a Trojan town and taken by Agamemnon as his personal prize. Despite the enthusiastic approval of the army, Agamemnon refuses to give up the girl, and the priest, fleeing, prays to Apollo for vengeance, which comes in the form of a deadly plague afflicting the entire army. On the tenth day of the sickness, with no end in sight, Achilles calls an assembly, where Calchas the seer reveals that the plague is Apollo’s punishment for dishonoring his priest. Only the return of the girl, now for no ransom, together with a huge sacrifice, will propitiate the angry god. Agamemnon, infuriated, is willing to free her, but demands that some other girl be given to him in her place, lest he be the only Achaian left without a prize. Achilles is outraged by this demand and insists that there are no spare girls around to hand over to Agamemnon as a prize. After an exchange of bitter insults, Achilles �threatens to withdraw from the fight and go home, and Agamemnon announces that he will take Achilles’ own prize, the beautiful Briseis, to compensate him for the loss of Chryseis, the daughter of the priest. Achilles, in his anger, is tempted to kill Agamemnon right then and there, but the goddess Athena restrains him. Instead, Achilles returns to his tent, Agamemnon sends his men there to seize Briseis, and the Achaians bring Chryseis back to her father and make the required sacrifice. Apollo is appeased, the plague comes to an end, and the Achaians, now without Achilles, are ready to resume the fight against Troy. Meanwhile, Achilles prays to his mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, to persuade Zeus to give aid to the Trojans in the fight, so that many Achaians will be killed, and Agamemnon will rue the day he dishonored Achilles, the best of the Achaians. The rest of Book One shows how Thetis journeyed to Olympus to supplicate Zeus, how Zeus considered and granted her son’s request, and how Hera and Zeus quarreled with each other after the visit by Thetis. Now perhaps it will seem obvious that the main reason Achilles gets angry is that, after all, Agamemnon has just threatened to take away his girlfriend, his beloved Briseis, presumably intending to have his way with her in his tent. It is, in fact, right after Agamemnon utters this threat that Achilles feels a strong urge to draw his sword and kill Agamemnon on the spot (188). On the other hand, Achilles himself speaks very provokingly throughout the exchange and seems intent on escalating the quarrel with Agamemnon at every turn. That is especially evident when old Nestor intervenes with soothing words, encouraging Agamemnon not to take away Briseis and Achilles not to struggle against a sceptered king, to whom Zeus has given glory (274-279). When Agamemnon appears ready to accept Nestor’s sensible advice and back down, Achilles interrupts him and insists that Agamemnon can go ahead and take the girl but warns that he will kill him if he tries to take away anything else. So we are inclined to suspect that Achilles harbored grievances against Agamemnon well before the quarrel over Briseis. Reading a little more carefully, we can see other grounds for Achilles’ anger that, it seems, were already present even before Agamemnon threatened to take away Briseis. Achilles accuses Agamemnon of being a greedy coward, who during the sacking of cities hangs back from the dangerous fighting while allowing others to win spoils for him. According to Achilles, Agamemnon has “never dared in [his] spirit to put on [his] armor 2 �with the troops for war, nor to go on an ambush with the best of the Achaians” (225-227). And yet, while Achilles considers himself to be the best of the Achaians (244, 412) he says at the start of the quarrel that Agamemnon now boasts that he himself is “by far the best of the Achaians” (91). What is at stake in this dispute about which warrior is “the best of the Achaians”? No doubt that title would involve a variety of excellences, including strength, and swiftness, and skill, but it seems clear that the core of Achilles’ claim to excellence lies in his arete, that is, his manly virtue, manifested above all as courage in the face of violent death. In Achilles’ view, the Achaians show their virtue—or lack of it—especially in ambushes, where a handful of troops sit in silence, eyeing each other tensely, and awaiting the sudden onslaught of ferocious man-to-man combat. Much later, in Book Thirteen of the Iliad, the Cretan hero Idomeneus gives us a vivid account of how such ambushes show who is a coward and who is not: If now beside the ships all the best men were to assemble for an ambush where most of all the virtue of men is discerned, there the cowardly man and the courageous are shown forth clearly, for the skin of the coward changes color one way and another, and the spirit in his midriff cannot restrain him to sit untrembling, but he squats shifting from ham to ham, and shifts from one foot to the other, and the heart inside his chest pounds greatly as he thinks about Death, and a chattering of the teeth commences. But the good man’s skin does not change color nor is he overly frightened, Once he has taken his place in the ambush of men, But he prays to be mixed as fast as possible in baneful war. (13.276-286) Among other things, this passage makes clear that, for Idomeneus, the man who displays courage and steadfastness in the face of death is the good man simply, while the coward, whose heart pounds, and whose skin changes color, and who squats and shifts nervously from one foot to the other, is the bad man simply. For Achilles as well, it seems, the habitual absence of Agamemnon from such ambushes is a sure sign that he is not a man of virtue in the primary sense of the word. Perhaps, then, the underlying reason for Achilles’ anger is the thought that he, a man of virtue and the best of the Achaians, is under the authority of a king who has proved himself to be an inferior man, a greedy, selfish coward, who does not deserve to have heroes like Achilles risking their lives for him in battle day after day. On this reading, Achilles’ anger is an expression of righteous 3 �indignation at the manifest injustice of his situation at Troy. It is not surprising, then, that Achilles is seething with resentment even before Apollo’s plague strikes the army, and the quarrel over Briseis is merely the occasion for that smoldering indignation to burst into open flame. But even this more careful account of the anger of Achilles does not seem to me to go deep enough. One clue that there is more to be said about the source of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon can be found in the odd way Homer introduces us to that subject. He asks, rhetorically, “Which one of the gods set these two together to fight in strife?” and his answer is Apollo, who, “in his anger at the king, sent an evil sickness throughout the army, and the troops were dying” (9-10). And, in fact, it is on the tenth day of that unrelenting and deadly plague that Achilles feels moved to make his first speech in the Iliad. It seems to me that Homer asks his rhetorical question precisely in order to indicate to us that the origin of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon is questionable—not obvious as it might seem—and that, in fact, the plague sent by Apollo might have a great deal to do with the anger of Achilles. Let me explain. When the priest Chryses first prayed to Apollo for vengeance, he addressed the god as Smintheus, that is “mouse god” (39). In the Iliad, Apollo, the far-shooter, seems to be a god responsible for disease rather than for health, perhaps in this instance for a plague borne by rodents. In Homer’s description of the start of the plague, Apollo “came like the night” (47); first to die were the mules and the dogs, and then the men, and the funeral pyres of the dead were burning continuously (50-52). Achilles, calling the assembly on the tenth day of the plague, seems particularly horrified by the thought that he and the other Achaians might die not gloriously in battle but ignominiously from this pestilence, carried into the camp by mice, that kills anonymously and indiscriminately, striking dogs and mules as well as men. Achilles even suggests in his first speech that they should all go home, if they can escape death, since war and plague together are now subduing the Achaians (61). It is striking that Achilles is the one to raise the possibility of abandoning the war and returning home, for later in Book One he tells his mother, “you bore me to be short-lived” (352), implying that he believed he was destined to die young. And Thetis appears to confirm this, saying, “indeed your allotted span is short, not very long at all, but as it is, you are quick to die and miserable beyond all men” (416). It is only in Book Nine that we 4 �learn from Achilles himself that his mother had in fact offered him a choice: My mother the goddess Thetis of the silver feet tells me I carry two sorts of doom towards the end of death. If I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans, my return home is lost, but my fame shall be everlasting; But if I go home to the dear land of my fathers, my excellent fame is lost, but there will be a long time for me, Nor will the end of death reach me quickly. (9.410-416) In light of this fuller account of Achilles’ dual destinies, I think we have to read the Book One passages about his fate to mean that, to a man like Achilles, the choice between a long dull life at home without fame and a brief but glorious life at Troy ending with death in battle seemed no choice at all, that he felt all but compelled to take the path that will shortly cost him his life but will win him imperishable glory. And, far from making him the most miserable of mortals, Achilles might have thought that the choice of fates offered to him was a supremely noble one. After all, to be truly the best of the Achaians and worthy of imperishable glory—perhaps the only form of immortality available to a human being—it would not suffice to be a great and effective fighter; one would also have to show the supreme virtue of courage, above all by facing death unflinchingly. And what better way to show such courage than to accept the certainty of death at a young age as the price one is willing to pay for an imperishable and glorious name? This is not to suggest that Achilles had a clear-sighted understanding of his own selfinterested motives in choosing to risk his life for the sake of glory. In the quarrel with Agamemnon he insists (152-162) that he is fighting at Troy not for his own good but only to please Agamemnon and to win honor for him and his brother. We see in this claim the essential paradox of manly virtue, that it is pursued for the sake of glory—a selfish good—and yet it must be pursued unselfishly, for its own sake or for the good of another, if it is to be deemed worthy of the highest honor. In his confusion, Achilles believes both that his virtue is selfless and that it is best for him. Now a warrior of Achilles’ rank might reasonably expect that his manly virtue and other excellences would, most of the time if not all the time, make him victorious in battle, regularly defeating and even killing his foes, and not being defeated or killed by them. That is, he would expect his virtue to offer him considerable protection against defeat and death rather than lead inevitably, let alone quickly, to his demise. Nonetheless, 5 �there would be something troubling about a kind of virtue so overwhelmingly superior that it simply guaranteed a warrior’s safety and success in battle, so that the prospect of an ambush would be no more terrible and frightening to him than, say, the task of ridding his house of ants or cockroaches. There has to be a genuine risk of death, it seems, if manly virtue is to be truly deserving of immortal glory. On the other hand, it would be absurd if this risk of death were so great that Achilles got himself killed, and his life cut short, in his very first battle at Troy. Perhaps, then, it would be more reasonable to say that what the best of the Achaians expects of his manly virtue is that it will protect him from death for a time but that, if he should perish splendidly in battle, his virtue in life and in death will be remembered and admired forever. But even then, the choice to risk or sacrifice his life for glory would seem to be the exchange of a lesser good for a greater good, hence not really a sacrifice at all, but rather a choice that any prudent selfinterested man would make if he could. In any event, ten days of unrelenting plague sent by the mouse-god Apollo, with men and animals dying all around him, have perhaps shaken Achilles’ confidence in the choice he made, reminding him forcefully that nothing in life is certain, that the gods may have their own plans to which we are not privy, and that it is not at all impossible that Achilles himself will end up one of the multitude of mules, dogs, and men randomly brought down by this dreadful and indiscriminate disease. That is, the plague raises for Achilles the suspicion that he might himself perish at Troy ignominiously and anonymously, rather than in a noble and distinguished display of manly arete. It might turn out that the gods in the end are indifferent to our fate, and even to our virtue, that they hold us in no higher regard than dogs and mules, and that it is of little concern to them whose body ends up piled on the burning heaps of disease-ravaged corpses. A hero who died in that way, no more valiantly than a mule or a dog, would be a thing arousing horror and pity, surely not a fit subject for imperishable glory, even if the gods somehow contrived for that to be his destiny. It would therefore not be surprising if at this moment Achilles is beginning to wonder whether the short violent life at Troy was so obviously superior to a long dull life at home. Later, in Book Nine, during the embassy of Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix, we will see even more evidence of Achilles’ ambivalence regarding the wisdom of his choice. It is 6 �here that Achilles expresses his most serious doubts as to whether the life of the warrior is worthwhile. An equal fate, he tells Odysseus, awaits the man who holds back and the one who fights hard. “The bad man and the good man are both held in the same honor. A man who has done nothing dies just like one who has done much” (318-320). And he declares that all the possessions that can be won by fighting are not worth risking one’s life for. (405-409) Yet he cannot make up his mind whether to stay at Troy and return to the fighting or to go home to Phthia. He first tells Odysseus that he and all his men will be sailing away from Troy the next morning, hoping to reach Phthia on the third day (359-363). He speaks of his plans to take a wife in marriage and enjoy with her the possessions won by his father (398-400). He then tells Phoenix that he hasn’t made up his mind but will decide tomorrow whether to go back home or remain at Troy (618-619). And finally he tells Ajax to inform Agamemnon that he will return to the fighting, but only when Hector and the Trojans have come all the way to the ships and tents of the Myrmidons, slaughtering the Argives as they come (648-653). So suppose that Achilles is having doubts about the wisdom of the choice he made to stay at Troy and fight, doubts either first raised by the plague sent by Apollo or at any rate brought vividly to mind on that occasion. What has all this to do with Achilles’ anger at Agamemnon? Let us look once more at that quarrel, in light of the suggestion that Achilles is just now calling into question whether the choice he has made, to die young in battle in return for the promise of immortal fame, is a sound and reasonable one. When the seer Calchas tells him that he must return Chryses to her father, a bitter Agamemnon complains that he had wanted to take her home with him, preferring her in fact to his own wife Clytemnestra, to whom she is not inferior in body and stature and wits and work (113-115). Agamemnon, it is clear, is not one of those warriors who is planning to die gloriously in battle; instead, he never loses sight of his eventual goal, to return to Argos and live out his life as a happy, rich, and celebrated king. Achilles responds by addressing him as “most famous son of Atreus, most possession-loving of all men” (122). He goes on to accuse Agamemnon of always taking the biggest prizes for himself, heaping up abundance and wealth while leaving the most dangerous fighting to others (165-167; 171). As his anger burns hotly, Achilles even declares, as we noted above, that Agamemnon has “never dared in [his] spirit to put on [his] armor with the 7 �troops for war or to go on an ambush with the best of the Achaians” (225-227). Perhaps, in his anger, Achilles exaggerates the charges, as angry people are prone to do. But suppose it is true that Agamemnon fights as little as possible, prefers the lucrative raiding of villages to dangerous combat with the Trojans, takes care to avoid endangering his life, and carefully heaps up piles of treasure and beautiful women to take home with him to enjoy for the rest of his life. Why should that make Achilles angry? It would seem, after all, that all the warriors at Troy face a choice something like that which Achilles was given, even if the two alternative destinies are not laid out for them as starkly as they were for him. That is, they can either conduct themselves primarily with a view to displaying utmost valor in combat, at great personal risk to life and limb, or they can make it their paramount aim to survive the war and flourish afterward, even at the cost of some diminished reputation; or, more likely, they will pursue some muddled, middling course in between these extremes. But it ought not to surprise a proud hero like Achilles that few men would have the courage to make the choice he made, and it should even be a source of satisfaction to him, and a confirmation that he is truly the best of the Achaians, that most of his fellow soldiers, and even some of their illustrious leaders, cannot face their deaths as fearlessly as he does. Why should it trouble Achilles that the short brilliant life, and the promise of eternal glory, are a blessed destiny reserved for only the best of the Achaians? One might even say that a man confident in his virtue, and assured of the power of virtue to win him the only kind of destiny that can truly overcome death, would feel pity rather than anger at those inferior men who are not able to face their death with the same courage and steadfastness. When Achilles, who considers himself a man of virtue, gets angry at those who are not virtuous, his anger reveals the unclarity of his thinking about virtue itself: if virtue is good for us, then the unvirtuous deserve our pity; if it is bad for us, why pursue it in the first place? In either case, there would be no basis for anger. But Achilles’ anger at the unmanly Agamemnon has now been further inflamed by the suspicion that he himself may have been wrong all along about the power of virtue to overcome death, i.e., to grant imperishable glory, a species of immortality, in compensation for our death. Achilles’ choice would then be a mistake, and men like Agamemnon might turn out to be right. The coward, the bad man, who conducts himself 8 �in battle so as to maximize his chances of surviving and flourishing afterward, might turn out to be the good man after all, or at least the man most likely to experience happiness in the all-too-brief span of a human life. Whereas the courageous man, who risks and even sacrifices his life with no guarantee of compensation, would turn out to be a deluded fool. Achilles, in his anger, calls Agamemnon “clothed in shamelessness, thinking only of gain” (148), a man who has “the eyes of a dog and the heart of a deer” (225). The heart of a deer is the heart of a cowardly man, who would flinch in combat from fear of death, and whose lack of manly virtue would be manifest to his comrades as soon as he was compelled to take his place on an ambush with the best of the Achaians. But what are the eyes of a dog? A dog is a slave to his desires, especially for food, and every dog owner is familiar with that shameless look in the eyes of a begging dog, a look that says, “I am mastered by my overpowering desire and I will do anything to satisfy it.” According to Achilles, Agamemnon is not only a greedy coward who shrinks from death and cares only about gain, he even does those things publicly without any shame. But if Achilles is wrong about virtue and its power vis-à-vis death, then it might turn out that human excellence—or at any rate, the most serviceable way of comporting oneself in this world—does not require courage but rather something like cowardice in the face of death and shamelessness in satisfying one’s appetites—in short, the heart of a deer and the eyes of a dog. It is this half-formed suspicion, I suggest—the vague fear that he might be utterly wrong about virtue, that those who care about virtue are deluding themselves, and that the best of the Achaians might not be a man of virtue at all but a shameless, selfish pursuer of material goods in the mold of Agamemnon—that fills Achilles with rage. But why should such a fear—the fear that virtue does not truly have the power to protect us from death—lead to anger? What accounts for the anger in the soul of a man who is assailed by doubts about the power of his virtue to protect him? Here too Homer has much to teach us through the example of Achilles. What he shows us is first, that anger is, or at least can be, a supremely talkative passion. The angry man is full of arguments, which he is eager to share with others, arguments that serve to justify his shaken convictions and restore his confidence in his own virtue and in the power of that virtue. In the case of Achilles, his anger seems to give him the hope, however fleeting, that by killing the miscreant Agamemnon he can prove that virtue is after all effective, 9 �that shameless cowards get the death they deserve, and that good men are vindicated and bad men punished, thus restoring the moral order of the world that seemed to be threatened. Anger, more than any other passion, can at times make us feel godlike, confident that our will will be accomplished, and even perhaps that we are the embodiment of a divine nemesis, inexorably insuring that justice will be done. Consider Achilles’ words to Athena when she comes down to stay his anger and stop him from stabbing Agamemnon to death: Why have you come this time, o child of aegis-bearing Zeus? Or is it to see the hubris of Atreus’ son Agamemnon? But I will tell you this, and I think it shall be accomplished. By such acts of insolence he may soon lose his life. (202-205) These are imperious words that a god might address to a mortal, as Athena gently suggests when she says, in answer, But I will tell you thus, and it also will be accomplished. (212) Achilles gives in to Athena on this occasion, but it must have come as a shock and a disappointment to him that a god would come down to prevent him from administering to the vicious Agamemnon the death that he so clearly deserved. It must have been even more shocking to Achilles when Athena tells him that she was sent down to stay his hand by the goddess Hera herself, who “in her spirit loves and cares for both of you alike.” (209). First Apollo, and now Athena and Hera, have given Achilles cause to wonder if the gods really care whether human beings get what they truly deserve. And that question, if followed up in a thoughtful and tough-minded way, might have led Achilles to the deeper and more troubling question of whether human beings really deserve anything. Anger, Homer shows us, is not so much a rational as a pseudo-rational passion. Angry words tend to be boastful and exaggerated. Consider, for example, Achilles’ improbable accusation, quoted above, that Agamemnon has never once dared to put on his armor to fight alongside the troops (225-227). Even more revealing is Achilles’ insistence, noted above, that he is here fighting at Troy only for the sake of Agamemnon and his brother, with no thought of personal benefit (152-162)—when actually, as we have seen, he is fighting primarily in order to achieve glory for himself. His anger lets him hide from himself the realization that in practicing manly virtue, and even in risking his life, he is not devoting himself selflessly to the good of others but is instead pursuing 10 �what he implicitly believes to be his own highest good. Judging by Achilles’ example, anger is not per se a dishonest passion; or at least the angry man thinks he his telling the simple truth. Indeed, anger often feels not so much like a passion as a perception, that is a perception of one’s own righteousness and of the injustice of others, and it is not surprising that the angry often feel as though they have attained, and are expressing in their speech, perfect clarity about their situation. But, as Homer shows us, anger does allow us, and perhaps even requires us, to lie to ourselves. In Book Nine, at the start of the embassy, Achilles declares to Odysseus, “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who conceals one thing in his heart and says another” (9.312-313). But at that very moment Achilles is speaking to his old friends with apparent sympathy while concealing in his heart the fact that he has arranged through his mother and Zeus for Hector and the Trojans to slaughter the Achaians and set fire to their ships. Yet, I am convinced, at that moment Achilles does not think of himself as a deceitful man; his anger protects him from such self-awareness. Surprisingly, however painful are the experiences that give rise to anger, anger itself turns out to be a sweet pleasure only masquerading as a pain, as Achilles himself comes to realize after the death of Patroklos. In Book Eighteen, in a moment of rare clarity and introspection, Achilles comments, If only strife might vanish from among gods and human beings, and anger, which makes even a very thoughtful man harsh and, much sweeter than honey that drips down, rises up like smoke in the hearts of men. (18.107-110) In this powerful image, the honey signifies the sweet pleasure of our experience of anger; the smoke points up the way anger clouds our rational judgment. Of course, only four lines after offering this remarkably thoughtful insight about anger, Achilles reverts to his old passion, vowing to hunt down and kill Hector in revenge for Patroklos. Had he been able to sustain that insight, and to follow through on its implications, he might have come to see that his anger, rather than a simple and healthy reaction to the injustice and wickedness of others, was instead a self-indulgent and self-deceiving pleasure, and that by wallowing in anger and self-pity, he was preventing himself from facing up to his fears about manly virtue and death. Achilles is indeed a paradoxical figure, at once the angriest man in the Iliad—if not in 11 �all of western literature—and at the same time capable on more than one occasion of the most thoughtful reflections about anger, mortality, and the contradictions of the heroic life. Somehow, no matter how clearly he sees that his anger is self-serving and destructive, no matter how penetrating are his insights into the incoherence of the life pursued by “the best of the Achaians,” Achilles always finds himself seduced once more by the honey and smoke. As we have seen, Achilles several times raises the possibility of leaving Troy, abandoning the life of the hero and the quest for immortal glory, and returning home to Phthia to find a more modest but more attainable felicity in (to quote Moby Dick) “the wife, and hearth, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country.” And yet, despite all his talk and all his doubts, Achilles never manages to summon the nerve to get up and leave. When Achilles first raised the possibility of leaving for Phthia, Agamemnon had answered, with contempt, “Flee, then, if your spirit urges you to” (173), and perhaps Achilles could not stand the thought of Agamemnon and the others speaking of him derisively as a coward after he and the Myrmidons had packed up and left. Maybe what kept him from acting on his convictions and leaving Troy was a lack of true courage, if there is such a thing. Courage so conceived would be a kind toughness or strength of soul that would enable the truly courageous man to follow through on his critical insights and pursue what is genuinely good no matter how painful he finds it to give up what is spuriously good. In any case, we learn from the story of Achilles that anger is perhaps the most un-philosophic of the passions and poses the gravest obstacle to genuine selfknowledge. It is in this sense that the Iliad shows us how the question of anger might form, if not the core, at any rate the starting point, of a liberal education. * To advance the discussion, let me remind you of the main points of my interpretation: First, that the claim to be the best of the Achaians is at its core a claim to possess manly virtue, arete, that is, courage in the face of death, to the highest degree; second, that the supremely virtuous man thinks himself worthy of everlasting glory, and believes that his virtue has the power, if not to protect him fully from death, at least to mitigate the sting of his mortality by rewarding him with such glory; third, that the anger of Achilles has as its 12 �ultimate source the fear that virtue does not in fact have such a power to overcome death; that the gods may in fact not care whether people get what they deserve; fourth, that together with this fear arises the painful thought that virtue itself might be not only impotent but incoherent, that there is nothing that we “deserve,” that human nobility might be an illusion, so that the only sensible way to go through life is to shamelessly pursue what we desire while avoiding death at all cost; it might turn out that the good man is the one with the eyes of a dog and the heart of a deer; and finally, that as long as we are prone to anger we will never be able to think through the problem of virtue, as anger is the most un-philosophic of passions, a pleasure masquerading as a pain, posing in itself the most serious impediment to self-knowledge. 13 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schulman, Adam Title A name given to the resource The anger of Achilles, and its source : a reading of book one of the Iliad Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-09-07 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 07, 2012 by Adam Schulman as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Subject The topic of the resource Homer. Iliad Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80678 Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/53">Audio recording</a> Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/7868ee997aa0043061585f817e0c736c.mp3 1f92da012dc5ebb239bebf8835612502 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:36:31 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/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Schulman, Adam Title A name given to the resource The Anger of Achilles, and Its Source: A Reading of Book One of the Iliad Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-09-07 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 7, 2012, by Adam Schulman as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Subject The topic of the resource Homer. Illiad Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80677 Relation A related resource <a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/54">Typescript</a> Friday night lecture Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f85cf36a2a6127ab2d3683b10caca370.MP3 0da99bbd16809622b6f335456286c1da 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. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:58:45 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data wav Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Roochnik, David Title A name given to the resource Teleology as Death Wish : A Nietzschean Critique of Aristotle Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-02-07 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of a lecture delivered on February 7, 2014, by David Roochnik as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, Md. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Subject The topic of the resource Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LEC_Roochnik_David_2014-02-07_ac Friday night lecture https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2ac4c7d3fc25e62facd4fe12c0c6905c.pdf 573353eeebd62f83d05e6801981762d9 PDF Text Text The Soul’s Choice of Life Most dreams are forgotten, perhaps even before the night has passed. Others obtrude into daytime thought, even as their meaning remains obscure. They haunt us, and seem to promise a rare and precious revelation. Their coming insistently to mind implies a faint undertone of reproach, like hearing your name repeated on waking, before you are quite sure who you are. Such dreams seem to call from afar, and from where we stand, they can only seem alien. But we also suspect that we are the ones who are out of place, and that the dream is calling us back from our wandering. In this recollection of the unfamiliar, we sense dimly that we are tied to what is familiar by only a specious kinship and that our true home lies elsewhere. This sort of strange appeal that calls us back from estrangement can characterize not only dreams or visions, but also deliberately produced works of art such as poems, paintings, and stories. In refusing to make any ordinary sort of sense, they refute our understanding and invite us to speak along with them in something like a foreign tongue. The dialogues of Plato, in particular, contain many examples of images or tales of this sort, beguiling works of imagination. For those of us who read and talk together about Plato with some frequency, such tales or images have become part of the vocabulary of our thought—perhaps even a large part, just as loanwords can come to outnumber a language’s own stock of true-born names. Reflecting briefly on a familiar one—the image of the cave in the Republic—will show something of how this process works and what it has to accomplish. Socrates has his interlocutor Glaucon imagine a cave in which people are chained in such a way as to see only the cave wall before them, on which shadows are projected by a fire above and behind them. Glaucon exclaims that these are “strange prisoners” (515a). “Like us,” Socrates replies. But then something odd happens. At the very 1 �moment when we might expect Socrates to offer the key by which to decipher these unfamiliar letters, he instead continues to speak in the language of the image. The prisoners are “like us,” he says, “for do you suppose such men would have seen anything of themselves or one another other than the shadows cast by the fire on the wall facing them?” Now, this is not so strange a move as to pose an impossible task of interpretation, especially to someone who has thought about the image for some time. We might start with the idea that our ordinary efforts to know are wrongly oriented and thus largely unsuccessful, and from there move on to the idea that this concerns not only our attempts to know the world but even our self-knowledge and knowledge of others. That sounds about right. But we should try to imagine what Socrates’ reply would sound like to someone who had never heard the rest or had the time to think about it, someone who does not know where he is going. To this person, Socrates’ response must seem pretty nearly the opposite of the explanation that Glaucon’s remark implicitly requested. After hearing it, Glaucon would probably still say that the prisoners are strange, perhaps as a sort of polite way of saying that the man telling him about the prisoners is strange, and it would be hard to disagree. But whether or not Glaucon meant his remark as a reproach, and however strange Socrates’ speech is, its strangeness does not stem from some madness of his, some disordered state of his powers of thought or imagination. What is truly strange here is not the image to which he gives voice, but the situation it is intended to portray, namely, the fact that creatures destined for knowledge should spend their lives so unaware of and so unwittingly cooperative with the powerful impediments to knowing that characterize their situation. The proper way to hear Socrates’ response to Glaucon’s remark about the prisoners’ strangeness is thus affirmatively—not “the prisoners are not strange; they are like us,” but, “they are like us, strange.” And his explanation is an explanation not of the prisoners’ likeness to us but of their 2 �strangeness; again, “do you suppose such men,” those described in the image, “would have seen anything of themselves or of each other than the shadows?” Given what Socrates is trying to accomplish, deflecting the question of likeness and going farther into the image may be the only way to make it work. The image presents important features of our epistemic situation that are normally difficult to discern, but that we can come to perceive if we take up an initially unfamiliar and awkward perspective, make it our own, and then turn this view back on what had previously gone unquestioned. In order to know, we must learn to speak strangely. With a few small though significant differences, this kind of change in understanding is what is aimed at by the final pages of the Republic, the so-called Myth of Er (614b-621b). It, too, is a fantastical story that represents in figurative form an important but overlooked dimension of our actual situation. Its fantastical character is not a product of wild genius, but arises from Plato’s rigorous attention to both the nature of human freedom and the difficulty of discerning this nature from within our ordinary perspective. In the case of the cave image our learned familiarity with it makes it relatively easy to put a name to what it is about; unlike Glaucon, we have read the Republic. And we get some more help from the fact that Socrates tells us outright what the image is meant to be an image of. “Make an image,” he says, “of our nature in its education and want of education” (514a). The Myth of Er, by contrast, is not presented as an image of anything at all. It is ostensibly the report of a man who returned from the dead to tell of what awaits souls after life. Socrates presents it as the completion of the dialogue’s investigation of justice, inasmuch as it gives an account of the good and bad that come from being just or unjust not in this life, but after death. In this connection, the story is a fitting end for the dialogue, in that it recapitulates a theme first sounded very near the beginning. Cephalus reports that as a young man he scoffed at 3 �the stories of punishment in the afterlife, but that old age has found him and his age-mates more fearful of what is to come. They are looking back over lives that contain perhaps no small measure of wrongdoing. Cephalus is thankful for his wealth, above all for the ability it gives him to conduct the costly private rituals of expiation that his fear has made seem prudent. Socrates’ return to this theme at the end of the dialogue, then, seems to endorse Cephalus’ anxious piety, at least in confirming that there is something to fear for those who have done wrong. But the story contains much more than is necessary for this purpose and for that reason demands interpretation. Also, it is just very strange. Even with some degree of paraphrase, it will take a few minutes to recount it. So, here it is. Upon his death, the soul of Er traveled along with other souls of the dead and came to a place where there were two openings in the earth and two in the sky, above and across from them. Between the pairs of openings sat judges, who directed the just to continue to the right and upward through the opening in the sky, and the unjust to go to the left and downward into the earth. Er himself they instructed to remain, observe, and report what he saw on his return to the world of the living. What he saw first was this: as some souls were going into the two openings indicated by the judges, other souls were coming out of the others, some up from earth, others down from the heavens. All those who had returned went off with delight to a nearby meadow, where they made camp and engaged in conversation. Those who had known each other in life greeted each other and asked what it was like in the other place. So they all told their stories, some lamenting and crying as they recalled all they had seen and undergone in the thousand-year journey beneath the earth, the others telling of the beauty of the sights and experiences above. In general, those who came from below the earth said they had received a tenfold punishment for each of their acts of injustice, once each hundred years, on the grounds that a human life was 4 �about a hundred years long. For acts of impiety towards the gods, the penalty was yet worse. Of one particularly terrible tyrant named Ardiaeus it was related that when it was his turn to go up, he and other perpetrators of unholy deeds were rejected by the opening. Men standing nearby seized them, then bound them, flayed them, and dragged them along the rough ground in the sight of the others, and finally cast them into the pit of Tartarus, from which none return. Fear of being rejected by the opening was thus the last of the punishments for souls who had lived an unjust life. The rewards for justice were said to be the counterparts of these. On the eighth day, the souls who had returned were made to leave the meadow and continue their journey. In four days’ time, they came to a place from which they could see a sort of pillar of light stretched from above through all of heaven and earth, like a rainbow. This light was said to bind the earth and the heavens and be connected to a complex, interlocking arrangement of whorls forming a sort of spindle, said to be that of goddess Ananke or Necessity. Her daughters, the Fates Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis, put their hands to the turning of these otherworldly whorls and were associated with the three dimensions of time: Atropos who cannot be turned with the future, Clotho the weaver with the present, and Lachesis the dispenser of lots with the past. The souls were then brought before Lachesis. Her spokesman gathered up the lots and patterns of lives that lay in her lap, and then delivered the goddess’ message to the souls arrayed before him. He said: “This is the speech of Ananke’s maiden daughter, Lachesis: ‘Ephemeral souls, this is the beginning of another death-bringing cycle for the mortal race. A spirit shall not be allotted to you, but you shall choose a spirit. Let the holder of the first lot make the first choice of a life to which it shall be bound by Ananke. Virtue is without a master; as each honors her, it shall have more or less of her. The blame belongs to the chooser; the god is blameless.’” 5 �Then the lots were distributed to the souls and the patterns of lives were laid out on the ground before them, lives of all sorts—lives of animals and tyrants, lives of the famous and the unregarded—and these lives far outnumbered the souls present. The spokesman continued: “Even for the one who comes forward last, if he chooses intelligently and lives earnestly, a life to be happy with has been laid out, and not a bad one. Let the first not be careless in his choice, nor the last disheartened.” Since the soul’s choice of life is my theme, let me read without paraphrase the section that follows, which deals most directly with that choice. “And the first to choose came forward and immediately chose the greatest tyranny, and, because of folly and gluttony, chose without having considered everything adequately; and it escaped his notice that eating his own children and other evils were fated to be a part of that life. When he considered it at his leisure, he beat his breast and lamented the choice, not abiding by the spokesman’s forewarning. For he didn’t blame himself for the evils but chance, demons, and anything rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, having lived under an orderly constitution in his former life, partaking of virtue by habit, without philosophy. And, it may be said, not the least number of those who were caught in such circumstances came from heaven, because they were unpracticed in labors. But most of those who came from the earth, because they themselves had labored and had seen the labors of others, weren’t in a rush to make their choices. For just this reason, and because of the chance of the lot, there was an exchange of evils and goods for most of the souls.” “He said that this was a sight surely worth seeing: how each of the several souls chose a life. For it was pitiable, laughable, and wonderful to see. For the most part the choice was made according to the habit of their former life. He said he saw a soul that once belonged to Orpheus 6 �choosing the life of a swan, out of hatred for womankind; because he died at their hands, he refused to be generated in and born of a woman. He saw Thamyras’ soul choosing the life of a nightingale. And he also saw a swan changing to the choice of a human life; other musical animals did the same thing. The soul that got the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion; it was the soul of Telamonian Ajax, which shunned becoming a human being, for it remembered the judgment of arms. And after it was the soul of Agamemnon; it too hated humankind as a result of its sufferings and therefore changed to the life of an eagle. Atalanta’s soul had drawn one of the middle lots; it saw the great honors of an athletic man and couldn’t pass them by but took them. After this he saw that of Epieius, son of Panopeus, going into the nature of an artisan woman. And far out among the last he saw the soul of the buffoon Thersites, clothing itself as an ape. And by chance the soul of Odysseus had drawn the last lot of all and went to choose; from memory of its former labors, it had recovered from love of honor; it went around for a long time looking for the life of a private man who minds his own business; and with effort it found one lying somewhere, neglected by the others. It said when it saw this life that it would have done the same even if it had drawn the first lot, and was delighted to choose it. And from the other beasts, similarly some went into human lives and into one another—the unjust changing into savage ones, the just into tame ones, and there were all kinds of mixtures.” So far the report of Er. Socrates interrupts the tale just once, to emphasize the supreme importance of this choice of a life and to point out that we really ought to devote all our energies to acquiring the art of making this choice well. His way of talking about what would make for a good choice is very interesting, and I will return to it near the end of my talk. But for now, let us reflect on the many ways in which the story gives the attentive reader pause and does not simply 7 �supplement the dialogue’s account of justice and its effect on souls. The story, it must be said, does not do just what it was said to do. In the first place, it is worth reflecting on how extravagant the whole section on souls’ choice of life is. The account was introduced and admitted on the pretext that it would supplement the dialogue’s account of the power that justice has in the soul without the assistance of reputation or other external benefits. Like other such familiar tales, it accomplishes this by adding to whatever uncertain external benefits justice and injustice might win in life and among humans, a certain and unerring exactitude in punishment and reward from the gods in a sort of life after life. So, one might reasonably inquire how this purpose is advanced at all by the elaborate account of the spindle of Necessity or the whole idea of souls choosing their next life, not to mention the many examples of particular choices made by souls famous and unknown. At most, one might argue that the fact that the lives for which the souls are being rewarded or punished were of their own choosing underscores souls’ responsibility for their own justice or injustice and thus shows that the rewards and punishments are deserved. Even according to this explanation, however, the wealth of detail concerning particular souls’ choices as well as the cosmic backdrop would be only so much ornament. More significant than this reason for taking the Myth of Er as a figure for something other than what it is said to be is the fact that the rewards and punishments are at best ineffectual if not entirely impossible. That the rewards for a just life are ineffectual we learn from the example of the soul that draws the first lot and chooses its next life first. It had come from heaven, and apparently a thousand years’ worth of beautiful sights and enjoyment was not enough to persuade it of anything but its own fitness to be the biggest tyrant of all. Although it was happy enough to reach 8 �immediately for this life, it was also particularly resistant to taking responsibility for its own choice when it became clear that the life contained many evils. This kind of remorse over bad choices, Socrates’ summary indicates, was not uncommon among those who came down from the heavens. What of the others? Those who had toiled and suffered below the earth and had seen the toils and suffering of others were said to chose more carefully, and thus on the whole, we are told, there was an exchange of goods and evils for most souls. This might lead one to the conclusion that while the rewards do not promote the choice of justice, the punishments do. But several things undercut this confidence we might have in the efficacy of posthumous punishments: in particular, the fate of the incurable or unholy, the complete forgetfulness of the living, and above all the impossibility of adequately representing injustice to the unjust perspective. As for the first, there are those like Ardiaeus, for whose crimes, it seems, no finite punishment could be adquate, on the grounds that his soul was incurable, and possibly also because of the enormity of his crimes, which transcend the horizon of justice altogether, being not only unjust but also unholy. A second problem with the notion that the punishments of the afterlife are effective in curbing injustice lies in the fact that souls are made to drink from the river of Carelessness on the plain of Forgetfulness before continuing into the life they have chosen, and as a result, forget everything. Those who have chosen a just life, being the majority of those who completed the underground passage, will go through it and then join those who make the heavenly passage. Now having forgotten their former labors, they are likely to choose hastily and with misplaced confidence in their ability to discern what is a good life. Interestingly, this “exchange of goods and evils” for most souls was already inscribed, so to speak, in the topography of the place of 9 �judgment: the opening that leads out of heaven is located above and opposite the one that leads into the earth, as the one that leads out of the earth lies below and opposite the opening that leads back into heaven. Forgetfulness and carelessness seem to guarantee that there will be a revolution not only of whorls, but also of souls. But forgetfulness and carelessness are not magical effects brought about by the eponymous plain and river. If punishment is the engine driving the motion of souls upwards and towards justice, then the beatiful sights and enjoyment found in the heavenly passage do no less to drive them down, towards injustice. The image is precisely not that of a world-order that uses rewards and punishments to produce justice with mechanical accuracy and inevitability, but of one that strongly inclines souls towards an eternal and predictable alternation of good and bad. Why should this be the purpose of the cosmos? A third problem with the account is that it is difficult to see what the souls must be in order for their passage to be able to teach them anything. This difficulty is thrown into relief by a significant omission. Of the souls returning from beneath the earth, Socrates says: “They were punished for each injustice once every hundred years; taking this as the length of a human life, they could in this way pay off the penalty for the injustice ten times over. Thus, for example, if some men were causes of the death of many, either by betraying cities or armies and had reduced men to slavery, or were involved in any other wrongdoing,” and here I interrupt to note that just where one might hope to learn precisely how such acts are answered in that other place, Socrates concludes simply, “they received for each of these things tenfold sufferings”—in other words, with no specific information. Plato handles the issue of narration very deftly here, for he has Socrates preface this section with a warning about its incompleteness; Socrates says, “Now, to go through the many things would take a long time, Glaucon. But the chief thing is this,” and then 10 �proceeds with the summary I just read. But if the purpose of resorting to summary was to avoid trouble, then it is difficult to understand Socrates’ choice of examples. In the first place, the list of specific forms of injustice by itself leads one to expect a similarly specific list of punishments. Also, the fact that each “cycle” of punishments is calibrated to the length of an average human life supports the expectation that punishments will somehow correspond to, mirror, or just repeat in inverted form the particular wrongs one has done. But the examples of injustice do not fulfill any of these expectations, for the important reason that the victims of these injustices are in each case many in number. If a man betrays an entire city, how can his single life (or afterlife) stand any chance of comprising the myriad ills his betrayal occasioned in the lives of his fellow citizens? If he sold dozens into slavery, how could his life encompass suffering the same fate dozens of times? Even if somehow it could, it would also have to contain dozens of instances of the state of freedom that slavery destroys. And each of these would have to be in some way pristine, so that the evil that is enslavement could have its full effect on the soul being punished in this way, for one person’s being enslaved twice is arguably not the same as two different people’s being enslaved. In general, then, a single life cannot easily have the evil it does to many represented to it effectively. One solution to this conundrum, of course, is to take one sort of evil to stand for all others, to serve as a kind of medium of exchange. Maybe pain could serve as such a punitive currency, repaying specific evils with generic badness. The extravagant punishment of the soul of Ardiaeus, however, is both an example of this sort of thinking and a sign of its insufficiency. The punishment is not only of infinite duration; it is also unimaginably intense, and the one being punished in this way does not in any way signal to us what his experience is. Now, it is possible, of course, that we hear nothing from the soul of Ardiaeus because there is no need. If his soul is 11 �incurable, perhaps his punishment is not for him but an example to others, and in order for him to serve as an example, all that matters is that they take his experience as an example, whatever he himself may think of it. Consistent with this interpretation is the presence of the guards who point out to the others why these souls are being singled out for such treatment; that is, it seems at least in part to be a show put on for them. Also consistent with this view is the claim that what improves the judgment of those who make the underground passage is not just that they have labored and suffered themselves, but also that they have seen the labors and sufferings of others. Nonetheless, the absence of the directly suffering soul’s perspective on the single particular punishment we get any report of underscores the problem outlined by omission in the preceding passage, the problem of how a soul’s evil can be represented to it; and this remains a problem. If the soul’s thousand-year journey below the earth is to teach it anything—as the improvement in its choice of life suggests it does—then the soul must somehow have the evils it engaged in as though they were something good presented to it as what they in fact are. But in order for one’s wrongdoing to be recognizable as such, one must have a different perspective than one had in doing it, and this kind of thoroughgoing change in perspective is precisely what we have learned is terribly difficult. In the cave image, it is represented as a turning around that can be a passage from what is darker to what is brighter (and thus an actual improvement) and at the same time from what is perceived clearly and comfortably to what is perceived only dimly and painfully (and thus an apparent worsening). Something else is needed: a guide who is trustworthy and trusted and can articulate what is happening to the soul being forcibly turned around in this way. In the end, pain by itself is too diffuse, too immediate, and too uncontextualized to bear the articulated meaning that would be necessary in order to effect this change, a fact that is perhaps hinted at by the punishment’s tenfold repetition. Even the 12 �exemplary suffering of the souls of the unholy requires agents standing by to explain it, which is as much as to say that it cannot bear its meaning within itself on its own. In the case of both punishments and rewards, then, the report of Er sets up certain expectations or requirements that it then pointedly does not or cannot fulfill. The rewards for a just life, we feel, ought to reinforce the choice of justice, but instead they are presented as promoting the careless haste and entitled self-importance that lead to a bad choice of life. As for the punishments, while they are said to have the effect they ought to, still, the mechanism by which they are meant to accomplish this is markedly obscure, and inquiring more closely into it only makes the confusion more intense, particularly by directing attention to what lies at the root of all: the soul and its perception of or perspective on the good. If the myth’s self-presentation is at odds with its content, we have to turn elsewhere to discover its real import. One thing that is clear, as we have just seen, is that the story concerns the soul. Just what is the soul in this story? One phrase in the description of souls’ choice of lives incidentally brings to the fore one of the key features of the myth’s portrayal of the soul. Er saw “a soul that used to belong to Orpheus” choosing the life of a swan. The striking phrase “used to belong” underlines something that must be assumed in order for the story to work at all, and it does so compactly and forcefully. For the myth to work, a soul, whatever else it may be, cannot be identical with any named person. The name “Orpheus” must indicate the temporary composite of an otherwise anonymous soul with the singer’s life whose story we know from myth. Any name, then, must miss the soul and indicate only such a composite, even my name or yours. The possessive in the phrase “my soul” becomes particularly obscure. If I spoke in this way of “my soul,” who would I be saying the soul belongs to, and what would I be taking myself to be that is distinct from my soul? Who or what is speaking when the words “my soul” are uttered? Whatever we thought it 13 �was before, the story is now telling us that a soul is not identical with a life or a person, since it precedes and outlives both. One possible source for this strange conception of the soul is the discussion of its immortality earlier in Book 10. There, the question arises how the soul can be both immortal and capable of being at odds with itself. Self-opposition (of the sort examined in Book 4) is associated with being composite, and this, in turn, is associated with change and decay. A soul composed of parts, it seems, could only be mortal. Instead of investigating this dilemma, Socrates merely suggests that the view of soul that we have—and that he and his interlocutors have had throughout the whole of the dialogue—is like the view one would have of how a man looks if one were to see only the statue of him that had lain at the bottom of the sea for many years and become disfigured and covered with shells, seaweed, rocks and so forth, as in the case of the statue of Glaucus. Our embeddedness in body, change, and manyness, the image more or less directly asserts, has made our souls unrecognizable. This is an unpromising starting point, but Socrates remains confident and ventures the guess that the soul’s true nature is to be found by our looking to its philosophia, its love of wisdom. This recalls another account of the division of the soul that emerges from the yet earlier discussion of the terrible evils of tragic poetry in Book 10. This account divides the soul’s philosophical, calculating, law-abiding part, which suffers misfortune in silence and tranquility, from another part, which indulges in loud lamentation. The latter is itself indulged by writers of tragedies, who trick even the decent man into weeping immoderately at the misfortunes of another on the grounds that this is at least not self-pitying, and is only a kind of play. The gist seems to be that the first part of the soul would do its work better without the second. Both accounts, then, solve the problem of manyness by making one part stand for the whole. Whatever the technical merits of this solution, we should consider that 14 �if the true identity of the soul should turn out to be only its rational part understood in this way, then the whole drama of existence—the stories of our lives as we commonly understand them— would be wholly irrelevant, composed entirely of a sort of encrustation of alien matter that only serves to obscure the soul from view. By themselves, souls might have nothing to do with lives. While these two prior discussions of soul seem relevant to the myth and are consonant with some aspects of its sharp distinctions between soul and person and between soul and life, they are at odds with others. Souls in the myth are not heartless calculating machines, but beings capable of feeling and expressing emotion. When the souls complete their respective journeys, they go off “with delight” to the meadow where they confer. When those who came from the underground passage recount what they have seen and undergone there, they cry and lament in recalling it. When these souls are nearing the exit and see some like the soul of Ardiaeus being rejected, they experience a great fear, which they note is only one among many they have suffered. In sum, then, these souls respond emotively and expressively to their situation, even during this time when they are presumed to exist in separation from body and life. In addition to transitory affections such as a moment of fear, souls in the myth also have longer-standing dispositions or traits of character. The soul of Ajax, son of Telamon, bitterly recalls the judgment that granted the arms of the departed hero Achilles to Odysseus instead of to him, and so flees humanity. The souls of Orpheus and Agamemnon, in turn, make their choices of animal lives out of long-standing hatred, of women in the first case and of humanity in general in the second. In each case, these quasi-permanent states were crystallized, so to speak, by the trauma of their previous lives (the very ones we associate with their names). They appear to have persisted unchanged and utterly undiminished throughout their millennial journeys. Their hatreds and resentment are very much not the passions of a moment. A final, most significant example of 15 �a state or characteristic of soul allowed by the myth is that of the soul of Odysseus, which “from memory of its former labors, ... had recovered from love of honor.” Somehow, the soul as portrayed in the myth is capable of being affected by its life, and affected in such a way as to be able to learn, not just greedily carry forward the savor of bitter memory. In either case, however, what we see is that however distinct souls may be from lives, their lives affect them. In light of this, perhaps it is time finally to turn directly to what the story must take a life to be. This is in one way the most straightforward and familiar element of the story; everyone knows what a life is, what it is composed of, why it is important, what makes it good or bad, and so forth. In another way, however, what the central conceit of the myth of Er requires a life to be makes it almost impossible to understand. The life, recall, contains elements like wealth or poverty, good or bad birth, strength, beauty, political office or rule, and indeed everything that could characterize a life, or almost everything. For, as was explained, since the soul that lives the life must be changed by it, the life considered by itself does not contain an “ordering” or “arrangement” of soul (taxis). If our question is what we ought to remove in thought from our usual conception of what a life is in order to arrive at an idea of what the lives whose paradigms lie in the lap of Lachesis are, the answer is both simple and devastating. We must remove only this: everything that soul is. As it has done in many places, the dialogue is once again causing a problem by treating a distinction as a separation. When Socrates manages to bring the conversation to a halt of this sort, he often turns to an image or example that retroactively modifies one of the discussion’s starting points. We could try the same, and instead of trying to proceed with delimitation or definition, we might look at an example of what the myth takes to be a life. 16 �None of the lives is very extensively described, but the first example of a life that is chosen is perhaps the fullest. The soul that drew the first lot—which “participated in virtue out of habit, without philosophy” after living in “an ordered regime”—picked the life containing the biggest tyranny straightaway, “but it escaped its notice that eating his children and other evils accompanied this.” It escaped his notice. How strange. How can we understand this? Should we agree with the old song that “the large print giveth and the small print taketh away”? Do the events or elements of a life presented to choice differ in their prominence, such that some would count as the large print, and some as the small? And what would determine which appear more or less prominent? Just what is written or figured on the paradigms of lives in the lap of Lachesis? In the example just considered, the great tyranny looks good at first, but when the soul “considered the life at its leisure,” it discovered its evils, and was unhappy with its lot. In a way, this latter portrait of what a life is is familiar and cogent: a life containing an apparent good may of necessity also contain actual evils, such that they counterbalance or even outweigh the apparent good. But in another way, this is an unsatisfactory way of talking about a life. It tries to mark the badness of the life that contains one sort of fact sometimes thought to be good (being a tyrant) by pointing out that it also contains another sort of fact, which is generally acknowledged to be bad (eating one’s children). The whole question of what makes a life good or bad has been reduced to the piecemeal evaluation of particulars, and the summation of such judgments, as in what is sometimes called a rubric. But we really ought to doubt this soul’s assessment of its chosen life, since we have already been told that it makes the choice affected by folly and gluttony. It could be so misguided as to be mistaken about which of the life’s elements is good and which bad. In fact, we have already been told in Book IX that the worst possible eventuality for a soul that is tyrannically 17 �inclined is for it to become an actual tyrant. Conversely, it may be that something as horrible as eating his children is an appropriate accompaniment to the “large print” of his being a tyrant. But just inverting the assessment this foolish soul made of each of these facts does not really solve the deeper problem, of which the problem of the relative prominence of a life’s parts —its large and its small print—is just a symptom. The component elements of a life in the myth seem subject to two contradictory demands: they must be “without an arrangement of soul” and thus somehow meaningless, and they must be capable of “leading” the soul to being just or unjust and thus somehow have a meaning. As for the former term of the contradiction, given that there are good and bad among rich and poor alike, wealth, to pick one example, looks like the sort of thing that the Stoic Epictetus would call indifferent, something that is of no importance when compared with the greater question of whether we are living well, and that does not by itself answer it. As for the latter, however, the soul that has learned the art of choosing lives well, Socrates says, will call lives good or bad depending on whether they “lead to virtue or vice.” But now we have to ask: how can events be said to “lead” to virtue or vice at all unless they have within them the germ of a sense, an incipient significance that is preserved in what it gives rise to? As in other similar cases, the commentary on the myth is quite relevant and helpful, if in part by oblique paths. Socrates portrays the person who has acquired the art of choosing lives well in some detail. He says: “He will take into account all the things we have just mentioned and how in combination and separately they affect the virtue of a life. Thus he may know the effects, bad and good, of beauty mixed with poverty or wealth and accompanied by this or that habit of soul; and the effects of any particular mixture with one another of good and bad birth, private station and ruling office, strength and weakness, facility and difficulty in learning, and all 18 �such things that are connected with a soul by nature or are acquired. From all this he will be able to draw a conclusion and choose—while looking off toward the nature of the soul—between the worse and the better life, calling worse the one that leads it toward becoming more unjust, and better the one that leads it to becoming more just” (618ce). One of the most striking things in this passage, I think, is the intensity of its emphasis on combination. The possessor of the art of choosing lives is said to consider the elements of lives both “separately and in combination” but all the examples are of complex configurations. Here, then, is one way in which something can both have a meaning and not have it in itself: it can have its meaning in being combined with something else. Note that the myth helps us here. The composition of elements that makes up each life is not something chosen; the lives have already been assembled by the time the souls have to choose them. Rather, souls are to call lives good or bad on the basis of no element in them, but on the basis of what living such a life will work in the soul that lives it. That is, the choice was already not happening at the level of the particular feature or event of the life, whether or not the choosers noticed this. Another striking feature of the passage is how thoroughly confusing it makes the separation of life and soul that lies at the basis of the myth. In the first place, the possessor of the art is said to know about the effects of mixtures that include elements such as “this or that habit of soul.” This just seems in direct opposition to the claim that lives are without an “ordering” or “arrangement” of soul. By itself, though, including this states the problem well; the soul that sets out to have wealth or any other good thing will be changed by its pursuit, with the result that there is no guarantee it will still want or be able to enjoy what it was pursuing by the time it gets it. The one who possesses the art would have to be able to predict what changes the living of a life would work in the soul. In short, what makes elements of a life part of a life that can be 19 �called good or bad is their connection with the soul that has to live that life: the suffering, rejoicing, experiencing, remembering, and thinking being. These powers are what lend to those events or conditions whatever sense they have. Here we see another way in which a life has a meaning, but not in itself; it has a meaning for a soul. To state the matter most generally, elements of a life are capable of having a meaning that is not in them because that’s just what it is to be an element of a life: to be a ‘Here’ that is also, with all the weight Plotinus gives the word, a ‘There’—to be a ‘Now’ whose meaning is ‘Later’ or ‘Forever.’ The seeming paradox is just the reality of our situation, and one that Plato has been at pains throughout the dialogue to turn our attention to. We spend as much time as we do in this dialogue on the proper organization of an educational program not merely for the stated reason, that we need guardians who will be both harsh with the city’s enemies and gentle with its citizens. Rather, as the central books show and the final myth signifies, the deeper issue is that what is most immediately apparent is always somehow a distraction from the intelligible reality of what is. But the sensible is not merely something other than the intelligible: it is the region wherein the intelligible shows itself; it is where we live. The small things matter. The ball I learn to catch may be little more than arbitrary mineral, vegetable, and animal products refashioned to the measure of a human hand, but the act of catching that it makes possible is an emblem and anticipation of all sorts of future forms of mastery. The little bumps and tussles of playground life are like prophetic utterances spoken to us in childhood that foretell adult life’s disappointments—its alliances and betrayals, its kindness and its savagery—and they foretell them with both the accuracy and the obscurity that are characteristic of an oracle. This strange mode of being of the elements of our lives is a feature of the world of the myth of Er that also happens to be a feature of our world; it is the literally true thing at the center 20 �of a mass of figurative falsehoods, and around which the whole turns. It is the true thing that seems strange to us who have become strangers to it. The elements of lives can appear big or small, cruel twists of fate, or irrelevant impediments to powers we find we do not need to get by. We who live them do not experience ourselves as having chosen them, but reflecting on what it would mean for what our souls are to choose what our lives will be can awaken us from the dream-state in which we treat the meanings of our lives as beings, as ta onta, as things that always are and have no tincture of ambiguity or self-opposition, no dependence on perspective or interpretation, no horizon of possible transformation. Rather, we should recognize them in their truth: they are the materials—somehow both indifferent and essential—out of which souls weave the tissue of meaning they put on and inhabit, elements that stand to our souls and hearts as do those other elements—earth, air, fire, and water—to the multifariously capable bodies of living beings of all kinds, as their material support and flesh. When the elements of our bodies or lives fail us, we break, but when they cooperate, what we succeed in being is something they would not be on their own, something other and beyond. For our part, the myth is saying, we need to learn how to cooperate with these elements and their ways, so that we may make a good passage in this life and the next, and perhaps in the next after that. But what would make for a good passage? What should we hope for? A welldeserved reward? Or a suffering that makes the soul better? The beautiful sights and good experiences that the myth sets up as a reward for a good life carry with them the same ambiguity as the goods of this life: many souls are not improved by them, but made worse. To answer the question, we might think of the soul that once belonged to Odysseus. Of this soul we were not told whether it came down from heaven or up from the earth, only that memory of its former labors had cured it. Those labors could have been carried out on earth as part of the life we 21 �associate with Odysseus’ name—where he struggled to regain his home after long years in foreign lands, losing all his comrades—or they could have been performed as payment in that place beneath the earth, some days’ journey from the spindle of Necessity where lives are woven. Perhaps our hope and prayer should be the same as his could have been: may we all perform such labors and remember them and be cured of what ails us. —Greg Recco Delivered Nov. 30, 2012 at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD. 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>. 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Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Recco, Gregory Title A name given to the resource The soul's choice of life Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-11-30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of a lecture delivered on November 30, 2012 by Greg Recco as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online." Type The nature or genre of the resource text Subject The topic of the resource Plato. Republic. Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Bib # 80876 Relation A related resource <a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/49">Audio recording</a> Friday night lecture Tutors