46 20 5655 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0137e6eff052aca69b1086ad92139697.pdf 82431f85e9ff2a12202ef3e2fabd0c4e PDF Text Text “The Things of Friends Are Common” Convocation Address, August 26, 2009 Christopher B. Nelson, President St. John’s College, Annapolis MD Welcome to the Class of 2013 and to your families. To the rest of our college community, welcome back. Welcome, friends all! I came to a rather startling realization over the summer as I was preparing to greet our newcomers: that I had returned to this college to take the position I now hold in the year in which most of our incoming freshmen were born. The years have passed quickly, it seems to me now, and my appreciation for the community of learning I joined back then has grown, as my friendships within the community have deepened. I think I became a wee bit sentimental as I ruminated upon my first year as a student at St. John’s more than 40 years ago. My Greek has gone rusty, but as with most all of memory, the things learned first are remembered best, and I have kept with me over the years two Greek sentences I recall reading in my first days at the college. and . The first can be roughly translated as “Beautiful things are difficult” or “Noble things are difficult.” The second can be translated as “The things of friends are common” or “What friends have, they have in common.” Back in the days of my youth we used a different Greek grammar book, so this last week I took a peek at the Mollin and Williamson Introduction to Ancient Greek that you will be working with in your first semester of the Greek Tutorial. And there they were, the same two sentences, buried in an early lesson on the attributive and predicate position of the definite article, and I rediscovered something I once must have known about the two sentences I had carried with me all these years: that they are both nominal sentences with the article in the predicate position, making it possible to write intelligible, whole sentences without the use of a verb. (Grammar is a handy tool, don’t you think?) Well, I was pretty sure that I had not committed these sentences to memory for the substantive-making power of the article . It’s more likely that I remembered them because they were both quite short, and perhaps because they appeared to carry a mystery and a whiff of truth in them that I might untangle for myself if only I worked on them long enough. I felt justified in this interpretation when I read in this new text that “nominal sentences are best suited to the impersonal and timeless character of maxims or folk-sayings.” (Mollin and Williamson at 31) I wanted to understand better the little maxim “The things of friends are common.” The sentence seemed to capture a beautiful thought, and I had the efficient notion that if I made the effort to understand this maxim better, I also might come to see why “beautiful things are difficult.” Two birds, one arrow --- so to speak! So, I begin my reflection by asking whether this little maxim means that friends share what they have, or that they ought to share what they have. Today, I give you half of the lunch I packed for us both, and tomorrow you will share yours with me. But the sandwiches we eat are hardly common to us both; quite the opposite, they are rationed out separately to each of us, albeit �equally. We may each have an equal share in a good thing, but not a common good. We each consume what the other does not and cannot consume. So it is with all sorts of goods, earthly goods, goods that are external to us; what I give to you in the spirit of sharing with a friend is something I will no longer have after giving it. I will have less of it after sharing it than I did before I shared it, however good and generous my act of friendship has been, and however much I imagine I may have gained in the improvement of my character by sharing it. But what then are the things that could be common to friends? What kinds of things can truly be held in common without having to be shared or meted out among friends? I suppose things of the soul are of this nature, things that belong to the heart, the spirit, or the mind, things that belong to our inner lives. We both may love a single object or a person without our having to share that love as we might share the expense of a gift to the beloved one. My love doesn’t grow less because you love too. And of course, if we should actually love one another, that love is surely greater and stronger for it being reciprocated and reinforced over and over. So it is with the intellect. When I learn something you have shared with me, it does not pass from you to me like milk from a pitcher; you have lost nothing, and yet I have gained something that is now common to us both. The sum of what is common to us has just grown; it has not been redistributed. And should we together go about learning something new, we will each be richer for what we come to have in common. Why, though, do we say that these ‘things in common’ belong to ‘friends’? I think it must have something to do with the reason we seek these common things. We are moved to love something because it is beautiful, or to love some person because he or she is beautiful to us. We seek to know something because we believe that knowing is better than not knowing, that this knowledge will be good for us, perhaps even that it can be turned to good in the world about us. These things we have in common are beautiful and good things, and we wish beautiful and good things for our friends. If the common goods are those that increase by pursuing them together, then the greatest acts of friendship must be the searching together for such a common good. St. John’s College exists for this purpose: to provide a place and countless opportunities for our students to pursue together the common goods of the intellect. We call ourselves a community of learning, aware that the word ‘community’ in English, as in Greek, has the same root as the word ‘common’. We make many an effort to put into practice the conviction that we learn best when we learn with others, who like us, wish to increase the common good. Such a community offers some pretty fine opportunities for friendship. We also have a common curriculum that has us all reading books that are worthy of our attention, even of our love --- books written by men and women who were themselves model fellow learners. The books and the authors may even become our friends, as can the characters in some of those books. If you have not already met the Socrates of Plato’s dialogues, you soon will, and you will be spending a lot of time with him in your freshman year. For some of you, this may be the beginning of a lifelong friendship with a character who would converse with you over and over if you open yourselves to the possibility. The words on the page may remain the same, but the reader brings a new conversationalist to the text every time he or she returns to the dialogue. At least, so it is with me. I call Socrates a friend of mine because I know that he seeks only my own good. He has taught me humility, at least such as I possess it at all. �I have many such friends in the Program. Some of them are books: Homer’s Iliad has been my companion since the seventh grade, and I never tire of returning to it. The Aeneid has become a more recent friend who has helped me understand and better bear the responsibilities of fatherhood and the trials of leadership. The Books of Genesis and Job have helped me understand what it means to be human and how great is the distance between the human and the divine; I read them to remind me of how little I really understand about the relation between the two, which in turn serves as a spur to seeking to understand better. Euclid’s Elements may be the finest example on the St. John’s Program of the practice of the liberal arts, and it is beautiful for its logical, progressive movement from the elemental to the truly grand. Plato’s Republic is the finest book about education ever written; it inspires much of what I do as I practice my vocation at the College, reminding me that a community of learning is reshaping and refounding itself any time a few of its members come together to engage in learning for its own sake --- and that this is what we ought always to be encouraging at this college, even by device when necessary. Other friends of mine are authors: Sophocles, who can evoke a human sympathy to inspire pity in each of his dramas; George Washington, whose restraint in the use of power is evident in his finest writings and in the mark he left on the founding of this country; Abraham Lincoln, whom I consider this country’s finest poet, whose very words reshaped what it meant to be an American; Jane Austen, whose every sentence can be called perfect (and so she is a beautiful author to me); and Martin Luther King, who taught me that non-violent protest is more than a successful tactical measure to achieve a political end, but a proper and loving response to the hateful misconduct of fellow human souls. Then there remain the characters whom I embrace as friends: besides Socrates, there is Hector, Breaker of Horses, ‘Oh my Warrior’; and Penelope, who weaves the path that allows Odysseus to return home and is far worthier of his love than he is of hers. There is Don Quixote, the indomitable spirit, and Middlemarch’s Dorothea Brooks, whose simple acts of goodness change the whole world about her. I rather like Milton’s Eve, mother of us all, who still shines pretty brightly in the face of his spectacular Satan. I was a teenager when I met Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, and I grew to adulthood with him, probably following a little too closely his path to responsibility. There’s the innocent Billy Budd, unprepared to face the force of evil in man, and his Captain Vere, the good man who suffers to do his duty. You will also read some reflections on friendship: this winter, Aristotle will provide freshmen with a framework for considering different kinds of friendships and the goods they afford. You should ask whether you think his list is complete, and whether your own experiences of friendship are embraced by his explication. And then there are examples of friendships, pairs of friends, in many of the books, who will also provide lessons in friendship, for better or worse: Patroclus and Achilles, David and Jonathan, Hal and Falstaff, Huck and Jim, Emma and Knightly, to name a few. As you work your way through the Program, you will have the assistance of many friends, some of whom will still be breathing while others will be living on in the pages you’ll be reading during your years with us. They will help you as you struggle with the big questions that in turn will help to free you to live a life that truly belongs to you. It will be these friends, who are �outside of you but standing close by, who will help you find your own answers to the questions: Who am I? What is my place in the world? And how ought I to live my life? One of my more beautiful living friends, a colleague here at the college, has put it this way: “Our friends are doubly our benefactors: They take us out of ourselves and they help us to return, to face together with them our common human condition.” (Eva Brann, Open Secrets/Inward Prospects, at 55.) Another of my friends, a St. John’s classmate and medical doctor, gave last year’s graduating class in Santa Fe this reminder, that we can learn from our friendships with the books how we might be better friends to one another. “It is the great book that is the life of every person, regardless of station in life,” he said. “So often we make shallow and inaccurate presumptions about people, like the cliché of telling a book by its cover, which robs you of the deeper experience that defines us as humans in our relationship to each other. For me every patient is a great book with a story to tell and much to teach me, and I am sometimes ashamed when my presumptions are exposed and I then see the remarkable person within, between the covers of the book of the story of their own lives.” This doctor has devoted himself to saving the lives of patients suffering from cancer, and he has this to say about how he is guided by the spirit of community and friendship within the soul of every human being: “In my own work, it is sometimes said, we are guided … by the idea that to save a person’s life, it is considered as if one has saved the world. To me that has always meant the life saved is much more than a single life restored, as that person is someone’s spouse, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s parent, or child, a member of a community, of a church, synagogue or mosque, or a friend, and as all are affected by loss, all are restored by their return.” (Stephen J. Forman, 2009 Commencement Address, Santa Fe) This statement is a powerful testament to the wonder of friendship at work in the world. In this last story, I have moved us away from the inner world of reflection and learning to the outer world of putting what one has learned to work in a life devoted to helping others. The second must always follow the first. By this, I mean that you owe it to yourselves and others to take advantage of the opportunities this community offers you to learn with your classmates and tutors what it takes to acquire a little self-understanding before you go out and put it to work in the world. And in the process, we hope that you will make a few friends who will stay with you for the rest of your lives, enriching your lives because ‘what friends have, they have in common.’ I wish to close with a kind of benediction. This little nominal sentence happens to be the penultimate sentence in one of Plato’s dialogues, The Phaedrus, the only book you will read twice for seminar, at the end of both your freshman and senior years. Phaedrus and Socrates have engaged in the highest form of friendship as they have conversed together to try to understand how a man or woman might achieve harmony and balance in the soul by directing that soul to a love for the beautiful. Socrates concludes with this prayer to the gods: Friend Pan and however many other gods are here, grant me to become beautiful in respect to the things within. And as to whatever things I have outside, grant that they be friendly to the things inside me. May I believe the wise man to be rich. May I have as big a mass of gold as no one �other than the moderate man of sound mind could bear or bring along. Do we still need something else, Phaedrus? For I think I’ve prayed in a measured fashion. To which Phaedrus responds: And pray also for these things for me. For friends’ things are in common. (Plato, Phaedrus, Nichols translation, lines 279b-279c) May each of you, as well, learn to enjoy the benefits of such friendships in your time at this College! (And now, in the concluding words of Socrates, “Let’s go” and get started.) Thank you! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I declare the College in session this 26th day of August, 2009. CONVOCATUM EST! � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 5 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2009 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-08-26 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address given by Chris Nelson for the Fall 2009 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "The Things of Friends Are Common." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation, Fall 2009 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Convocation Presidents Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/cbd160876c982b9651fff1d679f48622.pdf cb057fb4fb7000c2575f9d688f328cce PDF Text Text Music of the Republic Convocation, August, 2011 Christopher B. Nelson, President St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD Welcome to the Class of 2015 and their families. To the rest of the College community, welcome back. There comes a time in every year when I find myself saying to a friend or a prospective student that this is a very musical College. After 20 years of speaking this way, I thought I should ask myself just what I mean by this statement, and so I will try to unpack that little observation and say a few words about the music we make at St. John’s College. Each of you has experience with music; it has lifted you up or soothed you; it has angered or frightened you; it has lightened or burdened the spirit, distracted your attention, moved your feet and your arms, inspired an act, or aroused a love; it has transported you to another time or place, or moved you in some way without your quite being aware of it. Music pervades our lives and always has. It has power. It has sometimes taken you outside of yourselves and at other times taken you deep within. For these reasons, it has often been associated with things divine. Not only have you had experience of the effects of music, many of you have brought music with you to the College because it plays an important part in your daily lives. You carry your i-pods, MP3 players, and smart phones, playing classical music and opera, popular tunes and rock, jazz and blues, country and western, hip hop and rap. You hum, sing or play your favorites to yourselves or with others. Music has its place when you are alone and in fellowship. It serves as friend and refuge. Why is this? How can we come to understand the power that music has in our lives? What does it mean that we are somehow all musical beings? That to be human is somehow to be musical? That without music we would be less than human? These are questions I suggest you will be asking yourselves in your four years at St. John’s. �You will also be making music while you are with us. To get at the question “what is this music that we make?” I thought it would be fruitful to explore briefly the place of music in four republics to which we belong and by which we live: the Republic of the United States of America, the Republic of Letters, the Republic of Plato, and the Republic of St. John’s College. What is the place of music in these four republics of ours? The Republic of the United States of America I have mentioned the music that you brought with you when you arrived on campus, much of it performed by, written by, or listened to by Americans. But there is another kind of music that might be said to capture the spirit of the land, something I would call more elemental, seeking to get at the heart of our nation, to comprehend the constitution of its people, to describe what it means, or ought to mean, to be an American. And here I will suggest two, perhaps three, examples of this music. The first is from Walt Whitman, a quintessential American poet: I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off for work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutters song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to no one else, The day what belongs to the day—at night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. (“I Hear America Singing”)One can feel the heartbeat of a new nation, of a people building a country from the sweat of the brow. These Americans are making their own music in the work they do, and they are celebrating that work as something that belongs especially to them as free individuals, free to choose their work and free to enjoy their play. �My second example allows us to recall that music can be an aid in helping us to see and to seek the beautiful and the good. You all know the melody for “America the Beautiful”, so I will not ruin it for you by trying to sing it solo. While the tune is pleasing, the lyrics of Katherine Lee Bates help it to soar. The first stanza appeals to the gifts of the natural world: Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! But it is the second stanza that captures my heart, speaking to the people that made this nation possible, and finally to the rule of law that sustains it: Oh beautiful for pilgrim feet whose stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law. Here is a hymn to those who brought the spirit of freedom to a new land, and a prayer that we Americans dedicate ourselves to self-control and the rule of law to protect the freedom we have won. This is a noble anthem that we would do well to call up from time to time – a song worth making our own, as members of a community bound together by the will to protect an idea of freedom in the pursuit of happiness. This is, after all, the republic that has made it possible for this College, dedicated to cultivating the arts of freedom, the liberal arts, to thrive since before the formal founding of this nation. We in turn, as well educated and independent thinking citizens, will prove to be the necessary guardians of this republic. A third example, if only our voices could scale a couple of registers, might be a song written by one of our alumni, a graduate of the class of 1796, composer of the most sung song in this country even today, written during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. I refer of course to our National Anthem, penned by Francis Scott Key: “Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?” he said when he composed it. Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. What does it mean for a country to “deserve” a song? And why should a song be the �measure of worth? I will leave these questions hanging as I move to a second republic to which we belong. The Republic of Letters These are the works of literary and musical imagination that constitute the heritage of mankind. They have sprung from many civilizations and have spanned the centuries. We study these works because they are fundamental to understanding our humanity; they are the building blocks and cornerstones of our edifices in the humanities, arts and sciences. When I speak of works of musical imagination, I mean any work that might be said to belong to the ancient Muses, works of poetry or of musical or artistic composition, where the chief work of the author, composer, artist, or performer is the making of powerful images or likenesses of things. Consider, for example, the moving lines that open the Iliad, which freshmen are reading for their first seminar tomorrow evening: Rage --- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, Murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, Hurling down to the House of the Dead so many sturdy souls, Great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, Feasts for the dogs and birds, And the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the first two broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. The images are vivid, the action compelling. I want to take up my spear and shield and go to battle where heroes are made and lost. The song has irresistible momentum that takes hold of the listener (or reader) from its first line. It grabs us in the chest, the seat of sentiment and magnanimity, the locus of the spirit displayed by our heroes. Such is the power of music. Even Homer is caught up by it, as he calls upon an Olympian Muse to tell this story, to sing the song of Achilles’ rage long before it was put to the page. Why does Homer need a Muse to tell this story? Why sing a song about rage, about a �consuming aspect of a man? What is this will of Zeus that is moving inexorably toward its end? What power does this god or any other god have over the affairs of mankind? Homer has concentrated images that beg us to ask a host of questions in these opening lines. That is another power that music has in common with poetry: the capacity for concentration of energy and passion! (And by the way, is my reaction to this poem a healthy one – that I want pick up and head off to battle? What exactly has gotten hold of me? Have I been made captive to a powerful image rather than given freedom to explore a question and seek a truth?) In your sophomore year, you will read of David, another warrior, another musician, but also an instrument of God. You will read the Psalms and sing their songs. God the Muse, man the instrument! How frustrating and depressing this must be for the wholly self-sufficient spirit that would have mankind be the creator and ruler of our world - that would have us become like gods? What kind of freedom comes from obedience to God, from becoming God’s instrument? Or do men and women gain their freedom only from disobedience – something for our juniors to consider when reading Milton’s Paradise Lost? But musical compositions have always had a special place in the literary tradition. Music was among the seven liberal arts as they were studied in the Middle Ages. As you will recall, those seven liberal arts were divided into the trivium, the arts of communication and language: grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and the quadrivium, the arts of counting and measuring: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. It turns out that music has mathematical elements that appear to be at its root, that is, that there is a correlation between the musical intervals in our everyday songs and the length of a string that can be plucked to play those sounds. You will learn from your own construction of a monochord, a one-stringed instrument, that the correlation between those very musical intervals and the divisions of the string that makes the sounds is described by a set of ratios consisting of small whole numbers. Lo and behold, we have physical phenomena, musical sounds, that have a mathematical form. Thus, there may something in music that is grounded in nature, not just in our sensibility, suggesting a model of the very mathematical physics you will be studying in your junior and senior laboratory. Music makes the claim that it can be studied objectively. And this causes us again to ask in �what way nature might be as musical as we human beings are. Consider some of the great masterpieces of musical imagination. Sophomores spend several weeks with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Measure by measure, the mathematical elements are analyzed, the melodies and harmonics studied, the rhythm and meter explored, and the lyrics and gospel text applied. If we are ever going to get a sense of the possibility of mathematical physics to explain an emotional or spiritual response, it will be in our study of this masterpiece. It is indeed a passionate work of art, and it begs the question what Bach’s music has to do with the Gospel of Matthew? Does the music have a power over the listener that the Bible does not have over the reader? And is this good or is it downright heresy? We spend time with Mozart and study closely one of his operas, usually Don Giovanni. Who are these human souls that step out onto the stage and sing the music that belongs only to each of them, songs that reveal their character - or shape it - in time, over the course of the opera? What is the relationship between the music and the words? Consider the words alone and they are pretty poor examples of literature. But set them to this music and they soar! They are playful or tragic; they tug at our heartstrings; in Mozart’s hands, they are invariably beautiful. Whatever makes them beautiful? Are there elements of beauty as there appear to be elements of music? Are the two related? And what about the “ugly”? Are things ugly because they do not have the same concord with nature that beautiful things do, that they are in discord with nature? Is the beauty of a musical composition to be found in the mathematical order of the piece, or is it more complicated than that? I move on to our third republic. The Republic of Plato This is a dialogue that freshmen will be reading in the middle of their first semester. It has been described by some as the indispensable text that sets forth the plan of study for what we call the "Program" at St. John's College. It provides the model of a liberal �education at work, where music has its place in the education of the young, as an aid in the formation of character, an habituation that is useful in the training of the soul but not in its education. This education of the soul is better served by philosophy, a love of and pursuit of wisdom, which Socrates in this dialogue calls the greatest music of all. Such is the power of music to grab hold of the soul that Socrates warns us of its dangers. “So then,” Socrates says to his young interlocutor, Glaucon, “isn’t this why upbringing in music is most sovereign? It’s because rhythm and concord most of all sink down to the inmost soul and cling to her most vigorously as they bring gracefulness with them; and they make a man graceful if he’s brought up correctly, but if not, then the opposite.” Socrates points to ‘rhythm and concord’ for the source of music’s power, not its tones, intervals, melodies, and harmonies.Is he right in that? Do we think he is right about the power of music for good and for ill? If this dialogue is meant to be a kind of model for how we go about things at this College, how should we study music at St. John’s to avoid the bad and pursue the good? Should music rather be banned from the College as Socrates insists it ought to be in the formal program of study for the guardians of his Republic? What is the difference between the image-making of the poets, artists and musicians on the one hand and the image-making of the philosopher on the other --- whose image of the Sun serves as a metaphor for the Good, of the Cave for our everyday dwelling places, and of the Divided Line for our path to Wisdom? It is time to move on to our next republic, but I cannot help but pause to observe that we are not without a sense of humor about the seriousness of this or any of these other Republics. We even have a Battle Hymn to the Republic of Letters, written by one of our tutors, Mr. Higuera, and performed by a group of tutors on one of those long, cold winter days in a rite of distraction and fun that we call “Be Gone Dull Care”: Let me share the first of several clever stanzas: My mind has seen the glory of th' Idea of the Good, That it's not the same as pleasure I have firmly understood, And I wouldn't take a tyrant's power even if I could, I'm marching from The Cave! Marching, marching towards the sunlight, �Marching, marching towards the sunlight, Marching, marching towards the sunlight, I'm marching from The Cave! It is now quite clearly time to move to our fourth and last republic. The Republic of St. John’s College By now, you already have a feel for some of the kinds of music you will be singing, hearing, and reflecting upon. We have taken seriously the effort to restore music as a liberal art to the curriculum. As a close study of musical elements and musical literature can best be undertaken by learning to make music, we ask all of our students to use the one musical instrument they have in common --- their voices. Freshmen will sing together throughout the year, learning the fundamentals of melody and basic notation, before turning to sing some of the great choral works. Sophomores investigate rhythm in words and in notes. They study the ratios of musical intervals and consider melody, harmony and counterpoint, all in the context of some of the finest music ever composed by Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and others. And then throughout the College community, there seem to be countless occasions for playing music and singing, and for listening to the fine musical performances of your fellow citizens of this Republic. Join the St. John’s Chorus, the Madrigal Choir, Primum Mobile, or the College Orchestra; come and perform at our Collegiums, or just come to hear your classmates. I don’t think there is anything quite like experiencing the Muse at play in this community. Our purpose both in and out of the classroom, in the words of another of our tutors, Mr. Kalkavage, “is to improve … [our] students’ aesthetic taste: to introduce them to truly great music in an effort to beget a love for all things graceful and well formed. [We] hope that the study of music begets … a habit of searching for causes and details of beautiful things, and that the love of beauty will nourish the love of knowledge and truth. [And we] hope they will strive to imitate in their day-to-day lives the virtues of harmoniousness, proportion, good timing, … grace, and ‘striking the right note’ in thought, speech, feeling, and action.” (Peter Kalkavage, “The Neglected Muse”, The American Educator �Fall 2006) In short, we want these four years to be intensely musical years so that you may experience the liberation of mind and the harmony of soul that is achieved when both mind and soul are directed toward the beautiful. Go forth and sing the songs that stir you to engage in this search for beauty and truth! Make philosophy your Muse. You’ll find that this is a pretty friendly Republic for that kind of activity. Let me close by inviting you to listen to one of the simplest and, to my ear, one of the most beautiful pieces of music we make: Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus, a song familiar to all the residents of this Republic of St. John’s College. I invite all who cannot help themselves to join in and sing with a few of our students and faculty who agreed earlier today to lead us in song. SING! Thank you one and all. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Please join us for refreshments and conversation outside the lobby immediately following the recession. I declare the College in session this 24th day of August, 2011. CONVOCATUM EST!! � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation 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 9 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2011 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address given by Chris Nelson for the Fall 2011 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "Music and the Republic." Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-08-24 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Convocation Presidents Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f8b7eb9057ea802627e547b72c817b4d.pdf c206e3fe2cf05952eff82d4562bc1f89 PDF Text Text Welcome to Wonderland St. John's College, Annapolis Convocation Address 8/21/13 Christopher B. Nelson, President Welcome to St. John's College! Welcome to our freshman class, their families and friends! Welcome back to the rest of the College community! Most of you know something of the springtime lawn sport at which this College is said to excel. And many of you have attended more than a few of our annual contests with the US Naval Academy. Honor and Glory are at stake in the match of wits that characterizes croquet in Annapolis. But costume and dance are every bit as much a part of the day as is watching the grass grow. This last year, our Student Committee on Instruction added a Saturday morning seminar to precede the big match. The reading was from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the timeless classic about a little girl drifting off to sleep on a river bank when a White Rabbit ran by, saying to itself in remarkably good English “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” But when Alice saw the Rabbit pull a watch from its waistcoat pocket, she leapt to her feet “burning with curiosity” and followed the Rabbit down the rabbit hole, tumbling into Wonderland, a strange new world filled with yet more strange little worlds. (Alice at 3-6) The Croquet seminar selections were, appropriately, the chapters on the Mad Tea-Partyand the Queen’s Croquet Ground. You may remember that the croquet court was all ridges and furrows, the balls live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the wickets were playing-card soldiers doubled up over themselves to make arches. The only rule to the game was that the Queen of Hearts must win; the price of failure and the Queen’s displeasure: “Off with their heads!” The game came to a halt when the Queen ordered the executioner to cut off the head of the Cheshire Cat. But as the Cat was all head, face, and smile, detached from a body, the players took to arguing whether the head could be cut off from a body that wasn’t. It’s a question we might leave to our own Imperial Wicket, as our croquet team captain is called. The seminar got me to wondering about Wonderland and all the things that could be learned from wandering through it, and so I reread Alice in Wonderland over the summer. From beginning to end, Alice was moved by curiosity to open each closed door to explore a new room, a new garden, new occupants, new societies, new manners and mores, new grammars, new arguments, new logical—or not so logical—constructs. After each exploration, she would discover a bottle that read "DRINK ME!" or a morsel that read "EAT ME!" to which she would respond: "I know something interesting is sure to happen whenever I eat or drink anything." And so she would drink or eat, finding herself growing or shrinking to meet the terrors or confusions of whatever she would encounter on the other side of the next door. (Alice at 29) With each new encounter, she experienced something both familiar and unfamiliar: rabbits were familiar, but talking rabbits were not; a deck of playing cards was familiar but having each card play out a role in the Queen's Courtyard was new; a cat was familiar but a smiling cat without a body was unfamiliar. When asked by a talking caterpillar "Who are you?" Alice responded that she hardly knew: "At least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." "What do you mean by that?" said the Caterpillar sternly. "Explain yourself!" "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir" said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see." (Alice at 37) Alice had become detached from herself and was looking back at herself in wonderment. When the caterpillar didn't understand what she meant, Alice replied: "[W]hen you have to turn into a chrysalis—you know some �day, you will—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel a little queer, won't you?" (Alice at 38) Now this exchange is quite remarkable. Alice has turned from wondering about the world outside her, with all of its familiar and unfamiliar elements, to wondering about herself and who she is, and then to trying to help another creature become detached enough to wonder at its own evolution and state of being. This is exactly the process, and these exactly the sort of questions, that can liberate us and others from the limitations of what we think we know, from our everyday unexamined assumptions about our everyday lives. This activity lies at the heart of liberal education. It involves the exercise of imagination. We must imagine that we can step outside ourselves and outside our habitual assumptions in order to ask the truly fundamental questions that undergird all other questions, whether those questions lead to the discovery of something new and unknown before (like the discovery of a new planet, a previously unknown subatomic particle, or the cure for polio), or the recovery of something once known and now forgotten (like the recurrent need to rediscover an understanding of the American Civil War), or the reexamination of something not sufficiently understood (like the need to better understand the meaning of justice or of right and wrong—concepts we use daily but understand imperfectly). Some of you may be wondering why I am bothering with the dreams of a fictional little girl when there are so many more important things, so many new things to discover, so much new knowledge to acquire. So let us consider another example, this time a physicist. As it happens, this summer I was also reading a couple of books by Richard Feynman, the Nobelprize-winning theoretical physicist known for his work on the path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium. He may be best remembered for his testimony in a televised Congressional hearing explaining the failure of the O-rings of the space shuttle Challenger. It was Feynman’s curiosity, his incessant need to know, his puzzlement and wonder at the world around him, his joy in the study of physics, that led him to become one of the world's great physicists. Once, when Feynman was a student at MIT, he was expected to write a paper for a philosophy class in which he had paid no attention. So he decided to tackle a problem his father had given him as a child: Suppose some Martians were to come to Earth, and Martians never slept. They didn't have any idea of this thing we call sleep. So, they ask you: “How does it feel to go to sleep? Do your thoughts suddenly stop? How does the mind actually turn off?” Being the careful observer that he was, Feynman went about studying himself. He proceeded to watch himself very carefully each day and each night for four weeks to see what happened. He noticed that as you go to sleep the ideas in your head continue but they become less and less logically connected. But you don't notice that they are less well connected until you ask yourself "What made me think of that?" and you try to work your way back, often unsuccessfully. In the end, he wrote up his observations, noting that he didn't really know what it's like to fall asleep, only what it's like while watching himself enter the state. He concluded his paper with a little poem that pointed out the problem with introspection: I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder. I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder! (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! at 46-48) �Once again, we find our subject, this time Mr. Feynman, stepping outside of himself to try to understand something within. This escape from the self is an act of liberation, freeing the mind to look inward and study itself as if it were unfamiliar. This act of imagination is necessary for the most fruitful kind of learning. In Alice and in Feynman we see wonder first operating as a kind of curiosity: "I wonder what is on the other side of that door? Let me open it and see." Or "I wonder how the mind shuts down when it is going to sleep. Let me study it and see." In each case, the wonder turns to something like awe when the question turns back on itself: "I cannot tell you who I am because I am not myself. Then who am I?" Or "I cannot explain what it’s like to fall asleep because I am no longer conscious to study it. I wonder why I still wonder." These latter expressions require that we take the self that we think we know and call it into question: "Of course I knew who I was, but now I wonder who I really am." "Of course I am a curious person, but now I wonder why." The ability to wonder at yourself requires suspension of disbelief: you must be able to withstand the pressure to return to your default setting of thinking that you know who you are. This same ability to suspend disbelief is critical in creating both art and knowledge. In last month's New Republic magazine, Judith Shulevitz argues that there is no science without fancy, wonder and the exercise of the imagination. Suspension of disbelief, she says, is required for the "world building" behind all good science fiction. And what is suspension of disbelief but the freedom to imagine something out of the ordinary, the possibility of a future that you may lay claim to one day. Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea made the possibility of the submarine seem a little more accessible to a later generation. His Clipper of the Clouds prefigured the helicopter. AndStar Trek’s hand-held communication device directly influenced the invention of the flip-flop cell phone. (The New Republic, July9, 2013.) I hasten to add that suspension of disbelief is necessary for the "world building" you are undertaking as you build a life for yourselves, a life worthy of your hopes and dreams. Now what do you imagine you need to learn to free yourself to ask the questions and shape the life that would belong to you? I imagine that it is the encouragement to wonder about the world around you and the world within you. How will you free your imagination to do that? This will probably require a lot of practice, something we encourage you to do at this College. Preparing for your seminar on the Iliad, you freshmen may wonder what these men are fighting about. What makes a man a hero? What is the role of the gods, and what is the will of Zeus? Why should we imagine that the will of Zeus is being accomplished in this book? Who is the Muse who is speaking through Homer? Why do we care more about the risks taken by our heroic humans than the accomplishments of the Olympian gods? In reading Euclid’s Elements, you will surely wonder how anything may be something that has no part, or what breadthless length can be? In what sense can we say that mathematical objects exist, that they have both meaning and being? Why do we imagine that mathematics may be the language of nature? Or that when we describe something mathematically it has a correlation with things we can see and touch? Why do we trust mathematical truths at all? In your language tutorial, you may wonder why you are reading a dead language with an unfamiliar alphabet. How can this help you understand the English language better? You may wonder, after several efforts, whether any sentence written in another language can be properly translated at all. What does this say about language and our ability to communicate with one another? How do we make the best of such a precarious exercise? And will you wonder, as I once did, about the ability to write intelligible sentences in Greek without the use of a verb? Ah, the substantive-making power of the article τά in the predicate position! In your laboratory, you will be observing plants and animals. You may wonder why you can prune a plant to make it healthier but should not prune an animal and expect the same. How does it happen �that a whole carrot can grow from a small scratch of tissue from another carrot’s tap root? What are the principles of the plant’s organization contained in that tap root? What can you learn about the Magnolia tree from studying one of its leaves? But when you wonder what the meaning of life is, you will find that the laboratory will only help you find a part of the answer. Sophomores are reading Genesis, wondering what it might mean that light and day were created before the sun was formed. Why are there two different stories explaining the creation of man and woman? Why did God forbid Adam and Eve to eat of the tree in the middle of the garden? Why is it right that we are made in the image of God but not right that we might want to be like God or to reach God, as we learn from the story of the Tower of Babel? Why does God destroy most of life on Earth in the great flood and then repent? And who are we to question the Almighty? Juniors are reading Don Quixote, wondering what kind of madness can move us to love. What is the connection between the love of a Knight for his Lady, the Knight’s desire for glory, and his love of the Divine? What does Quixote see in Dulcinea that moves him to take on a whole world? Is this knight like me, fighting seemingly hopeless battles for causes we simply must believe in? How is it that some of us see a hum-drum world with hum-drum eyes while others possess enough imagination to see the possibility of a world worthy of the striving that belongs to a knight-errant? Seniors are reading Tolstoy's magnificent War and Peace, wondering how Napoleon ever imagined he could conquer the Russian spirit. What is the spirit tapped by General Kutuzov that makes Russian victory inevitable? How does Napoleon inspire his troops? Why is it that war can be described as fearful and merry? What is Pierre searching for that will bring peace to his soul? What does it mean that the love of death is a virtue? Why do we fall in love with the lively Natasha? What is the happiness of self-sacrifice that characterizes Princess Marya? Are there laws of history that govern the movement of peoples, as we say there are laws of physics governing the movement of bodies? St. John's College exists to help you develop the capacity for wonder at ever-deepening levels. At first, you will wonder why something strange and new to you is what it is or doeswhat it does. Soon you will be confronted with the things you thought you understood perfectly well and find that you did not know them as well as you thought you did. The familiar will become unfamiliar. That is when you will become free of the preconceived and unexamined opinions you have carried with you for years. You will then have the opportunity to examine those opinions anew and either own them for yourself or discard them as false because you will have acquired a knowledge of what you know and why you know, and hopefully also of the limits and provisional nature of the knowledge you possess and of the need to examine such things over and over as you recover and rediscover the truths about the world about you and the world within you. Along the way, you will likely find yourself in some rabbit hole and may discover a whole new world beneath you that you will have never imagined before. It is this exercise of the imagination and this recovery of the power of wonder that will set you free. I am reminded of this daily from personal experience. Joyce and I have sixteen grandchildren, all of whom are themselves reminders of the richness of imagination in the young. Nathaniel, a six-year old grandson sought out his Grandmother: “Nana, Do you ever wonder about Nurse Sharks?” he asked. She replied, without having ever heard of nurse sharks: “Oh, I do wonder about Nurse Sharks and would love to learn more about them!” Last weekend, eight-year-old Masayda discovered an old brass key to an antique desk and wondered whether, if she used it, the desk would open into a Secret Garden as she had seen in the movie of that name! She and her Nana went on that adventure together and their story remains a secret today. Joyce and I have been made younger by our grandchildren, not because they are young in age, loud, raucous and hard to keep up with—as of course they are!—but because they have the lively imaginations necessary for exploration, discovery, and recovery of the world that is there to be �known! They include us enthusiastically in their explorations, and this requires suspension of disbelief on our part, and courage on their part, to open the next door to—who-knows-where? I parked my car in one of those big plain BWI asphalt parking lots the other day, only to hear a little boy say to his mother, just getting out of a car nearby: “Mommy, did we park next to a volcano?” To her negative response, he said “Oh good! Because volcanoes can be pretty bad for us!” Every venture into the imagination has its risks and can be perilous, as Alice discovered. But consider the rewards! St. John's has a Latin pun for its motto: Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque.“ I make free adults from children by means of books and a balance.” I often think this means that an education in freedom is not possible without the would-be adult first becoming like a child, capable of the kind of wonder experienced by our Alice. Oh Dear! Oh Dear! I worry I have kept you too late! Off with you to the Wonderland that is St. John's College! May you discover and never cease to wonder at the beauty of the world around you, at the richness and depth of the books before you, and at the devotion of this community to the learning of each and every one of you! Thank you. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I declare the College in session this 21st day of August, 2013. Convocatum Est! * Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, The Folio Society, St. Edmundsbury Press, 1998 * Richard P. Feynman, “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character, W.W. Norton, 1985 � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 5 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2013 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-08-21 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address given by Chris Nelson for the Fall 2013 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "Welcome to Wonderland." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation, Fall 2013 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Convocation Presidents Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/278b4b9fd7c65b43036d3b7e8042441b.pdf 1390224b7f74cd49749ca43ddf0ec274 PDF Text Text Convocation 2014: Everything Important in Life Is Unknown St. John’s College opened the 2014-15 academic year on August 20 with Convocation, the annual ceremony rich with traditions. Nearly 140 freshmen in Annapolis participated in a procession from McDowell Hall to Francis Scott Key auditorium, where each student is called on the stage to meet President Christopher B. Nelson. Students sign the college’s register and receive an Ancient Greek lexicon as a gift from the college. Here is the Convocation address: Welcome to the Class of 2018. Welcome to their families and friends. Welcome Back to the rest of the College community! There is nothing in the world like the energy in this room as we open our doors to another year of learning together. Like everyone else here, I prepared for this fresh beginning by reading a few new books over the summer. Among them was an elegant little volume written by Roger Rosenblatt: Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing. It is a partliteral, part-fictional account of what was studied, written and said in one of Rosenblatt’s graduate classes in writing at Stony Brook University. Some months after the class was over,Rosenblatt and his students enjoyed a reunion dinner at a local restaurant, which like most reunions had a pleasant diversionary quality filled with the conversation and good humor that characterizes friendship at its best— friendship born of the shared study of things that are of great importance to those who have opened themselves fully to one another in the interest of their learning together. At the end of the evening,Rosenblatt was asked: “Is there anything you haven’t told us?” He acknowledged that there was something he might have mentioned but it was difficult and the hour was late, so he parted from his students to a good-hearted chorus of boos, and decided to toss in his parting shot at a distance, in a letter at the close of the book he was writing about his class. �The letter was addressed “To My Ungrateful Students:” What he had to say went far beyond the advice of an instructor concerned with technique in good writing: the need for precision and restraint, the use of anticipation over surprise and imagination over invention, the preference for the noun over the adjective and the verb over the adverb. Instead, he told a story of a conversation he’d had with Lewis Thomas toward the end of Thomas’s life, in which Thomas said that he would rather talk about life than death. “There’s an art to living,” he said. “And it has to do with usefulness. I would die content if I knew that I had led a useful life.” Rosenblatt then advised his students: “For your writing to be great ... it must be useful to the world. And for that to happen you must form an opinion of the world. And for that to happen, you need to observe the world, closely and steadily, with a mind open to change. And for that to happen you have to live in the world... . You must love the world as it is, because the world, for all its murder and madness, is worth loving. Nothing you write will matter unless it moves the human heart.” But what is useful to the world? The world will only tell you “what it wants, which changes from moment to moment, and is nearly always cockeyed… The world is an appetite waiting to be defined. The greatest love you can show it is to create what it needs, which means you must know that yourself.” The great writers are great, Rosenblatt says, “because their subjects and themes are great, and thus their usefulness is great as well. Their souls are great, and they have had the good sense and courage to consult their souls before their pens touched paper.” “When Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, George Eliot, or Chekhov are recalled,” Rosenblatt writes, “it is as if tidal waves are washing over us. We cannot catch our breath.” And what do the great writers have in common? “All have … a certain innocence of mind that allows them to observe life openly and with a sense of fair play, though not without judgment.” They also have an appreciation of uncertainty, which is necessary if one is concerned with coming to know the truth, a never-ending journey. Poets grapple with the difficulties of knowing the truth, but so do scientists. For both, ignorance is crucial. Why? Because, Rosenblatt says, “everything important in life is unknown.” �What Rosenblatt wants for his future writers is the same as what all good teachers want for their students: the ability to recognize the source of greatness within themselves; the desire to improve on that soul, making it capacious, kind, and rational; and the continual effort to cultivate the innocence of mind that lets us live freely and openly in the world. His brief description can be applied to education generally. We call it liberal education— education in the art of living well, free from the constraints enclosing us, free from the boundaries of our educational disciplines and specialties, free from the prejudices of our upbringing and popular opinion, free from the many caves that confine us all too comfortably. At St. John’s College, we offer such a liberal education—one that helps us understand ourselves and the world around us; one that helps us develop an adaptable mind, equally open to tradition and to progress; one that gives us practice in the art of inquiry, in asking the questions humans have been asking since we first began to speak. They are questions arising from the depths of wonder; questions revealing the depths of our ignorance about the world and about ourselves; questions demonstrating a startling truth: that our ignorance is the source of our greatest strength. For it is ignorance, not knowledge, that propels us forward. It generates the desire to know, which draws us expectantly into the unknown. This is what the world needs: a good understanding of how to develop and where to direct our desire to know. If this assessment is true—and I believe it is—then the best conceivable education, the education at which college-bound students should aim and the one that is most useful to the world, comes from studying the greatest literary, scientific, philosophical, political, artistic, and musical works known to mankind, because their authors have the most to teach. Of all who have left records behind, they have understood most profoundly that we have much to learn, that the wonders of learning are exhilarating though its challenges are humbling. Take Galileo, an author read in your junior year. He is supposed to have said, “Doubt is the father of invention.” Why did he think that doubt is generative while others consider it paralyzing or destructive? Because doubt is the source of understanding and innovation. It is what causes us to ask the next question, which in turn leads us to a new possibility. It threatens the comfortable sense of security that would keep us tied to what �we thought we knew instead of asking: what does this new understanding cause us to ask that will allow us to reach beyond it? Michael Faraday, another author from the junior year, argued that to acquire the habits to form good judgment, an individual must engage in a program of self-education that rejects the blind dependency on the dogma of others; he must examine himself and become his own sharpest critic. “This education has for its first and last step humility. It can commence only because of a conviction of deficiency.” (Observations on Mental Education) Faraday’s is yet another call to “know thyself” better before advancing a judgment on anything else, a lesson all freshmen learn in their encounter with Socrates, the greatest skeptic of them all. Only when we understand that depth of our own ignorance, when we understand how little we know, are we ready to develop the lifelong habits that will best support learning. Only when we are free from conventional thinking, free to doubt what we have been taught about the world, can we imagine a whole new way to see the world and our place in it. This need to imagine a better world than the one we know is another reason why everything important in life is unknown. You lucky freshmen are reading Homer, the poet who may best demonstrate this power of the imagination, the journey-making faculty and the source of human creative power. The imagination is the beginning and end of any search for meaning, the connection between the world we live in and the one we would shape for ourselves. I can think of no finer example of the exercise of imagination than in Homer’s Odyssey. Constantine Cavafy captured the spirit of the Odyssey in his 1911 poem “Ithaka” “Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if lasts for years, So you are old by the time you reach the island, Wealthy with all you have gained on the way, Not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.” “Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out.” �We at the College imagine that your four-year journey through the Program will help you find your own Ithaca, the beginning and end of your search for meaning. There is a reason we at St. John’s College are proud to say: “The Following Teachers Will Return to St. John’s Next Year”: Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles; Euclid, Apollonius, and Lobachevski; Newton, Einstein, and Heisenberg; Shakespeare, Milton, and Cervantes; Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. Plato and Aristotle; Dostoevsky and Tolstoy; Austen and Woolf; Kant, and Hegel; the Bible and the founding documents of our nation. What incomparable teachers they are, capable of helping you find your way to the answers you seek to the big questions you have: How should I live my life? How can I be useful to the world? With teachers like these, what do we expect of you, our students? We ask you to engage with each of these authors whose works span the ages. We ask you to be of every age just as they were, displaced from the world they were born into, wondering at it, learning from it, loving it, recognizing its ugliness and its beauty, and making it a better world for their contributions to it. Along the way we imagine that your discourse with the books and authors will cause you to look deeply into the greatest mystery of all, your very souls. You will not be alone in this four-year journey through the Program. You will have a faculty of tutors who will share this journey with you. Their principle responsibilities are two-fold: to serve as models of inquiry and independence; and to engage with your questions as they arise, to join with you in yoursearch for answers, as you learn how to interrogate yourselves and one another in the endless search for meaning. You will also have with you your fellow students, including those gathered here today to welcome you into our community with all the enthusiasm worthy of fellow learners. I will leave you with a poetic image from a book you will be reading in your sophomore year: Dante’s Divine Comedy, a poem written in three parts. Our hero Dante is guided on a journey through the Inferno, the place of despair, Purgatorio, the place of hope, and Paradiso, the place of fulfillment. As Dante, a mortal visitor, is led into the second realm of Paradiso, inhabited by shades in a blessed spirit world, he is swarmed upon as if by fish to their food. �“As in a fish-pool that is calm and clear the fish draw to that which comes from the outside, taking it to be their food, so I saw plainly more than a thousand splendors draw towards us, and in each I heard: ‘Lo, one who will increase our loves!’ And as each shade came near, it appeared to be full of happiness, by the bright effulgence that came forth from it.” The simile suggests that even in the heavenly sphere the human spirit is fed by fellowship and the desire to know. Human companionship and the conversation which follows are seen as food for the spirit. I close with this image to say to our freshmen that you are not only here to feed on the conversation that is the highest activity of this College. You are also food for the rest of our College community that has been drawn here today to greet you, recognizing that your arrival will increase the love of learning shared by our students, faculty, and staff. May you find here at St. John’s College a curriculum that awakens in you the desire to know! May you keep that desire ever-fresh! May you find fellow companions that will help you uncover your ignorance of the world so that you may be free to explore the unknown—because everything important in life is unknown. Thank you! I declare the College in session this 20th day of August, 2014 Convocatum Est! � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 6 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-08-20 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address given by Chris Nelson for the Fall 2013 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "Everything Important in Life Is Unknown." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation, Fall 2014 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Convocation Presidents Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/930532df7f3591474f66d9518cf60635.pdf d03de6306eb33510d37274d40db5c776 PDF Text Text Convocation 2015: Mathematics, a Gateway to Philosophy and the Search for Truth St. John’s College in Annapolis opened the 2015-16 academic year on August 26 with Convocation, the annual ceremony rich with traditions. Nearly 120 freshmen participated in a procession from McDowell Hall to Francis Scott Key auditorium, where each student is called on the stage to meet President Christopher B. Nelson. Students sign the college’s register and receive an Ancient Greek lexicon as a gift from the college. Here is the 2015 Convocation address: Welcome to St. John’s College. To our returning students, faculty and staff, welcome back. To our freshmen and their families, we are very happy to have you joining us. In the next few days, you freshmen will begin working your way through a book that I think, more than any other, serves as an exemplar of guidance in an activity we try to undertake in all of our classes, especially our tutorials. I speak of Euclid’sElements. I imagine that there may be one or two among you who do not now love mathematics and may even be a little intimidated by it. Let me put it another way: there may be among you a few who have no idea how much you will come to love the study of mathematics and more particularly this first and most beautiful book of geometry and proportions. If so, you would not be the first. As we sit in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium of Mellon Hall, I am reminded of the difficulty Paul Mellon had with his Mathematics Tutorial in the autumn of his freshman year, 1940. Paul Mellon, philanthropist and heir to the Mellon Bank Fortune, was the single most important financial supporter of the College from the early years of the New Program until 1964 and later through his estate. Mellon had started as a mature student, having degrees from both Yale and Cambridge. He had �done well in plane geometry, memorizing theorems at Choate and receiving a perfect score on his College Boards. But he was flabbergasted and embarrassed that he could not do his demonstrations of Euclid’s propositions at the blackboard at St. John’s. As things progressed from bad to worse, Mellon wrote to his psychiatrist, explaining the problem. He received a letter in reply, part of which says this: “It is an asinine prejudice that mathematics has anything to do with the training of the mind. It has as little to do with the mind as music, which also doesn’t train the mind in the case of one who isn’t musical. . . . So, I think you waste your time absolutely when you try to study mathematics. Mathematics is a hellish and perfectly useless torture for somebody who hasn’t the gift in that way, as it is the most boring nonsense to be forced to learn to play an instrument when one isn’t musical. Tell your professors that their psychological knowledge is a bit weak.” The letter was signed: “I remain yours cordially, Carl Jung.” And you wonder why no book by Carl Jung is on our Program in Annapolis! I may have taken a risk in telling you this story, lest you mistakenly believe that Jung provides a legitimate excuse to treat one of the most beautiful books ever written as useless torture. I got lucky some 55 years ago to have discovered Euclid. I was in the seventh grade, in an age when all girls took Home Economics (a semester each of Cooking and Sewing) and all boys took a semester of Shop followed by one in Mechanical Drawing. For Christmas, between semesters, my parents gave me a drawing board, ruler, compass, T-Square, various plastic triangles, proper pencils, and a pad of drawing paper. I went straight to work, doing all the exercises that awaited me in the coming semester, finishing them before the class had barely started, so completely had I fallen for the beauty of precise draftsmanship. When I had finished the textbook exercises, I went to my father to see if he could find something more for me to draw. He understood my need and, like any good alumnus of St. John’s College, pulled down from his bookshelf a 1941 edition of Book I of Euclid’s Elements. I am pretty certain that I skipped the definitions, postulates and common notions, something I do NOT recommend to our freshmen. �So, starting with Proposition 1: “On a finite straight line to construct an equilateral triangle,” I drew a line and two circles whose centers were the end points of the straight line and whose distance to the circles’ circumference was that very same straight line. “Oh, good,” I thought, as I took out my ruler and compass, drew the figures shown in the proof, and constructed the equilateral triangle, labeling everything according to the drawing in the Euclid text. I then proceeded to do the same for all 48 propositions of Book I. Back to Dad: “Now what?” I asked. “Book II?” Instead, he asked me to set aside my ruler, compass, and other tools, and try Proposition 1 again without them, freehand. Well, I went about it as carefully as I could, drawing the line and circles, labeling the points and intersections. But what I drew frankly did not look like an equilateral triangle. Mine was a pretty lopsided figure. I said I just couldn’t do it freehand, as I was no good at drawing perfect circles. My father then asked me to go through the proof out loud and show him where I had gone wrong. And so I did, and I proved that my triangle was indeed an equilateral triangle, notwithstanding how lopsided it looked. This was my first “Eureka!” moment in mathematics, when I came to realize that the drawings were merely imperfect images of the perfect figures Euclid was constructing in his geometry, using definitions, postulates, and common notions as his tools instead of my draftsman’s mechanical tools, which had their own imperfections too. Euclid’s proof was true and would hold up, however poorly I had drawn my figures. Now I went more slowly through Book I a second time, figuring out how those elementary building blocks so simply laid out in the first three pages could prove all of the propositions in the book. I was now freed of my mechanical tools and able to work in a new world made real by the application of a handful of definitions, a few rules of construction or postulates of the imagination, and a few axioms of logic. I was getting behind the appearances of the geometrical drawings to understand better the reality of the objects of geometry: a point that has no part, a line without breadth, neither of which could be seen with the eye or drawn with the pencil; circles and triangles that could only be imperfectly represented in my drawings, even those made with the finest of mechanical tools. I could dwell in a world lodged firmly in the imagination, somehow more perfect, more “real,” than the one I usually inhabited with my family and friends, a �world filled with objects that have color, dimension and shape, a world we experience in time and space. I soon began to wonder what it might mean to have discovered an imaginary world that could explain the number, size, shape, and movement of bodies in our earthly world and in the heavens above. Sometime later I would ask the question a little differently: What would it mean to understand that all of mathematics is a metaphorical language used to describe the relationships among things in the physical world that I inhabited during most of my waking hours? How were we to judge how far we could draw out that metaphor? And I came back to the question as to which world was the more real and what was the proper relationship between the two. From these questions sprang my love of mathematics and mathematical physics. Another thing in the Elements caught my imagination some years later. It was contained in Euclid’s five postulates. I asked how it was that I could draw the line on which I would construct the equilateral triangle of Proposition 1. It was not by virtue of having the definition of a line as “breadthless length”. That definition did not seem to bring the line into being or to tell me that I had the power to make it so. How was I to take the very first step in the very first proof? Well, there it was: “Let it be postulated: (1) To draw a straight line from any point to any point,” Euclid seemed to describe an activity and give the reader the power to engage in that activity. We know that we cannot really draw a line with breadthless length, but Euclid was giving us both permission and power to do so. Euclid was a teacher of geometry, helping us see in time and space how to go about understanding these geometrical objects of imagination in relation to one another. The construction could be understood best by the unfolding, or revealing, of its nature in a series of steps taken in succession over time. And then years later, a senior colleague of mine helped me understand the complex grammatical construction of the postulates in the original Greek, that they did not direct an activity so much as reveal what these timeless figures were as though they were coming into being in time. To give you an idea of what I mean, let me compare two different translations of another famous text. The sophomores are reading Genesis just now. Consider the differences in these two translations of the opening of that book: �The King James version reads: “In the Beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” Another version from the Tanakh, translated by the Jewish Publication Society, reads: “When God began to create the heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said. ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.’” In the first translation, it is as though God created the heavens and earth out of nothing. So, the imperative “Let there be light!” seems to suggest a kind of supernatural calling into being. In the second, it is as though God was bringing order to chaos over time. It allows us better to imagine “Let there be light!” as a revealing of what that order might be, a revealing of what had been dark. The second translation contains an ambiguity between the revelation of what is and the activity of calling it into being. I think Euclid is doing something like this in his postulates, revealing what these timeless objects of the imagination are even as we observe them coming into being. We students of Euclid are thus engaged in an activity that appears to be bringing geometrical objects into being even as we are recognizing them for what they already are, timeless and permanent, already possessing all the properties that will be revealed over the course of the remainder of the book. When we go to the board in our mathematics tutorial and repeat the steps in Euclid’s propositions, we are engaged in a journey of the imagination to reflect on the origin, nature, and elements of a line, a circle, a construction, a proof. The truth of the proposition is revealed to us through the application of reason to our imagination. This activity, trying to understand origins and elements, lies at the heart of much of what we do in our study together at St. John’s. But we cannot always start at the beginning as Euclid did, with first principles and elements, building up our understanding from there. Nonetheless, because we have had this experience with Euclid, we imagine that we can work our way back from the appearances, from the phenomena, from the opinions of mankind, to the origins, principles, and elements that underlie what we are hearing, reading, and seeing with our senses, to uncover their origins, foundations, and �elements. If we cannot start at the beginning, we must instead work to recover that beginning and uncover the elements of the object of our study. This is why we sometimes call a St. John’s education “elemental” or “elementary,” not because what we seek to learn is simple or easy to grasp, but because we are always looking to uncover what lies beneath or behind what we think we are seeing. We are seeking to find a truth about the object of our study, just as we have come to see the truth of a Euclidian proposition through the application of both the intellect and the imagination to the original, elementary building blocks. Achilles rages. Why is he angry? What lies behind his rage? Is it natural or not? Good or bad? Is it justified? Can it be controlled or not? If in the end his anger is resolved and some sense of humanity restored, how did this happen and why? “The will of Zeus was moving toward its end.” What has Zeus’s will got to do with Achilles’s wrath? Does that will control the fate of the warriors? Who are these gods and do they determine the outcomes of battle or do they serve as poetic metaphors for deathless forces we cannot control or comprehend? We wish to understand what it means to be human and we want to know about the world we inhabit. What are our origins? What was in the beginning? How do we live and grow? How do we satisfy our needs? How ought we to express our love and sympathy? How become better and wiser? How use our talents to make this a better world? How ought we to treat our planet and use the resources nature has provided? We need to know something about ourselves and our world to answer these questions. We need to uncover a truth we can recognize for what it is—a helpful way-station and landing place on our way to a deeper search for an answer to a question newly raised by the answer we have just uncovered. And on it goes, delving deeper into foundations, looking for the elements of the construction we call our world. At other colleges and universities these elements are rooted in isolated disciplines: chemistry, biology, psychology, or political science; earth science, astronomy, geology, or physics; perhaps history, theology, poetry, or music. We appreciate the need to specialize in order to get a refined understanding of any one thing. But how can you ever come to uncover the truth of a mere part of something without having some understanding of its relationship to other parts or to the whole of which it is a part? �You already have some experience of an integrated whole; for the most part, you have lived a life that has not been lived in an isolated discipline. And yet you have likely been unconscious of most of the elements and foundations of your world. We take seriously your need to be conscious in your search for an understanding of yourselves and your world, the interconnectedness between the two, their origins and elements. And we have constructed a curriculum and a way of helping you bring it to life within yourselves. So, what has Euclid got to do with all of this? First of all, Euclid permanently refutes Carl Jung. The study of his Elementshas everything to do with the training of the mind, exercising the imagination, using your reason, and applying it to the world you live in. His book is an exemplar of the study of elements and origins that you will be looking for in all of your study here. And lucky for you, it is only one of some 130 original works of imagination, each of which has been chosen for its capacity to help you uncover something you may recognize as a truth about yourself or your world, each of which will help you find the next question you need to ask to understand something still more fundamental in your search for answers to the many questions you have—the questions that have undoubtedly brought you to this College. But I am not finished with Dr. Jung! Not only has mathematics got everything to do with the training of the mind, but it has everything to do with the elements of music, which is not the boring nonsense Dr. Jung claims it to be. And to prove the point, I invite all of our upper-classmen to rise and use their one common musical instrument—their voices—to welcome our freshmen to our community. [All Rise to Sing Sicut Cervus] Thank you. After the recessional, I invite everyone to join us for refreshments and conversation outside the Mitchell Gallery through the doors of Mellon Hall. I declare the College in session this 26th day of August, 2015. CONVOCATUM EST! � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 7 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08-26 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address given by Chris Nelson for the Fall 2015 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "Mathematics, a Gateway to Philosophy and the Search for Truth." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation, Fall 2015 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Convocation Presidents Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f56a22e75891750ff4962d02f93d3952.pdf 359825e3e6640a6c4c220da7a456be46 PDF Text Text The Pursuit of Happiness Convocation Address, August 24, 2016 Christopher B. Nelson Welcome to the Class of 2020, to the entering students in the Graduate Institute, and to their families and friends. To our returning students, faculty and staff, welcome back. I hope that all of you are as happy as I am to see a new year underway. It was on just such an occasion 50 years ago that I shook the hand of our president, signed the College Register, and sat where you freshmen are sitting today, awaiting the happy start of a four-year adventure into the books and conversation that comprise our Program of Study at St. John's. As I began to prepare today's remarks, I tried to call up what it was I seeking when I chose to apply to St. John's those many years ago. Some of it was very clear in my mind; some of it was quite foggy, not because of the passage of time, but because I lacked the vocabulary to describe it. First of all, I was very tired of hearing my teachers tell me what I needed to know, and then regurgitating it back on tests designed to measure my learning, as if I could not determine that for myself. I wanted to make my education my own, to participate in it, to talk through what we were studying, to take it seriously … for my sake. And then, there were the books, many of which I could not imagine reading on my own. I was happy to have found a college where the faculty had formed a judgment that some books were better than others. I am quite sure that it was not out of laziness that I thought it better to give myself over to these judgments when I was just 18 years old. I knew at least that much about what I did not know to trust a well-read faculty to help me get started on my education. But there was something else that caught my attention, and I don't think I could have described it well back then. It was this: the College's Program was said to be a kind of whole, like a fully-jigged puzzle, where all the parts fit together. I think I understood that no one on the faculty would claim that the Program was really complete or that the jigged pieces were perfect fits. I knew that parts of it had been rearranged and substituted for others over time, and I imagined that the Program would continue to be rearranged with experience, even that its elements might change. At the same time, I knew of no other college that claimed it was trying to present a kind of whole to its students, and that there were unifying aspects to its parts. And I thought it meant something that a faculty would care as much about the whole as of its many parts, each of which held its own attractions which presented temptations to concentrate on a part at the expense of the whole. (The rise of countless majors and electives over the last century and a half in other colleges is proof enough of such temptation.) I am sure my experience with life cannot have been so different from yours that you would not recognize a yearning for a sense of wholeness in your life, that there often seem to be competing parts of the soul fighting with one another while we are also trying to get a more complete understanding of ourselves and the kind of life we wish to live. This desire for wholeness, a one-ness within us, is something we often call "integrity", borrowed from the word "integer”, signifying unity, something that can help each of us be the same person in public as we are in private, the same person when facing a trial as when at ease with the world, the kind of person worthy of the trust of his or her family, friends and colleagues. The satisfaction of this desire to make a complete whole for ourselves is something I wanted to call happiness. I am convinced that this pursuit of happiness is what drove me to St. John's College, and I hope it has been a part of what has brought you here as well. �To satisfy this desire for a life of integrity, one needs to ask the right questions and explore the possible answers: What does it mean to be human? How does my humanity reflect itself in my own unique life? What kind of world do I live in and how is it changing? What tools do I need to navigate that world and make sense of it? What ought I to do with my life? How might I help make this a better world? Is there a divinity at work and what difference would that make? I could not imagine being happy but unable to ask these questions in the company of others who also cared about their answers. It seemed that my happiness was bound up with others in a common search for understanding such things. Frankly, it took me some time at St. John's College to see how many of the books that asked such elemental questions were expressly concerned with human happiness. And it was through reading these books and discussing them at length that I came to realize something rather obvious, that our happiness requires that our actions are not only harmonious with one another and with our will, but that they are directed toward what is truly good for us. Happiness comes from living a good life, enriched by all that a human being really needs. But recognition of the good is not always easy, and not everyone agrees that it can be pursued even if it is recognized. We read the Iliad and see our heroes vying for honor and glory and ask if this is a proper object of desire. Some of our warriors are saved by a god or goddess who loves them and would keep them from their fate. Others come to an unhappy end, and we ask why some god did not swoop down from Olympus to divert the spear flying toward its end. What control did these heroes actually have over their fate when even the son of a god could be slain in battle? Or did the happy intervention by a god on behalf of a hero suggest he was somehow worthy of the god's love and attention, a sign of his character, something within his power to shape? We read of Odysseus weeping to find his way home and into the arms of his Penelope. What is the relationship between his happiness and their reunion, between his happiness and home itself? Indeed, what does it mean to have a home? Odysseus had to leave home to find it, to suffer both abroad and on his return in order to earn the right to repossess his home. But then what do we make of his desire to leave again and in search of what end? Or is the search for happiness simply unending and the object of the search always changing? Herodotus tells us the story of Croesus, King of Lydia, who seeks the advice of Solon of Athens as to who is the happiest man in the world, believing it could be none other than himself, the man with all the wealth and power one could want. Solon answers with the stories of three men who lived well and died well too. He cannot say of Croesus that he is the happiest, or most of blessed of men, until he has brought his life to its end. Croesus does indeed suffer a terrible reversal of fortune, losing his kingdom and his son in the bargain, and when facing death atop a funeral pyre with flames licking his feet, Croesus renounces his pride, recognizing Solon's wisdom, and exclaims that no one who lives is happy, calling out Solon's name, whereupon a storm burst forth and put out the flames. Happiness has deep roots in luck, chance, fate, and the gods! Happiness is what happens to us, the story seems to say; it is not in our control. Aeschylus weaves the drama of Agamemnon, who chose to sacrifice his daughter in order that he might achieve glory and lead the campaign against Troy… only to suffer an unhappy end at the hands of his queen. And of Orestes, who killed his mother as an act of justice for her murder of his father. Sophocles tells us of Oedipus, saving a city while fulfilling a prophesy that he would kill his father, marry his mother, and sire by her four children, themselves doomed to live out unhappy lives. For years, I just could not see why each of these men and women should not be held fully responsible for everything that came down upon their heads. �Then, in time, I came to wonder if I was not being too hard on them. The choices they had to face are the choices writ large that we all face from time to time, between family and country, duty and love, selfsacrifice and self-preservation, purity and compromise, and more. Resolution of such conflicts is not easy, and each choice has consequences. No simple happy endings for these tragic protagonists! All contributed to their own undoing; all were hunted down by gods or pursued by family curses for the choices they made. Salvation, if it came, was a gift from the gods; man could not control his happiness in this world. Mankind, in the words of the chorus of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, is an "unhappy race", and the man or woman who escapes the tragic predicament of their humanity requires the intervention of the divine. All others suffer. I have to say that this view of humanity and the possibility of happiness did not sit well with me, not when I first read these painfully beautiful plays, and not after many more readings. Even with another five decades of experience behind me, reminding me of the aches and pains of growing up and then growing older, the heartaches and losses that accompany our mortal condition, and the caprice of fortune’s wheel, I take comfort in a conviction I have that I can find a measure of happiness in the choices I make in shaping my life. I act as though I have freedom of choice, and I have convinced myself that this freedom and my acting on it make a difference in my fortune, my search for happiness. Freshmen and some of you in our Graduate Institute will soon be reading Plato’s Republic, in which Socrates faces a challenge from two young brothers that he show them why their happiness depends on living a just life and fighting injustice. One brother, Glaucon, makes the case that if it were not for fear of getting caught and punished, we would all follow a life of injustice, seizing for ourselves whatever we desired, not caring where we got it or how. Imagine, he says, that a man could have the power of an ancestor of Gyges who took a gold ring from the finger of a corpse in a well that opened up during an earthquake. This man found that when he wore the ring and turned it inward toward himself he became invisible, but when he turned it outward he became visible again. He discovered he could take what he wanted without being caught, and promptly proceeded to do so, taking first his King’s wife and then his life, securing to himself wealth and power to rule over all. Such a man could become like a god among men. Then Glaucon asks us to imagine that the unjust man is so supremely unjust as to persuade others that he is in fact just. He must seem to be what he is not and have the sterling reputation of a just man throughout his whole life right up to his death. And the just man? He will be made to suffer the extreme of injustice: “he’ll be whipped; he’ll be racked; he’ll be bound; he’ll have both eyes burned out; and at the end, when he has undergone every sort of evil, he’ll be crucified…” Glaucon spares no detail in describing the suffering that will be heaped upon this genuinely just man, who will have a reputation for injustice to his dying day. It takes a pretty long dialogue for Socrates to persuade Glaucon that it is better to be just for its own sake, that it is thus better to suffer injustice than to do injustice, and that justice is a virtue of the soul necessary to the happiness of the individual. Socrates does this by showing that justice is concerned with the inward man, the one who sets in order his own inner life and is at peace with himself. We have within us by our very nature the power to set this inner life in order and to become our own master. You will read the Nichomachean Ethics, where Aristotle argues that every action or decision seems to aim at some good. The ultimate good or final end of living is our happiness. And our most distinctly human activity is the exercise of reason. Just as the good doctor procures health through the practice of medicine (the doctor’s distinct virtue), the good warrior achieves victory through the making of war (the warrior’s distinct virtue), so the good human being will attain happiness through the exercise of reason �(mankind’s distinctly human virtue.) Happiness, for Aristotle, is “an activity in accordance with virtue.” By positing that mankind is intended to fulfill a singular but common purpose, he allows for the possibility that we can exercise our intellect to secure our happiness, and that we should in fact seek the happiness which is appropriate and available to us all. Questions concerning the possibility of the search for happiness run throughout the four-year undergraduate curriculum and in all segments of the Graduate Institute, in our tutorials and laboratories, as well as in our seminars. Sophomores are opening the year with Genesis and the Hebrew Bible. What does it mean to be made in the image of God, and does this help us imagine a path to our happiness, or does it only reveal the chasm between man and his Maker as to make happiness on Earth seem impossible? Is happiness to be found in following God’s law? Is happiness available only through the Grace of God? Juniors have spent the summer happily reading Don Quixote. Have you figured out what the object of his quest is? Cervantes tells us: “It now appeared to him fitting and necessary, in order to win a greater amount of honor for himself and serve his country at the same time, to become a knight-errant and roam the world on horseback, in a suit of armor; he would go in quest of adventures, by way of putting into practice all that he had read in his books; he would right every manner of wrong, placing himself in situations of the greatest peril such as would redound to the eternal glory of his name.” Through Cervantes’ masterful portrait, the good Don seems to have achieved that eternal glory. But how did he do it, this Sorrowful Knight of ours? And why, in order to stamp out injustice, did he need to suffer the cruel abuses to his body in Part I and the torture of his mind in Part II? This is not the book that first comes to mind in a discussion of happiness, and yet we yearn to see our hero assert his will, time and time again, to achieve the greatness he would have in his re-imagination of himself. Our fine old gentleman, Alonzo Quijano the Good, seems to achieve his end in making a new self in the figure of our knighterrant. Seniors are reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Prince Andre seeks happiness in doing his duty, but loses sight of those who are closest to him. Meanwhile, Pierre learns in the time of his captivity and deprivation that man’s happiness lies within himself and that unhappiness arises from superfluity, from having too much of what most men think they want. Pierre would give up considerable wealth in search of his happiness. But if we can say that he secures his happiness, it would seem he actually found it in his flashing Natasha. How could I end a reflection on the pursuit of happiness without addressing our national birthright, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence? “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I imagine that there are many who read this right to pursue happiness as a right to seek whatever each of us desires for himself or herself, a statement approving of the autonomy of each individual citizen to determine what is his or hers by right. But such a reading leads to pure anarchy, where each citizen is given license to pursue his heart’s desire, hardly a recipe for a democracy intended to achieve a people’s peaceful self-governance. What is the place of the public good? Jefferson, principle author of the Declaration, was also known to say that “Happiness is the aim of life, but virtue is the foundation of happiness.” He sounds a lot like Aristotle, and we should not lose sight of the double aspect of the pursuit of happiness in the tension between its public and private aspects. �Alexis de Tocqueville may have found the best way to explain how Americans reconcile the pursuit of their individual self-interest with a desire to serve the greater good. “In the United States,” he says, “hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful and prove it every day.” “They…content themselves with inquiring whether the personal advantage of each member of the community does not consist in working for the good of all; and when they have hit upon some point on which private interest and public interest meet and amalgamate, they are eager to bring it into notice. Observations of this kind are gradually multiplied; what was only a single remark becomes a general principle, and it is held as a truth that man serves himself in serving his fellow creatures and that it is in his private interest to do good.” “Americans are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood.” I will leave it to you to sort out this argument, and to determine whether it is a sustainable principle. But I rather like the idea, and think it exerts a restraint on the blind degeneration of the pursuit of one’s individual happiness into nothing but self-regard. Every democracy requires free citizens, and free citizens must have free minds. A liberal education, literally an education for freedom, is designed to free the mind to perform its public function. But above all, that free mind is necessary for our personal happiness, for living a good life, the life suited to our nature. On behalf of my colleagues at St. John’s College, I invite you to join us in uncovering this gloriously human project of freeing ourselves to find our way to a better life. Discover for yourselves whether you can and will pursue your happiness. While we hope for you happiness, even joy, in your studies with us, we also hope you are able to have a little fun while you’re at it. And there are loads of activities beyond these intellectual pursuits to satisfy your many other desires, from participating in the athletic program to acting in a dramatic production, from writing for the Gadfly to taking a painting class, from gazing at the stars to canoeing on the Severn, from singing in one of the choral groups to playing in the orchestra. And here I am at the end of a reflection on happiness with hardly a word about the joy and beauty we usually associate with happiness. So,let me call upon our upperclassmen to remedy this deficiency, to rise and welcome the newest members of our community with beautiful song! Mr. Stoltzfus, will you assist? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Welcome to St. John’s College! Thank You. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx After the recessional, please join us outside the Mitchell Gallery for a reception and further conversation. I declare the College in Session this 24th day of August, 2016. CONVOCATUM EST! � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation 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 digital Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 5 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2016 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address given by Chris Nelson for the Fall 2016 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "The Pursuit of Happiness." Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-08-24 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Fall 2016 Convocation Address-The Pursuit of Happiness Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Convocation Presidents Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/92d31ffa84b0722fdb4c1f53ec357402.mp3 81e30dbfd4b24d4cd0d39642b10cf693 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation 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.) 00:25:30 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 Convocation Address, Fall 2017 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of the convocation address given by Pano Kanelos for the Fall 2017 semester in Annapolis, MD. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kanelos, Panayiotis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-23 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/3108">Typsecript</a> Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation Kanelos, Pano 8-28-17 Convocation Presidents https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/edf9e1a14b22fcdc7db36edbc4f253a3.pdf a4f1775be350508f1bc1f14afe6df144 PDF Text Text St. John’s College Convocation August 23, 2017 Pano Kanelos It is with great pleasure that I would like to welcome the Class of 2021 and our entering Graduate Institute students into our St. John’s community. We are honored to have you here. I would like to welcome as well all family and friends who are joining us today – thank you for all the support you give these wonderful young people. And to the returning students, faculty and staff – I would like to thank you personally for allowing me to join this community. Just like our first-year students, I feel like I’ve entered a place of a garden of delight and wonder. It was customary in the nineteenth century, at American colleges such as St. John’s, for the college president to offer a capstone course to graduating seniors. This class, generally titled “Moral Philosophy”, was meant to be the culmination of one’s college experience. “Moral philosophy” was the end towards which all the separate courses of study pointed. It represented the telos of one’s education. Those nineteenth-century presidents must have been made of sterner stuff than this twentyfirst century president. I am certain, were I to presume to offer instruction in moral philosophy at the end of your St. John’s experience, I would could only do more harm than good. Let us leave the end of your studies in more qualified hands, those of your tutors, those of the texts you encounter, and most critically, your very own. Yet here we are at a beginning, called together in assembly, which is the meaning of convocation, a radical beginning for those of you who are joining us in your first year, and an only slight less profound beginning for those of us who have already been resident in this community. And at this beginning, I would like to draw inspiration from those past presidents and have us take a look at our end. In fact, what I would like to do this afternoon is provide a framework for you to think about the arc of your education at St. John’s College. To this end, I would like to fix in your mind a tableau, an evocative image provided by one of your teachers, the great lover of wisdom, Plato. My hope is that this image will remain with you during your time here in the college, and that it will be one that you will return to again and again in the years that follow. �The endpoint of the experience of the Program of Instruction is a text, Plato’s Phaedrus. This is the final work on our four-year long seminar reading list in Annapolis. This may seem anomalous to some, given that all the other readings in seminar are roughly chronological in sequence. Why, at the end of the arc, after having marched resolutely from the classical world to Wittgenstein and Heidegger, are we circling back around to this ancient work? And to strike yet another seemingly discordant note, those of you who study the seminar reading list with any attention, will mark another peculiarity – there is only one text over our four-year course of study, that we read not once, but twice – Plato’s Phaedrus. The Phaedrus marks the end point of our first undergraduate year of study; it also marks the endpoint of the Program of Instruction. Thus when we reach the end of the Program we are both at an end, yet also circling back around to an earlier point. We complete a circuit, a coming again, a revolution. The end is, and is not, the end. Which brings us to the image that I would like to fix in your mind as you charge forth into this year and those to come. Picture a chariot. This chariot, pulled by two winged steeds, is traversing the sky. The driver, sweating, straining, struggles to maintain control. One of the horses, white, noble in bearing, heaves upward, wrenching the chariot towards the heavens. The other horse, black, disfigured, drags the craft perilously towards the earth. Their journey is an erratic one, a dangerous one. This dynamic image is taken from the Phaedrus. It is an image of the human soul. In the Phaedrus, Plato describes the chariots of the gods, each harnessed to two white, noble horses, parading one after the other into the heavens. Led by Zeus, the gods ascend effortlessly into the ether, where they contemplate the Forms: " What is in this place is without color and without shape and without solidity, a reality that really is what it is, the subject of all true knowledge, visible only to intelligence, the soul's steersman. Now a god's mind is nourished by intelligence and pure knowledge, as is the mind of any soul that is concerned to take in what is appropriate to it, and so it is delighted at last to be seeing what is real and watching what is true, feeding on all this and feeling wonderful, until the circular motion brings it around to where it started. On the way around it has a view of Justice as it is; it has a view of Self-control; it has a view of Truth. And when the soul has seen all the things that are as they are and feasted on them, it sinks back inside heaven and goes home. On its arrival, the charioteer stables the horses by the manger, throws in ambrosia, and gives them nectar to drink besides. Now that is the life of the gods.” �The life of mortals, however, is not quite so serene. The chariot represents for Plato the tripartite human soul. The driver of the chariot signifies the intellect, our ratiocinative powers. The white horse represents what the Greeks termed our “thumos” or spiritedness. Our thumos seeks glory, honor, and recognition. It goads us towards excellence and pricks us when we act shamefully. The black horse embodies our appetites, which are drawn towards earthly pleasures, material gain and comfort. Human reason, in the figure of the charioteer, aims for enlightenment. But it is yoked to these other human drives. Thus, trailing the gods, desperately following in their wake, the human soul invariably falters. Again, from the Phaedrus: "As for the other souls, one that follows a god most closely, making itself most like that god, raises the head of its charioteer up to the place outside and is carried around in the circular motion with the others. Although distracted by the horses, this soul does have a view of Reality, just barely. Another soul rises at one time and falls at another, and because its horses pull it violently in different directions, it sees some real things and misses others. The remaining souls are all eagerly straining to keep up, but are unable to rise; they are carried around below the surface, trampling and striking one another as each tries to get ahead of the others...” Such is the fate of human souls. What comes without effort to the gods, possessed of pure intellect, is attained only fleetingly by mortals, and even then, only by a select few. Depending upon on how extensive a glimpse of the Forms they achieve, determines their human identity. Those who have steered their chariots above the rim of the sky and who have glimpsed Reality in its authentic form are compelled by an overwhelming desire to return that exalted station. The longer the soul has spent among the universals, the stronger the memory of what it has witnessed. Souls whose experience of the heavens was most sustained, return to earth as philosophers. Their compulsion to return to an unalloyed Reality manifests itself in desire, in a passion for truth – hence they are denominated lovers of wisdom. Other souls return to earth in descending order, each having seen and understood less and less of Reality, from law-abiding kings, to merchants, physicians, prophets, poets, craftsmen or farmers, sophists, and finally, the least enlightened, tyrants. You may read that final category as you will… This is neither the time nor place to offer an extended exegesis on Plato’s Allegory of the Chariot. Instead, I would like to offer a set of six brief observations. Then I would like to address how this allegory may be applied to your education. 1. The soul described by Plato is dynamic. It is in motion. Its path is not predetermined, but is rather the result of effort. We are creatures that change and develop. �2. The soul is multifaceted, composite. We are not simply rational creatures, but creatures of passion. We are driven by desires, both edifying and destructive. The intellect may try to steer these desires, yet it is also dependent upon them for forward motion. 3. We cannot simply cut the black horse loose – without its strength, we cannot ascend into the heavens. Yet our earthly desires must be informed by our reason and aligned with our spiritedness to propel us in the right direction. 4. The white horse may also present dangers. Thumos properly directed can lead to noble action. But thumos unbridled, like the anger of Achilles, can lead to rage and the loss of control. 5. As mortals, even our greatest efforts to seek Truth ultimately falter. Yet what marks us most is the desire for Truth, rather than its attainment. In this we are more glorious than even the gods. 6. It is the memory of what they have seen that draws souls back into the heavens. To know something is to return to it. To love something is to desire to return to it. So what do these unruly steeds and frantic charioteer have to do with your experience at St. John’s? To answer this question, we must first ask ourselves others: Is this thing we call education the formation of the intellect or the formation of the soul? Is knowledge dependent upon powers of the mind, or habits of character? Are these things separable? For Plato, they clearly are not. To seek truth, one must cultivate one’s character, one must allow the passion for what is honorable to rein in and lead the passion for baser things. In fact, one must train the passions to act in accord with the Good. As Aristotle says, “To be always seeking after the useful, does not become free and exalted souls.” Liberal education is an education that liberates – this is the root implication of liberal. Plato’s chariot is an image of free and exalted souls, those souls that soar as best they can towards the heavens. The course of that flight for those of you joining St. John’s, as well as for those of you currently mid-air, is the course of your experience in the Program. Yours are minds traversing a set of texts, a constellation of intensified human experience. Yet the Program is not the end itself. It is an opportunity for you to strive for higher things. And your striving will be animated by your thumos. Let me provide an example. Recently, I ran into a couple of Johnnies at a restaurant on Main Street in Annapolis. Our conversation turned towards the coming semester. I mentioned that I would be leading a preceptorial, but was still mulling over the topic. I asked them what they would be interested in taking. One of the young women immediately responded, “Anything! �As long as it’s really difficult.” That right there, that impulse that rose in this young woman to seek the challenging path, was an expression of her thumos. You could practically feel the white horse lifting her upwards. As you make your way through St. John’s, the black horse will be at work as well, tugging you in the other direction. It will be most obviously evident in simple, base distractions: when Netflix calls more loudly than Plato. When your confidence is shaken and you question the utility of your education. Most perniciously, you may also find yourself subject to the cynicism that seems to pervade the general culture about the pursuit of truth itself. To resist these impulses, you must have courage. This is not to say that you should only read books. Dancing, sports, conversation, and courtship are all arenas for thumos, where the passions quicken and where one may strive for excellence. We are composite beings, not disembodied minds. Live your life robustly while you are here. Be engaged. Be active. Be open to other remarkable souls that share this journey with you. Like the arc of Plato’s chariot, your pathway through St. John’s will come to its end. This may feel to you like a falling from the heavens to the earth. Yet as Plato instructs us, the end is not the end. Your future will be nourished by the memory of what you encounter here. The higher you soar, the longer you sustain your flight, the more potent your memory will be of the finer things. We are not gods – what we apprehend we apprehend only fleetingly. Yet you will continue to be free and exalted souls as you continue to be propelled by what is honorable, what is excellent and what is good. This will be fed by your love for wisdom. Remember, to know something is to return to it. To love something is to desire to return to it. The end is not the end. In Plato’s account, the wings of the both horses are nourished by beauty, enabling us to soar. At this moment, at the beginning of this journey, I would like to invite Mr. Stoltzfus to lead our students in a particular offering of beauty to sustain us as we move forward into this academic year. Mr. Stoltzfus! Thank you all for that truly inspiring rendition of Sicut Cervus. Immediately following the ceremony today, please join us for a reception in the FSK lobby. I will ask all guest to remain in your places until the platform party freshmen, new GI students and faculty have processed out. With great pleasure, “I officially declare the College in session. CONVOCATUM EST.” � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation 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 Word doc Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 5 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2017 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address given by Pano Kanelos for the Fall 2017 semester in Annapolis, MD. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kanelos, Panayiotis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-23 Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation Kanelos, Pano 8-23-17 Relation A related resource <a title="Sound recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3107">Sound recording</a> Convocation Presidents https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/dff5c37d2c4c457135e36fb85d492f28.mp3 a1ec23d743d446e4273db33d0e3bc16c 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation 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.) 00:21:33 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 Convocation Address, Fall 2018 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of the convocation address given by Pano Kanelos for the Fall 2018 semester in Annapolis, Maryland. Includes students singing Sicut Cervus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kanelos, Panayiotis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-08-22 Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation Kanleos, Pano 8-22-18 Convocation Presidents https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9a323fd69d32872afa2b067cf2207558.mp3 19b6674d8df9f0767530ec9929e0cdce 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation 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.) 00:26:32 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/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Fall 2019 Description An account of the resource Audio recording of the convocation address given by Pano Kanelos for the Fall 2019 semester in Annapolis, Maryland. Includes students singing Sicut Cervus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kanelos, Panayiotis Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-08-21 Type The nature or genre of the resource sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Kanelos_Pano_2019-08-21 Convocation Presidents https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/891db612ec5a97d63d9bd29c870a520b.pdf 62fae5eaf7a18a6017a42a91917753e5 PDF Text Text Annapolis - Fall 2009 Convocation Address Welcome especially to our new Graduate Institute students; welcome also to friends and family, returning students, colleagues. Today you new students become members of the St. John’s community, a community dedicated to liberal education in its most profound sense, that is, an education truly freeing—from preconceptions and illusions, from hasty answers to the deepest questions of human existence, from the limitations of a toonarrow perspective. Your entry into our community proceeds today through the portal of either the Literature segment or the Mathematics and Natural Science segment. Often in our society, the liberal arts are seen as antithetical to the technical, scientific disciplines; a chasm even wider than the ravines separating individual academic fields separates the humanities-oriented part of liberal arts from such “hard” sciences as physics, chemistry, even mathematics. Here at St. John’s we do not sanction such compartmentalization of the world of study; our organization of the Graduate Institute program into segments reflects the pressure of practical constraints rather than an assumption about valid categories of knowledge. For that reason, I’d like to use this occasion to make a beginning toward liberating us from a too-constricting notion of science. As with the question “What is virtue?” in the dialogue Meno, the question “What is science?” tends to elicit a whole “swarm” of responses. During the course of your readings in the Mathematics & Natural Science seminar, you will encounter many interpretations of science—from Lucretius’ epic poetry distilling all things into void and atoms, to Bacon’s reconstruction of science on experimental foundations, to Newton’s axiomatic system. Some versions will call themselves physics, some versions will assume the title of natural science, or natural history, or natural philosophy. These varied denominations reveal a significant reason that we should suspend our faith in the boundary lines of academia and return to the sources; we may thus begin to see both science and the world through clearer eyes. As an example of this challenging activity, I will here consider Plato’s dialogue, Timaeus. In it, the title character responds to Socrates’ expressed desire to see his utopian republic in action by telling a story of the origin of the cosmos, a creation myth if you will, what Timaeus himself calls a “likely story.” I will leave it to you in your seminars to figure out how a creation myth may be an animation of Socrates’ political “city �in speech.” I would like to examine in the rest of this talk the way in which science and story might be linked (rather than relegated to two separate segments, say). Timaeus’ preface to his story exhibits his own trepidation and uncertainty about his task. He feels the need to pray for the gods’ approval of a discourse concerning how the universe was created, “or perhaps is not created” (27c). He explicitly recognizes that his task is different from the task of philosophy. Philosophy studies that which is “apprehensible with the aid of reasoning since it is ever uniformly existent.” But the cosmos “is visible and tangible and possessed of a body.” Thus, it is only apprehensible through “opinion with the aid of sensation” (28c). Timaeus must explicate the world of becoming, things which come into being and pass away, the world of change. This is a good description of the arena we generally concede to science. Timaeus immediately makes us conscious that this world is susceptible only of opinion. We moderns rush headlong to use the word “knowledge” for the latest chemical and cosmological and medical theories (even if scientists themselves are sometimes more circumspect about the hypothetical character of their assumptions); then we reserve the word “opinion” for the realms of politics and religion and literature. Timaeus, in the face of the instability and ephemerality of the world confronting us, does not lose heart. Instead, he invokes ourselves as well as the gods, gathers up his courage, and begins clarifying the limits attending the project of describing the birth of the world. These are: 1. We must assume a cause of the cosmos. 2. We must assume the cosmos has come into being, since it is material and physical and our experience of physical things is that they are generated. 3. The cause of its coming into being, the architect, is good, and wanted the Cosmos to be beautiful, so he kept his eye fixed upon a perfectly stable, unchanging paradigm when he constructed this fluid, evershifting, pulsing- with-life being of the cosmos. Now, these three assumptions are all dubious. But let me point out: though their expression may be unfamiliar, they themselves are not wholly unfamiliar. The first is reminiscent of our own scientific trust in the world of causes, specifically of what we call efficient causes. We need to look for a mover of anything that is moved—a shove or a push or a force. The second emphasizes, as science usually does, the material character of what we are studying and the perceptual way we imbibe it, even if the logic positing a necessary beginning for the whole of such stuff transcends perception. The third, an assumption Timaeus himself recognizes as pious, may, in its appeal to beauty and goodness, involve more than mere �lawfulness—but science’s assertion of lawfulness can never simply be deduced (and sometimes rests on such grounds). Timaeus’ overt appeal to piety legitimately calls such faith in lawfulness to our attention. After his preliminary laying out of assumptions, Timaeus makes his surprising—at least to us—turn towards story-telling. He cautions Socrates that he will be unable to give a perfectly consistent and precise account (the Greek word is “logos”—connected to reason as well as speech). Instead we will all have to be satisfied with something he calls a “likely story.” I suspect that, when you read it, the tale that Timaeus subsequently recounts may strike you all as whimsical and eccentric rather than scientific. Nonetheless, Timaeus does give an explanation of the origin and nature of the cosmos. From the motions of the planets to the functioning of the liver, Timaeus elucidates various causes, drawing heavily on mathematics—the ratios underpinning the musical scale, the figures constituting the geometrical solids, and the circles used in astronomical predictions. But Timaeus depicts himself as designing a story rather than as giving a reasoned proof. For many years I’ve intended to formulate more precisely the meaning of his puzzling phrase “likely story,” each word of which is provocative. The Greek word for story here is indeed “mythos.” And Timaeus’ account is certainly a creation myth, involving a demiurge building an entire world from scratch. But “mythos” has a broader range of meaning in Greek than we tend to give “myth.” I think we always use that word with a soupcon of contempt—“that’s just a myth” we say; especially in the context of science, we indicate our superiority by calling something a myth. The word “story,” unlike “myth,” evokes affection and warmth in us. The Canterbury Tales are not myths to us; they are romances steeped in reality, distillations of the human experience resonating within us. Would we ever allow a story to be a vehicle for science, or even science itself? Surely, one reason we glow at the prospect of a story is that we expect to be entertained. From the time we cuddle in our mother’s laps, ears expectantly open, eager for adventure in thought, we associate new worlds, new visions, and new friends with stories. We are accustomed to allowing ourselves to live and breathe the air of some new world, to tread companionably along with strange characters, to thrill to new horizons. I balk a bit at describing this receptivity as passive; yet, I think I must admit that part of the pleasure of a story resides in the feeling that we need only step on board to be carried somewhere fresh and exciting. Someone else has charted the course and will do the navigation. Even I, with degrees in mathematics, have a very different feeling when I turn over a leaf in a book and confront a page dappled with equations; a special summoning of energy is required. But surely the dichotomy I’ve drawn is not precisely accurate. When reading a story, I must focus my concentration as well. And any good story actively engages the intelligence. The reader must re-create �the world the author has discovered in his own imagination and shine the interior light of his experience on the winding trail marked off by the author. While Homer may, in his first twenty lines, circumscribe the field of our vision to the problem of Achilles’ wrath, we ourselves must piece together the strange components of this almost elemental force, must analyze Achilles’ reactions, must press toward an understanding of the essence of this wrath. In order to understand Achilles, we must grope towards a vision of what honor means to those indomitable warriors of the Iliad and clear an arena where Achilles and we can meet on common ground. Are these intellectual activities so different from those employed in understanding the physical or biological world around us? I’m not at all sure they are. To penetrate the mediating language of mathematical symbols is a daunting and perhaps specialized enterprise, but the use of such symbols seems secondary to the goal of understanding the world around us. Scientific works do often present themselves as treatises and highlight the deductive character of the thinking involved. But stories too sometimes require us to make arguments from premises, perhaps premises of character types rather than definitions of motion—but arguments nonetheless. Moreover, upon reading that most deductive of all great books, Euclid’s Elements, we tutors frequently assign a paper at the end of Book I asking students to “tell the story of Book I.” We are not asking students to do a creative writing piece when we make this assignment. Rather, we recognize that Euclid’s work focuses our attention on certain themes or issues, acquaints us with the characters and qualities of various entities, and develops relationships through surprising connections and interactions that can ultimately be fit into a whole. On the other hand, making this assignment of re-casting Book I as a story indicates that we recognize the need for the student to unearth an arc of events for himself. The series of logical deductions is more patently obvious; however, the thematic connections are an integral, if subtler, part of Euclid’s project. Deduction and story-telling may be inextricably bound up with the task of all human understanding—receiving different emphasis in different endeavors or from different authors, but both necessary if we are to understand at all. I believe Timaeus aspires to this full and diverse use of intelligence when he constructs the edifice of his “likely story.” The Greek word translated as “likely” has its origin in the word for image or likeness. Though there is some connection to probability and likelihood, I think Plato means us to hear the connection to imagination and similarity predominating. The true power of science as story is thus brought home, for both the scientific account and the story ought reflect actuality. Just as Odysseus’ tales of carefree lotuseaters and lawless Cyclops convey the deepest truths about temptations to be overcome on a journey back home to one’s most rooted self, so may Timaeus’ account of the cosmos as a living, breathing �organism capture more essential aspects of the world around us than the most statistically verified of equations. Likeliness in this sense inheres in the transcendent vision provided by imagination. Now imagination is a faculty not highly regarded by scientists today. We prefer judging our current theories by their predictive power. But when pressed regarding the absolute truth of a theory, most scientists will characterize their work as model-construction rather than truth-seeking. Surely this is an admission that, like Timaeus, they live in the world of opinion and trust. Model-building is not exclusively deductive; some genius of insight must penetrate to first principles, must extract the intelligible from perception. Experiments cannot substitute for this mysterious but very human talent. Like good story-tellers, scientists must weave together disparate, unpliable strands of material, hoping to achieve some precision of focus, to animate a dramatic insight, to gain subltety of perception. You may be interested to know that the word “theory” has its (Greek) roots in seeing/beholding—in contemplation to be sure, but also in theater. Whether we engage in science or literature, we seek an epiphany. But how will we judge the likeliness of a story if not, or not simply, by predictive power? I’m not sure there is a method for discovering how much truth a story has. As with the Canterbury Tales and Homer’s epics, we must consult ourselves. We must “recollect,” aided by the questioning and discussion of other wise beings, whether, for example, Timaeus’ version of space as a nurse and receptacle embodies the essential characteristics of space better than a Cartesian grid with three axes and the capacity for measurement. We must gauge the story’s explanatory power and probe the concreteness, integrity, and clarity of the resulting vision. Such probing carries us beyond and out of the world of the story. The danger of stories, of course, is that we will simply allow ourselves to be seduced and entertained by them rather than doing such probing. We must not allow ourselves to accede to Timaeus when he pleads: You must remember that I who speak and you my judges have human nature. So, in order to receive the likely story about these things, it is fitting not to search beyond this. (29c4-d3) Instead, we must press beyond the confines of each page, whether the pages are Platonic or Newtonian or Homeric. Whether the author frankly tells us, as Timaeus does, that his imitation is merely imitation, or presents his fictional insights as a veiled and disembodied author, we must glut our greed for the truth. We must have a passion for wisdom. To this extent everything we do—math, science, literature, philosophy—in the classroom or in our lives—ought be truly philosophic. Only then will our education be liberal and liberating. �By Marilyn Higuera, Director � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 6 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Higuera, Marilyn Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Fall 2009 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Fall_2009_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Marilyn Higuera for the Fall 2009 semester in Annapolis, MD. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b753c2d9a528bc362476d85f9f5a41d9.pdf 18706246535f214f635866f605fe98eb PDF Text Text Annapolis Convocation, Fall 2010 Welcome to new and returning Graduate Institute students, friends, family, and colleagues. Today you new students are beginning a program of study in which the books you read will challenge you to confront fundamental questions, to re-examine cherished opinions, and to analyze the very structure of your world. You are beginning this program in either the Literature or the Mathematics and Natural Science segment. Perhaps you see a vast gulf between the world of mathematics and the world of literature. No doubt, these categories reflect our sense of two radically different human possibilities. However, we at St. John's hesitate to pigeonhole our texts and we often prefer to leave it to you to disentangle the various threads of knowledge. Euclid's Elements is a constructed work of art and rhetoric as well as a progressive development of the logical consequences of certain axioms. Characters in Sophocles' Antigone propound reasoned arguments for and against the primacy of the state even as they embody the raging passions, flawed insecurities, and irrational loyalties of all-toohuman individuals. So, in the Graduate Institute, the organization of "great books" into categories for our segments is done with a bit of a bad conscience; it is knowingly done more for the sake of practical considerations than as a serious claim regarding the boundaries of either the books or the issues therein. In this spirit of modest challenge regarding the compartmentalization of learning, I would like today to reflect �upon an underlying shared motif in our Mathematics and Natural Science and Literature segments: namely, imagination. The role of imagination in literature—both on the part of the author and as necessitated in the reader—is universally acknowledged. Whether we view it with suspicion ("oh, that could only happen in your imagination") or with reverence ("in metaphor the imagination is life"—Wallace Stevens, Three Academic Pieces), we all experience a particular sort of consciousness when we open a novel or play or epic and begin to read. Immediately, we envision a scrawny knight on a skeletal steed accompanied by a rotund peasant, charging a giant/windmill with lance atilt. Or, guided by the well-turned phrase, we conjure up a gory battlefield littered with corpses where Greek and Trojan antagonists pause to exchange personal histories before swinging the bludgeon or thrusting the spear. Literature works upon our minds, quickening our productive powers and prompting us to construct a world, usually a little bit alien, populated with vivid, captivating images. You may, on the other hand, be only beginning to appreciate the role of imagination in mathematics—as you linger over the definitions and postulates of Euclid's geometry. Unlike the austere equations of algebra that you will have experienced in a prior educational life, Euclid's formulations prompt, indeed demand, active visualization. True, the first definition, "A point is that which has no part" resists easy visualization. Nonetheless, in order to understand this definition, very quickly we begin trying to picture something which has no part. Usually, someone draws a dot on the chalkboard. However, we can literally see the specks (or parts) of chalk dust, so instead we represent the dot in our mind's eye; we strip away the specks of chalk dust; we isolate a speck; we zoom in with our mind's eye microscope and attempt to examine whether we have stripped away all parts and are left with �a single, ultimate unity. Surely we are exercising our imagination in this process—a process we repeat with the second definition, "A line is breadthless length." Again, we must picture something, some stretching forth through the inner space of the mind; again, we must strip away any visible width from this image; we must repeat this process so long as any width is "visible"; we must try to isolate the direction until it is all but invisible. This peculiar constructing of an image of Euclid's definitions certainly involves the imagination. Drawn images are, we infer, not the ones that Euclid intends. Why then does Euclid formulate his first postulate as: "to draw a straight line from any point to any point" It is a puzzle. However, I might note that the Greek word translated as "draw" also means "lead" as in "lead the troops into battle." So perhaps this verb conveys more the sense of an energetic activity required of the student of geometry than a physical drawing. We must be able to summon forth, to "lead" a line out of one point to another. But what translators generally fail to capture is that Euclid uses not only an infinitive (which already mutes the sense of activity), but a perfect infinitive—something like "to have drawn." So, though Euclid points us to activity, he places us in an odd temporal relation to such activity. The activity has already been accomplished. Moreover, the infinitive is not a direct command to us, nor even a permission to us to perform this activity. Taking into account Euclid's prefatory clause, "Let the following be postulated," we may construe Euclid to be begging for our permission. But again, translators have trouble rendering Euclid's exact grammar: he uses a third person perfect passive imperative. No wonder they have trouble. We have little experience of the third person imperative in English; the St. John's Greek text suggests that the playwright's "Enter the king" �is an equivalent. Such an imperative does not directly address the reader, but instead some other, hidden being who presumably can implement the command. The passivity of Euclid's imperative further weakens any sense of our participation in the process. I too am inadequate to yield a faithful translation, but perhaps "Let it have been begged: to have led out a line from any point to any point." What then does Euclid want us to do? His text is filled with action verbs such as "describe," "apply," "construct," as well as "draw." These verbs are almost universally governed by the aforementioned perfect passive imperative; nevertheless, they are powerful incitements to temporal processes. What is our relation to these processes and to the objects they animate? Speusippus, Plato's nephew and his successor as head of his Academy, is reputed to have commented on Euclid's geometrical objects: ...it is better to assert that all these things are and that we observe the coming-into-being of these not in the manner of making, but of recognizing, treating the timeless beings as though they were presently coming into being.... The language Speusippus chooses, "as though they were presently coming into being," highlights, I think, the opposing aspects I've noted in Euclid's treatment. This phrase, "as though" also captures the imaginative aspect of his entire enterprise. While Euclid is not telling us that we must create a line, ex nihilo, out of nothing, he is encouraging us to reflect upon, to imagine, its having come into being, its genesis, its nature. Similarly, every Euclidean proof launches us on a discursive and imaginative journey. First, the proposition states a universal truth, such as: "In isosceles triangles, the angles at the base are equal to one another." Next, some particular figure, here a definite isosceles triangle ABC, is called up for inspection—using the �perfect passive imperative that lets us know the triangle connecting those points has previously been constructed. What follows is a step-by-step unfolding of a discovery of the relations establishing the truth. These relations permeate the object already—an object whose existence is antecedent to the proof itself. But we are presumably only now revealing them to ourselves. If someone goes to the board to reiterate the relevant steps, you begin to appreciate how integral the imagination is to understanding the proposition. Should the person at the board make the mistake of drawing first the entire finished diagram with all the enhancements to be added by the various steps, rather than allowing the drawing to take shape gradually, you will find it nearly impossible to understand, to see, to grasp the interconnected relations that exhibit the general truth proposed. As we present each relation to ourselves in embodied form, i.e., drawn on the board, we use double vision of a sort to see through the drawn diagram to the perfected vision in our mind's eye (we do this almost effortlessly); simultaneously, we subject this perfected vision to the crucible of our critical reasoning (this requires some real effort and the assistance of Euclid's prose). Thus, our activity while doing proofs mediates between thoughtless receptivity of facts or sensations and timeless apprehension of timeless truths. And this mediation relies crucially upon imagination. Only through an imaginative encounter with the unfolding proof are we roused from mere passive sensation, inspired to an examination of the architecture of our inner space, and pushed forward and beyond our initial survey. Certainly, unrestrained imagination cannot achieve the desired moment of dawning recognition that the proposition must necessarily be true. Imaginative constructions must be challenged, questioned, articulated, limited by the requirements of reason. But I would like to point out that reason needs some �regulation also; Meno's slave boy is seduced by the attractive, echoing sound of the words, when he leaps to the notion that "double the line will produce double the square." Socrates uses a drawn image to help him correct his own mistake. Here, I am speaking as though imagination and reason perform their functions in some clearly separated, disjunct fashion. But I think the case is much more complex. Even the perfected vision necessary to "see" a point or line or triangle is not clearly the domain of imagination alone. Can imagination truly achieve a depiction of partlessness or breadthlessness? Does imagination achieve the final leap from a dot to a point? We intuit that the repetitive visualization process, stripping away breadth from a ruler, say, could proceed ad infinitum; and this understanding gives rise to some shaped idea in us. But the understanding must partner with imagination to give us access to such an idea—an idea we are fairly confident is identical for each of us, a specific, articulable, unambiguous, and essentially spatial idea. An idea we access through spatial, visualizable images. Trying to understand geometry without the imagination may be like a blind person reasoning about colors. This partnership between imagination and reason functions in the proof activity I described before as well. As we bring the diagram itself into being in front of us, we are simultaneously bringing our own understanding of the proposition into being. Here too, it is difficult to disentangle the vision of the understanding as it grasps the truth of each step and of the whole from the vision of the imagination as it peers into the diagram to see the claims themselves. Speusippus articulated this vision as a "recognizing"; the Greek word there is different from the one Plato uses in the Meno regarding recollection. However, I think both words strive to capture the aspect of the experience of knowing that feels as though it is a looking, a looking at something at once separate �and other, yet immediately appropriated. I note that Socrates chose a geometrical example to illustrate his notion of recollection. No doubt there are many reasons for his choice, but I think one reason is that such an example highlights the indispensable role of images in coming to know. Perhaps it seems extravagant to claim that images are necessary for knowledge. We at St. John's stress that reason is the arbiter in our discussions, and I certainly don't want to minimize reason's importance. But I am in good company when I emphasize images in our search for a glimpse of unchangeable, immutable truths. In De Anima, Aristotle asserts that "without imagination, there can be no thought." (427b16) One of Descartes' rules is "not to recognize those metaphysical entities which really cannot be presented to the imagination." (Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Rule XIV, p. 57) For Kant, imagination is called upon to put together even space and time, as well as every appearance of an object in space and time. He says: Synthesis in general... is the mere result of the power of imagination, a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no knowledge whatsoever, but of which we are scarcely ever conscious. (Critique of Pure Reason, B103) To focus more intently on the power of the imagination as encompassing both our story-making capacity and our mathematical activity, I'm going finally to turn toward Plato. In fact, I'm going to turn toward an image that Plato uses in a book we've placed in neither Literature nor Mathematics/Natural Science but in the Politics and Society segment, namely the Republic. It is, however, a book that speaks to us as complete human beings. Somewhere near the heart of that enormous work (509d-511e), Socrates proposes an image of a divided line as a representation of the entire cosmos, both the sensible world and the intellectual world. He uses the image to depict the relationships of various �categories of things, to chart an ascent through these categories up to the idea of the good, and to discuss the human powers correlate to each stage of the journey. I'm going to isolate one layer of this rich and complicated image: the image is itself about images. Socrates divides the line first to represent visible and intelligible things; then he divides each of those segments similarly. The visibles are further separated into images (shadows, reflections in water, mirror appearances) and the objects of which those things are images (animals, plants, artifacts). The intelligibles are divided into ideas approached deductively—for example, geometrical ideas—and ideas grasped without hypotheses. Socrates proposes (517b) that the visibles themselves reflect the same relationship to the intelligibles that the first subdivision does: visible objects are images of the intelligible objects. Note the reversal of our usual interpretation of the material world as the real thing from which we abstract vapory concepts. Socrates uses the divided line to discuss four different human relations to the four categories of objects (comparison, trust, deductive thinking, understanding). Though an unmediated knowledge of ideas is held out as the proper intellectual engagement with the very highest category, the divided line itself is a result of Socrates' reluctance to speak "about what one doesn't know as though one knew." (506c) Socrates presents his interlocutors with the poetic/mathematical metaphor of the divided line when they press him to reveal his own (mere) opinions about the good and knowledge (506b). Apparently, at least this instance of image-making allows him to speak appropriately about what he does not know. Of course, the divided line has a patent character as an image; we are in no danger of being seduced into thinking the visible things actually are a line. But why is this image the right kind of speech for communicating Socrates' opinions (even if �he must warn us to guard against any unwilling deception therein—507a)? It helps to remember that, for Socrates, opinions are never mere opinions; images are never mere images; they are waystations on the path toward truth. I conjecture that the line itself reveals something even more general than Socrates elucidates; it elicits a fifth mode of thinking. The relationship each part of the line possesses to its neighbor is that of being an image. The philosophic ascent up the line involves understanding—seeing—the imaging relationship, seeing each image as an image (rather than imbibing it as a complete and finished story). Inspection of an image, whether poetic or geometric, whether a living organism or a painting, is a proper activity of the philosopher. The realization that an animal or a poem or a circle is an image—both manifesting and hiding reality—is what moves us as thinkers up the divided line, what puts us at least at the point between two parts of the divided line. We become fully engaged with what's in front of us, asking questions, making judgments, winnowing claims—even making helpful images. Only thus do we reveal to ourselves the potential for something we might call recollection or recognition or learning. Marilyn Higuera � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 9 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Higuera, Marilyn Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Fall 2010 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Fall_2010_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Marilyn Higuera for the Fall 2010 semester in Annapolis, MD. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a67525033fdd515f7aaed7c4d2ae8784.pdf 6cd17aca9ac7ee90eae0a8194469afe4 PDF Text Text St. John’s College Graduate Institute Convocation Address Fall 2011 What Is a Community of Learning? Welcome, new students, returning students, and tutors, to St. John’s College, and to the Graduate Institute. Today each of you is joining, or returning to, a College that describes itself as a community of learning, and that dedicates itself to inquiry: to asking fundamental questions, and to pursuing answers to these questions. As members of such a community, we must from time to time turn the searchlight of inquiry on ourselves. So I mean to take this occasion to ask: what is a community of learning? My suspicion is that the phrase involves a latent but fundamental tension between its component terms, ‘community’ and ‘learning.’ To expose this tension, I propose to begin by investigating the meaning of each term in turn, under the guidance of Plato’s Socrates. Let us put learning first, as we ought to do here at St. John’s. What, then, is learning? One answer, and I think a true and beautiful answer, is found in the Meno, part of which every incoming Graduate Institute student reads in the course of our new student orientation. Responding to Meno’s paralyzing claim that it is impossible to seek anything – because either one knows what one is seeking, and so has no need to seek it, or one does not know what one is seeking, and so does not know how to seek it – Socrates raises a third possibility: we know what we are seeking, but we have forgotten it. Learning, therefore, is recollection, remembering what we once knew but have forgotten. The human soul, Socrates explains to the enthralled Meno, is immortal, and death and birth are only apparent changes that do not entail the soul’s destruction. Since the immortal soul has therefore seen all things, both on the earth and in the underworld, 1 �there is nothing that it has not learned. And since the whole of nature is akin, it suffices for a human being to recollect one thing, in order for him to be able to recall everything else for himself. It is not hard to see that Socrates’ story does not in fact allege that learning is recollection, as Socrates claims, and Meno concludes it does. If what we call learning is recollection, and we recollect what we once knew but have forgotten, then recollection presupposes knowledge. So where did this knowledge come from? The answer, according to Socrates’ story, is that it came from seeing: knowing is primarily having seen, and so learning is primarily seeing. And indeed, this is what we see in the subsequent geometry lesson with Meno’s slave. All Socrates needs to do, for the slave to learn to find the side of the double square, is to make the slave see that the square drawn on the so-called diagonal is in fact twice as big as the square drawn on the original side. The slave’s opinions about the name of the side of the double square – for example, that this name must, in order to be speakable, contain some mention of a numerical ratio with the original side – are reasonable, but they are obstacles to his seeing what Socrates wants him to see, obstacles that Socrates must clear away by refutation if the slave is to see clearly. If the slave were to go through the same lesson repeatedly and in various ways, Socrates concludes, he would end up having knowledge about such things no less precisely than anyone. That is, he would know such things as well as it is possible for a human being to know them. Now if learning is primarily nothing other than seeing, it seems to me to follow that it is an essentially private activity, one that takes place entirely in the one who sees. This is not to deny that it can be pursued in a community, with friends or colleagues; it is only to deny that it must be pursued in common. The same thing follows, I think, even when the seeing involved is 2 �metaphorical, and the thing seen is seen in the speeches uttered in our common life. Even when the thing learned is common, the learning is not essentially in common. Now it is true that the slave boy needs Socrates to help him to clear away the incorrect opinions he has about the side of the double square. But if these obstacles to seeing are due, not to what the slave has seen, but to what he has heard from his community – as the Meno implies, and the Republic’s cave story states outright – then it follows nonetheless that learning requires community only as a source of things to see, and not as a means to seeing. But I have gotten ahead of myself. For what is a community? Once again, a Platonic dialogue is helpful. For human beings to be in a community, they must hold things in common. As Socrates and Glaucon agree in the Republic, the greatest good in the organization of a city, the common good at which the legislator aims, is what binds it together and makes it one: the community of pleasure and pain, which leads the citizens to say ‘my own’ and ‘not my own’ about the same things, and in the same way. More generally, we can say that any community extends just as far as does this sense of a common good, marked by these opinions about what is and is not its own. But much earlier in their long conversation, Socrates and Glaucon also agree that, at least in the case of the citizens of the city in speech, these opinions about ‘my own’ and ‘not my own,’ about who is a citizen and who a stranger, are founded on a lie: namely, a story that all the citizens are brothers, born of and nursed by the land that they inhabit. More generally, we can say that the sense of the common good in every community is marked by correct opinions that are, if not lies, at least not held because they have been seen to be true. Since each community is founded and maintained by the promulgation of such correct opinions, it is absolutely forbidden to call these opinions into question, whether by laughing at them, or by inquiring into their truth. To do so is to call the community itself into question. 3 �By now it should be clear what I have in mind by the latent but fundamental tension that I suspect in the phrase ‘community of learning.’ Learning, according to the Meno and the Republic, is an essentially private activity that does not require a community for its completion. And every community, according to the Republic and the Meno, is founded on correct opinions that are resistant to inquiry, and that therefore pose particularly recalcitrant obstacles to community members seeing what is – that is, to their learning. This latent but fundamental tension between community and learning is made vivid by Socrates’ image of the cave in the Republic. We are like prisoners confined to a deep cave, Socrates says, whose necks and legs are bound so that what we can see is limited to what is right before us. Above and behind us, where we cannot look, unbound denizens of the cave carry artifacts back and forth in front of a fire, so that shadows are cast by these artifacts on the cave wall that we face. The cave wall also reflects sounds made by some of these puppeteers, so that we take them for sounds made by the shadows. We take the shadows themselves for real beings, and the ones that seem to speak for real human beings. Socrates makes it clear that the cave is an image of the community by remarking that, while it is an image of our nature in its education and want of education, we find ourselves in it not from birth but from childhood. Our first education must have amounted to an induction into the cave; a second, deeper education is needed for us to escape it. Moreover, the image suggests that while a kind of learning is possible within the cave – some of the prisoners get very good at discerning, naming, and predicting the shadows – this so-called learning is based on a fundamental falsehood: never having seen either the source of the shadows or any other kind of being, the prisoners take the effects for causes, and artifacts for natures. (We should note that 4 �this would be the case even if there were no world beyond the cave.) What is learned in the cave is correct opinion rather than truth, though it bears some intelligible relationship to truth. It is conventional, in edifying addresses of this kind, that the speaker, having identified some apparently intractable problem, go on to offer a surprising solution. I am sorry to say that I have no such solution to offer with respect to the phrase ‘community of learning.’ To repeat: learning, understood as seeing, does not require a community for its completion; and every community poses barriers, in the form of correct opinions, to learning. Unless learning is something other than literal or metaphorical seeing, or unless there are communities that do not depend on correct opinion for their sense of the common good, it seems that the phrase ‘community of learning’ must involve a contradiction: in the respect that there is learning, there is no community, and in the respect that there is a community, there is no learning. But both the image of the cave in the Republic and the scene with the slave in the Meno do suggest one way in which the consistency of the phrase might be saved. According to Socrates, while the release and healing of the prisoners in the cave can happen by nature, it helps to have a free human being in the cave, one who can release the prisoners, compel them to stand up, walk, and turn toward the light, and even drag them by force out of the cave. This releasing, compelling, and dragging is the closest one can come to helping to see, and so the one who does this is the closest thing to a teacher. Similarly, while Socrates quite reasonably claims that he is not teaching Meno’s slave when he sets the latter’s opinions against one another – after all, he does not tell the slave the correct opinion – he does help him to see that he does not know the side of the double square. This compulsion, this setting of opinion against opinion, has more in common with the means used by the community than it does with seeing, but it can lead to seeing. 5 �This conclusion points to a more consistent meaning for the phrase ‘community of learning.’ Since we all always already find ourselves in a community, with our necks and legs bound, and our heads pointed in a fixed direction, it would be very helpful to us if we could find and join another community, one whose correct opinions oppose and counteract those that constitute and maintain the broader community in which we find ourselves. Such a ‘remedial community’ would have orthodoxies of its own, of course, and these would necessarily stand as obstacles to learning. But if these orthodoxies were well-chosen, they could also contradict the orthodoxies of the broader community, call them into question, and help us to loosen the bonds that limit our field of view. Such a remedial community, though an obstacle to learning when seen from the highest perspective, when seen from our perspective could help us to learn. This, I submit, is the best true answer to the question ‘what is a community of learning’; and it is by being such a remedial community that St John’s College earns the right to call itself a community of learning. More particularly, it is by means of this notion that the several practices of the College that seem unnecessary to learning when seen from the highest perspective – practices like our largely-required graduate program, our requirement of attendance and participation in the conversation, our imposition of due dates for essays, and our determination of class lists and teaching assignments – are justified. The notion of a remedial community helps us to see, for example, that it is a lie in the soul to justify turning in a late paper on grounds of learning. It is true that the thought comes when it wants to, and not when we want it to; so it is true that due dates make no sense from the highest perspective. But we have no right to this highest perspective. We are prisoners in a cave. The due date of an essay protects learning by giving it a standing in the world of the cave equal to the standing of the important shadows that 6 �parade before our eyes. It protects learning by opposing compulsion to compulsion, correct opinion to correct opinion. Similarly, it is a lie in the soul to justify skipping a class, or sitting silently in one, on grounds of learning. It is true that we might learn more reading by ourselves in our rooms, or by coming to class just to listen, than by coming to class and saying what we think; so it is true that the requirements of attendance and participation make no sense from the highest perspective. But we are prisoners in a cave. We have no right to this highest perspective. These requirements protect learning by giving it a standing in the world of the cave equal to that of flat tires and doctor’s appointments. It should not escape our notice that this notion of a community of learning as a remedial community also supplies us with a helpful standard to judge the College. If the orthodoxies of St. John’s do not oppose and counteract those of the broader community, if they instead echo and magnify the latter, then the College is a community of learning in name only. St. John’s and its Graduate Institute ought to be a shelter from the ever-increasing busyness and prevailing shortterm fearfulness that characterize the current mood of the surrounding community. This does not mean that we should expect serenity within these walls; the image of the cave suggests that if we are not kicking and screaming, if we do not feel ourselves to be under compulsion, if we are not temporarily blinded, we are not being prepared for learning. But we should expect that the mood of our studies here will not be the mood of the surrounding community. If it is, we can only struggle by ourselves, or hope for the assistance of a wise, and free, friend. So come to class, and speak in class, and turn your essays in on time, even if, or especially if, you must struggle to do so. Your struggles are not a sufficient sign of learning, but if it is true that we all find ourselves prisoners in a cave, they are a necessary sign. 7 �I would like to conclude by announcing that there will be a study group this term on Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy. Please watch your email for an announcement of the place and time. I would also like to invite you all to take part in the refreshments provided at the back of the Great Hall, before going to tutorial. The summer 2011 term of the Graduate Institute is now in session. Convocatum est. Jeff J.S. Black Annapolis, Maryland August 25, 2011 8 � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Fall 2011 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-08-25 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Fall_2011_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Black, Jeff J. S., 1970- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Jeff Black for the Fall 2011 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "What Is a Community of Learning?" Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e3ef1384606bf90653eebe10214becb2.pdf b2a0f3e2bc82eae6245a9b8f64aae653 PDF Text Text St. John’s College Graduate Institute Convocation Address Fall 2012 What Is Liberal Education? Part II Welcome, new students, returning students, and tutors, to St. John’s College, and to the Graduate Institute. Today each of you is joining, or returning to, a College that describes itself as a community of learning, and that dedicates itself to inquiry: to asking fundamental questions, and to pursuing answers to these questions. As members of such a community, we must from time to time shine the light of inquiry on ourselves. Today I mean to do so by asking ‘what is liberal education?’ As I reassured the audience of my summer convocation address, let me reassure you too: I don’t mean to try to answer this question in the next fifteen minutes. My only somewhat more modest goal involves dividing the question into two parts. Last term, I asked the question ‘what is liberal?’, and with the assistance of the College’s motto, offered the following answer in the case of education: Liberal education is bookish education, freeing education, childlike education. As education through conversation with the great books, it is the consummation of practice and a courageous confrontation with what is most real. It is the education of the free who know they are not free into a freedom they do not desire. It is an education that forgets and begins again, that plays at the most serious things, and that thereby gives us a world in which to live. But this answer is obviously preliminary, because it depends in turn on the answer to a deeper question. ‘That’s all very well, Mr. Black,” someone might say, “but what is education?” To begin to answer this question, I propose to pose it to three great books, two of which are on the reading list of our graduate Program. These books are Rousseau’s Emile, whose subtitle is On 1 �Education; Plato’s Republic, whose subtitle is On the Just; and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, whose subtitle is Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. If we understand what is asked in the question ‘what is education?’ it must be because we think that there is such a thing. So why do we think this? Let’s confine ourselves to human beings: the beings whose education is most interesting to us. When we observe the human beings around us, we cannot help but be struck by the differences between them in their activities and capacities. Some of them are capable of much, some of little; some need much, some need little. Perhaps most strikingly, some human beings are largely capable of providing for their own needs, and some are not. Once we are able to judge the ages of human beings, we might make the following generalization: that human beings are born weak, because unable to care for themselves; that as they age they sometimes flourish and become strong; and that if they live long enough, the strong eventually decline and become weak again. These changes, these differences between human beings at different ages, might even be more striking to us than those underlying qualities that all human beings share. And the cause of these changes, Rousseau tells us near the beginning of Emile, the cause that shapes human beings over the course of their lives, is education.1 Education is the answer to the question of why human beings differ so much, not just from one another, but each of them from one time to another. But there is something puzzling about this first attempt at a definition of education, which takes education as the cause in general of change in human beings. For we tend to want to think of education as the cause, and so by extension as the process, of good change in human beings: education, we think, changes us for the better. Rousseau acknowledges as much when he writes, “[e]verything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.” Education, we are likely to insist, is change in human beings in a certain direction: 2 �toward some completion, toward being grown, toward some good. It is odd to think of the changes that, even in the best case, follow the completion of growth – that is, our inevitable decline – as part of our education. Rousseau takes this difficulty into account as he develops his argument in Emile. This education, the one that gives us what we lack at birth but need when grown, comes from three sources: nature, men, and things. “The internal development of our faculties and our organs,” he explains, “is the education of nature. The use that we are taught to make of this development is the education of men. And what we acquire from our own experience about the objects which affect us is the education of things.” What we ordinarily think of as the content of our education – the opinions we are taught about how things are and what we ought to do – is really only part of our education, according to this account. And the expansion of the definition of education to include internal developments and experiences, as well as opinions, makes it possible to distinguish growth from decline, and good education both from bad and from no education at all. Since each of the three educations must tend to the same end, Rousseau tells us, and the education of nature “is in no way in our control,” a good education, an education properly speaking, is one in which the educations of things and of men are directed to the end imposed by the education of nature. And since we could not bring ourselves knowingly to pursue a consistently harmful education – even if such an education is better than a contradictory one – our supposition must be that the end imposed by the education of nature is good. Here, then, is a second definition of education, one that seems closer to what we mean by the word: education is the cause of good changes in human beings, because it is oriented by nature. Or, to put the same point differently, for education to be the cause of good changes in human beings, there must be such a thing as nature. 3 �This definition, which we arrived at with the assistance of Rousseau’s Emile, is shared by a second great book, Plato’s Republic. At the beginning of Book Seven of that work, Plato has his Socrates present an image of “our nature in its education and want of education.” Picture human beings as if they were bound head and foot in a cave underground, such that they are all forced to face a wall. Far above and behind them, a fire burns. Nearer, but still above and behind them, other human beings stand along a road behind a partition, and carry artifacts that they raise up above the partition, into the light of the fire, such that the artifacts cast shadows on the wall that the prisoners face. While they do this, some of the puppeteers make sounds that bounce off the wall, and so seem to come from the shadows. Socrates asks whether such human beings, bound as they are, can see anything other than the shadows cast by themselves and by the artifacts raised above the partition. His young interlocutor, Glaucon, says that they cannot. And so Socrates concludes, with Glaucon’s agreement, that these human beings will take the shadows of artificial things for the truth – when in fact the truth is only fully available to those who free themselves or are freed from their bonds, who make the painful climb toward the dazzling light at the mouth of the cave, and who emerge to look at and eventually to see the things themselves, which are not artifacts, in the light of the sun. The horror and the beauty of this image, the horror of our imprisonment and the beauty of the promise of our liberation, are so striking that it is easy to pass over Socrates’ remark that this is an image of our nature “in its education and want of education.” Is it clear which part of the image represents which condition of our nature? Socrates tells us that we are in the cave “from childhood,” not from birth: so there must be a point early in our lives when each of us, in the language of the image, is brought down into the cave – by someone who is able to exit it, of course – and placed in our bonds, facing the wall with its shadows. Could this point be when we 4 �are first able to understand and articulate speech: that is, at the beginning of what we ordinarily call our education? Later in his conversation with Glaucon, Socrates does call the condition in the cave one of “greater lack of learning,” but this hardly settles the question, since he also notes that “education is not what the professions of certain men assert it to be”: it is not the art of putting knowledge into a soul that lacks it, but the art of turning the whole soul from that which is coming into being to that which is, and finally to the brightest part of that which is, the good. Socrates’ image teaches us that it is a question of education against education, then: there are those who claim that education happens only inside the cave, and those who claim that education happens only outside, in the light of the sun. And the difference between these two views, certainly within the cave but perhaps also outside it, is a matter of life or death. It is tempting, and perhaps also easy, to accept Socrates’ encouragement and side with Glaucon in the view that education is the noble and painful struggle against artifice on behalf of nature, against appearance on behalf of the truth, against becoming on behalf of being, and against evil on behalf of the good itself. It is very tempting to believe that the peak of education is a kind of emigration to the Isles of the Blessed: the achievement of heaven on earth. But this would be to ignore Socrates’ remark that education is the art of turning the whole soul from becoming to being. This remark implies that education, even as Socrates understands it, takes place chiefly, and perhaps even entirely, within the cave. According to Socrates’ image, the need for compulsion – another term for this art of turning – ceases once the soul has been forced to stand up, to turn around, to walk, to look at the light, to climb the rough, steep, upward way, and at last to emerge from the cave. Once outside of the cave, the soul only needs to become accustomed to the light, in order to see everything that can be seen. 5 �Let’s turn to the last of our three great books, Beyond Good and Evil, for help in thinking through some further implications of Socrates’ definition of education as an art of turning. In the Preface to that work, Nietzsche claims that the good itself – the pole star of the Socratic art of turning, by whose light education is to be distinguished from indoctrination – is an invention, an error, and a piece of philosophic dogma. And throughout the work he opposes to this Platonic dogma a series of painful questions. If there is such a thing as nature, is it good for human beings? To the extent that we have access to the truth, it is good for us, and is it better for us than appearance? Is there such a thing as being, and can it concern us more, or be worth more to us, than becoming? And is there such a thing as evil, or is it really a distorted view of something that is properly called good? If education as Socrates understands it takes place entirely within the cave, then it seems better to understand education in terms of fundamental questions like these than in terms of philosophers’ predetermined, dogmatic answers to such questions. This does not mean, however, that these questions lack answers. Roughly speaking, for example, Nietzsche seems to think that the answer to each of these fundamental questions is ‘no.’ But it is in asking these painful questions, in discovering how matters stand for oneself with regard to these questions, that education understood as the art of turning primarily consists. What follows from these questions – insight into which answers are given to us as predetermined, and which answers can be changed – teaches us about the limits to our learning, and so educates us about what education can be for us. In other words, despite the great foreground differences between Nietzsche and Plato’s Socrates, they agree that education understood as the cause of good changes in human beings now must mean the pursuit of self-knowledge: obedience to the Delphic command, ‘know thyself.’ They agree that obedience to this command is painful, though they both hint that it is 6 �not only painful. And they agree that obedience to this command is not the matter of a moment, nor of a few months or years, but of a lifetime. As Socrates’ image implies, each human being who succeeds in escaping the cave also gains the power to be a puppeteer, or worse, one who draws down the young and binds them in a cave of his own making. On the basis of these brief reflections on three great books, I can now hazard an answer to my opening question. What is liberal education? For education to be possible, for there to be a cause of good changes in human beings, there must be a nature of human beings that can be known, and a good of this nature in each case. If there is such a nature and such a good, then education requires the pursuit of self-knowledge, the pursuit of knowledge of this nature and this good. So education in the true sense must therefore above all be the repeated reopening of the question of whether there is such a nature, one that can be known, and that has its corresponding good. Education in this sense is intrinsically liberal: for it is with the assistance of great books that we best seek to know ourselves, it is through self-knowledge that we find the freedom that suits us, and it is in this freedom that we become childlike, ready to begin again asking with playful seriousness our fundamental questions about nature, truth, being, and the good. I would like to conclude by announcing that there will be two study groups this term, one on the French language, meeting on Monday afternoons, from 3:30 to 5:00, in the Hartle Room, beginning on September 10th, and the other on Nietzsche’s Human, All-Too-Human, meeting on Thursday afternoons, also from 3:30 to 5:00 in the Hartle Room, beginning on August 30th. Schedules will be circulated by email. Also, I would like to invite you all to take part in the refreshments provided at the back of the Great Hall, before going to tutorial. The fall 2012 term of the Graduate Institute is now in session. Convocatum est. 7 �Jeff J.S. Black Annapolis, Maryland 22 August 2012 Delivered 23 August 2012 Notes 1 In this address, I draw chiefly on the beginning of Book One of Emile, page 38 in the Bloom translation; on Republic 514a-518c; and on Beyond Good and Evil, Preface, and sections 9, 230, and 231. 8 � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Fall 2012 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-08-23 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Fall_2012_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Black, Jeff J. S., 1970- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Jeff Black for the Fall 2012 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "What Is Liberal Education? Part II" in Annapolis, MD. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/82dd63ea7a68a03ed89dd0e8e16484dd.pdf 01a66f9046c9040420fc8b46d19c14ad PDF Text Text St. John’s College Graduate Institute Convocation Address Fall 2013 On the Mathematics & Natural Science Segment Welcome, new students, returning students, and tutors, to St. John’s College, and to the Graduate Institute. Today each of you is beginning, or resuming, your membership in a community of learning, at a College that dedicates itself to inquiry: to asking fundamental questions, and to pursuing answers to these questions. As members of such a community, we must from time to time shine the light of inquiry on ourselves. On this occasion I mean to do so by examining the readings of the Mathematics & Natural Science segment. The subject of this convocation address – the second of five, each treating one of the segments in the graduate Program – is informed by a claim that I made in an earlier address, delivered in Spring 2012, titled ‘What is a Segment?’ I said then that the program of the Graduate Institute is a homogeneous whole, and that its segments represent arbitrary divisions of that whole into parts. Accordingly, I claimed that the titles of these segments should be taken as compressed questions in need of answers, and as opportunities for wonder, rather than as names that determine the distinct subject matter treated by the readings in each segment. Now I hope to make good on these claims in detail. So what, then, are the wonderful questions raised by the segment title ‘Mathematics & Natural Science’? And before I proceed to answer my own question, I should caution that the threads that I mean to follow for the next few minutes – threads that run through the tutorial and seminar readings of the segment, and that are connected to threads that run through other segments – are by no means the only ones worth following. I only insist that these threads are present in the segment readings, and that they are truly worth 1 �following. So again, what are the wonderful questions raised by ‘Mathematics & Natural Science’? At the risk of becoming predictable, let’s begin once again with the least promising word in the segment title: the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ – or, more precisely, the ampersand. As it did in the Philosophy & Theology segment title, the ampersand implies that there is something double about the subject matter of the Mathematics & Natural Science segment. And once again, this implication is borne out by a cursory glance at the reading lists of the segment’s seminar and tutorial. In seminar, we begin with Lucretius’ bittersweet poem about atoms, On the Nature of Things; then we turn to Plato’s dialogue about the musical making of the world, the Timaeus, followed by Aristotle’s discussion of the four causes of natural things – things that have a principle of rest and motion in themselves – in the Physics. In tutorial, by contrast, we begin with the definitions, postulates and common notions found in Book I of Euclid’s Elements; and we continue by demonstrating and discussing each of the forty-eight propositions in Book I. So in what we might mischievously call the ‘Natural Science’ seminar, we begin by considering the principles – which is to say, the causes – of natural things: whether they be atoms, the Same and the Other, or form and matter. In what we might call the ‘Mathematics’ tutorial, by contrast, we begin by considering points, lines, and figures – magnitudes and their parts – and by convincing ourselves that if some truths be given, other truths must follow by necessity. What, then, is the meaning of the ampersand that joins these two inquiries, into causes and into magnitudes, in our segment title? It will help to consider here the meaning of the two parts of the title ‘Mathematics & Natural Science.’ ‘Natural Science’ seems easy enough: ‘science’ is another word for ‘knowledge’ – it consists of the things we know – and as for ‘nature,’ well, let’s leap over an 2 �abyss and just agree with Aristotle that it consists of the things that have a principle of rest and motion in themselves, and so come to be and pass away. ‘Natural Science,’ then, amounts to what we know of such things, especially concerning their causes. ‘Mathematics,’ on the other hand, is a little trickier. Our English word is related to the ancient Greek noun ta mathēmata, which in turn is related to the ancient Greek verb manthanō, meaning ‘I learn,’ ‘I perceive,’ or ‘I understand.’ So ta mathēmata are the characteristically learnable, perceptible, understandable things. We can see the bearing of this etymology if we consider the chief content of mathematics, according to our ordinary understanding: namely, proofs about magnitudes and multitudes, figures and numbers. Such proofs are characteristically learnable because they bring with them the certainty of logical necessity, and because they hold for all time and place. For example, once we have learned how to demonstrate the Pythagorean theorem – proposition 47 from Book I of the Elements – we know that it will prove true on Earth and on Mars and in the Andromeda galaxy, and that it will hold true for all future time as it did for all past. This characteristically knowable quality leads some to translate the ancient Greek word for the knowable things, ta mathēmata, with the English word ‘science.’ Now before we rush to conclude that our segment title, ‘Mathematics & Natural Science,’ really just means ‘Science & More Science,’ let’s recall that abysmal word ‘natural.’ We said, following Aristotle, that natural science in particular consists of knowledge about the causes of things that change in time and place. But mathematics, by contrast, consists of characteristically knowable things that do not change in time and place. And with this contrast, a wonderful question hidden inside the ampersand of our segment title comes to light. Is it possible that the characteristically knowable things, namely magnitude and number, are the causes of the natural things? Is it possible that the things that do not change in time and place are the causes of the 3 �things that do? Let’s pause for a moment to savor and shudder at the magnitude of this question. If the answer is yes, then natural science deserves the name ‘science,’ because the causes of natural things are fully knowable. If the answer is no, on the other hand – if we mean by ‘cause’ something other than magnitude or multitude – then either this thing must prove as knowable as the objects of mathematics, or we must resign ourselves to a nature that is to some degree unknown and unknowable. Some of you might have noticed that, in describing the readings of the Mathematics & Natural Science seminar and tutorial, in each case I stopped after the first few readings. It turns out that our first wonderful question in the segment readings – the question of whether the mathematical things are the natural causes – equips us to understand a change that happens in the middle of each reading list. In the seminar, this change is marked by the triumphant title of Francis Bacon’s New Organon. The newness of Bacon’s organon comes from his sense that neither the natural causes nor the natural things themselves are what ancient philosophers – like Aristotle, author of the old organon – thought they were. It is a mistake, Bacon argues, to try to deduce the causes from the things themselves, because nature loves to hide: neither the causes nor the things themselves are apparent. The organic – which is to say instrumental or methodical – character of the New Organon follows from this claim: if there are natures and natural causes, but they are hidden, what is needed is a reliable way to force them into the open. This forceful way is the method of experiment. After Bacon’s New Organon, we turn in seminar to a work by René Descartes with the deceptively sober and technical title of Discourse on Method. Among many other interesting things, Descartes suggests in that work a standard by which to measure the certainty of knowledge, such as the knowledge gained from scientific experiment. This 4 �standard is clarity and distinctness; and it is brought over to natural science from – you guessed it – mathematics. So if we take the New Organon and the Discourse on Method together, they seem to announce not just a break with the ancient study of natural science, in their self-consciously new focus on method, but an answer to our question about whether the mathematical things are the natural causes. Yes, Bacon and Descartes say, the natural causes can be known; and yes, they can be known with the clarity and distinctness of mathematics; which is almost the same thing as saying that yes, the mathematical things – and especially number – are the causes. The color red, we might explain in this Baconian-Cartesian spirit, is nothing more than light with a wavelength of 700 nanometers, while violet is nothing more than the same with a wavelength of 400. To make red violet, indeed to make any color into any other, is merely a matter of changing a number – proof that in this case, as in every case, number is the cause. Whatever ancient philosophers like Lucretius might have known about the causes of natural things, the proof of the superior knowledge available through the modern experimental, methodical, mathematical natural science is the superior power of that science – power exercised, unlike the paltry power of ancient natural science, for “the relief of man’s estate.” Isaac Newton’s Principia makes its own new beginning to display what can be achieved in the field of mechanics by this modern natural science, and in so doing argues that the natural world extends infinitely further than Aristotle admits – that the natural world is in fact the world simply, and natural science, science simply. Darwin and Jung follow the Baconian-Cartesian path, each in his own, sometimes questionable way, extending modern science from what we now call physics to the fields of biology and psychology. And with each new advance in knowledge comes an increase in power: 5 �modern physics can put human beings on the Moon; modern biology can shape living things to our needs; and modern psychology can make human beings more useful. Let’s turn away from this vision of a secular heaven on earth to look at the readings of the ‘Mathematics’ tutorial, and the change that happens from Euclid’s geometry to that of Lobachevski. It does not diminish the signal knowability of mathematics, nor that of Euclid’s geometry in particular, to notice that it is founded on a handful of postulates; but this does raise some questions. While definitions isolate and name certain geometrical possibilities – or even, if you wish, certain geometrical impossibilities – and common notions spell out the necessary logic of mathematical proof, postulates set the limits of geometrical possibility itself. But the word ‘postulate’ comes from the Latin verb postulare, which means ‘to demand’; and the corresponding word in Euclid’s Greek, aitēmaton, means much the same: a thing asked for, begged, or demanded. A postulate, then, is precisely not a name, nor something that must be granted for logical proof to be possible; rather, it is something would not jeopardize the possibility of logical proof if it were otherwise. But if mathematical proofs would be possible even if one of the postulates were not granted, or if a different postulate were granted in its place, then mustn’t ta mathēmata, the mathematical or characteristically knowable things, include the conclusions demonstrated by such proofs? This question puts us on the road to different, non-Euclidean geometries, including the geometry of Lobachevsky – not to mention different arithmetics, such as the arithmetic of imaginary numbers. And this road leads to a mathematics that consists of a set, perhaps a limitless set, of alternative geometries and arithmetics, each corresponding to postulates that there might be good reason to grant. Moreover, if the knowable things consist of sets of such geometries and arithmetics, and the knowable things are the causes of the natural things, then 6 �mustn’t these alternative geometries also be causes? This question puts us on the road to discovering the use of non-Euclidean geometry in Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and the use of imaginary numbers in Feynman’s account of quantum electrodynamics. Now the discovery of such correspondences should not make us Pollyannaish. It would be terribly useful, and a great boon for the prospect of knowledge in the fullest sense, if it should turn out that the things we are most suited to know are also the things themselves. But the very utility and appeal of this situation should make us suspicious. Could the correspondences we have discovered, between the knowable things and the causes of the natural things, instead be due to the form our mind necessarily gives to everything it perceives and knows? Have we merely discovered a gift that we have made for ourselves, and hidden from ourselves, without knowing it? If so, perhaps we should expect a correspondence between every possible arithmetic or geometry and some possible being, but at the cost of suspecting that behind every being for us could lie a being in itself, to which we have no access. The very perfection of our knowledge of the beings for us would rule out our knowing the beings in themselves – presuming that the beings in themselves are any concern of ours. It could also be the case that the Baconian-Cartesian equation of knowledge with power is incorrect, and that in fact we only know things to the extent we do not have power over them. Take the limit case of the modern scientific project, in which human beings acquire the power to turn anything into anything else. What would remain of knowledge about the objects of these transformations, if nothing about them were durable, let alone unchanging in time and place? If the miraculous power of a god, which must be ruled out for both mathematics and natural science to be possible, reappears as the goal of the modern scientific project to relieve man’s estate, then this project seems to aim at its own self-destruction. Here we see the questions we 7 �have been following through the Mathematics & Natural Science segment touch on the themes of Philosophy & Theology. Finally, there is the more present and clear danger of treating the mathematical things, and especially numbers, as the only knowable things just because they are the easiest things to know. For the same reason that 700 nanometers is not equivalent to the color red, and eightyfive percent is not equivalent to learning, knowing the magnitude and multitude of a thing might not be enough to know it, or even its causes, fully. Every science requires that one be able to count its objects, but to determine the unit in each case needs more than skill at counting. This danger should especially be heeded in an egalitarian democracy: the regime that most of all seeks to reduce questions of justice to problems of arithmetic. Here we see the questions that we have been following through the Mathematics & Natural Science segment touch on the themes of Politics & Society. In conclusion, I would like to announce that there will be three Graduate Institute-hosted study groups this term. One group will study Plato’s Laws, while another will study T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Both of these groups will meet on Thursday afternoons from 3:30 to 5:00, beginning on August 29. A third group will meet to learn Italian, and to read Machiavelli’s Prince. Schedules and meeting places for all three of these groups will be circulated by email. Lastly, I would like to invite you all to take part in the refreshments provided at the back of the Great Hall, before going to tutorial. The fall 2013 term of the Graduate Institute is now in session. Convocatum est. Jeff J.S. Black Annapolis, Maryland 20 August 2013 Delivered 22 August 2013 8 � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Fall 2013 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-08-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Fall_2013_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Black, Jeff J. S., 1970- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Jeff Black for the Fall 2013 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "On the Mathematics & Natural Sciences Segment" in Annapolis, MD. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9addb39da8d3b915d3f8861f52972969.pdf a43b6a10b0032bcf1dd9db4512dd7e2c PDF Text Text St. John’s College Graduate Institute Convocation Address Fall 2014 On the Literature Segment Welcome, new students, returning students, and tutors, to St. John’s College, and to the Graduate Institute. Today each of you is beginning, or resuming, your membership in a community of learning, at a College that dedicates itself to inquiry: to asking fundamental questions, and to pursuing answers to these questions. As members of such a community, we must from time to time inquire into ourselves. On this occasion I mean to do so by examining the Literature segment. The subject of this convocation address – the last of five, each treating one of the segments in the graduate Program – is informed by a claim that I made in an earlier address, delivered in Spring 2012, titled ‘What is a Segment?’ I said then that the program of the Graduate Institute is a homogeneous whole, and that its segments represent arbitrary divisions of that whole into parts. Accordingly, I claimed that the titles of these segments should be taken as compressed questions in need of answers, and as opportunities for wonder, rather than as names announcing that each segment treats a distinct subject matter. Now I hope to make good on these claims in detail. So what, then, are the wonderful questions raised by the segment title ‘Literature’? I pondered this question for a long time, in the dim cave of my office in the BBC, during the hot and muggy summer of 2014. And those of you who know me will understand the despair I was reduced to, because I could see no way forward. There is no ampersand in the segment title ‘Literature’ – so how was I to begin? My mind twisted and turned, trying to answer this 1 �question, and my body twisted and turned too as a result: now sitting in my office chair, now standing to think, now throwing myself into one of my soft and easy chairs, fit only for soft and easy people. And then, late one Friday afternoon, while trying to figure out how to put my feet up on my desk without kicking my laptop, I kicked instead an open drawer of my desk. In a puff of dust, several folded sheets of paper fell loose from where they had been Scotch taped to the underside of the desk drawer. I took up these pages, and began to read. “Fall 1985 Graduate Institute Convocation Address. On the Literature Segment. “I went down from the dim cave of my office into the hot summer sun, to the new coffee shop on Maryland Avenue, alone with my thoughts, to purchase a cappuccino – because I needed some coffee, and because I heard they were making this new drink there for the first time. The coffee shop was crowded and noisy, and there was a line, so I purchased my cappuccino to go in a Styrofoam cup, and began to make for the door, the sun, and my office. But just then, someone took hold of my seersucker sleeve from behind and said, ‘Hey, you’re the Director of the Graduate Institute, right?’ “I turned to see a student seated at a table, hunched over a much-annotated copy of what looked like the Iliad while fixing me with an angry glare. ‘I am,’ I said, hesitating. ‘Mr…?’ “‘Ms.,’ she corrected, rolling her eyes. Then she pushed what was indeed the Iliad across the table, toward me, with both hands. ‘Why do we read this stuff?’ “I sat down in the vacant chair, setting my cappuccino on the table. ‘You mean the Iliad?’ I asked. “All of it: Homer, the Greek tragedies and comedies, the Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, poetry. Literature,’ she intoned, in a plummy Masterpiece Theatre accent. ‘I came here, to St. John’s, to study the greatest ideas in philosophy, in math and science, in politics. I came here to 2 �study what’s most true – not some stories made up by some dead Greek whose name may or may not have been Homer.’ “I glanced at the doorway, and the bright world beyond it. ‘Aristotle says in the Poetics that poetry is more philosophic than history,’ I ventured weakly, ‘because it speaks about general rather than particular things, about what is likely or necessary rather than just about what happened. And by poetry he means making, in the sense of making things up. He’s talking about everything we read in the Literature segment, in a book that we read in the Literature segment.’ “This earned me a derisive snort. ‘Did Mr. Aristotle write the Graduate Institute curriculum? Is he available to answer my questions? And in any case, Mr. Director, you’ve missed my point. Let’s grant that poetry is more philosophic than history. Are you or Mr. Aristotle able to say that it’s more philosophic than philosophy? Besides, everybody knows that what we call history here in the Graduate Institute is really philosophy. And it’s not even true that poetry speaks of general rather than particular things. Open Thucydides, and read that in such-and-such a year, Alcibiades got on a trireme and sailed to Sicily. Now open Chaucer, and read in the Franklin’s Tale that Arveragus got on a boat and sailed to Brittany. The only thing missing is the date! Both history and literature are full of pointless details that only obscure the philosophic truth. At least the pointless details of history actually happened. Who cares that Niraeus, the second most beautiful Greek after Achilles, only brought three ships to Troy?’ “I thought about the slow cooling of my coffee, despite the Styrofoam. ‘Maybe these details are useful ways of clothing philosophic truth,’ I responded. ‘Doesn’t Lucretius say something in De Rerum Natura about doctors putting honey on cups of bitter wormwood, and about their patients being tricked but not betrayed? Maybe a beautiful story, full of imagined 3 �details, makes it more pleasant to read about painful philosophic truths. For example, take that detail about Niraeus. Isn’t that Homer’s way of saying that beauty doesn’t bring military might, and that Achilles doesn’t have his fifty ships at Troy because he’s the most beautiful? A literary form could also make it more pleasant for authors to write painful truths,’ I added. ‘In a philosophic treatise, everything an author writes is in his own name. In a literary work, he can put a painful truth in the mouth of one of his characters, and blame it on the character if he needs to.’ “The coffee shop had been noisy, but it suddenly went silent, and I felt a moment’s shame for what I had just said – straining to make myself heard – too loudly. The student stared levelly at me for a moment. ‘Lucretius is cool,’ she said at last, ‘and you get brownie points for using Latin. But don’t you see that your esoteric argument is totally lame? First, if you can see through it, and I can see through it, then everyone can see through it. Lucretius even tells you that he’s doing it – and he tells you twice, three books apart, like he thinks you’ll forget. Second, if everybody sees through the beautiful clothing, then no one’s going to buy it when an author blames something on one of his characters. You’ll have to do a lot better than that, Mr. Director, to convince me that there’s something to esotericism. Everybody knows that literature is seductive. Read the second preface to Julie – you know,’ she responded to my raised eyebrow, ‘by Rousseau. They knew it in the eighteenth century. There was a whole debate about whether too many people were reading novels, and about whether novels drive people mad. Novels were, like, the Walkmans of the eighteenth century. And no one was letting their authors off the hook.’ “I started to say something to this, but the student was on a roll, and interrupted me. ‘And third, what’s wrong with you? Every time you say something to me, you repeat something that you read in some book. You’re like that guy Montaigne writes about, in “Of pedantry,” who 4 �won’t say that he has an itchy backside until he looks up what itchy means and what a backside is. I ask you a question, and you give me great books. Well, I want great ideas. So tell me straight up, Mr. Director, because life is short. Why should I waste my time on literature?’ “The student had been speaking more and more angrily, and as she posed this last question she slammed her Iliad shut. The coffee shop fell silent again. I reached for my drink, snapped open the plastic lid, and drank deeply of cold foam and lukewarm, bitter coffee. Clearly this cappuccino fad was going nowhere. But as the stimulant raced through my veins and the fog cleared from my vision, I looked the student in the eye and asked, ‘you’ve read Julie? That’s not on the Graduate Institute reading list.’ “And then I saw what I did not expect to see: the student blushed. I glanced away, reflected for a moment, and then began again to speak. “‘So you want a philosophic argument for why literature is as philosophically serious as philosophy?’ I asked. “The student nodded. “‘Okay. Remember how in Book Six of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle distinguishes between five intellectual virtues: art, science, prudence, wisdom, and intellect? “‘Kind of,’ she replied. ‘What I remember is that art has to do with making things, science with knowing things that can’t be otherwise, and prudence with acting in matters that can be otherwise. But I don’t remember so much about wisdom or intellect.’ “‘You’re on the right track,’ I said. ‘Wisdom has to do with knowing first principles, and Aristotle confusingly calls it a combination of science and intellect. This makes more sense when he says later that intellect is concerned with the ultimates in both directions: ultimate general principles, and ultimate particulars. It’s a kind of perception.’ 5 �“‘Let’s see if I’m following you,’ the student ventured. “An example of art is writing, an example of science is physics, an example of prudence is tactics, and an example of both wisdom and intellect is… philosophy?’ “I reflected again, and then said, ‘Let’s leave wisdom out of it for now. I find it easier to think about single judgments, rather than bodies of knowledge. If we were to say that “avoid comma splices” is part of the art of writing, Newton’s second law part of the science of physics, and “Athens should not invade Sicily” is a judgment of prudence, then what would be a judgment of the intellect?’ “‘Well,’ the student replied, ‘if Aristotle is right that the intellect concerns the ultimates, both principles and particulars, then the principle of non-contradiction would have to be one of its judgments, and others ought to have the form “this is a comma,” or “this is force, this mass, and this acceleration,” or “this is Athens, and this Sicily.” These judgments would be a little like definitions, but also different: they wouldn’t say “a comma is a punctuation mark indicating a brief phrase,” or something like that, because that kind of definition is part of the art of writing. Instead, they would be like a cross between definitions and perceptions. The “this” part of “this is a comma” would indicate a sense perception, but the “is a comma” part would be a perception of the intellect.’ “‘Great,’ I said, starting to enjoy myself. Even my cappuccino was tasting better. ‘So let’s agree that we’ve got Aristotle’s meaning right, for the sake of argument. We might think differently if we were to look at the text, but we don’t want to fetch a book and run the risk of being called pedants, do we?’ “This earned me another eye roll. 6 �“‘So now consider this,’ I continued. ‘Aristotle also tells us in the Ethics that the moral virtues come to us through habituation, but the intellectual virtues through teaching. This seems straightforward in the cases of art and science. If you want to learn the art of writing, you visit the writing assistant, or read a style manual, or best of all, read and emulate an excellent writer. If you want to learn the science of physics, then you take a physics class, or do experiments on your own, or read a textbook.’ “‘I can do the next one,’ my student broke in excitedly. ‘If you want to learn prudence, then you hang out with prudent people, or read histories about prudent people, if you can’t find any of them around.’ “‘Aristotle says as much in the Ethics,’ I agreed, after swallowing the last of my coffee. ‘But tell me this. How do we learn intellect? And I’m not thinking now of the ultimates in the sense of first principles, like the principle of non-contradiction – which is discussed in the Metaphysics. How do we learn the ultimate particulars, and get better at knowing them, so as to know better that we’re using them correctly in the judgments made by art, science, and prudence?’ “The student’s expression, which had been open and hopeful since we began talking about Aristotle, began to cloud over. After a pause, she said quietly, ‘I bet you’re going to tell me that the answer is’ – and she said the last word with the same accent – ‘Literature.’ “‘Why not?’ I pressed on. ‘We all probably get our first instruction in the ultimate particulars from the opinions of the people around us – this is a human being, that one is a hero, this one is a valet – but the particulars that we learn this way must be pretty narrow. And we can broaden them by reading history, sure, but the historian is expected to keep to what did happen. Only the poet in Aristotle’s sense can instead write about what could happen, or must have 7 �happened. The poet can purify events so that every detail reflects the philosophic truth; he can write about the rare, extreme cases; and he can supply the internal details that no one has access to, but that must have happened – like the speeches in Thucydides. And by doing all this he can improve our intellects by enriching our sense of the ultimate particulars, to the benefit of all the other intellectual virtues. Maybe this is what people mean when they say – I mean no one says it now, but they’ll probably say it someday – that reading novels makes us more empathetic. Not just that novels make us better disposed toward others, though they can do that, but that they give us a richer sense of others’ inner lives, and make us more nuanced in our judgments about them. And maybe this is why Aristotle says that wisdom is a combination of science and intellect. It’s a combination of philosophy proper and literature.’ “I trailed off, and the student rewarded me with some brief, sardonic applause. ‘Not bad, Mr. Director. I won’t even hold it against you that you mostly talked about what Aristotle thinks. That’s the more dialectical way, isn’t it – to make use of what your opponent acknowledges? But there’s one problem you haven’t addressed, one question that you won’t be able to answer.’ This was the last line on the last page, and there were no more pages to be found. I kicked every other drawer in my desk, to no avail. Then, noting the lateness of the hour, I snatched up the pages that I did have, and went down, out of the cool dark cave of my office, into the hot Maryland sun. There will be three Graduate Institute-hosted study groups this term: one on Homer’s Iliad, one on Schopenhauer’s On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and The World as Will and Representation, and one on Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man. Schedules and meeting places for these groups will be circulated by email soon. Let me encourage you all to 8 �attend the Dean’s Lecture tomorrow night, on another work of literature, titled “Moments in Time: Reflections on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1,” at 8:00 in the FSK Auditorium. And let me also invite you all to take part in the refreshments provided at the back of the Great Hall, before going to class. The fall 2014 term of the Graduate Institute is now in session. Convocatum est. Jeff J.S. Black Annapolis, Maryland 2 August 2014 Delivered on 21 August 2014 Note For those philosophic souls who want to investigate what itchy means, and need to look up what a backside is, I offer the following guidance. For the meaning of going down and blushing, see Books 1 and 7 of Plato’s Republic. Aristotle makes his claims about poetry and history at the beginning of Chapter 9 of his Poetics. For beautiful Niraeus, see Iliad Book 2, lines 671-675. The honey and wormwood image is found in On the Nature of Things, Book 1, lines 934-948, and Book 4, lines 10-25. The full title of Rousseau’s Julie is Julie, or the New Héloïse, Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps. “Of pedantry” is the twenty-fifth essay in Book 1 of Montaigne’s Essays. The discussion of art, science, prudence, wisdom and intellect may be found chiefly in Chapters 3 through 8 of Book 6 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle discusses the principle of noncontradiction in his Metaphysics, in Book 4, Chapters 3 through 8, and Book 11, Chapters 5 and 6. Finally, there is a coffee shop on Maryland Avenue. I first met my future wife there, and later her son, to both of whom I dedicate this address. 9 � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 9 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Fall 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-08-21 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Fall_2014_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Black, Jeff J. S., 1970- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Jeff Black for the Fall 2014 semester in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "On the Literature Segment" in Annapolis, MD. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/caf35704ca69f5c31cccf116035b767a.pdf 0692a2380fba8d5527cb1a0fd01ab52a PDF Text Text St. John's College Graduate Institute Convocation Address Fall 2015 Emily Brooker Langston Good Afternoon and Welcome – New and returning students, families, friends, and tutors – to the fall term of the Graduate Institute at St. John's College. In particular, I’d like to welcome the students who are today becoming members of the Graduate Institute. As you may know, the seal of the college portrays seven books (representing the seven classical liberal arts) arranged in a circle around a set of scales. There is a motto in Latin that reads: “Facio Liberos ex liberis libris libraque.” Or, less alliteravely, in English, “I make free adults out of children by means of books and a balance.” In my last convocation address I talked some about the first half of this motto “I make free adults out of children -” so I knew then I was setting myself the task of saying something about the second half . The first half proclaims the goal of St. John’s, or the program – to make free adults out of children. The second half gives us the means: “by means of books and a balance.” I take the motto to be saying that by means of learning we are made free. Thus, the relationship between learning and freedom was already in the back of my mind as I read through Herodotus’ magnificent, sprawling Histories with my preceptorial this summer. Those of us who participated in a seminar on Plato’s Meno earlier today have just been reminded of how perplexing the subject of leaning is. In that dialogue, Socrates compares it to the process of remembering something that one �had once known but has forgotten, so that the remembered or learned thing once again becomes a part of the learner's conscious knowledge. In another dialogue, Theatetus, learning is compared to having an object or idea make a stamp, an “im-pression,” on the wax of one's soul. In either case, and in any case I can think of, learning involves an interaction between a learner and a thing that was unknown, or at least forgotten. And the learner is changed by that interaction. If we think of learning as an encounter with the unfamiliar in which the learner is changed, we can see the question of learning come into focus in an interesting way in the Histories. As many of you know, Herodotus announces the nature of his grand project in the first sentence of his work. He is writing, quote “so that the great and wonderful deeds – some brought forth by the Hellenes, others by the barbarians, - not go unsung; as well as the causes that led them to make war on each other.” ( all quotes from Andrea Purvis' translation in the Landmark Herodotus.) It doesn’t seem obvious that learning would come into it. And yet one of the things one realizes early on in tackling Herodotus is that there is very little that DOESN’T come into it. The reasons for the Persian Wars cannot be summed up simply, in a few lines about ambition for territory or (Herodotus disparagingly remarks at the beginning of the work) in a few stories about kidnapped women. If we are to understand these wars, we must inquire about the very character of the peoples - of the Greeks and Barbarians- who were involved in the conflict. The description of the character of a people of course includes the forms that political life takes, along with territorial aspiration and personal or national ambition – �but language, mythology, dress, burial customs, religious ritual, local legend are all also involved. And in describing these cultures to us, one of the issues to which Herodotus returns regularly is the response of the various cultures to novelty: how does a culture react to the customs of others with whom it comes into contact? How likely is that culture to be changed by an experience of something new? If we accept for the moment the premise that, though it may not be all there is to learning, learning has something to do with being changed by taking in the new, then learning is for Herodotus a topic of recurring interest. And understanding something about a culture’s attitude to learning will tell us something deeply true about the character of a people. It turns out that Herodotus sees a great deal of variation amongst cultures on this issue. On one extreme, some cultures are highly resistant to exterior influence. We see this particularly in the cultures of the Egyptians and Scythians, though for interestingly different reasons. On the other extreme are the Persians who, Herodotus tells us, adopt foreign customs avidly. Somewhere between these lie the Hellenes, to whom we will return later – following the method of Herodotus, looking at the center more carefully after having delineated the boundaries. So what sorts of peoples are most resistant to taking in the new? Herodotus spends the whole of book two telling us the about the culture of the Egyptians, who “shun (practicing the customs) of everyone else in the world.” (153) We can make some sense �of this from what Herodotus tells us about them. They are by their own reckoning a very ancient people. As such, they have through many ages and dynasties been “settled.” Rather than expanding their empire, they invest their energies in erecting huge monuments of stone. That is why this country “has more marvels and monuments that defy description than any other.” (133) Like all people according to Herodotus, they are in some way akin to their land – in this case in character rather like the alluvial soil on which much of the country is built, the result of one layer laid down upon another, through centuries of slow accretion. The advanced age of their civilization seems like a metaphor for their resistance to change; they are too old, settled in place, and established in the traditions of millennia to be impressed by the achievements of others. In Plato’s dialogue Timeus, an Egyptian priest famously expresses this attitude to the visiting Solon: “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children: there is not such a thing as an old Greek." If learning has something to do with being changed by the other, we can certainly how resistance to learning looks like a sort of freedom – that is, freedom from influence. This understanding of freedom is expressed most clearly in the culture of the a second people in the Histories, the Scythians- who, according to Herodotus, “avoid foreign customs at all costs.” (311) Yet their culture is remarkably different from that of the Egyptians. Rather than thinking of themselves as one of the oldest peoples of the world, they explicitly claim to be the youngest. As opposed to the Egyptians, who have more grand and amazing monuments than anyone else in the world, the Scythians build no �monuments, permanent buildings, or even fixed settlements, at all. As Herodotus describes them: “Instead of establishing homes or walls, they are all mounted archers who carry their homes with them and derive their substance not from cultivated fields but from their herds.” (301) How then might we understand the Scythian resistance to being influenced by anything that comes from the outside? Compared to the Egyptians, set in place, with lists of kings and priests reaching back through time and surrounded by stone monuments of their own lengthy past, the Scythians would seem to have little sense of a past at all. They are constantly moving across an undifferentiated landscape of windswept, grassy plains. The preeminent fact about them is that they are impossible to conquer. For, quote, “Since they make their homes on carts how could they not be invincible or impossible even to engage in battle?” As the resistance of great age to change provides a metaphor for the resistance of the Egyptians to influence, so the restlessness of youth may give us a way to think about the Scythians. They have made what Herodotus calls one “great discovery.” To quote further, “They have discovered how to prevent any attacker from escaping them and how to make it impossible for anyone to overtake them against their will.” (301) The entire way of life of the Scythians is an attempt to preserve a sort of freedom. And they are free – at least in the sense that they remain uninfluenced and unconquered, eluding even the forces of Darius. But the Scythians’ great discovery comes at a great price. Their lives are harsh; they have few records, do not cultivate the arts, and Scythians who experiment with foreign customs are killed on the spot. �On the other end of the spectrum from the Egyptians, who are too stiff to be inpressed, and the Scythians, who won’t sit still long enough, are the Persians. If learning is simply taking in and being changed by the other, the Persians are voracious learners indeed. To quote Herodotus: “Of all men, the Persians especially tend to adopt foreign customs.” They particularly “inquire into the enjoyments of pleasure seekers in every nation.” (73) Peoples absorbed in the Persian empire are not compelled to change their language, dress, or other customs – and the Persians adopt whatever foreign customs they find pleasing. As we could see how the resistance to any influence might be understood as a sort of freedom, we can also see how the Persian embrace of novelty looks like freedom; Persians are free to dress and seek pleasures in the widest variety of ways. Herodotus describes the army of Xerxes closing in upon the Greek peninsula as a wondrous procession comprising most of the peoples of the known world – Thracians in fox-skin caps and colorful cloaks, Ethiopians clad in leopard and lion skins with bows six feet long, Assyrians with helmets of bronze, the Mochi with helmets of wood. The description of so much variety begs the question, though: how does a society that takes everything into itself remain ONE? The question comes clearly into focus in a conversation between the Persian Great King Xerxes and the deposed Spartan king Demaratus. Xerxes is unable to understand the Spartans, who fight as a unified body of �free men sacrificing themselves willingly, compelled by a merely “inward” fear - the fear of their own law. The only source of unity that can constrain the motley army of Xerxes to fight as one is a force from without. The unity they have, the only unity in which Xerxes truly believes, is the unity of men who are “compelled by the lash.” Omnivorous absorption of otherness has enabled Xerxes to send, by Herodotus' estimate, a force of 5,000,000 from Asia to Europe. But if anything, the stance of the Persians seems antithetical to freedom. The parts of this monstrosity can only be held together by force, and every person in the Persian Empire is ultimately no more than a “slave” to the Great King. If there is a kind of learning characteristic of people who are free, it must be more than the unquestioning acceptance of every novelty. Finally, we turn to the Greeks, not unexpectedly the heroes of Herodotus’ narrative, and of this talk. It may seem odd to say THE Greeks, and indeed it is the sort of locution that we are wary of at St. John’s, for all sorts of good reasons. Yet despite the fact that the term embraces cultures as different as Athens and Sparta, in spite even of the fact that some Greek-speaking cities have Medized (gone over to the Persian side), Herodotus does speak of “the Greeks” - and his way of speaking helps to give the term meaning. On the issue of learning, Herodotus reports that the Greeks, unlike the Persians, are somewhat resistant to taking up foreign ways. But unlike the Egyptians and the Scythians, they do learn from others. Herodotus particularly emphasizes how much the �Hellenes owe to Egypt. Some of what they have taken from the more ancient culture is practical; for example, they have learned to divide up the year in to 12 months, using the stars. Other influences bear directly upon their religious and cultural practices. “The Egyptians,” Herodotus tells us, “were the first to establish the tradition of identifying names for the 12 gods...the Hellenes adopted this practice from them. They were also the first to assign altars, statues, and temples to the gods and to carve their figures in relief on stone." (118) The Greeks learn many things, and many different sorts of things, from other nations. Still, this seems is very different from the indiscriminate incorporation practiced by the Persians. In mathematics and astronomy, navigation and agriculture, the Greeks see an innovation, make a judgment about its truth or usefulness, and adopt what seems to them best. In questions of religion and culture, there is no wholesale taking on of the exotic. Even though the innovation of having named gods comes from the Egyptians, the gods in Greece do not look like Egyptian gods and are not given Egyptian names. Theogenies arise linking them to the new land and culture. Though they may have learned to make temples and altars, and to carve images of the gods, from the Egyptians, the Greeks do not make "Egyptian" altars, temples, or images. Everything they bring into the culture is made their own. Thus, although they have not maintained a primitive cultural purity such as that defended so ardently by the Scythians, they have also not lost a sense of themselves as a single and singular people. When the Athenians, refusing to go over to the Persians, �make their moving speech at the end of book eight, despite the squabbles and differences over strategy that divide them, they proclaim their loyalty to, quote, “ the Greek people, with whom we are united in sharing the same kinship and language, with whom we have established shrines and conduct sacrifices to the gods together, and with whom we also share the same way of life." (662) They can even appeal to a common ideal of "freedom," which although it may look different in Athens and Sparta is recognizable by the citizens of each city as the principle for the sake of which they oppose the massive Persian force. And part of what Herodotus makes visible to us through his deep cultural descriptions is that it is their approach to allowing themselves to be changed, their approach in fact to learning, that makes this society of free citizens possible. The Greeks adopt a stance of freedom in learning, neither rejecting everything wholesale nor taking in everything indiscriminately. We see from them more clearly what real learning is - an active process, involving the thoughtful evaluation and incorporation of what they encounter, rather than a mere passive reception of impressions. This active learning is their own participation in choosing what sort of people they are and will become. It is an essential aspect and expression of their freedom. One last note – the approach to learning we’ve sketched here is also characteristic of Herodotus himself. The title of the work we call the Histories might better be translated as Inquiries. The word “history,” to the modern ear, suggests an objective and orderly set of facts about the past – perhaps something to be absorbed, but �not an activity. “Inquiry,” on the other hand, immediately suggests both an activity and an agent, an inquirer. Herodotus' inquiring intellect is a constant presence in the presentation of his Inquiries, interrupting the flow of his narrative to present us with his own commentary and judgments. In his desire to learn and discern causes, he reports – but then accepts, rejects, and shapes the evidence he encounters into a work that is wideranging and multifaceted but held together by an internal unity, a work that is distinctly his own. I invite you now to join us as we undertake the project of learning together, encountering the new, and the new again, in our texts and conversations with one another; neither rejecting unthinkingly nor accepting indiscriminately but learning as free adults, actively shaping ourselves and our community. THANK YOU. Before we disperse, let me announce that there are four Graduate Institute study groups taking place this fall: one on Milton's Paradise Lost; another on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ; another on the shorter works of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer; and one on Proust’s Swann’s Way. Information about meeting times, places, and readings will be circulated in an email. Please join us for the refreshments that are waiting in the back of the Great Hall before proceeding to your tutorials, which will begin at 5:15. The 2015 fall term of the Graduate Institute is now in session. Convocatum est! � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 10 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Langston, Emily Brooker Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Fall 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Fall_2015_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Emily Brooker Langston for the Fall 2015 semester in Annapolis, MD. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6618f9a57427de4770324cdee521ef72.pdf 993c456273f6f04eb51e13a356a867c4 PDF Text Text Of Bees, Fish and Cannibals Convocation Address Annapolis, Maryland January 14, 2004 Christopher B. Nelson President Welcome to the newest members of the class of 2007, to the new members of the Graduate Institute, and to their families and friends. And welcome back to the rest of the college community. By way of introducing you to St. John's, I want to say a few words about cannibals and cannibalism. I spent some time over the holidays with one of my favorite essays of Montaigne, On the Education of Children. Montaigne is, incidentally, one of the authors you will be reading in your sophomore year. It happens that he also wrote a little essay on cannibalism, but that has little to do with my object today. In his Education of Children, Montaigne offers loads of good advice. To parent he suggests that they send their children away from home to be tutored. To students, he counsels that they should be silent and modest for social intercourse, but fastidious in choosing and sorting their arguments, and fond of pertinence, and consequently of brevity --above all to surrender and throw their arms before the truth, wherever they encounter it. Montaigne also has a wonderful understanding of what learning is all about, and it has to do with grasping something the student may call his own her own. Let me quote from two of his passages: Let [the student] be asked for an account not merely of the words of his lesson, but of its sense and substance, and let him judge the profit he has made by the testimony not of his memory, but of his life, let him be made to show what he has learned in a hundred aspects, and apply it to as many different subjects, to see if he has yet properly grasped it and made it his own . . . It is a sign of rawness and indigestion to disgorge food just as we swallowed it. The stomach has not done its work if he has not changed the condition and form of what has been given it to cook. And later: Truth and reason are common to everyone, and no more belong to the man who first spoke them than to the man who says them later . . . The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; he will transform and blend them to make a work that is all his own, to wit, his judgment. His education, work, and study aim only at forming this. As I was chewing on this essay, I recalled how I was used to receiving copies of speeches written �by your Marshall here, Miss Brann, with a little note saying that they were “for cannibalistic use.” Now, those who know Miss Brann will readily recognize that such talks would be veritable gold mines, filled with things a college president might want to use in talking about liberal education. Let us call these things a “banquet” so as not to mix metaphors. I had been invited to remove parts of what was contained in a paper that I might use them in my own talks from time to time — parts of a talk that was not of my own making. Often, we quote from others to add ornament to our own words. But cannibalistic use is not ornamental use. Somehow, I was meant to consume the talk before making use of it. Just as the stomach must change the condition and form of the meal it has just eaten in order that the body may receive nutrition, so must the mind transform the written matter it has taken in, in order that it may be nourished and its judgment improved. I figured I was being invited to plunder in order to make a work of my own, after I'd sifted through the material, considered it carefully, judged for myself what was worthy and for what purpose, and transformed it somehow to fit me. In this reflection, I was beginning to understand Montaigne, I think. But I was also getting an insight into the heart of liberal education — that the students themselves must learn to become their own guardians, that in the end they must use their own reason to find their way. So, I asked myself whether it mattered what food was served up and how it was served to our students. Well, I know I am preaching to the choir here. You would not have come to St. John's College in the first place — if you had not had at least an intuitive grasp that it matters deeply that the food we serve up for thought is the best we know for the nourishment of the mind and soul, for the development of their faculties. And you know just as well that it matters deeply how it is served. You want a banquet set before you and you need the time to taste everything served, to test it and question it before forming a judgment and rejecting it, doubting it, or making it your own. You understand that the authority of teachers can become an obstacle to learning precisely because their authority belongs to them and is not your own. So you want the teacher to listen to you before responding in turn. You want the liberty to chew on your own questions, not just take in someone else's gospel. You want to be the arbiter of your own opinions, but you need the tools to judge your own questions fairly, with your eye on the truth. I think that is why you are here at St. John's. We offer you tools for working with questions. We offer you opportunities for extended conversation and leisure for reflection about the questions that will help you shape the person you will become. We offer you rich reading material as food for thought, and a faculty modest enough to know that the books themselves make better teachers than the more ordinary mortals sitting on the other side of the aisle. We want you to plunder the ideas these many books have to offer, but afterward make of them honey which is all yours. We want you to digest what you read and hear, and change what you take in to make it a work you can call your own. This means that purely bookish competence is not what we seek (even though competence in all the books in this program would take many lifetimes to achieve). Instead, we hope to help you build a kind of “honest curiosity to inquire into all things,” to help you exercise the habit of shared inquiry, where you will learn to listen well to others, speak when you have something pertinent to say, and build a kind of confidence in yourselves that comes from exercising your reason freely for your own purposes. We want �you to learn the freedom that is required to make wise choices for yourselves so that you may live better lives. There is a rather wonderful image for all this in another book you will be reading before long — an image I was reminded of another generously spirited tutor. I am referring to Dante's Divine Comedy, a poem written in three parts, where our hero Dante is guided on a journey through the Inferno, the place of despair, Purgatorio, the place of hope, and Paradiso, the heavenly place of fulfillment. As Dante, a mortal man and visitor, is led into the second realm of Paradiso, which is inhabited by shades in a blessed spirit world, he is swarmed upon as if by fish to their food. Dante puts it this way: As in a fish-pool that is calm and clear the fish draw to that which comes from the outside, taking it to be their food, so I saw plainly more than a thousand splendors draw towards us, and in each I heard: “Lo, one who will increase our loves!” And as each shade came near it appeared to be full of happiness, by the bright effulgence that came forth from it. The simile suggests that even in the heavenly sphere the human spirit is fed by fellowship. The eagerness for human company and the conversation (which follows) is seen as food for the spirit, and is made apparent by an increase in the heavenly light permeating them. These spirits rush to their new visitor for the increase of their love, which for Dante seems to follow from a knowledge and understanding of the way the world works and the heavens move. I close with this image to remind you that you are not only here to feed. You are food for the rest of your classmates and friends. Fellowship and friendship come from learning like this in a community where each of its members flocks eagerly to the newest arrivals, its freshmen, to share and to learn for the sake of learning itself — and for the happiness that follows from the activity of learning together. We bid you to come to the table. The banquet set before you has more variety and depth than the imagination can capture. Eat generously. Chew it all carefully and thoughtfully, taking in what you come to know is right, placing in doubt what seems uncertain, and rejecting what you know to be wrong, what you know can never be used cannibalistically, because it simply is not something you can call your own. I welcome the cannibal in each of you, and encourage you to make cannibalistic use of the fouryear program of instruction we will be setting before you. And in that spirit, may you learn to love the project you are embarked upon and the fellowship of your classmates. May you succeed in taking in our program, and making of it something beautiful which is also something you may call your own. Thank you. * * * * * I declare the college in session this 14rd day of January 2004. �Convocatum Est! � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 4 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Spring 2004 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-01-14 Description An account of the resource Typescript of the Graduate Institute convocation address given by Chris Nelson on January 14, 2004 in Annapolis, MD. Entitled "Of Bees, Fish and Cannibals." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Convocation, Spring 2004 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Convocation Graduate Institute Presidents Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/54b633363ca946100c1a8f25d51c3f61.pdf 56badd9148e10b390bd670aa378f961c PDF Text Text Annapolis Convocation, Spring 2010 Welcome. Welcome especially to our new Graduate Institute students; welcome also to returning students and colleagues. On this your first day at the Graduate Institute, I want to address you on the subject not of great books and the profound thoughts you will encounter therein nor on the subject of the rigors and delights of independent thinking, a skill you will be honing here— at least I will not be speaking of those things directly. These are the obvious attractions of the program at St. John's. Today I would like to reflect on one of its less conspicuous charms: friendship. My guess is you haven't really come here seeking friendship. You have already had an undergraduate experience where you probably formed lifelong attachments. And here you will not be living together in dorms...nor sharing the trauma of ill-advised unions and cruel breakups (thank goodness for that)...nor helping each other to cope with groceries, laundry, time management, etc. Some of you are long past those days, and you may even have committed yourselves to the joys and trials of that particular and demanding friendship found in family life. Nonetheless, you are going to find friendship here, for I'm pretty sure it's impossible to engage properly in our activity without experiencing a certain kind of relationship to other students (and tutors) which is properly called friendship. The topic of friendship seems to be in the air this year. President Nelson used his fall undergraduate convocation address to consider the famous Greek phrase that "the things of friends are common"; tutor Gary Borjesson gave a Friday night lecture �concerning the friendship of dogs and men as a paradigm; and friendship was one of the themes of the faculty NEH study group. But my concern with this issue antedates those events. For a while now, I have wanted to use the word friendship to characterize my relations with students and colleagues, but have been at a loss to subsume these relations under the existing categories I have of friendship. So I'm going to use this opportunity to try to better formulate the particular, special kind of friendship that forms the bonds holding together this community— at least insofar as it is a community of learners. What do we normally mean by friendship? We use, perhaps overuse, that word to characterize a broad array of relationships. People with whom we share activities, whether poker or bowling or moviegoing or Church, become our friends. A certain class of friends comes with networking: work relationships, former colleagues, potential bosses. Modern life even has us "friends" with people we've never actually met—through Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter. But we all recognize these are friends only in some extended, casual use of the word. Sometimes we speak instead of our "true friends," by which we often mean the people who are loyal to us. Certainly, I value these friends; it is rare to find someone so committed to us as to see past our inadequacies, to endure with us our incapacitation by suffering, to forge a personal connection that transcends mere characteristics or shared interests. I hope each of you already has such a friend; I hope too that you may find another here. However, this kind of private relationship, based on affection and fidelity and intimacy, is clearly not the one that permeates our community. We do, by and large, like each other. But I mean here to uncover the essence of a more public, shared bond that arises organically through our common activity of joint inquiry. What is it �about exploring together the persistent questions confronting us in our lives that cultivates, perhaps even demands a sympathy beyond general civility? Perhaps the example of Socrates is relevant. Surely Socrates is a paradigm of the probing questioner searching beyond mere opinion and holding the highest of standards for knowledge, and he also embodies that particular way of life which critiques itself through engaging in dialogue with others. In these ways, he seems a kindred soul, if not a friend, to every Johnnie ("Johnnie" is how we affectionately refer to ourselves). And Socrates does in fact tie philosophy and friendliness together—in a strange, puzzling, almost humorous way—in the Republic, which those of you in the Politics and Society segment will begin reading shortly. As he founds his "city in speech," Socrates finds himself trying to characterize the necessary traits in the people entrusted with guarding the republic. Such guardians must be fiercely spirited in order to fend off threats, but gentle towards their friends, their fellow citizens (375c). We at St. John's also desire these seemingly incompatible characteristics in the members of our republic. If you don't have the spirited courage to venture your interpretations, to fend off the allure of easy answers, to risk being wrong, to face the loss of cherished opinions, our classes will fail. On the other hand, if you don't respect each others' insights, cultivate each others' potential, collaborate constructively with each other, our classes will also fail. Socrates and his interlocutors overcome their initial suspicion that these qualities are impossible to unite when Socrates recollects that there is an exemplar combining them; dogs, he says, have a truly "philosophic" nature. "When [a dog] sees someone it doesn't know, it's angry, although it never had any bad experience with him. And when it sees someone it knows, it greets him warmly, even if it never had a good experience with him." (376a) "How can �the love of learning be denied to a creature whose criterion of the friendly and the alien is intelligence and ignorance?" (376b) Now, as a direct analogy for your relations with each other and the outside world, this model fails. We at the College want to help you develop your ability to interact with one another, but we leave it to you to determine the character of your interactions with the outside world. However, after your initial double-take at the notion of a philosophic dog and in light of a certain respect for Socrates' skill with images, you may begin to penetrate more deeply into this humble metaphor. Real love of wisdom may indeed require this black-and-white attitude toward truth. In fact, we at the College hope you have a genuine passion for the truth and eschew falsity in all its forms, not only lies, but also hypocrisy and ignorance—even ignorance of your own ignorance. Moreover, insofar as the right reaction to one's own ignorance is to stamp it out, we even want you to engage in a spirited war (against yourself). This much of the controlled fierceness of the guardian dogs seems apt and desirable. What the image fails to highlight, and what we at St. John's (as well as Socrates in other circumstances) emphasize, is the difficulty in distinguishing what it is we know. Dogs don't seem to have this problem. But a few Meno-like experiences trying to clarify the essence of virtue make one painfully aware that one's opinions often masquerade as knowledge, thereby making one friendly toward falsity and hostile toward truth. Recognizing this possibility, we ought harbor a healthy suspicion of our immediate judgments. Unlike the guard dog in Socrates' image, we must open ourselves up to the unfamiliar and be ready to abandon the familiar. We must be willing to be vulnerable. And we must feel secure baring our very souls to one another. So I find myself needing a very different model tying together friendship and �philosophy—preferably one where I am not reduced to thinking about friendliness toward truth rather than toward another person. Aristotle's more explicit analysis of friendship may help. You may be surprised to learn that Aristotle devotes two whole books to this subject in the Nicomachean Ethics, the first text read in the Politics and Society tutorial. He turns to friendship after he treats of the ethical life in general and the various virtues specifically, remarking that friendship is "a virtue or something with virtue." (1155a4) In your classes, you will no doubt assess the truth of this claim and investigate the role friendship plays in the ethical life. Here, I want to see if Aristotle's analysis of friendship can help me characterize the special rapport immanent in a classroom full of people bound only by their passion to understand. Characteristically, Aristotle begins from what is first (or most clear) to us, analyzing the various ways we commonly use the word "friend" –for people we invite on hikes and co-workers as well as our intimates. After stressing the necessity and nobility of friendship in the fully human life (1155a29), Aristotle, again characteristically, proceeds to make distinctions which will allow him to sift through our loose conceptions and isolate the essence of friendship. He identifies three species of friendship: friendships of utility, pleasure, and virtue (1156a6-8). Although he notes that all friendships involve reciprocal goodwill (1155b34), he singles out the last type, the friendship based on character, as the most perfect (1156b8). Such friends are in fact both useful and pleasant to each other, but this friendship is more noble in that they are not friends for the sake of usefulness or pleasure, but for the sake of the good. These friends are engaged in helping each other to live the best and happiest life (1169b20-22) No doubt you're willing to believe that here at the College you too will assist each other to live the best life, but you probably would identify that assistance as an accidental side-effect of your desire �to improve yourself. It remains to be seen whether Aristotle will account for a necessary connection between philosophy and a friendly commitment to the welfare of another. Aristotle's conception of the paradigmatic friendship embraces three primary characteristics: disinterestedness, like-mindedness, and activity. We can probably all agree that the best friends show a disinterested concern for one another. We genuinely wish a true friend well because of who the friend is and for his own sake (1156b9-11) rather than because of the job he can bring us (even if we are grateful for the job as well). Unself-interested regard for another and action on his behalf are at the core of the best friendships. Initially, we might hesitate to posit like-mindedness as a necessary component of friendship. We tend to identify likemindedness as a common world view, and we all have friends with whom we profoundly disagree. Aristotle rightly, I think, dismisses this interpretation; he points out that "it is not sameness of opinion, for the latter might belong also to those who do not know each other" (1167a21-22). Instead, Aristotle traces the harmonious interdependence of friends to their agreement about matters to be acted on, to having the same intentions regarding what is of common interest (1167a28). Insofar as we admire our friends, we must indeed be appreciating their virtues, their conception of the good (a conception we affirm and subscribe to ourselves). I think this is why Aristotle's characterization of the friend as "another self" (1166a33) resonates so powerfully. It captures our sense of the special union of sameness and otherness we find in our most satisfying relationships. The third element Aristotle claims as essential is that friends participate in common activities, especially those activities directed toward a good life. Indeed, he claims true companionship entails "living with" the other person (1171b29). Only then can we �rejoice in the observation of a friend's accomplishment of morally praiseworthy acts; only in close and regular contact can we find sustenance and indispensable support in his advice and counsel as we try to discern our own moral path. The best friends not only stimulate each other to action but also encourage each other to develop, assist each other to grow in wisdom. This realization of a practical, ethical element in friendship is the fruit of Aristotle's insight that happiness is an activity in accordance with virtue (rather than a mood or emotion). Now Aristotle's treatment of friendship, as I mentioned, is embedded in a book on ethics. His portrait of the perfect, unqualified friendship depicts virtuous activity as the necessary basis for mutual respect and joint pleasure. But we here at St. John's do not intend to be answering the question of what virtue is for you; in fact, we intend to raise that question in sharply provocative ways. While versions of justice and courage and temperance all are requisite in the classroom discussions, they appear as modes of speech and thought rather than action as such. But Aristotle does link his perfect friendship with discussion, noting that above all"living with" one's friend means: "shar[ing] in discussion and thought—for this is what living together would seem to mean for human beings, and not feeding in the same place, as with cattle" (1170b10-14). Further, Aristotle broaches the topic of friendship only after a full treatment of the intellectual virtues, upon which he realizes true ethical virtue must depend. Now, the commitment you have made to attend the Graduate Institute emanates from a certain kind of intellectual virtue. You have signed up for more than a degree program; you're exploring a way of life. The twelve of you have set a high standard for what you want to count as wisdom and you have refused to be mere passive recipients of such wisdom. �You will rejoice to see these virtues shining forth in the "other selves" surrounding you here. And while the activity you all engage in here is one of thought rather than philanthropy or politics, it will be shared in the fullest sense of that word. You will collaborate with every ounce of your energy in order to successfully think another's thought, formulate a reaction, and use the text to constructively criticize that reaction. Even though we don't share common histories, backgrounds, or creeds, you will feel the presence of a common goal, the quest for truth, and a common standard, reasoned argument, guiding every discussion. The more fully you engage in this common activity, the more you will find your goals inextricably bound to the goals of your companions. The more the quest for truth dominates, the less concerned you will be that you were the one to utter that selfcontradictory, absurd interpretation and the more pleased you will be to see someone else resolve the paradox and point the way to a new path where we can safely tread. In this way, a selfforgetting regard for the other will necessarily inhabit you. And in this sense, you will be friends. Now, in the Nicomachean Ethics, friendship forms a bridge between an analysis of the ethical virtues and an account of the most perfect and pleasant activity, namely contemplation. A certain tension in the book arises: is the best life the more public, etchical life or the private, almost divinely self-sufficient contemplative life? Something like this tension probably pervades our classes as well. As the myth of recollection emphasizes, the experience of knowledge finally happens deep within oneself. But I think the experience of coming to know happens amongst us friends. Let us go forge this new friendship then. Convocatum est. �Marilyn Higuera � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 9 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Higuera, Marilyn Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Spring 2010 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-01 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Spring_2010_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Marilyn Higuera for the Spring 2010 semester in Annapolis, MD. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9bdece0aef4ce06574d807a30190fb02.pdf ccbdcccecb80c4924c9b02c46c75c351 PDF Text Text Annapolis Convocation, Spring 2011 Welcome. Welcome especially to our new, select group of Graduate Institute students. Welcome also to returning students and colleagues. Last summer, for one of our Wednesday evening "Life of the Mind" events (these rather informal events take the place of the more formal Friday evening lectures that occur during the regular academic year), I put together a panel of tutors to discuss the question, "What is Philosophy?" For that occasion, I asked each tutor to select a program author and give a 10-minute interpretation of what that author thought constituted the activity of philosophy. The presentations were so thought-provoking that, in the intense question period that followed, we never got around to what we ourselves think philosophy is. But here at St. John's— where we aim at living the examined life, where questions regarding truth are welcomed in classes on Euclidean geometry, Chaucer's tales, or the Bible, where the questions persist whether in the classroom or the Coffee Shop, at an After Seminar Gathering or at home—it seems only right to press ourselves to tackle that question. Today, in honor of your joining our community, I am going to put myself on the spot and venture to define philosophy. Let me beat a hasty retreat. I will try today to say what I think philosophy is, as practiced here and as I have gleaned from my 32 years of experience at St. John's. This version should not be considered what "we" think philosophy is—for, as you will soon discover, each tutor and each student is continually articulating, questioning, re-evaluating, and re-articulating what it is that we practice here, what constitutes the program, and virtually every �other element of the best life as well. None of us would say the exact same things and we surely have some radical disagreements. Furthermore, I have real trepidations about making the attempt to say even what I think philosophy is. Last year, when one of my colleagues was relating an anecdote to me, she recounted in passing that she had identified herself as a philosopher—and I found myself doing a double-take. I realized that I would never identify myself as a philosopher to anyone. Of course, I have no degree in philosophy, as she does. But I also would never identify myself as a mathematician even though I do have degrees in that field. As a tutor, I am clearly not an expert—not even in "my" field. Though I have some skills, I suppose, and I definitely possess arcane information that not everyone has, I do not spend my time considering abstract entities invented just yesterday nor struggling to prove claims about those entities. I simply don't feel that I am pursuing the authentic activity. On the other hand, am I not authentically doing philosophy here at the College? What am I doing if not philosophy as I examine the profoundest ideas both in great books and in our own lives? Having reflected to this point on my colleague's open assumption of the mantle of philosophy, I realize I quite admire it and begin to wonder. Shouldn't I too claim to be a philosopher? As you may know, the etymology of the word "philosophy" is Greek: philos—meaning lover, and sophia—meaning wisdom. Can I not claim to be a lover of wisdom? Who wouldn't claim to be a lover of wisdom? Well, during a seminar oral examination last term, one of my students described people she knew who claimed knowledge was unimportant, indeed that made decisions on the basis of that claim. But such people reveal their desire to "know better" than others around them, don't they? Aren't they claiming they have superior wisdom about the best way to live—even as �they scorn the reading of books and the raising of questions? As Aristotle claims in the Metaphysics, "All men by nature desire to know." (980a) But neither Aristotle nor I would claim those people my student described are living the philosophic life; indeed, they themselves are trying very hard to reject the philosophic life. What do I think characterizes a person who loves wisdom? What is the essence of the philosophic activity? One common claim of the participants in the summer panel on philosophy was that each author considered philosophy to be a "way of life." I immediately agreed. But I have learned to be suspicious of easy agreement. So I have since been prodding myself to examine what I mean when I say that "philosophy is a way of life." As is often the case, it's easier to say what I don't mean. Sometimes when we refer to "philosophy" we simply mean that someone studied philosophy at some university and got a degree. Certainly, this is not what I mean. To allow someone else to determine a set of books and ideas which are labeled "philosophy" and become conversant and knowledgeable about what they contain is too empty for me to want to make a life of it. Even the deeper version—where the expert is genuinely weighing various arguments against each other—seems more a valuable skill than a true identity. Sometimes we speak of someone's "philosophy of life," by which we mean a set of beliefs, a creed—or at least a system, by which the person lives. This also is not what I intend by "philosophy." Though most days I long achingly for such a creed (one that would guarantee the best decisions), I don't see how unquestioning adherence to a code (no matter how hard-won nor how profound) could really constitute the activity of philosophy itself. Moreover, reading Don Quixote for my preceptorial last term has reminded me that every interaction with the world challenges �such a code, requires—at a minimum—re-examination but usually re-interpretation and sometimes abandonment. What we see as giants often reveal themselves to be mere windmills. And meanwhile the too, too solid windmills of life resist one's lance and sometimes break it. In the republic of letters, "philosophy" sometimes refers to the study of the truths and principles underlying all knowledge and being. This concept of philosophy seems a worthier candidate than the other two, but it does not, at least on the surface, appear to be a way of life. This formulation obscures the vexed character of the philosopher's relation to truths and principles. At this College, we are keenly conscious of the difficulty of knowing the truth. Let me, in my perplexity, turn toward one of our profound original sources for help. In the inception of our Great Books program, the Socratic life as depicted by Plato provided much inspiration and guidance for our activities in this community. Many of my own ideas about the philosophic life stem from the picture I have constructed through reading the Republic, the Apology, the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, and, of course, the Meno. As you yourself saw in Socrates' interactions with Meno, Socrates resists the glib answer—whether it be a secondhand speech of the professional rhetorician Gorgias or an overhasty dismissal of mundane matters. He lingers over even the most basic questions: What is a bee? What is a figure? How do I form a double square? During my years at St. John's I've learned to allow these questions to bring me up short, to pause and reflect on each word, to check the momentum impelling me to leap over the simple-sounding. In the process of so doing, the familiar becomes unfamiliar. We see with fresh eyes both the diagonal of a square and ourselves. Suddenly we do not quite recognize the square root of 8; we begin to wonder whether we should really call square root of 8 a number; whether we know what virtue is; �whether we, like Meno, are asking questions only to find out what other people say and not because we really want to know, really love wisdom. But how do I tell whether I "really" love wisdom? Once a doubt creeps in regarding my unexamined, unconscious motives, it's difficult to judge whether I'm directing myself toward wisdom or wandering, lost among shadowy opinions. My own touchstone necessarily derives from experiences akin to those of the slaveboy, moments that not only feel like the lifting of a veil between my eyes and some object of thought but that also are accompanied by a sense that a previously dormant part of myself has suddenly quickened with life and activity. Life lived in the absence of this invigoration feels, if not dead, at least empty. Or perhaps more accurately, that other life lacks a vital dimension. As Virginia Woolf (The Common Reader, "On Not Knowing Greek" p. 32) has put it: ... all can feel the indomitable honesty, the courage, the love of truth which draw Socrates and us in his wake to the summit where, if we too may stand for a moment, it is to enjoy the greatest felicity of which we are capable. I don't think I, or Woolf, can persuade someone that this dimension exists. But I do think experience has engendered in me a passion to think, to endure the struggle toward clarity. But how do these momentary glimpses of felicity constitute a way of life? I'm not satisfied that I've focused on the key element yet. Love of wisdom, as manifest in Socrates and cultivated at St. John's, requires absolute honesty. Socrates is unafraid to admit ignorance publicly. And he frequently adjures his interlocutor to speak "just what he thinks" rather than what someone else has said; he demands of Meno, "What is your own account of virtue?" (71d) One reason we eschew secondary sources here at the College is that the din of other voices tends to drown out one's own thought. It sounds an easy matter to "say what you think," but �it's actually much easier to know what someone else has said or to guess what others want to hear. And secondary sources are not the only danger to developing one's own honest thought. Even if others can ask just the right question to shake us out of complacent judgments, provide us with a well-chosen instance of a general claim that illuminates an otherwise dark and puzzling construction of the world, surprise us out of a deeply satisfying interpretation with a carefully crafted formulation, or refute one of our claims with a reasoned analysis, no one can have the "Aha!" moment for us. So a philosopher doesn't let Plato or Aristotle or a tutor or another student simply tell him/her what to think. But what does the philosopher do? How does the philosopher free the voice inside struggling to be heard? To look within and evaluate the structure, quality, and range of one's experience, the integrity of the conclusions drawn from that experience, and the consistency of the complex web of those conclusions—that demands rigor, humility, suffering, submission, courage, tirelessness. If one dwells with this kind of love of wisdom, nothing is so cherished or so private that it is not to be held up to scrutiny. The supreme challenge of this kind of honesty is a lifetime project. Perhaps this is what I mean by making philosophy a way of life? But many, perhaps most, people think they are being honest with themselves and others. Is there some special way for a philosopher to scrutinize his opinions, debunk his own illusions, penetrate his own defenses? All too often in the past, I have wrongly thought I understood. Just as the slaveboy was fooled by the resonant sound and delightful simplicity of a "double area" arising from a "double length," I have been seduced by mere words. Just as Meno was only able to accept a definition in the "high, poetic style" (76e) of Gorgias and could not "hear" the better, perhaps truer, definition, I too have exhibited a weakness �for the lofty adjective, the idealistic phrase, the neat dichotomy. Is there some characteristic other than the only partially reliable ability to analyze one's own claims that sets the philosophic life apart? In Plato's dialogue Phaedo, as Socrates spends his last day on earth in prison waiting for the fatal cup of hemlock, he depicts a mode of existence for the philosopher that is thoroughgoing and quite stark. This topic of conversation is launched by Socrates' claim to his friends that he is willing and indeed even eager to die (62c). In response to his friends' incredulous reactions, he makes the yet more astounding claim that "philosophy, practiced in the right way," is "one thing only, namely training ....for dying and to be dead." (64a) He explains that pleasures of food, drink, sight, and all pleasures of the body distract a person from pursuing the full truth of the being of things in general (64c-66c). So "real philosophers train for dying, and to be dead is for them less terrible than for all other men." (67e) For they have purified their soul—"in separating so far as may be the soul from the body, and habituating it to assemble and gather itself together from every region of the body, so as to dwell alone and apart, so far as possible, both in this present life and in the life to come, released from the body's fetters." (67c) Now, here indeed is a version of philosophy that is a way of life— but a highly problematic one. Not only does it not echo very much our own way of life here at the College (we do rather enjoy the wine and food as well as the conversation at our after-seminar gatherings), but it presents itself as a way of death at least as much as a way of life. As one of Socrates' interlocutors puts it, "[the many] would say [such a person] has one foot in the grave." (65a) �To think that the body is simply a hindrance to truth is probably not in my capacity, not least because it seems also to undermine the power of music and poetry. Worse yet, this version of philosophy, where private cares must be set aside, normal obligations disdained, and connections to family and friends attenuated, seems almost inhuman. In the Phaedo, this indifference to earthly concerns is admitted to be inhuman, in the sense that it is described as divine. And I am inspired by talk of the soul longing for its own eternal ground of the truth; I'm even more moved by the picture Plato paints of the dying Socrates. He never once weeps; he never even trembles; he continues calmly discoursing about various subjects—not only philosophy, but also the various possibilities of life after death, or no life after death; he is a rock for his grieving friends. I truly hope that I can confront my hour of death as nobly and with as much equanimity as this Socrates. Nonetheless, I cannot live this life. I'm probably too weak an individual to be an ascetic, even if I believed this was in fact the philosophic life. But the truth is: I can't believe such asceticism is the way to wisdom. Even Socrates' admissions that the goal of philosophy is, strictly speaking, unachievable in this life and that the philosopher is only cultivating a certain attitude towards the body, even these admissions do not salvage this version of philosophy for me. I suspect truth of being various, of descending on us in a multitude of shapes, of being grasped through the imagination as well as the intellect, of residing in friendships and society as well as in the individual. But perhaps Socrates intends something more subtle than his conversation in the Phaedo superficially indicates. Though Socrates does, at the beginning of the dialogue, send his family away in order to converse with his friends, we are first allowed to see the 70-year old Socrates not only with his wife but also with �his toddler son. Then we see him reflecting on the inextricably linked natures of pleasure and pain as his shackles are removed and we hear him connecting his own immediate bodily experience to his conclusions about the nature of pleasure and pain. Then we learn that he has been composing songs in case dialectical conversation did not properly fulfill his vocation. Music, poetry, friends, family, pleasure, pain, conversation—these still engage the nobly dying Socrates. Perhaps being philosophic is more about holding a certain posture towards all of life—an attentiveness toward the world, toward oneself, and toward others; a readiness to act on the basis of thought and not merely on the basis of custom or pleasure; a critical observation—to be sure of opinions and ideas but also of life, awake to the timeless within the temporal. I still don't think I will be able any time soon to say, "I am a philosopher." But I will say that I am working toward being a philosopher. And I hope you'll work with me as well. Marilyn Higuera � 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 Convocation Addresses Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Description An account of the resource Addresses given at convocation ceremonies held at the beginning of the semester at St. John's College. Includes both the undergraduate and Graduate Institute commencements. <br /><br />Click on <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=43" title="Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection">Items in the Convocation Addresses Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context convocation Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 9 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data digital 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 Higuera, Marilyn Title A name given to the resource Convocation Address, Graduate Institute, Spring 2011 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-01 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Annapolis_GI_Spring_2011_Convocation Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Description An account of the resource Typescript of the convocation address for the Graduate Institute given by Marilyn Higuera for the Spring 2011 semester in Annapolis, MD. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online. Convocation Deans Graduate Institute Tutors