Life without Principle, Thoreau

Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives...

I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock- that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with your cobwebs; wash your windows, I say! In some lyceums they tell me that they have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I know what their religion is, and when I am near to or far from it? I have walked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast of what religion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected what I was about. The lecture was as harmless as moonshine to them. Whereas, if I had read to them the biography of the greatest scamps in history, they might have thought that I had written the lives of the deacons of their church. Ordinarily, the inquiry is, Where did you come from? or, Where are you going? That was a more pertinent question which I overheard one of my auditors put to another one- "What does he lecture for?" It made me quake in my shoes.

The Forms (Reading)

If you want more on the Forms, look at Republic Bk X (to 612c or so, although you may want to just read the entire chapter), or at Phaedo 74a-84c.  If you are really up for a challenge, you might want to read the Parmenides (even its first few pages will give you a sense of Plato's own perplexity at his Forms).

Dare to be Wise; Begin!

[From Montaigne]

To examples may fitly be applied all the profitable discourses of philosophy, to which all human actions, as to their best rule, ought to be especially directed: a scholar shall be taught to know—

["Learn what it is right to wish; what is the true use of coined
money; how much it becomes us to give in liberality to our country
and our dear relations; whom and what the Deity commanded thee to
be; and in what part of the human system thou art placed; what we
are and to what purpose engendered."—Persius, iii. 69]

what it is to know, and what to be ignorant; what ought to be the end and design of study; what valour, temperance, and justice are; the difference betwixt ambition and avarice, servitude and subjection, licence and liberty; by what token a man may know true and solid contentment; how far death, affliction, and disgrace are to be apprehended;

["And how you may shun or sustain every hardship."
—Virgil, AEneid, iii. 459.]

by what secret springs we move, and the reason of our various agitations and irresolutions: for, methinks the first doctrine with which one should season his understanding, ought to be that which regulates his manners and his sense; that teaches him to know himself, and how both well to die and well to live. Amongst the liberal sciences, let us begin with that which makes us free; not that they do not all serve in some measure to the instruction and use of life, as all other things in some sort also do; but let us make choice of that which directly and professedly serves to that end. If we are once able to restrain the offices of human life within their just and natural limits, we shall find that most of the sciences in use are of no great use to us, and even in those that are, that there are many very unnecessary cavities and dilatations which we had better let alone, and, following Socrates' direction, limit the course of our studies to those things only where is a true and real utility:

["Dare to be wise; begin! he who defers the hour of living well is
like the clown, waiting till the river shall have flowed out: but
the river still flows, and will run on, with constant course, to
ages without end."—Horace, Ep., i. 2.]

James Haden on Socrates

I posted this on Canvas too.  I strongly encourage you to read it before we finish the Apology.  Link.

Mentors and Love

Never forget that Plato's mentor was Socrates.  Never underestimate the life-changing effect of Socrates on Plato.

In the Phaedrus, when Plato talks about the relationship between mentor and mentee, he models his discussion on his relationship to Plato.  (Consider how much like Phaedrus young Plato was likely to have been!)  For Plato, time to talk with Socrates must have been both the most exciting and the most terrifying time of his day.  He could not wait to be with Socrates, to be talked to and talk to him, and yet he also knew Socrates to be his judge, so to speak.  And this is not because Socrates spent his time passing judgment on Plato, but because Plato had internalized and continued to internalize Socrates as his model, his ideal--and each confrontation with that ideal left Plato aware of some still uncorrected or some newly discovered deviation in himself from Socrates.

I do not know if many of you have had a mentor, but, if you have, you should have experiences like Plato's to draw on and to make intelligible Plato's seeing of mentor and mentee under the concept of 'love', of the 'erotic'.  Speaking for myself, I was very lucky in my teachers, and can count a number of mentors.  But first among them for me is James Haden, who was my philosophy professor my freshman year of college.  Jim was a big guy, in his early 70's, white-haired and white-bearded, wearing heavy glasses, and he represented all that I wanted to be--embodied my aspirations.  I couldn't wait for his classes; I found reasons to hang around to talk with him (or, if lucky, to walk along with him as he headed home); I looked for him when I crossed campus.  My pulse rose when I saw him--even across campus.  I loved him.  (Is there any other way to say it?)  I wanted nothing more than for him to think that I was succeeding at philosophy, nothing more than for him to make me better at philosophy.  We lived out our relationship in a mutual love of wisdom.

He took a special interest in me.  He was willing to delay his retirement until I graduated.  He sought me out.  He invited me out to lunch.  Had me to his house for bacon and onion pizza.  When I dropped out of college (long story), he kept in touch, wrote me faithfully.  Visited me.  When he died, about 6 years later, he left me his library. 

I venerate his memory.  Our relationship, obviously, involved no sex.  But to say that the relationship lacked an erotic dimension is clearly wrong.  I was in the presence of someone who participated in a mystery I wanted to participate in, and who radiated the reality of that mystery to me.  He saw something in me, something, well, worthy--something worth developing.  And I needed him to develop it:  such things develop in an apprentice only under the tutelage of a master.  To use an image from the Phaedrus:  I was moulting, itching and sore and restless, overburdened by a desire I really did not understand how to satisfy.  He had suffered from that desire too; he had found a way, if not of satisfying it exactly, then of living well while in its vise.  I loved him for what he loved and knew how to love.  He loved me for what I loved but did not know how to love.  --As with Jim and me, so with Socrates and Phaedrus, Socrates and Plato?

Ten Rules for Teachers/Students

This list is attributed to John Cage.  Although he didn't create it, he loved it and kept a copy on his wall.  Put it on yours.

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for a while.
RULE TWO: General duties of a student: Pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher: Pull everything out of your students.
RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.
RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined: this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
RULE TEN: We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.
HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything. It might come in handy later.

A Final Word on the Euthydemus?