It has our texts, but some of the recommended ones are mislabeled as required…
Tuesday, September 1, 2026
Questions Sep 3
No class today, but do read about Pyrrho et al, and post your comments. You can mark the scorecard for this date on Tuesday Sep 8.
1. How did the most extreme skeptics (or sceptics, if you prefer the British spelling) differ from Plato and Aristotle? What was their main teaching? Do you think they were "Socratic" in this regard?
2. Why did Pyrrho decide never to trust his senses? Is such a decision prudent or even possible?
3. What country did Pyrrho visit as a young man, and how might it have influenced his philosophy?
4. How did Pyrrho think his extreme skepticism led to happiness? Do you think there are other ways of achieving freedom from worry (ataraxia)?
5. In contrast to Pyrrho, most philosophers have favored a more moderate skepticism. Why?
FL
1. What did Anne Hutchinson feel "in her gut"? What makes her "so American"?
2. What did Hutchinson and Roger Williams help invent?
3. How was freedom of thought in 17th century America expressed differently than in Europe at the time?
4. Who, according to some early Puritans, were "Satan's soldiers"? DId you know the Puritans vilified the native Americans in this way? Why do you think that wasn't emphasized in your early education?
5. What extraordinary form of evidence was allowed at the Salen witch trials? What does Andersen think Arthur Miller's The Crucible got wrong about Salem?
HWT
1. Logic is simply what? Do you consider yourself logical (rational)?
2. What "law" of thinking is important in all philosophies, including those in non-western cultures that find it less compelling? Do you think it important to follow rules of thought? What do you think of the advice "Don't believe everything you think?"
3. For Aristotle, the distinctive thing about humanity is what? How does Indian philosophy differ on this point? What do you think is most distinctive about humanity?
4. According to secular reason, the mind works without what? Are you a secularist? Why or why not?
5. What debate reveals a tension in secular reason? How would you propose to resolve the tension?
And see:
==
An old post on skeptics...
==
Pyrrho was an extreme skeptic, who'd abandoned the Socratic quest for truth in favor of the view that beliefs about what's true are a divisive source of unhappiness. But most philosophers do consider themselves skeptics, of a more moderate strain.
The difference: the moderates question everything in order to pursue truth, knowledge, and wisdom. They're skeptical, as Socrates was, that those who think they know really do know. But they're still searching. Pyrrhonists and other extreme ancient skeptics (like the Roman Sextus Empiricus) find the search futile, and think they can reject even provisional commitment to specific beliefs.
My view: we all have beliefs, whether we want to admit it or not. Even those who deny belief in free will, it's been said, still look both ways before crossing the street.
So let's try to have good beliefs, and always be prepared to give them up for better ones when experience and dialogue persuade us we were mistaken.
"Skepticism is the first step toward truth."
- Denis Diderot
Diderot, born #onthisday in 1713, is probably best known for editing the "Encyclopédie" - the 'dictionary of human knowledge'.
Find here Diderot's Wikipedia entry (oh irony
)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Diderot
Learn more in a 1.5 minute video about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C71vkrsiyKE
==
It's hard to take the legend of Pyrrho seriously.
"Rather appropriately for a man who claimed to know nothing, little is known about him..."*
Pyrrho
First published Mon Aug 5, 2002; substantive revision Tue Oct 23, 2018
Pyrrho was the starting-point for a philosophical movement known as Pyrrhonism that flourished beginning several centuries after his own time. This later Pyrrhonism was one of the two major traditions of sceptical thought in the Greco-Roman world (the other being located in Plato’s Academy during much of the Hellenistic period). Perhaps the central question about Pyrrho is whether or to what extent he himself was a sceptic in the later Pyrrhonist mold. The later Pyrrhonists claimed inspiration from him; and, as we shall see, there is undeniably some basis for this. But it does not follow that Pyrrho’s philosophy was identical to that of this later movement, or even that the later Pyrrhonists thought that it was identical; the claims of indebtedness that are expressed by or attributed to members of the later Pyrrhonist tradition are broad and general in character (and in Sextus Empiricus’ case notably cautious—see Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.7), and do not in themselves point to any particular reconstruction of Pyrrho’s thought. It is necessary, therefore, to focus on the meager evidence bearing explicitly upon Pyrrho’s own ideas and attitudes. How we read this evidence will also, of course, affect our conception of Pyrrho’s relations with his own philosophical contemporaries and predecessors... (Stanford Encyclopedia, continues)
==
Pyrrho not an idiot
"Pyrrho ignored all the apparent dangers of the world because he questioned whether they really were dangers, ‘avoiding nothing and taking no precautions, facing everything as it came, wagons, precipices, dogs’. Luckily he was always accompanied by friends who could not quite manage the same enviable lack of concern and so took care of him, pulling him out of the way of oncoming traffic and so on. They must have had a hard job of it, because ‘often . . . he would leave his home and, telling no one, would go roaming about with whomsoever he chanced to meet’.
Two centuries after Pyrrho’s death, one of his defenders tossed aside these tales and claimed that ‘although he practised philosophy on the principles of suspension of judgement, he did not act carelessly in the details of everyday life’. This must be right. Pyrrho may have been magnificently imperturbable—Epicurus was said to have admired him on this account, and another fan marvelled at the way he had apparently ‘unloosed the shackles of every deception and persuasion’. But he was surely not an idiot. He apparently lived to be nearly ninety, which would have been unlikely if the stories of his recklessness had been true."
"The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb -- a very good history of western philosophy.
==
A character in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, identified as The Ruler of the Universe, has been called a solipsist. I think he sounds more like a Pyrrhonian skeptic... "I say what it occurs to me to say when I hear people say things. More I cannot say..."
Don't forget to request a midterm report presentation topic (or that we're NOT meeting on Thursday)
Remember, you should request a topic/date for your midterm report presentation starting Sep. 10. Indicate your preference in the comments' space below that post. If you're among the first to volunteer to present on the 15th, I'll give you a couple bonus bases.
Since we're not meeting on Thursday this week (Sep 3), that'd be a good time to begin looking into the possibilities (and into Pyrrho's skepticism).
Monday, August 31, 2026
What would Aristotle say?
There’s Really Only One Way to Stop Students From Cheating
… In every home and every school, we should be inviting kids to think about how cheating is unfair to their friends, how it undercuts efforts to build a just society and how it undermines the quest to become a person of principle.
The heart of integrity is recognizing that the ends don’t justify the means. What we achieve may define our success. How we achieve it determines our character.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/opinion/students-cheating-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Talk, talk, talk! Words, words, words...
[Substack]
We were talking (talking, nota bene) the other day about the limits of language, and William James's sense of the "glimmer and twinkle" of something in "the living act of perception," something that language cannot catch but that honest philosophers must acknowledge. I'll be curious to see if the Existentialists share a similar skepticism towards those who uncritically accept our human ability to know reality verbally. The post-existentialist structuralists, post-structuralists, deconstructionists, theoretical psychoanalysts, Derrideans et al definitely do not. (Or maybe it would be better to say they don't really buy into the idea that "reality" names something nonverbal.) Derrida famously said “Il n’y a pas de hors-texte” ("there is no outside-the-text"), a view James would find laughable. Me too.
I was reminded of this while reading Emily Eakin's new memoir/history of those post-existentialists, The Frenchmen. At the end of chapter 27 she writes of Jacques Lacan (1901-1981):
...he'd scrubbed his work of any residue of biology or Darwin... there were fewer and fewer allusions to the world of things. Lacan had abandoned Earth for the theoretical firmament. [A critic wrote:] '...when I read his work I can't help thinking, 'Words, words, words.'
And at the beginning of chapter 28:
Words, words, words indeed. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a better slogan for the decade [of the fifties in French philosophy].
Ha! In 1892 William James had written:
What an awful trade that of professor is—paid to talk, talk, talk! I have seen artists growing pale and sick whilst I talked to them without being able to stop. And I loved them for not being able to love me any better. It would be an awful universe if everything could be converted into words, words, words. --Letters I, Dec 28
And in Pragmatism III (1907) be wrote:
The really vital question for us all is, What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself? The centre of gravity of philosophy must therefore alter its place. The earth of things, long thrown into shadow by the glories of the upper ether, must resume its rights. To shift the emphasis in this way means that philosophic questions will fall to be treated by minds of a less abstractionist type than heretofore, minds more scientific and individualistic in their tone yet not irreligious either. It will be an alteration in 'the seat of authority' that reminds one almost of the protestant reformation.
James loved words too. He just didn't think they crowd out nature and the rest of the unverbalized fields of our experience. As Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet said: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” So WJ would say to Lacan and his logorrheic peers.
"Cringe" cinema
We were talking in one of our classes the other day about bad or "cringe" films that are so bad they're "good"... I'm still struggling to grasp the concept. Is this essay on point?
I worship at the altar of trash, by which I mean that I am one of those cinephiles with a fondness for bad movies. Perhaps I am underselling the corpus I have in mind by calling it merely “bad,” and understating my sect’s feeling by calling it merely “fondness.” The movies my fellow-cultists and I most esteem are not just bad but incredibly, impressively terrible—scrambled, technically maladroit, incomprehensible at the level of basic plotting—and we are not just fond but obsessed, digging through piles of bric-a-brac at thrift stores in hope of uncovering forgotten VHS tapes from the eighties, scrolling to neglected corners of YouTube with the goal of alighting on some near-unwatchable monstrosity with thirty-two views and a handful of affronted comments.
But we, too, are discerning; we do not approve of just any bad movie... Neil Breen, New Yorker
Friday, August 28, 2026
Questions Sep 1
Remember, you don't have to respond directly to my questions (but some of them will be on the exam, so you should in any case look for the texts that address them. If you can come up with relevant comments on your own, or additional discussion questions, please do.
Aristotle's "happiness" is flourishing, a life of virtuous rationality or eudaimonia. He differed sharply from his teacher Plato. See Existential Comics, for instance...
Aristotle-LHP 2. Rec: FL 3-4. HWT Sections 1-3
In CoPhi it's time again for Aristotle. A couple of years ago I talked about him in the Honors Fall Lecture Series [slideshow*]... and noticed some affinity between Aristotle and Socrates, maybe more than between Socrates and his supposed devotee Plato... (continues)
==
LHP 2
- What point was Aristotle making when he wrote of swallows and summer? Do you agree?
- Aristotle was fascinated by what? Are you, also? Or do you agree more with Plato about "true reality"?
- What philosophical difference between Plato and Aristotle is implied by their body language in The School of Athens (1509-11)? Which Platonic theory did Aristotle reject? Is it disrespectful to contradict your teacher's pet theory? Who would you wish to speak with, if you could be inserted into the scene depicted?
- What is eudaimonia, and how can we increase our chances of achieving it, and in relation only to what? Do you think you've achieved it?
- What reliance is completely against the spirit of Aristotle's research? Are there any authorities you always defer to? Why or why not?
FL
5. What did Sir Walter Raleigh help invent (other than cigarettes) that contributed to "Fantasyland" as we know it today? Was he a "stupid git," as the Beatles song says?
6. What was western civilization's first great ad campaign? Does advertising and the constant attempt to sell things to people have a negative impact on life in the USA?
7. What did Sir Francis Bacon say about human opinion and superstition? Do you ever attempt to overcome your own confirmation bias?
8. Which early settlers are typically ignored in the mythic American origin story? Also: what about the early "settlers" who were brought here against their wills and enslaved?
9. What had mostly ended in Europe, but not America, by the 1620s, and what did the Puritans think would happen "any minute now"? Why do you think people keep making this mistake?
HWT
10. What is pratyaksa in classic Indian philosophy, and how does the Upanishads say to seek it?
11. There is widespread belief in India that the practice of yoga can lead to what? Do you think it can?
12. What is metanoetics, in Japanese philosophy?
13. What does ineffable mean? Is it possible, though paradoxical, to use words to indicate something you can't put into words?
14. Unlike the west, religion in Japan is typically not about what? And what is it about to you?
==
Aristotle on slavery and the subjugation of women
Aristotle was generally a brilliant ethicist, BUT…
"Aristotle wrote Europe's greatest foundational works of ethics and politics, but only in the context of free Greek males: everyone else was of a lesser nature. This meant women, of course, but also those he categorized as naturally born for enslavement. The way to identify such a person, according to Aristotle, was this: "Someone is . . . a slave by nature if he is capable of becoming the property of another (and for this reason does actually become another's property) and if he participates in reason to the extent of apprehending it in another, though destitute of it himself." This last clause was mainly to distinguish enslaved people from non-human animals, who could not even recognize reason when they saw it. With that proviso, the main point here was that you could spot those who were meant to be enslaved from the fact that they were currently enslaved. For them, clearly, "the condition of slavery is both beneficial and just." Aristotle further clarified the situation by comparing enslavement to the equally natural dominance of men over women. Aristotle's "slave nature" theory was used to justify centuries of later exploitation."
— Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell
"Aristotle wrote Europe's greatest foundational works of ethics and politics, but only in the context of free Greek males: everyone else was of a lesser nature. This meant women, of course, but also those he categorized as naturally born for enslavement. The way to identify such a person, according to Aristotle, was this: "Someone is . . . a slave by nature if he is capable of becoming the property of another (and for this reason does actually become another's property) and if he participates in reason to the extent of apprehending it in another, though destitute of it himself." This last clause was mainly to distinguish enslaved people from non-human animals, who could not even recognize reason when they saw it. With that proviso, the main point here was that you could spot those who were meant to be enslaved from the fact that they were currently enslaved. For them, clearly, "the condition of slavery is both beneficial and just." Aristotle further clarified the situation by comparing enslavement to the equally natural dominance of men over women. Aristotle's "slave nature" theory was used to justify centuries of later exploitation."
— Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell
==
Aristotle on the work of a human being
"If we posit the work of a human being as a certain life, and this is an activity of soul and actions accompanied by reason, the work of a serious person is to do these things well and nobly. …But, in addition, in a complete life. For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one day. And in this way, one day or a short time does not make someone blessed and happy either."
==
"Beyond the reach of social anxiety"
As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You wouldn't worry so much about what other people think of you, if you realized how seldom they do."
"...in order to feel social anxiety, you have to believe that other people’s negative opinions of you are worth getting upset about, that it’s really bad if they dislike you and really important to win their approval. Even people who suffer from severe social anxiety disorder (social phobia) tend to feel “normal” when speaking to children or to their close friends about trivial matters, with a few exceptions. Nevertheless, they feel highly anxious when talking to people they think are very important about subjects they think are very important. If your fundamental worldview, by contrast, assumes that your status in the eyes of others is of negligible importance, then it follows that you should be beyond the reach of social anxiety."
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius by Donald J. Robertson
Aristotle at Existential Comics... Aristotle in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)... The moral and intellectual virtues listed...
Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
Aristotle "developed a sophisticated, humane program for becoming a happy person, and it remains valid to this day. Aristotle provides everything you need to avoid the realization of the dying protagonist of Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), that he has wasted much of his life scaling the social ladder, and putting self-interest above compassion and community values, all the while married to a woman he dislikes. Facing his imminent death, he hates his closest family members, who won't even talk to him about it. Aristotelian ethics encompass everything modern thinkers associate with subjective happiness: self-realization, finding "a meaning," and the "flow" of creative involvement with life, or "positive emotion." 1
This book presents Aristotle's time-honored ethics in contemporary language. It applies Aristotle's lessons to several practical real-life challenges: decision-making, writing a job application, communicating in an interview, using Aristotle's chart of Virtues and Vices to analyze your own character, resisting temptation, and choosing friends and partners.
Wherever you are in life, Aristotle's ideas can make you happier. Few philosophers, mystics, psychologists, or sociologists have ever done much more than restate his fundamental perceptions. But he stated them first, better, more clearly, and in a more holistic way than anyone subsequently.
Each part of his prescription for being happy relates to a different phase of human life, but also intersects with all the others. Becoming subjectively happy as an individual, Aristotle insisted, is your unique and momentous responsibility. It is also a great gift—it is within most people's power, regardless of their circumstances, to decide to become happier…"
— Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
— Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall
Thursday, August 27, 2026
"How should we address you?"
I've gotten that question from a couple of students. And occasionally I don't get the question before being addressed a bit over-familiarly, prematurely.
Dr. Oliver, or Professor, are appropriate... at least at this stage of our relationship.
Just FYI. One less trivial thing to wonder about. Philosophy begins in wonder, but not about that sort of thing. ;)
If you're sick...
or for whatever other reason cannot attend class...
No need to notify me in advance that you'll miss class...And no need to ask "What did I miss?" Just check the syllabus (or "NEXT") and the recording (unless we went outside).
When you miss, go ahead and post your comments/questions about the day's reading assignments. You can claim bases on the scorecard for that on the next day's scorecard when you come back to class.
Beyond words
Following up an interesting discussion we had on Tuesday In section 1 (I think ) about the limits of language. Words are great, on this view, but they do not capture or convey the totality of feeling associated with human perceptual experience. Sometimes, as the Old saying goes, “you’ve just got to be there.”
William James:
“Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late. No one knows this as well as the philosopher. He must fire his volley of new vocables out of his conceptual shotgun, for his profession condemns him to this industry, but he secretly knows the hollowness and irrelevancy. His formulas are like stereoscopic or kinetoscopic photographs seen outside the instrument; they lack the depth, the motion, the vitality. In the religious sphere, in particular, the belief that formulas are true can never wholly take the place of personal experience.” VRE
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Remember to look for each class date's Questions
Scroll down to find Thursday's (Questions Aug 27). Post your questions and comments about the day's assigned readings PRIOR to class. Three will let you "touch 'em all" and come home to score (and shade each leg of the diamond).
Midterm report presentations
Starting Sep 10 you can indicate your preference (in the comments' space of this post) for the topic and date of your report presentation. It can be on any relevant topic of your choice that you can relate to the reading assignments (required and recommended) on the corresponding date. Presentations will begin on the 15th. We'll do two or three presentations per class, hoping to finish before Fall Break. I'll give you a free base or two on the scorecard if you volunteer to present on the 15th.
Take a look ahead at the coming syllabus assignments (reprinted below). Scan the assigned texts and select your topic accordingly. Also scan the lists of recommended books in the right sidebar, to see if you would like to use any of them as a basis for your report. If the library does not have the text(s) you choose, go to the circulation desk and request via interlibrary loan.
Have fun with the project. Be creative. Consider using the podcast/video resources in the library's MakerSpace to prepare your presentation. Plan to present for about 10 minutes, with the goal of teaching us something we wouldn't have learned merely reading the assignment. Then lead a brief class discussion. Don't stress, you'll get all 25 available points if you fulfill these minimal criteria.
15 Kaag 1 - SSHM... Midterm report presentations begin. Machiavelli, Hobbes-LHP 9-10. Rec: FL 11-12. HWT 11-13.
17 Kaag 2... Montaigne, Descartes, & Pascal-LHP 11-12. Weiner 14. Rec: FL 13-14. HWT 14-15.
22 Kaag 3... Spinoza, Locke, & Reid-LHP 13-14. Rec: FL 15-16. HWT 16-17.
24 Kaag 4... Berkeley, Leibniz, Hume, & Rousseau-LHP 15-18. Weiner 3. Rec: FL 17-18. HWT 18-19.
29 Kaag 5... Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer-LHP 19-23. Weiner 5. Rec: FL 19-20. HWT 20-22.
OCT
1 Kaag 6... Mill, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Marx-LHP 24-27. Rec: FL 21-22. HWT 23-24.
6 Exam 1.
8 Peirce & James, Nietzsche, Freud-LHP 28-30. Weiner 11. Rec: FL 23-24. HWT 25-26.
Russell, Ayer, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus-LHP 31-33. Weiner 13. Rec: FL 25-26. HWT 27-28.
Fall Break
'Declaring Independence' by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historia...
Declaring Independence by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian Edward J. Lawson was MTSU’s freshman summer read... If you read it, what are your thoughts? Share them in the comments space below (and claim a base on the scorecard for doing so).
MTSU 2026 Convocation, Sat Aug 22, featuring Edward J. Larson (his address begins at 38 minutes):
“The self-evident truths of 1776 hover over our national divisions—as inspiring ideals, as measures of how far we still must come, as the hypocrisy of slaveholders, as intrusions on local traditions. The revolutionary politics of 1776 turned from securing the rights of Englishmen to establishing the authority of an independent nation. The battlefields of 1776 cast the military mold for the war years to come and gave us an enduring symbol of gritty determination in the actions of Washington’s depleted forces at Trenton and Princeton.
Drawing together the eloquence of Jefferson and the insistence of Paine, the strategies of generals and the audacious tactics of armies on the move, and the powerful political movement that transformed colonies into states, this history of 1776 is a leading scholar’s distillation of the pivotal events we must reckon with two hundred and fifty years after the nation’s birth.“ g’r
Drawing together the eloquence of Jefferson and the insistence of Paine, the strategies of generals and the audacious tactics of armies on the move, and the powerful political movement that transformed colonies into states, this history of 1776 is a leading scholar’s distillation of the pivotal events we must reckon with two hundred and fifty years after the nation’s birth.“ g’r
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Questions Aug 27
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS, or indeed any of them. They're here to prompt your own reflections. If you can access this without my questions, feel free.
Questions pertaining to the assigned reading will normally be posted prior to each class.That's where you should always share your thoughts, in the comments space below each day's post (at least three relevant comments/questions/observations per class, so you can shade the whole diamond on the scorecard when you come to class, and thus receive full participation credit for that date... more than that gets you extra credit). You can also respond to your own questions(s) or your classmates' posted comments. Respond not merely with the authors' textual statements but also with your own thoughts & reflections.) 25 exam questions will pertain to the required texts. Additional bonus questions pertaining to the recommended texts will also appear.
- Socrates saw himself as a what? Do you think such a person is valuable to a community? Can you think of anyone in our time who fills that role?
- What kind of conversation was a success, for Socrates, and what did he mean by wisdom?
- What made Socrates wise and unusual? Do you think he was wrong about writing? In whose writing does "Socrates" appear?
- What theory is Plato's story of the cave connected with? What was his name for a perfect exemplar of anything (such as a circle)? Do you think some or all humans are naturally, in some allegorical sense, stuck in a cave? Do you think we need to conceive Ideas of perfection in order to pursue improvement in life effectively? (For instance, can you become a better person without having a perfectly formed notion of what a "perfect person" would be?)
- What was Plato's profoundly un-democratic view of how the state should resemble the mind (as he understood it)? Would you want to live in Plato's Republic?
- What was Socrates' "annoying" response to the jury that, by narrow vote, sentenced him to death? Do you think it was courageous? What would you have said, in his situation?
What did Socrates say his inner voice told him? Do you think "inner voice" is literal?
Weiner
- "Philosopher" means what? Philosophy was what, in ancient Athens? (Introduction)
- What did Camus say is the one truly serious philosophical problem? Do you agree?
- What did Marcus Aurelius need, at dawn, to remind himself of? (And ask me about his morning mantra, which I daily remind myself of. UPDATE: Turns out it wasn't Marcus, but a 19th century American named Elbert Hubbard, whose morning mantra* has been falsely attributed to the Stoic emperor.)
- What was the first question young Needleman experienced? Have you experienced it? Do you think it is a good question? How do you answer it?
- What kinds of questions most interested Socrates?
- The Socratic dialogues consisted of what kinds of conversations? Do you enjoy participating in such conversations?
- What did Socrates say about the unexamined life? What corollaries does Weiner propose? Do you think Socrates was wrong?
Plato's Euthyphro:
...EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious.
SOCRATES: Ought we to enquire into the truth of this, Euthyphro, or simply to accept the mere statement on our own authority and that of others? What do you say?
EUTHYPHRO: We should enquire; and I believe that the statement will stand the test of enquiry.
SOCRATES: We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.
EUTHYPHRO: I do not understand your meaning, Socrates.
SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain...
...Having thus brought his subject to a conclusion, Socrates proposes to bathe himself, in order not to trouble others to wash his dead body. Crito thereupon asks if he has any commands to give, and especially how he would be buried, to which he, with his usual cheerfulness, makes answer, "Just as you please, if only you can catch me;" and then, smiling, he reminds them that after death he shall be no longer with them, and begs the others of the party to be sureties to Crito for his absence from the body, as they had been before bound for his presence before his judges.
After he had bathed, and taken leave of his children and the women of his family the officer of the Eleven comes in to intimate to him that it is now time to drink the poison. Crito urges a little delay, as the sun had not yet set; but Socrates refuses to make himself ridiculous by showing such a fondness for life. The man who is to administer the poison is therefore sent for; and on his holding out the cup, Socrates, neither trembling nor changing color or countenance at all, but, as he was wont, looking steadfastly at the man, asked if he might make a libation to any one; and being told that no more poison than enough had been mixed, he simply prayed that his departure from this to another world might be happy, and then drank off the poison, readily and calmly. His friends, who had hitherto with difficulty restrained themselves, could no longer control the outward expressions of grief, to which Socrates said, "What are you doing, my friends? I, for this reason, chiefly, sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of this kind; for I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be quiet, therefore, and bear up."
When he had walked about for a while his legs began to grow heavy, so he lay down on his back; and his body, from the feet upward, gradually grew cold and stiff. His last words were, "Crito, we owe a cock to Æsculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it."
"This," concludes Phædo, "was the end of our friend—a man, as we may say, the best of all his time, that we have known, and, moreover, the most wise and just." Phaedo
Phaedo audio...
==
*"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." -Elbert Hubbard, probably... and not Marcus Aurelius, though the Internet seems to think otherwise. Don't confuse him with looney L. Ron...
And check out:
Rec-
HWT
- What's one of the great unexplained wonders of human history?
- Do you agree that we cannot understand ourselves if we do not understand others?
- What was Descartes's "still pertinent" conclusion?
- Why did the Buddha think speculation about ultimate reality was fruitless?
- What aspects of western thought have most influenced global philosophy?
- What do Africans not have, according to Kwame Appiah?
FL
1. What statement by Karl Rove began to "crystallize" Fantasyland, in Kurt Andersen's mind?
2. What are half of Americans "absolutely certain" about? What do a quarter believe about vaccines?
3. What is Andersen trying to do with this book?
More from The School of Life
==
In class on Opening Day I was asked if I could summarize my philosophy in a word or phrase like Sally Brown, who finally decides her philosophy is simply "No!"
I should have said Yes! The word is meliorism (closely related, in my philosophy as in WJ's, to possibility):
"...there are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism.
Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable.
Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become.
It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism..." Pragmatism by William James
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