Thursday, September 20, 2007
Socrates on whether you should go to grad school in philosophy
". . . pay no attention to the practitioners of philosophy, whether good or bad. Rather give serious consideration to thing itself; if it seems to you negligible, then turn everyone from it, not just your sons. But if it seems to you to be what I think its is, then take heart, pursue it, practice it, both you and yours, as the proverb says." (Euthydemus 307b-c)
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
1-800-SOCRATES
If you do a search for "Socrates" on Amazon, one of the first few books that comes up is not Reeve's Socrates in the Apology, or Plato's Socrates by Brickhouse and Smith, or anything else like that, but instead a book by Ronald Gross called Socrates' Way: Seven Keys to Using Your Mind to the Utmost. All judgments about the quality of Gross' work aside, the following "Book Description" says it all (read this in your best television infomercial voice):
"Socrates has inspired and guided the brightest men and women for more than two thousand years. Now you can make him your mentor-to strengthen your thinking, enrich your life, and reach your goals. In Socrates' Way, you meet Socrates face-to-face, hear his voice, and learn how he changes people's lives. The book provides step-by-step guidance on how to harness his methods to vastly enhance your own creativity and autonomy. Specifically, Socrates shares the seven keys to using one's mind to the utmost:
* Know thyself
* Grow with friends [!?]
* Ask great questions
* Strengthen your soul
* Verify everything
* Speak frankly
* Free your mind [!!]
You will master the famed 'Socratic Method' for getting to the root of any problem; launch one of Socrates' exhilarating 'Dialogues' among your colleagues at work, as well as at home; and sharpen and enliven your thinking. [Not to mention that you'll eventually be put to death by the state for these activities.] In short, you will discover the Socratic spirit in you."
There you have it. First 100 callers receive a free daimon!
"Socrates has inspired and guided the brightest men and women for more than two thousand years. Now you can make him your mentor-to strengthen your thinking, enrich your life, and reach your goals. In Socrates' Way, you meet Socrates face-to-face, hear his voice, and learn how he changes people's lives. The book provides step-by-step guidance on how to harness his methods to vastly enhance your own creativity and autonomy. Specifically, Socrates shares the seven keys to using one's mind to the utmost:
* Know thyself
* Grow with friends [!?]
* Ask great questions
* Strengthen your soul
* Verify everything
* Speak frankly
* Free your mind [!!]
You will master the famed 'Socratic Method' for getting to the root of any problem; launch one of Socrates' exhilarating 'Dialogues' among your colleagues at work, as well as at home; and sharpen and enliven your thinking. [Not to mention that you'll eventually be put to death by the state for these activities.] In short, you will discover the Socratic spirit in you."
There you have it. First 100 callers receive a free daimon!
Michael Frede, 1940-2007
I read on Leiter that Michael Frede has died.
I never met him, but he was one of my top two or three favorite contemporary writers on ancient philosophy. The introduction to his Essays in Ancient Philosophy (Minneapolis, MN: U. of Minnesota Press, 1987) has had a big influence on my own work, and it should be read by every serious student of ancient philosophy. Here is an excerpt:
"One reason we study the thought of great philosophers with such great care would seem to be precisely this, that we trust that in many cases they had good reason to say what they did, although, because of limitations in our own understanding, we do not readily understand it. These limitations are one of the things we hope to remove by studying the great philosophers of the past." (xi)
This is not a universally held view of how the Greeks should be studied, nor is it even the majority view. But it is perhaps the one that pays the highest dividend to the one studying them.
Two particular papers of Frede's that I liked were "Categories in Aristotle", already a standard in graduate seminars on Aristotle's metaphysics, and "Being and Becoming in Plato," which to my mind is the best treatment of Plato's controversial genesis/ousia distinction. What both of these papers have in common is that they start with a very simple question--What are categories in Aristotle? What does Plato mean by becoming?--and come up with a very textually grounded solution that nonetheless is far removed from what you would have come up with on your own. At the end, you felt as if you had learned something new and unusual from Plato or Aristotle, and you were grateful to Frede for bringing this about.
I never met him, but he was one of my top two or three favorite contemporary writers on ancient philosophy. The introduction to his Essays in Ancient Philosophy (Minneapolis, MN: U. of Minnesota Press, 1987) has had a big influence on my own work, and it should be read by every serious student of ancient philosophy. Here is an excerpt:
"One reason we study the thought of great philosophers with such great care would seem to be precisely this, that we trust that in many cases they had good reason to say what they did, although, because of limitations in our own understanding, we do not readily understand it. These limitations are one of the things we hope to remove by studying the great philosophers of the past." (xi)
This is not a universally held view of how the Greeks should be studied, nor is it even the majority view. But it is perhaps the one that pays the highest dividend to the one studying them.
Two particular papers of Frede's that I liked were "Categories in Aristotle", already a standard in graduate seminars on Aristotle's metaphysics, and "Being and Becoming in Plato," which to my mind is the best treatment of Plato's controversial genesis/ousia distinction. What both of these papers have in common is that they start with a very simple question--What are categories in Aristotle? What does Plato mean by becoming?--and come up with a very textually grounded solution that nonetheless is far removed from what you would have come up with on your own. At the end, you felt as if you had learned something new and unusual from Plato or Aristotle, and you were grateful to Frede for bringing this about.
Wittgenstein on Socrates
I ran across the two following quotes from Wittgenstein's collected biases, Culture and Value (U. of Chicago Press, 1980):
"Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frighful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing!" (14)
"Socrates keeps reducing the sophist to silence,--but does he have right on his side when he does this? Well, it is true that the sophist does not know what he thinks he knows; but that is no triumph for Socrates. It can't be a case of 'You see! You don't know it!' --nor yet, triumphantly, of 'So none of us knows anything!' " (56)
Ray Monk also reports in his biography (Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Penguin Books, 1990; 337-338) that Wittgenstein characterized his own method ("I'll teach you differences!") as the antithesis of the Socratic quest for universal definitions.
What, did W. not get as far as the Sophist or Statesman?
"Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frighful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing!" (14)
"Socrates keeps reducing the sophist to silence,--but does he have right on his side when he does this? Well, it is true that the sophist does not know what he thinks he knows; but that is no triumph for Socrates. It can't be a case of 'You see! You don't know it!' --nor yet, triumphantly, of 'So none of us knows anything!' " (56)
Ray Monk also reports in his biography (Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Penguin Books, 1990; 337-338) that Wittgenstein characterized his own method ("I'll teach you differences!") as the antithesis of the Socratic quest for universal definitions.
What, did W. not get as far as the Sophist or Statesman?
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