French-Speaking Philistines and Good Demons

[This post was originally published at The Western Tradition on March 19, 2012.]

We are knocking down major works left, right, and center in this Great Books reading project. Last week we dispensed with John Dewey, and this week we’ll take on “the Scottish play.”

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book IX (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 234-254)
2. “The Art of Biography” by Virginia Woolf (GGB Vol. 6, pp. 186-192)
3. Macbeth by William Shakespeare (GBWW Vol. 25, pp. 284-310)
4. “Of the Inconstancy of Our Actions” by Michel de Montaigne (GBWW Vol. 23, pp. 199-202)
5. Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences by Galileo Galilei, Second Day (GBWW Vol. 26, pp. 178-196)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book X (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 348-374; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “Porphyry’s Doctrine of Redemption” and its subheads)

The end is drawing nigh for Virgil, and we are more than a quarter of the way through Galileo already. There’s still a long way to go on Augustine. However, next week we’ll be able to dive back into Aristotle.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book VIII: I really enjoyed the digression about Hercules. He didn’t get much airtime from Homer. Aeneas’s examination of his armaments from Vulcan is a clear parallel to the section on Achiles’s shield in the Iliad, but it still reads very differently because Virgil makes the images historical events from Rome’s past (still in Aeneas’s future). So to a modern reader it’s a weird blend of fiction and history, much like the vision in the underworld. I wonder whether the ancient Romans would have viewed the parallel passages as more directly related.
2. “Essay on Modern Education” by Jonathan Swift: Some great quotes here. I like the implied dig against John Locke, who famously denigrated the study of Latin in his own writings on education, and the description of the pompous (and Frenchified) military officer. The closing broadside against utilitarianism in education (which did not yet have a name) is superb.
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 8: This closing chapter is very short, and it’s essentially a reiteration of Dewey’s thesis: we must base education on the student’s experience in order to be modern and scientific. To do that we need a philosophy of experience.
4. “What Is a Classic?” by Charles Agustin Sainte-Beuve: I’d never read anything by Sainte-Beuve before this essay. It provides much food for thought, although I’m not sure whether I entirely agree with the description of a classic as something that makes the human mind take “a step forward.” Maybe I’m just gunshy about the whole body of rhetoric about “progressive” stuff. His line of argument about how moderns have better figured out how to rank past works sounded a little fishy, too. Nevertheless, a great read.
5. Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences by Galileo Galilei: This first section was a marathon, and without having read Euclid last year I’m not sure I could have handled it. Several of Galileo’s proofs build upon knowledge the reader is assumed to have form the study of Euclid. The dialogue is wide-ranging, meandering into numerous digressions, but by the time we’re done we’ve learned about inertia and resistance, finitude and the infinite, and a bit about the vacuum. Remember this is all pre-Newton, too.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book IX: I wonder here whether Augustine, in his insistence that there are no “good demons,” isn’t too caught up on the Greek daemon, which I always understood simply to mean “spirit.” I suppose that the cultural context would have led people to think that if there are good demons, then paganism was potentially benign. It looks like Augustine won the day, though, because I surely haven’t seen anyone use the word “demon” to refer to what we normally call an “angel.”

This week is my spring break, but it feels like just another work week because of all the things I need to catch up on. With temperatures in the mid-80s here, I won’t need much encouragement to stay inside.

Reading the Great Books: Another Volume Down

[This post was originally made at The Western Tradition on March 12, 2012. Apologies for not reposting here in a timely manner. I'll get caught up to the current week's readings in the next couple of days.]

Yes, you read that correctly. With the completion of Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War last week, we have now finished in their entirety two—count them, two!—volumes of the Great Books of the Western World series. It might not seem like much after working on this project for more than fourteen months, but of course that rate of completion will increase as we will nibble away at dozens of volumes more or less simultaneously.

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book VIII (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 216-234)
2. “An Essay on Modern Education” by Jonathan Swift (GGB Vol. 7, pp. 33-39)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 8 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 124-125)
4. “What is a Classic?” by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (GGB Vol. 5, pp. 65-75)
5. Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences by Galileo Galilei, First Day (GBWW Vol. 26, pp. 129-177)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book IX (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 334-348; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “Of those who allege a distinction among demons . . .” and its subheads)

Galileo apparently didn’t know how to balance the different parts of his works for length, so we have a monster section from his to read this week. On the plus side, we’re finishing Dewey off, and Swift is always fun.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book VII: I imagine that if someone told Paris that choosing Venus in the beauty contest meant that Juno would try to hound his people to destruction, he might have thought twice about the whole thing. The queen of the Latins acts very modern here; she takes a sacred oracle and strives mightily to interpret it in such a way that it endorses the thing she already wants to do.
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book VIII: It’s too bad Thucydides didn’t live to complete his history (in case you were wondering, the Athenians ultimately lost the war). The transition from democracy to oligarchy in Athens is usually portrayed as a great tragedy, but it seems pretty obvious that by the late fifth century B.C., the Athenians as a group were no longer fit for democracy. Of course, that doesn’t mean that an oligarchy was the right answer, but a people who’d been following the crazy policies the Athenians had were due for a fall. Modern parallels?
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 7: Dewey throws the term “reactionary” around way too much, I’m afraid. For the record, being a reactionary is no sin if the things you’re reacting to are ridiculous and/or harmful. Dewey lost a lot of goodwill (in my book, at least) when he dissed the idea of education for transmitting the cultural heritage.
4. “Of Parents and Children” by Francis Bacon: Oh, Mr. Bacon. People say you’re so modern, but here you actually suggest that parents should steer their children toward certain occupations unless the child has an extraordinary aptitude or interest in something. Don’t you know that any parental involvement in their children’s lives past (and maybe even during) adolescence is an intolerable affront to their identity and autonomy?
5. “On the Artificial Production of Urea” by Friedrich Wöhler: This document was short and sweet. “I’ve produced an organic compound from inorganic materials. Chew on that.” Or words to that effect. Thus organic chemistry was born.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book VIII: It wasn’t until the modern period that people figured out Hermes Trismegistus wasn’t as ancient as his writings purport to be, so I guess we won’t fault Augustine for taking them at face value. It helps that he’s opposed to them. I liked the way Augustine draws the distinction between the honor paid to saints and the worship due to God.

Unfortunately, we’re back to unseasonably warm weather here, and the air conditioner has been coming on. I suppose it’s back to indoor reading this week. Keep at it!

When Athenians Attack!

I’m logging in a day late with this weekly Great Books post; I hope you’ll forgive my tardiness. We’re halfway through the Aeneid and are nearing the completion of a couple of other longer works. I’m enjoying all these works and hope that you are as well if you’re following along. 

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book VII (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 196-216)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book VIII (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 564-593)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 7 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 118-124)
4. “Of Parents and Children” by Francis Bacon (GGB Vol. 7, pp. 5-6)
5. “On the Artificial Production of Urea” by Friedrich Wohler (GGB Vol. 8, pp. 312-314; pp. 309-312 of the linked Google Book)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book VIII (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 311-334; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “Some account of the Socratic and Platonic philosophy . . .” and its subheads)

We’ll be wrapping up Thucydides this week and putting another GBWW volume in the “complete” column. Progress! 

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book VI: In graduate school I had a professor who insisted that Virgil was a subversive wanting to undermine Augustus’s reign. His two main pieces of evidence were the final lines of the poem and the end of Book VI. I was never persuaded by the view that walking through the ivory gate means the previous 300 lines were all baloney.
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book VII:  Hubris! The Athenians thought they could get away with fighting two wars at the same time, and got badly defeated in Sicily as a result. I feel bad for Nicias; he had opposed the expedition in the first place, then asked to be relieved of command, and was finally captured and executed by the Dorians for something he had tried to prevent. That seems a bit unjust.
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 6: It was interesting to read Dewey’s discussion of purpose on the heels of reading about principles of human action in Shawn Ritenour’s Foundations of Economics. Dewey does not appear to be using the same framework. I also question his equation of freedom with power. This gets us into dangerous territory when we start talking about political ethics.
4. “Sweetness and Light” by Matthew Arnold: I have to say I really liked this essay despite disagreeing with it here and there. If I recall correctly, C.S. Lewis wrote that he was led to Homer via Arnold, and I can see why Lewis liked him so much. Arnold calls the upper class Barbarians and the middle class Philistines, so who are the standard bearers of culture? Are the poets outside the class structure somehow?
5. “Chance” by Henri Poincaré: For some reason I kept thinking of Boethius here: chance is simply a confluence of causes we don’t understand. Of course, Boethius wasn’t placing such an importance on entropy the way this author does.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book VII: Augustine’s argument here is that the gods of civil theology do not grant eternal life, but he makes lots of digressions along the way. I particularly liked the discussion of Numa Pompilius’s manuscripts near the end; he wouldn’t teach show anyone the rites therein, nor would he destroy them for fear of the demons, so he buried them, but later Romans decided they had to be burned.

We’re having great weather here in Montgomery, and I hope it lasts. It doesn’t get any better than sunshine and temperatures in the low 60s. I may just do some outside reading.

Funeral Games and Giant Aliens

Another Monday means another report on the Great Books. We’re still plugging along and on pace to finish in 2017. This week we will cross the 6,500-page mark in the program.

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book VI (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 174-196)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book VII (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 538-563)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 6 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 116-118)
4. “Sweetness and Light” by Matthew Arnold (GGB Vol. 5, pp. 42-61; Chapter I of Culture and Anarchy)
5. “Chance” by Henri Poincaré (GGB Vol. 9, pp. 305-320; Chapters III and IV of Science and Method)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book VII (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 289-311; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “Of the ‘select gods’ of the civil theology . . .” and its subheads)

I’m looking forward to reading Matthew Arnold, whose name I know from my musical studies; I’ve never read any of his literary criticism. We are nearing the end of Thucydides whom we should finish next week.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book V:  It seems fairly clear that Virgil’s funeral games are inspired  by Homer’s athletic contests. I’m not sure why, but I found it surprising that one runner who already fallen got in another’s way so his friend could win. And why does Neptune tell Venus one of the sailors has to die to bring the others safely to Italy? There’s a whole page or two devoted to that prophecy and its fulfillment, but I don’t see why it needs to be there.
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book VI: Alcibiades, like Themistocles before him, is a striking contrast to Socrates in the Crito. Whereas Socrates works to better Athens and is willing to suffer even death if Athens wills it, Alcibiades declares that “true patriotism” is to war against one’s city if it goes astray. Of course, to Alcibiades Athens’ going astray and its prosecution of him are one and the same thing. It seems like Nicias had him pegged pretty well.
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 5:The language about providing internal checks to impulses as opposed to external checks is all very well. Any parent would love to see the same thing in his children. I get the feeling, though, that Dewey is assuming a great deal of homogeneity among students if he expects a teacher to lead all the students in his class to develop these internal checks. Can this approach be successful in today’s classrooms, where the students come from such disparate backgrounds?
4. “Micromégas” by Voltaire:Adler calls this the “original science fiction story.” I’d never read this before, but I felt like I had, and not because it’s science fiction. This is another of the many 18th-century attempts to criticize one’s own society by bringing in a fictional outside observer who can supposedly see all our faults objectively. Swift does this much better than Voltaire, in my opinion, but at least Voltaire has the good taste (in this instance) to make his observer non-human. Authors like Montesquieu who bring in a Persian or Chinaman to lecture Westerners are irritating.
5. On Airs, Waters, and Places by Hippocrates:  I can see why Hippocrates is such a big deal in the history of science. Even though practically none of his explanations for illnesses would be accepted today, he looks for natural causes rather than attributing them to the gods. Epilepsy—the “sacred disease”—is the big exception. The most striking thing to me about his theories is that there’s practically no hereditary component to to them; just about everything is environmental (direction of the winds, quality of water, etc.).
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book VI: We shift gears in this book towards arguing against those urge worship of the pagan gods for eternal benefits rather than temporal ones. I wish I were more familiar with Varro’s writing, since Augustine patterns the discussion after his. I liked his condemnation of the civil theology on the basis of man’s immortal soul; only a god who gives eternal life can provide the real happiness that the civil gods supposedly grant.

I have some catching up to do in life this week after losing a full day to a conference last Friday. Thanks goodness for audio books that allow me to use my commute to the fullest!

Hell Hath No Fury Like Dido Scorned

It’s another Great Books Monday, and when I checked my spreadsheet to see how much progress we’ve made yesterday, I discovered we had passed the 6,000-page mark three weeks ago without my even realizing it. That’s the sort of surprise I could do with a little more often.

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book V (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 153-174)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book VI (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 509-537)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 5 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 114-116)
4. “Micromegas” by Voltaire (GGB Vol. 2, pp. 241-256)
5. On Airs, Waters, and Places by Hippocrates (GBWW Vol. 9, pp. 18-39)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book VI (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 274-288; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “Of Varro’s threefold division of theology . . .” and its subheads)

We’re heavily weighted towards the ancients this week, but you’ll have to indulge me since I’m celebrating a birthday. We still have Dewey in the mix to give us a modern voice.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book IV:  Poor Dido. She’s the plaything of the gods, and then she mistakenly concludes that Aeneas doesn’t care about her when he receives the divine command to leave Carthage. She despairs and kills herself, thus representing (to the Roman mind) the inferior fortitude of Carthage to Rome.
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book V: It’s striking how both sides immediately set about undermining the “50-year truce” to its own advantage. No wonder they were at war again in five years. The affair at Melos shows the complete moral bankruptcy of the Athenians. After all of Pericles’s pretty words in Book II, too.
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 4: I don’t know how I feel about the idea that the class is not in fact a class, but a social group. It seems clear to me that this is where the Great Books people got the idea of “shared inquiry,” but in their case they have a higher authority (the Great Books themselves) to which they defer. It’s not obvious to me how, absent that, a teacher steers the learning process while himself being a member of the group.
4. “Of Studies” by Francis Bacon:  A couple of great aphorisms here in just a few lines: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Also, “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
5. “The Classification of Human Ability” by Sir Francis Galton:  Talk about politically incorrect! Galton would be shouted down at any Western university today if he tried to present this hypothesis. I seem to remember the authors of The Bell Curve arguing for a 60/40 split between the influences of nature and nurture, respectively, and even that caused a firestorm. Of course, Galton’s data set does not measure up to 21st-century standards, but that he was able to put together what he did from available sources is pretty remarkable.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book V: Here Augustine takes on astrology, classical fatalism, and the ancients’ hankering for glory. How many dragons will he slay before the end of this work? I’d like to know whether any astrologers have ever attempted to answer Augustine; it looks to me like he has pretty well torn the concept apart.

It rained more than three inches in Montgomery over the weekend, and I know some areas got more than that. I suppose it was a good thing since we’ve had drought conditions here for some time. Now the cold weather is back, and I’m going to turn on the fireplace to enjoy a good book.

Spartans Actually Do Surrender Sometimes

Having just come off a weekend where I had the satisfying experience of seeing a live stream of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung from the Met, I feel like I ought to start an opera (or at least a classical music) project. Maybe later; the Great Books are keeping me busy enough at the present.

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book IV  (GBWWVol. 12, pp. 136-153)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book V (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 482-508)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 4 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 111-114)
4. “Of Studies” by Francis Bacon (GGBVol. 5, pp. 97-98)
5. “The Classification of Human Ability” by Sir Francis Galton (GGB Vol. 8, pp. 227-261; Chapters I and II of Hereditary Genius; pp. 1-49 in the linked edition)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book V (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 249-274; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “Of fate, freewill, and God’s prescience . . .” and its subheads)

It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through Thucydides already. When we finish him in March, we’ll have completed our second GBWWvolume.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book III:  I couldn’t decide whether the inclusion of Polyphemus, Scylla, and Charybdis in this book were a fitting homage to Homer or a cheap knockoff. The encounter with Andromache was particularly poignant; it’s nice to think that she eventually ended up in a pleasant situation. Why don’t Aeneas and his people simply stay with the Trojans they found? Are they really driven by a divine plan?
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book IV:  There was a lot to keep up with in this book, and a few surprises. The Spartan surrender at Pylos was disappointing, not so much from any Spartan greatness, but rather from the glory that accrued to Cleon as a result. (Remember Cleon was the one who wanted to massacre everyone in Mytilene.) Brasidas is one impressive character, both in diplomacy and on the battlefield.
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 3:  Dewey writes some things in this chapter that sound great. “Preparation” in education means that a person “gets out of his present experience all that there is in it for him at the time in which he has it.” Who wouldn’t want that? I wonder if he’s actually going to be able to explain how that’s to be accomplished in the remaining chapters of this book.
4. Riders to the Sea by John M. Synge:  Well, this was certainly depressing. Maurya loses her sixth son to the sea, and there’s a sense of purposelessness to it. I had a hard time visualizing how this play would be staged. The sort of poverty depicted in the Aran Islands a mere century ago is hard to conceive as well.
5. “Numerical Laws and the Use of Mathematics in Science” by Norman Robert Campbell:  I appreciated how Campbell tried to show the relationship between deduction and induction here. Clearly, Christianity would remove the constant sense of surprise he feels at how our intuitions match things in the real world.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book IV: Lots more exposure of pagan inconsistency in this section. Why, if Victory is a goddess, ascribe the expansion of Rome’s borders to Jove? If Felicity is a goddess, why not worship her only if the point is to receive earthly benefit? And we mustn’t neglect to point out the great anecdote where the cheeky pirate disses Alexander the Great.

We finally got some winter here in Alabama . . . temperatures in the 20s over the weekend. I know that doesn’t sound like much to many of you, but it was our first time to get well below freezing this season. It has made for some good fireplace reading.

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

[Apologies for the tardy posting here. This post originally was published on Monday, February 6, 2012 at The Western Tradition.]

Do you feel a sense of responsibility when you realize that, when you read the Great Books, you are dealing with some of the most profound and influential documents in the history of the world? I think that some people actively avoid that responsibility. Like the scriptures, albeit to a lesser extent, the Great Books will change you, and many people don’t want to be changed.

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book III  (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 119-136)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book III (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 447-481)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 3 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 104-111)
4. Riders to the Sea by John M. Synge (GGB Vol. 4, pp. 342-352)
5. “Numerical Laws and the Use of Mathematics in Science” by Norman Robert Campbell (GGB Vol. 9, pp. 222-238; Chapter VII of What Is Science?)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book IV (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 249; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “The empire was given to Rome . . .” and its subheads)

We have three 20th-century pieces again this week; I feel so modern and up-to-date!

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book II:  Beware of Greeks bearing gifts! The Trojans got played like a fiddle, being persuaded to take the giant horse inside the city. What a heel Aeneas was to leave his wife behind in the flight from Troy’s destruction. I suppose she had to be removed to set up the love affair with Dido. And poor Priam’s death was pathetic; first he has to watch the death of his son and then he himself is killed.
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book III:  The debates over the fates of Mytilene and Plataea were very unsettling. “Should we kill everyone in Mytilene, or only around 1,000 of them? No consideration of justice will enter into our calculations. We’re only concerned with what’s in our interest.” I hope the irony of this Athenian debate’s following on the heels of Pericles’s funeral oration in Book II is evident. And the Spartans were apparently no better, executing out of hand the men of Plataea to gratify the Thebans after the Plataeans had surrendered themselves to Spartan justice.
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 2:  I wonder if we’ll see Dewey owning a connection to Bacon or Hume. Exalting experience in the educational process goes back all the way to Aristotle in some ways. Dewey’s warnings about “educational reactionaries” seem a bit paranoid today. Would that those reactionaries had been more successful.
4. “My First Acquaintance with Poets” by William Hazlitt:  I learned a lot about Coleridge and a little about Wordsworth from this essay. Russell Kirk pointed to Coleridge as an important figure in conservative thought. Could he have been thought so in 1798, a Unitarian minister rebelling against the poetic conventions of the previous two centuries? It’s a little disheartening to know that Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote their poems in ordinary, everyday English, but that 21st-century students often can’t understand them.
5. “Measurement” by Norman Robert Campbell:  This piece resonated more with me than it would have if I hadn’t read Euclid last year. I remember commenting on the difficulty of working through many of his ideas without recourse to the numerals we take for granted. Campbell asks us to think through what it means to count and measure and what standard is appropriate to use. I’m not sure I followed him all the way through the section on density.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book III: I’m trying to imagine how a 5th-century pagan would have attempted to answer Augustine’s argument in this book, and I can’t come up with any coherent line of counterargument. I can only imagine the pagan left stewing in his own juice. Augustine simply uses authoritative pagan authors to demonstrate that Roman history had always been plagued by crises and wars going back centuries before Christ. It made no sense to blame 5th-century problems on the abandoning of the worship of gods that had never prevented those kinds of calamities even in the days when their preeminence was undisputed.

After the stress of organizing and hosting an academic conference last week (with lots of help from others), I’m hopeful that this week will be a little more relaxed. That’s not to say I don’t still have more things to do than I can possibly finish, but at least I won’t have certain kinds of deadlines staring me in the face. I hope you’ll find the time to read this week and let me know how your own efforts in that area are proceeding.

The Great Books Are Diversity

Anyone who claims to appreciate diversity should enjoy reading the Great Books. In the past week we read one of the world’s greatest historians, a philosopher who thinks history is for little minds, and authors who variously interpret life as a effort to serve fate, a relationship to God, and a channeling of negative entropy. If that’s not diversity, I don’t know what is.

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book II  (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 99-118)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book III (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 417-446)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Ch. 2 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 101-104)
4. “My First Acquaintance with Poets” by William Hazlitt (GGB Vol. 5, pp. 264-279)
5. “Measurement” by Norman Robert Campbell (GGB Vol. 9, pp. 204-221; Chapter VI of What Is Science?)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book III (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 208-229; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “The external calamities of Rome” and its subheads)

You may have noticed that this is the second time to read a work of St. Augustine parallel to a work of John Dewey. That juxtaposition was not intentional, but it’s turning out to be illuminating.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book I: The influence of Homer is seen in nearly every line of this work, and were it not for the references to the Roman people, Caesar, etc., you could almost believe that Homer wrote this as well. Poor Dido . . . almost from the moment she appears, you know she’s doomed. In this vision, no one can overcome fate; even the gods struggle in vain against it.
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book II: Pericles’s funeral speech is a masterpiece of propaganda; you can easily imagine it coming from the mouth of any U.S. president of the past 60 years. “We’re the greatest in the world; everyone wants to be like us.” It’s such a contrast to the speech of the Athenian embassy to Sparta in Book I: “We’re not going to defend our actions; just think twice before you cross us.” I got creeped out when Pericles said that by praising Athens he had sufficiently praised those who had fallen in its defense.
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Preface-Ch. 1: It’s kind of funny to see Dewey of all people posing as a moderate in educational theory. I suppose it’s a comfort of sorts to read his insistence that we shouldn’t jettison everything traditional simply because it’s traditional. I’m interested to see where he’ll end up in this work.
4. “On Some Forms of Literature” by Arthur Schopenhauer: Clearly, Schopenhauer was a man with strong opinions and not afraid to voice them. Of course I’m going to disagree with him on history, but I see where he’s coming from; too many “history buffs” are much more interested in minutiae than in the big picture of what history can teach us. Schopenhauer tells us what he thinks are the four greatest novels; what’s your top four?
5. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger, Chapters 3-7: This piece had some twists and turns. After all the discussion of mutation, I thought that would play a central role in Schrödinger’s conclusions, but then he went off on negative entropy and ended up at free will. A bit confusing, but I appreciated his sense of wonder at the mystery of life, even though he seemed to be confident that eventually science would explain it all.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book II: Theater buffs, this section probably will not endear Augustine to you. I wonder what he would have thought of Christian efforts to redeem the theater from the Middle Ages onward. I think there’s much to be said for dramatic representation, although I’m the first to acknowledge that the arena is too often a moral cesspool.

I’m knocking on wood to keep up with the readings this week. We’re putting on a conference this weekend at my university, and I have a presentation to get ready before then, along with all the other preparations. I hope that your week will not be as busy as mine!

Augustine Censures the Pagans

On this Great Books Monday, we launch into the reading of the most influential epic (I do not say the greatest) in the history of the West. With Virgil added to the readings from the most important post-apostolic theologian in the Christian church and the most highly regarded historian of the ancient world, I’d say that your brain should swell significantly in the coming weeks.

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. The Aeneid of Virgil, Book I  (GBWW Vol. 12, pp. 81-99)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book II (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 387-416)
3. Experience and Education by John Dewey, Preface-Ch. 1 (GBWW Vol. 55, pp. 95-101)
4. “On Some Forms of Literature” by Arthur Schopenhauer (GGB Vol. 5, pp. 137-142)
5. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger, Ch. 3-Epilogue (GBWW Vol. 56, pp. 481-504)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book II (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 187-207; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “A review of the calamities . . .” and its subheads)

I almost put Paradise Lost on the list before the Aeneid, but then decided that really wouldn’t make much sense, given the enormous influence of Roman epic on Milton. We’ll read Paradise Lost later this year.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. “I’m a Fool” by Sherwood Anderson: This is the first of Anderson’s stories I’ve ever read. The contrast between the narrator’s self-assured demeanor and the way he castigates himself for his cowardice and dishonesty is striking. His uncertainty regarding how to think about social status was interesting, too. He clearly wants to pigeonhole people as members of a certain class, but then makes all these exceptions for the concrete individuals he discusses in the story.
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book I: I never cease to be amazed at the speeches in this work. They are realpolitik through and through, with barely a nod towards any principles of justice. The Athenians seem to be particularly deficient in their ethics towards people of other states. The brutality of the first naval battle, in which enemy survivors from the shipwrecks were slain in the water rather than taken prisoner, is unsettling.
3. “Of Beauty” by Francis Bacon: This very short essay was actually a little difficult for me to interpret. I was a bit surprised at the assertion that beauty is fullest in the autumn of life rather than in youth. The analogy of virtue in the physical body to a precious stone in an appropriate setting was thought-provoking, too.
4. “First Inaugural Address” by Thomas Jefferson: My wife commented on Jefferson’s humility and how out of place it would seem in today’s political climate. I liked Jefferson’s summary of the foundational principles of the government, a list which, again, would be difficult to imagine coming from the mouth of any president-elect in 2012 (except maybe Ron Paul, who is pretty Jeffersonian). No entangling alliances?
5. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger: I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began this work, but it was refreshing to read about “naive physicists” and the potential limits of human understanding. There’s no Enlightenment hubris here. The discussion of chromosomes wasn’t too difficult to follow. Remember that this was published before the discovery of DNA.
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book I: Augustine takes Christianity’s pagan critics to the woodshed here. It really is bad form to take refuge in a Christian church from barbarian hordes and then attack the institution whose influence saved your life. The argument against suicide is very important as well. Augustine is sometimes criticized as a syncretist, but his willingness to take on the sacred cow of Lucretia is very significant.

I managed to finish last week’s readings on Friday, so I am back ahead of the game. I hope I’m able to keep up this level productivity now that classes are back in full swing.

Queequeg’s Coffin and the Great Man Theory of History

It’s Great Books Monday once again, and I’m feeling really motivated this week. I spent some time yesterday looking over what we’re likely to attack in the next few weeks, and it is really great stuff, starting with our selections for today. Jump right in!

Here are the readings for the upcoming week:

1. “I’m a Fool” by Sherwood Anderson  (GGB Vol. 2, pp. 511-520)
2. History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, Book I (GBWW Vol. 5, pp. 349-386)
3. “Of Beauty” by Francis Bacon (GGB Vol. 5, p. 94)
4. “First Inaugural Address” by Thomas Jefferson (GGB Vol. 6, pp. 518-521)
5. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger, Preface-Ch. 2 (GBWW Vol. 56, pp. 467-480)
6. The City of God by St. Augustine, Book I (GBWW Vol. 16, pp. 165-187; in the linked text, it’s the material under the heading “Augustin censures the pagans” and its subheads)

I’m making some slight adjustments to how I put the readings together each week because the system I had been using would have resulted in mostly short works needing only one week to complete. It seems to me like we need at least three longer works going each week by this point in the program.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Ch. 133-Epilogue: “Where is the ship?” Talk about horrifying! I have to say that Melville cheated here at the end by trying to slide back into a first-person perspective after hundreds of pages of omniscient narration, during which we found out all about different characters’ states of minds and interior monologues, not to mention private conversations which Ishmael would have had no way of overhearing. Still, it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic conclusion to this story.
2. “Great Men and Their Environment” by William James: James certainly has Herbert Spencer’s number here. This may be the best discussion I have read of the impact of the individual on the course of history. I’m considering making it assigned reading in my Philosophy of History class next year. James is in line with what Ludwig von Mises wrote several decades later about ideas being ultimate data and technologies themselves being the outcome of ideas.
3. Rules for the Direction of the Mind by René Descartes, XVII-XXI: I wonder if it’s possible to blame Descartes for the modern attempt to cram all human actions and relationships into mathematical equations. If so, we can pin the corruption of economics and the social sciences on him. We’d have to establish links between him and more recent thinkers; I know that he influenced John Locke a great deal. It’s interesting to think about.
4. Antigone by Sophocles: Reading this play in tandem with Moby Dick, it was impossible not to see some parallels between Ahab and Creon. Both of them are so bull-headed as not to see divine disapproval staring them in the face, and both lead to the deaths of many people around them. Antigone knows that duties to kin and to the gods trump duties to human rulers, and her courage in observing those duties, although ultimately leading to her death, make her one of literature’s great heroines.
5. “On the Conservation of Force” by H.L.F. von Helmholtz: I always feel so smart when I make it to the end of one of these science pieces and feel as though I understood all of its key points. The big thing for me to take away from this essay was the role of heat production in work, something I very dimly remembered from high school but had never thought through how it fit into the overall conservation of energy.
6. The Politics of Aristotle, Book VIII: I wish I understood the context for Plato’s and Aristotle’s discussion of musical modes. There is a lot to ponder in the brief section on liberal education vs. menial education. Ditto for the section contrasting leisure to amusement.

Through an odd quirk of the calendar, I have no classes to teach until Wednesday of this week. I’m hoping to be able to clear the decks today and tomorrow by tying up a number of loose ends hanging around from different projects. I hope you’re also planning for a productive week.