Author Archives: M.A.D. Moore

Some Impediments to Ancient Philosophy in the Classroom

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The talk continues on why philosophy does not appeal to more, the need for public outreach on behalf of philosophy, and there is everywhere in the profession a hue and cry about the state of academic philosophy.  That academic philosophers should have a concern is entirely understandable, for laying aside complaints of self-interest on their part, most people, if they ever get the opportunity, will only seriously engage philosophy in the college classroom.

Yet, in order to fully understand the scope of this problem, we will need to first ascertain the desired solution to our predicament.  Do we want more enrollment in philosophy courses?  Do we want people to incorporate philosophical thinking into their daily lives?  Do we want philosophy departments to have more influence and sway within universities? Do we want more philosophers with prominent public roles?  In the end, I am not sure what the goal of attempting to broaden the reach of philosophy consists in.

However, as part of my answer, I will take it as uncontroversial that if I am to constrain this concern to ancient philosophy, most encounters with ancient philosophy for the average person are limited to university classrooms.  Thus, I am prompted to answer the practical question: what hinders more students from studying and pursuing ancient philosophy in the classroom?

Without a doubt, some of these impediments will undoubtedly apply to philosophy classrooms in general, or even the university setting at large.

Obscurity is always a problem in philosophy.  And in ancient philosophy we have a difficulty probably seen in other philosophical divisions as well: The articles and books written on the subject are not, usually, the central or main ideas of a particular ancient book or author.  Now I mention this not as a complaint; after all, we have millennia of scholarship on the “big ideas” of ancient philosophy, and tenure and philosophical fortunes must be made on new ideas, not the well-trodden.  Nevertheless, what attracts students to say, The Republic, are probably concerns and interests reflective of the scope of the whole work rather than Platonic esoterica relating the Republic to the Parmenides or Sophist, or parsing the minutiae of a Platonic argument spanning scarcely three Stephanus lines.  What this minimally requires of the professor, I think, is an acknowledgement that the intellectual concerns of the student of ancient philosophy might not align with his or her research interests, as reflected in assignments and readings.  Yet, if this is not acknowledged, and I think it often is not, then a student’s further pursuit of ancient philosophy is liable to wane.

A second area of obscurity (since obscurity, as a condition of its existence, likes to dabble) is not obscurity in the subject, but in the methods of discourse.  Some of these are within the control of the professor, some not.  I have often reflected how the self-worth of many academics is anchored to knowledge of their speciality.  It then seems that in order to retain this specialized knowledge, and its requisite self-worth, the professor hesitates to disseminate this knowledge, as this might take away that share of philosophical arcana that has, to this point, been specially entrusted to reside in himself.  Of course, there are also socially accepted forms of discourse that, acceptable and even illuminating as they are among specialists, do little to advance the clarity or joy of ancient philosophy in the classroom.  I think it is often forgotten that Socrates was accosting people in the street and speaking with the everyman in the marketplace, and that Aristotle, even though perhaps exclusively interacting with upper-class youths, was engaging men who would be influential and industrial citizens, not necessarily philosophers.

As a final observation on this last point, I would also like to mention how difficult it is to initiate dialectic and dialogue in today’s classroom.  As anyone who has spent time in groups knows, the dynamics of going from around 12-15 people to more, has a limiting impact on the participation and atmosphere of the students and the teacher.  This has been worsened, in my experience, by classes spiraling as large as 75 (at UCSD, under the popular Monte Johnson), when a few years before a similar class was capped in the 30s.  If ancient philosophy is supposed to reflect either generally or occasionally the practice of Socrates with the average Athenian, then I think we can do more to reflect this in our classrooms.

 

Platonic Forms as Paradigms in Comedic Philosophy

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Here is an intriguing text found in Diogenes Laertius.  It is retold by Diogenes who apparently found it in Alcimus, a certain Greek rhetorician, who relates how Plato owes an intellectual debt to Epicharmus, a poet.  What is certainly bizarre about this relation is that Epicharmus was a comic poet, and the passages of Epicharmus brought forward here concerns the theory of the Forms.  I do not wish to speculate on the likelihood of whether Plato would borrow from a comic poet, or in fact, if these fragments even belong to Epicharmus.  Rather, I am interested in the Platonist conception of forms which this passage is attempting to illuminate.

Yet Alcimus also says this: “Wise men say the soul perceives some things through the body such as a sound, a sight, but other things the soul intuits itself through itself (αὐτὴν καθ’ αὑτὴν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι) while not making use of the body. Therefore, of the things that are, some are sensibles, others are intelligibles. And on account of these things, Plato used to say that it is necessary for those who desire to comprehend the principles of the universe first of all to distinguish the Forms among themselves, for example, likeness and singularity and plurality and magnitude and rest and motion. Secondly, it is necessary to comprehend as many of the forms as are in relation to each other, for example knowledge or magnitude or mastership. (For we must keep in mind that the names in usage [properly] belong to the Forms because they participate in the Forms. I mean, for example, that just things are just insofar as they participate in justness, and beautiful things are beautiful insofar as they participate in beauty). Furthermore, each one of the Forms is eternal and a thought, and in addition, does not undergo change. Therefore he also says that the Forms by their nature stand as paradigms, and other things resemble these because they were established as likenesses of the Forms. Therefore, Epicharmus speaks in this way concerning the good and the Forms:

 

A: So is flute-playing a certain thing?

B: Yes, entirely.

A: Then is a flute-playing a man?

B: Of course not.

A: Come see then, what is a flute-player? Who does he seem to you to be? A man? Or not a man?

B: Entirely a man.

A: Therefore do you think that it would also be this way concerning the good?

 

The good is a certain thing in itself, and whoever learns that would know, and is already become a good man. For just as there is a flute-player because he learns flute-playing, or a dancer because he learns dancing or a weaver because he learns weaving, or any such thing in like manner, whatever you could wish to come up with, so the man himself would not be the craft, but in fact he would be the craftsman (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Plato, bk. III. ch. 12-14). [1]

I will refrain here from commenting on the possible comedic merit of this excerpted dialogue, except to say that I would personally very much enjoy a comedy involving Platonic Form!  I want to focus on A’s point in leading B to the conclusion that a craftsman is not a craft.  I take it that the last paragraph above is also part of A’s dialogue, since Diogenes has said that Epicharmus will speak about the good and Forms, and Epicharmus has not, so far at least, spoken of the good.

A establishes that flute-playing is not a flute player (or grammatically, the reverse is likely as well).  The path that leads to this conclusion, or what we are to take from this conclusion, however, are less than clear to me.  Perhaps the idea is that, keeping in mind the language of ‘paradigm’ used to describe the Forms in the first paragraph, we could force a sharp distinction as to the origin of the flute-player’s craft.  What I mean is that, from the untutored perspective, it appears that the flute-player looks to another flute-player to learn his craft.  However, this would be fruitless if what he is looking at is not flute-playing, while A’s interlocutor has already agreed that a flute-player is not a flute-playing.  Therefore, it must be the case that the would-be flute-player is observing something.  This something is the paradigm of the Platonic Form of flute-playing, to which he must turn to see flute playing not as something perceivable, but entirely intelligible.

In addition, there might be an emphasis on the priority of the Form as against its particular instantiations.  That is, ‘flute-playing’ comes before a flute-player, even though one might mistakenly think that flute-playing is entirely dependent on a flute-player.  But in fact, it is the flute-player who must turn to the already existing, eternal, intelligible Form of flute-playing, as the paradigm from which he learns.

Is there perhaps some other line of thought that Epicharmus, the erstwhile Platonist, is conveying?

REFERENCES:

[1] Ἔτι φησὶν ὁ Ἄλκιμος καὶ ταυτί· “φασὶν οἱ σοφοὶ τὴν ψυχὴν
τὰ μὲν διὰ τοῦ σώματος αἰσθάνεσθαι οἷον ἀκούουσαν, βλέπουσαν,
τὰ δ’ αὐτὴν καθ’ αὑτὴν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι μηδὲν τῷ σώματι χρωμένην·
διὸ καὶ τῶν ὄντων τὰ μὲν αἰσθητὰ εἶναι, τὰ δὲ νοητά. ὧν ἕνεκα
καὶ Πλάτων ἔλεγεν ὅτι δεῖ τοὺς συνιδεῖν τὰς τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχὰς (5)
ἐπιθυμοῦντας πρῶτον μὲν αὐτὰς καθ’ αὑτὰς διελέσθαι τὰς ἰδέας,
οἷον ὁμοιότητα καὶ μονάδα καὶ πλῆθος καὶ μέγεθος καὶ στάσιν
καὶ κίνησιν· δεύτερον αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ τὸ καλὸν καὶ ἀγαθὸν καὶ
(13.) δίκαιον καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὑποθέσθαι. τρίτον τῶν ἰδεῶν συνιδεῖν
ὅσαι πρὸς ἀλλήλας εἰσίν, οἷον ἐπιστήμην ἢ μέγεθος ἢ δεσποτείαν
(ἐνθυμουμένους ὅτι τὰ παρ’ ἡμῖν διὰ τὸ μετέχειν ἐκείνων ὁμώ-
νυμα ἐκείνοις ὑπάρχει· λέγω δὲ οἷον δίκαια μὲν ὅσα τοῦ δικαίου,
καλὰ δὲ ὅσα τοῦ καλοῦ). ἔστι δὲ τῶν εἰδῶν ἓν ἕκαστον ἀίδιόν τε (5)
καὶ νόημα καὶ πρὸς τούτοις ἀπαθές. διὸ καί φησιν
ἐν τῇ φύσει τὰς ἰδέας ἑστάναι καθάπερ παραδείγματα, τὰ δ’ ἄλλα
ταύταις ἐοικέναι τούτων ὁμοιώματα καθεστῶτα. ὁ τοίνυν Ἐπί-
χαρμος περί τε τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ καὶ περὶ τῶν ἰδεῶν οὕτω λέγει· (10)

(14.) {—} ἆρ’ ἔστιν αὔλησίς τι πρᾶγμα;

{—} πάνυ μὲν ὦν.

{—} ἄνθρωπος ὦν αὔλησίς ἐστιν; {—} οὐθαμῶς.

{—} φέρ’ ἴδω, τί δ’ αὐλητάς; τίς εἶμέν τοι δοκεῖ;
ἄνθρωπος; ἢ οὐ γάρ;

{—} πάνυ μὲν ὦν.

{—} οὐκῶν δοκεῖς οὕτως ἔχειν <κα> καὶ περὶ τἀγαθοῦ;

τὸ μὲν (5)
ἀγαθόν τι πρᾶγμ’ εἶμεν καθ’ αὕθ’, ὅστις δέ κα
εἰδῇ μαθὼν τῆν’, ἀγαθὸς ἤδη γίγνεται.
ὥσπερ γάρ ἐστ’ αὔλησιν αὐλητὰς μαθὼν
ἢ ὄρχησιν ὀρχηστάς τις ἢ πλοκεὺς πλοκάν,
ἢ πᾶν γ’ ὁμοίως τῶν τοιούτων ὅ τι τὺ λῇς, (10)
οὐκ αὐτὸς εἴη κα τέχνα, τεχνικός γα μάν.

 

Why Should Philosophers Care About Ancient Philosophy?

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The apologist in the humanities springs forth as a perennial, an eager advocate for this old man or that classic tome, often as not incurring the wrath of modernity at least as great as his own love for antiquity.  Even these defenses of the humanities ––classics, philosophy and literature being closest to my heart–– have become treasured chestnuts: “It enriches the individual,” “Humanities matters for its own sake,” “It is the source of X or Y.”

Instead of these appeals, which, in my understanding, would only reach those already possessed of a humanistic sympathy, I wish to offer four pragmatic reasons to be interested in ancient philosophy.  These reasons are particularly addressed to those interested in philosophy, especially modern philosophers, whether professors or students or avid amateurs.

1) Ancient Philosophy is a 2,300 year old conversion with great minds.
While there are undoubtedly many great treatises that are being written, or have been in recent memory, there are a number of benefits from focusing on a field of study which has persisted through millennia.  As opposed, to say, Wittgenstein, who has had less than 100 years worth of great minds commenting and interacting with his work, Aristotle has had a prolonged engagement with generation upon generation of thinkers.  Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Hobbes, have all either borrowed, adapted, or explicitly confronted Aristotelean ideas.  These, fortunately, are only some of the philosophers who have gone to the mat with Aristotle; there are countless others, including commentators from late antiquity whose sole ambition was to write on Aristotle.  So two philosophical birds can be had with one stone: if you read other great philosophers on Aristotle, you get two great minds on worthwhile topics.

2) Ancient philosophy provides a common framework for philosophy.
If the definition of philosophy is frustratingly difficult to come by, perhaps we can at least have (or preserve) the canonical philosophy that the Greeks have given to us.  The questions about what is, how we ought to live, how we can know, are central to ancient philosophy, to be sure, but these inquiries continue to guide philosophy in modern intellectual contexts as well.  It is hard to imagine a philosophical question worth pursuing that does not first show up in the pages of Plato, even if it shows up in the philosophical master’s periphery and was not his whole landscape.

3) Ancient Philosophy offers a helping hand.
It is uncontroversial, I hope, to say that every age has its moral or intellectual blindspots.  There are problems we face and cannot solve precisely because we are the responsible party for the undetected arrival of the original difficulty. A benefit of ancient philosophy, however, is that, at the very least, these thinkers do not share the same handicaps that we do.  For their faults, whatever they are, they will not count among them either consumerism, political correctness, or technological worship.  What this means is that when it comes to overlapping philosophical interests, the ancients will have different perspectives and concerns than us, which in turn can provide us novel and insightful answers to the issues we think we have discovered for the first time.

4) Ancient Philosophy explains the ancient origins of modern philosophy.
Did you know that Aristotle gives philosophical reasons to adopt a systematics, that is, a system of animal classification, hundreds of years before Carl Linnaeus? [1] And that this system of classification was in direct response to competing Platonist classifications?  Although surprising, a seemingly “modern” area of philosophy such as the philosophy of biology was already blooming in ancient literature.  Similarly, although outdated in many parts, Aristotle’s Physics and Plato’s Timaeus offer compelling reasoning in such areas as the philosophy of time [2] and various elements of the cosmological argument.  Of course, metaphysics and ethics are plentiful in the Platonic and Aristotelean corpus, and never go out of style.  There are few, if any, books on ethics which can surpass the Nicomachean Ethics.  Even in logic [3] or philosophy of language [4] there is a robust fount of philosophy that began well before those influential modern disciplines, and still have much to offer for those willing to put in the time.

REFERENCES:

[1] See Parts of Animals, Book 1
[2] See Aristotle, Physics, Book 4, Ch. 1-14
[3] see Aristotle’s Organon
[4] The Organon once again, and Plato’s Cratylus)