The Solution to the Well-Defined Problem

My advice for how to interpret that difficult passage in Nic. Eth. II.6? Simply continue reading beyond the passage-- since then it becomes clear, I think, that the words which I place in brackets below are not meant to be part of the definition at all, but rather a comment upon the definition:

Ἔστιν ἄρα ἡ ἀρετὴ ἕξις προαιρετική, ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς [ὡρισμένη λόγῳ καὶ ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν].

If we bracket those words for the moment, then the definition of virtue given here (which is said, btw, to state the genos only, at 1114b27), is of a trait (ἕξις) which disposes someone to choose in a certain way (προαιρετική), and which is intermediate (ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα) as between two other states, in a manner relative to us (τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς). As Taylor points out in his commentary, that and precisely that is what Aristotle had established in his discussion which precedes the definition.

But what is the reason for the bracketed words? They comment upon the definition, and Aristotle gives the sense of that comment in the lines that immediately follow.

First Aristotle clarifies his definition with a couple of glosses:

μεσότης δὲ δύο κακιῶν, τῆς μὲν καθ' ὑπερβολὴν τῆς δὲ κατ' ἔλλειψιν· καὶ ἔτι τῷ τὰς μὲν ἐλλείπειν τὰς δ' ὑπερβάλλειν τοῦ δέοντος ἔν τε τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ἐν ταῖς πράξεσι, τὴν δ' ἀρετὴν τὸ μέσον καὶ εὑρίσκειν καὶ αἱρεῖσθαι.

It is a trait intermediate between two vices one of which is so by excess and the other by defect. And they are so because they either fall short of or exceed what they should, in emotions or in actions, whereas virtue identifies and chooses the intermediate mark.

The sentence which next follows is, I think, a gloss as well on the bracketed words:

διὸ κατὰ μὲν τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ τὸν λόγον τὸν τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι λέγοντα μεσότης ἐστὶν ἡ ἀρετή, κατὰ δὲ τὸ ἄριστον καὶ τὸ εὖ ἀκρότης.

That is why, with respect to its nature and the definition that states its essence, virtue is an intermediate trait, whereas with respect to what is best and what is excellent, it is a high point.

The reason for this last gloss is that Aristotle is perfectly well aware that, to anyone who has actually striven to be virtuous, it will seem strange and even paradoxical to say that virtue is something intermediate. Rather, from the point of view of someone striving to be good (κατὰ δὲ τὸ ἄριστον καὶ τὸ εὖ), virtue looks like a nearly unattainable pinnacle. (Think, e.g. of the Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded it is said to "the bravest of the brave", for those who distinguish themselves "…conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty...". Nothing intermediate about that! And there are lots of other examples.)

So Aristotle thinks that he has to defend his definition. He therefore says that, in fact, as regards the nature of a virtue, and considering it formally (i.e. with a view to its logos), each virtue, it turns out, falls between two opposing vices. Someone immersed in the task of trying to act well might not notice this; yet this will be how a discerning person will define it.

And this is exactly what he had said in the bracketed words, and so the text should be translated:

Virtue is a trait (ἕξις) which disposes someone to choose in a certain way (προαιρετική), and which is intermediate (ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα) as between two other states, in a manner relative to us (τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς)-- that is, when virtue is marked out by its formal definition (ὡρισμένη λόγῳ ), and in the way that a person with insight into practical matters would mark it out (ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν).

This explains perfectly the reading of the codices -- the key is to see that the problematic words are not in the definition but about the definition--

-- and it also shows why all of those dozens of articles on the passage should quietly be pushed aside and forgotten.

More on the Problem

Here's a telling remark by Taylor on the passage I quoted yesterday. You can find within it the germ of the solution I'd wish to propose.

Aristotle has so far said nothing whatever on how the ethical mean is determined. Hence, despite the 'then' [ἄρα] which introduces the definition, the definition is not derived as a whole from the previous discussion. All that that discussion has established is that the mean in feelings and actions is feeling and acting to the right extent, neither too much nor too little. The questions 'What counts as too much or too little?' and 'How does one recognize what is too much and too little?' have not been raised.

I agree with that almost entirely. What I don't agree with is what Taylor next says:

He now asserts that the mean state is determined by reason: namely, the reason by which the person of practical wisdom would determine it. For elucidation we must now turn to VI.I, 1138b18-34, where he returns to this question.

To my mind an interpretation of a passage Aristotle is likely not to be correct if for elucidation one absolutely must turn to another book far away.

(Burnet once wrote that he was untroubled by this difficulty because "the theory of logos or orthos logos belongs to the Academy (koinon kai hupokeisthw 1103b 32) and was, of course, familiar to Aristotle's audience" ("On the Meaning of Logos in Aristotle's Ethics", Classical Review 1914). Yet to me this consideration has little weight because Aristotle is developing his theory of virtue as positioned between two vices in opposition to received views. Note in any case that Burnet implicitly agrees that some special proviso needs to be in place to justify interpreting in this way.)

But that's all I can say today... Apologies to Mokawi!

A Well-Defined Problem

One of the most familiar, and most perplexing, passages in the Nicomachean Ethics is apparently a 'definition' of virtue offered in II.6. Here is how Chris Taylor renders it in his recent Clarendon Aristotle volume:

Virtue, then, is a state concerned with choice, in a mean in relation to us, a mean determined by reason, namely the reason by which the person of practical wisdom would determine it (1106b36-1107a2).

Ἔστιν ἄρα ἡ ἀρετὴ ἕξις προαιρετική, ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ὡρισμένῃ λόγῳ καὶ ᾧ ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν.

I've probably read two dozen articles or commentaries on this passage, and maybe you have also. But I've been wondering 0f late whether they aren't all completely misguided. (I'll explain what I mean in a later post.)

Recently I was talking with a scholar who was dismayed with Taylor's treatment of the passage. The Greek given above is Bywater's OCT; but this departs in two places from the codices, which have, rather:

Ἔστιν ἄρα ἡ ἀρετὴ ἕξις προαιρετική, ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ὡρισμένη λόγῳ καὶ ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν.

Taylor in his commentary does not even mention the possibility of an alternate reading, and yet this seems important as regards what gets 'determined' and how. As Alfonso Gόmez-Lobo explains in one of the more excellent articles on the subject ("Aristotle's Right Reason"):

If we take the reading of the manuscripts (ὡρισμένη) it would be the state (hexis) that is thus determined. If, alternatively, we read the dative with the putative manuscript of William of Moerbeke and with the commentators Aspasius and Alexander, it is rather the middle state (mesotēs ) that is delimited by reason.

Gόmez-Lobo goes on to say (as I entirely agree):

Both alternatives are unsatisfactory because Aristotle's explanations in the remainder of the chapter show rather clearly that the mesotēs character of the hexis and, hence, the hexis itself, are a consequence of the habitual choice of the meson. ... Aristotle's settled view is doubtless that it is the latter term, i.e., the object of our choice of the intermediate relative to us, that is determined by logos.

That is, what logos apparently determines (according to all other relevant passages in books III-IV) is the contour of a particular action, not the habitual state which is the virtue, whether that virtue is regarded simply as an habitual state (hexis) or as an intermediate such state (mesotēs).

But I think I've found a nifty and simple way out of this mess-- which I'll tell you about later.

Bobby Fischer: God or Beast?

I thought of Aristotle's famous remark:

ὁ δὲ μὴ δυνάμενος κοινωνεῖν ἢ μηδὲν δεόμενος δι' αὐτάρκειαν οὐθὲν μέρος πόλεως, ὥστε ἢ θηρίον ἢ θεός.

"Anyone who cannot belong to a community, or has no need to do so in view of his self-sufficiency, is not part of political society. One can only conclude that he is a beast -- or a god."

--when I read a stunningly good reflection today in the WSJ on Bobby Fischer, "Victim of his own Success" by Brian Carney.

We perhaps take Aristotle's saying to apply only to our embeddedness political society. But note that δυνάμενος κοινωνεῖν seems in the first instance general, and one's occupying a role in political society is presented as a consequence of this.

Now one finds that Aristotle's maxim is confirmed exactly in the life of Bobby Fischer. He was not δυνάμενος κοινωνεῖν because he "had no equal" (precisely because, curiously, he did not lose) and could not tolerate the possibility that he could have an equal (so that he later would not allow himself to lose, and gave up chess).

He began his public career perhaps as a self-sufficient 'god' of chess, who held himself aloof from society from others by choice, but as a consequence he had removed himself from the polis, and accordingly he became just as much a 'beast'.

His belief in himself at the chess board and his suspicion of others away from it may have been related. Mig Greengard, a chess columnist, recounted to me what he called his favorite Bobby Fischer quote. In 1960, in a tournament in Buenos Aires in which he uncharacteristically finished 13th, Fischer was emerging from the tournament hall after a win. One of the assembled admirers offered him a standard compliment: "Great game, Bobby." Fischer snapped back, "How would you know?"

In Fischer's view, there was almost no one in the world, besides him, who understood what he was doing at the chess board. Few people were even competent to compliment him, never mind offer criticism. But if he felt that way about the area of endeavor to which he devoted his life, it's not hard to see how he could blunder into feeling that way about most everything else.

The French philosopher Alexander Kojeve once wrote that the only defense against madness is the accord of your peers. That is, if you can convince no one that your beliefs are well-founded, then it's probably you who are crazy, and not the herd. Fischer's problem was that he had no peers, at least not in chess, so he had no one to check his worst tendencies. The world championship he won in 1972 validated his view of himself as a chess player, but it also insulated him from the humanizing influences of the world around him. He descended into what can only be considered a kind of madness.

Carney's analysis is much superior to that of Gary Kasparov (also in the WSJ) who it seems here thinks primarily of skill and talent, not relationship to persons.

A.A. Long at Yale

The Yale Working Group in Ancient Philosophy presents

Rationality in Greek Cosmology, Theology, and Ethics

a seminar led by

A. A. Long (University of California, Berkeley).

Sponsored by the Whitney Humanities Center.

Session #1: "Heraclitus on measure and the explicit emergence of rationality"

Friday 18 January 4:00-6:00pm, LC 317

Group dinner to follow.

Session #2: "Cosmic craftsmanship in Plato and Stoicism"

Saturday 19 January 12:00-2:00pm, LC 317

Lunch provided.

Session #3: "Eudaimonism, divinity, and rationality in Greek ethics"

Saturday 19 January 4:00-6:00pm, LC 317

Group dinner to follow.

For further information, please contact tim.clarke@yale.edu.

Quiz for the Day

This interested me, so I did the searches. For you, it can be a quiz.

1. Which treatise by Aristotle is cited most frequently in the corpus of Thomas Aquinas?
2. Rank the following treatises according to frequency with which each is cited by Thomas Aquinas, from most frequently to least so: De Anima, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Physics.
3. Of the particular books within the treatises by Aristotle, which is the most frequently cited in the corpus of Thomas Aquinas?
4. Of the books of the Metaphysics, which is the most frequently cited?
5. Of the books of the Physics, which is the most frequently cited?
6. Of the books of the Nicomachean Ethics, which is the most frequently cited?

Answers below.

I was interested in this to see whether I could confirm my sense that, of the treatises of Aristotle, Aquinas draws most frequently upon the Nicomachean Ethics.

I'm happy to send the spreadsheet with complete figures by request, broken down by search terms for each book and treatise. Simply write to me.
















1. Nicomachean Ethics, by a longshot.

2. Nicomachean Ethics, 1689 citations; Physics, 777; De Anima, 756; Metaphysics, 466.

3. De Anima III, 506 citations.

4. Book V, 83 citations; followed by Book X, 68 citations; and Book XII, 38 citations.

5. Book VIII, 166 citations; followed by Book II, 157 citations; and Book III, 98 citations.

6. Book II, 253 citations; followed by Book III, 236 citations; and Book VI, 229 citations.

Not Esprit d'Escalier for a Blog

For a blog, it's a missed afterthought only if it's at least two days later...

To follow up to my post yesterday about the origin of the Septuagint, I wanted to offer some comments on the review of Wasserstein and Wasserstein, by Shawn W. J. Keough of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, which I mentioned. This review puzzled me, and I found it generally uninformative. As I said, I had become interested in the question of the origin of the Septuagint, and by coincidence this review showed up in my mailbox. Yet it helped me very little. To wit, Keough at one point writes the following:

Three writers figure in the development of the legend among Hellenistic Jews: Aristobulus, Philo and Josephus. The sketchy evidence from Aristobulus is useful to W&W only insofar as it establishes the relative priority of Ps. Aristeas (32). The evidence of Philo and Josephus, however, demonstrates the way the legend was molded and deployed to address the needs of new contexts. Philo wishes to extend the general sense of approval and admiration for the translation found in the Letter to a profound sense of divine inspiration, so that Jewish religion and scripture take on a new universal scope and relevance (38-39). W&W are careful to note that Philo's account of the legend does not, however, include certain miraculous elements often ascribed to it: Philo does not say "that the translators were deliberately separated, that they were all given the same texts to translate, and that they all produced literally identical versions" (44). Rather, W&W understand Philo to make the more modest claim that the translators all used the same correct words in the same contexts of translation (45).

Yet I think a reviewer should choose a more precise phrase than "relative priority" . The Letter was doubtless prior in time, but was it the sole source for those other authors? Keough's talk of "the legend being molded for new contexts" might suggest that it is. But the Letter was not the only tradition or source of information available to Philo, who describes, for instance, in his Life of Moses a yearly celebration involving multitudes of different peoples (παμπληθεῖς ἕτεροι) which continued at least up to his own time (μέχρι νῦν) in the place where the translation is said to have been accomplished (the island of Pharos). It's unlikely that there could be such a celebration without those participating passing down an account of how the translation was accomplished, and yet we may safely presume that no mere letter would have given rise to such a celebration.

Here's another fudge in the review. The reviewer uses the phrase, "W&W are careful to note", which suggests that the reviewer agrees with the judgment that follows, viz. Philo's account of the legend does not... include certain miraculous elements often ascribed to it. And this is an obvious truth, because there are details of later accounts not found in Philo.

But then the reviewer adds that "Rather, W&W understand Philo to make the more modest claim that the translators all used the same correct words in the same contexts of translation", and this is stated uncritically, as if the reviewer agrees with this judgment as well.

Yet what does this mean? What does it mean to say that "the translators all used the same correct words in the same contexts"? Does this mean that the translators conferred and came to an agreement about how to translate? That would hardly be worth mentioning, since any group translation must proceed in that way. But if it means that (according to Philo) the translators independently came up with translations that later were found to coincide and to be unimpeachable -- then this would hardly be less miraculous than what is reported in later stories. (Clearly, whether the translators were actually put in separate cells, as later accounts have it, makes little difference.)

In fact Philo's language suggests he believed there was a miraculous concurrence. I'll paste the relevant passage from the Life of Moses below and then give Thackeray's conservative translation. (By the way, note "they say" below, which suggests Philo's reliance on a tradition distinct from the Letter.)

καθάπερ ἐνθουσιῶντες προεφήτευον οὐκ ἄλλα

2.37.5

ἄλλοι, τὰ δ' αὐτὰ πάντες ὀνόματα καὶ ῥήματα, ὥσπερ ὑποβολέως

2.38.1

ἑκάστοις ἀοράτως ἐνηχοῦντος. καίτοι τίς οὐκ οἶδεν, ὅτι πᾶσα μὲν

διάλεκτος, ἡ δ' Ἑλληνικὴ διαφερόντως, ὀνομάτων πλουτεῖ, καὶ ταὐτὸν

ἐνθύμημα οἷόν τε μεταφράζοντα καὶ παραφράζοντα σχηματίσαι πολλαχῶς,

ἄλλοτε ἄλλας ἐφαρμόζοντα λέξεις; ὅπερ ἐπὶ ταύτης τῆς νομοθεσίας οὔ
φασι συμβῆναι, συνενεχθῆναι δ' εἰς ταὐτὸν κύρια κυρίοις ὀνόμασι, τὰ

Ἑλληνικὰ τοῖς Χαλδαϊκοῖς, ἐναρμοσθέντα εὖ μάλα τοῖς δηλουμένοις

2.39.1

πράγμασιν.

... as men possessed, they produced not divers interpretations, but all alike used the same words and phrases, as though some invisible prompter whispered in the ears of each. And yet who does not know that every language, and Greek beyond all others, is rich in words and that one may be circumlocution and paraphrase clothe the same thought in divers forms, varying the style to fit the occasion? Yet this, they say, did not happen with these laws of ours; no, the appropriate technical words corresponded exactly with the technical words in the original, the Greek with the Chaldee, being admirably adapted to fit the subject-matter.

Now, here's a question that interests me also. I wonder if Keough, or Wasserstein, or Wasserstein, think that it's in principle even possible that a translation be inspired -- since it seems to me that this might make a difference in how one evaluates the historical evidence. At least, it would be interesting for an historian to offer a disjunctive judgment-- "If one assumes that it is not possible that the translators were miraculously inspired, then one would reasonably arrive at the following account of the origin of the legend ... ; but if one assumes that it is in principle possible, then one might think rather something like the following...".

E-Scholarship Today

Here's a chance story about how technology assists learning today.

Last week, I became interested in the question of the origin of the Septuagint. The first step in thinking about this: actually to purchase a Septuagint Bible (I've had an electronic version on my hard drive for a while). So I go to Abebooks, purchase a book for a very reasonable sum, and four days later the beautiful 1500 page Zondervan edition arrives in my mailbox in perfect condition.

At the same time I ordered Thackeray's edition of the Letter of Aristeas through Amazon Prime, which arrived yesterday.

When I read Thackeray and had questions about Philo's Greek, this was easy to find through search. The Letter of Aristeas, I discovered, is also online in Greek in the "Christian Classics Ethereal Library".

And then yesterday in my e-mail there arrives: from The Medieval Review, a review of Wasserstein and Wasserstein, The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today (CUP 2006), which clarifies for me the state of the question. (The review seems not to have been posted yet on the Medieval Review's website.)

Now I didn't have to walk more than 20 feet away from my desk at any point in all this. And the time I spent in acquiring resources -- about five minutes.

Washington Area Symposium in Ancient Philosophy

Some details are still to be determined, but the shape of the program is sufficiently set so that I can announce the spring meetings of the newly-formed, and quite informal, Washington Area Symposium in Ancient Philosophy for Spring 2008, organized by Pierre Destrée and myself.

SPRING 2008

February 8
Athanasios Samaras (George Washington University)
"The Household in Plato's Laws"
at the Catholic University of America, 2 pm, Leahy 100

February 29
Richard Bett (Johns Hopkins University)
"How Ethical can an Ancient Sceptic Be?"
at the Center for Hellenic Studies, 2 pm

April 18
Michael Pakaluk (The Catholic University of America)
"Necessitated Actions and Double Effect in NE III.1"
at the University of Maryland, 2 pm

April 25
Rachel Singpurwalla (Fellow, Center for Hellenic Studies)
“Truth and Freedom in Plato's Republic”
at the Catholic University of America
Philosophy Library, Aquinas Hall, 2 pm

May 2
Pierre Destrée (University of Maryland)
"Catharsis in Aristotle’s Poetics"
at the Johns Hopkins University
Gilman 348, 4 pm

Convention Going, Sat. Dec 29

Readers of Dissoi Blogoi are invited to stop in tomorrow at the Eastern Division APA in Baltimore and say hello (Grand Ballroom, Salon IV, Third Floor) for my session on "Ethical Ends", although I couldn't blame you if you preferred to attend the concurrent session on Aristotle:

VI-D. Colloquium: Aristotle
2:45-5:45 p.m.
Chair: Robin Smith (Texas A&M University)
2:45-3:45 p.m.
Speaker: John Bowin (University of California–Santa Cruz)
“Aristotle on the Order and Direction of Time”
Commentator: Denis Corish (Bowdoin College)
3:45-4:45 p.m.
Speaker: Julie Ponesse (University of Western Ontario)
“Aristotle on Luck and Chance”
Commentator: James Allen (University of Pittsburgh)
4:45-5:45 p.m.
Speaker: Errol Katayama (Ohio Northern University)
“Soul and Natural Sublunary Elemental Motion in Aristotle”
Commentator: Mary Louise Gill (Brown University)

VI-E. Colloquium: Ethical Ends
2:45-5:45 p.m.
Chair: Hilary Bok (Johns Hopkins University)
2:45-3:45 p.m.
Speaker: Danielle Bromwich (University of Toronto)
“A Dilemma for Korsgaard: The Internalism Requirement or the Universal Normativity of Moral Reasons?”
Commentator: Josh Gert (Florida State University)
3:45-4:45 p.m.
Speaker: Thornton Lockwood (Boston University)
“Aquinas on Judging Injustice: Justice in Aquinas’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics”
Commentator: Michael Pakaluk (Clark University)
4:45-5:45 p.m.
Speaker: Jonathan Garthoff (Northwestern University)
“Structuring Ends”
Commentator: Mane Hajdin (Santa Clara University)

What counts as a 'dialogue' today

Wanted:

Someone who can teach ancient philosophy like this physics professor at MIT, whose lectures have sometimes been the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes. (Wouldn't Plato have done something like that?)

But a fair warning: he takes 25 hours to prepare each lecture.

The Philosophers of the White Rose

I posed the question in my last post: Who is the only philosopher quoted in the six leaflets of the White Rose? (Well, there are perhaps two philosophers -- it all depend how one counts.)

The leaflets are extraordinary. I had known about them for a long time, but only recently, through the book I mentioned, did I become aware that they are extant. Consider for instance the following passage from the second leaflet:

The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals; they give them the opportunity to carry on their depredations; and of course they do so. Is this a sign that the Germans are brutalized in their simplest human feelings, that no chord within them cries out at the sight of such deeds, that they have sunk into a fatal consciencelessness from which they will never, never awake? It seems to be so, and will certainly be so, if the German does not at last start up out of his stupor, if he does not protest wherever and whenever he can against this clique of criminals, if he shows no sympathy for these hundreds of thousands of victims. He must evidence not only sympathy; no, much more: a sense of complicity in guilt. For through his apathetic behavior he gives these evil men the opportunity to act as they do; he tolerates this 'government' which has taken upon itself such an infinitely great burden of guilt; indeed, he himself is to blame for the fact that it came about at all! Each man wants to be exonerated of a guilt of this kind, each one continues on his way with the most placid, the calmest conscience. But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty.

Sophie Scholl was a dual major in biology and philosophy. The professor who assisted the students, as I said, was Kurt Huber, a philosophy professor, who was executed himself by guillotine on July 13, 1943. He continued to work on a book on Leibniz when in prison awaiting trial and execution. Huber wrote the sixth and final leaflet; he definitely counts as a philosopher of the White Rose.
But the only philosopher quoted in the pamphlets of the White Rose?


Lao-Tzu is also quoted.




So let us say that the only Western philosopher to be quoted is .... Aristotle. And here is the passage, from the third leaflet, taken from the Politics:

... and, further, it is part [of the nature of tyranny] to strive to see to it that nothing is kept hidden of that which any subject says or does, but that everywhere he will be spied upon, ... and further, to set man against man and friend against friend, and the common people against the privileged and the wealthy. Also it is part of these tyrannical measures, to keep the subjects poor, in order to pay the guards and soldiers, and so that they will be occupied with earning their livelihood and will have neither leisure nor opportunity to engage in conspiratorial acts ... Further, [to levy] such taxes on income as were imposed in Syracuse, for under Dionysius the citizens gladly paid out their whole fortunes in taxes within five years. Also, the tyrant is inclined constantly to foment wars.

The White Rose

You may recall that C.R. Dodds in the introduction to his 1959 Clarendon Plato volume on the Gorgias, remarks that his experiences in the fight against Nazism in the Second World War convinced him of the timeliness and relevance of Plato's thought in that dialogue.

Recently I found striking confirmation that Dodds was correct, in my studies of the group, Die Wiesse Rose, "The White Rose". The White Rose, as you may know, consisted of students at the University of Munich, all in their early 20s, aided by a philosophy professor and specialist in Leibniz' theodicy, named Kurt Huber, who courageously wrote and distributed flyers in opposition to Nazism in 1942 and 1943.

The leaders of the White Rose were caught and arrested on February 18, 1943, and then were interrogated, hastily tried, and executed by guillotine four days later. These 'final days' are well captured in a 2005 film about one of these executed students, Sophie Scholl: Die letzen Tage ("The Final Days of Sophie Scholl").

After seeing the film and wanting to learn more, I came upon the book, The White Rose: Munich 1942-1943, which contains primary source documents, such as the actual flyers of the group, and a brief memoir by Inge Scholl, a surviving sister of Sophie.

In her memoir, Inge describes how her brother Hans (who was the original instigator and main leader of the group) formulated his idea of resisting through reflecting on Greek philosophy. Here is that passage which provides some confirmation of Dodds: "Hans was aware that beauty, esthetic pleasure in existence, and his passive growth to manhood were no longer enough, that these could no longer insulate him from the dangers of the times. He felt that there was at bottom an acute emptiness and that there were no answers to his difficult, profound, and disquieting questions; not in Rilke and not in Stefan George, not in Nietzsche nor in Hölderin. But he was sure that his honest search would lead him along the right path. Finally, by strange detours, he made the acquaintance of the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato and Socrates..."

And this was the beginning of his turn of thought.

As for the flyers of the White Rose, they make interesting reading. But only one philosopher is mentioned and quoted at length in one of them. Can you guess who?


I'll give you some help. It is neither Marx, nor Heidegger, nor Nietzsche, nor Carnap.

Sophie Scholl

A Cause of Hope?

It is striking that the most influential instance of philosophizing today, or what is likely to be such, strongly promotes the study of Greek philosophy. This is good news, I think, for the field of ancient philosophy.

To give a baseline for a comparison: John Rawls' Theory of Justice is one of the most influential and widely-read philosophical texts in our time, with 300,000 copies sold since 1971. (Some more recent works may have a chance of being more popular, such as The Simpsons and Philosophy, 200,000 copies sold since 2001, or On Bullshit, 150,000 copies since 2005, yet these have a frivolous aspect and are unlikely to be deeply taken to heart by readers.)

However, in contrast, within 10 days after its release, already 1 million copies have been printed and distributed of Spe Salvi, the most recent encyclical of Pope Benedict, and doubtless tens of millions more copies have been either downloaded or read online. To compare: Theory of Justice's impressive numbers work out to 22 copies per day, or 220 for a similar ten-day period.

Spe Salvi is pastoral and primarily theological, to be sure. Yet its tone and manner of presentation are philosophical in a broad sense. Indeed, it will surely serve for millions of readers as an example of how to be appropriately thoughtful about matters that are 'philosophical'.

What I wish to emphasize here is that readers who do regard it as an example will draw from it the lesson that classical philosophy and culture, especially ancient Greek philosophy and culture, provide the framework within which a thoughtful person should begin an investigation of deep questions of human life -- since this is the outlook that is presupposed in the encyclical.

To give only a few examples:

Benedict opens by citing a Latin inscription which captures, he thinks, the outlook with which he contrasts 'hope': In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus ("How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing"). The footnote, the very first of the encyclical, refers to Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI, no. 26003 -- and you can bet that thousands of readers (at least) will wish that they were in a position to consult and understand that source.

He then begins a discussion of a sentence in the Letter to the Hebrews and leaves the crucial Greek term untranslated:

In the eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews (v. 1) we find a kind of definition of faith which closely links this virtue with hope. Ever since the Reformation there has been a dispute among exegetes over the central word of this phrase, but today a way towards a common interpretation seems to be opening up once more. For the time being I shall leave this central word untranslated. The sentence therefore reads as follows: “Faith is the hypostasis of things hoped for; the proof of things not seen”.

This then leads to a discussion of how hypostasis should be translated, in which a comparison is drawn between hypostasis and hyparchonta (both left in transliterated Greek): "In order to understand more deeply this reflection on the two types of substance—hypostasis and hyparchonta—and on the two approaches to life expressed by these terms,..." etc. --Once again, there will very many readers who will say to themselves that it would be good if they could understand the significance of these words on their own.

The encyclical continues with other comments on Greek words ("The word hypostole, on the other hand, means shrinking back through lack of courage to speak openly and frankly a truth that may be dangerous. Hiding through a spirit of fear leads to “destruction” (Heb 10:39)"); an endorsement of the early Christian representation of Christ as a philosopher; and even, near the end of the encyclical, a lengthy quotation from Plato's Gorgias:

Here I would like to quote a passage from Plato which expresses a premonition of just judgement that in many respects remains true and salutary for Christians too. Albeit using mythological images, he expresses the truth with an unambiguous clarity, saying that in the end souls will stand naked before the judge. It no longer matters what they once were in history, but only what they are in truth: “Often, when it is the king or some other monarch or potentate that he (the judge) has to deal with, he finds that there is no soundness in the soul whatever; he finds it scourged and scarred by the various acts of perjury and wrong-doing ...; it is twisted and warped by lies and vanity, and nothing is straight because truth has had no part in its development. Power, luxury, pride, and debauchery have left it so full of disproportion and ugliness that when he has inspected it (he) sends it straight to prison, where on its arrival it will undergo the appropriate punishment ... Sometimes, though, the eye of the judge lights on a different soul which has lived in purity and truth ... then he is struck with admiration and sends him to the isles of the blessed”

Again, you can bet that thousands or even millions of readers will conclude from this that they should become acquainted with the Gorgias and other Platonic dialogues.

The encyclical even makes use J. L. Austin's notion of a "performative utterance" -- which we might claim for ancient philosophy also, on the grounds that Austin was trained as a classicist.

Take from this what you will. The observation I principally wish to make here is that, simply viewing the publication of this encyclical, as it were, sociologically, one should expect that it will have a widespread and long-lasting, positive influence in promoting the study of what you and I hold dear.

(Look: Do we think that the classics and ancient philosophy have as central a role in university education as they should have? But why do we suppose that things will remain that way perpetually, or get worse? This is exactly my point -- many readers of Spe Salvi, perhaps especially those who with a technical or scientific training, will implicitly draw a contrast and think that Pope Benedict is better educated -- in important respects-- than they.)

Eu Prattein, John Ackrill

I promised some reflections on John Ackrill, and here are some chance, idiosyncratic thoughts.

Nearly everything I've ended up deeply committed to, I disliked upon a first encounter. This was true for me as regards Acrkill's Clarendon Aristotle commentary, on the Categories and De Int. My first study was when teaching it as a grad student in a tutorial at Harvard. I think I positively despised it at first, because it neglected almost entirely ancient and medieval commentaries, and it seemed that to me, as a direct result of this, Ackrill's commentary failed to go as deeply as it should. It seemed to adopt a false posture, as if the topics weren't already carefully and intelligently discussed many times, in a way that we needed to take into account. Too much of the spirit of Bertrand Russell, I thought. Yet gradually I came to acquire a different view -- that Ackrill's commentary, for its elegance and economy, and no lack of perceptiveness, may certainly stand on its own, and that others can take up the task of synthesis if they wish. (Certainly it met his own demand, brilliantly so: "If you are translating Greek into English, you must give something which reads on its own as English.")

Eventually Ackrill came to represent for me another tradition, less ancient but not less weighty-- the great Oxford tradition of Aristotelian scholarship of W.D. Ross and before him Cook Wilson, Bywater, and many others. I actually do not know, even now, whether Ackrill regarded himself as a transmitter of any sort of tradition along those lines. It probably does not matter-- inevitably he would do so, as that was the culture in which he studied and taught.

I therefore expected when I met him that he would be someone with a corresponding appearance -- tweed jacket and pipe, spectacles, a kind of amalgam of images in my mind of Gwil Owen and those scholars I mentioned. (But not Cook Wilson's beard!) In fact, when Lindsay Judson first introduced me to him, in an Oxford pub (which, I cannot now remember), he was wearing white tennis shoes, a pastel-colored sweatshirt, and a baseball cap. Oh, so that's the kind of intellectual he is, I thought, and immediately I re-categorized him, as falling in the class of 'boyish, youthful, and childlike' intellect, which I think proved to be correct.

It's an important point that all of us should appreciate, that many students look for greatness and not merely cleverness in a teacher. I had imagined that Ackrill was great in one way; my re-classifying him was the product of an imagination wishing to find him great in another way. And in my dealings with him he did not disappoint. This showed itself in details, which I could easily document, as I have a dozen audio tapes of his comments on Nic Eth VIII and IX -- he suffered from poor eyesight, from cataracts I think, and would prefer to dictate rather than write. I also have a typewritten letter from the same period, a humorous production, Ackrill's first foray into electronic machines, I gather, which for fun I reproduce below. ("And he's your editor?", a friend remarked in jest when I showed it to him.)

Ackrill once introduced me to a former student, who had risen in the academy to the rank of dean. I asked him what Ackrill was like as a teacher. "He was a tremendous teacher, incredibly alive intellectually and curious -- so you became like that also. You were thinking along with him. John was never really happy, I think, after he was promoted to professor. That wasn't what he liked. It took him away from philosophy as he thought one needed to do it."

I saw Ackrill for the last time in his house in 1997. We were deciding some production details of my own Clarendon Aristotle volume, in the series of which he of course was the General Editor along with Lindsay Judson. Almost his last words to me were, "I am very grateful to have gotten to know . . . " -- I thought he would say "you", but rather he said, speaking slowly, ". . . your mind." And in my (ever active) imagination I thought of the story that Plato used to call Aristotle "Nous", and I was pleased that there might be even the remotest analogy. Who knows if that was a standard Ackrillism; I regarded it as one of the most flattering things ever said to me. We exchanged pleasantries after that and then said goodbye.

"should we not be silent about the need to be silent?"

In case you missed Dale Jacquette's marvelous review today in NDPR of a Festschrift for Cora Diamond, I offer these nuggets. They have little to do with ancient philosophy, but they're wonderful in any case, as the review is a minor masterpiece of effective philosophical rhetoric.

On the apparent self-undermining of 'resolute' readings of the Tractatus:

Pros and cons of resolute or non-chickening-out readings of the Tractatus notwithstanding, I am troubled by the fact that in 6.54 Wittgenstein does not merely say that his propositions up to 6.54 are literally nonsensical, but that his propositions (period, full stop) are such. To my way of thinking, this does not merely suggest but fully implies that it is literally nonsensical for Wittgenstein also to have written that his propositions are literally nonsensical. It is hard for me accordingly to understand how anyone could intelligibly adopt a resolute reading of 6.54. For the passage also pulls the rug out from under itself as equally unsinnig as the rest of the text. A resolute, non-chickening-out reading of 6.54 would have us be firm in treating the Tractatus as totally and thoroughly inexpressible, even non-showable, nonsense, on the basis of a Scheinsatz, a pseudo-proposition that Wittgenstein himself declares is nonsensical. Must not a resolutist, then, trying to be resolute in particular about the implications of passage 6.54, choose which propositions in the text not to chicken out about, while chickening out on the literal meaninglessness of the one key sentence that is supposed to justify their resoluteness? These are mysteries that the resolutists, at least in the present venue, do not venture to resolve.

On the apparent practical inconsistency of such interpreters:

I am amazed, finally, to discover that resolutists who want to be faithful to Wittgenstein's conclusions in Tractatus 6.54 and, especially, 7, seem to have spilled more ink in commentary, polemics, and in-fighting than all of what they consider to be the naïve irresolute writing on Wittgenstein's early philosophy put together and squared. It appears that in order to be resolute, to avoid chickening out in the effort to be consistently loyal to Wittgenstein's insight that 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent', a philosophical commentator must be inexhaustibly prolix. To understand Wittgenstein, one cannot practice what one preaches; the resolute interpreter of Wittgenstein cannot be a consistent committed Wittgensteinian by his or her own lights, but must enter the fray as an outsider, a non- or even anti-Wittgensteinian. If we are convinced that Wittgenstein advocates silence instead of meaningless prattle about philosophical problems, should we not be silent about the need to be silent? Is that not what Wittgenstein did when he abandoned philosophy for primary school teaching in the Alps? Should we not in all consistency then at least acknowledge that loyal Wittgensteinians trying to think and talk resolutely about Wittgenstein's counseling philosophers to be silent are equally engaging in pseudo-propositional nonsense?

On the relevance of the essays in the Festschrift to the understanding of Cora Diamond's work:

Originally written for another occasion, as the final endnote (n. 1, 351) reveals, a conference on literature and ethics at the University of Helsinki, _____'s essay typifies the inclusion of essays in the volume that have virtually nothing to say about Diamond. ______ writes, after a five page foray into a blow-by-blow narration of a novel she curiously enough characterizes as a work in which nothing happens, at the conclusion of her section I:

Thinking about Der Stechlin seems to me a good way to honor Cora Diamond. So often, like Fontane, she asked us all to question assumptions about structure, "plot," and sequence that hobble philosophy as surely as they hobble the novel, asking ourselves what revolutions in style and structure, as well as content, a due attention to life's complexities might require of us. Perhaps, too, Fontane's praise of conversation is an appropriate way of indicating how deeply I value our years of conversation about these and other topics. (331)

A tenuous connection, to say the least. Thereafter, Diamond's name does not appear even once again in the essay. If a classical analogy for this sort of paste-in tribute is appropriate, I am reminded of nothing so much as the statues of a later decadent antiquity, frugally made in two parts -- a full-length body in flowing tunic with an open socket at the neck to be completed by cementing-in any choice of interchangeable sculpted heads. One easily imagines hauling out the same philosophical paper and tacking on a different homage for an entirely different Festschrift, acknowledging the work of any almost any other philosopher, or, potentially, in this case, comparative literary critic.

The Aristotelian Origins of Stoic Determinism--Today

What promises to be a fascinating lecture...

The Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy
presents

Priscilla Sakezles
University of Akron

"The Aristotelian Origins of Stoic Determinism"
commentary by
Joel Martinez
Lewis and Clark College

7:30 pm
Grace Conference Room
Higgins University Center

The lecture will be preceded by a seminar
"Agency in Ancient Greek Thought"
4-6 pm
Seminar Room
Beck Philosophy House
Clark University

τὰ πολύχροα τῶν ζῴων

For many observers it puts mimesis in an entirely new light.

An archer from the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina, 480-490 BC.

"The aesthetic ideal of the Greeks was mimesis: the imitation of life. And it was color that brought their statues to life." Thus Vinzenz Brinkmann, an archaeologist of the Liebieghaus museum in Frankfurt, who has assembled the show, Gods in Color, on display until January 20th at the Sackler Museum of Harvard University.

"Peplos" Kore, Two Reconstructions

According to the Sackler Museum's press release, the reconstructions, achieved with pigments matching that of the originals, were arrived at by the scientific study of the surfaces of the statues together with an analysis of the slight remains of pigments:

Research for Gods in Color included technical examination of the scarce traces of paint that remain on a number of ancient works of sculpture. Raking light--extreme side light--can reveal incised details as well as subtle patters caused by the uneven weathering of different paints on the stone surface. Similarly, ultraviolet light brings out slight surface differences--often all that has survived of the painted decoration. Analysis of pigment remains by various techniques, including polarized light microscopy, X-ray flourescence and defraction analysis, and infrared spectroscopy, provides information on the materials and colors used. The reconstructions were painted with authentic pigments by the archaeologist Dr. Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann, with the help of Sylvia Kellner.

A philosopher might wish to see the exhibit in order to appreciate better such comments as Republic 420c:

Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the body — the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black — to him we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more.

It Seems We Simply Can't Avoid Speaking Nonsense

"The late and superficial conversion of the Baltic lands to Christianity, after the fourteenth century, coupled with the fact that persecution drove pagan faiths temporarily underground instead of eliminating them altogether, allowed the ancient nature-worship to prevail in forms inoffensive to the clergy, as in the guise of outdoor walks. Thus people used to attend Sunday service — before heading out for their Sonntagsspaziergang."

"Typical penalties, next to physical punishment, were what would be called “guilt trips” today. In contrast to Catholicism (where sins are forgiven in confession), Protestant salvation depends on grace. The faithful cannot rely on a ritual for exoneration; non-Catholic Christians steadily collect sins. "

"We can conjecture that Kant, studying the Principia, would occasionally step outside and look up. He was reading about celestial mechanics — and then he would see it. Stargazing put the work in context. Kant's subsequent publications reveal his exuberance about the stars and the laws they display; just as they reveal his grasp of the planetary dance and his recognition of Newton's achievement. There was definitely no better place than the countryside to learn this."

"For creatures, the cosmic phoenix is a problem. Humans are just feathers on its wings. Humans grow only to burn to ashes; they are not exempt from the cosmic law (1:318.17-18). As the pulsing cosmic vector governs everything, beats emerge on all orders of magnitude, from the Bangs of the phoenix to the flares of life to the jiggles of the elements."

Sunday walks in Prussia as nature worship? Protestants accumulating sins without relief? The cosmic phoenix banging to the jiggles of the elements?

One never knows what strange things one will find on the internet. But would you have believed that these bizarre passages are excerpted from the distinguished Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy? (You can find them here if you really must check.)

Who is editing that??

John Ackrill, R.I.P.

As I said goodbye today to a visiting scholar from Japan whom I had met for lunch, I lingered near the door and stood looking for a while at a picture which I have placed on the shelf in a large bookcase. The picture, which sits in one of those plexiglass boxes --I never took the time to get a proper frame--is of my first wife, Ruth, and John Ackrill, taken at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1997.

I don't know why I lingered, looking. The picture is there in my bookcase, always, and I hardly ever pay any attention to it. I think may have reproached myself for not looking at it more often. I did wonder if it was visible enough.

My friends know that Ruth died a year later of breast cancer. The picture was taken during a brief visit to England, for her to visit an old friend in Bury St. Edmunds.

I looked at John's image and wondered how he was doing. We hadn't been in touch for a long time. How was he?

Life I find is filled with little coincidences that seem to point to a larger meaning. Later that day a friend wrote to tell me that John Ackrill had died on November 30th, the Friday before.

I couldn't be sad, since his life was a rich and full one, and he was quite old. But words I had read earlier in the day echoed in my mind:

"In some way we want life itself, true life, untouched even by death;
yet at the same time we do not know the thing towards which we feel driven.
We cannot stop reaching out for it,
and yet we know that all we can experience or accomplish is not what we yearn for."

I promise tomorrow or the day after -- reflections and recollections.

Ruth V.K. Pakaluk and John Ackrill
Christ Church, Oxford
March 1997