Appetitive: I Knew Classics Must Be Useful For Something

I've been busy getting ready for grad school starting next week. However, I found this and thought people might enjoy it.

Source: Communication Studies

Have a nice day!

Appetitive/Reasoning: Plato's Manuscripts

This picture is page 1r (screen 11) from Gallica Bibliothèque Numérique

Recently, I was wondering what the Platonic manuscript tradition looked like. I had never really thought about it before-- mostly I've considered manuscript traditions for plays or poems. I did a quick browse around the web and I found this amazing website that has a copy of Parisinus gr. 1807 (A). I haven't really even gotten a chance to look at it, but I thought I would put it up for anyone to browse. You can even download a PDF! How cool is that?

Appetitive: The Joys of Greek

Although I have had a number of pitfalls so far, ever since I started taking this graduate seminar on the Attic Orators, I've begun to really enjoy Greek. Antiphon and Andocides are quite a joy to read, although they have their frustrating moments. My reading speed (for prose, although not for Aeschylus) is increasing significantly-- it seems like the effects of Greek prose composition finally caught up with me-- and I am beginning to learn the typical terms.

Nowhere did this joy manifest itself more than in reading Plato last night with Ovid II. When I read Crito over the summer with Propertius II, I was still struggling a lot with parts of the prose and my reading speed was quite slow. Now, I can carve a few hours out of my schedule and process the Greek pretty decently before going over it. While the orators are fun in their persuasive energy and the window they provide on Greek culture, the Symposium has a bit of wonderful colloquial wit that is just fantastic.

After that, even my remaining 50 lines of Vergil did not seem so dreadful, although the battle scenes are certainly grim. I'm actually beginning to appreciate parts of Vergil, finally.

To pass my little glimmer of exuberance on, I thought I would post a link to A.E. Houseman's "Fragment of a Greek Tragedy." My professor in the Persians class passes this out to us. I had seen it many years before, but it still absolutely cracks me up.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone. I will (I hope) be posting some interesting tidbits from Antiphon.

Spirited: The Platonic Process

I've been a little slow on getting my classics stuff up so I thought that I would put up something a little different.

Back in my junior year of undergraduate I was having trouble with my paper on the Phaedrus. Cerinthus recommended to me that I go to one of the group study rooms as the library and outline my paper on the whiteboards.

So, one night around midnight, I went up to the library with all of my books and I started working on my paper. Three enormous whiteboards and 2 hours later, I had the basic idea for my paper. When I got my apartment senior year, the two pieces of furniture I looked forward most to buying were a large whiteboard and bookshelves.

I had to do a talk for my research seminar, but I could write (and present) on anything I desired. So, of course, I wrote on Plato, specifically male lament in the Apology. I used the same process, but I only have my little white board from senior year so I did my thought process and kept erasing the board after snapping photos. My dilemma was the reasoning behind Socrates' hatred of lament in the apology vs. his (partial) acceptance of lament in the Phaedo.

It's been a ridiculously busy holiday so far. More substantive stuff soon.

Appetitive: The Plato Scholar in the Room

When finals were over yesterday, all of the people from my program went out to decompress. A bunch of the people had just finished a class on the Phaedrus and they were complaining about Plato. I suddenly realized that I was in an extreme minority.

It reminded me of the other day when I asked a fellow student about GRF Ferrari and he told me that Ferrari was "a British Plato scholar" as if this was supposed to create a fairly standard and moderately negative picture in my mind. I had no idea this breed of classicist was so ill-regarded.

In reality, I actually kind of enjoy the argument: standing up opponents on every side-- so long as the opponents are good-natured. However, it was a little odd to be so outnumbered...

Reasoning/Spirited: Gone Philosophizing

 

This weekend I'm working on a paper I am supposed to give on Tuesday. Although I outlined it over a week ago, I am still far behind the gun. It is on Plato's views on emotion in the context of the Athenian courtroom. While I was reading, I happened upon this (long) quotation in an essay by Josiah Ober and Barry Strauss [1] and it opened up a whole slew of thoughts unrelated to present topic:

"Demosthenes sets about proving this by point out that in the course of his speech Aiskhines quoted from Euripides' Phoinix, which he had never performed onstage himself. Yet Aiskhines never quoted from Sophocles' Antigone which he had acted many times. So, 'Oh Aiskhines, are you not a sophist...are you not a logographer...since you hunted up [zētēsas] a verse which you never spoke onstage to use to trick the citizens' (19.250)

The argument that underlies Demosthenes' comment says a good deal about Athenian attitudes toward elite useof literary culture. According to Demosthenes, Aiskhines is a sophist because he "hunts up" quotes for a play with which he had no reason to be familiar in order to strengthen his argument. Clearly the average Athenain would not be in a position to search out quotes when he wanted them; if the ordintary citizen ever wanted toquote poetry, he would rely on verses that he had memorized, and his opportunity to memorize tragic poetry was limited" (Ober & Strauss 251).

Although this seems obvious, it had never occurred to me that access to tragic texts might have been limited for much of the Athenian populace. In Book III of the Republic, Plato discusses a number of different passages of poetry. All of them come from the Iliad or the Odyssey and not a single one from tragedy, although the critique here extends explicitly to tragic drama. The choice of those specific passages from the Iliad and the Odyssey is an interesting topic, and one I explore thoroughly in my thesis. However, it had always baffled me  that not a single line of the tragic poets appeared in the text. The quotation above illuminates this question.

It also makes the character of Socrates more believable. Although it seems likely that Plato would have had the ability to seek out (ζητεῖν) quotation from tragedy, Socrates [2] was engaging in conversation and would have to rely on his memory in order to quote. Furthermore, Plato's Socrates is not particularly wealthy (although he has countless wealthy friends and associates) and spends most of his time walking or in conversation, not reading, writing, or researching. As such, he might not even have access to texts of plays and would have to rely on quotations from common knowledge. Thus, the omission of tragic quotation makes the character more believable, even as it renders the critique of tragedy a bit lopsided.

Endnotes

1. Ober, Josiah and Barry Strauss. "Drama, Political Rhetoric, and the Discourse of Athenian Democracy," Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context ed. John J. Winkler & Froma I. Zeitlin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. pp. 237-270.
2. Whenever I say Socrates, I mean Plato's character and not the historical Socrates.

Reasoning: JSTOR Thematic Index

For those who have access to JSTOR through a university, this is pretty cool. I discovered in an AWOL post this morning that JSTOR has created a thematic index for classics. This is a little weird because it automatically generates groups of terms and then articles that relate to them, but it's also really interesting.

Two thematic lists I am browsing are:

1. First:  plato, republic, dialogues, socrates, platonic, laws, phaedo, dialogue, timaeus, ideas, phaedrus, parmenides, sophist, aristotle, taylor, philosophy, philebus, philosophical, theaetetus, cratylus, platon, cornford, burnet, doctrine, gorgias, dialectic, critias, method, symposium, passage
2. Second: soul, body, plotinus, plato, matter, intellect, souls, timaeus, universe, evil, divine, doctrine, things, intelligible, principle, bodies, cosmos, power, proclus, demiurge, cause, passage, forms, platonic, nous, sense, idea, rational, myth, immortal

From there, I generated the list of articles to browse one by one.


Enjoy!

Appetitive: A Plato Scholar on Beauty

This is not a particularly classics related post, but it is a great video anyway. Alexander Nehamas, a philosophy professor at Princeton who writes about Plato, gave a lecture a few days ago for Big Ideas on "Individual Character and Ideas of Beauty," which I found very enjoyable. About a third of the lecture argues against Kant's theory of aesthetics (which I am ashamed to say I have not read), about a third is about Manet's Olympia, and another third talks about Plato. Enjoy!

Appetitive: Birthday Books

Birthday Books

My birthday was recently. As I am starting up classes as the local large university in classics. So the theme of my recent birthday was books that will prepare me for school (or various other classically-related things). I am very excited by all of this. Propertius II, with whom I shared a thesis desk had a copy of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD), and I used it a little. I really enjoyed it and I especially needed it for my current art history class where mythological background is crucial and my art history professor takes very unkindly to websites as resources. I am also really excited about having the OCT of the Laws so that I may reference the Greek easily and a copy of The Greek Particles, to which my Greek History professor sang paeans in my Herodotus class.

Covered books

I took the opportunity today between my German midterm and my doctor's appointment to cover some of the books. My mom volunteered at the library of both my elementary school and high school and she got me into those library covers over dust jackets to protect the books. Covering books is a very relaxing activity.

Appetitive/Reasoning: Reviews and Things to Come

I've got a cold so I have not been as productive as I might have been. I am still in the process of working on some of my arguments on Plato which should appear at the end of the week sometime. The first one will be trying to dispute the conception of Socrates (the character) as a mouthpiece for Plato's philosophy. I also should be posting some Catullus and maybe some Horace.

In the meantime, I have written a review (thus far) of the a new book that just came out: David Schaps' Handbook for Classical Research. It is on Fragments of Sulpicia.

Spirited: A Very Poor Translation (Amended)

My original thought was to put up a translation of the German passage I am reading about Plato's Phaedrus. However, I realized that there is a very strict plagiarism policy at the school where I am taking classes and I would not want someone to think that I had taken my translation from the internet as my real name does not appear on this blog there would be little way to prove it was my work and it would be a troublesome affair. As such, I will simply post the paragraph that I have translated so far in the original language.

"Alles in allem erweist sich der Phaidros als ein Werk, dessen Teile wie bei einem Organismus (264 c2-5) wohl aufienander abgestimmt sind. Thema ist, unter welchen Bedingungen ein λόσος dem anderen uberlegen ist. Entscheidend hierfur is einmal der bedeutendere Inhalt, was in drei konkurrienden Reden vorgefurt wird. Die siegreiche ist die inhaltich reichste und tiefste: was sie entfaltet, sind die geforderten πλείονος ἄξια oder τιμιώτερα (im Vergleich zu den Reden, die sie unbertreffen will)" (Szlezak 47).

I am having a rather difficult time. The German is hard-- at least for me as I am just learning-- but I believe the endeavor is important. Wish me luck!

Reasoning/Spirted: Platon und die Schriftlichkeit der Philosophie

One of my favorite pieces of Plato scholarship is Thomas Szlezak's Reading Plato. When I found out that I was supposed to find some scholarship to translate for my German class, I immediately set our to look for Platon Lesen, the original German of Reading Plato. None of the local libraries carried it, so I found another one of Szlezak's texts: Platon und die Schriftlichekeit der Philosophie, which I think translates to something like Plato and the Written Form of Philosophy. I can't seem to find an English version. I am translating the conclusion to his section on what I think is the order of the dialogues (the chapter is named "Der Gang des Dialogs." I'm looking forward to finding something interesting.

Reasoning: Ancient Philosophy Lectures

While I am doing menial tasks such as organizing my notes for graduate school and vainly trying to clean my desk, I decided to revisit the lectures I listened to from UC Berkeley's Fall 2008 Philosophy 25A which I mentioned in a previous post. David Ebrey's voice is still annoying , but the lectures are engaging and easy to follow. His analysis is rather basic as he is speaking primarily to first-year philosophy students with little background and no Greek. They have been enjoyable anyway, especially as I recently began reading Crito with Propertius II.

I have the benefit, this time around, of having read each of the texts up to the Nichomachean Ethics more than once. However, I have not read any of the other Aristotle and I thought I might give it a shot as the lectures move toward the Physics, etc. Is there a particularly fabulous translation that anyone recommends?

Spirited: Reading Plato's Crito

I am finally back to reading some Plato. This is something I should have been doing all year, but I've just been far to lazy or schizophrenically busy with other things. Propertius II got me back on track: he wanted to read some Plato, as he had never read any (except excerpts in Hansen & Quinn) and he is taking a Greek prose survey next semester. We decided to read Crito alongside the homer that we have been reading. Propertius II found a cute little edition from the Cambridge Elementary Classics, an earlier edition of which may be found on archive.org.

The commentary seems to be pretty helpful, although it refers to very old texts for it's references. I reread Crito in English last night and I remembered what a charming little dialogue it is. I read the first page in Greek. My Platonic Attic is very rusty.

Appeitive: Children's Tales

For the last few months, I have been tutoring a nine year old boy in English (vocabulary, reading comprehension, etc).  Early on, I realized that the boy liked Medieval history, so we read some Arthur mythology. Unfortunately, most of my Medieval books are a little too advanced because I studied the Middle Ages in 6th grade. So the trouble remained: how can you keep the interest of a smart kid who has trouble reading?

I found a picture book on Ancient Greece to read. The boy was only interested in battles, but we talked extensively about the Greek phalanx and the Athenian battle strategy at Salamis. He plays a lot of board games with his brother and cousin which involve military strategy, so he caught on to the intricacies of Greek warfare surprisingly quickly.

I decided that we should read some Greek myths. Plato reports in the Republic that children are raised on Greek myths and Homeric poetry, so I thought I could use the stories. I remembered my love of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. The problem was that the boy got bogged down in complicated names of all the people and places. He liked the stories, but the names were too hard. One of the stories D'Aulaires sadly lacks is the story of Achilles. So I decided to write one that would not use as many confusing names. We will probably read it next week but I might post it for fun when I am finished.

More serious things to come when I finish my next passage of the Iliad.

Appetitive: Plato and Egypt

In the Laws, Plato presents Egyptian art and music as a static set of arts rigidly regulated by custom. In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger presents Egypt as a potential model for proper regulation of the arts. This lead me to believe there was strict regulation of the arts. However, an Egyptology News article lead me to a New York Times article that explained that this impression of Egyptian art is false: there was a move toward the greater characterization of humans as humans rather than rigid forms following an specified pattern.

Spirited: Ian Morris on the Formation of the Polis

 

During an exam I was proctoring today, I set out once again to read Ian Morris' Burial and Ancient Society, which traces the evolution of the polis through burial monuments and other means. Morris is brilliant. One of the pieces I found most fascinating was a brief mention of Plato in the introduction. Morris argues that Plato is one of the few instances in history of extreme introspective political analysis directly after a regime change. Ian Morris contends that the reason for this is that the polis is the first truly political system: one based solely on political relationships and specifically on the context of citizenship. This makes a lot of sense to me based on Plato's analysis. More to come...

Appetitive: Illness and Wine

Since I got sick right after my uncle brought down some very lovely wines, I thought this passage from the Theaetetus was very apt (translation from Perseus. Theaetetus 159b-159e):

Socrates: Well, then, let us take me, or you, or anything else at hand, and apply the same principle—say Socrates in health and Socrates in illness. Shall we say the one is like the other, or unlike?
Theaetetus: When you say “Socrates in illness” do you mean to compare that Socrates as a whole with Socrates in health as a whole?
Socrates: You understand perfectly; that is just what I mean.
Theaetetus: Unlike, I imagine.
Socrates: And therefore other, inasmuch as unlike?
Theaetetus: Necessarily.
Socrates: And you would say the same of Socrates asleep or in any of the other states we enumerated just now?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Socrates: Then each of those elements which by the law of their nature act upon something else, will, when it gets hold of Socrates in health, find me one object to act upon, and when it gets hold of me in illness, another?
Theaetetus: How can it help it?
Socrates: And so, in the two cases, that active element and I, who am the passive element, shall each produce a different object?
Theaetetus: Of course.
Socrates: So, then, when I am in health and drink wine, it seems pleasant and sweet to me?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Socrates: The reason is, in fact, that according to the principles we accepted a while ago, the active and passive elements produce sweetness and perception, both of which are simultaneously moving from one place to another, and the perception, which comes from the passive element, makes the tongue perceptive, and the sweetness, which comes from the wine and pervades it, passes over and makes the wine both to be and to seem sweet to the tongue that is in health.
Theaetetus: Certainly, such are the principles we accepted a while ago.
Socrates: But when it gets hold of me in illness, in the first place, it really doesn't get hold of the same man, does it? For he to whom it comes is certainly unlike.
Theaetetus: True.
Socrates: Therefore the union of the Socrates who is ill and the draught of wine produces other results: in the tongue the sensation or perception of bitterness, and in the wine—a bitterness which is engendered there and passes over into the other; the wine is made, not bitterness, but bitter, and I am made, not perception, but perceptive.

 

Reasoning: Mimetic Prose

Propertius II recommended a wonderful article to me by Leslie Kurke. "Plato, Aesop, and the Beginnings of Mimetic Prose" (JSTOR) discusses mimetic proses-- or prose that imitates speech and conversation. Kurke makes a number of interesting points which I will discuss in a future blogpost. Essentially, she traces Plato's philosophical prose back to Aesop as a precursor, including the famous Socratic elenchus.

Spirited: A Quick Note on Gorgias

I have an absolutely absurd amount of Μήδεια to translate on account of my math exam and general laziness but I thought I would spout out a few remarks.

First, in the final stretch of my reading of Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, I found his style easier to translate, even if I continued to have some problems understanding his meaning (or the particular definition of a word to chose when translating one of his phrases). I assume that part of this was because I was better prepared and I have been reading Gorgias for a while, but there is also something to the fact that as he went on his arguments had more similarities to arguments made by Plato, with which I am familiar.

Second, these foreshadowing of Platonic arguments are truly striking. The most obvious one is the use of φαρμακόν as a metaphor for speech. Gorgias says that speech acts on the soul/mind (ψυχή) as drugs/remedies/poisons (φαρμακόν-- or φαρμακά in plural) act upon the body. This is similar to Plato's move in Phaedrus where Socrates [1] states that writing is a φαρμακόν. By this odd statement Socrates is primarily referring to the deficiencies of writing: it may look like it says something profound, but it cannot correct a reader who makes a mistake or ask for clarification and it does not necessarily impart understanding to anyone who reads it. In doing so, writing may look like an aid to memory or understanding, but it can act as either a remedy or a poison (both meaning of φαρμακόν) to the mind, depending upon the reader and the use Gorgias means that rhetoric can alter and affect the soul in the same way as a drug in that it can cause certain symptoms and affect the mood or emotions of a person. The rhetorician has the same ability to control a person as a doctor. Plato does make similar claims, but he refers to this ability of the orator as leading the soul rather than using the metaphor of a doctor and a φαρμακόν, which strikes me as an interesting contrast. Propertius II reminded me that Derrida claims in "Plato's Pharmacy" that in Plato's φαρμακόν metaphor, writing stands in for both speech and writing. I am going to keep ponderng it...

Endnotes

1. For the sake of clarity, I when I say Socrates I mean Plato's Socrates as he speaks in the Phaedrus. I make no claims about the historical Socrates or a general trend of Plato's portrayal of Socrates.