The Banishment of Homer

Hello.

Plato, again. Today, and I don’t have much time for a lengthy introduction, the question is, “Why would Plato ban Homer from his ideal republic?”

I think that this is because Homer, first, portrays the gods in ways that Plato (Socrates) finds derogatory and second, gives the wrong messages.

Ok, so I think that Plato (Socrates) doesn’t like the gods of Homer because they have very human faults, which he believes them not to have. He doesn’t like that Zeus would change shape, or cheat on Hera with mortal women. He also believes that the gods are incapable of telling falsehoods, which is not something that Homer seems to believe in as well.

The messages of Homer, even if we look at the small portion of the Iliad that we have read, are not something that you would want to base your scruples on for the rest of your life. Achilles is angry all the time, Agamemnon is selfish, Paris is a liar and a thief. These are supposed to heroes of Athens; Plato (Socrates) doesn’t want them to be portrayed like this. He also doesn’t want people looking at the heroes and thinking that because Achilles cannot control his temper, it is all right to be in bad humor all the time.

Goodbye.

The Banishment of Hesiod

Hello.

We are reading, in class, another section of The Republic now. The last section, as you might have guessed, was on Justice. This section, chapter three, is on education.

We are, on top of this, preparing for exhibition. Because of this, there are many things that need to be prepared. Danielle Somtrich, Beth Kurtz and I are preparing a skit, the scene from the Iliad in which Agamemnon and Achilles have their argument. Since all of the lines are to be memorized, and that is a lot of work, all of my homework is being cut, that is why you will see considerably less of it here.

The question for tonight is, “Why would Plato (Socrates) ban Hesiod (author of the war between the gods) from his ideal republic?”

My answer:

I think that Plato (Socrates) would ban Hesiod for two reasons. First, because he wasn’t fond of the poets. I think that this was because he believed that a poet, or a storyteller, can take you out of your mind or your body. As Plato (Socrates) was a fairly sensible person, I think that he wouldn’t approve of this departure from reason.

Second, I think that Plato (Socrates) didn’t like the message of Hesiod. The point, after all, of the piece that we read, the upheaval of the gods, is that the young can beat the old. I’m not sure when in his life Plato wrote, but Socrates was an older man and wouldn’t approve of younger men, in his opinion uneducated younger men, ruling the government.

Thursday is the exhibition!

Goodbye.

Truth Vs. Winning

Hello.

Plato, again. Tomorrow our class is having a Socratic seminar (oddly appropriate), and there was a list of questions from which we were supposed to choose one. Of course, in typical Kit fashion, I would rather write my own, so here it is: Is the truth or being right more important?

This question first came up because we were talking about the Sophists, and their idea that being right was more important that telling the truth. I think that’s an interesting idea because, first, the idea of truth is completely deteriorating in our society, and second, because Socrates held truth in such high regard, while Thrasymachus did not.

Here is my response to the question: I think that truth is the most important. Today, many people are more concerned with being right, though I think few would admit it, that we have lost the idea of truth. Being right is trivial.

And it’s not even about finding the truth, though that is something to work toward, but it’s arguing what’s true by you. If you argue a point that you late find to be untrue, that’s fine, because in the moment, you believed it. But if you know something to be false, or find it to be false in the course of the argument, it is more important that you acknowledge the truth, than fight the argument out to it’s conclusion simply to win.

This is why Socrates and Plato dislike the Sophists. They have no care for the truth. They will argue any point for money, and as long as they win, the truth doesn’t matter. I think that’s not right, an argument should be because there is an issue that you care about, that you believe to be true, and so you are willing to try and prove it.

I hope that I can bring this up in tomorrow’s debate.

Goodbye.

Is Justice a Hindrance to Happiness?

Hello.

Plato. The prompt today is: In your opinion, how can acting “right” (i.e. justly) help or harm the achievement of happiness? A good question, if you ask me.

And my answer:

I think that to understand this I first need to define both my idea of happiness and justice. I’ll start with the easier of the two, happiness. Happiness is doing something, or being with someone, that you enjoy. If you love, as I do, to read, then happiness, for you, might be a good book. If you love your little brother, then happiness, for you, might be spending time with him. The most important thing here, though, is that happiness is different for every person, in the same way that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One thing will not make everyone happy.

For me, justice is harder to define, as we have been talking about it in class and Socrates, one of the greatest philosophers of all time, has said a lot about the subject. After thinking about this for a while, I think that my definition would be this: Justice is doing right in the given situation.

If Socrates were to press me on this, as he did with Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus, I think that we would be most likely to ask me what I meant by “right” and I would answer that “right” is what the situation calls for.

In some situations, telling the truth is “right” or “just”. In some, it is paying you dues, in some; it is the might of the strong.

I don’t mean this to say that there are no universals (things that are true in ever situation). I think that it is never right to harm someone unless it is in self-defense (and I have been thinking about this and the death penalty. I don’t agree with the death penalty myself, but many people do. Oddly enough many of these people are anti-abortion…how can you be for the death penalty and against abortion. They say that it’s not “humane” to abort a baby, as it is killing them, but what about putting prisoners to death? I am for abortion, but not because I believe that it’s OK to kill babies, but for two other reasons. First, many people who wan to get abortions can't support the baby that they are about to have. That’s why they want to abort in the first place. I think that it is important for people like them to have that choice open to them, as the children they would have would be badly cared for or sent into orphanages, where their lives would be terrible. The other reason is that children who are raped or have children too early need to be able to abort. A child when you are twelve, or ten, can ruin your life, especially if your parents aren’t willing o help you care for it. So for that, it’s not just a matter of life or death, but of TWO lives, so there you have it. Tangent over.). Another universal would be that you have to care for your friends and neighbors. You have to follow the law, you have to make the best decisions that you are able to. I think that you should tell the truth to the best of your abilities, obviously, not ALL the time, as Socrates pointed out.

So, do I think that justice hinders the pursuit of happiness? Sometimes, I think that it does. Take school for example. Sometimes, it would make me very happy to not pay attention, doodle in class, etc. but because of the rules, and what is right, I don’t. Now, this doesn’t make me profoundly unhappy, it’s just a small example.

This is part of the reason why I think that the just man will always come out behind the unjust man. The unjust man, having no morality or scruples, will do things that the just man won’t that will make him happy.

But then arises the question, would the just man be happy doing unjust things? No, most likely not, so perhaps they are both happy.

Goodbye.

Thrasymachus--What is he saying?

Hello.

Plato again. Question one for today: What is Socrates’ main argument against what Thrasymachus says, that justice is whatever the strong says it is. One of THOSE questions. I don’t like these short answer questions.

Ok, my answer. Socrates’ main point in the first part was that justice could not be whatever the strong said it was, according to their own needs, because what is the point of a governor but to care for his people? Thrasymachus says that men of law makes laws for their own benefit or intrest, this is what Socrates disproves with the comparison to men of the arts and sciences.

Second question: In the second part, what are Thrasymachus’ main points and Socrates’ response(s)?

Second answer: First, directly after the break, Thrasymachus compares lawmakers to shepherds. Unlike other men of art or science, they work solely for the benefit of themselves, not of their subjects, the sheep. And, he says no skilled craftsman makes a mistake, be they a teacher, a doctor or a mathematician. Therefore, the skilled ruler will make no mistake in acting what is best for himself, giving his subjects no reason to rebel. Second, he says that a just man will come off worse in every argument. Socrates’ response to the first point is that if we are going by the definition of a true practitioner, a man who works only to fatten his sheep for profit is not a practitioner, he is a business man, as a practitioner would act only for the benefit of his subjects. To the second point, Socrates slighly avoids the idea, as it seems that there can be no answer. The unjust man WILL come out better in any argument. Instead, he talks about the want to rule, which I think links back to what he believes about the philosopher kings.

And now, my own question: Is Thrasymachus right? Are there some situations in which might does make right?

I think that the answer is yes. I think that, though I would love to believe in some lofty notion of justice, in the real world, a world that Socrates doesn’t seem to acknowledge, justice isn’t always so perfect. Sometimes, might DOES make right, in the real world.

A perfect example of this would be war. In war, the mightiest win, and who is “right” in war is written by the victor. Does that mean that they are REALLY right? No, not necessarily. But will anyone ever know? Few will.

One of the very good points that Thrasymachus makes that Socrates evades all together is that the just man will always come out behind the unjust man in most transactions. Though Socrates has something to say to almost all of Thrasymarchus points, he says nothing to this. This is because, in my opinion, you can’t deny the fact that in ninety-nine percent of all cases, the unjust man will prevail. Think about life in general. Most people who do good deeds everyday will go unnoticed for the rest of their lives. Perhaps they will give their money away to charities and family members who need it and end up poor. The unjust man, however, will keep all of his money to himself, as he is also not “good” we determined that at the end of the passage, part of being just is being “good”—though the definition of good is anyone’s guess—he will live comfortable, never wanting for anything. Will the just man ever get any credit for what he has done? No, most likely not, will any of those people every repay him? No, though he is most likely happy to give him money away.

This is rather circumstantial, but an unjust man would be willing to do things for money that a just man would never think of. So the just man is the better person, but will always end up one step behind.

So there you have it, my opinion. Thrasymachus may have a very valid point, and what does that say about us?

Goodbye.

The Just Man

Hello.

I am first to answer why Polemarchus gave in to Socrates when his father (Cephalus) would not? (I don’t think that sentence is worded very well). So here is my response:

First, Cephalus walked away when they had just started to debate, so we have no idea how the argument would have turned out if he stayed to battle it out with Socrates.

Second, Socrates might not have won against Cephalus. I think (I’m really not sure, though) that Cephalus is older than Socrates, which might mean he would have been able to deflect Socrates’ argument better than his son did. Polemarchus was something of a pushover, like Glaucon. He didn’t really put up a fight, but mainly agreed with Socrates in every point that he made, until after Socrates had revealed his purpose. There were some points in the text where I would have fought against the argument, and Polemarchus merely agreed.

Last, I think that Socrates’ argument was REALLY good. There were only a few points at which I would have found some fault with his logic. I don’t think that Polemarchus had much choice but to give up.

And here I get to make my own question! Ok, mine is this: “Do you think that a just man can be compared to a doctor or a navigator or a cook?”

I choose this in part because this is one of the points that I would have argued with Socrates over because I don’t think that you can make that comparison.

I think that a just man cannot be compared with a navigator, a cook or a doctor, and my reason is simple: “a just man” is not a profession as navigator, cook and doctor are. ALL of these men should be just. I think that this is main fault of Socrates’ logic. He talks of “just man” as though it were a job title, which I think it isn’t.

After this, he goes on to talk about how a just man is “useless when you are using things, and useful when you are not (pg 13, section 333, just above part e).” But I think that all of the professions that Socrates lists, musician, a farmer, a shoemaker, should be just men as well. This means that Socrates cannot be right in this statement. Justice is MOST useful when you are using something, or doing something. For example, wouldn’t you want your doctor or your shoemaker to be just and fair?

He also says that if you were to keep something, like a pruning knife, you should call on the just man, but if you wanted to use it, you should look to the vinedresser. This is true, the man who keeps your pruning knife should be just, but so should the vinedresser.

Goodbye.

Friends

Hello.

The topic for today is very interesting. I am to define what a friend is. Rather than ramble, as I tend to do, I will get right to it.

A friend is more than just a person. A friend is a bundle of shared experiences and emotions; phone calls, emails, movies, discussions in the dark, a whirl of places, laughter, tears, love, hate, and joy. A friend is someone you can call at any time of the day or night, and find a sympathetic voice on the other end of the line. A friend is someone who you can spill your heart to. Someone that can know everything about you, past and present, fears and hopes, dreams and desires, and still like you for all of your faults. A friend is someone who you know almost as well as yourself, whose wishes are as familiar to you as your own, whose past you know as well as your own. A friend is someone who will be with you through your mistakes, your stupid moments, and be able to forgive you when you come out the other side. A friend is someone who will dance in the rain with you, climb trees with you, write with you, someone who will laugh with you, share your likes and dislikes, talk with you, listen to you, and just sit with you, when there is nothing left to say, and you have spilled you hearts. Someone who likes you simply because of who you are, not because they are obligated to.

Think about it. How many people know you that will stick with you through thick and thin, through heartbreak and happiness? If the answer is none, if you can think of no one who knows you so well, perhaps you have to recategorize the people you call friends. Because a true friend is one you could—and would—trust with your life, or your most precious possession. Trust, and shared experiences, is what makes a friendship.

Goodbye.

Justice (capital "J" justice)

Hello.

Tonight, the assignment is the kind I like the least. I really don’t like answering these direct text questions, by that, I mean questions that can be looked up in the text. While they prove that someone is reading the text, there is no room for opinion or judgment of what has been said. I hope that you are reading this, Mr. Jana. To the questions…

Who are Cephalus and Polemarchus?

Chephalus is an old man who lives in the sea port of Piraeus. He speaks, in the first part of this section, about old age and how each man takes it differently. He appears to be wealthy, but not too wealthy, though he cares nothing for money.

Polemarchus is Chephalus’ son and appears to be a friend of Socrates’. As of yet, he has not spoken very much.

What is the profession of Cephalus?

Now he is an old man, and so has no real profession. His father and his grandfather both had and made money (though his father seemed to lose more than he made). He has made some of his own money, though some of it was inherited. I would guess that his family was in the merchant business.

What was Cephalus doing right before the discussion that took place?

Sacrificing something. There seems to be some kind of caravel or festival going on in devotion to some goddess.

According to Cephalus, what are the virtues of old age?

You are not plagued by desires for sex (in Cephalus’ case, though there are some me who yearn for youth, parties and physical pleasure), again in Cephalus’ case, you don’t care much about money and it is a time to right all your wrongs and contemplate what happens to someone when they die.

What are Cephalus’ view of justice?

Cephalus believes that you should be truthful and repay all of your debts, because, especially in his case, he believes that it is stupid to take money with you when you die.

What is Socrates response?

That it is not always right to be truthful (which I agree with, sometimes, I think that it is better to tell someone what they want to hear, but this only extends to small matters. In anything large, I believe one should always tell the truth) or to return things that you have borrowed, for example, if you borrowed a weapon from a man that then when mad and wanted it back, it would be best not to give it to him, or tell him the truth about his madness, say.

As to who I agree with, I say that I agree with ELEMENTS, elements only, of both arguments. I agree that nine times out of ten, you should be entirely truthful, and that tenth time, you shouldn’t tell an outright lie, but more of a half truth. Cephalus believes that you should ALWAYS be truthful, but I don’t think that. I can’s agree with Socrates either, because I believe that nine times out of ten, you should return something that has been borrowed, of course, in Socrates’ example, I wouldn’t recommend putting a weapon in the hand of a mad man, but the rest of the times, I would say that it is better to return something.

Part of the reason that I like Cephalus’ argument is that it is very different from the other arguments that we talked about in class. Those arguments were, Justice is truth and returning what you borrowed (Cephalus’), Justice is helping your friends and harming your enemies, or, there is no Justice, there is only force and the strong and what the strong make you do, the punishments that they exact to keep people from misbehaving. I have paraphrased these, so they may be a little different. In the other arguments, force is always implied, help your friends HURT your enemies. MIGHT is right. So I like Cephalus and think that his argument because it is very peaceful, though not necessarily right all the time.

More updates on Plato to come.

Goodbye.

The Allegory Cave and the Truth (with a capital "T")

Hello.

Ok, “The Allegory of the Cave” (or “The Simile of the Cave”). I’m not sure that I agree with everything being said in this piece, though I have thought about it a lot (I honestly thought of scanning in the notes I took on the page because they show A LOT of thought), but I do know that I really like the way it’s written and the actually simile of the cave, which is described in the first half of this piece.

I think that for this one, I’m going to write my own prompt. The question that I ask myself is, “Is Truth, and seeing clearly (the “light”) better for lawmakers, or should lawmakers be in the cave, with all of their subjects? IS there anyone else?”

The first thing that I want to address about this question is the last thing in this whole piece. The very last line is “There is no one else.” This line particularly bothered me, because, in my glass-is-half-full opinion, there is ALWAYS someone else. And I think there lies the main problem I have with the philosophers. They believe that they are the only ones; they are the only ones clever enough to rule. They believe that there is no position other than that of a philosopher, who looks down on the government. This is stated on page 248, line 521, part b, roughly.

I know that it says that they believe that a man who is educated is just as bad, as a lawmaker, as one that is not educated. The man who stands in the light, is blinded in the cave, and the one in the cave is blinded by the light, neither can see both, but that is what they are saying about people who rule. A good ruler would be one who can look at the light, then come back to the cave to share what he has seen.

To the question. I think that it is better to be educated then to not be. If you are “in the cave” and leading others “in the cave”, then it is the blind leading the blind. You can’t make good decisions if you don’t have an education. Of course, I am biased. I am an American in a good school, with good grades, raised by two professors, so of course that I think that being educated is the best.

But I think that part of the reason that Plato doesn’t believe that educated people can rule well is because he believes that ALL educated people can’t return to the cave and are too engrossed in their “divine’ thoughts to come back from the sun, or the fire.

So what to take away from this piece? I don’t know, honestly. I think that it’s impossible to truly stare at the sun. No one can really know the truth, so everyone is just looking at reflections. And here, I would like to reference “The Lady of Shalott”, a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. In the poem, the Lady of Shalott is locked in a tower and forced by a curse she has only heard whispers of, to look at the world only through a mirror, which is what I am trying to say here: we are all looking at the truth only through mirrors.

Ok, here’s the quote:

And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two.
She hath no loyal Knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

If you want to read the whole thing, go to this website: http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML. It really is a phenomenal poem, and I think that it is closely related to the Allegory of the Cave.

Alrighty, I’m done.

Goodbye.

The Truth

Hello.

The subject of this “blog” is supposed to be when we found something that we thought to be true, like a fact, was actually a lie, or simply false. I’ve thought about this for a long time, and there are many things that I could write for this, but I don’t want to post any of them on the Internet, as it is a public space.

I suppose that the next best example would not be a moment of realization, so much as a slow realization of something. I think the best way to put it, was that I lost my belief.

At some point, I just realized that I didn’t really believe that there was magic in the world and a lot of other things that I had believed in for so long. I was sad, not just because I didn’t believe any more, and I can’t read a book without the nagging voice in the back of my head that says that it will never happen to me, but because it was sort of like a marker that I was no longer a child any more.

That may seem stupid to some people, especially the ones that can't wait to grow up, but I have never wanted to rush to the next stage. I wanted to stay a child in fact, because there are so many things that you can do when you are young. There are so many things that you don’t have to worry about, sometimes simply because you don’t understand them.

Somehow, there is a part of us that wants to believe that there is something else than this doddering existence. Something else than this monotonous circle. That escape really mattered to me, because I couldn’t—and still can't—find the excitement in a normal life. I look at the next twenty, thirty, forty years and I think that I wont be able to stand the sameness. When you lose that escape, it really is a blow. I think we all have to get over it though, it’s a challenge that we all face at some point, that there is no escape.

So, I’ve rambled enough.

Goodbye.

Pride

Hello.

I was originally going to write one of my “pride is a monster” analogies, but I decided against it. Instead, I think that I’ll write about myself. I’ll follow the prompt, for once. I do have a tendency to stray from them.

I think that, thought I don’t consider myself to be particularly prideful, I am constantly held back from things because of how I want to appear to other people. I don’t say everything that feel, or tell all of my secrets because I am worried about what people will think of me.

Now, this sounds good, keeping to yourself. You’re never embarrassed by something that you share, you never regret saying too much. Yes, it sounds good, but it’s a heavy burden. Think, for a moment, of yourself as a ball of yarn. The more you keep to yourself, the more you have on the inside, the more tangled up you are, and the more difficult it is to sort out all of the things that you have there. Say you share this yarn, you pull it out and spread it around. You’re sort of hollow now, you have everything on the inside, on the outside, but you feel so much lighter.

So pride keeps me from that. Is that bad? I’m not sure. Pride is a hard one to sort out…

Iliad Assignment, Book Sixteen (pp. 434-441 lines 800 - end)

Hello.

Ok, so we skipped the middle section of book 16, but we did read the end in which Patroclus is killed by Hector, Apollo and another slightly unimportant warrior named Euphorbus. Before he dies, Patroclus predicts that Hector will be killed by Achilles (avenging his death) very soon. Hector disregards this and taunts Patroclus’ dead body.

I don’t really have a question for this section; I thought that it was vary clear. I do have a question about section 9, however. What was it that changed Achilles’ mind and made him stay? In the end of the book, if you remember, he was ready to leave the next day.

I think that Achilles is going to go out and avenge Patroclus and that his final prophesy will come to pass. I think that were loot and women couldn’t tempt Achilles out, Patroclus’ death will.

Goodbye.