Nashville Great Books Reading Schedule for 2016

Nashville Great Books Reading Schedule for 2016

January 5  – William James: Habit
January 12-  Gogol: The Overcoat
January 19 – Aristotle: On Happiness
January 26 – John Dewey: Habits and Will
February 2 – Mary Lavin: Happiness
February 9 – Plato: Crito
February 16 – J.S. Mill: On Liberty
February 23 – Kant: On Conscience
March 1 – Kafka: A Hunger Artist
March 8 – Locke: Of the Limits of Government
March 15 – Sophocles: Antigone
March 22 – Tocqueville: Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare
March 29 – Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own
April 5 – Delmore Schwartz: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
April 12 – Chekhov: Rothschild’s Fiddle
April 19 – Aristotle: On Happiness
April 26 – Plato: The Apology
May 3 – Plato: The Apology
May 10 – Conrad: Heart of Darkness (1)
May 17 -  Conrad: Heart of Darkness (2)
May 24 – Conrad: Heart of Darkness (3)
May 31 – Kant: Conscience
June 7 – Marx: Alienated Labor
June 14 - The Old Testament: Genesis (1)
June 21 - The Old Testament: Genesis (2)
June 28 – The Old Testament: Genesis (3)
July 5 – The Old Testament: Genesis (4)
July 12 – The Old Testament: Genesis (5)
July 19 – Freud: Civilization and its Discontents (1)
July 26 – Freud: Civilization and its Discontents (2)
August 2 – Rousseau: the Social Contract (1)
August 9 – Rousseau: the Social Contract (2)
August 16 – Darwin: The Moral Sense of Man (1)
August 23 – Darwin: The Moral Sense of Man (2)
August 30 – Shakespeare; Othello (Act 1)
September 5 - Shakespeare: Othello (Act 2)

September 6 - Shakespeare: Othello (Act 2)
September 13 – Shakespeare: Othello (Act 3)
September 20 – Shakespeare: Othello (Act 4)
September 27 – Shakespeare: Othello (Act 5)
October 4 – Hume: Justice (Natural or Artificial)
October 11 – Hume: Of Justice (Nature and Wealth)
October 18 – Tocqueville: Democracy in America (Public Opinion)
October 25 _ Tocqueville: Democracy in America (Law and Aristocracy)
November 1 – Simmel: Individual Freedom (Economic Freedom)
November 8 – Simmel: Individual Freedom (The Psychology of Freedom)
November 15 – Sophocles: Antigone (Freedom or Fate)
November 22 – Sophocles: Antigone (Creon and the Preacher
November 29 – Plato: Crito
December 6 – Plato: Meno – What is Virtue?
December 13 – Plato: Meno – Knowledge and Virtue

Schedule of Readings

Schedule of readings — Plato, Republic

Date                 Pages          Note

10 Dec 2015   367e-383c    End of book 2

17 Dec 2015   386a-398b

24 Dec 2015   (no meeting)

31 Dec 2015    398c-412b

7  Jan 2016     412c-427c

14 Jan 2016    427d-434c

21 Jan 2016    (no meeting)    

28 Jan 2016    434d-445e  End of Book 4

4 Feb 2016     449a-457c

11 Feb 2016   457c-471b

18 Feb 2016   471c-480a  End of Book 5

Book 2 - Additional notes

The participants in a dialogue obey certain rules which govern their association. They seek common agreement rather than victory. The art of dialectic imposes a kind of justice on those who practice it. Whereas rhetoric, (the art of making long speeches-Thrasymachus) without being questioned, is adapted to self-aggrandizement.

Dialectic: consistent with self-abnegation or giving something up

Rhetoric: prudence, slow to change

Socrates method: irony.

Thrasymachus - the point of view of Thrasy. is analogous to the city.
The interest of the stronger = those who hold power in the city. The sovereign. Thus, justice = whatever the sovereign says it is. Justice is the byproduct of law.

The origination myth: used to justify the founding or establishment of a society. (mythos)

368e - Is the justice of one man equal (or the same) as the justice of a city? in nature, yes.

369b - a city comes into being because each of us is lacking something; as individuals, we are not Self-Sufficent. i.e. we depend on one another.

369d - the hierarchy of needs:
food
housing
clothing - a city based on necessity, with few members.

Book 2 of the Republic

Glaucon -

1. Is there a type of good that we desire for its own sake, not for its consequences?  (357b)

2. Is there a kind of good that we like both for its own sake and for its consequences? (357c)

3. Is there a third kind of good, solely for the consequences, which includes gymnastic exercise, medical treatment and the rest of activities from which money is made? (357c)

358a - Socrates believes justice is a good both for its own sake and its consequences.

358e - What justice is and where it comes from.
For those unable to escape injustice and choose the other.

Doing injustice is good, but suffering injustice is even worse. So, to escape the worse, they set down a compact "neither to do injustice, nor suffer it."

All law proceeds from this compact, and this is the genesis of justice-- a mean between the best and the worst.

359b - Any man who is able to do injustice and escape the consequences would do so.
Even those who practice justice, do so unwillingly.

360c - No man is willingly just .  (Kant would say no.) Morality requires intention. We choose to be good. It's not an accident.

360e - the strategy that Glaucon proposes for the unjust man to pretend to be just and get away with it only works as long as his crimes remain undiscovered. Lying is a successful strategy only as long as your lies are believed. The loss of reputation (i.e., no one trusts you) renders this tactic useless as a means of hiding the truth. It also presupposes that the gods can be deceived, or that God is evil, or that no god exists.

361b - Maybe the question of who is happier: the just man or the unjust man-- is the wrong question. Is justice good for its own sake? How do we measure or identify what is good?

362c - Do the gods care for justice? If so, can mortal man deceive the gods?

362e - Adeimantus (brother of Glaucon) "if cities tell us anything, it is by their laws. (Bloom, 448)

364 - perversion of the gods by human beings.

365b - There is no advantage in my being just.

365c - The seeming overpowers even the truth and is the master of happiness.

366a - If we are just, we won't be punished by the gods. But if we are unjust, we shall gain and get off unpunished by persuading the gods with prayers.

366c - Except for someone, who from a divine nature cannot stand doing injustice, or who has gained knowledge and keeps away from injustice.

How do we determine what is the common good?
Is there a good which is common to all men?
Is the common good in harmony with justice?

Notes on the Republic

Just for the record, we are using the Bloom translation.

Book 1

Socrates goes down to the Piraeus with Glaucon, son of Ariston.

On their way back, Polymarchus, son of Cephalus, detains them. Polymarchus is accompanied by  Adaeimantus, Glaucon's brother, and Niceratus, son of Nicias.

"Either prove stronger than these men, or stay here."  (Polymarchus)
This statement, which comes prior to any philosophical discussion, establishes the principle that force or power alone precedes rational discourse. In any contest of will, force or strength will always dominate over mere speech. This threat of power always hovers in the background of the discussion which will occur when Socrates (or any philosopher) speaks.

"Isn't there one other possibility, our persuading you that you must let us go?"
"Could you really persuade," he said, "if we don't listen?" ...
"It seems we must stay." (Glaucon)

Philosophy, which aspires to the truth of things, cannot compel anyone to listen. Before philosophy can do its work, i.e. instruct someone as to the truth of nature, the listener must be willing to be instructed. Thus, rhetoric, the art of persuasion, has an advantage over reason. Reason alone will not be sufficient to change anyone's mind if they are unwilling (or unable) to think clearly.

"Well, if it is so resolved, that's how we must act." (Socrates)

In the political arena, things "resolved" are done so through a sovereign authority.

All of the members of this group now go to the home of Polymarchus. The following people are gathered there: Lysias, Euthydemus, brothers to Polymarchus, Adaeimantus, Thrasymachus, Charmantides, Cleitophon and Cephalus.

Cephalus tells Socrates how old age seems to him. Some old folks lament the lost pleasures of youth: sex, drinking, etc. Other people, for example Sophocles, are satisfied without the frenzy of lust. In other words, old age brings peace and freedom from striving.

"But of these things, and of those that concern relatives, there is one just cause: not old age, Socrates, but the character of the human beings."  Most people (the "hoi polloi"), "the many" are dominated by opinions about money.

331b - The implication here is that a rich man is less likely to lie or cheat than a poor man. Thus, we might say, wealth is very useful to an intelligent man.

331c - Is justice the Truth and giving back what a man has taken from another (repayment of debt).

331d - Polymarchus (son of Cephalus) interrupts.

331e - Simonides: justice is giving to each what is owed.

332c - "To give to everyone what is fitting, and to this he gave the name "what is owed." Thus, we move from a position where justice is giving to each what is owed, to now claiming that justice is giving what is fitting. Now we have a new problem: how to determine what is "fitting"?

332d - Justice is giving benefits to one's friends and giving harm to one's enemies, as in war.

Is it possible to identify a just man before you have defined what justice is? (332e)

333a - To men who are not sick, a doctor is useless.  Yet justice is also useful in peacetime.

A just man is a better partner in money matters.

Must political reality correspond with philosophical truth?

Because something is not always the right thing to do, does that imply that it is foolish or wrong?

Is it necessary, or even possible, to define justice in such a way that the definition applies to every possible situation or circumstance? For example, justice = paying one's debts or giving back what is owed.

335 - Is it the part of a just man to harm any human being?

335d - To "harm" the unjust is itself an act of justice. "Nor is harming, in fact, the work of the good but of its opposite."

338c - "Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger."  justice in theory versus justice in practice.  Is obeying the law just? Are there unjust laws? If so, what is the standard by which we judge these laws?

348e - Injustice is profitable; what is profitable is good; therefore, injustice is good.
Justice is "high-minded" innocence.

349c - the unjust man will try to get the better of everyone. "The just man does not get the better of what is like (just) but of what is unlike (unjust).

349d - the unjust man is prudent and good. the just man is neither.
the unjust man is "like the prudent and good" while the just man is not like them.

One man is musical, another man isn't. The musical man is prudent; the unmusical man isn't (i.e., he is thoughtless).  In things in which he is prudent, he is good.  In things in which he is thoughtless, he is bad. As with music, so with medicine.

350a - A musical man tuning a lyre does not try to get the better of another musical man tuning his instrument but only of the unmusical man. Likewise with a medical man. He tries to "get the better" only of the unmedical man.

For every kind of knowledge, a man chooses to say or do more than another man, and not merely the same as himself

What about the ignorant man? Would he not get the better of BOTH the man who knows and the man who does not?

The man who knows is wise? yes.
And the wise man is good? yes.

The man who is good (just) and wise will not want to get the better of the like (man like himself), but of the unlike (man different from himself).  But the bad and unlearned will want to get the better of both the like and the opposite.  Yes. The unjust man will get the better of both like and unlike, whereas the just man will not get the better of the like, but only the unlike.

351a - "Surely it was said that injustice is more powerful and mightier than jnstice."

351d - "As injustice that produces factions, hatreds, and quarrels.
and justice that produces unanimity and friendship."

Really?  What about honest disagreements on what is the right thing to do?

352a - Wherever justice comes into being...it makes that thing unable to accomplish anything.  i.e. injustice = disharmony.

What about justice opposing evil or anarchy? Justice, by opposing injustice, naturally alligns itself with ideas or people who agree on what is good; while separating itself from that which appears in a different light. This is how orthodoxy is born. "You are either with us or against us."

By this reasoning then, everything that opposes orthodoxy must be heresy. It cannot be true that only injustice creates disharmony. Disharmony is the necessary condition of a world divided in its opinions. Of course, Lincoln said "a house divided against itself cannot stand" (Mark 3:25) But he was speaking about fundamental beliefs, not every little opinion under the sun.

352b - the gods are just, but they are not always in harmony. Therefore, it is possible to have justice and disharmony.

352d - the argument is not about just any question, but about the way one should live. Every thing has its intended use. Eyes to see. Ears to hear. The "work" of something is what it alone can best do, i.e., its "virtue."

353c - Each thing has its proper virtue -- its intended use or "work".

353d - the work of a soul is its intended use.

a soul cannot accomplish its work (its intended use) if deprived of its virtue.

353e - a bad soul manages badly, while a good soul does well. justice is virtue of soul. Therefore, a just man (or a just soul) will have a good life (happiness) and a unjust man a wretched life.\

354g - It is not profitable to be wretched. Therefore injustice is never more profitable than justice.

386 - The statements and passages in Homer that showed gods and heroes lamenting their fate or suffering will be hidden from our guardians. Suffering makes us human. But guardians need to be strong and fearless. So we will withhold the truth and change what Homer has written. (the use of poetry as propaganda)

An Experiment in Dialogue

This initial post is intended to verify that the blog site is working properly.  The purpose of this blog is limited in both design and scope. It serves as a temporary platform for continuing a dialogue on The Republic.  I will, from time to time, post random thoughts related to our ongoing reading of The Republic, along with any tangential musings on how this philosophical work remains relevant to our time.

Right now, I am leaving the blog open, which allows anyone to leave comments. This open platform, of course, will be perceived by some knuckleheads as an invitation for leaving pithy remarks appropos of nothing, i.e., random bits of vitriol. I will monitor the blog and delete all entries that are off topic or abusive. Otherwise, this blog will proceed as an experiment in open dialogue. The primary topic is, of course, Plato's Republic. That is its primary purpose. I don't really care if other people visit the site or not. It functions as a kind of online notepad for me (or others) to leave comments/reflections on Plato's Republic. That is its only purpose.

We'll see how it goes.