ON NOT BEING ABLE TO READ
I cannot read and listen to music. I can write while listening to music. What happens when I set out to write is that music helps me to get into the writing. But once I'm into it I can turn the music off or not.
But on a daily basis I need a certain amount of music. Music makes my life flow better. I think that I could do without television all together; except for college football - Go Blue!
Being in the Plato Flow
A week or so ago I was entirely in the Plato flow. Plato was making sense to me again. I could, I thought, discern Plato’s strategies; I could see where his arguments were headed; I was aware of his dramatic intentions. I had read Plato many times since my first encounter with him in college. But this time I was fully aware of his music; I knew what tunes he had called; I followed the chord-changes his tunes were based on.
We’re all aware that Plato had a place for almost anything one could imagine in one’s philosophy. What seems quite strange to those not in Plato’s flow is ‘his‘ stance on poetry and the arts. In 1999 the eminent Plato and Aristotle scholar Myles Burnyeat gave seminars and talks at Ohio State University. After one of Professor Burnyeat’s talks on Plato, I asked him a naive (an amateur’s) question about a remark that he made in his talk that appeared the me (amateur that I was) at odds with something of his that I had read in The London Review of Books. I can’t remember the 1999 question that I put to Professor Burnyeat, and I’ll get to his answer and how he straightened me out in a minute. But first I’ll note something that I’ve noticed in recent years about philosophy department talks by visiting philosophers. There is very little in the way of argument.
In the fabulous 1960s philosophy department talks absolutely bloody affairs - killing-fields of argumentation. Not all of the visiting philosopher-firemen were taken in by the young Edmund Gettier’s and Robert Sleigh’s and the more senior Richard Cartwright’s and Hector Castaneda’s counterexamples and 'helpful' explications - "Professor Geach you can't really be about asserting that anyone throughout the history of mankind worshiped the same God - you can't mean that can you?'' Geach might have replied, "Thank you Dr. Gettier. I'll make a note of that". While this exchange is going on, Professor Geach's wife, the eminent philosopher, G. E. M. Anscombe is sitting there smoking a cigar. Some like A. J. Ayer just turned up their noses, as Jelly Roll Morton might have done, suggesting that his interlocutor was rather like foul-air, something that needed to be let out. Other visiting philosophers were utterly destroyed on these cutting-session occasions.
As I alluded to above a typical scene goes like this. A philosopher reads a paper. An interlocutor might express discomfort with the presenting philosopher’s view, remarking something in the way of, “I’m worried by your view that Xs are really Ys, that propositions are really ordered pairs” or some such thing. Then the presenter says, “Oh?” and the department chairman says “Drinks will be served”, and everyone in the room thinks, “Cool”.
Professor Burnyeat gave his talk on Plato and I, an utter amateur, was the only one who asked him a question! One of the department members said to me, “I thought you were going in another direction with your question.” He perhaps should have entered the conversation that I was having with Professor Burnyeat.
I cannot read and listen to music. I can write while listening to music. What happens when I set out to write is that music helps me to get into the writing. But once I'm into it I can turn the music off or not.
But on a daily basis I need a certain amount of music. Music makes my life flow better. I think that I could do without television all together; except for college football - Go Blue!
Being in the Plato Flow
A week or so ago I was entirely in the Plato flow. Plato was making sense to me again. I could, I thought, discern Plato’s strategies; I could see where his arguments were headed; I was aware of his dramatic intentions. I had read Plato many times since my first encounter with him in college. But this time I was fully aware of his music; I knew what tunes he had called; I followed the chord-changes his tunes were based on.
We’re all aware that Plato had a place for almost anything one could imagine in one’s philosophy. What seems quite strange to those not in Plato’s flow is ‘his‘ stance on poetry and the arts. In 1999 the eminent Plato and Aristotle scholar Myles Burnyeat gave seminars and talks at Ohio State University. After one of Professor Burnyeat’s talks on Plato, I asked him a naive (an amateur’s) question about a remark that he made in his talk that appeared the me (amateur that I was) at odds with something of his that I had read in The London Review of Books. I can’t remember the 1999 question that I put to Professor Burnyeat, and I’ll get to his answer and how he straightened me out in a minute. But first I’ll note something that I’ve noticed in recent years about philosophy department talks by visiting philosophers. There is very little in the way of argument.
In the fabulous 1960s philosophy department talks absolutely bloody affairs - killing-fields of argumentation. Not all of the visiting philosopher-firemen were taken in by the young Edmund Gettier’s and Robert Sleigh’s and the more senior Richard Cartwright’s and Hector Castaneda’s counterexamples and 'helpful' explications - "Professor Geach you can't really be about asserting that anyone throughout the history of mankind worshiped the same God - you can't mean that can you?'' Geach might have replied, "Thank you Dr. Gettier. I'll make a note of that". While this exchange is going on, Professor Geach's wife, the eminent philosopher, G. E. M. Anscombe is sitting there smoking a cigar. Some like A. J. Ayer just turned up their noses, as Jelly Roll Morton might have done, suggesting that his interlocutor was rather like foul-air, something that needed to be let out. Other visiting philosophers were utterly destroyed on these cutting-session occasions.
As I alluded to above a typical scene goes like this. A philosopher reads a paper. An interlocutor might express discomfort with the presenting philosopher’s view, remarking something in the way of, “I’m worried by your view that Xs are really Ys, that propositions are really ordered pairs” or some such thing. Then the presenter says, “Oh?” and the department chairman says “Drinks will be served”, and everyone in the room thinks, “Cool”.
Professor Burnyeat gave his talk on Plato and I, an utter amateur, was the only one who asked him a question! One of the department members said to me, “I thought you were going in another direction with your question.” He perhaps should have entered the conversation that I was having with Professor Burnyeat.
Professor Burnyeat replied to my question (whatever it was), as best that I can remember, as follows. During Plato’s time (429 - 347 BCE) the Rupert Murdocks - news media moguls - were the poets, the Homers, the dramatists. What worried Plato according to Burnyeat was the early exposure of the young to the news and propaganda of the day and of the past. We have the same problem today with television, movies, and the internet. So Plato was in favor of censorship of the ‘news’ as transmitted by the poets. Being naive about this aspect of Plato’s views, I hadn’t thought about censorship very much; except to think that it was strange of Plato to propose censorship in any case. It’s Plato’s strangeness, dramatic power, illumination of both sides of an issue, and his powerful arguments for and against an issue that draws me to him.
Today it's not only the young who should be spared the lies and propaganda of Fox News and others but our so-called adult news gathers too. I've suggested where to find the news in these pages previously.
Today it's not only the young who should be spared the lies and propaganda of Fox News and others but our so-called adult news gathers too. I've suggested where to find the news in these pages previously.
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