The question has arisen as to whether I would object to commenters engaging in a dialogue in the comment section which dialogue is not directly related to the post in question. This is a fine tradition in the blogosphere, and I encourage it within reason (so arrange your wild outings with each other in a different forum, and remember that sensitive me will be hurt if y'all don't on occasion comment on the post in question).
A question has also arisen as to whether I know the commenters personally and how do I know them. My policy is to preserve the privacy of the commenters. If you want to give out any personal information about yourself, however, feel free to do so by posting a comment about yourself (once again, please use common sense; you really don't have to tell us about your twelve hour binge at the casino slots). You may if you wish let people in on how you know me (leaving out any information that would attract the attention of US Attorneys, of course).
Finally, I realize that there have been formatting malfunctions in some of the posts. As I undertake the quest for self-knowledge, I also undertake the perhaps more daunting task of becoming a blog formatting maven. Please be patient with me in both journeys.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The Nature of the Quest
In a review (see http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1210/article_detail.asp) of a book of essays by Eva Brann on Socrates' conversations and Plato's writings, Mark Blitz states that:
"Plato is less important than he was a hundred years ago. Democratic higher education, relativism, historicism, multiculturalism, laziness and love of novelty have all taken their toll. There are more significant things to consider than the irrelevant, antidemocratic, or foolishly dogmatic writings of dead Greeks.
Plato also is more important, however, because the few who do read him take him seriously philosophically, not just culturally, and seek his (and Aristotle's) moral and political guidance. He is not imbibed as part of a casual cocktail of teachings that support quasi-aristocratic habits, but instead, is examined for guidance in supporting what is worthwhile in liberalism."
The above quoted language from Blitz's review provides a caution to all of us who read, attend lectures and generally engage in what has been referred to as the life of the mind. There is (at least for me, and perhaps for others) a constant tension between study as a guidance in a quest for the truth and study to enable one to sound smart and emanate the appropriate trust cues to others at the next social gathering. One's position in life (butcher, baker, candlestick maker, bricklayer, lawyer, physician, distinguished professor of mathematical physics and Heideggerian philosophy at pseudo-elite U.) has no relation to one's ability to benefit from the Socratic dialogues if (i) one has had a reasonably good high school education in which one has developed decent information processing skills and (ii) one is willing to look relentlessly inward and outward without judgment (or fear or favor as to how one's quest will affect one's social position) in all of one's experiences. Without this relentless searching, academic study will not progress beyond providing "merely a vocabulary for communicating impressions one has deeply felt even before knowing that they were a shared and studied phenomenon" (see the comment by "Jillian" on the post The Problem of All Problems).
"Plato is less important than he was a hundred years ago. Democratic higher education, relativism, historicism, multiculturalism, laziness and love of novelty have all taken their toll. There are more significant things to consider than the irrelevant, antidemocratic, or foolishly dogmatic writings of dead Greeks.
Plato also is more important, however, because the few who do read him take him seriously philosophically, not just culturally, and seek his (and Aristotle's) moral and political guidance. He is not imbibed as part of a casual cocktail of teachings that support quasi-aristocratic habits, but instead, is examined for guidance in supporting what is worthwhile in liberalism."
The above quoted language from Blitz's review provides a caution to all of us who read, attend lectures and generally engage in what has been referred to as the life of the mind. There is (at least for me, and perhaps for others) a constant tension between study as a guidance in a quest for the truth and study to enable one to sound smart and emanate the appropriate trust cues to others at the next social gathering. One's position in life (butcher, baker, candlestick maker, bricklayer, lawyer, physician, distinguished professor of mathematical physics and Heideggerian philosophy at pseudo-elite U.) has no relation to one's ability to benefit from the Socratic dialogues if (i) one has had a reasonably good high school education in which one has developed decent information processing skills and (ii) one is willing to look relentlessly inward and outward without judgment (or fear or favor as to how one's quest will affect one's social position) in all of one's experiences. Without this relentless searching, academic study will not progress beyond providing "merely a vocabulary for communicating impressions one has deeply felt even before knowing that they were a shared and studied phenomenon" (see the comment by "Jillian" on the post The Problem of All Problems).
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