Intellectual History, Weekly Assignment 2
Start date: 9/12/2006

(Note: Please look again at the previous week’s assignment, because I have added further notes on the first chapters of Republic.)

Tuesday, 9/12
Discuss Republic in class.

Wednesday, 9/13
□ Read the Acts chapter 17, focusing on Paul’s encounter with the philosophers at Mars Hill (the Areopagus). (I’m cherry-picking here. We’ll go back and read the whole of Acts later.)

Thought Questions: Try to understand the character of the Greek philosophers of that day. It is several centuries later than Socrates and Plato, and the term “philosopher”, coined by Socrates, has become a cultural fixture. How does Paul communicate with these men? What do you think Socrates might add to the mix, if he could be present?

□ Read Republic, pp. 63-96 (Book III).

Word Notes: We get a glimpse into an ancient educational system: “gymnastic and music.” Note how music includes educational and inspirational tales, as well as more vain forms of entertainment. Alan Bloom uses the neutral word “tale” to translate the Gk. Word “myth,” which in common English use has come to mean “a silly falsehood.”

The three groups of musical modes they mention correspond roughly to modern musical modes. The first group (“wailing”) is something like the blues. The second (“slack”) corresponds to major chords, as found in classical music and softer rock. The last (“Dorian”) corresponds to minor chords, and may be found in less cheerful, more intense types of music, such as hard rock. This is the kind of music to which both ancient and modern soldiers often go to war.

The name “Zeus” basically means “God” (compare Latin “Deus”). When Socrates names other individual gods, he is usually condemning tales about them. When inquiring about the relations between man, justice, and divinity, he generally uses the to “the gods” or “the god.” We will be reading about the “Unknown God” Paul speaks of on Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17; this is an equivalent of Socrates’ generic god. Socrates notes in passing (p. 60) that the tales of divine behavior are hopeful falsehoods because “we don’t know where the truth about ancient things lies.” This knowledge is the limit of speculation, unaided by divine revelation.

□ Writing Assignment: “Platonic Proverbs”
Read and ponder each of the following quotations from our earlier reading in Republic. Carefully rephrase four of them in your own words, but preserving the meaning of the person who uttered them. If you disagree with this meaning, try to rewrite the proverb a second time so that you agree with it. (A word to the wise: You are likely to encounter these quotations again, later in the term, on a test.) Note: Unattributed quotations are all from Socrates (who talks the most).

Money-makers are willing to praise nothing but wealth. (p. 6)
Cephalus: The one who has done unjust deeds here must pay the penalty there. (p. 6)
Polemarchus: It is just to give to each what is owed. (p. 7)
Of whatever a man is a clever guardian, he is also a clever thief. (p. 10)
Polemarchus: Justice is helping friends and harming enemies. (p. 11)
Thrasymachus: The just is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger. (p. 15)
Thrasymachus: The ruler, insofar as he is a ruler, does not make mistakes. (p. 18)
The greatest of penalties is being ruled by a worse man if one is not willing to rule oneself. (p. 25)
The unjust can’t accomplish anything with each other. (p.31)
So long as I do not know what the just is, I shall hardly know whether it is a virtue. (p. 34)


Important Note About Online Procedure: When you carry out writing assignments like this, post your results in the online classroom for everyone to see. The first person to post must open a new topic, in this case titled “Platonic Proverbs Writing Assignment”. The first posting should be a simple cut-and-paste of the preceding text, starting (in this case) “Read and ponder” and including all of the quotations. Then, each student (including the first) should reply to the thread, posting your answers. You are also encouraged to comment on each others’ postings, at all times. Try to cover all the quotations evenly, as a group. (Don’t rehash a quotation if two or three people have already covered it.) There is not a hard deadline for such writing assignments, but you should not get too far behind, for obvious reasons. If you have not posted your work by Monday night, your participation grade may suffer.

□ Also read Everlasting Man, pp. 40-55 (Ch. I.2, “Professors and Prehistoric Men”).

Word Note: Chesterton’s class of “professors” includes evolutionists like H.G. Wells and Herbert Spencer.

Thursday, 9/14
Discuss Republic books II and III in class.

Friday & Monday, 9/15 – 9/18
□ Read Everlasting Man, pp. 56-100 (Ch. 3 “The Antiquity of Civilization” and 4 “God and Comparative Religion”)

Word Note: “Civilization” is, strictly speaking, the creation and maintenance of the city (Latin “civitas”). But it more broadly means human culture, beyond mere subsistence. Much of Republic examines the logical relationships between the life of a city and the cultured life of its inhabitants. (How does Socrates tell the story of the “primitive city” and its first evolution? Would Socrates side with the professors or with Chesterton on the origin of the city?)

Thought Questions: Compare the attitudes of Socrates and his friends towards gods and myths with what Chesterton reports in his argument in Chapter 1. Is Socrates is “feeling after” or “reaching out for” some sort of monotheism, in Paul’s sense of Acts 17:27? If not what is his theology? If so, where would he have gotten the idea of monotheism?

□ Writing Assignment: “Glaucon’s Worries”
Read and ponder each of the following quotations, as last week. Carefully rephrase six of them in your own words, but preserving the meaning of the person who uttered them. In several cases, the quotation is only meaningful in context: Be sure you understand the context, and make the rephrased version more self-explanatory. If you disagree with the meaning, try to rewrite the proverb a second time so that you agree with it. Post your responses, as always.

Glaucon: The bad in suffering injustice far exceeds the good in doing it. (p. 36)
Glaucon: The extreme of injustice is to seem to be just when one is not. (p. 38)
Adeimantus: Why should we care at all about getting away? (p. 42)
Adeimantus: Except for someone who from a divine nature cannot stand doing injustice ... no one else is willingly just. (p. 43)
Adeimantus: Show what each in itself does to the man who has it. (p. 44)
Adeimantus: One man, one art. (p. 47)
Gymnastic for the body and music for the soul. (p. 54)
They mustn’t be spoken in our city. (p. 55)
The good is not the cause of everything. (p. 57)
Everyone hates a lie in that place. (p. 60)
The god is altogether simple and true in deed and speech. (p. 61)
It’s impossible for evil to be produced by gods. (p. 69)
Imitations, if they are practiced continually from youth onwards, become established as habits. (p. 74)
There is no such man among us in the city, nor [may he] be born here. (p. 76)
We’ll compel the foot and the tune to follow the speech. (p. 78)
They’ll lead their whole lives far more afraid of the enemies within than those without. (p. 96)