Intellectual History, Weekly Assignment 4
Start date: 9/26/2006

Tuesday, 9/26
Discuss Everlasting Man in class.

Learn how to recognize the four metaphysical causes: Material, efficient, formal, final. Learn some of the metaphysical hallmarks of modern scientific thought, and why the book title Origin of Species is typical of such thought. Discuss Chesterton’s objections to the scientific approach, as applied to myths.

Wednesday, 9/27
□ Read Republic, pp. 163-192 (Book VI).
Book VI discusses common objections to a life of philosophy. It introduces the famous figure of the Divided Line.

Notes: The Divided Line separates the familiar world of images and material objects from the invisible world of forms and ideals. But the Divided Line also relates those worlds in a specific web of analogies, such that contemplating the lower world can help us understand the higher. It also explains why it can be difficult to learn and know what is true. The figure (or analogy, or metaphor, or parable) requires you to visualize the effects of light on sight, and transfer the metaphor to the effects of truth on the mind.



At the top of page 165, instead of “his boy”, read “his beloved”. (The footnote explains why this is justified.) Socrates is using base language here. He is preparing to compare and contrast sensual love with the higher love of wisdom.

At this point Bloom literally translates a form of the Greek word “eros”, which means love or desire, with the English term “erotically”. You may read this as “lovingly”. The Greek word “philos” means “friend”, but can also be translated as “lover”. The “philosopher” is thus a friend of wisdom, and also a lover of wisdom. But the love of wisdom can also be expressed with the Greek term “eros”, with its connotation of desire instead of good-will. You have doubtless heard of the other major Greek term for love, “agape”, which plays a major role in Christian theology. The Greeks of Plato’s age did not make significant use of this term for love, and so their conventional idea of love was comprehended only by the first two terms, those for friend-love and desire-love. For more information, read C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves.



Be sure you understand (or at least wrestle with) the distinctions Socrates makes, toward the end of book 6, between things “visible” and things “intelligible”, and the various gradations thereof. This is as important to the medievals as the form/matter and substance/accident.distinctions. The distinctions Socrates lays out here have affected the conversations of intellectual history as much as those on any other single written page.



Note on page 180 how Socrates assumes, in passing, that the revolutionary philosopher will be able to “wipe clean” the “dispositions” of human beings under his control. He is confident that human nature can be re-molded “scientifically”. Such confidence has been common in modern times also, hasn’t it?



□ Read Republic, pp. 193-220 (Book VII).
Book VII introduces the famous “Myth of the Cave”. If you don’t know the Cave, you don’t know what Socrates was about.

Thought Questions: 

The book also returns to the key question of how to educate the young. The concepts of gymnastic and music return, and there is an extensive discussion of what we would today call the “hard sciences”, of mathematics, geometry, physics, etc. Try to make an outline or list of the educational steps Socrates is recommending. What might be missing, and why? What does Socrates mean by a man educated for “dialectic”? (Remember that the mere arguer, or sophist, or rhetorician, settles for “eristic” instead of “dialectic”. What does he miss out on?)

Thursday, 9/28
Discuss in class the stories of the Cave and the Divided Line. Puzzle over the distinctions of gymnastic, music, grammar, logic, rhetoric, dialectic, eristic.

Friday & Monday, 9/29 – 10/02
□ Writing Assignment: “Useful Diagrams.”
Retell briefly in your own words the stories of the Divided Line and the Cave. You must test out your retelling on a cooperative friend or family member, to make sure that it conveys your meaning. In other words, this assignment is deceptively simple: You must try to understand the two parables deeply enough to be able to describe them to others.
 Bringing a hand-drawn diagram to class would be a plus.

 Extra credit (or a degree in philosophy) if you come up with a new analogy or image for these important concepts!


□ Read Dorothy Sayers’ essay on the Trivium, “The Lost Tools of Learning” 
http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html

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This is a view of the educational process which is used at your school. What are the three parts of the Trivium? Why do they occur in their particular order? What comes after the Trivium? And how does this educational model adjust or correct the model put forth by Socrates?

□ Read Republic, pp. 221-249 (Book VIII).
Book VIII is the turning point in the grand argument, where Socrates diagnoses the ills of the city’s soul, as he prepares to complete the promised investigation into the nature of justice (righteousness) of the human soul. Even as simple political theory, the story is a compelling one, of the stages by which a city (or any state) can decline into tyranny. You will need to understand why, for Socrates, the next-to-worst kind of government (besides tyranny) is democracy. What changed, and why is democracy such an ideal form of government today? Does Socrates’ analysis suggest ways that a democracy can fail? (Hint: The American Founders thought so.)

□ Read Everlasting Man, pp. 137-150 (Ch. I.7, “The War of the Gods and Demons”)

Thought Questions on Chesterton, ch. 7: According to Chesterton (p. 140-141) why do ordinary people participate in war? Why did Rome hate Carthage? (What is Carthago delenda est?) On p. 143, a standard is given by which people with “family values”, such as the Romans, may judge their own state. What might Socrates say to this?

Chesterton Notes: The “materialism” to which Chesterton refers (p. 137) is that of Marx, who held economics to be the key to understanding human action. “Realpolitik” (p. 140) is the politics of raw power, favored by materialists everywhere. Cincinnatus (p. 144) is famous as an unwilling dictator of Rome who, once he had saved the city from invaders, returned to his farm.


□ Writing Assignment: TBD; check back later. (There is no major writing assignment. Please jot down an outline of book VIII of Republic, and communicate the results of your efforts to discuss the Divided Line with friends or family.)

Next Week:
Mr. DePangher will be writing the weekly assignment for Week 5. He will take over classroom teaching on Thursday, October 5^th.
Please refer to his teacher folder for next week’s assignment:
http://liveoakacademy.org/faculty/~sdepangher/Western%20Civ-Intellectual%20History/Week05-1002.htm