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Philosophy Reading Module, Part Two

Different Patterns for Different Needs Philosophy writers arrange main ideas or supporting details and arguments in various organizing patterns. These patterns are various arrangements of ideas, easy to follow as new ideas clearly differ from previous ideas, or as they confirm or fall into line with previous ideas. Patterns help the student feel what historian Jacques Barzun calls “the logic of events.” In philosophy, the logic of events helps us trace how ideas have real effects and are important in history. (See Cause and Effect, below.) For example, Greek thinkers before Socrates were only starting to divide ideas about the world into categories: religion or theology, science, and philosophy all grew together. These categories stayed almost interchangeable, until people wanted more precise explanations of life, and of natural phenomena. Walter Kaufmann writes,

Whereas the previous great cultures of the Mediterranean had used mythological stories of the gods to explain the operations of the world and the self, some of the Greeks began to discover new ways of explaining things. Instead of reading their ideas into, or out of, ancient scriptures or poems, they began to use reason, contemplation, and sensory observation to make sense of reality.

Today, the gap separating religion and science is so wide, and to many so disturbing, that people feel the need for philosophy to somehow close the rift. In A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell says philosophy is a place to turn to when science and religion fail to give us clear knowledge, or leave us asking questions without answer. Writes Russell,

All definite knowledge—so I should contend—belongs to science; all dogma [established belief] as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology [religious learning]. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man’s Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative [inquiring] minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries.

That is, theology asks us to trust that the universe has a maker, or at least a clear arrangement, perhaps with some ultimate purpose not quite understood. We accept the statements of theologians on faith. Science asks us to trust the evidence of our senses, or of measurable data, and to accept the work of scientists with special training in reading and interpreting the data. Nothing is trusted until proven. But where theology and science both leave much of the world unexplained, philosophy tries to help, supplying reason and contemplation. However much these disciplines reunite and mingle, the separation of disciplines, puzzling to the people who lived through the split, is part of the logic of events.

“[S]ome of the Greeks began to

discover new ways of explaining

things…[using] reason, contempla-

tion, and sensory observation to

make sense of reality.”

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If philosophy is to explain such puzzling aspects of life and the world, it needs two special patterns: time order, plus cause and effect. Time Order (Chronology) This pattern occurs when the historian of ideas stands back from judging events and simply lets them unfold. If we want to know how a philosophical idea developed, we keep an eye on time. Maybe the idea worked its way from small beginnings in ancient Persia to Egypt to Greece. For these connections to occur, time had to pass. (We’ll find out later that movement from place to place is important, too.) Also, when we wish to learn of events in a philosopher’s life, we look for time order. Sometimes called chronology (after Chronos, the Greek god of time), this pattern lets the writer arrange the details as a set of events, from earliest to latest. Let’s look at an example of time order. Simple incidents can be arranged by time. In Plato’s Phaedo, the title character is talking with a friend, describing his experience of Socrates’ last day, the day Socrates drank the hemlock:

I will try to relate the whole story to you from the beginning. On the previous days I and the others had always met in the morning at the court where there trial was held, which was close to the prison; and then we had gone in to Socrates. We used to wait each morning until the prison was opened, conversing, for it was not opened early. When it was opened we used to go in to Socrates, and we generally spent the whole day with him. But on that morning we met earlier than usual; for the evening before we had learned, on leaving the prison, that the ship had arrived from Delos. [By long tradition, a sacred ship was sent regularly to Delos, a city allied to Athens; no execution could be carried out until the ship’s return.+ So we arranged to be at the usual place as early as possible.

Bold lettering marks the signal words which alert the reader that a pattern of time is being followed. The pattern alternates events actually happening that fateful morning with events (waiting, meeting) that would routinely happen other visiting days. People often experience life without thinking of exact time periods. But the historian of ideas uses chronology, splitting events into blocks or chunks of time for convenient reading or thinking. Here, I.F. Stone clarifies the viewpoint of Socrates on free speech by establishing its place in history, defining (over several eras) the “attitude of Greek philosophers toward freedom of speech”: This can be divided into three periods. In the first, the era of the pre-Socratics,

the philosophers so took their extraordinary freedom for granted that they did not bother to analyze it, much less defend it.

This is remarkable because these earlier philosophers were the first freethinkers.

They shook the foundations of religion, modern as well as ancient, and their bold

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insights laid the foundations of philosophy for twenty-five hundred years to come. Yet their freedom of thought was not restricted.

In the second period, which we may call the Socratic and Platonic, the

philosophers enjoyed their own freedom of speech, but would have denied it to others. Socrates in particular seems to have taken his freedom of speech for granted—it was his by virtue of his superiority, albeit masked by his “irony.”

In the third period, with the extinction of political freedom under Macedon

and, later, Rome, the ancient philosophers tended to retire into their private worlds, indifferent to political events, like the withdrawn and hence ever-blissful gods of Epicurus and Lucretius.

Besides providing parallel (similar) sentence structures (in bold) to move easily through time, Stone has deliberately shortened the paragraphs. He may realize that the topic sentences, along with their signal phrases, will slip easily into a timeline, helping the reader with visuals: All this is good, as long as the reader realizes that some of the nuances, the fine points, are lost in a timeline, which has only enough space for the major details. Timelines are great for quick reviews before quizzes and tests (multiple-choice tests especially); but, if tested, the reader would still need to know exactly how Stone makes his points, then paraphrase in more detail.

A chronological paragraph, or a series of them like Stone’s, can be made of many sentences, with room for transition words (here, time signals), handholds a reader can cling to.

*** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.

Changes in Greek Ideas of Free Speech

First (pre-Socratic) era: philosophers enjoy free speech, take it for granted

Second (Socratic and Platonic) era: philosophers enjoy free speech, but want it restricted for others

Third (Macedonian-Roman) era: political freedom extinct; philosophers now “go underground”

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Cause and Effect

Cause and effect is a pattern tremendously important for philosophers. As one idea or detail leads to another idea or detail, something works on something else, producing a result. An argument convinces us, changing our minds; that is a cause, bringing about an effect. An argument not only convinces us but persuades us, sending our now changed minds along with our bodies into action: again, we have cause and effect, or reason and result. If a writer gathers and displays enough details, these details become evidence, which supports a main idea or a conclusion. These are causes leading to effects. But the action can work in reverse. We may start with a known effect or result: men have landed on the moon. But if we have forgotten our history, we may need to find an explanation or cause. Why did men land on the moon? How did they land on the moon? The answer to either question will be a cause. The cause-and-effect pattern comes in several variations. This is because in real life, unlikely causes, often in combination, produce unexpected effects. First, one cause can bring about several different effects, all at the same time: E C E E Second, one cause can lead to one effect, which in turn becomes a cause of another effect, and this next effect becomes the cause of still another effect. We call this a chain reaction: C C C C E (E) (E) (E) Third, several causes, all working at the same time, can combine to create one single effect: C C E C However, in philosophy, as in history, chance and surprise will sometimes come between a cause and an effect, reshaping the effect as it happens. In other words, many possible effects can come from a particular cause, as choices are made or rejected, or people

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act on impulse. Effects, even the impact of old ideas on new ideas, are often uncertain. Jacques Barzun says this uncertainty is part of “the logic of events,” explaining that

Logic and rationality do not mean reasonableness. Human acts often spring from mad, wild impulses; but the later observer can rationally see how ambition, greed, ignorance, hope, habit, idealism, practicality and unpracticality interact to produce the results that we know occurred. This is what is meant by the logic of events.

As we can see from the record of his trial, Socrates was far too experienced and thoughtful not to understand what Barzun is talking about. Yet, feeling certain that the jury would vote overwhelmingly to condemn him, Socrates learned to his surprise that many votes swung in his favor. Stone, already knowing the effect (a very close vote for conviction) is curious to know why Socrates was surprised by the outcome (what caused the surprise?). Stone’s curiosity also seems related to a more fundamental question: why did the Athenian jury, a democratic assembly devoted to free speech, decide to condemn Socrates—essentially for exercising his right of free speech? But let’s hear from Stone: Why was Socrates so surprised by the close vote for conviction? The question is

not answered in Plato’s Apology. If we turn to Xenophon’s Apology we get a clue. Xenophon says Socrates wanted to be convicted and did his best to antagonize the jury. Unfortunately the testimony of Xenophon’s Apology is often obscured by a mistranslated word. [This Greek] word is megalegoria, which appears three times in the opening paragraph. Confusion is compounded because for reasons of stylistic grace and euphony translators tend to render the word differently each time.

When we search for pattern, perhaps asking if cause or effect are present, we often look for signal words to guide us: a formula or structure guides us to the thought, before it can get away. Here, Stone gives us very few signals, because we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Why was Socrates surprised? Xenophon gives us a clue (though the clue is often mistranslated). The result is in, but we’re not yet sure the reason is right. Most of the time, writers will lead us directly from cause and effect, or from effect to cause. Here is Socrates, as recreated by Plato, doing exactly that. He is explaining, in the Apology, how his cross-examination of many people (reason) has landed him, at times, in trouble (result). He details why he is so intent on his quest for genuine human wisdom (result), provoked at first by the oracle’s proclaiming him the wisest of men (reason): From this examination, Athenians, has arisen much fierce and bitter indignation,

and as a result a great many prejudices about me. People say that I am “a wise man.” For the bystanders always think that I am wise myself in any matter wherein I refute another. But, gentlemen, I believe that the god is really wise, and that by this oracle he meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing. I do not think he meant that Socrates was wise. He only made use of my name, and took me as an example, as

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though he would say to men, “He among you is the wisest who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is really worth nothing at all.” Therefore I still go about testing and examining every man whom I think wise, whether he be a citizen or a stranger, as the god has commanded me. Whenever I find that he is not wise, I point out to him, on the god’s behalf, that he is not wise. I am so busy in this pursuit that I have never had leisure to take any part worth mentioning in public matters or to look after my private affairs. I am in great poverty as the result of my service to the god.

As we’ve seen, a sense of cause and effect can be conveyed to the reader without the

usual signal words. The writer may not nail down a known set of causes or reasons leading to clear results, simply because good reasons, or results, or both, are lacking. The writer is often left asking questions, urgent questions, about unknown causes or effects.

These questions about cause are especially the case when “cause” means motivation,

when the writer is perplexed by the endless varieties of good and bad faith that drive people. Here. I.F. Stone wants to know why the great Socrates did not speak up when his political friends advocated—then brutally carried out—the destruction of the city of Melos:

That was in 416 B.C. Socrates was then about fifty-three, a leading character of

[Athens], surrounded by admiring disciples from all over Greece. Did Socrates think this was justice? Did he think it virtuous to destroy a city that had already surrendered? Did he think it wise policy? Surely on so traumatic an occasion the city had a right to ask Socrates to join the debate. Where was the self-appointed gadfly? There is no mention of the Melian massacre either in Xenophon or in Plato [our two main sources of knowledge about Socrates]. The silence is all the stranger because it was so obviously a black mark against the democracy the Socratics despised. Or perhaps they, too, thought the massacre justified for reasons of Realpolitik. Philosophers have often been no more immune than the common man to the nationalistic passions aroused by war.

Looking for one sure reason and finding only more questions unanswered, Mr. Stone is

pointing out a problem that troubles historians and philosophers: how sure can we be that a cause leads directly to an effect? The scientist Isaac Newton’s first law tells us, for example, that if an object is struck in a direction, it will keep on moving that way unless another force acts to slow it or stop it. This is a proven scientific law of cause and effect.

But history and philosophy don’t behave like science. The historian of philosophical or

religious ideas knows that Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses (arguments against abuses in the Catholic Church) on the door of Wittenburg Cathedral in 1517. But this provocative gesture didn’t have to start the Protestant Reformation; other people’s responses, in thinking or feeling or habit, impossible to calculate perfectly, influenced the outcome. For example, Henry the Eighth’s act separating the English Church from the Catholic Church had very little to do with Luther’s rebellion, and everything to do with his own marital desires.

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Likewise, we can’t be completely sure that an idea, let’s say, of the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza led to a later idea in the work of the German thinker Immanuel Kant. We may find Spinoza’s book on Kant’s shelf, and point to certain words shared by Baruch and Immanuel; but many other factors come into play, changing or distorting the transmission of ideas. We’ve read historian Jacques Barzun’s words on “the logic of events.” Barzun adds, “The historian does not isolate causes, which defy sorting out even in the natural world; he describes conditions that he judges relevant, adding occasionally an estimate of their relative strength.” What does this mean for us, especially when we have papers to write on causal relationships? Sometimes, we can only state, as clearly as possible, that an event in world history, or an event in the history of ideas, took an unexpected jump—we then record the jump and explain why it was significant, and perhaps why it was so unexpected. We may also have to say, from time to time, that it’s unclear how a desire, need, problem, or event is related to a fulfillment, solution, or next event. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. Comparison and Contrast Philosophers also use patterns of comparison and contrast. The act of comparing and the act of contrasting are almost the same mental operation, but with different perceptions resulting. To compare is to notice the similarities in two different people, objects, events, or ideas. When we contrast, we may notice the exact same pairs of people, objects, events, or ideas, but we focus on seeing their differences. With practice, we can play at switching back and forth, between comparing and contrasting, almost as we do with optical illusions like the famous picture which fools us about what we’re really seeing, one goblet or two lovers:

[reversible goblet by Edgar Rubin]

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Like the paired images, each creating the other, comparison and contrast are able to coexist. To see how this works, many students find a famous type of illustration helpful, the Venn diagram:

[Diagram From SCORE, Schools of California Online Resources for Educators] Typically, two people or things are pulled together for us to study: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, for instance. They are drawn as circles, passing so close to each other that they intermingle or overlap, creating area C. This area C represents traits they had in common: both were smart, both struggled against hardships, both became presidents. We compare. But that’s not the whole story of these circles. They don’t manage to join completely; they’re not identical. Outside joined area C are the larger areas A and B, representing the differences in the two circles: although Lincoln hated slavery and Washington disliked it more and more over time, Lincoln took action to free the slaves; Washington did not (except at the end of his life). Trying to guide his generals to fight the Civil War more effectively, Lincoln became a good strategist, probably better than Washington, who fought in the Revolutionary War and actually lost a fair number of battles. But in his best battles, Washington moved with speed, concentration, and artillery against the British, in good and bad weather. This was something Lincoln understood, but had a hard time getting his generals to understand, with larger armies to move. Washington used this speed, called tempo, almost from the start. Lincoln sometimes lost the tempo, and almost lost his reelection campaign as a result. We contrast two presidents, noting their different styles. Back to philosophy. Here is I.F. Stone, describing Socrates’ last night of life, spent mostly with his disciples. Though he is narrating events, he is also comparing—actually contrasting—two people, the undeniably brave and gifted Socrates, and his wife Xanthippe, who is rarely mentioned aside from the “tradition” that she was a scold or shrew who made Socrates more

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or less miserable. Who comes off better in Stone’s comparison? (I’ve bolded both signal words and other cues to bring out the contrasts, which are a bit subtle.)

But before we enter into the rapturous recesses of the Phaedo, the most moving of all Plato’s dialogues, we must pause to note that it is marred by Socrates’ cold and unfeeling attitude toward his devoted wife, Xanthippe. This has too long been passed over in silence by reverent scholars. Xanthippe had a lifetime of trying to make ends meet and feed the children while he went around enjoying himself in philosophical discourse. Socrates’ constant boast that unlike the Sophists he never took a fee from his pupils was a luxury for which his poor wife paid the bill. Yet there is not a trace of gratitude or tenderness when they part forever. Plato paints the scene with inimitable artistry but a cold eye. When the dialogue opens, Socrates has just been released from his fetters [chains], which apparently were put on at night to hamper escape. Phaedo decribes the scene as the disciples were admitted. “We went in then,” he recounts, and found “Xanthippe—you know her—with his little son in her arms.”* “Now when Xanthippe saw us,” Phaedo relates, “she cried out and said the kind of thing women always do say: ‘Oh, Socrates, this is the last time now that your friends will speak to you or you to them.’ Phaedo’s tone is unkind and insensitive. Xanthippe did not express pity for herself but for Socrates and his old friends. She was moved to tears that this was to be the last of those philosophical discussions they loved. She showed an understanding that transcended her own grief. Socrates did not take her in his arms to comfort her, nor express any sorrow of his own, or even kiss the infant son in her arms. His farewell was a curt dismissal. The womanly love and understanding of the wife broke through but was ungraciously brushed aside. Socrates glanced at Crito “and said, ‘Crito, let somebody take her home.’ And some of Crito’s people *i.e., his servants+ took her away wailing and beating her breast.” She is never referred to again in the dialogue… Contrast this with the tender passage in which Phaedo describes the grief of the disciples. While they waited [for Socrates to bathe in preparation for his execution], he

____________________________________________________________________________ *Notice that the little son is described as “his”: the child of Socrates, not Xanthippe. Despite the direct evidence of pregnancy itself, and the pain women suffer in labor, the Greeks, at least most of the men, believed that the man generates all the vital matter needed to create the infant (the child is really all his) and the woman is just the “empty vessel” who stores the unborn baby until—at the gods’ orders?—the child is ready to pop out.

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says, they spoke among themselves “of the great misfortune that had befallen us, for we felt that he was like a father to us and that when bereft of him we should pass the rest of our lives as orphans.”

No such sympathy is expressed for Xanthippe. Turn to [the Greek poet] Homer and compare this farewell with Hector’s to Andromache† in the Iliad, so vibrant with love and humanity, still as moving as if it happened yesterday, and we see that there was something missing in Socrates and in Plato. In the farewell discussions of the Phaedo, the philosopher and his disciples show themselves capable of deep feeling, but only for themselves. Here as elsewhere in the dialogues of Plato we find no compassion for the common man or the common woman, even when, like Xanthippe, they demonstrate a quite uncommon devotion.

As you will notice in other kinds of pattern, comparison or contrast can be so important in conducting a discussion that it may extend, as here, over multiple paragraphs, or over the length of a whole chapter. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. Definition and Example In any subject requiring us to learn important terms (chemistry, botany, biology, or chemistry; music, arts, philosophy and other humanities), it’s very important to stay alert to the text we’re reading. Often, we can learn new vocabulary simply from the context, the words that surround an unknown word and give that word its meaning. (In fact, all words are completely meaningless without a context.) But even context learning is not sufficient sometimes to teach a specific term of philosophy and clarify its meaning precisely for us. To help us further, writers will use a pattern called definition and example. Here’s how it works. Definitions explain things, don’t they? But think of all the times you’ve read a dictionary definition and thought, “Okay, I’m reading the definition. It must be the meaning of that strange new word. But what does that meaning mean?” Definitions will sometimes appear in very scientific, colorless, abstract language, unclear to us, though they are clear to a scientist or philosopher. The meaning falls outside of our experience. _____________________________________________________________________________ † Hector = a Trojan prince, greatest of all the Trojan warriors fighting Achilles and the Greeks. Andromache = Hector’s loving wife, later captured by the Greeks and enslaved. Both, by the way, are characters in Wolfgang Petersen’s recent movie, Troy.

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Good writers know this problem, and will solve it by giving us examples that bring the unfamiliar term and its meaning to life. Watch I. F. Stone introduce several important Greek terms, all meaning either democracy or free speech. Stone’s purpose is to show that Socrates, during his trial, could have defended his life by claiming the right of free speech, which the Athenians revered, but Socrates despised—except, of course, when he spoke. Stone first prepares the background:

One way…to dig into the thoughts of a vanished civilization…is to examine the words they used….So in studying the trial of Socrates I set out at this point of the investigation to discover whether the Athenians and the ancient Greeks had a word for free speech. What I found were no less than four words for freedom of speech—more, I believe, than in any other language ancient or modern…I was convinced that no other people in history prized free speech more than the Greeks, and this was especially true of the Athenians.

Now the key words and definitions. Mr. Stone introduces several words for the right of free speech, two derived from the word isos for equal: isegoria and isologia. Each term is illustrated by Stone with examples: isegoria is demonstrated by the Athenians in the Persian war, where free-speaking Greek soldiers could act on their own initiative and defeat the much larger Persian army. Isologia is shown to be the basis of the last free coalition of Greeks in ancient times, the Achaean League. A third word for free speech or debate, eleutherostomou glosses, is also treated with examples. But the clearest examples, supporting the definition perfectly, appear when Stone introduces the fourth word, parrhesia, a word for free speech that was a favorite with Euripides, the great Greek playwright and spokesperson for the common people:

The fourth word for free speech in ancient Greek, parrhesia, first appears in Euripides…it was a word of Athenian coinage and a focus of Athenian pride. It had two basic and related meanings. One was personal: frankness or outspokenness. The other was political: freedom of speech. It expressed the Athenian’s idealized image of himself, as a free man accustomed to speak his mind.

Then come two examples of parrhesia. Notice that Stone’s first word, “So,” works just like the more familiar “For example,” or “For instance”:

So Ion, in the play that bears his name, a foundling searching for the secret of his birth, hopes that his mother will turn out to be an Athenian so that parrhesia will be his birthright: “from my mother may parrhesia be mine.” In the Phoenician Maidens, the queen asks her fugitive and rebel son, Polyneices, what is worst about being an exile. The worst, he replies, “is that the exile has no parrhesia.” The queen observes sadly, “That’s a slave’s lot—not to be able to speak one’s mind.”

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For another example, we see I.F. Stone introducing a word the Greeks used to describe Socrates’ boastful tone, as he addressed the Athenian jury when on trial for his life. That one Greek word, megalegoria, is given several possible definitions, but all of them are connected to one example, Socrates’ manner of speaking:

To show what we mean [by megalegoria, and by the fact that Greek scholars often translate this word differently, even within a single translation,] we will take two standard translations. The older is the lovely eighteenth-century English version by Sarah Fielding, in her Socratic Discourses. The second is the Loeb translation by O.J. Todd. The word megalegoria is compounded of two Greek roots, megal (as in our word megalomania), meaning big or great, and the verb agoreuo, to speak or address an assembly, an agora. There are two ways of understanding megalegoria. One is uncomplementary: as “big talking,” boastfulness, and arrogance. The other is complimentary: as a synonym for eloquence. Both translators choose to read the word as complimentary. But this is inconsistent with the very point Xenophon was trying to make. He begins his account of the trial by saying that people were surprised by the megalegoria Socrates displayed in addressing his judges. The word, as we have said, appears three times in the opening passage. Sarah Fielding translated the word as (1) “wonderful courage and intrepidity,” (2) “the loftiness of his style and the boldness of his speech,” and (3) “the sublimity of his language.” Todd in the Loeb version has (1) “the loftiness of his words,” (2) “his lofty utterance,” and (3) “the sublimity of his speech.” These complimentary translations are open to challenge from two points of view. One is consistency to context and the other is the use of the same word elsewhere in Xenophon and in Greek literature. We will begin with the first. The careful reader who goes back to this passage in any one of these translations will see its inconsistency with the context. Xenophon says that all those who had written about the trial of Socrates were struck by his megalegoria before his judges and thought it was aphronestera. The Liddell-Scott Greek lexicon translates this as “senseless, witless, crazed, foolish.” Again, both our translators agree. Fielding renders the word as “unbecoming and imprudent”; Todd, as “rather ill-considered.” But how could anyone describe megalegoria as aphronestera if megalegoria meant sublimity of expression or loftiness of discourse? Why would it be senseless or “imprudent” to speak in lofty terms to an Athenian jury—notoriously susceptible to eloquence? Xenophon insists that Socrates’ megalegoria was not senseless at all but deliberate and calculated to achieve his purpose, which was to provoke rather than conciliate the jury.

There is a bit more about megalegoria in Stone’s account, but you get the idea. Notice, though, that to define the word so that it sticks in the reader’s mind, Stone presents a related word

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(aphronestera) and shows how it clarifies the first word; he also presents, then rejects, a false definition (Sarah Fielding’s “wonderful courage and intrepidity”). One more word about definition, which applies to philosophy and many other classes. It’s good advice from Peter Suber, of the philosophy department at Earlham College:

Learn the author’s terminology but also learn to do without it. If you don’t learn it, then you won’t understand the book. If you don’t learn to do without it, then you won’t be able to paraphrase the author’s position e.g. for friends who haven’t read the book or for your own comparison to another philosopher who uses different terms.

*** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.

Process A historian’s or philosopher’s bag of patterns also includes process, which illustrates how something is invented (an idea), manufactured (a product), or enacted (a law or decision) in several steps. A philosopher may take several steps (observing, classifying, deducing, having an inspiration or “Ah-hah!” moment) to generate a philosophical idea, and then take further steps to combine this idea with other ideas. More steps (collecting and arranging), and the process moves towards completion: ideas form into a philosophical system. As with historical events, the process of philosophical ideas will often be arranged in the past tense. The developing science of evolution, related to philosophy, is presented this way: first, the ancient Greeks believed that life originated from one guiding principle conceived by the gods, or from one particular kind of matter, water or air (depending on which philosopher was talking). Next, as life split into many different forms, these forms were thought to descend, or derive, from that pure principle or form of matter, taking on impurities as the forms multiplied: this idea was called descent with modification. A process may become forgotten or sidetracked, as in our daily lives. Later, as Christianity spread, the Biblical notion of a seven-day creation meant that descent with modification, the Greek idea, was put aside. God was supposed to have created all forms of life very quickly, and they were generated out of God’s mind pretty much as they exist today. To some believers, even the fossil record visible in the rocks of a cliffside—the trapped shapes of prehistoric animals—were spontaneous creations, showing only that God created oddly shaped cliffs. People unacquainted with early Greek ideas, or, still later, with modern science, were not ready to read what the fossils were “saying”: that life on earth is millions of years old. Archbishop James Ussher, carefully reconstructing dates from the Bible and Biblical scholarship, declared that the world was created complete in the year 4004 BCE.

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But descent with modification kept coming back, supported by the philosophers, as well as by the first modern scientists. In the 1700s, Immanuel Kant decided, from their similar biological forms, that the great apes as well as humans could learn to grasp objects, walk erect, and develop speech through increased social interaction. He decided also that both forms of primate shared a remote ancestor. This past-tense arrangement of process is almost impossible to distinguish from time order (see above). The difference, if any, is that we are selecting, carefully, those events which most conveniently illustrate our view of evolution as a stepwise process. (Even if the process took a few “backward” steps, that is.) More commonly, authors will discuss a process in the present tense, as in a recipe or chemistry book, where the recipe or chemical experiment can be repeated as often as necessary, yet exists free from strict time. Here, Socrates, in the Phaedo, uses the present tense to describe Philosophy, constantly at work, persuading the Soul not to surrender to the underworld (Hades), or even to the visible world, which is also a trap:

The lovers of knowledge know that when philosophy receives the soul, she is fast bound in the body, and fastened to it; she is unable to contemplate what is, by herself, or except through the bars of her prison house, the body; and she is wallowing in utter ignorance…philosophy takes the soul when she is in this condition, and gently encourages her, and strives to release her from her captivity, showing her that the perceptions of the eye, and the ear, and the other senses are full of deceit, and persuading her to stand aloof from the senses and to use them only when she must, and exhorting her to rally and gather herself together, and to trust only to herself and to the real existence which she of her own self apprehends…

According to Socrates, Philosophy uses every trick it can, encouraging, releasing, showing, persuading, and exhorting, pressing harder when the Soul resists, easing off as the Soul proves its indepen-dence. The “recipe” concept of process is important here. Like recipes, philosophical ideas are often hard to work out, full of mistakes to correct—or creative responses to changing situations. Even when “perfected,” the ideas turn out to contain big or little flaws. The process of generating and building ideas is altered, shortened or lengthened by life, with changes of plan as new needs or desires arise. Because process, a sequence of steps, can change, often growing or shrinking as needed, it is often worked out over several paragraphs: the main idea of each paragraph can be one step, with the rest of the paragraph detailing potential pitfalls or complications. Quite often, too, different sequences of steps can arrive at identical outcomes: we see this side of process in math problems. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.

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Spatial Order A sense of space or location is helpful not just to philosophers but to historians, who include maps and write careful spatial descriptions in order to give students an idea of how geography, climate, or topography (3-D map shape) influences events. It would be hard to describe Ulysses S. Grant’s great Civil War campaign against the Southern city Vicksburg without showing how the city rested on high river bluffs, easy for the Confederates to fortify and defend with artillery from above, while the Missisippi River formed a natural protective barrier around Vicksburg and its gun emplacements. In philosophy, we find space-based illustrations, surprisingly often. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates expresses his idea, based on Greek mythology, that our world is only an inner world, stuck in a “hollow” of the “earth itself,” which is divided from our tiny inner pocket by an atmosphere of “ether.” (Don’t worry: I find this a bit confusing, too.) Follow, if you will, the transition or signal words which alert us that the writer is literally pointing us in certain directions. You can get a taste of this early Greek sense for space, very rambling and imaginative, as Socrates picks up the discussion:

[The outer] earth itself lies pure in the purity of the heavens, wherein are the stars, and which men who speak of these things commonly call ether. The water and the mist and the air, which collect into the hollows of the earth, are the sediment of it. Now we dwell in these hollows though we think we are dwelling on the surface of the earth. We are just like a man dwelling in the depths of the ocean who thought that he was dwelling on its surface and believed that the sea was the heaven, because he saw the sun and the stars through the water…*likewise,+ we call the air heaven, and think it to be the heaven wherein the stars run their courses. But the truth is that we are too weak and slow to pass through to the surface of the air. For if any man could reach the surface, or take wings and fly upward, he would look up and see a world beyond, just as the fishes look forth from the sea, and behold our world.

But spatial description can help us in a more realistic way. We can get a rough idea of the Greek peninsula, and the scattered surrounding islands, while trying to piece together just how the Greek landscape may have influenced Greek openness to philosophy, and new ideas of all kinds. Was nearness to the sea a contributing factor? Here is philosopher Bertrand Russell, describing Greece while preparing our minds for Socrates and the other great Greeks:

The mainland of Greece is largely mountainous and infertile. But there are many fertile valleys, with easy access to the sea, but cut off by the mountains from easy land communication with each other. In these valleys little separate communities grew up, living by agriculture, and centering round a town, generally close to the sea. In such circumstances it was natural that, as soon as the population of any community grew too great for its internal resources, those who could not live on the land should take to seafaring. The cities of the mainland founded colonies, often in places where it was much easier to find subsistence than it had been at home. Thus in the earliest historical

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period the Greeks of Asia Minor, Sicily, and Italy were much richer than those of the Greek mainland.

As Russell goes on to say, the outlying, colonized areas of Greece were quick to respond to scraps of religion, mathematics, and science from outside sources: Egypt, Babylon, Minoan Crete, and Phoenicia, came into contact with the Greeks, and Grecian inhabitants of Asia Minor founded philosophical schools, including the Milesian School, which fostered Thales, one of the earliest known philosophers of Ancient Greece. Contact sprang up at various points, including overland access to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy; but much maritime contact was also involved. We can infer that the Greeks became as open to ideas as the land is to the sea; but that the new ideas were strengthened in disputes with the ideas of neighboring city-states, made separate by mountains—picture Athens against Sparta. Come to think of it, could the testing of ideas across “mountains” of conflict have sparked the lively disputes of democracy? Thinking this way means trusting spatial organization. A famous use of spatial organization, the “Allegory of the Cave,” occurs in Plato’s Republic (an allegory is a parable, an extended analogy or scenario, which illustrates an idea). In the dialogue, Socrates is reconstructing a conversation he took part in. He describes how poorly our sense perceptions tell us the “real” reality. His words, outlining an imaginary space, have challenged artists to capture that space in pictures. Again, more direction-words: Socrates: And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or

unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in an underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

Glaucon: I see.

Socrates: And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

Glaucon: You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

Socrates: Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of

one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

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Glaucon: True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

There is much more of this, drawing constantly on spatial order, exploring how we are trapped in the caves of our bodies, in our own perceptions, echoes or shadows of the truthful sunlight. At times, we really act according to Plato’s idea: couch potatoes watching TV, or moviegoers in a darkened theater gazing at “shadows,” have been compared to Socrates’ cave-dwellers:

***

Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.

Classification Classification is what writers often use when a paragraph must discuss more than one or two persons, concepts, key terms, events or circumstances, or pieces of evidence in detail. This pattern is needed when one topic is broken into at least three classes or categories. A classification paragraph will provide several items, each item being a category to talk about in detail. (The topic sentence may name the categories.) A classification paragraph may look similar to a definition paragraph. But rather than define each item in full, the author may simply list the details: characteristics, objects, ideas, or events associated with the item. The author may not have enough space to do more. When an author includes any item in a classification pattern, that item is part of a larger topic, a “family” of such items or categories.

We group items in such a family when we classify cloud types: cumulus (heaped puffs of cloud), stratus (even, straight layers of cloud), cirrus (more feathery wisps), or nimbus (clouds heavy with rain or actually raining).

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You can probably tell that this writer is straining a bit to describe classification; it’s easier to show it than to write about it. Classifications lend themselves to the making of maps:

Cloud Types Cumulus Stratus Cirrus Nimbus (heaped puffs) (even layers) (feathery wisps) (raincloud) Paragraphs of classification, closely read, will reveal details that we can map in a similar way. Such is the case with a set of paragraphs in Stone’s book. Stone describes how Plato, with Socrates as his mouthpiece, proposes spreading a so-called “noble lie” to “disarm and disfranchise an Athenian citizenry accustomed for two centuries to equality and free debate”:

…His solution was an elaborate system of state-imposed ideological indoctrination by which the “masses” from childhood would be accustomed to think of themselves as inferior. They were to be taught that they were born—and must remain—unfree and unequal. They would then, Plato theorized, willingly obey their self-appointed betters… This is the noble lie…that men are intrinsically divided into four classes: the philosophical ruling few, the military caste that enforces their will, the middle class of traders and crafstmen, and—at the bottom—the common laborers and tillers of the soil. Plato’s Socrates says that while they are in fact brothers, born of the same mother earth, they must be led to think of themselves as made of different metals. [As Socrates explains,+ “…God in fashioning those of you who are fitted to rule mingled gold in their generation, for which reason they are the most precious.” The noble lie will teach that the “Guardians,” or military caste, are also compounded of a precious metal, though of lesser value—silver. The main body of the citizenry, the many, will be seen as made of base metal, iron and brass.

Plato’s entire “noble lie” is a classification, however false it may be. The words “system” and “four classes” alert us to that classification, given by Stone as a running list, but easy to chart in a map (some of the map’s details come from elsewhere in Stone’s discussion):

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Plato’s “Noble Lie” of Classification

Actual Humanity (all of one kind, equally created)

Philosophers Soldiers Traders and Craftsmen Laborers / Tillers (gold) (silver) (iron) (lead) of superior wisdom helpers/ active/useful, but poor, uneducated and virtue defenders/ influenced by money unthinking, easily led all-powerful rulers mercenaries Transition Words and Phrases

Paragraphs that successfully engage the reader keep the reader’s mind moving forward and digesting the information the writer offers. In this forward-moving process, you should feel that you are successfully connecting the ideas, working with the words and organizing them into patterns.

Transition words and phrases are the signals a good writer sends that reader to reveal pattern. Here is a sample list of transition words, compiled by the University of Richmond Writing Center, but modified (additions in bold).

Examples of Transitions:

Illustration (I) or Definition (D)

Thus (I), for example (I), for instance (I), namely (D), to illustrate (I), in other words (D), in particular (I), specifically (I), such as (I), what this means is (D), that is (D), ____ [term to be defined], or ____ (D).

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Contrast On the contrary, contrarily, notwithstanding, but, however, nevertheless, in spite of, in contrast, yet, on one hand, on the other hand, rather, or, nor, conversely, at the same time, while this may be true.

Addition And, in addition to, furthermore, moreover, besides, than, too, also, both-and, another, equally important, first, second, etc., again, further, last, finally, not only-but also, as well as, in the second place, next, likewise, similarly, in fact, as a result, consequently, in the same way, for example, for instance, however, thus, therefore, otherwise.

Time

After, afterward, before, then, once, next, last, at last, at length, first, second, etc., at first, formerly, rarely, usually, another, finally, soon, meanwhile, at the same time, for a minute, hour, day, etc., during the morning, day, week, etc., most important, later, ordinarily, to begin with, afterwards, generally, in order to, subsequently, previously, in the meantime, immediately, eventually, concurrently, simultaneously.

Space At the left, at the right, in the center, on the side, along the edge, on top, below, beneath, under, around, above, over, straight ahead, at the top, at the bottom, surrounding, opposite, at the rear, at the front, in front of, beside, behind, next to, nearby, in the distance, beyond, in the forefront, in the foreground, within sight, out of sight, across, under, nearer, adjacent, in the background.

Concession Although, at any rate, at least, still, thought, even though, granted that, while it may be true, in spite of, of course.

Similarity / Comparison Similarly, likewise, in like fashion, analogous to.

Emphasis Above all, indeed, truly, of course, certainly, surely, in fact, really, in truth, again, besides, also, furthermore, in addition.

Details Specifically, especially, in particular, to explain, to list, to enumerate, in detail, namely, including.

Examples For example, for instance, to illustrate, thus, in other words, as an illustration, in particular.

Consequence Or Result Or Effect (related to cause/effect)

So that, with the result that, thus, consequently, hence, accordingly, for this reason, therefore, so, because, since, due to, as a result, in other words, then.

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Summary Therefore, finally, consequently, thus, in short, in conclusion, in brief, as a result, accordingly.

Suggestion For this purpose, to this end, with this in mind, with this purpose in mind, therefore.

While this list is useful, it can never be complete. Resourceful history writers know that the situations they describe often require them to invent connecting words of their own.

*** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. The Reading Process

The information you’re learning will be incomplete without knowledge of the reading process. Students with too many unanswered questions about this process feel frustrated in their reading. Understanding is slowed or stopped when such questions as these go unanswered: What is the reading about? What’s the main idea? When is the right time to read for patterns of organization? How quickly should I read? And above all: Why did I just read the whole article and not understand it?

That last question is the one students most often ask when coming to a reading / writing center for help. The student who asks it often fails to consider something important. College reading is not pleasure reading. We say this, not to scare you off, but to define the challenge. College reading is analytical reading. Pleasure reading (a Harlequin Romance, a comic book or graphic novel, or an article in People) can be done quickly and forgotten. (There’s nothing wrong with such pleasure reading; that’s also important, and helps us maintain the reading habit.) In any case, analytical reading has its own pleasures, seen gradually.

Analytical reading is making sure you absorb and use the writer’s ideas. Music history reading, like history reading, is not only finding facts, but going beyond the facts to learn why they are important, and how they connect with one another. It requires you not to “blast through” or skim, but slow down, take care.

Careful reading will help you to “distinguish interpretation from fact and to discern argument within description,” write historians Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman and Jon Gjerde. But, strange as this sounds, you must do a certain amount of casual reading first, then settle in for closer reading. Here is the reading process:

A. Prepare your mind and body to read. Establish your purpose for reading. Will you be learning the main idea and major details of of a philosophy chapter? Are you going to compare a primary source (a document from the life of a philosopher) with a secondary source (what a modern expert says about the document)? Are you about to study important trends, historic

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milestones in Greek, British, Tibetan, or German philosophy? Take a few moments to decide, before reading.

One big purpose may be to answer a specific question or respond to a specific assignment from your instructor. Does all this sound overwhelming? Relax. Just aiming for a purpose, even if you haven’t yet figured it out, turns on your brain.

—Predict the reading’s topic and probable content with help from the title.

—Brainstorm about what the title may mean; glance over the first couple

of paragraphs if you wish.

—Decide what your memories and senses can bring to the reading. Activate your schema, your prior knowledge. Tell yourself what you already know about Plato’s Republic, Kant’s categorical imperative, the American John Dewey’s idealism or concept of progressive education. Even if your knowledge is shaky, it’s a starting point.

—Ask, “What audience was this *source reading, chapter, essay+ written for? How can I become part of that audience?” Asking questions as you read is very important.

B. Preview. That is, read, but don’t read in full. If the philosophical work is written in paragraphs, read slivers of these. Question what you’re reading about; predict whether the slivers relate to the title. In older documents and histories, the paragraphs may be longer than you’re used to. In this case, skim the ends as well as beginnings of paragraphs: they’re good places for main ideas and major details, too. Remember: in music history, explanations of concepts, arguments or interpretations─not just facts─may also be major supporting details.

As you skim through, don’t feel you have to have all the patterns of organization (definition, cause and effect, comparison and contrast) figured out; just be aware that they’re there; start to locate transition words, headings, subheadings and other divisions of the material, in a casual way. Think as you would when entering a darkened room, where your eyes must adjust slowly to a lesser amount of light. Notice what key words and other terms you’ll have to learn; but don’t linger. Mark them quickly and move on.

C. Now, a complete reading, “once over lightly.” Read the whole piece of writing without stopping. Firm up your sense of where the topic, the main idea, the major details are. Ask why the author wrote this piece. Begin to get answers to this and other questions.

Don’t mark too much at this stage. Don’t use your underlining pencil or highlighter to “track” underneath the complete lines of text; that will give you way too much information to handle.

D. Read again. Understand. Annotate. Now you’re settling in to “stay.” Read carefully, clear away the confusions, decide how the material is put together. You should annotate, or write margin notes, in addition to very careful, selective underlining.

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Learn not to give up on a paragraph until you can write a note about it. Such notes are important: you’re entering into a conversation with the writer of the material. Try to make the note you write a lot shorter, but at least not longer, than the paragraph you’re annotating.

Have a dictionary handy, but realize that guessing word meanings from context may be just as good. You may pencil in a few underlinings; these are clues for your margin notes. The notes should be paraphrases (in your own words). Write connecting lines or numbers or “doodads” in the margin to connect ideas, especially patterns of organization. But be sure to annotate after, not before, you’ve “got it.”

E. Evaluate. Review. Apply. Now you should be able to summarize, orally or in writing, the author’s main idea, major supporting details, and conclusions. Complete any response or worksheet assigned. As you do, monitor. If the unfamiliar words or concepts aren’t easier, use the dictionary, thesaurus, or any glossary the author has provided. Join with a study buddy.

Now, revisit your purpose for reading. Does your purpose for reading match the author’s purpose for writing? That’s a good sign. Besides understanding the author’s narrative, argument, interpretation, or summation of events, you may have to prepare for a quiz, test, or written response. To apply your knowledge, revisit your preview step, but call it review.

To review effectively, repeat the overview of the material you took in the preview stage. (You’ll see the material with new eyes.) Find the exact structures that first led you to an understanding: title, topic, main idea, headings and subheadings; major supporting details, concepts, or arguments.

Do your margin notes still fit the framework? Will your summary of the material make sense, even when told to somebody else? If not, make flash cards of the important concepts. Take the margin notes you’ve made and expand them into a summary, map, or outline. Cross-relate the notes from the reading with your notes of the professor’s in-class lecture, or of group discussion.

The result is to know that all this philosophy, dry at first, is interesting, belongs to you, and is useful—that’s what review is for.

What Good Is It? (An Afterword) In A History of Western Philosophy, the twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell says that philosophy is a kind of place to turn to when science and religion fail to give us definite knowledge, or leave us asking questions that seem to have no answer. Writes Russell, “All definite knowledge—so I should contend—belongs to science; all dogma [established belief] as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology [religious learning]. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man’s Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative *inquiring+ minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries.”

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Russell may be reminding us, for example, that philosophy can’t create important new medicines, the way science can invent a drug (let’s suppose) for curing all AIDS patients in Africa. But what happens when science achieves a cure? Are there decisions to make about how the new medicines should be tested? Should they be tested first on animals, who might die or be harmed by the side effects? The questions keep coming. Which humans will first get the new drug? Which African countries, regions, or peoples should be included or excluded, if supplies run short? Is it fair to give some the medicine and give others the placebo, a harmless but fake version of the drug, the way we do when we are testing new drugs on people? Are we prepared to explain or apologize for any unforeseen side effects, especially if people start dying from the “cure?” And what if all AIDS is wiped out across the African continent? Will food supplies run short for many of the survivors who could previously have expected to die soon? If you are thinking these are almost unfair questions to ask of the scientists, you would be partly right and partly wrong. Scientists and doctors have plenty to do just discovering cures and hoping to do good for their fellow humans, yes. But scientific people are not alone: in making moral decisions, something they must do every day, doctors and scientists have the help of philosophers, who invented ethics, the study of right behavior. In the creation of ethics by the ancient Greeks, two examples stand out: Aristotle is celebrated for his book, the Nicomachean Ethics. Also, when medicine and philosophy were even more closely connected with each other (and religion) than now, the Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos crafted the Hippocratic Oath, a set of solemn vows doctors must swear to uphold even today. One of its famous principles: doctors must “Above all, do no harm.” But what makes philosophy useful, or truthful, enough to balance the truths we learn from science? Building partly upon what Bertrand Russell says, agreeing that “philosophy begins from questions,” the modern British philosopher Roger Scruton says also that philosophers answer questions about the world very differently from the scientists. Scruton gives a pretend example of a philosopher’s answer to a question: “When the judge asks me why I put arsenic *a poison+ in my wife’s tea, he will not be satisfied by my saying ‘Because electrical impulses from my brain caused my hand to reach for the bottle and tip it into the waiting teacup’—although that may be a true answer to the question ‘Why?’ [defined] as scientists [define] it, as a request for the cause. For it is an answer of the wrong kind.” Scruton goes on to say that what the judge really wants is not simple cause (the science that explains how the nerves ordered the hand to spill the poison into the cup), but instead Mr. Scruton’s intention, the real “Why?” the judge is aiming at. Did Mr. Scruton tip the arsenic into the cup by accident, or did he have an evil wish to cause harm or kill? In questions like these, says Scruton, the philosopher should get involved.

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This involvement is right, because science too often looks for the truth of events through only one lens: simple cause and effect, the mechanism of logical explanation and result. But cause and effect doesn’t really explain how human beings think and feel! When we love someone in a physical way, the last thing we want to think about is how the nerve endings in the skin and the juices in the reproductive organs are affecting our actions. Okay, a class on human sexuality could help us understand some of this, and keep our emotions from running away with us completely. But Professor Scruton’s point is this: “When we respond to the world as free beings, we look for meanings and reasons, and divide the world according to our interests, and not according to its inner nature, as revealed in science. The professor continues: Indeed, the meaning of the world is enshrined in conceptions which, while indispensable to the “Why?” of freedom, find no place in the language of science: conceptions like beauty, goodness and spirit which grow in the thin topsoil of human discourse. This topsoil is quickly eroded when the flora are cleared from it, and there is a risk that nothing will ever grow thereafter. You can see the process at work in the matter of sex. Human sexuality has usually been understood through ideas of love and belonging. An enchanted grove of literary ideas and images protected those conceptions, and man and woman lived within it happily, or at any rate, with a manageable unhappiness. The sexologist clears all this tangled undergrowth away, to reveal the scientific truth of things: the animal organs, the unmoralized impulses, and the tingling sensations that figure in thoes grim reports on the behaviour of American humanoids. The meaning of the experience plays no part in the scientific description. What’s the impression a reader takes away from Scruton’s words? For me, at least, it’s a mental image, of the mad scientist clear-cutting the lovers’ happy grove of trees, like a rancher destroying the Brazilian rain forest—or the Garden of Eden. Understandably, Scruton concludes as follows: …Philosophy is useful to us, precisely because it, and it alone, can vindicate the concepts through which we understand and act on the world: concepts like that of the person, which have no place in science but which describe what we understand, when we describe the world as it truly is for us. The scientific attempt to explore the “depth” of human things is accompanied by a singular danger. For it threatens to destroy our response to the surface. Yet it is on the surface that we live and act: it is there that we are created, as complex appearances sustained by the social interactions which we, as appearances, also create. It is in this thin topsoil that the seeds of human happiness are sown, and the reckless desire to scrape it away…deprives us of our consolation. Philosophy is important, therefore, as an exercise in conceptual ecology. It is a last-ditch attempt to re-enchant the world, and thereby “save the appearances.” At times, the ideal community envisioned by Socrates and Plato—so different from the shining freedom of Athenian democracy—seems inspired by those same destructive scientists, aiming

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so deeply for structure and order, always calling for the truth that finds expression in words, and virtue in unbending standards of right and wrong. As described by Stone, Socrates often seems deaf to the music of beautiful actions in few words—like the devotion of his wife Xanthippe. This is the sign of a defective philosophy. And it is true that Plato’s ideas have inspired dictators, even an entire medieval political system, feudalism, where lords and masters ruled over serfs who toiled in the fields, asking only a little “protection” in return. Few would wish to return to this form of government: very little topsoil. Yet I.F. Stone often admits, even when his progressive, democratic principles make him recoil from Socrates’ harsh standards and strange totalitarian ideas—ideas that influenced or paralleled those of Communist dictators—Socrates, and his part-“creator,” Plato, did grow much beauty at topsoil level. Stone is plainly captivated by “the charm Socrates could so well exert.” Our mental picture of ancient Greek life was largely shaped by Plato, with his re-creations of male friendship, lives of quality conversation over the wine goblets, with Socrates and company exchanging backslapping banter and (apparently) harmless ideas. For appreciative readers, Socrates has also “re-enchanted” the world. We hope this packet has entertained and informed you. With a little effort, you can now tackle the philosophers, and from them demand very little harm, and a lot more charm. For More Information I recommend Googling Dr. Peter Suber of the Philosophy Department, Earlham College. His web page includes a guide to many different philosophical dictionaries (covering different eras in philosophical history, as well as different sub-disciplines of philosophy, such as logic, ethics, aesthetics, Asian philosophy, critical thinking, religious philosophy); a “Guide on Reading Philosophical Texts,” by Garth Kemerling; and Suber’s “Taking Notes on Philosophical Texts.” Thank you for reading this far. At this point, you should feel ready to explore the rest of the module. You may now move ahead to the readings and brief written worksheets, as indicated on the Procedures page. Good luck and happy philosophy! *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.

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A Note on Primary and Secondary Sources When reading history with an analytical eye, or reading critically, keep in mind exactly what pieces of writing you’re dealing with. Experts in philosophy classify philosophical writings in three loose categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. All three kinds of source material may be important. No material is perfect. Perfection in the human record is impossible. Thus, each document must be judged individually for its reliability. Primary sources are actual documents from the historical period you happen to be dealing with. For our purpose, they are the actual, classic writings by working philosophers that have “stood the test of time”: the meaning of “classic.” They have permanent interest. Do remember that, in many cases, a primary document of philosophy was written with a specialized purpose and a specialized audience in mind. (Not that philosophers always write in nebulous, difficult language for a small audience: they don’t. Most wish their ideas to have a wide circulation and good understanding.) You should scan the document for crucial small pieces of information, assessing the possible audience(s), with a strong purpose for reading, liking or disliking, the document. Read it, if you can, to become part of that audience. Also, the document, even if written for the widest possible audience, will contain some bias. “Biased” does not necessarily mean prejudiced or bigoted; it simply means that no one can stay perfectly objective, clear-eyed and judgment-free when writing about personal matters. Primary documents, written by limited, imperfect human beings, inevitably contain strong viewpoints, errors, blind spots. Despite the problem of bias, we’re obligated to read such documents with a certain respect and open-mindedness; the writer of a document can at least claim to have “been there,” and to serve us as an eyewitness to the philosophical discussion. Secondary sources are essays, chapters, and whole books written or compiled by actual historians from primary and other documents. Because these secondary documents are the work of university-trained historians with scholarly expertise, they are usually written with a certain objectivity, a basic fairness and freedom from bias. Tertiary sources, a third level of source material, may be quickly dealt with. These are encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference works made up of primary and secondary sources intermingled. These brief articles or digests are put together by good scholars, such as reference librarians, and are good introductions, or last resorts. But, to most professors, they are not “truly” reliable sources, just as reference librarians are not fully trained philosophers. Use third-level sources to build up your background knowledge, but then make sure you have primary or secondary sources to cite in your written work. In the supplemental readings, I’ve fudged on the term “secondary”: the so-called secondary readings about the philosophers are third-level material, but the best I could find, from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a very well-regarded source with lots of material.

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Philosophy Reading Process Guide Comprehension Self-Assessment What’s the section of the Process Guide you just read? __________________

Before writing answers to the following, look over your annotations.

What did the section you’ve read tell you?

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Was any part of that section unclear? Why? In what way could it be made clearer?

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In what ways will you apply, or put to use, what you’ve learned?

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We appreciate your feedback. A class handout is only as good as the use you can make of it.

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Signoff Sheet for RWC Philosophy Reading Module Process Guide read, annotated, responded to as shown below Part One Directions and A Word at the Start read, annotated, written response, discussed ____(IS) Philosophers, Who Needs Them? read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Socrates and His Trade read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Socrates Tested: the Philosopher on Trial read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Reading Strategies: Getting Started and Is It Interesting? read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) The Basic Unit: The Paragraph and Finding the Main Idea read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Another Approach: The Implied Main Idea read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Patterns: Organizing Paragraphs read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Part Two Different Patterns/Different Needs read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Transition Words and Phrases read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Time Order (Chronology) read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Cause and Effect read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Comparison and Contrast read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Definition and Example read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Process read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS)

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Spatial Order read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Classification and Transition Words read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) What Good Is It? An Afterword read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Supplemental Readings Hobbes’ Philosophy (secondary source) read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Spinoza’s Metaphysics (secondary) read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Anne Dacier (secondary) read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Socrates’ “Defense (Apology)” (primary) read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Marilyn Frye: “Oppression” (primary) read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) Hobbes: Leviathan: Introduction and Chapter 1 (primary) read, annotated, written about, discussed ____(IS) All assignments complete, 1 unit awarded ____(IS)