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Planning for our first 2017 read
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Everyman
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Nov 16, 2016 07:22PM
It's a tight race among the Greeks at the moment. A few days more to get your votes in!
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BTW, one poster checked to make sure that it was okay to change a vote if your preferred book isn't proving popular. It's totally okay. So if you have voted for a book that's probably not going to be in the top two, feel free if you want to to change your vote. Or stick with your preferred candidate if that's your preference. Either is fine.
Looking forward to start digesting classic's words with this group!
The results of the poll are: (weighting factor: voters with 0-99 posts in the group, 1 vote. Voters with 100-299 posts in the group, 2 votes. Voters with 300+ posts in the group, 3 votes. This weighting process is intended to welcome all members to vote, but to give more influence to those who have shown themselves to be active participants in the group.)Plato: Republic: raw vote 14, weighted vote 23
Homer: Iliad: raw vote 10, weighted vote 18
So the Republic won by 4 raw votes and 5 weighted votes. Which given the number of voters seems sufficient to proceed without a run-off.
So our book starting on January 4, 2017 will be Plato's Republic.
In a few weeks I'll post the reading schedule (I want to consult the other moderators to decide whether to schedule it at one book per week for 10 weeks, or two books per week for 5 weeks) and a thread for discussion of translations and other background information. But that won't be for a few weeks; for the time being, it's full steam ahead on Chekhov.
I'm surprised that Iliad got 10 votes but Odyssey got none. I expected an even distribution of votes between the two.
Nemo wrote: "I'm surprised that Iliad got 10 votes but Odyssey got none. I expected an even distribution of votes between the two."I originally voted for the Odyssey but as no one else did the same, I switched my vote to the Iliad after checking with Everyman that it was ok to switch votes. Alas, to no avail! It seems as if Plato has beaten Homer to the finish line.
Tamara wrote: "Nemo wrote: "I'm surprised that Iliad got 10 votes but Odyssey got none. I expected an even distribution of votes between the two."I originally voted for the Odyssey but as no one else did the sa..."
Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the theory that Iliad and Odyssey were written by two different people, and the latter by a woman?
That's a great result, with a clear cut winner. I didn't vote as I was happy for any of the books to win, but I'll certainly be joining in with the group read in January. I have a question about translations. I have the free kindle edition by Benjamin Jowett, but I have no idea whether this is any good or not. Does anyone have experience of this edition or another preferred translator?
Nemo wrote: "I'm surprised that Iliad got 10 votes but Odyssey got none. I expected an even distribution of votes between the two."It seems to me, and I could be wrong, they should be read together, Iliad first and then Odyssey in that order. Since we were limited to one vote it makes sense that Iliad got all those votes the first time around.
Everyman wrote: "In a few weeks I'll post the reading schedule (I want to consult the other moderators to decide whether to schedule it at one book per week for 10 weeks, or two books per week for 5 weeks). . ."I don't know how expedient the following proposed natural divisions may be for this group as some are significantly larger than others but I submit it to the moderators for their consideration.
The division into books, like all similar divisions (Cp. Sir G.C. Lewis in the Classical Museum.), is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number; — (1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph beginning, 'I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus,' which is introductory; the first book containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to the question — What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2) includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first State and the first education. The third division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analysed in the individual man. The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another.
Plato. Plato: Complete Works, Historical Background, and Modern Interpretation of Plato's Ideas (Annotated and Illustrated, Hyperlinked Footnotes and Navigation) (Annotated Classics) The Republic, Introduction and Analysis, Benjamin Jowett. (Kindle Locations 15815-15827). Annotated Classics. Kindle Edition.
Nemo wrote: "Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the theory that Iliad and Odyssey were written by two different people, and the latter by a woman? ..."My understanding is the Iliad and the Odyssey are the culmination of a long tradition of oral composition. Homer, inheriting a rich tradition of epic poetry, probably stitched together shorter poems/segments, included a series of formulaic epithets as mnemonic devices, provided the overall structure, and recited the poems through a combination of improvisation and the insertion of stock phrases/lines/scenes. There probably was some flexibility to the original text since it was transmitted orally, making each performance slightly different from its predecessor. And then someone wrote it down and “froze” it. Who that “someone” is we don’t know. It may have been a scribe. It may even have been Homer since some have questioned whether Homer was blind or illiterate.
You asked if I thought a woman wrote the Odyssey. To be honest, I haven’t researched the subject to know enough about it. I have read several translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the most recent being Caroline Alexander’s translation of the Iliad, which I read this summer and which I absolutely loved. On the whole, though, I prefer the Odyssey and not just because it gives a more prominent role to women.
So, in answer to your question, I don’t know if Homer was one person or two, blind or sighted, literate or illiterate, male or female. It’s not something I feel the need to know. However, I do know one thing with absolute certainty: every time I finish reading either the Iliad or the Odyssey, I have to sit back and breathe deeply because I have the distinct feeling I have just swallowed a thunderstorm.
Tamara wrote: "every time I finish reading either the Iliad or the Odyssey, I have to sit back and breathe deeply because I have the distinct feeling I have just swallowed a thunderstorm. "Well said, Tamara! Inspiring in every possible way!
Pink wrote: "I have a question about translations. I have the free kindle edition by Benjamin Jowett, but I have no idea whether this is any good or not. Does anyone have experience of this edition or another preferred translator? ."Jowett is fine if you don't mind a mild Victorian bias. (I would not recommend his Symposium for this reason, but the Republic is less of a problem.) His translation is less literal than Allan Bloom's (which is sort of considered the standard these days) but at times Jowett is easier to read.
It's good to have more than one translation on hand -- one to read normally, and another to check when you want to analyze a passage more closely.
Thanks for the advice. I'll probably make a start with the Jowett version and see how I get on.
I just dug up our group discussion of The Republic from 5 years ago.Here you can find links to the above mentioned translations freely available online and other resources.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Tamara wrote: " On the whole, though, I prefer the Odyssey and not just because it gives a more prominent role to women. ."What do you like better in Odyssey compared with Iliad?
Nemo wrote: "Tamara wrote: " On the whole, though, I prefer the Odyssey and not just because it gives a more prominent role to women. ."What do you like better in Odyssey compared with Iliad?"
Since we are currently immersed in Chekhov and getting ready to embark on Plato, I think the discussion of the Iliad and Odyssey is best delayed until we read them again as a group.
This will be my first reading of Plato. For some reason I was never required to read him in college - which I find a grave omission from my perch today. Anyway, I dug out my husband's old college copy. It is the G.M.A. Grube translation.
Pink wrote: "I have a question about translations. I have the free kindle edition by Benjamin Jowett, but I have no idea whether this is any good or not. Does anyone have experience of this edition or another preferred translator? ."I'll open up a thread for discussion of translations at some point, probably sooner rather than later so people can order books.
Thomas is the one who knows Plato best; he recently read Book 1 in Greek (he studied Greek a lot more recently than I did, and a lot more effectively! Mine is basically gone after 50 years!). So I hope he will chime in here (if he hasn't already).
But my thoughts, for what they are worth, is this:
For many years, Jowett was the translator to read. When the Great Books of the Western World came out, for example, they chose Jowett. His remains a perfectly respectable translation.
However, there are lots of other quite good translations. I haven't looked at translations recently, so don't know what is more recent, but Allan Bloom's translation is I think widely considered a very good one, and his essay on the Republic (usually included with the translation) is excellent.
The Collected Dialogues edition most often used (in the Bollingen Series) when I was in college had translations by various translators; the Republic was translated by Paul Shorey, and that volume was used by at least some of the tutors at the time, so I think is a quite safe translation. Joe Sachs, a long-time tutor at St. John's College who has taught Plato many time brought out a translation in 2007; I have a copy, but haven't read it, but if I recall correctly Thomas liked it a lot.
I went back to see whether we had a thread on translations in the first Republic discussion, but didn't see one as such. I know we did some discussion of translations at the time, but you would have to plow through the threads to find whatever was said.
However, all that said, back to your original question, Jowett is a perfectly fine translation, and if that's what you have I wouldn't think you need to buy another unless other more knowledgeable people here have better advice to offer.
David wrote: "It seems to me, and I could be wrong, they should be read together, Iliad first and then Odyssey in that order.."That would seem to make sense, but I don't think it's at all necessary. They are stand-alone works which don't really have much in common other than that they are both based around the Trojan War and its aftermath. As Nemo noted, the current thinking is that they were probably written by different authors, and in any case they were in existence in oral form (really oral forms) long before they were written down. So I think it's fine to read the Odyssey without having read the Iliad. But in the end, reading both is of course necessary to consider oneself educated in the Western Canon.
David wrote: "I don't know how expedient the following proposed natural divisions may be for this group as some are significantly larger than others but I submit it to the moderators for their consideration."That's interesting, and worth keeping in mind, but the moderators have pretty much decided to schedule the reading for one book per week for ten weeks.
Tamara wrote: "So, in answer to your question, I don’t know if Homer was one person or two, blind or sighted, literate or illiterate, male or female. It’s not something I feel the need to know. However, I do know one thing with absolute certainty: every time I finish reading either the Iliad or the Odyssey, I have to sit back and breathe deeply because I have the distinct feeling I have just swallowed a thunderstorm. "Perfectly said.
We'll get into substance much later, but let me make one comment on Plato for those who are approaching him for the first time.These are entirely personal comments, and others may see him quite differently. But this is how I see him.
My view of him is that he isn't trying to give us answers to philosophical questions. He isn't, I think, so much interested in the result as in the process. He is concerned more with how to find truth for oneself rather than with simply giving us his view of truth. This takes some getting used to, since these days philosophical writers tend to have a point of view and be writing in order to explain and support it and try to get you to see things their way.
I don't see Plato that way, and I, at least, can't read him that way. I think he wants to have a dialogue with you, even at times an argument with you. He throws out ideas that are pretty obviously wrong, and that he knows are wrong, in order to get you to analyze WHY they are wrong so you can get closer to developing. He wants you not to read him but to be part of the conversation with him.
So for me it's not a matter of reading him to discover the truth, or at least his truth, but it's a matter of reading him to be led on a process by which you try to discover your own truth.
That, at least, is one person's approach to Plato, for what it's worth. But as people start to read him for the first time, I think it's a mistake just to read the same way you would read a modern philosophical or political or whatever book that is out to push an agenda. It's quite a different reading experience, and may take some getting used to.
Which is what we're all here for, starting on January 4th!
Who really wrote 'Odyssey,' 'Iliad'? / Evidence points not to Homer, not to any man, but to a womanhttp://www.sfgate.com/books/article/W...
Interestingly this article points out the idea has been around for a while: In 1897, Samuel Butler scandalized Victorian England by claiming that a woman wrote "The Odyssey."
Author Says a Whole Culture—Not a Single 'Homer'—Wrote 'Iliad,' 'Odyssey'
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ne...
Everyman wrote: "We'll get into substance much later, but let me make one comment on Plato for those who are approaching him for the first time.."I like the warning one professor of philosophy gave his students. "Do not say this author makes foolish mistakes. You'll only make yourself look foolish."
Never having studied philosophy in university (I studied French and German literature), I am looking forward to reading Plato with the group.And I will definitely remember that quote from your professor, Nemo.
Not my professor, fortunately or unfortunately. :) I just stumbled upon his course website some time ago, where he gave a few humility-inducing warnings to his students.(I've participated in at least two GR group discussions of the Republic already. So I'll sit out this time, having nothing new to contribute.)
Everyman wrote: "We'll get into substance much later, but let me make one comment on Plato for those who are approaching him for the first time.These are entirely personal comments, and others may see him quite d..."
I haven't read Plato in years. Your comments will be helpful in approaching him. So thank you.
Everyman wrote: "So for me it's not a matter of reading him to discover the truth, or at least his truth, but it's a matter of reading him to be led on a process by which you try to discover your own truth. .."So why does it sometimes feel like I'm being led down the garden path? :-)
I feel lulled into a mental dialogue with me answering in my head "yes of course, no of course not...etc" and I have to stop and ask "why that question and not another question"? "where is he going with this"?
Or at least this is what occurs to me when I listen to his dialogues while out walking.
Nemo wrote: "(I've participated in at least two GR group discussions of the Republic already. So I'll sit out this time, having nothing new to contribute.) .."
Gee. Some scholars have studied Plato for decades and still think they have something new to contribute! [g]
At least when I am being preached to I can decide for myself how to calibrate what I am being told with what I believe or have experienced.
Theresa wrote: "So why does it sometimes feel like I'm being led down the garden path? :-)I feel lulled into a mental dialogue with me answering in my head "yes of course, no of course not...etc" and I have to stop and ask "why that question and not another question"? "where is he going with this"?"
You're not wrong to feel this way, and many people have the same reaction. (And in the Republic we see at least one interlocutor who will not tolerate Socrates's methods.) Socrates definitely knows where he is going, so his questions can seem manipulative, or at least leading. Part of the reason he does this is to disprove false conclusions -- to show that something isn't what X says it is -- and this is relatively easy to do via dialogue. It is more difficult, on the other hand, to prove what something is. And in most of the dialogues (or maybe all of them) we see that Socrates is in fact unable to do this.
I like your phrase, "mental dialogue." For Plato, that's what thought is: a mental, or silent dialogue. He uses characters talking to each other to represent the thought processes we have internally. So one of the things he teaches us, I think, is how to have a dialogue within our own minds, in other words., how to think.
Everyman wrote: "Nemo wrote: "(I've participated in at least two GR group discussions of the Republic already. So I'll sit out this time, having nothing new to contribute.) "Gee. Some scholars have studied Plato for decades and still think they have something new to contribute! [g] "
I'm sure if one dedicates himself to the study of Plato, he'll keep discovering something new. Philosophy, in its original sense, is a lifelong pursuit, provided that the person does not stagnate. But I'm afraid I haven't changed much in the past five years. If I join the Plato discussion, I'll be repeating myself, nothing more.
Theresa wrote: "So why does it sometimes feel like I'm being led down the garden path?"I will add to Thomas' excellent response and let you know I share your sense of being lead around. Additionally, I am often frustrated with all of the mental gymnastics demonstrating that something is not what they thought it was and then ends without a final resolution determining what that something is. I discovered a new word for that today.
Aporia (Ancient Greek: ἀπορία: "impasse, difficulty of passing, lack of resources, puzzlement") denotes in philosophy a philosophical puzzle or state of puzzlement and in rhetoric a rhetorically useful expression of doubt.
Plato's early dialogues are often called his 'aporetic' dialogues because they typically end in aporia. In such a dialogue, Socrates questions his interlocutor about the nature or definition of a concept, for example virtue or courage. Socrates then, through elenctic testing, shows his interlocutor that his answer is unsatisfactory. After a number of such failed attempts, the interlocutor admits he is in aporia about the examined concept, concluding that he does not know what it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia
Nemo wrote @77: "I like the warning one professor of philosophy gave his students. "Do not say this author makes foolish mistakes. You'll only make yourself look foolish." That has the smell of intimidation, Nemo. It’s really all I need to confirm my prejudices - I’d better absent myself on this occasion :-).
Wendel wrote: "Nemo wrote @77: "I like the warning one professor of philosophy gave his students. "Do not say this author makes foolish mistakes. You'll only make yourself look foolish." That has the smell of i..."
The prof was not referring to Plato specifically, but every author covered by his undergraduate course. He was apparently sick and tired of grading papers of students who opined without the least understanding of the subject, and trying to intimidate them into doing their homework. :)
(Personally, I don't mind looking foolish, as long as there are people around to correct me -- part of the reason I enjoy public forums like this.)
I am sure you have all heard this expression: There are no foolish questions(unless of course you ask the question that has just been answered because you weren't paying attention). Sometimes you have to appear foolish to get at the truth. Imho, the only true fools are those who think they have all the answers. I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge of Plato's Republic.
Rosemarie wrote: "Sometimes you have to appear foolish to get at the truth."That sounds like something Socrates would say
Thank you. I was a subsititute middle school teacher in Toronto for 19 years, with French as my specialtly-- most of the students loathed French. My salvation was my sense of humour, although at times....I wonder how the ancient Greeks would respond to modern classroom situations.
Wendel wrote: "Nemo's professor seems to represent an attitude towards Plato that is not exactly encouraging reflection (critical or otherwise). To dismiss criticism - beforehand - as a product of ignorance is abusive."The professor seems to have caught this group's attention. I wish I could find his faculty website again, and let him speak for himself. :)
As I said earlier, he was not reacting to specific criticisms of Plato, he was reacting to the type of criticisms of philosophy he had often seen in his students' papers, which made clear that they didn't understand the thing they were criticizing.
Criticism should be based on knowledge, not ignorance. In other words, to criticize what one doesn't understand is itself an insidious form of abuse.
Your point that we are all ignorant and prejudiced to some extent is well taken. We all feel entitled to expression our opinions. However, it also means that, if anyone dishes out criticisms, he'd better be prepared to take them.
I like the way the professor challenged his students to reflect and engage in critical thinking on a level different from what they were used to.
Nemo wrote: "Criticism should be based on knowledge, not ignorance. In other words, to criticize what one doesn't understand is itself an insidious form of abuse. "I wish that axiom would be used when people debate evolution versus intelligent design....
Besides, could one argue that knowledge itself falls into different categories?
Not sure whether I will be able to join this read but was peeking at my daughter's Plato, "The Republic"....and happened to notice the chapter Part V , Justice in the State and Individual...find it rather timely ....State must posses four principals: wisdom, courage, discipline and justice. Hmm.....in light of recent election results. Okay..not to be discussed now..but one can definitely see Plato's enduring potential relevance today and how current events and circumstances can highlight, re or differently illuminate and pose new queries, evaluations, thoughts and applications as to Plato's words. The evolving world makes it a breathing work. Btw, peeked at the women's and children section and my eyes popped out at parts. Sorry for the premature diversion...will skitter on now.
Haaze wrote: "Nemo wrote: "Criticism should be based on knowledge, not ignorance. In other words, to criticize what one doesn't understand is itself an insidious form of abuse. "I wish that axiom would be used when people debate evolution versus intelligent design.... "
Funny you should mention that - it happens to be a subject that interests me on both personal and professional levels. Philosophy has much to say about it and types of knowledge...
