Robbins Library Notes

As the summer winds down, here’s some food for thought:

It would not be too much to say that the passion for originality begins with modern philosophy. Each thinker is intent on developing his own system and contrasting it with previous efforts. One wants a personal stamp on what one proposes: the Bullwinkle theory of knowledge, the Basil Faulty [sic] account of moral evil. There is indeed a lot of originality in modern philosophy, a lot of novelty. Most of it has a very short shelf life, pushed aside by the new and improved. In philosophy, as in the arts, novelty is all too easily come by, but truth is neither new nor old.

– Ralph McInerney, “Philosophia Perennis“

The intellectuals: in God’s menagerie, are they necessary?  For what?  Are they mediators or producers?  If the latter, what do they produce? The word?

– Lesek Kolakowski, Modernity on Endless Trial.

I will be out next Friday, so next week’s post will be on Thursday morning.  See you then!

At left: Ambrose Bierce, c. 1866.

The photograph is part of the Ambrose Bierce Collection of the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of America.

Good morning, readers, and happy Monday to you!

Let’s start off the week with something amusing, shall we?

From Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary:

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion — thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.

Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore –

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent. (See LOGIC.)

At left: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), engraved and published by Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818–1904) from an original drawing by Samuel W. Rouse (1822–1901) in the possession of Charles Eliot Norton. Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.

Emerson Hall, which houses the Department of Philosophy, is named after R.W. Emerson.

Good morning, readers! Happy Friday to you!

Here’s a famous quote from Emerson, over which I stumbled last week:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.
– Emerson, “Self-Reliance“

At left: Benjamin Franklin, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1777

Human reason is a much-studied topic in philosophy.  I’ve always enjoyed this observation on the powers of human reason by Benjamin Franklin, from his Autobiography.

First, though a bit of context for the following anecdote.  The story occurs early in Franklin’s life, as he was fleeing indentured servitude and his brother in Boston on a Philadelphia-bound ship.  During the voyage, the ship was becalmed off Block Island.  Franklin spent time watching the crew supplement the food supply by fishing for cod.  At the time, Franklin was a vegetarian.  While observing the fishermen prepare the cod for supper, he has a witty insight into the powers of human reason:

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm’d off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider’d, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc’d some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, “If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I din’d upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

– Autobiography, Ch. 4

At left: Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

The same thing happened to me that, according to legend, happened to Parmeniscus, who in the Trophonean cave lost the ability to laugh but acquired it again on the island of Delos upon seeing a shapeless block that was said to be the image of the goddess Leto.  When I was very young, I forgot in the Trophonean cave how to laugh; when I became an adult, when I opened my eyes and saw actuality, then I started to laugh and have never stopped laughing since that time.  I saw that the meaning of life was to make a living, its goal to become a councilor, that the rich delight of love was to acquire well-to-do girl, that the blessedness of friendship was to help each other in financial difficulties, that wisdom was whatever the majority assumed it to be, that enthusiasm was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined ten dollars, that cordiality was to say “May it do you good” after a meal, that piety was to go to communion once a year.  This I saw, and I laughed.

–  Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, I, 33-34

At left: George Santayana (1863-1952)

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

– The Life of Reason, Volume 1: Reason in Common Sense, Ch. XII

One of Santayana’s pupils was the poet, Wallace Stevens, who penned “To an Old Philosopher in Rome” in homage to his teacher.

The taste for Zen in the West is in part a healthy reaction of people exasperated with the heritage of four centuries of Cartesianism: the reification of concepts, idolization of the reflexive consciousness, flight from being into verbalism, mathematics, and rationalization.  Descartes made a fetish out of the mirror in which the self finds itself.  Zen shatters it.

– Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 285.

Comments?  Thoughts?  Is Merton correct?

At right: St. Thomas Aquinas, from the Demidoff Altarpiece by Carlo Crivelli.

Your Moment of Zen:

On the contrary, The Philosopher [Ethic. ii, 7; iv, 8] reckons the lack of mirth to be a vice.

I answer that, In human affairs whatever is against reason is a sin. Now it is against reason for a man to be burdensome to others, by offering no pleasure to others, and by hindering their enjoyment. Wherefore Seneca [Martin of Braga, Formula Vitae Honestae: cap. De Continentia] says (De Quat. Virt., cap. De Continentia): “Let your conduct be guided by wisdom so that no one will think you rude, or despise you as a cad.” Now a man who is without mirth , not only is lacking in playful speech, but is also burdensome to others, since he is deaf to the moderate mirth of others. Consequently they are vicious, and are said to be boorish or rude, as the Philosopher states (Ethic. iv, 8).

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 168, a. 4