Two prompts immediately jump out at me as I begin to write today's commemorative commentary: the first one is a fragment from Heraclitus, who, along with Lao Tzu, is an exemplar of the Sage persona. Socrates is a bit too intentional to qualify for that title, and thus he stands as perhaps the exemplary learner, the one who has much to say, specifically in the form of questions, and thus fills the silence created by the ever waiting, always listening teacher. The fragment from Heraclitus jumped out from the page that had remained open from last night, when my mind started wandering toward the Fall semester, and the Honors College lecture I'll be giving on Heraclitus.
The fragment is number 16, and reads: "Much learning does not teach one to have understanding, else it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hacataeus." The translator is G.T.W. Patrick, who submitted the translation in 1888 to Johns Hopkins in partial fulfillment of his doctoral degree. (Strangely, Partrick's translation was published the next year in the American Journal of Psychology!) Patrick's translation of Heraclitus' fragments includes a list of sources from the ancient Mediterraneans, which I read as a map that shows where each of the fragments travelled, or an example of how a 'hermenuetical field' [OPM 120] can be mapped. (I'm sure to talk about this in my lecture, which will also address the course theme of 'friendship' by way of Aristotle's story as retold by Heidegger. In other words, I'll also use Being and Learning chapter 5 'The Dwelling of Heraclitus') One of the primary destinations of Heraclitus' fragments is Diogenes Laertius, who wrote The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. (When I saw this, I went up to my study and grabbed my copy of Lives, so I could read the citation.) I've always been interested in Diogenes for lots of reasons. One is the style of book, which I find to be so originary, and thus another resource for the future literary philosophy I'll be writing. The other is his claim to be a 'citizen of the universe,' or cosmopolitan. I can relate to that sentiment, as well as to the nickname The Dog, which he was given as a result of his tendency to 'sleep anywhere.' (Here he is depicted in Rafael's "School of Athens" --- one of my all time favorites!)
Diogenes, in Book IX of his Lives begins with a comment that reminds me of the story of St. Francis I mentioned in yesterday's blog post; the one of Francis stripping off his clothes and declaring himself to be a brother of Christ. Another version of Francis story has him saying to his biological father, "Father, I am no longer your son. I am now a son of God." This version of the story seems to be more plausible because it expresses more consistently Francis' desire to take up the life of Jesus, above all to follow the teaching of poverty aka to live the life of humility and serving the poor. (It should be noted that Jesus makes over 3000 references to caring for the poor, but it can all be reduced to Luke 6:20: "Blessed by the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.") All this to say that the opening line from Diogenes' 'Life of Heraclitus,' says: "Heraclitus was the son of Blyson, or, as some say, of Heraceon...." [After a quick search for Heraceon in Lives, who I presumed to be some noteworthy philosopher, I turned to the internet, and the only reference beyond the very quotation I've just made cited appears in the 1892 issue of the American Bee Journal, which notes I.H. Bailey's The Nursery Book, noteworthy for its 107 illustrations, descriptions of best planting practices from around the world, including "How to propagate over 2,000 varieties of shrubs, trees, and herbaceous, or soft-stemmed plants." Google, unfortunately, got this one wrong, but, as with many errors one finds surprises, and here I not only find myself back in the 1880's, but back to OPM 95 from May 19th, when I cited the The New Yorker piece by Adam Gopnick as a way of describing the strange hermeneutical logic of this writing experiment: "Our minds as readers are also made like beehives -- sending scholar-messengers out into the world for nectar, finding it where they will, and making their own peculiar honey. We cannot police their routes out and back, no matter how we try. Pendantry tries to shut the exits to the hives and makes the bees do all their work in the dark. Scholarship tries to map some of the bees' travel."(New Yorker, 4.28.14, p. 49) In sum, Diogenes reference to 'Heraceon' as progenitor of Heraclitus will remain a mystery, but I'll hypothesize this mysterious figure is a 'second' parent in the way God was for Francis.
That's about as far as one could go in comparing Francis and Heraclitus, who, by Diogenes account, was "above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit...And at last, becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to live, spending his time in walking about the mountains, feeding on grasses and plants..." [Perhaps this is where Google's algorithm made the random connection?!]
Although, at times, I am filled with the spirit of misanthropy, especially when I find myself in crowded market places, my sense is that Diogenes is misrepresenting Heraclitus' disdain for the polis life. Indeed, Heraclitus is very much the exemplary Sage because he ditched the City for the mountains. But what of the formation of the learning community? This he did not form. On the contrary, he declared himself an autodidact, which means he believed no one could be taught by another. But is this so far from the pedagogy described in these meditations? Is not the Sage the one who teaches nothing, and only 'lets learning be learned'? Would not the teacher only signify one who is always ready to listen to what the student as investigated and learned on their own? But if this is the way it works, haven't we found ourselves again describing the figure of the solitary ego, the persona that has been deconstructed throughout these meditations? Doesn't the learning community arise from the ruins of this solitary figure? And doesn't intersubjectivity replace subjectivity?
An epigram cited by Diogenes at the end of his brief biography on Heraclitus suggests, I think, the important category running throughout these meditations, the one that identifies the formation of a learning community from the arbitrary aggregation of what Arendt calls 'the social.' All distinction and singularity is lost in 'the social.' Whereas the gathering of a community, which is really just a larger gathering of friends, happens via distinction, and unified plurality. The difference between 'the social' and a congregation of unique individuals, which emerges from the special relationship between two friends, is felt in the epigram for Heraclitus cited by Diogenes: "I who lie here am Heraclitus, spare me Ye rude unlettered men: 'Twas not for you that I did labor, but for wiser people. One man may be to me a countless host, and an unnumbered multitude be no one; and this I still say in the shades below."
All this returns me to the second prompt for today's commemorative commentary, and that is the last lines of OPM 124: "To be enjoined intersubjectively is to be seized by the other. We call this being-seized-by-the-other the heeding of the directive of wisdom, the pathos of compassion. The path of silence is the pathos of compassion." Perhaps the 'holy fool' calls us to be compassionate, and to silence our juridical voice, and thereby to refrain from judging others? And perhaps the 'foolishness' of the holy fool is the restraint they show toward judging the 'unnumbered multitude,' recognizing that while this mass society persists it can never replace or diminish the power of friendship.
That's about as far as one could go in comparing Francis and Heraclitus, who, by Diogenes account, was "above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit...And at last, becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to live, spending his time in walking about the mountains, feeding on grasses and plants..." [Perhaps this is where Google's algorithm made the random connection?!]
Although, at times, I am filled with the spirit of misanthropy, especially when I find myself in crowded market places, my sense is that Diogenes is misrepresenting Heraclitus' disdain for the polis life. Indeed, Heraclitus is very much the exemplary Sage because he ditched the City for the mountains. But what of the formation of the learning community? This he did not form. On the contrary, he declared himself an autodidact, which means he believed no one could be taught by another. But is this so far from the pedagogy described in these meditations? Is not the Sage the one who teaches nothing, and only 'lets learning be learned'? Would not the teacher only signify one who is always ready to listen to what the student as investigated and learned on their own? But if this is the way it works, haven't we found ourselves again describing the figure of the solitary ego, the persona that has been deconstructed throughout these meditations? Doesn't the learning community arise from the ruins of this solitary figure? And doesn't intersubjectivity replace subjectivity?
An epigram cited by Diogenes at the end of his brief biography on Heraclitus suggests, I think, the important category running throughout these meditations, the one that identifies the formation of a learning community from the arbitrary aggregation of what Arendt calls 'the social.' All distinction and singularity is lost in 'the social.' Whereas the gathering of a community, which is really just a larger gathering of friends, happens via distinction, and unified plurality. The difference between 'the social' and a congregation of unique individuals, which emerges from the special relationship between two friends, is felt in the epigram for Heraclitus cited by Diogenes: "I who lie here am Heraclitus, spare me Ye rude unlettered men: 'Twas not for you that I did labor, but for wiser people. One man may be to me a countless host, and an unnumbered multitude be no one; and this I still say in the shades below."
All this returns me to the second prompt for today's commemorative commentary, and that is the last lines of OPM 124: "To be enjoined intersubjectively is to be seized by the other. We call this being-seized-by-the-other the heeding of the directive of wisdom, the pathos of compassion. The path of silence is the pathos of compassion." Perhaps the 'holy fool' calls us to be compassionate, and to silence our juridical voice, and thereby to refrain from judging others? And perhaps the 'foolishness' of the holy fool is the restraint they show toward judging the 'unnumbered multitude,' recognizing that while this mass society persists it can never replace or diminish the power of friendship.
3.0 (Monday) - There is so much happening above in the 2.0 commentary, and there's no reason to respond or add to it. If anyone ever needed an example of the circuitous way I think, it's a great example! Yesterday was Father's Day, and the above commentary is connected to one of my nickname's that Kelly noted in the card she gave me, which featured a doodle much like our own: "you too, the dog!" I might have a bit of the Diogenes in my, but the reference is not to him. I had an uncle who was named Diogenes. He was mostly in pajamas and lying in bed ill when we visited the Dominican Republic. The original Diogenes was given the nickname, The Dog, because he would "sleep anywhere." The implication is that he had no permanent home. He was a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world! I suppose this is what gave him credibility as a historian. Even though I earned my nickname for the habit of "sniffing" around, I can relate to Diogenes cosmopolitanism. I have an essay on Du Bois that is about to be published, and in that piece I describe his cosmopolitanism, based on his embrace of the African-American spirituals and European orchestral music. For awhile cosmopolitanism was in vogue, mostly advanced by my colleagues who were suspicious of identity politics, and who were looking for a renewed version of humanism and liberal learning. I didn't jump on that band wagon, which fizzled after a year or two. But there is something to it, and in my current work I am emphasizing the liberal arts. In this OPM project, however, the move went in the opposite direction. If cosmopolitanism is an appeal to the universal and a vertical transcendence above the local, then originary thinking is a descent into the primal ground. I'm on my way down to NJ this day, so I'll have to cut this 3.0 commentary short. (I've called back to Hofstra for a rare June meeting, an interview for a new dept member!). I did want to note that one of the moves that happened in last week's writing was the description of the outcome of the first moment of the dialectic as the intersubjective relation between the learner and the object of learning. OPM 124: "To be enjoined intersubjectively is to be seized by the other." This is exactly the point I have been emphasizing the past few years! Except that the "other" is not first and foremost another person, but the work of art! Again, this first came to me in my study of Du Bois and the experience of his John Jones with the music of Wagner.
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