"I Know That I Don't Know"?

If you stroll through the Plaka tourist district in Athens, you'll have ample opportunities to buy t-shirts and other items with the slogan "en oida oti ouden oida," most of which will attribute this saying to Socrates.  It means "I know this one thing: that I know nothing."

Of course, it is a little silly and possibly self-contradictory, since knowing one thing means knowing something, while knowing nothing precludes knowing something.

Still, if Socrates said it, it's worth repeating, right?  (For kicks, Google it and see how many times it is quoted authoritatively.)

But I wonder if Socrates ever said it at all.

Yes, I know that we don't know exactly what Socrates said.  Socrates left us no writings, and as for transcriptions of his conversations, we have only three first-hand sources to rely on: those of Plato and Xenophon his students, and of Aristophanes his ostensible rival.  It seems likely that Aristophanes did not attempt to represent Socrates accurately, nor as a philosopher.  Plato may well have invented much of Socrates' dialogue as well, but he also had a stake in continuing and defending the philosophical work of Socrates in Athens.

For this reason, when philosophers refer to Socrates, we are usually referring to the Socrates found in Plato's rather extensive writings.

So did Plato's Socrates ever say "en oida oti ouden oida"?  It appears not.

The closest thing I've found is a passage in Plato's Apology of Socrates, where Socrates says something that should really be translated as something like this: I do not claim to know those things that I do not know. 

This is not only more reasonable, it's also good advice: don't pretend to know what you don't know and you'll avoid a lot of trouble.

It's important for another reason, though.  The "en oida oti ouden oida" quote seems to be something of a staple of frosh philosophy texts and classes.

The danger here is that we will present an ancient philosopher (two of them, in this case) as though he were fairly foolish; and as a result, we will not take ancient philosophy seriously.

All it should take to cure this is a quick look at the Greek text of any of Plato's dialogues.  The Phaedo, for instance, bears a slow and careful read in Greek, since no translation I've found captures all the wordplay.  And as Peirce pointed out, when one reads the Greek, one discovers something else that the translators often veil from our sight: Plato's Socrates uses the language of syllogism in a way that shows that he was doing Aristotelian logic before Aristotle was.

By relying on hearsay rather than on engagement with the primary texts, we close off a path of inquiry into a whole set of ancient philosophical texts.  "Doesn't their being ancient mean that they are exhausted?" you may ask.  Old trees, it seems to me, may still bear rich fruit.  And just as we find that old caves sometimes have rich troves of ancient unread texts, what else might we find if we take the time to read the ancients closely?

Theology and Theomythy

I was just reading Jamie Smith's recent post on "Poetry and the End of Theology" over at his Fors Clavigera blog.  His post reminded me of something I was thinking of several years ago when I was writing From Homer to Harry Potter.

Back in Homer's time, the words λογος (logos) and μυθος (mythos) were near synonyms.  Over time, they came to be distinguished from one another as meaning something like "an account in propositions" (logos) and "an account in stories" (mythos).

The word "logos" is one of the roots of our word "theology," of course.  Theology, then, means something like the attempt to discuss the divine in a logical and propositional manner.  Which is all well and good, unless it begins to turn God into something we only analyze and never experience, about which we speak propositions but whose story never means much to us.

As a philosopher of religion, I think theology is important.  The things we believe have consequences for us and for others.  As one of my mentors, Ken Ketner, puts it, "Bad thinking kills people."  We know this from experience: people use theological ideas to justify all sorts of unethical behavior.

Nevertheless, theology is pretty dry stuff, and its very dryness has a genealogy and has consequences that we should be aware of.  As Jamie puts it, some of the dryness of contemporary theology comes from a Cartesian anthropology that assumes that the most important part of us is that we are thinking things - things that care chiefly about propositions.  If all we care about is getting our religion right, than this is the kind of theology we need, I suppose.

But is that what we are?  Are we not also beings who live in the world, who live out stories, and who tell stories?  Aren't creativity and poetry and loveliness important to us as well?  This got me thinking: maybe what we need is less theology and more theomythy.  I'm not sure just what that would look like, but I think it might be worth a try.  I'm interested in what you believe, sure.  But I'm also interested in hearing your story. 

On Traveling and Journaling

It's been too long since I've blogged.  My excuse?  I've been traveling a lot, including quite a bit with students.  In the last few months I've been in Belize, Guatemala, Greece, and the UK with my students.

This probably sounds like a dream life, and I have to admit it's not all that bad.

But it's also a lot of work.  A weeklong class in Greece usually takes me a little over a year to prepare, and in the semester leading up to it the workload approaches the amount of preparation I do for any of my other classes.  Last fall I was teaching my usual load plus prepping two study-abroad courses, so I was swamped much of the time.

But it's worth it.  My students come back with perspectives they could not have gained at home, if their journals are to be believed.

I always require my students to keep a journal while we're traveling.  Sometimes I ask them specific questions, but usually I tell them to journal not for me but for themselves.  You may think this naive, and you may be right.  But I'd rather be naive than cynical.  That is, I'd rather appeal to their self-interest and to their own sense of themselves as growing learners than force them to write answers to my pre-fab questions.

I do give them some guidance, however.  Here are some of the things I teach them about journaling:

1) Pay attention to the little things, and write down whatever catches your attention.  If you noticed it, it probably matters.

 

2) Pay attention to all of your senses.  We tend to write about major events that happened, as though we were news reporters looking for the big story.  But why not write about the smells?  What sounds do you hear?  What do the birds or the streets or the nighttimes sound like?  How does the place you're in feel on your skin?  What new tastes have you encountered?  And so on.

3) Write continuously.  Don't plan to write a sketch or outline and then fill it in later.  As soon as you are on that plane home you will begin to forget what you experienced, and you will forget far more quickly than you want to believe.  Write now.

4) Write "gestures" and impressions.  Some of us have very good prose composition skills, and some of us do not.  But all of us can write down a few phrases, a few adjectives, a few words we've heard in passing.  Why not include entries in which you stand in one place and write down a list of nouns, of verbs, of adjectives that strike you as you soak the place in?

5) Draw pictures.  This is one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received, and I am no artist.  Cameras are great, but they capture what they see.  Drawing captures what you see.  Drawing also forces you to see what you wouldn't have seen otherwise.  As Louis Agassiz once said, a pencil is one of the best tools for seeing.  One of the best drawing tools I know of is a cheap ball-point pen.  You don't need fancy paper, and you don't need a lot of time.  Most of my best journal drawings are made in under two minutes with a cheap pen.

Try this out, and see if it doesn't completely change your journals.  When I'm in Greece, I like to show my students the different kinds of stonework in ancient walls.  The kind of stonework is helpful for dating the site, and it tells us a lot about the technology of the people who built the walls.  I've found that as I try to draw a section of wall, the differences between cyclopean walls, Lesbian walls, and Roman walls become clearer to me, I remember them better, and I am better able to teach about them.


6) Revisit your journal periodically.  Last of all, when you get back, revisit your journal from time to time.  Start off doing so every week, and then every month and every year.  When you revisit it, add a page or two of notes.  What does your experience traveling back then mean to you now?  Traveling is a luxury some of us enjoy, but it can also be a valuable learning opportunity, one that continues to be valuable for as long as we continue to reflect on it.

Do you have other journaling tips?  I'd love to hear them.  Meanwhile, I've got to get back to preparing for my next trips and courses abroad.


Buen viaje!

Learn Spanish in Guatemala, Help Save the Rainforest

I think the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it.  Read books in the language you want to learn, eat the food of its cultures, and, if at all possible, travel to where it is spoken.

If you're thinking about doing this with Spanish, let me recommend a place to do this in Guatemala: the Asociación Bio-Itzá in San José, Petén, Guatemala, on the Northwest shore of Lake Petén-Itzá.

This is a small, non-profit group run by a few devoted individuals who are trying to preserve their language, their forests, their modes of agriculture, and their communities.  They teach Spanish by full immersion, providing four hours a day of individual instruction tailored to your needs, homestays with delightful local families, and the opportunity to experience both contemporary Guatemalan and traditional Mayan cultures.

So why am I writing about this?  Because their Spanish school is their means of raising money to support a number of other important endeavors including: 

• Plantas medicinales and Sustainable Agriculture:  They are trying to teach their community the uses of the rainforest plants, and especially the medicinal uses of those plants, before that knowledge is lost.  Along the way, they're trying to promote sustainable agriculture in a place that is being ravaged by slash-and-burn corn farms.  These farms are only productive for 2-3 years on the fragile and thin rainforest soil of the Petén region, after which they are depleted.  The Mayans used a system of crop rotation and of letting land lie fallow as a sustainable means of recharging the forest soils.  

• Reserva Bio-Itzá: They are preserving one of the largest pieces of unbroken rainforest in the Americas, mostly without government or NGO support.  While we were walking on one of the trails with two of their rangers (they have three) one of them stopped and got an anxious look in his eye.  He held up a hand for us all to be silent.  Very faintly in the distance, we heard it: a chainsaw.  The director of the reserve, who was with us, gravely sent off the other ranger to look into it.  "Sólo mirar, ¡nada más!" he said: just look, but don't do anything else.  The rangers don't carry any weapons and they cannot afford to carry powerful radios or telephones.  So they walk the perimeter trying to intercept people who are hunting endangered animals or cutting down ancient trees.  When they find those people, they use the most powerful tool they have: they talk with the poachers and try to teach them about the forest they are trying to preserve.  When the poachers have automatic weapons, this is a very risky business.  These intrepid rangers consider it worth their while.  Visit the reserve if you are able - it's an amazing education in itself, and the largely unexcavated Mayan ruins there are well worth seeing.

• Asuntos Sociales:  They provide funding for rural students to stay in school, and are working on a number of other projects to try to improve the well-being of their community.

• Lenguas Mayas:  One of their earliest movements was an attempt to preserve the Mayan languages of their region: Itzaj, Kek'chi, Mopan, and a handful of others.  One reason to do this is that the names of the plants and animals in those languages are not just names but stories.  Another reason is that the languages used to bind them together as a community.  Unfortunately, they lost a generation that was castigated and fined for speaking in Mayan languages. On the positive side, there is now an institute in San José that is dedicated to preserving and teaching these languages.

If you're interested, send an email to them at escuelabioitza at hotmail dot com.  Or check out their new website.

Come Along, Inspector Jesus?

When my youngest son was still quite small, he loved the Advent hymn, "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus."  We think he loved it in part because he loved the movie "Inspector Gadget," and he thought the words were "Come Along, Inspector Jesus."  (We had several such mis-hearings of hymns, it turns out.  Another favorite was the second line of "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," which my son heard not as "Let me to thy bosom fly" but "Let me chew thy apple pie." I think of apple pie as a gift from God, so I have no problem with this.)

I'm not sure why, but this year I've been more conscious than ever of Advent.  It seems that everywhere I go I hear Christmas music during Advent, which has been striking me like Christmas carols on the fourth of July - a confusion of holidays.  Liturgical calendars have left a shadow-impression of themselves on cultural calendars, but much of their detail has been lost.  Who celebrates Pentecost, for instance?  Yet it used to be one of the most important of Christian holidays.  Christmas and Easter are great gift-giving holidays, but Lent's main appearance seems to be in Mardi Gras.

I don't plan to be a curmudgeon about this, and lament that we've lost the "good old days" of piety and that today's culture is somehow more degenerate than yesterday's.  I'm quite fond of today, actually.  (It's where I live, after all!)  I don't dislike being wished a "Merry Christmas" in Advent any more than I disliked hearing my son sing "Come along, Inspector Jesus!"  (And no, I don't mind being wished "Happy Holidays" either.  Anyone who wants to wish me well on any given day is always welcome to do so!)

But I do think that it's worth revisiting old ideas to see if we've "mis-heard" them.  For myself, it has been a delight to be in Advent this year.  When I've heard Christmas carols (as early as November!) I've tried to think of Advent hymns instead.  The result has been that I've been nurturing the pleasure of expectation and anticipation, and, now that Christmas is upon us, singing those Christmas hymns is going to be a real treat.

However you celebrate these days, whether you distinguish Advent from Christmas and Epiphany, or celebrate Christmas from Hallowe'en to Mardi Gras, or if you just finished celebrating Hanukkah, or are enjoying some other holiday, I wish you all the best that holiday has to offer.  And if you celebrate no holy-days, but are only having some time off, I wish you good rest in that.  And for all of us, I wish us good hearing, joy in mis-hearings, and better ears to hear in the future.

More on Letters of Recommendation and Lying

I've been busy this month with writing letters of recommendation for my students - more than I've ever written before, by a long shot. 

I just submitted one letter using an online form that asked me to rank this student.  I was given four choices for the ranking:
[ ] Best student this year
[ ] Best student in five years
[ ] Not applicable
[ ] Best student in [ ] years

I guess this means that if my student is anything less than "best student in X years" then I'm supposed to say that her/his ranking is "not applicable."  This is the ranking equivalent of fast food drink sizes: do you want big, really big, or enormous?  Is there something wrong with small?  More to the point, is there something wrong with simply having been a good student, one who will flourish in grad school?  How am I supposed to compare my students in this way?  And isn't this inviting me to either lie by making them all "best in show" or damn my student by failing to praise him/her?

Do Philosophy Classes Have "Labs"?

When I was preparing to go to grad school I was torn between two choices: Ph.D. in marine/riparian biology, or Ph.D. in philosophy?  I love fish, aquatic invertebrates,

(well, most of them, anyway) and the environments they live in.  Wouldn't it be great to make freestone streams and tidal pools into my classrooms?

But I also love philosophy.  Philosophy has connections to every other discipline; it offers a unique perspective on human activities; and it promotes some of the most interesting and fruitful conversations I know of.  (Yes, I admit some professional bias here, and don't begrudge others a similar bias towards what they love.)  Philosophy classes take on questions about truth, value, meaning, religion, justice, science, language, reason, history, relationships, and much more.  It can be very difficult, but there's usually a huge payoff for the effort you put into it.

Now that I teach philosophy, I often find myself lurking around the biology department at my school, to read their journals, to talk with the professors there (who patiently put up with my presence there), and to eye their labs with envy.


Now, I think bio labs are great places, but it's not the places themselves that I most like.  It's rather the idea of the place.  Labs are spaces set apart for learning by experience.  We have labs for the sciences, and we have labs for the arts as well (though we usually call those "studios").  In the social sciences they use labs for observing human activities, and foreign languages have (or ought to have) labs for practicing language.  Writers have workshops, historians have museums and archives, and other disciplines have internships.

Philosophy, unlike all these other disciplines, does not appear to have any labs at all.  At least, not at first glance.

Partly this is due to the reflective nature of philosophy: philosophers have often understood our discipline as a step back from experience in order to gain a cool, disinterested view of the world.  To some degree, we still think that, but that idea of having a privileged access to reality through the use of the right kind of language, or through a scientific worldview, has fallen under suspicion.  Pace Descartes, we don't necessarily understand the world better by turning completely away from it.

Contrary to popular opinion, "philosophy" is not a synonym for "opinion."  Nor is it a synonym for "doctrines."  Philosophy has grown and changed quite a lot in the last few centuries, which means that is not always easy to define.  One thing that is common to all philosophers, however, is that philosophy is an activity.  Doing philosophy is not the mere rehearsal of past views, nor is it merely an attempt to present our already established opinions in clearer or more persuasive language.

Philosophers do, in fact, set aside spaces and times for practicing philosophy.  One important kind of lab philosophers have is the seminar, which has its roots in Plato's practice of philosophy.  Whatever else we might say about Plato, he knew how important good conversation is to advancing philosophy.  In his dialogues, Plato uses conversation to illustrate two points:  first, we need to spend at least some of our time in serious, sustained conversation and reflection with others.  Second, when we do so, we need to follow the argument where it leads and not just where we want it to go.

A brook trout I photographed in Maine.

In future posts I'll take up several other kinds of "labs" philosophers use, which I'll mention briefly here.  First, recently, some philosophers have begun doing what they call "experimental philosophy."  Second, I find that teaching philosophy "in the field" (for environmental philosophy or ethics, for instance) or teaching abroad provides a special experience for animating philosophical conversations.  Third, I've come up with several "hands-on" (or, just as often, "eyes-on") projects for my classes in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and Environmental Philosophy that are helpful pedagogical tools.

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[Images: Raphael's "School of Athens," showing famous Greek philosophers "at work"; two mayflies photgraphed in the summer of 2009 in Gravenhurst, Ontario; one of the tributaries to Lake Muskoka in Ontario; a brook trout photographed on the Magalloway River in Maine, 2009 while fishing and doing some research with Matt Dickerson.  The Raphael image is in the public domain; the others are my own photos.  I think mayflies are especially lovely creatures.  The adult stage shown above is a very brief period of their lives; most of their lives are spent underwater, and their appearance is quite different then from what it is as adults.] 

Mike Wanous, Great Professor!

Augustana College Biology Professor Mike Wanous has once again lived up to Augie's slogan "Great Professors." challenged his lab sections to raise money for microlending website kiva.org this year.  Between the two sections, they raised over $3000.  The payoff?  The winning lab section won the right to style Dr. Wanous' hair. Here's the coiffure he was sporting last week:

He tells me that my haircut last spring served as an inspiration.  (I let the Colleges Against Cancer group I advise do the same thing with my hair.  They also raised quite a lot of money for cancer research and prevention - we have very philanthropic students!)  Frankly, I don't see the resemblance at all: