Selection 22 – Ethics

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3/22/2010 – Started Ethics today. Made it thru the introduction where I learned that Ethics and Politics are 2 halves of a single work that stand alone. Aristotle was trying to examine the way people conduct themselves, both as individuals and as a group. I am not very far in to the reading but it sounds like a forerunner of natural law and the social contract theories that developed during the enlightenment. On another point I now see where Heinlein got the idea for his History and Moral Philosophy courses in Starship Troopers:

We must, however, remember that the production of good character is not the end of either individual or state action: that is the aim of the one and the other because good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing. The end of all action, individual or collective, is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. There is, Aristotle insists, no difference of kind between the good of one and the good of many or all. The sole difference is one of amount or scale. This does not mean simply that the State exists to secure in larger measure the objects of degree which the isolated individual attempts, but is too feeble, to secure without it. On the contrary, it rather insists that whatever goods society alone enables a man to secure have always had to the individual—whether he realised it or not—the value which, when so secured, he recognises them to possess. The best and happiest life for the individual is that which the State renders possible, and this it does mainly by revealing to him the value of new objects of desire and educating him to appreciate them. To Aristotle or to Plato the State is, above all, a large and powerful educative agency which gives the individual increased opportunities of self-development and greater capacities for the enjoyment of life.

Looking forward, then, to the life of the State as that which aids support, and combines the efforts of the individual to obtain happiness, Aristotle draws no hard and fast distinction between the spheres of action of Man as individual and Man as citizen. Nor does the division of his discussion into the Ethics and the Politics rest upon any such distinction. The distinction implied is rather between two stages in the life of the civilised man—the stage of preparation for the full life of the adult citizen, and the stage of the actual exercise or enjoyment of citizenship. Hence the Ethics, where his attention is directed upon the formation of character, is largely and centrally a treatise on Moral Education. It discusses especially those admirable human qualities which fit a man for life in an organised civic community, which makes him “a good citizen,” and considers how they can be fostered or created and their opposites prevented. (J.A. Smith, The Ethics of Aristotle, Introduction, 3-4)

…

The Ethics is addressed to students who are presumed both to have enough general education to appreciate these points, and also to have a solid foundation of good habits. More than that is not required for the profitable study of it. (J.A. Smith, The Ethics of Aristotle, Introduction, 5)

Selection 21 – Psalms

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Selection 20 – Song of Solomon

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Selection 19 – Plato’s Symposium

Reference: Symposium Wikipedia Entry

Source:Symposium at Project Gutenberg

or

or

Background: Part of Plato’s middle dialogues written around 385 B.C., the Symposium is related as a story that one of Socrates disciples (Apollodorus) has heard from another disciple (Aristodemus). The action centers around a drinking party held to celebrate Agathon’s winning of a dramatic competition. Because the hosts and guests are worn out from the initial celebration the night before they decide to forgo the normal custom of drinking til they shit themselves and discuss the nature of love / eros instead. Because Plato took care to establish historical detail in the story the Symposium is often used as an insight into Athenian life, or so Wikipedia tells me in any case.

Discussion: At first glance this dialogue reads like a NAMBLA manifesto so you have to work a bit to divorce yourself from current social mores regarding both homosexual and pederastic realtionships and realize that they were accepted, at least to an extent at that time. Once you do that and concentrate on the arguments they boil down to

Obviously I am still getting caught up on starting this blog again. I will finish this this week

Trying to get started up again

As I am sure you noticed this project crashed and burned for quite a while.  Lots of things contributed but mainly school.  I am feeling a little more energetic now so I am trying to start back up.  In fact I am thinking about starting a Great Books book club.  The format would be pretty simple.  Two meetings a month say first and third Wednesdays.  The first meeting we would talk about the selections from that months readings from the 10 year reading plan or the Dartmouth Canon I posted previously. The second meeting we would discuss a book from the modern libraries 100 greatest novels, the choice of the novel would be rotated thru the group.  As I was thinking about this idea this morning I found a couple other blogs that people may be interested in:

Five feet of Books and Me

Harvard Classics Project

Self Made Scholar

Great Books Academy

Welcome – Updated 11/8/2007

Welcome to the Olympia Academy. I intend this to be a discussion with a Great Books focus. The ground rules are:

a) No politics unless it can be directly related to the book currently being discussed.
b) Be respectful.
c) Since I own the blog I kind of get to set the pace.

The basis for the reading list will be the “Dartmouth Canon”

First Year

First Quarter

First Week
1) Genesis
2) Hesiod, Theogony
3) Hesiod, Works and Days

Second Week
1) Homer, Iliad 1-4
2) Homer, Iliad 5-8
3) Homer, Iliad 9-12

Third Week
1) Homer, Iliad 13-16
2) Homer, Iliad 17-20
3) Homer, Iliad 21-24

Fourth Week
1) Gilgamesh
2) Thucydides 1
3) Thucydides 2

Fifth Week
1) Thucydides 3-5
2) Thucydides 6-8
3) Job

Sixth Week
1) Aeschylus, Oresteia
2) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus
3) Sophocles, Antigone

Seventh Week
1) Isaiah
2) Aristophanes, Clouds
3) Aristophanes, Frogs

Eighth Week
1) Plato, Apology
2) Plato, Crito
3) Plato, Phædo

Ninth Week
1) Plato, Republic
2) Plato, Republic 2-3
3) Plato, Republic 4-5

Tenth Week
1) Plato, Republic 6-7
2) Plato, Republic 8-9
3) Plato, Republic 10

Second Quarter

First Week
1) Plato’s Symposium
2) Song of Solomon
3) Psalms

Second Week
1) Aristotle, Ethics 1-2
2) Aristotle, Ethics 3-4
3) Aristotle, Ethics 5-6

Third Week
1) Aristotle, Ethics 7-8
2) Aristotle, Ethics 9-10
3) Aristotle, Politics 1-2

Fourth Week
1) Aristotle, Politics 3-4
2) Aristotle, Politics 7-8
3) Aristotle, Poetics

Fifth Week
1) Aristotle, Metaphysics 1
2) Aristotle, Metaphysics 1
3) Aristotle, Physics 2

Sixth Week
1) Aristotle, Physics 2
2) Aristotle, On The Soul 1-2
3) Aristotle, On The Soul 2-3

Seventh Week
1) Aristotle, Physics 7
2) Aristotle, Physics 7
3) Aristotle, Metaphysics 11

Eighth Week
1) Lucretius, On The Nature of Things 1-2
2) Lucretius, On The Nature of Things 3-4
3) Lucretius, On The Nature of Things 5-6

Ninth Week
1) Livy 1
2) Polybius 6
3) Cicero, De Re Publica

Tenth Week
1) Plutarch, Caesar, Alexander
2) Plutarch, Romulus, Theseus

Third Quarter

First Week
1) Exodus
2) Exodus
3) Deuteronomy

Second Week
1) Virgil, Aeneid 1-3
2) Virgil, Aeneid 4-6,
3)Georgics 4

Third Week
1) Virgil, Aeneid 7-12
2) Tacitus, Annals 1-6
3) Tacitus, History 1-5

Fourth Week
1) Matthew
2) Paul, Romans
3) Revelation

Fifth Week
1) Augustine, Confessions
2) Augustine, Confessions
3) Augustine, City of God

Sixth Week
1) Augustine, City of God
2) Aquinas, Summa Theologica
3) Aquinas, Summa Theologica

Seventh Week
1) Aquinas, Summa Theologica
2) Aquinas, Summa Theologica
3) Dante, Inferno

Eighth Week
1) Ibn Kaldun, The Muqaddimah
2) Ibn Kaldun, The Muqaddimah
3) Dante, Inferno

Ninth Week
1) Dante, Inferno
2) Dante, Paradiso
3) Dante, Paradiso

Tenth Week
1) Njal Saga
2) Njal Saga
3) Song of Roland

Second Year

First Quarter

First Week
1) Montaigne, Essays
2) Montaigne, Essays
3) Machiavelli, Prince

Second Week
1) Machiavelli, Prince
2) Machiavelli, Discourses
3) Machiavelli, Discourses

Third Week
1) Cervantes, Don Quixote
2) Cervantes, Don Quixote
3) Cervantes, Don Quixote

Fourth Week
1) Racine, Phædre
2) Shakespeare, Hamlet
3) Shakespeare, Lear

Fifth Week
1) Shakespeare, Lear
2) Shakespeare, Tempest
3) Bacon, New Atlantis

Sixth Week
1) Galileo, Two World Systems
2) Galileo, Two World Systems
3) Descartes, Discourse on Method

Seventh Week
1) Descartes, Discourse on Method
2) Descartes, Meditations
3) Descartes, Meditations

Eighth Week
1) Hobbes, Leviathan
2) Hobbes, Leviathan
3) Hobbes, Leviathan

Ninth Week
1) Hobbes, Leviathan
2) Pascal, Pensées
3) Pascal, Pensées

Tenth Week
1) Vico, The New Science
2) Vico, The New Science
3) Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

Second Quarter

First Week
1) Locke, Second Treatise
2) Locke, Second Treatise
3) Locke, Second Treatise

Second Week
1) Montesquieu, Persian Letters
2) Montesquieu, Persian Letters
3) Hume, Dialogues on Natural Religion

Third Week
1) Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
2) Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
3) Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Fourth Week
1) Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (selections)
2) Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (selections)
3) D’Alembert, Preface to L’Encyclopedie

Fifth Week
1) Rousseau, First Discourse
2) Rousseau, Second Discourse
3) Rousseau, Third Discourse

Sixth Week
1) Rousseau, Emile 1
2) Rousseau, Emile 2
3) Rousseau, Emile 3

Seventh Week
1) Rousseau, Emile 4
2) Rousseau, Emile 5
3) Rousseau, Social Contract 1

Eighth Week
1) Rousseau, Social Contract 2
2) Rousseau, Social Contract 3-4
3) Rousseau, Reveries

Ninth Week
1) Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
2) Tocqueville, The Ancient Regime and the French Revolution
3) Tocqueville, Democracy in America 1

Tenth Week
1) Tocqueville, Democracy in America 1
2) Tocqueville, Democracy in America 2
3) Tocqueville, Democracy in America 3

Third Quarter

First Week
1) Kant, Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals
2) Kant, Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals
3) Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Introduction)

Second Week
1) Goethe, Faust 1
2) Goethe, Faust 1
3) Goethe, Faust 2

Third Week
1) Goethe, Faust 2
2) Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind (selections)
3) Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind (selections)

Fourth Week
1) Hegel, Philosophy of History
2) Hegel, Philosophy of History
3) Hegel, Philosophy of History

Fifth Week
1) Marx, 1844 Manuscripts
2) Marx, 1844 Manuscripts
3) Marx, German Ideology

Sixth Week
1) Marx, Das Kapital (selections)
2) Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
3) Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Seventh Week
1) Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
2) Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
3) Darwin, Origin of Species

Eighth Week
1) Darwin, Origin of Species
2) Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals
3) Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

Ninth Week
1) Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
2) Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
3) Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (selections)

Tenth Week
1) Weber, Science as a Vocation
2) Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
3) Heidegger, Letter on Humanism

I don’t really expect to cover ground at the same pace as is outlined here, and I don’t really expect anyone to read all these books. I figure that as we go along we will pick and choose. Hopefully this will lead to other suggestions. As the site gets established I will be more than happy to let others guide the selection of the reading. Discussion can take place in the comments section. Unless the comments are profane or spam I will not delete them. I will also be tagging each selection with an appropriate Technorati tag for easy linking to related items.

***Update*** Minor format change. I was striking out works as I finished them I am now linking the entries in the list below and the posts concerning each work.

I also struck the original introduction.

Way back when I started this endeavor I figure a few of my friends might stop by and comment every once in a while. Not the case. The fatal mistake in that plan was forgetting I don’t have any friends.

I also thought I might get some visitors from technorati and from other blogs I might link. Again I was mistaken. Apparently my opinion of the philosophical works that formed the basis of Western Civilization isn’t that highly sought after. Imagine that.

As soon as those pieces clicked into place in my admittedly slow brain I realized that I don’t really need to explain my blog or establish any rules. It would almost be liberating if I had any readers. ***Sob***

OK so I don’t have any readers and the reading is progressing at a snails pace, why am I continuing? It’s a grudge match now. I don’t care if I die on the shitter with some ancient piece of semi-pornographic sadomasochistic dreck passing as profound thought (yes I am looking at you Freud) clutched in my cold dead hands and now one ever reads this piece o’ crap blog except me I am finishing this project. You can come along for the ride or not it’s your choice, but when cockroaches rule the earth and they restore my hard drive this blog will still be there.

Books, Great Books of the Western World, Western Canon

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Making progress

Even though I haven’t been posting I have been working on the reading list. In the past couple months I finished the Symposium, Psalms, Song of Solomon, and am working on some Aristotle. I have also read Atlas Shrugged, Plato in 90 minutes, Aristotle in 90 minutes, and am working on an Andrew Jackson biography as well a Naked Lunch.

I know the state of this blog makes me look like a complete slacker but I am at least partially productive.

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Wow it’s been forever since I posted here.

Life has gone through a few major upsets and to be honest I kind of lost interest for awhile but today I finished up Plato’s Symposium so I am back. At least for awhile.

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The Great Books 10 Year Reading Plan 1990 edition

A while back I published a linked to the 1952 10 year reading plan that came with the Great Books of the Western World. Today I received an e-mail requesting a link to the 1990 version. It took a little effort but I found it here. The two versions have a lot of commonality, but there are some significant differences. Lots more recent fiction in the second version and (without going through and actually counting selections) the first edition seems heavier on the math and sciences.

I should also thank the commenter because he made me realize how badly I have neglected this project. Time to get off my butt and get started again.

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Selection 18 – Plato’s Republic

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Placeholder. I have finished the reading but I have been so busy at work I haven’t had time to post anything beyond this yet.

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