Philosophy Module by Tom Goff

Philosophy Reading, Process Guide Part One

The Death of Socrates, painting by Jacques-Louis David (1787)

Reading and Writing Center, Folsom Lake College Philosophy Reading Module

Philosophy Reading, Process Guide Part One

Philosophy Reading Module: Writing Support for Philosophy Courses (worth 1 unit in ENGLB 71) (with examples from The Trial of Socrates, by I.F. Stone, from Plato’s dialogues featuring Socrates, and from other writings) by Tom Goff, Instructional Assistant, FLC Reading and Writing Center

phi·los·o·phy [fi-los-uh-fee] –noun, plural -phies.

the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.

any of the three branches, namely natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy, that are accepted as composing this study.

a system of philosophical doctrine: the philosophy of Spinoza.

the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them: the philosophy of science.

a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs.

a philosophical attitude, as one of composure and calm in the presence of troubles or annoyances.

Origin: 1250–1300; ME philosophie < L philosophia < Gk philosophía. See philo-, -sophy *Note: “Philo-” is the Greek term for love, and “-sophy” is the term for wisdom. So, philosophy can be called love of wisdom. Of these six different definitions, we will pay most attention to numbers, 1, 2, and 6. The other meanings are useful from time to time. All definitions are from Dictionary.com.]

Philosophy Reading, Process Guide Part One

Welcome to the Reading and Writing Center! This module, or learning packet, will give you some helpful approaches to reading and studying philosophy. Also, anything that helps us read and study a subject better will help us write better about that subject. After reading this module, you should feel more comfortable dealing with ideas. The aim of philosophy is to help you deal with ideas, which are the philosopher’s tools for understanding life. The reading assignment for this module is the module packet, followed by six readings in philosophy. Three of these six readings are chosen from primary sources (actual documents), three from secondary sources (writings by professional philosophers or historians of ideas, summarizing or responding to original documents). Directions 1.

Read the handout, “Philosophy Reading: A Process Guide.” Important! Annotate the handout. That is, take notes in the margin. Then discuss the Process Guide with a staff member. Please ask if you’re not sure how to take margin notes.

Since the Process Guide is lengthy, don’t try to read, annotate, and discuss it all at once. Take it in stages. It’s made up of a general introduction, a short account of the life of Socrates, the Greek philosopher, and the steps you’ll follow in the reading method. Important sections of the Process Guide are marked in bold type (for example, “Socrates and His Trade,” or “The Basic Unit: The Paragraph”) and listed on the signoff sheet at the end of the module.

As you finish reading each section, look over your annotations, then complete a “Comprehension Self-Assessment” page. Ask a staff member for these pages.

Read and discuss the Summary Checklist and “Is the Philosophical Work Relevant?” These papers are included in a separate packet.

For each philosophy reading you must: ● preview ● read and annotate ● complete a reading analysis sheet (ask for this from staff person)

Here are some skills you’ll develop when you complete the module. You’ll be able to: ● Compare or contrast different philosophers’ ideas.. 3

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● Develop a sharp eye for patterns of organization. You’ll be able to recognize how philosophers organize their written thoughts so that the reader can more easily read, understand, and remember. (Contrary to popular opinion, not all philosophers write in difficult language.) ● Explain how important chains or sequences of events are related. This ability becomes important as philosophical ideas, in books, pamphlets, and speeches, enter the world and generate conflict or agreement. If you can do these things, you won’t feel, when taking a philosophy class, that the subject has been cut “into a ragbag of pictures and questions and isolated facts and dates,” as the historian Jacques Barzun says. And philosophy is a history of ideas and their influence. A Word at the Start Writing these words now, I wish I had had a guide to philosophy when I attended Sac State as an undergraduate. Having better things to do, I didn’t take my one philosophy course very seriously. At the end of the semester, after tuning in and zoning out, barely conscious through many of the professor’s lectures, I achieved a C. The professor, whose name I’ve completely forgotten, knew what he was doing. But I didn’t do very well when he introduced syllogisms, those problems in philosophical logic that looked like algebra to me. But syllogisms aren’t the whole business of philosophy. If we work a little at the ideas of the great philosophers, we can benefit from what they’re saying. Some of us students are young, as I was then. Others of us are older students, returning from lives usefully spent, but mostly outside school or college; we may have fears about readjusting. Whether we’re young or old, we haven’t gotten this far without some prior knowledge, to build the new knowledge upon. (More about that in a bit.) Either group can find much help in modern books, which take a new approach to philosophy. This module is simply one way of entering the topic, here at FLC. For the reader of graphic novels, or the watcher of movies, there are books like The X-Men and Philosophy, The Matrix and Philosophy, Watchmen and Philosophy. Real philosophy professionals have written these, or at least consulted on them, proof that philosophers don’t just live in caves or “ivory towers.” For the older student, comfort may come from a book like David Denby’s Great Books. Mr. Denby is a noted film critic for The New Yorker, as well as being a dad who scrambles to keep up with his kids on I-phones, Kindles, Facebook, and all the new ways of reading and communicating. After much computer reading, Denby felt he was skimming and screen-reading in short bursts, amid Internet-style distractions. He felt he was losing the older skill of cracking a book, reading steadily, and really learning. Having graduated from Columbia University years ago, Denby decided to go back and audit the Western Civilization classes he’d graduated from but not given enough thought to (we all get to be young, don’t we?). This would be his second chance to study philosophy (David 4

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Hume, Thomas Hobbes, the Socratic dialogues of Plato)—and write a book on what the challenges are now like, for him and the young students. The result, Great Books, is a really good introduction to many philosophical writers. I took my philosophy class in an earlier time, too. What earned me my C was probably what’s helped other students of my generation. I was at least aware that readers and writers, in the English-speaking world, kept sculpted busts with the names and faces of the great philosophers on them (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, maybe Schopenhauer or Nietzsche) in places of honor around the house, on the mantelpiece or on the desk. True, no one knows what Socrates “really” looked like. Even so, his imaginary face, carved on that bust on the desk, represented respect for philosophy, respect for the power of ideas. And I knew that many people, my professor for one, still read and respected Aristotle and Plato, the philosophers. With that respect, I could agree. And with a few more years, I began to feel better about handling ideas. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. Philosophers—Who Needs Them? But should we respect philosophers? Do we need them? The poet Shelley claimed that poets are “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Like philosophers, poets deal with ideas, and sometimes those ideas are influential, or effectively expressed. John Greenleaf Whittier turned many people, both North and South, against slavery with his poems. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who married and then went to Italy with her husband (poet Robert Browning), wrote verses urging the Italian people to unite and throw out their Austrian rulers. Daniel Mark Epstein has recently argued, with pretty good evidence, that Abraham Lincoln read the work of American poet Walt Whitman. Epstein thinks Whitman’s powerful lines inspired parts of Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech—and even some ideas in the Gettysburg Address. But philosophy may be more influential than poetry. John Locke, a political philosopher, contributed ideas about government’s obligations to people, ideas that Jefferson drew on when writing the Declaration of Independence. The Greek thinker Aristotle gave us the idea that we, like animals and objects, have essences, fundamental characteristics that persist through all the inconsistencies of our everyday dealings. In the field of drama, Aristotle developed such key terms as plot (the events and actions of a play that bring out the essential nature of a character); he spoke of catharsis, crisis and climax, words which we still use and which even affect how we think about people’s biographies. Aristotle, both philosopher and scientist, told the world that Earth was the center of the known universe, with the sun revolving around it, an idea that had to change later, with better 5

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knowledge. But he also helped shape the concept of the “great chain of being,” the idea that life forms can be considered as existing in the most imperfect form (animals) and also in life forms that show more and more perfection as they move “up” the great chain. Existing simultaneously, they reach higher and closer to perfect, moving from humans to higher beings: earth spirits and minor gods? Angels? The gods of Olympus, like Zeus and Aphrodite? The god that existed before the other gods, namely Fate? That “chain of being” idea, odd as it seems, was used in European politics, as rulers tried to justify their power and status. God had placed the king high in the great chain of being. No peasant, however educated or well off, could possibly rise high enough to challenge the king; he occupied a lower place in the chain. Aristotle’s ideas, many centuries later, were still influencing the Church. And the Republic of Plato, Aristotle’s own teacher, was the first of many philosophy books describing what an ideal society should be like. The Republic actually aided the makers of feudal society in Europe, who worked out a system of kings and nobles and peasants, with the king controlling the lives of his subjects but also owing them military protection and the possibility of safe harvests. Philosophical ideas assume great importance today. At the moment I’m writing, General David Petraeus has taken command of the American military forces in Afghanistan. Petraeus has new ideas, as he describes them, on how to fight terrorism while keeping good feeling among Afghan citizens. These ideas didn’t just spring into his head: he has been trained in economic and political concepts, and the eternal conversation they are part of, in military schools. These are largely philosophical ideas. Still other philosophical ideas live in the minds of our adversaries, including the Taliban and Osama bin Laden; and if we want a peaceful, fair resolution to our battle of ideas, it seems right that each side should better understand the other’s ideas—then both should come to some sort of agreement, some state of toleration.

“[Ideas] are clear-cut and divide. Material interests can be compromised, principles cannot. A man who sensibly will not fight his neighbor over depredations in his garden will fight him over being called a liar.”

Make no mistake: ideas are important. We hope that the next Great Idea will solve the world’s problems—global warming, disrespect for human rights, the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, spreading as this is being written. But we who hope these things need to be mindful. The word “idea” sounds innocent. It represents words held in the head, light as air. But the historian Jacques Barzun warns us that ideas can be dangerous:

…*Ideas+ are clear-cut and divide. Material interests can be compromised, principles cannot. A man who sensibly will not fight his neighbor over depredations in his garden will fight him over being called a liar. The intangible idea is sharper, more potent than the physical damage. Intellect, which makes distinctions, separates forever what it has distinguished. The parts cannot be joined, the wound is never healed. War comes because of man’s unconquerable mind. 6

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The threat of ‘great ideas’ to the peaceful conduct of ordinary life is plain: compromise, bargains, tolerance, salutary neglect of trivial acts—all these are at once ruled out…The wars of ideas have always been the most fanatical and needlessly prolonged of all wars. Come to think of it, here’s a reason we resist philosophy. It’s a clash of ideas! All of us hate the everyday family battles of ideas; but isn’t that what they are? Don’t bring up politics at the dinner table with Uncle Joe. Dre and I are having a philosophical discussion over who gets the TV remote, or how long Remy gets to play with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. (Aren’t we really deciding “an equitable allocation of leisure activity within the family unit?”) So, if you’re anything like me, you may feel If you’re like me, you may hesitant when first tackling big philosophical ideas. Why have we been placed in the world, or the hesitate when first tackling universe? Are we here to follow self-interest, the philosophy and its questions. principle that puts our survival and comfort first? Why are we here in the universe? Or are we here to help others? Does helping other To follow self-interest, and put people actually benefit us? And are there our survival and comfort first? Or complications to these benefits? Must we give only are we here to help others? practical help to other people, or are beauty and leisure morally permissible? And how do we know what the world is telling us, in answer to all our questions? Apart from what the scientists tell us (the details of skin and nerve sensation, or the way our eyes process light and images), can we trust what our bodies are telling us about the world? Don’t worry: we’re not going to—nor should we—try to settle such questions right this minute. Again, if you’re like me, you prefer to learn first about people: Maybe it will be interesting to read about the philosophers themselves. Did the great philosophers develop their ideas from real conditions? Did the real facts of life in their towns or on their farms inspire or confirm their ideas? Maybe the same facts will help us trace their development, from observing a problem to conceiving a solution and even testing it out, in life or by logic. Maybe a great philosophical idea came from a thinker who drank too many glasses of wine, the way the scientist Archimedes learned how solids displace liquids, while soaking in his bathtub. I don’t know exactly why, but many of us learn about philosophy a little bit better after we’ve met a philosopher “in person.” Remember, we will be doing other things, too: meeting a philosopher includes meeting a few philosophical ideas. But this instruction module isn’t about teaching you a particular set of ideas. Our main concern is to help you master the reading process that helps you tackle the ideas. To illustrate the process, we will quote several writings about the Greek philosopher, Socrates. So, let’s now introduce you to him. Socrates belongs with all the philosophers who, right or wrong, refused to change his philosophical beliefs to suit the latest government or new style of thinking. 7

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And, because of his stubbornness, the Athenian government condemned Socrates to die by making him drink poison. Uncomplaining, with great courage, he drank the poison, and serenely promised his followers, as his limbs grew cold, that death will not be the end of us. If we ever think that we’re doing a wonderful job of being “philosophical,” about losing a job, going through a divorce and refusing to gripe about alimony or child custody, or losing a loved one to cancer, we are—believe it or not—carrying a little bit of Socrates inside us. And Socrates reminds us that thinking for the pleasure of thinking isn’t frivolous. It carries real risks, as dictators often prove when they kill or imprison the thinking classes, the teachers, government officials, and philosophers who are good with words and can organize resistance. Socrates is a powerful symbol of integrity. But who was he? Why was he important? Next, some answers. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. Socrates and His Trade If I asked you, “Have you ever been questioned by a teacher?” you would be an unusual student if you could answer honestly, “No.” Teachers ask questions routinely: it’s just part of the classroom experience. But I’ll repeat the question, a little differently. Has a teacher ever asked you a question for reasons besides testing what facts you know or what ideas you believe? Was the question aimed at finding how you know those facts, or why you believe those ideas? If a teacher asks you this sort of probing question, that teacher is using a technique called Socratic questioning. This method of testing your knowledge through penetrating questions was invented by Socrates (pronounced SOCK-ruh-tease), a Greek philosopher, and the method is vital to this day in European and American as well as Greek schools. Socrates (470 BCE-399 BCE) was a teacher of philosophy who wandered the streets of Athens (though he was a citizen there, with a decent home), offering to teach anyone who would listen to him, at no cost. He was a picturesque man, wearing the same shabby tunic day after day, walking barefoot in the roughest weather. His face was unhandsome, his belly flabby. Yet in youth he had also been a soldier, and kept his ability to march (shoeless, of course) for the rest of his long life. Socrates was born in the world’s first great democracy, the Athenian city-state, where every citizen had a vote and could speak freely in the voting assembly (this was a great advance over earlier governments, especially for human rights, even though noncitizens, including women and slaves, could not vote in Athens). Humble as he was in appearance, Socrates was born into a middle-class family. It’s very important to remember that he was born in the Greek city-state of Athens, the world’s first great democracy: a tremendous help to a philosopher who lived by speaking his mind. His 8

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father was a stone-cutter or sculptor, his mother a midwife; Socrates was left by them with an inheritance which gave him the freedom to philosophize and which supported him, his wife Xanthippe, and the children. He also had enough income, as a young man, to afford his own weapons as a member of the armored infantry. We don’t know how early his thirst for debating and thinking started, but it probably developed in young manhood. We don’t have any writings by Socrates. Most of the Greek philosophers we consider important, even the earliest, are represented by at least a few scraps of their writing, the remains of large collections in ancient libraries. Socrates could read, and enjoyed the epic stories of gods and men by Homer. But he had strangely small interest in writing for himself. He felt contempt for the little marks on paper that aim to fix truth in permanent form; truth, for Socrates, was more like a hunt after an elusive animal. We owe all that we know about Socrates to the writings of others. The Greek writer Xenophon tells us useful details about Socrates’ life. But we owe our clearest impressions of Socrates to Plato, a student who became a master philosopher in his own right. Unlike Socrates, Plato was a brilliant writer; but he wrote before the modern separation between truth and fiction. Plato wants to give a truthful idea of Socrates’ ways, but he does so by inventing ideal dialogues, in which Socrates meets with friends, keeping a friendly tone but always pushing his buddies to clarify their logic or defend their arguments. These dialogues—including the socalled Apology, Socrates’ trial defense—are not meant to be literally accurate, but they are meant to be faithful to the essential Socrates, in behavior if not always in thought. We owe all that we know about Socrates to the writings of others.

For there is a problem: Plato has his own system of philosophy to teach, using “Socrates” as the instrument. Plato wants democracy ended, replaced by a system that tends to people’s material needs (somewhat), but gives them little choice of occupation. Parents are not to have final say in how their children are raised; the “village,” as we might say now, will raise them. The right people will be rigorously selected for certain jobs, and no appeal is allowed, no chances to do better or rise higher. The leaders will be philosopher kings, groomed to rule from boyhood because of their potential for wisdom. It’s likely that, as Plato’s teacher, Socrates must have agreed with much of this program, even suggested it, but it is unclear how much. As we have said, Socrates thought of truth as an elusive animal, everywhere hunted but not often found, at least in useful or consistent forms. But Socrates was curious to learn where truth could be found, a trait which made him a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. He was very sociable, aside from his habit of probing people’s ideas with questions, a trait which he compared to the sting of a gadfly, always tormenting horses in the pasture. Yet he had friends and a family; the name of his wife, Xanthippe, is used—very unfairly—to suggest a nagging, bossy woman. But even though she carried the main load of 9

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feeding the family and raising the children (while Socrates went out and enjoyed his philosophical discussions!), Xanthippe valued what Socrates did. When Socrates was condemned to death by drinking poisoned hemlock, Xanthippe came weeping to him, mourning that her beloved husband would no longer take part with his friends in those discussions he loved so much. And Socrates sent her coldly away, not wanting to deal with women’s tears. For Socrates held certain ideas about what death might be like: it was a portal or gate to the next life, to the meadows where you could meet the immortal dead, such as the warrior Achilles, or the cunning, inventive leader and voyager Odysseus (he conceived the idea of the Trojan Horse), and talk with them. Of course, even in death, the spirit of Socrates would be there, doing much of the talking, especially in questions: What do you mean, it took us Greeks ten years to win the Trojan War? Where’s the wisdom in that? Define for me what you mean by “war” and “winning.” Another way of looking at death, according to Socrates, was that death could be like a long, dreamless sleep; this idea, expressed in the Apology and elsewhere, may have started the long series of arguments over whether death is a sleep that makes eternity like one peaceful night―or whether that sleep brings restless, even nightmare visions, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet thinks. Socrates was open to many views of truth, even about death; but he couldn’t stomach Xanthippe’s view, which encompasses the grief we feel when we part from someone. With his commitment to truth, and his unending questions, Socrates felt qualified to do good in the world. He achieved a fair amount of actual goodness: by demanding wisdom from others, and humility from himself, Socrates, perhaps for the first time in recorded history, was demanding that we be accountable, not only to the gods and other people but to ourselves. Conscience was important; as the Greek motto expresses it, “Know thyself.” Accountability was not simply for governing and the professions, but also for thinking. This is because, as historian Michael Grant says, Socrates believed in an “absolute standard” of goodness and truth. He believed that we have souls, and that our souls need to progress towards perfection, at least during our earthly lives (there is a hint here of a later Christian idea, the soul moving towards salvation). In Grant’s words, “He also believed that one must work hard if one wants to discover what is right and wrong.” Socrates, who took no pay for his teachings, disagreed with the Sophists, or professional wisdom teachers (sophia = wisdom), who often taught that right and wrong depend upon the situation. Measured by the strength of his ideals, Socrates was admirable; he also blended, says Grant, the traits of “geniality and kindness (despite that taste for ironical mockery)…self-control and curiosity and charm.” But he had a darker side as well, showing that he was perfectly able to change his moral practice depending on situations. Free of speech and thought himself, he despised democracy; yet without democracy he could never have moved or taught freely. His students included the charming but manipulative general Alcibiades; and the intellectuals Critias and Charmides, who helped destroy the democracy, installing a group of rich men, the 10

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Thirty Tyrants, in power; the Thirty were ruthless, jailing and even murdering innocent civilians for speaking their minds. As Grant notes, Socrates, long associated with Critias, was well treated by the Thirty, but was also asked to help bring someone in for jailing or questioning: he refused. Yet he limited his refusal to cooperate to the one case. He never, despite his reputation for outspokenness, opposed the most horrible of the Thirty’s crimes.

Socrates fell short of his truthseeking ideal, but he established the standard, and made it persuasive.

We see similarities to his case in the Nazi occupation of France, during World War Two: many French hated Hitler’s armies, but few put up a truly meaningful resistance, dangerous to themselves. Socrates can be faulted for preferring his fairly easy life of wandering and questioning, versus risking his life against the Thirty; other Athenian statesmen and thinkers did take the risk, overturned the Thirty, and restored democracy. (In this account, I am following the details provided by Grant, and also by I. F. Stone, in The Trial of Socrates.) Nevertheless, Socrates deserves much of his great reputation. We respect great philosophers, not because they were always right or moral in their lives, but because they are important in what they teach. Socrates fell short of his truth-seeking ideal, but he established the standard, and made it persuasive (for others to follow the model better, we might say). *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. Socrates Tested: the Philosopher on Trial

Socrates dedicated his life to truth— his truth, but it was an attempt at complete honesty. And he did show personal courage in his own trial defense. A little history is needed. In order to keep the restored democracy firmly in place, the practical politicians who had taken over realized they had to forgive at least some of the Thirty’s —Klaus Eidam, author of The True Life of ruthless behavior. So, aside from J.S. Bach punishment for the worst crimes, an amnesty was proclaimed, sparing those in the Athenian populace who had “gone along” with Critias and the bad guys. (This same policy “With his dialectical method, Socrates proved to his followers that on closer inspection things are completely different from the way they are perceived; as a result he was put to death as a corrupter of youth.”

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was followed, many centuries later, when Nelson Mandela’s racially integrated government, in South Africa, forgave some of the crimes of the white segregationist [apartheid] regime.) This amnesty affected Socrates directly. He therefore could not be prosecuted for cooperating with the crimes of the Thirty, or for failing to oppose them, so different charges, kept unclear, were brought against him: he was guilty of “making the weaker appear the stronger cause,” and of corrupting the morals of Athenian youth, leading them to worship false gods, and so on. As Socrates implied at his trial defense, it was curious that the prosecutors should accuse him of upholding strange new gods; he was a fairly orthodox believer. Bravely calling attention to the kinds of teaching he actually did, making it clear that the accusation couldn’t possibly be based on the purest truth, Socrates was able to sway many of the fivehundred-member jury, deciding as always by majority rule. Reading his words today, we feel that Socrates was largely in the right. But Socrates also angered the slim majority that convicted him: making no bones about his superior wisdom (even the wisdom that knows it has no special wisdom, as Socrates was always saying), he took what I.F. Stone describes by the Greek word megalegoria, a boastful tone: this is apparent even in the beautiful Apology, Socrates’ words as passed down (probably much adapted) by his disciple Plato. The jury must then have been incensed when Socrates addressed them, as he was entitled to do, after his conviction. Traditionally, the jury (or prosecutor) would propose one penalty, the defendant an alternative penalty; often, the convicted man would beseech the jury to spare his life. Initially, the prosecution wanted to exile Socrates forever from Athens. Plato, Crito (another friend) and others wanted instead that Socrates would merely be fined. Taking up this idea, Socrates proposed, with the utmost flippancy, that he be given the “penalty” of a lifetime’s free meals in the city’s hall of honor, for the great favor he was doing the city in teaching its young men! When the jury howled in insulted outrage, Socrates then proposed an almost worthless fine (Plato and other friends then scrambled to repair the damage, asking that a more proper fine be charged and paid). Too late: the sentence came back, Death by hemlock. Socrates, with his insulting arrogance (that “taste for ironic mockery” mentioned by Grant), had sealed his own fate: I.F. Stone thinks that the philosopher, already seventy years old, wanted to die. His death, however, was serene. Attended by friends and disciples even as he drank the fatal potion, Socrates kept his composure and spoke for as long as he could of philosophy, of the gentle end a wise man could expect; of how death releases the soul into higher regions, where it will always dwell. Many centuries later, painting the scene as he imagined it, JacquesLouis David, the French artist, depicted Socrates, seventy years old but still strong, accepting the deadly cup with his right hand, and gesturing upward with the index finger of his left hand, as if toward the heavens he expected his spirit to inhabit. This is the image we still hold of Socrates, the image the most courageous philosophers may also assume, that of martyr for the truth. As shown in many historical instances, living 12

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ideas are freedoms to defend; they are powerful enough to matter to dictators and criminals, and these same life-giving ideas can prove deadly to those who uphold them. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.

Reading Strategies: Getting Started The strategies you’re about to learn, used correctly, will help you understand Socrates. They will help you master the important ideas in works by Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Paul Sartre, and many other thinkers: these are famous writings most colleges and universities still assign their undergraduate students. More important, these great writings teach us to think critically, argue logically, and handle ideas comfortably. The works of Plato or Simone de Beauvoir are not just a bunch of old stuff; they can tell us “where we are” when we support the rights of minorities; big or small government; when we claim humans do better as individuals; or when we decide to collect in groups and remember our duty to other people, or the environment. But to deal with these philosophical works by master thinkers, we must read them. Effective reading strategies will help you remember important ideas, for you must not only memorize ideas but also connect and absorb them; you must really comprehend. Learning that you remember, connect, and absorb is learning you can use. When you can read, learn, and use what you’ve read, your writing will also improve. Many of these strategies will also help you read the assigned material for other classes. The reading assignment for this module is the module packet, followed by six readings in philosophy. Three of these six readings are chosen from primary philosophical sources (actual documents), three from secondary sources (writings of modern philosophy teachers, based upon and interpreting famous works of philosophy). Is It Interesting? These days, philosophy is an unpopular subject. It should be irresistible; clashes of important ideas should be interesting, since they affect our politics and even our lives. But at the very least, philosophical ideas should be full of interest. It is up to you to find the life, the interest which already exists in philosophy. You must then describe, define, analyze that life in terms your philosophy professor and your classmates can appreciate. To find that interest is very important. To show why, let’s borrow from history, another unpopular subject. History has a poor reputation, because poor teachers spread the idea that 13

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history is all “dry dates and details.” But history can be magical. It is a subject full of great ideas and bold enterprises. Human progress is made, scientific quests are undertaken. Important ideas are discovered, inventions created. In more somber terms, wars are fought. Real blood is shed. Famine and misery torment and kill real people; these events are also history. Nevertheless, even these discouraging stories are meaningful. They are part of the historical knowledge an adult citizen needs to have, as all adults want to have a truthful understanding of life. To appreciate history, people need to learn the secret of reading history—finding the interest. Likewise, if people think philosophy is dry, they’ve missed an important secret. The secret is finding pattern, that organizing structure which frames details and supports the big, important ideas. Pattern gives the details a place to stay. Pattern also gives the details logic, energy, significance. When you read philosophy, you will need to look for pattern. Pattern is used in philosophical writing, as it is in an essay. Let’s review. You may know that an essay has an introduction leading to a topic and main idea, a body of supporting details, and a conclusion. “If people think philosophy is dry, they’ve missed an important secret. This is the secret of finding pattern, that organizing structure which frames details and supports the important ideas.”

Philosophical writing is like essay writing. Sections, chapters, and paragraphs of a good philosophy book have the clear structure we expect from an essay. The structure holds together, even while we find that philosophy is full of surprises, just as life is. But without pattern, we will find no clarity, no cohesion. For example, here’s one such surprise, sprung by I.F. Stone, a great journalist who turned late in life to the study of Greek and became a very good student of the classics, able to present ancient philosophical disputes as if “ripped from the headlines.” Here, Stone displays his surprising ability to maintain respect, even reverence, for Socrates’ philosophical abilities, while disagreeing vigorously with many of his specific beliefs: He [Socrates] exhorts his fellow Athenians to virtue, but claims that it is not teachable. He identifies virtue with knowledge, yet he insists that this knowledge is unattainable, and cannot be taught. To cap it all, after making his interlocutors feel inadequate and ignorant, Socrates confesses that he himself knows nothing. This ultimate humility begins to seem a form of boastfulness. To be told that one knows even less than a man who cheerfully insists that he knows nothing at all is to add insult to injury. Of all the paradoxes of Socrates, this claim that he was not a teacher seems the most paradoxical. A pattern has been introduced: everything Socrates is saying is instantly contradicted, it seems, by every next thing. The pattern is of contrast, illogical difference or contradiction between Socrates’ own strongest beliefs. Now we’ll see pattern enter the picture even more strongly. Stone continues: 14

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We cannot, of course, ascertain what was in the mind of Socrates. But we can infer from the circumstances why he might prefer to deny that he was a teacher and to insist that niether virtue nor knowledge could be taught. We can spell out three possible reasons. One is political. Another is philosophical. The third is personal. The three converge and support one another. The surprise now is Stone’s announcement that the startling contradictions in Socrates’ own thinking aren’t so surprising after all. To think that a modern writer can so clearly follow the twists in an ancient person’s thought processes and explain them…that is truly surprising. And the surprises carry us all the way to Socrates’ courageous yet tragic end. In philosophy, we follow the story of ideas wherever the story leads; and yet the stories are as clear as the plots of the movies we see, which means they have patterns we can trace. To understand a pattern of organization is to understand what kind of story you’re being asked to follow. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. The Basic Unit: The Paragraph and Finding the Main Idea We’ve mentioned the essay, which is a composition made up of patterns called: ● an introduction, which contains the main idea, but sometimes prepares for this idea with introductory sentences, or “attention-getters”; ● a body, made of separate paragraphs, or groups of connected sentences, with each paragraph providing details to support the main idea; and ● a conclusion, which restates or logically follows up on the main idea. To understand philosophical writing, you need to know, while you’re searching for pattern, what the paragraph gives the reader. Paragraphs are small segments or pieces of the essay. By themselves, paragraphs are miniature essays. They carry ideas, as an essay’s introduction will often provide its main idea, but they also provide the details and supporting arguments of history, like the body of an essay. Patterns of organization gather the details into 15

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a clear shape, making each paragraph understandable and allowing the writer, if he or she wishes, to come to a conclusion. If the paragraph is a miniature essay, what does it look like? You’ll see it in the shape of a “chunk” on the page, like this one, with an indentation, or space, at the start. The whole block of words you’ve read just above this block, starting with “To understand philosophical writing” and ending with “to a conclusion,” is another paragraph. Like each of these examples, a paragraph is usually made of several sentences; but there are exceptions. The first exception is any one-sentence paragraph set apart from the rest of the writing for special emphasis or dramatic effect: Indentation →

This was important. Or: Never again would he make that mistake. Second exception: a one-sentence paragraph may be written to connect a longer paragraph that precedes it with another long paragraph that follows it. This is sometimes called a bridging paragraph. Aside from these two exceptions, a paragraph must be more than one sentence. Like the essay, a paragraph may begin with the topic (the person, place, thing, or idea the paragraph is about) and go directly to the main idea (the author’s general opinion or main piece of general information on the topic). However, the topic and main idea do not always come first. To see why, let’s imagine a common kind of paragraph, which does present these features first (more or less). Then we’ll see a different kind of paragraph. First, the writer may be straightforward and begin with topic plus main idea. Even in this case, an opening sentence may provide us with a small detail or “attention-getter” that draws us into the topic and prepares the main idea. Now the main idea is stated, in general terms, as it must be. Last, we see the specific details which support that idea. Here are two paragraphs from I. F. Stone. The first paragraph, referring to the long dispute between Socrates and the Sophists (rival teachers of wisdom and public speaking) gives us the main idea almost immediately (shown in bold): The antagonism between Socrates and the Sophists, as portrayed in Xenophon and in Plato, has blackened their name. Until then the term sophistes had a complimentary, not a pejorative, connotation. In [the Greek poet] Homer a sophie denoted skill of any kind. The word sophistes came to mean a skilled workman or artist and was soon also applied to diviners, poets, and musicians. The legendary Seven Wise Men of Greece were called sophistai, as were the pre-Socratic philosophers. It became an honorable appellation again in the Roman empire for teachers of Greek rhetoric and philosophy. Notice how the opening sentence works as an attention-getter. We’re naturally curious when we hear that someone’s name has been blackened, even if the blackening is unfair. But 16

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describing the blackening process isn’t what Stone’s after, not yet. More likely, Stone first wants to write a paragraph defining who the Sophists really were, now that Socrates has belittled their name for all time. So, Stone clearly states the topic (the meaning of Sophist or sophistes), followed by the controlling idea (the name of Sophist for a skilled person, was originally a compliment). The rest of the paragraph supports the main idea (topic plus controlling idea) by giving examples, which clarify definitions. If Stone can produce enough examples of sophistes with good reputations, he has made his point: the Greeks associated the word sophistes with noble, positive ideas. Now take a look at a different style of paragraph. A few pages after showing how Socrates was the first to disparage the Sophists, Stone is explaining another new idea conceived by Socrates: the soul is more important to human beings than the body: Body and soul were united in the classical view. The Socratics and the Platonists divided them, demeaning the body and elevating the soul. A healthy mind in a healthy body—mens sana in corpore sano as the Roman poet Juvenal later phrased it in his famous Tenth Satire—was the classical ideal. This is another paragraph with an attention-getter (“Body and soul were united”) followed by the topic sentence (“The Socratics and the Platonists divided them”). We see here that the attention-getter can be the vital piece of background information needed to make sense of the topic sentence. Now we come to the second style of paragraph, with the main idea sunk lower down among the details. Stone continues: A new strain appears with Socrates, and perhaps earlier with the Pythagoreans, who were among his admirers and devotees, as we can see from the discussions with them in his prison cell on the last day of his life in the lovely pages of Plato’s Phaedo. The Pythagoreans or the related movement of the Orphics are supposed to have originated the saying—a pun on the words soma (body) and sema (tomb)—that the body was the tomb of the soul. Abstention from the life of the city soon shaded off into abstention from life itself. We can see this tendency most strongly in Antisthenes and the Cynical philosophy he derived—and exaggerated—from one aspect of Socratic teaching. Socrates not only practiced abstention from the affairs of the city but preached it. This was, he tells his judges in the Apology, his mission. “I go about doing nothing else,” Socrates says, “than urging you, young and old, not to care for your bodies but for the protection of your souls.” Burnet’s commentary on this passage in the Apology says, “Socrates appears to have been the first Greek to speak of the psyche (soul) as the seat of knowledge and ignorance, goodness and badness. It followed that the chief duty of man was to ‘care for his soul’ and this was fundamental to the teaching of Socrates.” It’s not too hard to follow and understand the paragraph, but it is harder to pinpoint the main idea exactly. Apparently, the topic is contained in the words “new strain.” What was the “new 17

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strain” of thinking Socrates introduced? If we can answer the question in one or two general sentences from the paragraph, we’ve found the main idea. First, though, we have to wade through some details, which indicate that Socrates’ later admirers have already “caught” the new strain. Soon, Stone approaches the main idea, writing that Socrates preached abstention from city life, so that his disciples could take better care of their souls. Finally, Stone lets the classicist John Burnet state the main idea for him: as Socrates puts it, the soul contains all our knowledge and character; the soul is more important than the body, and is what we must care for first. That is Socrates’ new strain. Even these two paragraph arrangements aren’t the only ways. There may be other places to state the main idea. An author may start with a detail and realize that all detail is the right way to begin. This is because in some cases, our minds must collect a few details first, then build a main idea from all those details. (Think of scientists, first making detailed observations, then creating a theory, an idea that explains the details.) At times, the paragraph we read may be made completely of details, and we gather the main idea only by processing the details in our heads. Or the author may know the main idea is complex, and needs to be held off until we’ve absorbed a couple paragraphs of detail. Here’s an example:

“The topic and main idea do not always come first in a paragraph. There may be other places to state the main idea.”

How did Socrates earn his bread? He had a wife and three sons to support. He lived to the age of seventy. But he never seems to have had a job or practiced a trade. His days were spent in leisure, talking. Socrates derided the Sophists for taking payment from their pupils. He prided himself on never asking a fee from his own disciples. How did he support his family? This natural question is never answered in the Platonic dialogues. In the Apology, Socrates describes himself as a poor man, and he was certainly poor by comparison with wealthy aristocrats like Plato so priominent in his adoring entourage. But he was never so poor that he had to take a job or practice a trade. The question isn’t answered in this paragraph, either (though Stone gives a possible explanation in his next paragraph). The point for us is that the main idea of a paragraph can be found anywhere in that paragraph, at or close to the beginning, in the middle, or at the end. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.

Philosophy Reading, Process Guide Part One

Another Approach: The Implied Main Idea (When the Details Are Hints) “When the author leaves the main idea unwritten, he or she is probably writing for an audience well-trained on the topic, or else simply trusts that audience’s intelligence.”

An author may make up a paragraph entirely of details, choosing those details to lead the reader’s mind to the unwritten main idea. The details are treated as hints that “speak for themselves.” Thus, the main idea

is implied, without the author stating it directly. When the author leaves the main idea unwritten, it is because that author is writing for an audience unusually well-trained on the topic. Or the author may simply trust that audience’s basic intelligence. Such an audience, applying previous knowledge or predicting possible outcomes and combinations of material, can blend several details into the more general, “allembracing” idea the author is hinting at. The paragraphs just behind and ahead may also help carry that unspoken, but understood, main idea. To see how a paragraph completely made of details works, consider this example. Socrates is sometimes faulted for a lack of humanity, and this lack, as Stone brings out, is evident in some of the Socratic dialogues. In one dialogue, a Euthyprho, a man Socrates has just met while awaiting his own trial, is bringing a murder charge against his, Euthyphro’s, own father. Euthyphro respects his father, but feels it his duty to charge him with the killing of a hired laborer who served on the plantation Euthyphro and his father share. Briefly, the laborer, we don’t learn why, killed a family slave; the father, incensed, tied up the laborer and threw him into a ditch, leaving him there while waiting for the authorities to tell him what to do with the worker. Euthyphro’s father waited for several days, since the authorities were not close by. While he waited, the man died from hunger and exposure. Socrates questioned Euthyphro, as was his way. Says I.F. Stone, “Socrates wants to know whether it is ‘pious’ or holy for a son to bring such a charge against his own father.” (Socrates is quite critical of the son’s supposed presumption.) In the next paragraph, Stone continues: Nowhere in the long, intricate, and sometimes tedious dialogue does Socrates ever utter one word of pity for the poor landless laborer. His rights are never mentioned. Was it “pious” or just to leave him exposed to cold and hunger while “the lord of the manor” decided in his own good time what to do with him? Had he no right to a day in court? The laborer might have shown that the quarrel in which he kiled the landowner’s slave was provoked, or that he acted in self-defense, or that the killing was accidental. All these pleas were known to Athenian homicide law. And now that the laborer had died of hunger and exposure did not justice require the trial of Euthyphro’s father to determine whether his own conduct constituted homicide? Each sentence in this paragraph is a separate detail. Nor is the paragraph poorly written; in fact,

Philosophy Reading, Process Guide Part One

it is quite clear. But what is the main point? First, we must sense what the topic is. This should be a phrase (word group), not a sentence. A topic is like the subject, or the noun, noun phrase, or pronoun that opens a sentence. Let’s run the details by once more, but fast; what do we get? —Socrates doesn’t say anything sympathetic about the poor worker. —The worker’s rights aren’t mentioned. —Socrates wants to know if the son’s charge against the father was pious. But was the father being pious when exposing the worker to death in the ditch? —Shouldn’t the worker have been entitled to come forward and plead his case? He might have had any of several possible defenses. —Did justice not require Euthyprho to try his father? What’s the topic? Let’s call it unmentioned points in favor of the poor worker. Now let’s extend that topic into a main idea. For that, we need a controlling idea. A controlling idea is like the verb and other words we add to the subject of a sentence, in order to complete that sentence. Let’s run one or two hints through our minds. Pity for the worker is something Socrates never brings up. Nor does he mention the worker’s rights. The son’s lack of piety in charging his father with murder is mentioned, but not the father’s lack of piety in leaving the laborer to die. Was the poor worker not entitled to justice? And isn’t it justice that the son is trying to fulfill? What do all these points have in common? Aren’t they aspects of the case ignored by Socrates? Perhaps we can rephrase the question as the “verb” part of a statement: throughout his conversation with Euthyphro, these aspects of the case were ignored by Socrates. So, what is the main idea? Add the controlling idea to the topic, and we get: All through the dialogue, several aspects of the case, including points in favor of the poor worker, were ignored by Socrates. Now we have the main idea But remember: different readers may draw a slightly different main idea from one set of details. Readers who see ideas differently from other readers are not necessarily wrong. Other versions of this main idea might be assembled: Socrates kept on questioning Euthyphro about the case, always ignoring points that might favor the poor worker. Or even, In his haste to find flaws in Euthyphro’s case, Socrates kept on ignoring points in favor of the poor laborer. 20

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Whatever our choice is, we trust to the details of the paragraph to make the topic clear, and then to reveal, in pieces, the main idea that is connected to the topic. “A key to finding the main idea is finding the topic: it’s a person, concern, or obsession the writer can’t keep out of mind, or eliminate from the paragraph, without destroying the whole written structure.”

Even for paragraphs with implied main ideas, the topic is still the paragraph’s subject matter. Either the topic, or the controlling idea, or both, may be unstated, except as the details provide hints.

Please note. A key to finding the main idea is finding the topic: it’s like a person, problem, concern, even obsession the writer can’t keep out of mind, or eliminate from the paragraph, without destroying the whole written structure. To spot such an obsession, watch for words that keep popping up in a paragraph. The words may repeat exactly, or with slight differences. The repetitions reveal the topic. Then the main idea is easier to find. A final note: I’ve just said that “The paragraphs just behind and ahead may also help carry that unspoken, but understood, main idea.” We see this occur as Stone uses the next paragraph to bring up questions Socrates should have asked Euthyphro: Socrates might say at this point that he was not arguing law or justice but logic. It might also be argued, however, that his lack of sympathy blinded him to a flaw in his logic and to the full dimensions of the case. The most agonizing question raised by it, the one that concerned Socrates most, is whether, under these circumstances, Euthyphro acted “piously” in bringing charges against his own father. But no definition of “piety” [which Socrates was pressing for] could really settle the matter. Euthyphro was caught in a classic conflict of obligations like those so frequent in Greek tragedy. He had a son’s obligation to his father. He also had an obligation as a human being and a citizen to see that justice was done. The second sentence holds the stated main idea of this particular paragraph, but it also may help us mentally complete an earlier one. If Socrates was agonized by the son’s lack of “piety” toward his father, he wasn’t lacking sympathy, but his sympathies were on one side only. Much older than Euthyphro, isn’t Socrates seeing the matter from the viewpoint of someone his own age, from the homicidal father’s perspective? This is strange in a supposed leader of youth. But now we can express the first main idea more clearly: Possibly from sympathy with the father, an older man like himself, Socrates kept questioning Euthyphro, always ignoring points that might favor the poor worker. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member. 21

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Patterns: Organizing Paragraphs

There are two good ways to read paragraphs of philosophy (or any subject). First, look for what doesn’t change. Sometimes the constant, unchanging part is the writer’s topic, the concern or obsession we just spoke of. Sometimes it’s the author’s main idea, maintained insistently through the paragraph in spite of the arguments an opponent brings against the idea. Finding those insistent features helps you focus on the paragraph and remember it better. Second, you should also look for what does change. Every new paragraph will be a big or small change from the paragraph before it. But paragraphs also change even as you read them. Often, the author will make a change from stating a main idea, a more general thought, to supporting that main idea with details. Sometimes the details are smaller ideas, chunks of the main idea, branching off. Another change can occur when a paragraph concludes. It may stop listing detail and change back again to a more general statement. This statement is called a conclusion. A conclusion may sum up the preceding details. It may restate the topic sentence. It may provide the solution to a problem already discussed. A conclusion may make a prediction. Many types of conclusion are possible. Here are several paragraphs from I.F. Stone. The second and third paragraphs each have a strong topic sentence, a general idea, at or near the beginning. The third paragraph reaches a strong conclusion, strong because of its logic but also general, at the close. Stone is discussing the young Euthyphro, and Socrates’ indifference to his view of right action: “[In an essay,] many types of conclusion are possible.”

“It is ridiculous, Socrates,” *Euthyphro+ says, “that you think it matters whether the man who was killed was a stranger or relative, and do not see that the only thing to consider is whether the action of the slayer was justified or not, and that if…not, one ought to proceed against him, even if he share one’s hearth and eat at one’s table.” Euthyphro obviously felt this a duty transcending filial obligation and differences in status or class. Socrates brushes aside this aspect of the case. The idea of equal treatment under the law, of social justice, is never discussed in the dialogue. But in 399 B.C., the time this discussion with Euthyphro is supposed to have taken place on the very eve of Socrates’ trail, the Athenian demos was sensitized to this very issue by its recent struggles against oligarchic repression in 411 and 404 B.C. The thetes class [of hired laborers] had been the main sufferer. It was deprived of the citizenship it had won two centuries earlier in the reforms of Solon. Its leaders had been killed. The poor had been driven out of Athens. They had lost their homes and their city. Had the overthrow of the democracy been consolidated, it would have become as easy in Attica as it was on Naxos for a landowner to take the law into his own hands as Euthyphro’s father had done. The laborer would have had no rights.

Philosophy Reading, Process Guide Part One

The indifference Socrates shows to the fate of the hired laborer would have struck his contemporaries as on a par with the indifference he manifested to the fate of the thetes in 411 and 404. They could have concluded that his lack of sympathy reflected his own contempt for democracy. This would explain why he had not left the city under either dictatorship and had taken no part in restoring the democracy. He showed no interest in the rights of the poor, nor in social justice. Euthyphro’s was the democratic attitude. The topic sentences, after the opening paragraph (all detailed argument by Euthyphro) say (1) that Socrates was indifferent to Euthyphro’s idea of social justice, although the Athenian democracy was in favor of social justice. Details of the events that led the democracy to their attitude then follow. (2) Stone surmises that, feeling as they did about individual rights, the Athenian democrats would have strongly disapproved of Socrates’ indifference. The conclusion restates how differently Euthyphro felt from Socrates: he was sensitive to the rights of the unfortunate laborer, aligning himself with the democratic camp. As our examples have shown, paragraphs are woven from an organizing rhythm or texture that we can follow to read and make sense of things. This texture is called organizational pattern. Pattern gives connection to the details we read. Pattern is generated to prove or support the main idea. Sometimes the main idea itself will contain a piece of the pattern, or a clue about which pattern is coming. But more often, when we identify organizational pattern, we’re speaking of major supporting details and what arrangement holds them together. *** Stop. Did you remember to annotate after you read? Now complete a “Comprehension SelfAssessment” worksheet and have it discussed and initialled on the Signoff sheet by an RWC staff member.