Oedipus Rex

From Goodreads

Oedipus Rex
Sophocles

What madness and trauma must have been inside of Sophocles' mind to be able to write this. I mean, anyone who has heard of Freud knows his Oedipus Complex and what it means. But to actually come up with the material that Freud would build with shows the ability to probe into our darkest self. I'm not sure if I had read this since college, but I don't remember being astounded the way I am right now. The force of this tragedy is just so immense and sharp.

The Burial At Thebes - Seamus Heaney

From the Goodreads...

The Burial at Thebes
(A version of Sophocle's Antigone)
Seamus Heaney

This version of Antigone also gets four stars because even though the language is modern, it isn't dumbed down or watery. The story is just as rich as reading it in a more King James-y tune. I'm assuming that there was some loss in translating it to English from the Ancient Greek; but, it is fine.

So I got this book thinking it was going to be a modern interpretation of the Antigone story. Turns out, it's just a modern language version of it. The translation is clear and being clearer allows the reader to see the tragic arc of Creon. Creon is stubborn and proud, but he doesn't come from a ridiculously misguided position. He is working for the genuine benefit for Thebes. He errs by not correcting the mistake once he has been counseled. Antigone seems much more the sympathetic character in the older version. This modern one makes Creon a bit more sympathetic.

Way More Ancienter

From the Goodreads

Antigone
Sophocles

I think that my favorite review of this book was the one that went, "it's like Romeo and Juliet, but way more ancienter."

Antigone is a classic. It has stood the test of nearly 2.5 millennia. Negative reviews on it are just silly. Sure, the language might be a little archaic; but, not everything needs to be written like you're texting your bff, Jill. Antigone shows the age old tension between the law and moral obligation. It shows the tension between trusting your feelings vs. wise counsel. It also shows the common folly of tyranny in any capacity, something that we continue to deal with as humans 2500 years after it was written. This ancienter book still rings relevant today.

Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides & Proverbs

(Originally Written February 11, 2014 on scrap paper now lost)

History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
Book I - Ancient Philosophy
Chapter 4 - Heraclitus

Xenophanes taught that gods were made up through anthropomorphic tendencies. He believed in only one God, but that God was not like man in either thought or form.

He also believed knowledge of God and gods to be impossible, "even if a man should chance to say something utterly right, still himself knows it not. There is nowhere anything but guessing (Russell, 40).

Xenophanes was a rationalist who disliked the mystical elements of Pythagorean thought.

Heraclitus lived around 511 BC in Ephesus. He was a mystic, believing the fundamental substance to be fire. He believed that everything was born by something else's death.

Heraclitus had a very negative view of mankind. He believed it was only force that compelled man to be good.

He believed war was not only a fact of life, but necessary to maintain existence. War brings death. Death brings life to the better things.

He was ascetic and proud of his asceticism.

The soul was made of fire and water. The better the soul, the more fire it had. The "dryer" the soul, the better it was.

He believed the world to be uncreated and eternal.

He believed that everything was in flux.

The constant flux produced strife. Strife produced conflict and that conflict proved to create the balance that exists in life. The flux had the effect of creating the cosmic justice that kept everything in its place and from one thing or one man from attaining too much power.

"The way of man has no wisdom, but that of God has. The wisest man is an ape to God, just as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man" (Russell, 44).

Heraclitus' metaphysical notion of the endless flux is the stated by Plato to be: nothing ever is, everything is becoming. Aristotle described it as 'nothing steadfastly is'.

The doctrine of perpetual flux is a horrifying thing to men who seek something permanent. Science and philosophy have been trying to escape Heraclitus for thousands of years.

Chapter V - Parmenides

Parmenides countered Heraclitus' notion that everything is always changing by stating nothing ever changes.

Parmenides lived around 450 BC in southern Italy.

Parmenides taught that both thought and language require objects outside of themselves. You can't think of an object if that object doesn't exist.

Parmenides believed that in order for words to have meaning they must be attached to an object. If that object existed in the past it maintains some existence, otherwise we could not use the word meaningfully.

Chapter VI - Empedocles

Empedocles lived around 440 BC in Sicily. He claimed to be a god.

Empedocles was an old combination of science, religion and philosophy. His science and religion were often times at odds with one another.

Empedocles discovered properties of air and centrifugal force by experiment. He had a scientific belief in an odd version of survival of the fittest type of evolutionary theory.

Empedocles believed not in one primordial substance, but four: earth, fire, wind and water. However, love and strife were on equal footing with the aforementioned substances. Love brought about the combination of the elements. Strife brought about the dissolution of the elements.

Love and strife fought one another. There were periods of time when one mastered the other. Chance and necessity brought about the changes in the universe, not some overarching purpose.

Chapter VII - Athens in relation to culture

The greatness of Athens began when they defeated the Persians at Marathon (490 BC) and defeated Xerxes (480 BC).

Athens grew rich and prosperous after this under the guidance of Pericles until about 430 BC.

During this time Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished.

Proverbs 8

8:9 - "To the discerning all of them are right. They are faultless to those who have knowledge".

The wisdom of the Lord is known to the discerning. It is faultless to those who have knowledge. THen do the unbelieving have no knowledge, no discernment?

Help me to seek you that I may find your wisdom. Help me to seek you God.

Proverbs 9

9:10 - "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding"

Proverbs 10

"The way of the Lord is a refuge for the righteouss"

Lord, may you be my refuge. Put in me a desire to seek you always. Light my heart on fire so that it burns for you. Help me to turn from folly and wickedness. Keep my paths straight. Bless this request my God, my King.

Class Notes on Aesthetic theories

(Originally written February 15, 2007 in Book 16)

Class Notes

I feel so overweight right now. I feel truly disgusting. My pants are too tight, she seems even less interested in intimacy on a physical level then before. I don't know what to do. Anyway, but now its time for the wonderful topic "Aesthetics". What a joy! (Sarcasm)

Aristotle

- Art is about "mimesis". Plato and Aristotle agreed on this point.
- Mimesis - imitation
- Aristotle held that art uses imitation and that different types of art imitate different things and how they imitate and imitation methodologies
- Comedy - a dramatic imitation of people who are worse than average
- Comedy is the species of art dealing with the ugly
- Tragedy - a dramatic imitation used to arouse pity, to invoke a catharsis (purging/cleansing)
- Poetry vs. History
Poet - attends to what is possible, deals with universals
History - attends to what has happened, deals with particulars

Spiegelism:
-History - deals with what is particular and unique
-Poetry - deals with what is universal and unique
-Science - deals with what is particular and regular
-Mathematics, Geometry & Theology - what is universal and routine

Nietzsche
- 19th Century German Philosopher
- Born Lutheran but gave up Christian faith in his late teens

Birth of Tragedy

2 Unique Characters of Art:
1) Apollo - order, symmetry, balance, proportion, etc.
2) Dionysus - freedom, wild emotion, indulgence, ecstasy, etc.

Some art forms are more or less Apollonian or Dionysian. Sculpture is paradigmatic of Apollonian, whereas music is paradigmatically Dionysian.

Greek tragedy is the child of Apollonian and Dionysian art. The tragedy has the Dionysian fall from exuberant and opulent behavior and the Apollonian sense of Justice

Freud

On Oedipus Rex & Hamlet

Oedipus Complex - a deep repressed urge that all men have to have sex with their mothers and kill their fathers.

He sees the Oedipus complex in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Hamlet's hesitation to kill his father's murderer is due to Hamlet's Oedipus complex.

Creative writing is an extension of one's fantasy life. Every one fantasizes because he or she has unfulfilled desires.

Fantasy is a wish that is becoming conscious when it was once unconscious or subconscious.

The writer devises characters to achieve the wishes he/she cannot fulfill.

Art is extension of one's fantasy life.

Socrates and Cephalus

(Originally written September 12, 2006 in Book 10)

Classics of Philosophy
Louis Pojman

Republic
Plato

Chapter 1: Convention under attack

Socrates is talking with an old man, Cephalus. Cephalus is explaining to Socrates about old age. He explains to Socrates that old age is not as troubling as it seems. The old men that complain do so because they are naturally grumpy.

He agrees with Sophocles that in old age men can escape evil masters like sex.

Socrates points out to Cephalus that many people would be skeptical of his account of old age and say that it is not Cephalus' character that makes him good-tempered in his old age, but his enormous wealth. Cephalus states that money is good to have but does not make a person good. The character of a good man will give him hope in old age, but the character of a bad man will haunt him in old age.

Socrates asks Cephalus what he believes to be the greatest benefit of being rich is. Cephalus contends that the greatest advantage to being rich is to be able to pay all of one's debts and leaving wealth for one's children.

To Cephalus the definition of morality is always telling the truth and repaying all debts.

Socrates asks Cephalus if it is right to give weapons back to an insane man or tell the insane man the absolute truth. Cephalus agrees that it is not and thus, Cephalus' definition of morality does not pass the test.

The Peloponnesian War & its sons

(Originally written September 6, 2006 in Book 10)

The Peloponnesian War

• Athens' strength grew after Greece defeated the Persian Empire, in which Athens played a pivotal role.
• Athens was beginning to rival and even surpass Sparta in power, 
• Athens dominated the trade of Greece.
• Sparta and Corinth convinced many other states to fight against "the tyrant city".
• The Peloponnesian war began in 431 B.C.
• Pericles, tyrant of Athens opted to concede territories to the Spartans and her allies. He moved all Athenians within the city walls and executed Naval raids on the Spartans. He opted for a war of attrition. Unfortunately, the overcrowded city was decimated by a plague. Then Pericles died. Athens fell into the hands of ill-equipped demagogues
• In 415 B.C. Athens made the mistake of attacking Sicily and wasted troops and money. Within two years of the attack the mighty Athenian navy had been decimated.
• The war continued for ten years simply out of bitterness on the Athenian side.

The Old Oligarch

The Old Oligarch was an unknown author who criticized the Athenian democracy. He concluded that a state has to make a choice between freedom an good governance.

Aristophanes

• Criticized the Athenian democracy for being inefficient, indecisive and irresponsible
• Aristophanes was not as mild mannered in his criticisms as the Old Oligarch was
• Aristophanes preferred the country gentleman to the urban aristocrat. He hated ignorance wherever one lived, but despised the urban leaders of the Assembly for being disloyal and without piety, hell bent on destroying tradition
• Aristophanes attack on democracy: He hates the jury system of paying poor people to serve jury duty. While the jurors claim to be powerful, Aristophanes calls them slaves of the demagogues. 
• Aristophanes' solution: He offers a communism, very similar to Plato's Utopia, with common houses, women and meals.

What War does to Man

Spartan idealism and Athenian idealism split cities in two. The aristocrats sided with sparta as the common man sided with Athens.

"War which takes away the comfortable provision of daily life is a hard master, and tends to assimilate men's characters to their conditions" (Jones, 54).

Intelligence is no longer a virtue.

Importance of political unity

Thucydides was shocked by the brutality and savagery of the war and even more so that it was a civil war in Hellas. 

The unity of a city-state was a difficult achievement as men still held family and clan loyalties, which had held over since a more primitive time.

Class warfare between rich and poor also prevented city-state unity.

The polis played an integral part in every Greek's life and unity was a huge aspiration for every individual polis.

The "New" Man

The old man was a conservative like Aristophanes and held virtue as esteemed, loved a simple life, had respect for law, religion, customs and was deeply patriotic.

The New man, born of civil war was a tyrannical cynic. He was self-serving.

Euripides 

Horrors of War: The Trojan Women

Early on, Euripides had been pro-Athens and anti-Sparta. He was patriotic and optimistic. The Trojan Women was a stark difference. He was no longer hopeful.

He believed in a moral order and that the moral order was a natural order. He held that the Greeks were violating that natural order.

He believed war to be futile.

He mentions a dichotomy between reason and passions. Passions lead to destruction.

The war shook his belief in the moral order and the existence of the gods. He doubts because of the war.

Euripides must have been a deeply religious man and his loss of faith must have been excruciating to him.

Euripides contrasted with Sophocles

Aeschylus (b. 525 B.C.) fought in the Persian War and believed religion to be benign and enlightening.

Sophocles (b. 495 B.C.) represents a belief in Athenian greatness. He believed in a transcendent divine law.

While Sophocles was only fifteen years older than Euripides, he was vastly different in his outlook on life.

The Dissolution of the Old Ideal

Egoism had destroyed the Greek unity of the polis and patriotism. 

The passions here destroyed the Greek reliance on reason.

The orderliness of Greece decayed as the Civil War ground ever on.