I teach the Great Books of our tradition ||Excellence in education: Intro through PhD level || SubStack @AthensCorner
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By carefully and patiently studying the following three authors with one or two close friends, you can easily know more about philosophy than 99% of all philosophy PhD grads:
— Thucydides
— Xenophon
— Machiavelli
That’s how deep they are, truly
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Athenian Stranger retweeted
Knowledge of what Thucydides teaches is so important that if you are not studying him (or have not) then you cannot say you are seriously engaged in learning “the great books” or offering “a classical curriculum”
Nor can you even say you know what “Modernity” is
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Plutarch on education:
οὐ γὰρ ὡς ἀγγεῖον ὁ νοῦς ἀποπληρώσεως ἀλλ᾿ ὑπεκκαύματος μόνον ὥσπερ ὕλη δεῖται, ὁρμὴν ἐμποιοῦντος εὑρετικὴν καὶ ὄρεξιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν.
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For the mind does not require filling like a vessel, but only kindling, as wood does, to produce in it a desire for discovery and the truth.
On Listening to Lectures 48c
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The problem is obvious, it’s in the name:
We have departments of political “science,” not departments of political “philosophy”
Why? That’s “Modernity” — prevent the worst (ie war) by no longer seeking *or even contemplating* the highest: All science, not philosophy
I'm seeing job opening after job opening at university civics centers for political scientists to teach the American founding, American govt etc. No jobs at all to teach the Western tradition. Do you guys really think you can make sense of American government and civic traditions without the study of Greece, Rome, Christendom and Europe? Where do you think America came from? Mars? Alien spaceships? "Global civilization"? @MadisonProgram @UNCSCILL @osuchasecenter @CivitasInst @BradleyFdn @CivicEducation
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I never think I would be happy living 100 or perhaps 1000 years ago in a romantically appealing world.
No, I was put here to meet the time; this is my moment and I am native only to it.
When others have seen the pain and disappointment in my own life, I am sure they think, "I bet he wishes he had lived a different life."
No, I alone could bear the brunt of these travails.
I, in my alloted fate, have been sent forth into the universe for this time.
God has placed me here and here I will stand.
At a very difficult time in my life I reached out to a dear friend, a man for whom I have the greatest respect
He responded to me by simply saying:
It’s difficult, yes. But you were born for these moments, to overcome them
I will never forget that
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You’re going to enjoy this. An hour and a half discussion with @alexpriou on the most defining characteristics of “Modernity”
In other words, an hour and a half on exactly why and how —the uniqueness”— of Machiavelli as THE founder of “Modernity
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The depth of Machiavelli’s thought consists in what would be called by later philosophers “world-construction” or even “world-creation” (Kant, Nietzsche, etc)
Machiavelli’s *philosophical* thought is a “technology” to reconstruct —or create entirely new— human nature(s)
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At a very difficult time in my life I reached out to a dear friend, a man for whom I have the greatest respect
He responded to me by simply saying:
It’s difficult, yes. But you were born for these moments, to overcome them
I will never forget that
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Athenian Stranger retweeted
Did you know Achilles sings songs? — and Homer allows Odysseus to sing his own song for 4 books, inviting us to compare them to what Homer says through the Muse?
What does all that mean coming immediately after the songs of Demodocus? I discuss all that in great detail
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Knowledge of what Thucydides teaches is so important that if you are not studying him (or have not) then you cannot say you are seriously engaged in learning “the great books” or offering “a classical curriculum”
Nor can you even say you know what “Modernity” is
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Athenian Stranger retweeted
Thucydides is our best guide to understanding “Modernity”
In my upcoming discussion of Thucydides, I explain the way he reveals the how and why of the cave we subsequently find in Plato’s Republic *and* our cave today of “technology”
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Athenian Stranger retweeted
To all lovers of literature (and Twainiacs especially), I am pleased to announce that the journal Literature just published my essay on Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, where I argue that Twain uses this novel to appropriate Dante's poetry for democratic purposes. Link below!
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This is also the teaching in Herodotus regarding Gyges that Glaucon adopts and alters in Plato’s Republic
Glaucon’s alteration changes the story but nonetheless fully retains the teaching
Machiavelli will do the same, from which Nietzsche learns similarly
Thucydides revalues “the beautiful”
He says Homer conceals the truth of events by ornamenting them so that they appear greater than they truly were
We call that “the beautiful”
Thucydides says he discloses the truest truth. Here it’s Agamemnon’s power
True beauty is power
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Thucydides revalues “the beautiful”
He says Homer conceals the truth of events by ornamenting them so that they appear greater than they truly were
We call that “the beautiful”
Thucydides says he discloses the truest truth. Here it’s Agamemnon’s power
True beauty is power
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Athenian Stranger retweeted
A list of twenty Ancient Greek online libraries. If I have forgotten any, post them below:
perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/
attalus.org/
tha.de/~harsch/graeca/Auctor…
lyceum.quest/texts
thegreeklibrary.pages.lisn.u…
johnhboyer-sys.github.io/pla…
johnhboyer-sys.github.io/ari…
catholiclibrary.org/library/…
oxytone.xyz/
eulogikon.org/
greek-language.gr/digitalRes…
anthologiagraeca.org/
poesialatina.it/_ns/Greek/te…
cmg.bbaw.de/epubl/online/edi…
gottwein.de/Grie/Gr.Lektuere…
opengreekandlatin.github.io/…
el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%9…
documentacatholicaomnia.eu/
telota.bbaw.de/ig/
loebclassics.com/
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