The Ancient Athenian Sophists (for an irreproachable legacy, be a philosopher, not a lawyer)

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In the second half of the 5th century BC, particularly at Athens, 'sophist' came to denote a class of mostly itinerant intellectuals who taught courses in various subjects, speculated about the nature of language and culture, and employed rhetoric to achieve their purposes, generally to persuade or convince others.... A few sophists claimed that they could find the answers to all questions. Most of these sophists are known today primarily through the writings of their opponents (specifically Plato and Aristotle), which makes it difficult to assemble an unbiased view of their practices and beliefs....

"Owing largely to the influence of Plato and Aristotle, philosophy came to be regarded as distinct from sophistry, the latter being regarded as specious and rhetorical, a practical discipline. Thus, by the time of the Roman Empire, a sophist was simply a teacher of rhetoric and a popular public speaker....

"The Sophists certainly were not directly responsible for Athenian democracy, but their cultural and psychological contributions played an important role in its growth. They contributed to the new democracy in part by espousing expertise in public deliberation, since this was the foundation of decision-making, which allowed and perhaps required a tolerance of the beliefs of others....

"In addition, Sophists had great impact on the early development of law, as the sophists were the first lawyers in the world. Their status as lawyers was a result of their extremely developed argumentation skills."

Happy Kings' Day

Or Epiphany, or Theophony, or Timkat, or Little Christmas.

nestled in the modern mind

"Greek thinkers in the classical period, though they set no bounds to the daring of their thought, and though their wild speculations could easily lead to thoroughgoing scepticism, were yet too healthy-minded to entertain seriously either the problem of the existence of the 'outside' world or its specialized version, the reality of other persons. It was Descartes, the 'father of modern philosophy', who neatly chopped the whole human person into a knowing subject and a known object, that sired the rogue twins.

"Doubt for Descartes was a methodological stance, but the thought that all of the world around us could conceivably be a delusion or a dream, which Descartes introduced simply as a thought experiment, nestled in the modern mind, so that there is hardly any major philosopher during the past four centuries who has not had to grapple with it."

--D.R. Khashaba, "Subjectivism and Solipsism"

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the smell

“The girl had taken a Ph.D. in philosophy and this left Mrs. Hopewell at a complete loss. You could say, ‘My daughter is a nurse,’ or ‘My daughter is a schoolteacher,’ or even, ‘My daughter is a chemical engineer.’ You could not say, ‘My daughter is a philosopher.’ That was something that had ended with the Greeks and Romans. All day Joy sat on her neck in a deep chair, reading. Sometimes she went for walks but she didn’t like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men. She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.”

--Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People”

The Steppe - Questions for Discussion and Review

1. The Classical Greek philosophical school of Skepticism holds that any knowledge of a physical universe is impossible. What is the horrific implication of Skepticism as presented by The Steppe?

2. What is the “gloriful” implication?

3. Moore’s argument for “common sense” over Skepticism, often summed up by the phrase: “Here is a hand,” argues that there is no more logical basis to distrust the perceptions of your senses than there is to trust them. How does Baatar address this argument?

4. Wittgenstein’s argument against Skepticism claims that Skepticism is thinkable only through a misuse of language, specifically through confusion regarding the contextual meaning and usage of the verb “to know.” How does Baatar address this argument?

5. How might The Steppe actually be considered a reductio ad absurdum argument against Skepticism?

6. Solipsism is the absence of belief that other human beings exist as consciousnesses. Despite the acknowledged logical consistency of Solipsism, there has never been a Solipsistic philosopher. Is Baatar a Solipsist?

7. Consider the original final line of The Steppe: “This narrative is dedicated to you, the reader, though I do not know and cannot know whether you exist.” Is Neuhalfen a Solipsist?

8. Consider Rad as an unreliable narrator who reports only his own subjective reality which, in the course of The Steppe, changes through exposure to Baatarism. How might the supernatural elements of Rad’s narration be explained naturally? (For example, in “Chapter Twenty-Two: Makhchin,” despite what Rad describes, an observer might report Rad killing and eating his own horse.)

9. How does The Steppe’s lack of a narrative counterpoint to Rad’s subjective reality reinforce the philosophical tenets of Baatarism?

10. One of The Steppe’s epigraphs alludes to Beowulf and one is taken from the epic poem itself. How is Baatar like Beowulf?

11. How is Baatar like Grendel?

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The Epicurean Paradox

"God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak -- and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful -- which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?"

--Epicurus, 341-270 BCE, Greek, in The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by Brad Inwood and Lloyd P. Gerson