After a recent discussion in which I was challenged to distinguish between sophistry and philosophic dialectic, I found myself compelled to reread Plato's Phaedrus. The following are some reflections that I had upon reading the dialogue.
The fundamental Socratic distinction between what seems to be and what is is mirrored in the difference between sophistry and dialectic. What is immediately suggestive of their relation is that sophistry and dialectic seem almost identical to the untrained ear. Lysias' lying speech that one ought to favour the one who does not love you reaches what appears to be precisely the sort of bizarre conclusion that philosophers are popularly thought to reach. Both proceed through linguistic inquiry that appears to start from basic and generally accepted principles. But sophistry is not dialectic--it is its diabolical double. Dialectic attempts to clarify the principle under discussion, moving upward like the freed prisoner in the allegory towards an apprehension of the beautiful. As such, the purpose of philosophy is to bring us into a loving relationship with the "transcendental" ideals.
The sophist also feels drawn to the beautiful, but instead of undertaking the purifying process of dialectic, he seeks to master the beautiful. Language for the philosopher is not a tool to be used to catch the elusive creature wisdom; language, rather, is the gift in which the revelation of the beautiful takes place. The sophist tries to use language (which is of course ultimately impossible, though often temporarily quite successful) for the purposes of acquiring power. Of course, the sophist must understand in his heart that this whole enterprise is as useless as it is self-destructive; Socrates observes the deception inherent in sophistry when he states that the "cunning" sophistical rhetor is attempting to persuade the youth that he does not love him, though "he really loved him all the same." The philosopher also often seems dishonest, but this dishonesty is always resulting from the dishonesty of the situation in which he has been placed and undertaken expressly to dispel the underlying lie. Socrates (masked) imitates Lysias' speech precisely precisely to show how flawed it is...
30 November 2010
16 July 2010
new aphorisms
1. Rather than thinking that the Ideas are questionable, perhaps we should instead learn to understand how the Ideas call us into question.
2. What is most hidden away is one's own face.
3. Dialectic is the mirror of the soul.
4. We think in images, but the ideas are not images--not exactly. But when we come face-to-face with the ideal, we can only speak of it in images. This is the origin of all poetry.
5. The essential defect of philosophy is that it has often failed to be poetry. The essential defect of poetry is that poets often confuse art and narcissism.
6. Very few things should be taken seriously, and those things that should most often turn out to be what no one any longer takes seriously.
7. Nothing lasts forever.
2. What is most hidden away is one's own face.
3. Dialectic is the mirror of the soul.
4. We think in images, but the ideas are not images--not exactly. But when we come face-to-face with the ideal, we can only speak of it in images. This is the origin of all poetry.
5. The essential defect of philosophy is that it has often failed to be poetry. The essential defect of poetry is that poets often confuse art and narcissism.
6. Very few things should be taken seriously, and those things that should most often turn out to be what no one any longer takes seriously.
7. Nothing lasts forever.
13 July 2010
Marginalia
Idea means—what something looks like. Appearances are never deceiving, insofar as an appearance is an appearance of and not an appearance to. But this is out of balance. If the difference between appearance and essence is a function of perception, then we end up with Hegel and Nietzsche and oblivion. The difference that appears between appearance and reality must belong in some way both to perception and appearance.
05 July 2010
America is rhetoric
Political documents from the ancient and medieval world generally seem to be articulations of a certain set of political decisions and, in a broader sense, of the political order that created the document. The Declaration of Independence is the first document to imply a political order that did not yet exist. Though many of the liberties the Declaration sought to establish were existing liberties that had been abridged by the tyranny of the British crown, these liberties were asserted in the name of citizens of a state that had not yet come into being. The essence of this state was created by the Declaration itself: a true city in speech. At its foundation American political existence was rooted in rhetoric. Instead of political symbols arising from a long process of national self-identification, people identified themselves as Americans in virtue of the symbols established by the Declaration.
What makes a society created by rhetoric great is that its essential existence is ideal. The great danger of a society created by rhetoric is that people will lose touch with language, and thereby lose touch with everything that makes them who they are. The mystery of a society created by rhetoric, which can be its salvation and its destruction, is the distance that usually seems to exist between what is ideal and what is "actual."
What makes a society created by rhetoric great is that its essential existence is ideal. The great danger of a society created by rhetoric is that people will lose touch with language, and thereby lose touch with everything that makes them who they are. The mystery of a society created by rhetoric, which can be its salvation and its destruction, is the distance that usually seems to exist between what is ideal and what is "actual."
01 July 2010
Why space does not exist [1]
It is a great (and highly practical) illusion that something called space exists. This is not a mystical utterance (at least not in the typical sense of mystical); it is meant quite literally. For context, I would recommend the series of posts beginning here and continuing with the next two in December of 2009. In those posts I attempted to show that the concept of space demands to be thought as a field (sort of a cubic Cartesian plane) composed of discrete units. This point was proved more or less to my satisfaction and to the satisfaction of some others (who, I suspect, were privy to the secret we are about to discuss).
We begin by considering the manifold meanings of the word space. In common parlance we might ask someone to give us space. We might ask how much space is in a room, or how much space a certain object takes up. We speak of outer space and space travel. Things are spaced, words on the page no less than the pickets of a fence. Americans (we are told) like their space.
We can divide these meanings into the following definitions:
1) The area surrounding an object that is, in some sense, part of the object
2) The purported vacuum that composes most of the universe
3) Empty space between objects that place the objects into a certain order
4) Distance conceived in light of an abstract field composed of mathematically functional units
The fourth underlies all the other definitions, though it underlies the first the least. The existence of some sort of field (called space) in which objects exist at a certain space from each other (the 4th definition) is certainly necessary before we can begin to conceive of the universe as a series of planets with in space with space between them. Indeed, this concept seems self-evident and unquestionable.
But who among us has seen space? And do we ever actually mean space when we say space? If asked to say what we mean when we say space, we probably imagine a sort of map grid extended into all three dimensions. Is that actually how things are? For the reasons outlined in the previous post (linked to above), if such a field exists, it must be segmented in a discrete manner. This deduction was an analytic one from the very concept of space. But look around you.! The room I'm in now (messy again, unfortunately) is filled with all sorts of things all over the place. Now I imagine our cubic Cartesian plane extended around the room. Every object is located somewhere on this cubic plane. Is this actually my room? The fact that I can imagine it hardly means it is the case.
What we wish to show (and will hopefully continue to show) is that "space" is an abstraction. It is not real. There is no such thing as space anywhere. And yet science depends upon the concept of space: and this should tell us something about science...
We begin by considering the manifold meanings of the word space. In common parlance we might ask someone to give us space. We might ask how much space is in a room, or how much space a certain object takes up. We speak of outer space and space travel. Things are spaced, words on the page no less than the pickets of a fence. Americans (we are told) like their space.
We can divide these meanings into the following definitions:
1) The area surrounding an object that is, in some sense, part of the object
2) The purported vacuum that composes most of the universe
3) Empty space between objects that place the objects into a certain order
4) Distance conceived in light of an abstract field composed of mathematically functional units
The fourth underlies all the other definitions, though it underlies the first the least. The existence of some sort of field (called space) in which objects exist at a certain space from each other (the 4th definition) is certainly necessary before we can begin to conceive of the universe as a series of planets with in space with space between them. Indeed, this concept seems self-evident and unquestionable.
But who among us has seen space? And do we ever actually mean space when we say space? If asked to say what we mean when we say space, we probably imagine a sort of map grid extended into all three dimensions. Is that actually how things are? For the reasons outlined in the previous post (linked to above), if such a field exists, it must be segmented in a discrete manner. This deduction was an analytic one from the very concept of space. But look around you.! The room I'm in now (messy again, unfortunately) is filled with all sorts of things all over the place. Now I imagine our cubic Cartesian plane extended around the room. Every object is located somewhere on this cubic plane. Is this actually my room? The fact that I can imagine it hardly means it is the case.
What we wish to show (and will hopefully continue to show) is that "space" is an abstraction. It is not real. There is no such thing as space anywhere. And yet science depends upon the concept of space: and this should tell us something about science...
27 June 2010
15 June 2010
Option pricing
The Nobel prize-winning Black-Scholes option pricing formula is generally advanced by financial academics as the best possible way to value options. This may be true, but that doesn't mean it is any good.
It is further worth noting that the formula (often used for dynamic hedging) models security prices as follows:
dS = mSdt + sSdW
Where S is security price, mS is the average rate of change of the security (drift rate), t is time, sS is standard deviation of the security, and W is a geometric Brownian function.
The problem here is that stock prices generally can be modeled using geometric Brownian motion. However, there is (more or less) a hard stop to trading at market close. Despite this fact, orders can be placed after market close, to be executed immediately upon the opening of the market. For this reason, we will rarely find extreme jumps between the underlying security price at closing and opening. The possibility of what is effectively discrete motion should make us realize that using the geometric Brownian without at least including some fudge factor for the possibility of discontinuous motion (though approximating the Brownian with a discrete probability distribution such as the binomial would be preferable) will occasionally but decisively give us bad pricing information.
Against those who would suggest that the error in the formula will be relatively minor, we advance the anecdotal but highly compelling evidence that the year after Mr. Scholes won his Nobel prize, the hedge fund he was helping to run (Long Term Capital Management) imploded in a multibillion dollar disaster that left financial markets reeling.
It is further worth noting that the formula (often used for dynamic hedging) models security prices as follows:
dS = mSdt + sSdW
Where S is security price, mS is the average rate of change of the security (drift rate), t is time, sS is standard deviation of the security, and W is a geometric Brownian function.
The problem here is that stock prices generally can be modeled using geometric Brownian motion. However, there is (more or less) a hard stop to trading at market close. Despite this fact, orders can be placed after market close, to be executed immediately upon the opening of the market. For this reason, we will rarely find extreme jumps between the underlying security price at closing and opening. The possibility of what is effectively discrete motion should make us realize that using the geometric Brownian without at least including some fudge factor for the possibility of discontinuous motion (though approximating the Brownian with a discrete probability distribution such as the binomial would be preferable) will occasionally but decisively give us bad pricing information.
Against those who would suggest that the error in the formula will be relatively minor, we advance the anecdotal but highly compelling evidence that the year after Mr. Scholes won his Nobel prize, the hedge fund he was helping to run (Long Term Capital Management) imploded in a multibillion dollar disaster that left financial markets reeling.
26 May 2010
Gold
I'm in a place with a television this week and I decided to turn on the news as I was eating breakfast. I was amused/disturbed to notice that Fox News (which was, in its defense, the only "news" network not running stories about cute puppies or things of a similar nature) was running non-stop advertisements for gold investment services in between its news stories about how the sky was falling. In between wondering whether or not gold was likely to be a particularly good investment, since its convertibility into local currency presupposes some demand for the commodity (a demand that is dampened and not heightened by economic instability), I was struck by something I had written about some time ago in the context of a discussion of Beowulf. What exactly is the value of gold? And why do dragons dwell on buried gold-hoards? There is something perverse about burying refined gold-work back in the earth from which it came. Gold should be seen in the sunlight, not placed back into the earth.
As the advertisement correctly observed, gold has always held some value. This value is not "conventional" in the way that the value of our currency is conventional, nor is it derived from its practical utility in industrial applications. In the alchemical symbolism, gold is the perfection of nature subsumed by the spiritual. In Beowulf, gold is a physical manifestation of the virtue of a people personified in their hero. When the people are no more, the burial of the gold calls dragons to its glitter. This image is one the most intriguing of the poem (which is partially a reflection upon gold) and rewards careful attention and reflection. The proper meaning of gold is almost entirely erased when it is viewed as a means to stabilize one's IRA against fluctuations in equity prices; and it is highly significant that in these situations the person purchasing the gold generally does not take physical possession of the gold but controls it through shares in a mutual fund or through an ETF. Yet even in this utterly etherealized form there is still something mysterious about the manner in which gold eludes mathematization, as fluctuations of gold prices are highly difficult to model for any practical financial purpose.
"there laid within it his lordly heirlooms
and heaped hoard of heavy gold."
Beowulf XXXII
As the advertisement correctly observed, gold has always held some value. This value is not "conventional" in the way that the value of our currency is conventional, nor is it derived from its practical utility in industrial applications. In the alchemical symbolism, gold is the perfection of nature subsumed by the spiritual. In Beowulf, gold is a physical manifestation of the virtue of a people personified in their hero. When the people are no more, the burial of the gold calls dragons to its glitter. This image is one the most intriguing of the poem (which is partially a reflection upon gold) and rewards careful attention and reflection. The proper meaning of gold is almost entirely erased when it is viewed as a means to stabilize one's IRA against fluctuations in equity prices; and it is highly significant that in these situations the person purchasing the gold generally does not take physical possession of the gold but controls it through shares in a mutual fund or through an ETF. Yet even in this utterly etherealized form there is still something mysterious about the manner in which gold eludes mathematization, as fluctuations of gold prices are highly difficult to model for any practical financial purpose.
"there laid within it his lordly heirlooms
and heaped hoard of heavy gold."
Beowulf XXXII
15 May 2010
Discourse
Political society of any kind requires that discourse be engaged in with pure intentions. The moment that the choice of words becomes subjugated to a preordained ideological outcome, political speech is no longer discourse. The purpose of political speech is to establish a course of action in harmony with the principles of society and the needs of the given circumstance. None of us can engage in political speech without preconceptions of some kind (preconceptions are what make us all "individuals"), but we can attempt to conform our speech to the truth of the matter under discussion and not conform speech to some extrinsic standard or conclusion provided in advance. Such action denigrates speech and makes real discourse impossible; it removes political speech even further from truth itself and pushes it deeper into the realm of opinion, feeling, and unreality.
These reflections are prompted by an article I saw today on an American news service that referred to persons illegally present in the US as "undocumented immigrants" instead of "illegal immigrants." I hadn't seen that phrase before so I attempted to ascertain its origin. As it turns out, certain persons had decided that the phrase "illegal immigrant" was too negatively charged and needed to be changed. Let us leave aside (for a moment) our views on the topic of illegal immigration, a topic of incredible complexity admits of no easy answers, and ask ourselves whether it is appropriate to try and modify discourse in this manner. The phrase "illegal immigrant" has a specific political meaning. Insofar as the people under question exist (politically) as immigrants, and insofar as the have not legally immigrated to this country, their being qua immigrant is qualified by its illegality. Contrary to the slew of bumper stickers that proclaim that "no person is illegal," the phrase "illegal immigrant" does not attempt to subject the fundamental personhood of anyone to a declaration of illegality. Rather, it simply states the (mutable) fact that the person's political existence as immigrant is illegal. This could be changed by amending immigration laws to allow such persons to legally immigrate, but as things stand now, the phrase "illegal immigrant" is objectively correct.
The phrase "undocumented immigrant" seems to suggest that the people in question merely are missing documentation. As such, it is a less precise description of what the political existence of these people actually are. While it is entirely true that they are undocumented, it is incomplete merely to say this. As a general rule we ought refer to things by their most important attribute to the matter at hand. The fact that these immigrants lack documentation is entirely predicated on the fact that they are not in the country legally. We aren't referring to people who came to the country legally and whose immigration papers were lost (a more accurate use of the phrase "undocumented immigrant").
Therefore, it seems clear to me that the appropriate phrase that ought to be used is "illegal immigrant" (again, note that we are making no judgments as to whether such immigration ought to be legal or illegal). To attempt to subordinate discourse towards a preconceived goal through altering the words that we use is horribly dangerous, even if employed towards good ends. It lowers the quality of our discourse and makes most of us less likely to think about what is actually being said. The corruption of discourse is the poison can undo any democracy, and I feel we are dangerously on the brink of this happening. The right calls politicians on the left variously "communists" and "nazis" (terms that are generally inaccurate) while the left calls politicians on the right "bigots" and "racists" (also terms that are generally inaccurate). The more that people believe these insults the less likely they are to listen to each other. And once no one is listening to anyone, democracy is no longer possible.
We should always insist on clarity and precision in our discourse, even when such clarity and precision work against the goal we wish to achieve.
These reflections are prompted by an article I saw today on an American news service that referred to persons illegally present in the US as "undocumented immigrants" instead of "illegal immigrants." I hadn't seen that phrase before so I attempted to ascertain its origin. As it turns out, certain persons had decided that the phrase "illegal immigrant" was too negatively charged and needed to be changed. Let us leave aside (for a moment) our views on the topic of illegal immigration, a topic of incredible complexity admits of no easy answers, and ask ourselves whether it is appropriate to try and modify discourse in this manner. The phrase "illegal immigrant" has a specific political meaning. Insofar as the people under question exist (politically) as immigrants, and insofar as the have not legally immigrated to this country, their being qua immigrant is qualified by its illegality. Contrary to the slew of bumper stickers that proclaim that "no person is illegal," the phrase "illegal immigrant" does not attempt to subject the fundamental personhood of anyone to a declaration of illegality. Rather, it simply states the (mutable) fact that the person's political existence as immigrant is illegal. This could be changed by amending immigration laws to allow such persons to legally immigrate, but as things stand now, the phrase "illegal immigrant" is objectively correct.
The phrase "undocumented immigrant" seems to suggest that the people in question merely are missing documentation. As such, it is a less precise description of what the political existence of these people actually are. While it is entirely true that they are undocumented, it is incomplete merely to say this. As a general rule we ought refer to things by their most important attribute to the matter at hand. The fact that these immigrants lack documentation is entirely predicated on the fact that they are not in the country legally. We aren't referring to people who came to the country legally and whose immigration papers were lost (a more accurate use of the phrase "undocumented immigrant").
Therefore, it seems clear to me that the appropriate phrase that ought to be used is "illegal immigrant" (again, note that we are making no judgments as to whether such immigration ought to be legal or illegal). To attempt to subordinate discourse towards a preconceived goal through altering the words that we use is horribly dangerous, even if employed towards good ends. It lowers the quality of our discourse and makes most of us less likely to think about what is actually being said. The corruption of discourse is the poison can undo any democracy, and I feel we are dangerously on the brink of this happening. The right calls politicians on the left variously "communists" and "nazis" (terms that are generally inaccurate) while the left calls politicians on the right "bigots" and "racists" (also terms that are generally inaccurate). The more that people believe these insults the less likely they are to listen to each other. And once no one is listening to anyone, democracy is no longer possible.
We should always insist on clarity and precision in our discourse, even when such clarity and precision work against the goal we wish to achieve.
05 May 2010
Beautiful changes
I've been thinking about the last lines from Richard Wilbur's marvelous poem "The Beautiful Changes" a lot recently. They are quoted below (I have probably misplaced the line breaks, for which I apologize):
"the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things' selves for a second finding,
to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to
wonder."
There is the appearance of a Hegelian quality to the lines "wishing ever to sunder... for a second finding," but this image is dispelled by the suggestion that the sundering is not itself illusory but actually quite real, since it results in loss. We don't normally think of sundering and loss as "kind," but the poem suggests that the result (wonder) is worth the price, even though it is just "for a moment." Against the radical despair (indeed, despair beyond despair!) inherent in Hegelianism, we should find great comfort in the conclusion of the poem's second stanza:
"Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows."
Fewer phrases more hopeful than this have been placed into poetry.
"the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things' selves for a second finding,
to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to
wonder."
There is the appearance of a Hegelian quality to the lines "wishing ever to sunder... for a second finding," but this image is dispelled by the suggestion that the sundering is not itself illusory but actually quite real, since it results in loss. We don't normally think of sundering and loss as "kind," but the poem suggests that the result (wonder) is worth the price, even though it is just "for a moment." Against the radical despair (indeed, despair beyond despair!) inherent in Hegelianism, we should find great comfort in the conclusion of the poem's second stanza:
"Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows."
Fewer phrases more hopeful than this have been placed into poetry.
26 April 2010
Short sale
People in our age seem to be gripped by the desire to find some human villain at the root of every calamity that strikes us. This is perhaps above all caused by the desire of "historical" peoples to shift their own responsibility for the state of the world on to others. In the case of the recent economic malaise that has afflicted large sections of the globe, we find the blame often placed on short sellers. The major banks (both nationally and internationally) blamed short sellers for the decline of their shares, leading the SEC to temporarily ban short selling in these issues -- an action they took without first discerning whether or not there was any truth to the accusation. More recently, Greece has taken to blaming the shorts for the rapid devaluation of their government debt.
For those without the dubious advantage of some financial knowledge, short selling consists in borrowing some sort of security with the intention of immediately selling it. The short seller is betting that the security will lose value so he can repurchase it later (whether a few seconds later or months later) and return it to the entity that loaned it to him. The entity loaning him the security is paid a fee by the short seller for the transaction, and since the entity (typically banks or investment firms) would be holding the security anyway, it is an excellent way for them to make extra money with little to no extra risk.
I feel the recent backlash against short sellers has two principal causes. First, there are considerably more "long" (that is, people who are betting securities will rise in price) investors than short sellers. Anyone who holds a stock or bond in an IRA, retirement plan, or other investment account is almost always long in that security. Since long positions and short positions are a zero sum game, whenever the shorts win, it means the longs are losing. Therefore, the majority is likely to dislike the shorts since the shorts are profiting precisely when the longs are losing. Secondly, there seems to be a confusion between cause and effect in the case of short selling. Given that the short side to the market is vastly smaller than the long side, the effect of the shorts selling shares of a security into the open market (thereby decreasing the value of that security) will be infinitesimal. There is a strong correlation between a lot of people shorting a stock and the stock declining in value, but the stock's decline is not caused by the people shorting it; rather, people are shorting it because they think it will decline in value.
The world is a terrifically complex place. Part of this terrific complexity is that there are in fact situations that are extremely black and white. Rarely do we find such a situation in the realm of economics, however, and the attempt by collapsing institutions to blame short pressure for their collapse is yet another manifestation of the desire to find a bad guy for something for which no one (and almost everyone) is to blame.
For those without the dubious advantage of some financial knowledge, short selling consists in borrowing some sort of security with the intention of immediately selling it. The short seller is betting that the security will lose value so he can repurchase it later (whether a few seconds later or months later) and return it to the entity that loaned it to him. The entity loaning him the security is paid a fee by the short seller for the transaction, and since the entity (typically banks or investment firms) would be holding the security anyway, it is an excellent way for them to make extra money with little to no extra risk.
I feel the recent backlash against short sellers has two principal causes. First, there are considerably more "long" (that is, people who are betting securities will rise in price) investors than short sellers. Anyone who holds a stock or bond in an IRA, retirement plan, or other investment account is almost always long in that security. Since long positions and short positions are a zero sum game, whenever the shorts win, it means the longs are losing. Therefore, the majority is likely to dislike the shorts since the shorts are profiting precisely when the longs are losing. Secondly, there seems to be a confusion between cause and effect in the case of short selling. Given that the short side to the market is vastly smaller than the long side, the effect of the shorts selling shares of a security into the open market (thereby decreasing the value of that security) will be infinitesimal. There is a strong correlation between a lot of people shorting a stock and the stock declining in value, but the stock's decline is not caused by the people shorting it; rather, people are shorting it because they think it will decline in value.
The world is a terrifically complex place. Part of this terrific complexity is that there are in fact situations that are extremely black and white. Rarely do we find such a situation in the realm of economics, however, and the attempt by collapsing institutions to blame short pressure for their collapse is yet another manifestation of the desire to find a bad guy for something for which no one (and almost everyone) is to blame.
19 April 2010
riddles?
1)
Empiricists (I am told, though I'm not convinced I've ever really met one) believe that what is particularly disclosed in sense-experience is all that is objectively true. Universal affirmations and knowledge of essence are abstractions from sense-experience that do not specifically correspond to anything outside the mind, and are therefore untrue insofar as they cannot correspond to any physically "real" object. However, it is not clear that sense-experience is ever given directly in sense-experience. Indeed, it rather seems as though sense-experience is a universal. If this is so, then the belief that universals cannot correspond to particulars disclosed through sense-experience would appear to be a contradiction in terms, since it would immediately negate the possibility of its correspondence to anything objectively real.
2)
It is not advisable to restrict possible evidence against one's position in advance. For as Socrates says in Republic to Thrasymachus, we cannot be certain in advance whether or not what we are seeking may lie within the area which we have closed off. Now, we can close off possible realms of evidence in two ways: a provisional way, and an absolute way. We close off evidence provisionally if the closure is temporary and methodological. The closure is absolute if a whole realm of phenomena are determined (extrinsically to the matter under consideration) to be off limits. It would seem that the absolute closure of the non-empirical in empiricism is problematic precisely because it is using an a priori concept (the empirical) to argue against the reality of a priori concepts.
3)
It is not clear exactly what material means to empiricists. Dr. Johnson kicking the rock seems to be about as deep as the reflection on this point goes. There is a reason for this. If they deny that materiality has any objective meaning, then they open themselves up to the question of how they have decided to exclude immaterial objects. But if they admit that materiality does mean something, what could it mean but the essence of the material? And if material has essence, then their whole position seems to unravel rapidly.
Empiricists (I am told, though I'm not convinced I've ever really met one) believe that what is particularly disclosed in sense-experience is all that is objectively true. Universal affirmations and knowledge of essence are abstractions from sense-experience that do not specifically correspond to anything outside the mind, and are therefore untrue insofar as they cannot correspond to any physically "real" object. However, it is not clear that sense-experience is ever given directly in sense-experience. Indeed, it rather seems as though sense-experience is a universal. If this is so, then the belief that universals cannot correspond to particulars disclosed through sense-experience would appear to be a contradiction in terms, since it would immediately negate the possibility of its correspondence to anything objectively real.
2)
It is not advisable to restrict possible evidence against one's position in advance. For as Socrates says in Republic to Thrasymachus, we cannot be certain in advance whether or not what we are seeking may lie within the area which we have closed off. Now, we can close off possible realms of evidence in two ways: a provisional way, and an absolute way. We close off evidence provisionally if the closure is temporary and methodological. The closure is absolute if a whole realm of phenomena are determined (extrinsically to the matter under consideration) to be off limits. It would seem that the absolute closure of the non-empirical in empiricism is problematic precisely because it is using an a priori concept (the empirical) to argue against the reality of a priori concepts.
3)
It is not clear exactly what material means to empiricists. Dr. Johnson kicking the rock seems to be about as deep as the reflection on this point goes. There is a reason for this. If they deny that materiality has any objective meaning, then they open themselves up to the question of how they have decided to exclude immaterial objects. But if they admit that materiality does mean something, what could it mean but the essence of the material? And if material has essence, then their whole position seems to unravel rapidly.
13 April 2010
The Waste Land [part iii]
The Waste Land is often criticized as being "abstract" on the grounds that it is difficult to precisely decide on what is going on at any given point in the poem. We expect poems to either be lyrical or (at least in some rough sense) plot-driven and therefore at least tangentially inhabited by characters. The Waste Land fits in the later category, though the manner in which this is the case is not immediately apparent. Let me first suggest that there are several discrete "locations" identified in the poem. There is the "unreal city," which is largely coterminous with the desert "where the sun beats." There is the hyacinth garden, which is another image of the death by water that eventually overcomes Phlebas. There is the boudoir of the lady (Belladonna), called "rat's alley" by her companion, which is the same as the ruined space by the river where "a rat crept softly through the vegetation." Finally, there is the chapel in the mountains.
The majority of the action (more properly, inaction) that transpires in The Waste Land takes place in the unreal city. The poem's protagonist dwells in this city until he is freed by "death by water," at which point he is able to see the city from the outside as "the city over the mountains
/ [that] Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air / Falling towers." The poem is principally concerned with a journey out of The Waste Land, which is made possible by the recognition that no action or inaction one can undertake alone can free one from the wasteland. Rather, it is precisely the moment at which one recognizes one's inability to free oneself that the possibility that one might be freed takes place. Note well that this is where the poem's greatest terror and greatest uncertainty dwell, for even if one recognizes one's inability to free oneself one still may not be freed.
Many critics make a great deal of the supposed temporal or spatial fragmentation taking place in the poem, but I rather think a better way of talking about what they are trying to say is that the poem is dominated by a coming together of all things. Not the coming together that Eliot explores in Burnt Norton "at the still point of the turning world," but rather a coming together where nothing is different any longer form anything else. Distance is destroyed though the physically measurable remnants of what was distance may remain.
The majority of the action (more properly, inaction) that transpires in The Waste Land takes place in the unreal city. The poem's protagonist dwells in this city until he is freed by "death by water," at which point he is able to see the city from the outside as "the city over the mountains
/ [that] Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air / Falling towers." The poem is principally concerned with a journey out of The Waste Land, which is made possible by the recognition that no action or inaction one can undertake alone can free one from the wasteland. Rather, it is precisely the moment at which one recognizes one's inability to free oneself that the possibility that one might be freed takes place. Note well that this is where the poem's greatest terror and greatest uncertainty dwell, for even if one recognizes one's inability to free oneself one still may not be freed.
Many critics make a great deal of the supposed temporal or spatial fragmentation taking place in the poem, but I rather think a better way of talking about what they are trying to say is that the poem is dominated by a coming together of all things. Not the coming together that Eliot explores in Burnt Norton "at the still point of the turning world," but rather a coming together where nothing is different any longer form anything else. Distance is destroyed though the physically measurable remnants of what was distance may remain.
11 April 2010
The Waste Land [part II]
The poem opens with the image of the Sybil of Cumae "hanging in a cage." The Sybil's immortality renders her unable to die, despite her intense desire to do so. In one sense, the Sybil symbolizes the fact that everyone in the wasteland is trapped in a cage that both is and is not of their own making, unable to die yet unable to live. In another sense, however, the Sybil is not like almost anyone in the wasteland since she "wants to die." An odd wish, given that men of every nation have sought out immortality for as long as we have recorded history. By death, the Sybil does not simply refer to the cessation of respiration in the "human animal." Rather, it is precisely the fact that death has become a biological event that makes the actual experience of death impossible from the outset! Furthermore, as the possibility of experiencing death is necessary to be human, men who can no longer experience death qua death are no longer exactly human. But they have not reached either deathlessness of the immortals or the eternal return of the animal. They are somewhere quite different.
The reason that Madame Sosostris does "not find / The Hanged Man" and cautions her querent to "fear death by water" is twofold. On one hand, she is a false prophet; precisely what is needed is "death by water," but as she is a sort of oracle of the wasteland itself, this is exactly what she will not counsel. On the other hand, her cards nonetheless speak the truth. All the forces and personages which are active in the wasteland are enumerated on her cards. The one that is absent - the Hanged Man - is the card that most directly deals with the possibility of properly dying.
The reason that Madame Sosostris does "not find / The Hanged Man" and cautions her querent to "fear death by water" is twofold. On one hand, she is a false prophet; precisely what is needed is "death by water," but as she is a sort of oracle of the wasteland itself, this is exactly what she will not counsel. On the other hand, her cards nonetheless speak the truth. All the forces and personages which are active in the wasteland are enumerated on her cards. The one that is absent - the Hanged Man - is the card that most directly deals with the possibility of properly dying.
07 April 2010
The Waste Land [part I]
It seems fitting with the onset of April and beautiful weather to offer some remarks about T.S. Eliot's extraordinary poem The Waste Land. The poem famously opens with the line "April is the cruellest month." The perversion implied in this declaration is often lost in the extreme confusion caused by reading the poem. Let us try and capture how this opening line articulates the essential nature of the curse that has hold over the wasteland. The cruelty of April is specified as follows: it "breed[s] / Lilacs out of the dead land," it "mix[es] / Memory and desire," it "stir[s] / Dull roots with spring rain." These three charges laid against April all relate to the awakening of life from death, the natural resurrection that cycles year after year. Miraculously, each year spring comes. What sort of a person prefers the warmth of "winter?" The paradox implied in this line is that there is something so objectionable to the inhabitants of the wasteland about new life that they would rather it not happen at all. What sort of a people clings to infertility and a perpetual, zombie-like existence instead of the exuberant risk of new things?
Usually the cause of these people's rejection of spring is interpreted as the fear of death. This reading, while somewhat correct, misses the reason why the people are so afraid of death. After all, (almost) everyone who has ever lived has feared death. But the wasteland is something new, something modern. So we are not just faced with the fear of death. We are faced, rather, with the fear of life! Rain, the life-giving force that the poem's parched soil screams for, is what everyone in the poem is trying to avoid (until the end). When the rain comes the inhabitants of the wasteland venture into the "colonnade" or the "closed car at four." If I may venture an explanation of why this is the case, I would suggest that it is precisely the incredible power to control (seemingly) everything, or at least potentially control, that has led the inhabitants of the wasteland into this darkness. Those things that they cannot control grip them with terror. In an image of a diabolical Pentecost, the sound of the "wind under the door" which betokens a divine manifestation possesses the lady in the chair (symbolized by Belladonna in Madame Sosostris' wicked pack of cards) with an overmastering fear instead of a life-giving spirit.
Usually the cause of these people's rejection of spring is interpreted as the fear of death. This reading, while somewhat correct, misses the reason why the people are so afraid of death. After all, (almost) everyone who has ever lived has feared death. But the wasteland is something new, something modern. So we are not just faced with the fear of death. We are faced, rather, with the fear of life! Rain, the life-giving force that the poem's parched soil screams for, is what everyone in the poem is trying to avoid (until the end). When the rain comes the inhabitants of the wasteland venture into the "colonnade" or the "closed car at four." If I may venture an explanation of why this is the case, I would suggest that it is precisely the incredible power to control (seemingly) everything, or at least potentially control, that has led the inhabitants of the wasteland into this darkness. Those things that they cannot control grip them with terror. In an image of a diabolical Pentecost, the sound of the "wind under the door" which betokens a divine manifestation possesses the lady in the chair (symbolized by Belladonna in Madame Sosostris' wicked pack of cards) with an overmastering fear instead of a life-giving spirit.
06 April 2010
Justice and medicine
"The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference." Plato, Gorgias
Socrates notes the close connection between justice and medicine because both justice and medicine are only necessary in a world that is already out of balance. Since I have previously suggested that the essential difference between dialectic and sophistry consists in the manner in which dialectic brings justice to discourse, I might also suggest the analogue, which is: if the city was ruled by philosophy, there would be no need for Socrates' habit of questioning everyone. Though Socrates identifies himself as a midwife, perhaps we may more appropriately say that he was a doctor who sought to cure the city of its ills. This would also explain the consistent contrast that Socrates draws in Gorgias between the relative strengths and weaknesses of the doctor and the sophist. Though Socrates as the spiritual doctor of the polis is the only person truly qualified to save Athens, the sophists' superior capacity to convince the ignorant that they have all the answers renders Socrates unable to stop them. While Socrates (as he demonstrates in Phaedrus and other places) is capable of using sophistic techniques of speechifying, he refuses to use them to save the city since such an action is inherently impossible, since the salvation of the city could not consist just in right action, but in right thinking. This is the one virtue that no rhetorician can properly teach his disciples.
Socrates notes the close connection between justice and medicine because both justice and medicine are only necessary in a world that is already out of balance. Since I have previously suggested that the essential difference between dialectic and sophistry consists in the manner in which dialectic brings justice to discourse, I might also suggest the analogue, which is: if the city was ruled by philosophy, there would be no need for Socrates' habit of questioning everyone. Though Socrates identifies himself as a midwife, perhaps we may more appropriately say that he was a doctor who sought to cure the city of its ills. This would also explain the consistent contrast that Socrates draws in Gorgias between the relative strengths and weaknesses of the doctor and the sophist. Though Socrates as the spiritual doctor of the polis is the only person truly qualified to save Athens, the sophists' superior capacity to convince the ignorant that they have all the answers renders Socrates unable to stop them. While Socrates (as he demonstrates in Phaedrus and other places) is capable of using sophistic techniques of speechifying, he refuses to use them to save the city since such an action is inherently impossible, since the salvation of the city could not consist just in right action, but in right thinking. This is the one virtue that no rhetorician can properly teach his disciples.
30 March 2010
Some thoughts about the Iliad
The possibility of understanding the Iliad rests on the possibility of encountering death as (possibly) utterly annihilation. Only in this light does the full weight of what everyone wagers in battle become tangible, and only in this light is Achilles' decision to fight for revenge become fully intelligible. Thetis tempts him away from his destiny with images of the happy long life he will live if he turns from the fight and returns to his native land, but Achilles chooses to enter the fight, recognizing that this decision guarantees his death. Amidst the sea of blood that is spilled in the Iliad, we nonetheless must recognize that the work affirms the absolute value of what the heroes are fighting for precisely because they are willing to risk absolute destruction. It might seem as if a belief in immortality makes life weightier, since our actions in this world effect an eternal destiny. Yet I think that perhaps the contrary is true: for we are used to looking upon what is most rare as the most precious of all, and if every life is infinite, then moments of life as are common as grains of sand. But if every life is not infinite, then a decision to risk one's entire existence in battle is the hazarding of one's most precious possession. [as an addendum, I am advancing this argument principally for the purposes of helping us understand the Iliad, not as an answer to the question of the immortality of human life] Only with this realization does the tragic dimension of Achilles' decision come fully into relief, along with the strength of the affirmation of life harboured within his decision to kill Hector.
19 March 2010
Why I think congress should not pass the health care bill
This is out of place, but I am going to weigh in on the issue nonetheless. I believe that the current health care bill facing Congress should not be passed for the following reasons:
1) It mistakes the fundamental problem with American health care. The problem with health care in America is not that people don't have insurance, it is the very insurance system itself. Just as one would not expect to use one's car insurance to cover routine maintenance on one's vehicle, the fact that we use insurance to pay for routine preventative health care creates a massive inefficiency in the American health system. Health insurance should only be allowed to cover major expenses; as a matter of economic fact this will force down prices for routine procedures. Instead, by putting even more money into the picture, the bill will necessarily drive up health care prices.
2) The rhetoric with which the current legislation is being pushed suggests that the insurance companies are some sort of evil force. While I think ideally health insurance should be severely curtailed or abolished, the rhetoric is misplaced populism of the most dangerous variety: the average profit margin range for a large insurance company is somewhere between 3.8 (Aetna) to 7.3 (Wellpoint). These are not unreasonably large profits; consider that in the case of Aetna a relatively small increase in expenses could easily turn the profit into a loss. The biggest problem with the rhetoric is that it blinds the public to the truth of the matter, which is that the bill simply cannot do anything to drive down insurance premiums. Again, this is a matter of economic fact - if we increase the demand for health care services by some 30 million persons without instantaneously increasing the supply (impossible given the lengthy schooling doctors require), the result must be either an increase in price or a shortage of health care.
3) The bill's proposed 3.8% investment income "medicare" tax is ill-conceived. First of all, it is not actually a medicare tax; it is instead compensating for the fact that the bill is raiding the already underfunded medicare fund to decrease its overall effect on the federal deficit. Secondly, the price will encourage persons subject to the tax (higher-income taxpayers) to invest and save less, which is precisely the opposite of what the government should be doing to encourage job growth. In my view it would be much better for the economy if they raised taxes on ordinary income instead of on capital gains and dividends.
4) The bill requires all taxpayers to purchase health insurance. Something about the federal government requiring all citizens to give money to private corporations does not seem right to me. I'm not really sure where in the constitution we can detect this right; and while I'm hardly a strict constructionist, I do not think it is a good precedent to be setting. Consider how completely new it is - while the government necessarily spends tax proceeds to purchase services from private entities, it has never required its citizenry to patronize some particular class of business.
For these reasons, I do not believe that the health care bill should pass congress. It does not address the actual problem (the perpetually rising cost of health care); in fact, by throwing more money at the problem it is explicitly exacerbating the problem since it is removing the incentive for anyone to find a cheaper way of doing things. While it seems increasingly likely that it will pass, I do not think even five years from now anyone will think it was a very good idea.
1) It mistakes the fundamental problem with American health care. The problem with health care in America is not that people don't have insurance, it is the very insurance system itself. Just as one would not expect to use one's car insurance to cover routine maintenance on one's vehicle, the fact that we use insurance to pay for routine preventative health care creates a massive inefficiency in the American health system. Health insurance should only be allowed to cover major expenses; as a matter of economic fact this will force down prices for routine procedures. Instead, by putting even more money into the picture, the bill will necessarily drive up health care prices.
2) The rhetoric with which the current legislation is being pushed suggests that the insurance companies are some sort of evil force. While I think ideally health insurance should be severely curtailed or abolished, the rhetoric is misplaced populism of the most dangerous variety: the average profit margin range for a large insurance company is somewhere between 3.8 (Aetna) to 7.3 (Wellpoint). These are not unreasonably large profits; consider that in the case of Aetna a relatively small increase in expenses could easily turn the profit into a loss. The biggest problem with the rhetoric is that it blinds the public to the truth of the matter, which is that the bill simply cannot do anything to drive down insurance premiums. Again, this is a matter of economic fact - if we increase the demand for health care services by some 30 million persons without instantaneously increasing the supply (impossible given the lengthy schooling doctors require), the result must be either an increase in price or a shortage of health care.
3) The bill's proposed 3.8% investment income "medicare" tax is ill-conceived. First of all, it is not actually a medicare tax; it is instead compensating for the fact that the bill is raiding the already underfunded medicare fund to decrease its overall effect on the federal deficit. Secondly, the price will encourage persons subject to the tax (higher-income taxpayers) to invest and save less, which is precisely the opposite of what the government should be doing to encourage job growth. In my view it would be much better for the economy if they raised taxes on ordinary income instead of on capital gains and dividends.
4) The bill requires all taxpayers to purchase health insurance. Something about the federal government requiring all citizens to give money to private corporations does not seem right to me. I'm not really sure where in the constitution we can detect this right; and while I'm hardly a strict constructionist, I do not think it is a good precedent to be setting. Consider how completely new it is - while the government necessarily spends tax proceeds to purchase services from private entities, it has never required its citizenry to patronize some particular class of business.
For these reasons, I do not believe that the health care bill should pass congress. It does not address the actual problem (the perpetually rising cost of health care); in fact, by throwing more money at the problem it is explicitly exacerbating the problem since it is removing the incentive for anyone to find a cheaper way of doing things. While it seems increasingly likely that it will pass, I do not think even five years from now anyone will think it was a very good idea.
08 March 2010
"A City in Speech"
My attempts at interpreting T.S. Eliot have been temporarily derailed, so I thought I might return to Republic and make some more comments about the meaning of Socrates' statement that he will "watch a city coming into being in speech."
The great danger of reading Plato (a danger that Socrates is keenly aware of) is that we assume that we already know what he is talking about. What makes Socratic philosophy so glorious is that this danger is itself the very subject-matter of all the dialogues. Thus the question "what is justice," which is ostensibly motivating the entire dialogue, both presumes that we already have some idea what we are looking for (that is, we have some correct opinion about the nature of justice) and that we nonetheless do not know what we are looking for (since we cannot look for what we already have). Thus Socrates dismantles the fine arguments of Cephalus and Polemarchus, arguments that are not incorrect (after all, we do generally say that it is just to "speak the truth and give back what we take"). Yet their definitions are incomplete, and they must be dismantled if they are to be properly reassembled into the appropriate dialectical whole.
The above sounds rather Hegelian, so we should point out the manner in which Socrates is engaging in something completely opposite from Hegel. One way of seeing the difference is to observe Socrates' deep reverence for the divine. We find in Phaedrus, for instance, Socrates expressing a fear of inadvertently offending the gods by speaking unjustly of the nature of love. Hegel interprets the daemon that speaks to Socrates as the voice of reason; we should not make this mistake as Hegel is purposely (but necessarily) misreading the dialogues. The practice of dialectic will lead to the knowledge of justice, not the creation of justice.
The great danger of reading Plato (a danger that Socrates is keenly aware of) is that we assume that we already know what he is talking about. What makes Socratic philosophy so glorious is that this danger is itself the very subject-matter of all the dialogues. Thus the question "what is justice," which is ostensibly motivating the entire dialogue, both presumes that we already have some idea what we are looking for (that is, we have some correct opinion about the nature of justice) and that we nonetheless do not know what we are looking for (since we cannot look for what we already have). Thus Socrates dismantles the fine arguments of Cephalus and Polemarchus, arguments that are not incorrect (after all, we do generally say that it is just to "speak the truth and give back what we take"). Yet their definitions are incomplete, and they must be dismantled if they are to be properly reassembled into the appropriate dialectical whole.
The above sounds rather Hegelian, so we should point out the manner in which Socrates is engaging in something completely opposite from Hegel. One way of seeing the difference is to observe Socrates' deep reverence for the divine. We find in Phaedrus, for instance, Socrates expressing a fear of inadvertently offending the gods by speaking unjustly of the nature of love. Hegel interprets the daemon that speaks to Socrates as the voice of reason; we should not make this mistake as Hegel is purposely (but necessarily) misreading the dialogues. The practice of dialectic will lead to the knowledge of justice, not the creation of justice.
05 March 2010
Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors
Amos has presented an amazing poem by Yeats in an article on his blog Philosophy KTL (I wonder what the KTL stands for?) He raises some questions about the poem that I will now seek to answer. First, the poem:
Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors
What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass.
We are in the presence of something magnificent and dark. There is unquestionably an echo of the scaffold with "undertook" and "hang" and "blade." Amos sees in this poem "the cold, unpitying savor of tragic joy." Yeats is never one to ignore the tragic dimension that is (almost) inextricably bound up in human life, but I wonder whether there may not be another dimension to this poem that runs deeper than tragedy. The phrase "bring to pass" has scriptural echoes; aside from its literal usage in the gospels the "pass" brings to mind both Passover and the Passion. With a diamond-like degree of compression Yeats is evoking the profound mystery of death and rebirth that lies at the heart of all human activity. Any "action / is a step to the block;" a reality reflected in the dual meaning of the word "undertake." Despite the distinct possibility (and for most instructors high probability) of their eventual effacement, teaching, like all genuinely humane activity, maintains an inner necessity that is not rendered less compelling or less noble by the possibility of passing into nothingness.
"All things hang like a drop of dew." It is connected to the main sentence by a semicolon. Semicolons are generally used to connect what grammarians call independent clauses. The clauses connected, however, should be related (otherwise a full period or even line break would be appropriate). Therefore we must question the manner in which the hanging upon the blade of grass and the bringing to pass are related. Because of the passion reference I would be inclined to say that Yeats is specifically invoking the image of the dying god hanging upon his tree (albeit in a diminished form: his "tree" is but a "blade of grass"); but here, "all things" are consigned to this fate. The manner of this hanging is like "a drop of dew:" radically contingent and yet utterly necessary. For no doubt the presence of any dewdrop on any blade of grass is a matter of what we call chance; yet that there will be some dewdrops on some blades of grass in an absolute necessity. The unknown instructors have precisely this manner of existence. Their personality is obliterated but what is most proper to their being as instructors is preserved in their instruction, as it must be for their to be any instructors now.
And so, in answer to the question that Amos poses - "can we be grateful for nothing?" - I would answer "yes," so long as we have the humility to recognize that what lies in oblivion is what we owe everything to. Despite the extremes to which Yeats took his quest for otherworldly knowledge, I would like to think he maintained even in his darkest moments a deep piety towards that greatest of the Athenian deities: the unknown god.
Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors
What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass.
We are in the presence of something magnificent and dark. There is unquestionably an echo of the scaffold with "undertook" and "hang" and "blade." Amos sees in this poem "the cold, unpitying savor of tragic joy." Yeats is never one to ignore the tragic dimension that is (almost) inextricably bound up in human life, but I wonder whether there may not be another dimension to this poem that runs deeper than tragedy. The phrase "bring to pass" has scriptural echoes; aside from its literal usage in the gospels the "pass" brings to mind both Passover and the Passion. With a diamond-like degree of compression Yeats is evoking the profound mystery of death and rebirth that lies at the heart of all human activity. Any "action / is a step to the block;" a reality reflected in the dual meaning of the word "undertake." Despite the distinct possibility (and for most instructors high probability) of their eventual effacement, teaching, like all genuinely humane activity, maintains an inner necessity that is not rendered less compelling or less noble by the possibility of passing into nothingness.
"All things hang like a drop of dew." It is connected to the main sentence by a semicolon. Semicolons are generally used to connect what grammarians call independent clauses. The clauses connected, however, should be related (otherwise a full period or even line break would be appropriate). Therefore we must question the manner in which the hanging upon the blade of grass and the bringing to pass are related. Because of the passion reference I would be inclined to say that Yeats is specifically invoking the image of the dying god hanging upon his tree (albeit in a diminished form: his "tree" is but a "blade of grass"); but here, "all things" are consigned to this fate. The manner of this hanging is like "a drop of dew:" radically contingent and yet utterly necessary. For no doubt the presence of any dewdrop on any blade of grass is a matter of what we call chance; yet that there will be some dewdrops on some blades of grass in an absolute necessity. The unknown instructors have precisely this manner of existence. Their personality is obliterated but what is most proper to their being as instructors is preserved in their instruction, as it must be for their to be any instructors now.
And so, in answer to the question that Amos poses - "can we be grateful for nothing?" - I would answer "yes," so long as we have the humility to recognize that what lies in oblivion is what we owe everything to. Despite the extremes to which Yeats took his quest for otherworldly knowledge, I would like to think he maintained even in his darkest moments a deep piety towards that greatest of the Athenian deities: the unknown god.
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