Time isn't holding us

Currently at Toronto Pearson: 18. High today: 24. Low was 12; in KW, the spread was 25-7. At Toronto Island: 21-14.

Find the ace of the Rays' pitching staff: in 27 starts this year, Scott Kazmir has pitched more than six innings six times. (Five of those were consecutive, in May and June; the last one was July 21.) In 32 starts, James Shields has pitched more than six innings 24 times. And it's not that the Rays are babying Kazmir's wonky arm: twice this year, Kazmir has thrown 110 pitches in less than five innings. (I was expecting that Kazmir would comfortably lead the AL in pitches/inning this year, but he's actually going to be runner up, by my calculations, for that title, which is instead going to the old Blue Jays poet laureate Miguel Batista.)

It will be so nice next year when the Yankees don't make the playoffs and it's not that interesting.

On one hand, I can see why academics moan about teaching getting in the way of their "research"--I'm only teaching two courses this term, and I'm really not going to have time to do any serious writing, mostly because of all the marking I'm going to be doing. (I could set up my courses so that I have much less marking to do, by having the students write fewer, longer things, instead of the many short things I have them write, but I'm convinced that many short things are better for them and make me want to blow my head off less, even though I spend more time on them.) On the other hand, teaching makes me read texts in such an intense way! It was teaching that got me into Plato in the first place, and it was teaching that gave birth to my Meno paper. My Republic class is doing about a book a week; we're on to Book 3 this week. Everyone knows there's lots going on in Book 1, and lots going on from the middle to the end, but I was a bit worried about whether there would be enough in each of Books 2 and 3 to support a whole class. Well, there's always a bonanza in Plato, if you just look. In Books 2 and 3, what looks puzzlingly like repetition at first glance (and every subsequent glance) turns out to be variation with an essential difference, if you look. Adeimantus says that Glaucon's case for injustice in Book 2 isn't put strongly enough, it has left out the most important thing, and then he seems to repeat the case Glaucon has just made. The difference (but I owe this one to Allan Bloom) is announced in the first words Adeimantus says in his speech that is going to strengthen Glaucon's case by pointing out the most important thing: "What fathers tell their sons ... ". No convincing case can be made in favour of justice unless fathers stop telling their sons stories about the gods and the heroes in which crime pays. It doesn't matter whether the stories are true or not. Glaucon wanted what the stories say to be refuted; Adeimantus's point is that the force of the stories defies refutation because it's engrained in people when they are children. This is what Socrates tells the jury in the Apology (and I notice this connection because we did the Apology in my Laurier class): I can't convince you of my innocence because I have already been convicted by the stories you've heard about me all your lives.

Another thing that shows itself when you look is that Books 2 and 3, despite appearances, each form organic wholes, and the breaks at the end of each occur in logical places. Glaucon begins his case for injustice with an account of the genesis of justice in the genesis of the polis; Adeimantus then makes his case that justice will have to overcome the stories promoting injustice. Socrates begins his answer by giving an account of the genesis of the polis, which is supposed to yield an account of justice, and this carries on into an account of how the stories told to children (or, at least, to the future guardians of the polis) should be changed.

The beginning of Book 3 seems to just continue the account of how stories should be changed, but now the account moves in turn through each of the virtues that the stories should instill. Courage appears right at the beginning of Book 3: the stories must not promote fear of the afterlife and hence of death. Next, stories must not promote immoderation, as they do when they have Zeus unable to control his lust and Achilles susceptible to bribery. Next, stories must not promote impiety, as they do when Achilles is angry at a river-god. Three virtues down--how about justice, then? Can't do that yet, says Socrates; we still don't know what it is. Let's talk about the styles of stories, instead. Stories shouldn't have too much dialogue in them--they shouldn't imitate others too much. In fact, they should only imitate the best people, at their best. Why? Eventually it comes out that stories shouldn't have too much dialogue, they shouldn't try to get into too many different characters, because people are supposed to concentrate on being themselves--they're supposed to do their own work, hone their own virtue which is proper to their own particular work, and this can't be done if we're trying to get into too many different people's heads. And the dialogue moves on, and the significance of this puzzling discussion of dialogue, which would have Plato's works banned from the city, only comes to the surface in Book 4: the nature of justice, Socrates says, has been there in front of them all along, ever since they started describing how a city comes to be; justice is a matter of each doing their own work, each doing and being as is fitting for them. So in Book 3, Socrates says that the discussion of how justice should be promoted in stories would have to be left off until they had decided what justice is, but then he immediately launches into a discussion of how justice should be promoted in stories--not in their substance, but in their style.

When he has finished the discussion of the muse-ical training of the guardians, Socrates says that this training will show the budding guardians the forms of the virtues, so that they will recognize them later on when they are presented with rational accounts of them. (He doesn't say it as clearly as that, but by way of an initially puzzling analogy with learning letters on the way to learning words and sentences.) Book 3 shows us the forms of the virtues, of which we will subsequently be provided rational accounts.

But Book 3 doesn't show us the forms of all the virtues. One cardinal virtue doesn't appear in Book 3, namely, wisdom. (Even piety appears, though piety is left out of Book 4's discussion of the civic virtues.) Wisdom appears at the beginning of Book 4, and begins the process of sorting through the civic virtues of wisdom, justice, and moderation, to try to find justice as the remainder after the other three have been outlined. At the beginning of Book 4, wisdom is identified as the virtue proper to the rulers, who are wise because they know the city as a whole. (The polis-psuche analogy would have it therefore that those people are wise who know themselves as wholes.) The rulers appear at the end of Book 3, when, after completing the discussion of the muse-ical and physical training of the guardians, and pointing out, again, the dual nature of the guardians--this is the point with which the discussion of their education began; they must be "spirited", thumotic, aggressive, but they must also be gentle toward their own people--Socrates suddenly asks: which among them are to be the rulers and which are to be the ruled? Nothing seems to motivate this question. Does it go without saying that there must be a class above the guardians to tell them what to do? Maybe ... not likely. The question comes right after Socrates repeats that the guardians must partake of both natures, the spirited and the gentle. He splits the guardian class in half right after he says that. The implication that seems to insist itself is that such dual-natured guardians are impossible. Wisdom doesn't appear in Book 3 because the basically thumotic guardians aren't up for it.

And now the library is closing--and I haven't even gotten anywhere near the best thing I've discovered, about Thrasymachus's confusion in Book 1!

Make the day seem to us less brief

Currently in KW: 24. Down to 6 here this morning.

We're in one of those September stretches (but I keep thinking it's October--whenever I get busy, I'm always thinking it's later than it is; yesterday felt all day long like some Wednesday in the middle of October) when there's no clouds for days and the bottom has dropped out of the air but the sun's still got some kick to it and there's no flow of cold air whisking away the sun-heated air, so the daily temperature spread can get near 20 degrees ... at least it can here in KW; not so much back in the urban heat bubble and lake-breeze zone--it's 22 at Pearson right now, and got down to 11 this morning. I'm surprised again this year at how much earlier the trees change here than they do in Toronto (and how much redder the maple reds are).

When I sat down here in the WLU library, it occurred to me, among the general murmur (which unfortunately was a low ebb; it's now up to the dull roar that's been standard here on what I call the party floor for the last several years), that this must be not unlike the monastery libraries in the days before people figured out that they could read without talking.

The guy walking around yakking on his cellphone, on the other hand....

Last night I heard an ad on the radio during the Jays game, one of those phone ads with someone singing a song about how they don't love their phone anymore, and the ad says you should love your phone and let us help you get a phone to love, and I heard a line in the song about how she doesn't love her phone anymore and her phone is two or three years old ... two or three years old! I have a phone. You know how old my phone is? I don't know how old my phone is. My phone is older than my memory. It was in my house before I knew what phones were.

I'm teaching the Republic in both of my courses now. (One course is just on the Republic; in the other, we're moving on to Aristotle and so on next week.) There's so much to be said! But I can't take the time to say it. If I had the time to say it, there wouldn't be so much to be said. This is very close to one of the lessons of the Republic.

Didn't see the no-tail squirrel on Monday (though I was steaming by in a hurry for the Greyhound). This week it died of natural causes.

All rose, exchanging smiles.

Currently at Toronto Pearson: 17. High today: 18.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the show. So, big news this week, the American government has nationalized the banking industry. I guess that means Communism wins after all!

On Monday I didn't see the no-tail squirrel and I looked around for it but it was missing and I thought I HAVE KILLED THE NO-TAIL SQUIRREL WITH OLD SALTY ALMONDS and now there is no more no-tail squirrel because of me and all the people who love the no-tail squirrel will not see it anymore and be sad because I HAVE KILLED THE NO-TAIL SQUIRREL WITH OLD SALTY ALMONDS. So on Wednesday I decided that I would go and eat my lunch in the place where I see the no-tail squirrel and hope that it would appear and not be dead of old salty almonds. When I got there, I saw a black squirrel whose tail I could not see but maybe its tail was behind a leaf and so I hopefully approached and it moved and its tail appeared from behind a leaf. So I sat down at a picnic table and opened my tuna-fish sandwich and then I saw another black squirrel whose tail I could not see at the top of the hill and so I left my tuna-fish sandwich and hopefully approached and it moved and it HAD NO TAIL.

I have not killed the no-tail squirrel with old salty almonds. But I have resolved not to feed any more wild animals anything ever. Although L. scoffs and says squirrels eat garbage and food wrappers and things and they're like indestructable, and such reasoning will probably weaken my resolve sooner or later.