University of Winchester
Semester 2, Jan 2015
Mondays 3pm MC 107
LA 3003 Freedom is to learn
‘Was that the degree? Well then, once more’
‘The vice that God hates exceedingly is understood more rightly as none
other than hypocrisy’
(Richard of St Victor, (1979) The Twelve Patriarchs, New York, Paulist Press,
ch. LXIX, p. 127)
‘the more you advance daily in the knowledge of yourself, the more you
always tend to higher things’
(Richard of St Victor, (1979) The Twelve Patriarchs, New York, Paulist Press,
ch. LXXV, p. 133.)
‘The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet’
(attributed to Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, V. 18, Life of Aristotle, Loeb:
Harvard University Press, p. 461.)
‘to find ourselves is to know our source’
(Plotinus, 1991, The Enneads, Penguin, p. 544)
‘He who knows himself, knows all things in himself’
(Mirandola, 1965, On The Dignity of Man, p. 15)
‘One must know who one is’
(Nietzsche, 1982, The Portable Nietzsche, p. 517).
‘Most men live in relation to their own self as if they were constantly out,
never at home’
(Kierkegaard, 1994, The Book on Adler, London, Everyman, p. 244).
‘Let us consider the question whether it is inevitable that everything which
has an opposite be generated from its opposite and from it only’
(Plato, 1982, Phaedo, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, p. 245).
‘a weeping man is better than a happy worm’
(St Augustine, (1953) Of True Religion, Indiana, Gateway, p. 74)
‘truth cannot be truth’s contrary’
Aquinas, (1975) Summa Contra Gentiles Book IV,Indiana, University of
Notre Dame Press, ch. 8, p. 62
‘Do not pray; do not believe; only know and be known’
Harold Bloom, Preface to Henry Corbin (1998) Alone with the Alone, Princeton: Mythos, p. x.
‘He who knows himself knows his Lord… He is the he who knows himself through myself’
Henry Corbin (1998) Alone with the Alone, Princeton: Mythos, p. 95.
‘To be acquainted with what is best and oldest in yourself, is to know yourself as you were, before the world
was made, before you emerged in time’
Harold Bloom, Preface to Henry Corbin (1998) Alone with the Alone, Princeton: Mythos, p. x.
‘thou art the moulder and maker of thyself’
Pico della Mirandola, (1965) [1486] On the Dignity of Man, Indianapolis: Hackett, p. 5.
‘the most difficult man to find “at home” is himself’
Seneca, (1958) On Tranquillity of Mind, New York: Norton and Co., p. 99.
‘if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty
and it is you who are that poverty’
Coptic Gospel of Thomas, 3
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/thomas.htm
‘know thyself and thou shall know your creator’
Averroes, (2010) Epitome 4, from On Aristotle's "Metaphysics": An Annotated Translation of the So-called Epitome, de
Gruyter (2010), p. 150.
Conclusion
It seems an appropriate time for the degree to try to speak itself. The module could have
several titles. Freedom is to learn is still our challenge, but this time with something of an
emphasis upon the idea of ‘modern metaphysics, modern first principles, and any relation
these might have to the Delphic Maxim "know thyself". In addition, I want us to try to
imagine that, at the end of the degree, if education was its own first principle, and had a
voice, what would it say? This will take us to the very heart and soul of our liberal arts
education, namely, whether there can be such a thing as an education in itself and for its
own sake. In other words, can education speak as itself and for itself? To explore these
questions we will at times retrieve some previous work that we have done on the degree
and reacquaint ourselves with some very familiar authors and concepts. But if I had to try to
sum up the module and the degree in one sentence it would be this: are first principles,
including education as a first principle, any longer possible in the modern and post-modern
worlds?
Week 1
The story so far
No reading pack this week. Instead, we will trawl through some of the
content that we have explored across the last 2 and a half years. Our goal is
to recollect this material, and to attempt to bring out any themes and
questions which seem common. Perhaps the question we might ask first is,
what role has motion played in many of the things we have studied? In brief,
examples of the material we have studied are:


Semester 1, year 1: education and doubt, the God question, first principles,
the prime mover and infinite regression; taking in Schön, Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Descartes and Kant.
Semester 2, year 1: motion, taking in Theaetetus, stoicism, the Copernican
revolution, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and the Copenhagen quantum theory.
Determination, taking in Plato, Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche and Foucault.



Semester 1, year 2: master/slave relation (freedom) taking in Aristotle, Hegel,
Kant, Dostoevsky, Fanon, van Gogh, Magritte, Weber, Dante, Kafka and
Zarathustra.
Semester 2, year 2: life and death taking in Hegel, Kojeve and Hyppolite; the
end of history; and the question of the other, taking in post-humanism,
animals…
And from other modules: tragedy, holocaust, innocence, experience, Judaism,
art, the sacred, aesthetics, teachers, music, complicity, body and soul, liberal
arts tradition, rhetoric and philosophy, spirit.
So, where are now? Perhaps we have lost mastery to motion; identity to contingency; truth
to relativism/pluralism/nihilism; freedom to imperialism; and perhaps we have lost even the
possibility of first principles at all.
Week 2
First Principles, Prime Mover, infinite regression
Readings:
Plato, (1997) Phaedrus, in Plato Complete Works, Indianapolis,
Hackett Publishing, p524 (§ 245))
Aristotle, Physics, I.1. 184a10-15; II.3. 194b17-23; VIII.5. 256a12256b3; VII.1. 242a50-4; III.4. 203b 6-15;
Aristotle, (1984b) Metaphysics, 1072a19-1072b31.
Aristotle, (1984b) Metaphysics, 1005b18-34
Aristotle, (1984) The Complete Works of Aristotle volume 2, ed. J.
Barnes, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 2392
Aquinas, (1998) Selected Writings, trans. R. McInerny, London:
Penguin, pp. 42-3;
Aquinas, T. (1975) Summa Contra Gentiles Book 3: Providence Part I,
trans V.J. Bourke, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, p.
101.
Plotinus, (1991) The Enneads, London, Penguin, II. 9. 1, p. 110.
Bacon, R. (1928) Opus Majus, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, p. 797-8.
Duns Scotus, (1987) Philosophical Writings, trans. A. Wolter,
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company,) p. 39.
R. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy in The Philosophical
Writings of Descartes vol. 2, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff & D.
Murdoch, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 29.
Week 3
liberal arts education with first principles
Reading:
Isocrates, ‘Panegyricus’ in Isocrates with an English Translation in
three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980; 47-50.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A
1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D4%3Asection%3D47
Isocrates, ‘Nicocles or the Cyprians,’ in Isocrates with an English
Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Cambridge, MA,
Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980, 1-9.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A
1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D3
Isocrates, ‘Antidosis,’ in Isocrates with an English Translation in three
volumes, by George Norlin, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press;
London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1929, vol. II, pp. 327-9.
Cicero, (1967) De Oratore Books 1 & 2, trans. E.W Sutton, London:
Heinemann, i.71-8, ii. 5-7.
Handout: Antiquity: finding virtue in necessity
Tubbs, N. (2004) ‘Theory and Practice: the Politics of Philosophical
Character,’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 5536.
Handout: the four cardinal virtues
Seneca, (1997) ‘On Tranquillity of Mind’ in On the Shortness of Life,
London: Penguin.
http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Tranquility.html
Stoics
Marcus Aurelius, (1964) Meditations, Harmondsworth: Penguin,
Books II and IV, and pp. 86, 93, 108, 132.
Epictetus, (2004) Discourses, pp. 28-9, 82, 90.
Epicurus, (1994) The Epicurus Reader, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, pp. 30-1.
Sextus Empiricus, (2000) Outlines of Scepticism, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 3-11, 51-2, 57-8, 72.
At peace (tranquillity)
Plotinus, (1991) The Enneads, London: Penguin, VI. 9.;
Pseudo-Dionysius, (1987) Pseudo-Dionysius The Complete Works, NJ:
Paulist Press, pp. 105 & 108-9.
Augustine, (1972) City of God, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 566-7,
590-1, 870-4;
Augustine, (1998) Confessions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 127.
(Wider reading: Richard of St Victor, (1979) The Twelve Patriarchs,
New York, Paulist Press.)
Newman, J.H. (1931) The Idea of a University, London, Longman,
Green and Co, pp. 177-8
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24526/24526-pdf.pdf
Proctor, R.E. (1998) Defining the Humanities, Bloomington, Indiana
UP, pp. 104-5, 109-110, 172-3, 200-1.
Week 4
Liberal arts without first principles
Reading:
Sim, S. (1999) Derrida and the End of History, Cambridge, Icon Books,
pp. 12-16.
Nietzsche, F. (1968) Genealogy of Morals, in Basic Writings of
Nietzsche, ed. W. Kaufmann, New York, The Modern Library, p. 521
(sec 16).
Deleuze, G. (2001) difference and repetition, London, Continuum, p.
xix.
Fanon, F. (2001) The Wretched of the Earth, London, Penguin,
conclusion, pp. 251-5.
Bernasconi, ‘Kant as an unfamiliar source of racism,’ in Ward, J.K. &
Lott, T.L. (2002) Philosophers on Race, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 145-151.
(Jacobs, H. (2001) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, New York, Dover.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/jacobs.html - not in pack)
Adorno, T.W. (2005) Beethoven, Cambridge, Polity Press, p.80.
Beauvoir, S de, (1972) The Second Sex, London, Penguin, pp. 14-18.
Heidegger, M. (1996) ‘Letter on Humanism’ in Basic Writings, ed. D.F.
Krell, London, Routledge, pp. 223-6.
Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway, Durham, Duke
University Press, pp. 45-6, 134, 136, 156-7, 338-42, 352, 378-81.
Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man, London,
Penguin, chapter 31, pp. 328-339.
Article?
Zizek, S. (1999) The Ticklish Subject, London, Verso, pp. xxiii-xxvii.
Week 5
Aporia at the beginning and end
Reading:
Peters, F.E. (1967) Greek Philosophical Terms, New York New York
University Press, pp. 22-3.
Rose, G. (1996) Mourning Becomes the Law, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, pp. 6-11.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2, ed.
J. Barnes, Princeton, Princeton UP, 1003a 6-16 (p. 1584); 1039a 14-23
(p. 1640); 1085a 24-31 (p. 1715); 1086b 14-20 (p. 1717); 1087a 10-25
(pp. 1717-18).
[see also Metaphysics 999a 25 - 999b 5; 1002a 6-16; 1033b 16-19;
1035b 28-31; 1037a 26; chapter 13, book VII; Categories, 2b 5-6; de
Interpretatione, 16a 11-12.]
Kant’s Copernican revolution
Kant, I. (1968) Critique of Pure Reason, London, Macmillan, pp. 22-4.
Galileo’s relativity and Newton’s laws of motion
Hawking, S. (2005) A Briefer History of Time, London, Bantam Books,
chapter 4.
Smolin, L. (1997) The Life of the Cosmos, New York, Oxford UP, pp.
225-30.
Rosenblum & Kuttner (2011) Quantum Enigma, Oxford, Oxford UP,
pp. 27-34.
Week 6
Reading:
Adorno and Hegel’s experience of Kant’s aporia; a modern
metaphysics
Adorno, T.W. (2001) Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge, Polity
Press, pp. 66-7 & 79-80.
Hegel, G.W.F. (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, §1-3 (pp. 1-3); §16-18 (pp. 9-10); §31
(p. 18); §32 (p. 19); §47 (p. 127); Introduction, pp. 46-57.
Hegel, G.W.F. (1975) Hegel’s Logic, Oxford, Clarendon Press, §10-12,
pp. 14-17.
Einstein’s modern metaphysics
Hawking, S. (2005) A Briefer History of Time, London, Bantam Books,
chapter 5.
Rosenblum & Kuttner (2011) Quantum Enigma, Oxford, Oxford UP,
pp. 49-51.
Russell, B. (2009) ABC of Relativity, London, Routledge, pp. 48-54.
Weeks 7 and 8
Modern metaphysics; modern logic; modern liberal arts education
Reading
Tubbs, unpublished paper
Weeks 9, 10 & 11
Know Thyself
Reading
Know Thyself in Plato
Reading:
Plato, Alcibiades I, from Taylor, T. (2011) Know Thyself, Westbury, The
Prometheus Trust, §128e – 135e (pp. 55-68).
Plato, Charmides in Plato, (1997) Plato Complete Works, ed. J. Cooper,
Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co., §164d – 167a (pp.651-653).
Plato, Phaedrus, in Plato (1997), §230a (p. 510).
Plato, Philebus, in Plato (1997), 48c – 48e (p. 438).
Reading
Know thyself in Aristotle
Booth, E. (1989) St Augustine and the Western Tradition of SelfKnowing, Villanova University, pp. 308.
Aristotle, (1984) Eudemian Ethics, 1244b 25 – 1245a 10, p. 1973, in
The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2. ed. J Barnes, Princeton,
Princeton UP.
Aristotle, (1984) Magna Moralia, 1213a 8 – 26, p. 1920, in The
Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2. ed. J Barnes, Princeton, Princeton
UP.
Aristotle, (1984) On The Soul, III.4, pp. 682-3, in The Complete Works
of Aristotle, vol. 1. ed. J Barnes, Princeton, Princeton UP.
Aristotle, (1984) Metaphysics, XII.7., pp. 1694-5, in The Complete
Works of Aristotle, vol. 2. ed. J Barnes, Princeton, Princeton UP.
Booth, E. (1977) ‘St Augustine’s “notitia sui” related to Aristotle and
the Early Neo-Platonists,’ Augustiniana, vol. 27, pp. 121-4.
Reading:
Reading:
Know Thyself in Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch
Cicero, (1945) Tusculan Disputations, trans, JE King, Massachusetts,
Harvard University Press, I xxii – xxiv, pp. 61-5; V xxv pp. 497-9.
Cicero, (1998) The Laws, London, Penguin, I 58-62, pp. 118-119.
Cicero, (2001) On Moral Ends, trans. R Woolf, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, III 73, p. 88; V 44, pp. 132-3.
Cicero, (1913) De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, trans. H Rackham,
London, Heinemann, Book V. 44.
Seneca, (2010) Natural Questions, trans. H.M. Hine, Chicago, Chicago
UP, I 17.4, p. 161.
Plutarch, (1936) Moralia vol V, trans. FC Babbit, Massachusetts,
Harvard UP, 2. Pp. 203-5.
Plutarch (1928) Consolation to Apollonius, Massachusetts, Harvard
UP, 28-9, pp. 184-5.
Know Thyself in Early Church Writings (& Philo and Lucian)
Ambrose, (1961) Hexameron, trans. John J. Savage, Fathers of the
Church Inc., vol. 42 pp. 252-3.
Clement of Alexandria, (1867) The Miscellanies or Stromata, Book 1 in
The Writings of Clement of Alexandria vol 1, trans. The Rev. William
Wilson, London: Hamilton & Co, p. 392; Book II, p. 42.; and Book V,
chapter 4, p. 449, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2. (1885) Buffalo, NY:
Christian Literature Publishing Co. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
<http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0210.htm>.
Emperor Julian, (1913) The Works of Emperor Julian, vol. 2, London,
Heinemann, Oration VI, pp. 9-18; Oration VII, pp. 127-8;.
Lucian, (1905) on ‘Pantomime’, The Works of Lucian of Samosata, tr.
by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, p. 262.
Philo, (1993) The Special Laws I, (De Specialibus Legibis I), trans CD
Yonge, in The Works of Philo, Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 558-9.
Reading
Reading
Reading
Know thyself in Plotinus
Plotinus, (1991) The Enneads, London, Penguin, V.3.4-8 (pp. 368-72);
V.3.13 (p. 380); VI.9.6-10 (pp. 542-7); IV.8.1. (p. 334); IV.4.1-2 (pp.
286-7); V.1.1 (pp. 347-8); II.9.1 (p. 110).
Brehier, E. (1958) The Philosophy of Plotinus, Chicago, University of
Chicago Press, pp. 20, 38, 45-6, 162, 164-5, 186-197.
Know Thyself in Proclus
Westerink LG & O’Neill, WO, (2011) Proclus Commentary on the First
Alcibiades, Westbury, The Prometheus Trust, 4.18 – 6.2 (pp. 7-9); 14 –
18 (pp. 18-22); 19.10 – 21.7 (pp. 24-7); 170.20 – 25 (p. 226); 190.1 –
191.3 (pp. 252-4); 191.5 – 192.11 (pp. 254-5); 194.17 – 195.2 (p. 258);
277.18 – 278.13 (p. 364).
Know Thyself in Augustine
Augustine, (1998) Confessions, trans. H Chadwick, Oxford, Oxford
World’s Classics, XIII. xi. (12), pp. 279-80.
Augustine, (2002) On The Trinity, Cambridge, Cambridge UP,
IX.12.(17) pp. 279-80; X.1.(1) – X.4.(6), pp. 42-8; XIV.6.(8) –
XIV.12.(10), pp. 144-54; XV.12.(21) , pp. 190-3; XV.20.(39) –
XV.25.(45), pp. 210-216.
Assessments
Two essays:
Essay 1: Is an education in first principles still relevant in a liberal arts education? (deadline:
Monday week 5, Feb 9th).
Essay 2: to be chosen from a list that will be added to each week… (deadline: Thursday week
11, 26th March).