Politics [Book I] by Aristotle

Well,  this has certainly been the most interesting read so far.  For some reason it felt much easier to follow the line of thought with this.

TL;DR - all human activity is aimed towards some Ultimate End; even human associations. The 3 basic associations amongst people: 1) the household, 2) the village, and 3) the City.

4 Relationships of the Household:

1) Master/Slave,
2) Husband/Wife, and
3) Parents/Children; an additional element is
4) the Art of Acquisition.

Remember that Aristotle REALLY likes the idea that everything has a purpose in nature, and that translates to there being some people who are meant to rule and those that are meant to be ruled (e.g. master and slave).

The Art of Acquisition has two aspects:

1) Natural which is the proper use of acquiring things for their uses (i.e. things that keep us alive and have practical functions such as houses, food, and shoes) and
2) Unnatural (i.e. the accumulation for wealth/currency for its own sake).

Man, not being self-sufficient in himself, finds his ultimate goal/happiness in the City where he can exercise his nature as a "political animal."

TL;DR over.

This is certainly a thought provoking one to be sure.  Aristotle seems to explain his views towards women and slaves with the idea that everything in nature has a purpose.  And some things appear to be subservient to others.  So some things by their nature are likely meant to be subservient to other things in order to fulfill their Goal in life.  Even Men are subservient to the City in so far as a man can only properly fulfill himself as part of a City.

The way that Aristotle explains it is very matter of fact.  And it's difficult for me feel any anger towards him when he doesn't appear to display ill-will towards those that he says must be subservient.  But I can still consider him wrong to be sure while even more so wishing to fully understand why he thought as he did and understanding how different the modern world in which I live is from his world.

How might he have been right?  It doesn't seem unreasonable that things in nature may have a purpose.  And that purpose could have its roots in evolution (i.e. function developed through adaptation which then presents as something akin to purpose) as opposed to Divine Design.  But that still leaves us with the overall question of whether or not Aristotle's Master/Slave association is an inevitable end of having that apparent purpose.  I tend to think not.  Aristotle may have had the idea that such things are inevitable, but I have the perspective that even if such things are inevitable we aim to treat every individual as equal regardless.

From another perspective (i.e. thought experiment) perhaps the Master/Slave association was inevitable but has been corrected through the growth and affluence of modern economies.  To explain, in Aristotle's day Slave labor seems to have been a necessity for the functioning and building of the Cities.  But after the Industrial Revolution the necessities of life are cheaper and more abundantly available than ever for the average citizen (at least in the Western World).  What may have been a Master/Slave association in Aristotle's day can in modern times be conducted with the voluntary exchange of currency for labor.

Despite modern inequalities, more people than ever are able to support themselves of their own volition; even if not wholly satisfactory for all it is a tremendous difference with how things have been in most of the world for most of history.  This advantage of the modern day keeps many people from making themselves a slave to someone else in order to assure they have shelter and food.  To emphasize, it's not perfect, but it is so much better than it has ever been before.

Overall, I had a lot of fun reading this even if I don't agree with much of it. But what did you think? Did I misinterpret anything? Let me know!

Almost forgot. Up next is Plutarch, which will be the biggest slice to date at 98 pages worth. This should take around 30 days with the normal ten minutes of reading per day.

Here's the eBook w/ the chapters to be read in "[ ]":

PLUTARCH: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans [Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius, Lycurgus and Numa Compared, Alexander, Caesar]

Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans by Plutarch

See you Sunday, July 22nd!

Nicomachean Ethics [Book I] by Aristotle

TL;DR - all activity has sight of an Ultimate Goal/Good, and Man with our unique place amongst nature by the possession of a Rational Soul should seek to live his life with the Goal of developing our rational faculties in pursuit of happiness.

With the aid of SparkNotes, here's something worth mentioning: happiness is often mentioned.  And it should be noted that happiness in this context for Aristotle means not just the overall feelings that would accompany the common idea of the feeling of happiness.  Happiness is the sum total of having done something in a well-done and satisfactory manner that includes but is not limited to approval from our fellow Man and what we might consider the feeling of happiness.  It can be summed up as a life that is well-lived.  We don't just aim at things to have a feeling of happiness in any given moment, but rather we aim to do things in the best way possible to have the satisfaction of knowing that we have lived a life worth living and worthy of praise by our fellow Man.

Aristotle believed that everything in Nature has a purpose.  And since Man is the only part of Nature with a Rational Soul that this development of the Rational Soul was very likely a necessary part to our Ultimate Goal in life.

Well, that's about it for this entry.

Up next is Politics [Book I] by Aristotle.

"The Clouds" by Aristophanes

This is going to be quite underwhelming.  On my own I wasn't able to get to much out of it beyond some obvious satire of Socrates.  This is perhaps due to my choice to read it in daily sessions instead of all at once or watching or listening to it being performed.  Plays are designed to be consumed in a single session after all.  Either way, my deficiencies have been somewhat remedied by the SparkNotes, at least as far as the plot goes.

In short it's a comic satire that follows Strepsiades as he attempts to get his son Pheidippides to learn from Socrates' "Thinkery" how to talk his way our of the debts that Strepsiades has incurred as a result of his son's affinity to fine racehorses.  Strepsiades is an anti-hero in his quest to weasel his way out of his responsibility as a result of being unable to deny his son his very costly desires.

And in the end he succeeds getting Pheidippides "educated," but in comic form the education comes back to bite him as Pheidippides is able to justify beating and insulting his father.  After this Strepsiades burns down the "Thinkery" while driving out Socrates and the Students after renouncing everything he had also learned from Socrates' "new education" and thought style.

Overall I liked it.  Wasn't great, but I don't have the benefit of being in the atmosphere of the day.  It's strength for me was the comedy whenever Strepsiades was learning from Socrates.  Example:  thunder is the cause of the Clouds swollen with rain much the same as Strepsiades after gorging himself on stew.  In the words of Strepsiades:

"Yes, yes, by Apollo I suffer, I get colic, then the stew sets to rumbling like thunder and finally bursts forth with a terrific noise. At first, it's but a little gurgling pappax, pappax! then it increases, papapappax! and when I take my crap, why, it's thunder indeed, papapappax! pappax!! papapappax!!! just like the clouds."

I still snicker at that bit.  It has that wonderful quality of having a just the tiniest of a hint at truth in the analogy despite its literal absurdity.

Well, that's about it.  Bye.

Study Notes (Logic) - (6/5/18-6/10/18)

Here's my first set of Logic notes.  In case anyone is interested, I'm constantly fine-tuning how I go about my studies in order to maximize understanding and retention.  My current process is:

1. Read for five minutes
2. Handwritten notes for what I can actively recall from memory.
3. Repeat 1 & 2 for a thirty-minute study session (I'll normally only have two five minute segments for a full ten minutes of  newly read material before going back and re-reading/reviewing from where I started reading on a given day for the remainder of the full thirty minute session; the handwritten notes can take a good chunk of time).
4.  Review notes at the end of the day.
5. The following morning review notes again and type them into a document 
6. Review of the pages covered in the source material in order to add anything I missed that seems important.

I might have a different study system in the next week. All depends on what I think is working best for me.  This is an extremely taxing subject, but I believe that suffering is worth it in the end to stretch my mind well beyond where it currently is.

Do take my notes with a grain of salt.  I very much doubt that I'll get it all the first time around.  So, don't take it to be the Truth.  And feel free to comment suggestions and/or corrections. 😊

I -- Socratic Logic - concepts, judgements, and arguments are represented in a logical argument as 1) terms(concepts), 2) propositions (judgements), 3) argument, which is commonly given in the form of a syllogism (e.g. “All men are mortal. I am a man.  Therefore I am mortal).

Logic unlike language isn’t artificial.  It’s discovered. It’s a natural property of the universe such as mathematics.

Terms are simple: Man is a concept based off of abstraction.  Propositions such as “All men are mortal” are judgements made concerning abstracted aspects of “man.” Propositions will contain a subject (man) and a predicate (are mortal) that is then subjected to the argument which draws a  conclusion from the terms and propositions: If men are mortal, and I am a man; then I must be mortal.

An argument is theoretically composed of two premises (both containing a subject and predicate) and a conclusion (containing a subject, predicate, and the truth statement that is extracted from the comparison of the two.

Terms are either clear/unclear.  Propositions are either True/False.  And Conclusions are either valid/invalid.  

Terms are concerning with what a thing is.  Propositions with the existence of a thing as it is.  And Arguments with cause/why a thing is as it is.  An arguments takes the propositions built off of terms in order to conclude whether a valid conclusion about why something is as it is can be made.

A true, valid conclusion can only be reached with clear, unambiguous terms, True premises, and valid logical conclusions/arguments.  If any of these three parts is compromised the logic is ambiguous and inconclusive.

II -- Logic (32-37) - How to define Truth:  to paraphrase Aristotle, what one says exists and it does exists is Truth.  What one says exists and doesn’t exist is not Truth. Truth can be a tricky concept since the definition can be concrete, but the methods by which we observe and gather facts for Truth can be faulty and led people into existential crises about the subjective, rather than objective, nature of reality.

Three questions to continually ask when hearing someone else’s argument:  1) What do you mean? (define terms properly), 2) What’s the point? (what is being proved/what’s your conclusion?), 3) Why? (defend why you’re correct).

To make your own case you must 1) have clear and unambiguous terms, 2) true premises, and 3) valid logic in order to come to a true conclusion.

Funny story: Aristotle had described in a lecture the three levels of intelligence: 1) gods, 2) men, 3) brutes.  He said that the gods know too much to ask questions while the brutes knew too little to ask questions. So, when his students had no questions afterwards he asked if he should be proud they’d risen to the level of gods through his lecture or if he should lament that they’d fallen to the level of brute through his lecture.

The ability to question is part of what truly separates us from animals and computers.  Computers never question. They only do with the data we give them what we have already programmed them to do.  There’s nothing intelligent and conscious about them.

Animals can show some degree of problem-solving (e.g. gorillas stacking crates to escape an enclosure or animals learning certain behaviors hoping it will lead to treats), but they still don’t have a quantifiable ability to abstract.  Though there is some interesting research into animal “intelligence.” But the differences in degree and quality between humans and animals is an unbridgeable gap currently.

Concepts (the essence and nature of things) defies the laws of nature.  They are not reliant on space and time. A man can think of two cities that are thousands of miles apart at the same time to compare them.  His concept of the cities bridges the gap created by time and space. I know; not the strongest argument. But I hope to revisit the thought.

Question: for concepts being able to defy/transcend time and space, did the concept of a house exist before the first house was built?  

Concepts are dependent on our minds.  But the objects that our minds understand (simple apprehension) are independent of our minds.

III -- Logic - Concepts are 1) Spiritual/immaterial, 2) Abstract, 3) Universal, 4) Necessary, and 5) Unchanging/Immutable

1. Spiritual means that concepts are without physical properties.  They have no weight, color, size, energy, etc. A thought (as is different from a “concept”) can potentially be considered to have a physical element through its processing in the brain and the resulting phantasm that results in the symbolic communication of the immaterial concept that started the process.
2. Abstract means that the concept has been mentally separated from the perceived object.  Consider a red rose, you can abstract the color red from it and perceive that the color is able to exist in objects other than the singular red rose.  You even go so far as to imagine potential/unreal objects with the abstracted quality of red imposed upon it (e.g. a rose red cat. At least to my knowledge they do not naturally exist, but it can exist in the mind after I’ve abstracted the color rose red and imposed it onto the phantasm of cat in my mind).  You cannot physically separate the color from a flower, but you’re able to separate color from flower through your intellect.

3. Universal means that the concept applies to all things with that essence at all time.  The different kinds of trees, despite how technically different they may appear, still have the same “essence” of tree that we’ve abstracted to label them all trees. Fun excerpt from Orthodoxy by Gilbert K. Chesterton :  

“Then there is the opposite attack on thought: that urged by Mr. H.G.Wells when he insists that every separate thing is ‘unique,’ and there are no categories at all. This also is merely destructive. Thinking means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected. It need hardly be said that this scepticism forbidding thought necessarily forbids speech; a man cannot open his mouth without contradicting it. Thus when Mr. Wells says (as he did somewhere), ‘All chairs are quite different,’ he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them ‘all chairs.’”

IV -- Logic - continuing the Five elements of a concept:

1. Spiritual/immaterial (i.e. a concept has some weight, height, depth, taste, etc.)
2. Abstract (i.e. formed by the intellect from observation)
3. Universal (i.e. the concept applies to all things, at all places [e.g. the concept tree applies to all trees everywhere at once; not just the current tree being perceived])
4. Necessary (i.e. the concept must contain within it the abstractions that are intrinsic to the entity's existence [e.g. a triangle only exists with three sides and a sum of 180 degrees]) Concepts such as trees are a harder to pin down due to so many variables, but without being able to write down a concrete, defined list I can still understand what the concept tree applies to and infers.
5. Unchanging (i.e. what a concept applies to can change materially [e.g. two bunnies + two bunnies might = more than four bunnies eventually], but the concept will always remain the same [e.g. 2 + 2 = 4])

Metaphysics is the study of being.  Being is intrinsic to everything else.  Without being there can be nothing else.  

The nature of being is intrinsic to Logic.  By creating the conception of a house you have implied that house has being in addition to the form, substance, etc.  “The House is blue” has the implicit understanding that the House is.

Concepts are private and wholly within the mind of the individual’s intellect.  Terms are an extrinsic extension of concepts for social utilization that are communicated via words (the material means of communicating [e.g. speaking, written symbols])  Terms can be expressed by differents words in different words in different languages.

Propositions are made of terms:  An apple is a fruit. The terms “apple” and “fruit” are used.  Terms can only be clear/unclear (aka ambiguous/unambiguous) while propositions are either True or False.  

1. Concepts to 2) judgments to 3) arguments

1. Terms to b) propositions to 3) syllogisms.
2. 
   

V -- Logic (42-44) - Does beauty literally exist or just beautiful things (i.e. the immaterial concept itself or just a physical manifestation)?  Plato believed in what is coined “Extreme Realism” (i.e. there is a physical world and an equally real spiritual world populated by immaterial things).  

William Ockham was a founder of Nominalism in opposition to such ideas as “Extreme Realism” by stating that concepts do not exist but that humans create names that are imperfect shorthand to classify individuals that are imprecisely lumped together by the subjective human intellect (i.e. “All chairs are quite different.”)  

Personal Note:  it seems to me that Nominalism has a fundamental error in giving the individual matter of a given object far more importance compared to the abstracted essence that can be apprehended by the human intellect.

Aristotle took a middle ground by proclaiming that concepts do exist in and because of the intellect (they don’t have an existence outside the intellect).  Some theorize that if concepts did exist outside the intellect that this would lead to the valuing of concepts above the existing individuals identified by the concepts.  

Personal note:  I imagine that believing concepts exist outside the intellect does have a danger in belittling the importance of the individual.  But to have intellect (which exists independently in all individuals) be the origin and home of concepts gives equal importance to each individual instead of allowing the individuals who defy certain concepts to be devalued for not conforming to the ideal that exists outside the person.

Concepts must have a universality to them that extends to a class that encompasses more than merely the current and presently perceived being to avoid the danger of having everything be of subjective importance to the whims of each individual’s apprehension.  

Having concepts that extend to a group of like individuals that includes more than the single being that is perceived at any given moment is the only way to adequately categorize and understand the world.  

Terms have extension (e.g. “Man” extends to either all 7+ billion people or to a single individual man depending on context) and comprehension (e.g. “Man” is comprehended as a “rational animal”).  

Extension is a quantitative with how it can measure the connection/reference a term has with the physical/real world (e.g. you measure how many people “Man” extends to).  Comprehension is qualitative since it cannot be measured (e.g. the nature/aspect “rational animal” as a comprehension of “Man” cannot be measured; only abstracted and understood).  

Divisions and outlines measure a term’s extension.  The definition of a term analyzes its comprehension.  

Study Notes (Trivium) - (6/5/18-6/10/18)

Greetings.  Felt I should try to add some content; even if it is quite sub-par quality.  The following is my personal notes taken while studying the The Trivium this past week.  To explain a little, it's not prettied up and organized in this post.  These are the notes as they appear in my personal notes.  I've attempted active recall (writing from memory after reading) with these notes as well as I can, but I'm certainly far from perfect.  Everything in red is stuff that corrected or added after going back to the back after getting down what I could.

My intent is four fold:

1. I'm hoping to give myself a mental push by publishing these notes.  It should force me to think more about the concepts and issues to make them better articulated and succinct if I know others will be reading.
2. I hope to encourage anyone interested in studying this stuff but that may be discouraged by the difficulty of the subject matter.  I have a LOT of red on some days. But I persevere.
3. I hope to quite simply communicate information that I find important and interesting.  If someone can happen upon this blog and find what's contained interesting enough to take it up himself, that's a pretty cool positive for me.
4. Two+ heads are better than one.  Having others weigh in on these notes will hopefully lead to some fruitful discussions and even deeper thinking and understanding of the material. 
5. If others of more sufficient understanding of these things happen to find this blog, then I'm always happy to accept input in the hopes that I can gain a better understanding of it all.

Quick note:  these notes start on page 20 of the book.  Perhaps one day I'll go back and digitize my handwritten notes from the earlier pages.

Here are the notes (the Roman Numerals separate the different days):

I -- Trivium - words without meaning aren’t symbols.  Words must correspond with some reality or a concept/abstraction of reality to be a symbol.

The senses work with the brain in order to perceive and abstract from the world.  The senses initially work to achieve percept through the stimulation of the senses.  Then the imagination works to achieve a phantasm so that the mind can recall a sense of the object/idea without the object needing be present.  

Concept is the abstraction of the essence of phantasms.  You see multiple chairs and the phantasms that arise in your mind provide the material from which the intellect can abstract the concept of chair from the individual examples.

The imagination is the meeting point between the intellect and the senses; think dreams being how the intellect might attempt to bridge a gap with reality and new information through strange, imaginative exercises.

Review:  four ways to symbolize - A) two ways to symbol aggregate and individual: 1) proper name, 2) empirical description; B) two ways to symbolize essense: 1) general/empirical description, 2) common name.

Man is the only creature with true power of abstraction; some animals may contain some low-level ability to abstract, but it is of limited use and related wholly to survival/instinct.  It does not appear to be of intellectual use to them.

II -- Trivium - Generalized concepts are abstractions of the essence of particular class.  The concepts exist regardless of time, location, etc as opposed to the percept and phantasms of objects.  Percepts exist within the external senses and depend upon external stimulus to manifest. Phantasms are dependent upon an individual’s imagination and intellect to manifest at a particular time and place.

General concepts have their basis in normative reality.  To put it another way, concepts have a basis in what is real; not in the subjective interpretation one might have for reality.

Everything within the intellect (with the exception of the intellect itself) depends upon outside data produced by the external senses.

Man is the only animal with the rational capacity of abstraction.  Other animals can have the capacity to respond to external stimulus (shapes, colors, etc), but Man is the only creature that can abstract and create concepts (essense of a square, formula for the circumference of a circle.

Sister Miriam gives the analogy of a bee making honey.  Many different insects may rest upon and interact with a flower, but only the bee has the capacity to interact with the flower so as to produce honey.  In a similar fashion, Man has a unique relationship with the world by having the capacity to abstract concepts from raw sense data that both Man and animal can perceive.

If animals could abstract, you would expect to have change and perhaps some form of culture evolve in them.  But they remain static in their instincts and capabilities in so far as we can theorize.

St. Thomas More made a defense of the Church’s use of statues and images by saying in essence statues/images and written text are fundamentally the same.  They’re all symbols (imitation and written) that communicate the phantasmical thoughts of the author to the viewer at a later point. At a technical level it is quite true.  We see the words same as we might a painting. The only difference I can think of is that the words have a more concrete an objective interpretation set upon them than the potential ideas any individual may receive from looking at a painting.

Interesting thought:  a painting that depicts an event from a book that is constructed by repeating the text from the particular book scene over and over and changing the coloring of the letter to create the image.  

According to More images and statues are of great benefit to the unlearned and ignorant who may not have the capacity or learning to benefit from the written word

III -- Trivium - Thomas More defends the use of statues and icons by explaining how they are symbols the same as words in that they help to communicate the phantasms and concepts in the author’s mind to the recipient.  

10 categories of being:

1. Substance- that of something which is in itself (man)
2. Quantity- determination of matter of a substance (tall man)
3. Quality- determination of the nature of something (friendly, handsome man)
4. Relation- something in relation to others (man is near)
5. Action- matter doing something either for itself or to something else (smile, type on a keyboard)
6. Passion - matter acted upon by something else (being drafted)
7. When- quality of something in relation to extrinsic events with relation to time (man on a Sunday morning)
8. Where- quality of something in relation to extrinsic objects/places (near a lake)
9. Posture- the matter of something in relation to itself (sitting down changes how the parts of matter relate to itself)
10. Habiliment- clothing and decoration of a person.

Substance seems to be distinct from essence.  Essence is a concept taken from multiple phantasms/percepts of a thing while substance is that which is the sum total that makes something what it is in itself.  And the categories relate to substance how a thing relates to itself and others.  

IV -- Trivium - The Ten Categories of Being:

1. Substance - that which exists in and of itself in the subject. (e.g. the person)
2. Quantity - that which exists in relation to determination of the matter of the subject (e.g. height, weight)
3. Quality - quality  determination of the nature of something (e.g. intelligence)
4. Relation - the reference a substance (individual) or accident bears to another (e.g. friend)
5. Action - the exercise of the faculties or power of a substance either upon something else or itself to produce a result (e.g. typing notes, smiling)
6. Passion - something extrinsic to the subject that has its terminus in the subject reception by a substance (i.e. the subject) of an effect by an external agent (e.g. getting slapped)
7. When - something extrinsic in relation to duration position in relation to extrinsic events which measure duration. (e.g. Sunday afternoon)
8. Where - something extrinsic in relation to position of a substance in relation to other (i.e. extrinsic) bodies in order to measure and determine the substance’s place (e.g. by the lake, next to the clock tower, on the bench)
9. Posture - matter in relation to itself the relative positions of the matter of a substance to itself (e.g. sitting down)
10. Habiliment - what the subject wears. (e.g. clothing, jewelry, helmet)

Predicates can organize the Ten Categories of Being in to three blocks according to what the say about the subject:

1. If the predicate is the subject itself and

V -- Trivium- Predicates can subcategorize the Ten Categories of Being in three ways:

1. The predicate is the subject.
2. The predicate exists within the subject
3. The predicate exists outside the subject

Seven important definitions with consideration to language and reality:

1. Essence is that which makes a being what it is and without which it would be what it is. (e.g. I am Man.  Man is my essence differentiates me from other beings made of similar matter)
2. Nature is essence viewed as a source of activity.
3. The individual is constituted of of essence in quantified matter.  While I’m part of the greater class of man by my essence, I’m still differentiated by having my own individual material existence and accidents to set me apart.  Even matches, while manufactured to meet exacting standards, are still individual matches due to their quantifiable difference in having individual material existence apart from the other matches.  
4. Percept is the simple apprehension sense-apprehension of an object that is present.
5. A Phantasm is the image from memory in the mind in the absence of the object; mental image of an individual reality
6. General Concept is the basic understanding intellectual apprehension of essence.

An Empirical Concept is the intellectual apprehension of an individual.  The intellect can only indirectly know individual objects, the objects being material.  But the intellect can directly know itself.

I love how day IV just ends so abruptly.  That was a particularly taxing day.

I'll try to get out my Logic notes from the same time period later today.

Getting Started Again

Greetings.  It has been three and a half years since I gave up on this blog.  But I'm back.  And I have (hopefully) a bit more drive and purpose behind myself this time.

So, to start I'll be doing the 10 year reading program set forth in "The Great Conversation" by the Encyclopedia Britannica.  This will serve a dual purpose of giving me structure and preventing burnout from any ill-conceived attempts at being a completionist. 

This blog lays out the reading program with the useful addition of page numbers.  With some rough calculations based off of the average number of words per page and an assumed average reading speed of roughly 300 words per minute this program only requires about 10 minutes of reading per day.  Seems pretty reasonable to me in order to delve into the cultural, philosophical, and literary history of Western Civilization.  And hopefully after the completion of this program I'll be able to answer with superior articulation and clarity what exactly is meant by "Western Civilization."

In addition to the reading, writing, and reckoning of the Great Books, I'll also be presenting other books that in my estimate contribute positively to a greater understanding of the Great Books.  For now I'm concurrently studying

1) The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph

and

2) Socratic Logic: A Logic Text using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles by Peter Kreeft.

Now!  I've been at this program for almost a month now.  So, I'm already through the first two sections for the First Year.  I'll be sure to write up posts about those at some point. And this post will move forward from where I'm currently at.

Here's a link to the eBook for The Republic by Plato (Books I-II). Should be easily accomplished in six days.  See you June 12th.