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.

"The Libation Bearers" by Aeschylus

This is the sequel to "Agamemnon."  Plot-wise it's quite short.  The dialogue gives it the length it has.

The play begins with Orestes, Agamemnon's son, grieving at his father's tomb.  He hides himself when he notices his sister Electra drawing near.  She is their to offer libations to the spirit of their deceased father Agamemnon in order to quell the terrible dreams that have been plaguing their mother Clytaemystra, a conspirator in Agamemnon's murder.  But Electra is unsure how to offer the libation since its purpose is helping those who committed the dishonorable act of murdering her father.  Her attendant offer her the advice to use this libation instead to further enrage Agamemnon's spirit and to bring death upon those who betrayed him.

Orestes then reveals himself to Electra.  He explains that Apollo has charged him with the task of taking vengeance against their father's killers.  After much talk concerning the dishonor of Agamemnon's death, Orestes reveals his plan to kill the traitors Aegisthus and Clytaemystra.  He plans to approach the front gate with the men who are loyal to him as a foreigner bringing news of Orestes' death.  Then he will have an audience with Aegisthus wherein he will slay him.

Orestes arrives at the gate and is met by his mother who grieves over the news of her son's death.  She invites him and his men in to give the news to Aegisthus directly and to stay the night as repayment for the trouble of bringing the news.  

While Orestes and company are waiting Aegisthus is encouraged by Orestes' old wet-nurse (subtly influenced by the attendant who was at the tomb with the siblings) to not take any bodyguards with him.  Upon arrival Orestes wastes no time taking vengeance upon his father's murderer.  Soon after Clytaemystra happens upon the scene.  She begs to be spared out of loyalty to the one who birthed him.  But Orestes is reminded that this task comes from Apollo himself.  Clytaemystra and Aegisthus are wrapped in the shroud in which Agamemnon had been killed.  

Orestes is begged to stay, but he refuses knowing that he cannot find peace in Argos after what he has done, even though ordained by the gods.  His mother's hate would haunt him just as Agamemnon haunted her.  He leaves to seek refuge far away in Apollo's temple, never to return.

"Prometheus Bound" by Aeschylus

To start, this story is not in the proper order that it should be.  I don't know how I overlooked it and did the "Agamemnon" review first.  :P

I'll trust the majority of my readers have heard the name "Prometheus" before, if only the title of the the Ridley Scott film.  In case anyone's wondering, I did like it.  Especially after reading the article "Prometheus Unbound."  It's really amazing!  But I digress.

This play recounts the beginnings of Prometheus' punishment for betraying the laws of Zeus, the now reigning god after the defeat of the Titans.  His most famous of crimes was bringing fire from the forges of Hephaestus to man.  But he did so much more.  He claimed to have given man pretty much everything:  art, agriculture, sailing, reading, writing, etc.  He also gave us hope.  That's my favorite.

So, before Prometheus, man was nothing but a naked, cultureless pile of flesh with a constant paralyzing fear of the future.  I'm glad he decided to help us out.  And it was a big deal since Zeus wanted us all dead.  And that is Prometheus' full crime, helping the people Zeus wanted dead.

But for all his aid and wisdom Prometheus was quite responsible for this unfortunate predicament.  During the Titans vs. Gods battle, he started out with the Titans, if only because he was one.  But he became frustrated that the Titans wanted nothing to do with his scheming.  They were all about full-frontal assault.  But the gods were more than happy to make use of his strategies.

Once the battle was won by the gods, it was too late to go back.  Zeus became an unyielding tyrant.  And Prometheus was on his own in opposing his tyranny.  So, that led to his imprisonment being chained to a rock until Zeus forgives him his crimes.

After being chained Prometheus makes known his gift of prophecy; so, he must endure the suffering since no one can escape fate.  I respect this attitude.  Fate is fate.  All those movies/shows where people fight against it are annoying in that respect.  You can't fight against it because that fighting will have been a part of it from the start.  But I digress.

He then has his first visitors, The Chorus, daughters of Oceanus.  They profess sympathy for his suffering, and he responds by prophesying that one day Zeus will have to beg Prometheus' assistance if he wishes to prevent his downfall. Then the Chorus asks how he came to this predicament, and he recounts the War of Gods and Titans and the aftermath concerning his aid to man.  Oceanus enters to ask Prometheus to stop antagonizing Zeus with his stories so that Oceanus may have some hope to plead with Zeus to free Prometheus.  But Prometheus only says that it's futile; he shouldn't bother trying.

His second visitor is Io.  She was a woman lusted after by Zeus before he turned her into a cow, and then cursed by Hera to wander the world while being goaded by the stinging bite of the gadfly.  Gods and humans do not mix.

She sympathizes with Prometheus.  Then she entreats him to tell her the future of her sufferings.  But first she recounts her past sufferings as the request of the Chorus.  Prometheus then tells of all the places she shall wonder before eventually having Zeus heal and impregnate her.  The twist:  one of Io's descendants will be the one to free Prometheus.  Then Io resumes her wandering being unable to remain stationary and listen to Prometheus due to the sting of the gadfly.

Prometheus in a moment of rage over the sufferings that Zeus causes proclaims that Zeus' own son will be his downfall.  Hermes arrives at Zeus' command to extricate the name of this son who is destined to depose him.  But our stubborn Prometheus refuses to comply.  Even after the threat of being flung down to the dark depths of Tartarus to have an eagle eat his liver only to have it grow back and eaten the next day for all time (unless another god agrees to take his place), Prometheus refuses.  Then this sad little tale ends with Prometheus calling on the elements to witness his suffering.

One part I really liked, which I didn't include earlier, was the Chorus scolding Prometheus for helping man since man cannot have any hope to aid him in return for his help.  This makes Prometheus one of the most respectable characters in all Greek mythology.  There are so few already.  He didn't help us expecting anything in return but gratitude.  It was a selfless act that one can see reflected by the Engineers(to a point) in Ridley Scott's "Prometheus."  So, that gives some sense to the title.

Hope you've enjoyed.  See you next time.  (^w^)y

"Agamemnon" by Aeschylus

Tolstoy had it right:  "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  And you definitely don't want to be unhappy in the way Agamemnon's family is unhappy.  For starters he sacrificed his daughter to the god Artemis in order to insure favorable winds for his voyage to Troy.  I don't recall if that was mentioned in The Illiad or not.  I'll trust SparkNotes for now.

Then, angered by her husband's wrong, Agamemnon's wife, Clytaemestra, kills him and the concubine he brought back with him from Troy.  Men and their spoils of war.

But Clytaemestra wasn't alone.  She had been planning this for the ten years Agamemnon had been gone conquering Troy with the help of his cousin Aegisthus', who is understandably peeved at Agamemnon because Agamemnon's father Atreus fed Aegisthus' father the flesh of his own son, Aegithus' brother, during a feast.  O_O  I know, right?!  I just hope I conveyed that properly.  I need to work on my syntax.

Now there's a screwed up family.  You could shorten the synopsis to say "Agamemnon dies for his sins and the sins of his father."  That about sums it up.  But you would miss out on the prose if you left it at a simple synopsis.  And that's one of the better parts of these plays.  The length of the dialogue is impressive.  And it's frustrating at times to slog through the flowery prose, but you come out feeling good for having accomplished this feat.

As I've recommended before, if you have A LOT of trouble reading the stories with the prose and styling, read the SparkNotes first.  Then you shan't be burdened with the task of deciphering the story along with the already heavy task of translating this difficult syntax.

A phrase that caught my eye:  "Who over this great man's grave shall lay the blessing of tears worked soberly from a true heart?"  That was said by the Chorus after seeing Agamemnon dead.  I don't have much to say about it, but it struck me as finely worded.  Specifically, "tears worked soberly from a true heart" caught my eye.

There were many other quotes I enjoyed, but, alas, they are lost to the sea of prose I had found them in.  I might update this entry if I find them in the future.

Ciao!

"Seven Against Thebes" by Aeschylus

Howdy do there! These plays just keep getting better (I wonder how many times I'll say that). This particular play had a lot of thought provoking passages in it for me. To begin:

Thebes is under attack by Argives being led by Polyneices. And the fun twist, for those who don't know some of the finer details of Greek mythology (like yours truly), is that Polyneices is the brother of the current king of Thebes, Eteocles.

The title has its origin with the 7 leaders of the Argive army, for whom each is selected one Thebian soldier who is chosen personally by Eteocles. And Eteocles chooses to fight Polyneices, one of the 7, himself.

The Argives are successfully repelled, but Eteocles and Polyneices end up killing each other. This is apparently the fulfillment of a curse put on the brothers by there father, Oedipus. Now we have the sisters, Antigone and Ismene, mourning over the corpses of their brothers.

A herald arrives bearing the new that Eteocles shall be honorably buried while Polyneices is to be thrown to the wolves without a proper burial by order of state law. But Antigone will not have this. Only a quotation can do her justice.


ANTIGONE:
"So I to the Cadmaean magistrates
declare: if no one else will dare to join me
in burying him, yet will I bury him
and take the danger on my head alone
when that is done. He is my brother. I
am not ashamed of this anarchic act
of disobedience to the city. Strange,
a strange thing is the common blood we spring
from––
a mother wretched, a father doomed to evil.
Willingly then with one that would not will it,
live spirit with dead man in sisterhood
I shall bear my share. His flesh
the hollow-bellied wolves shall never taste of.
let that be no one's 'pleasure or decree.'
His tomb and burying place I will contrive
though but a woman. In the bosom folds
of my linen robe I shall carry earth to him.
And I shall cover him: let no one determine
the contrary. Be of good cheer [spoken to Ismene], I shall
find means to bring my will to pass."

Quite a speech, right?! Needless to say the play ends with Antigone continuing to resolve to bury her brother. Apologies if the summary seems a bit bare-bonesy, but the real meat of this story is in the dialogue and deserves to be read for its own sake.

The most thought-provoking idea in this story for me is the sibling bond that Antigone had for Polyneices. I have had, to be generous, a rocky relationship with my brother since I was fifteen. It makes sense from an outside perspective to see the virtue of the sibling bond sewn so deep into the hearts of the characters.

But could you do the same? Could you defend the right to honorably bury a most dishonorable sibling that tried to attack the very home you had come to love? Can't fully answer for myself. I tend to lean towards no. But I have a bit more than this one aforementioned event influencing my decision.

I hope this has been another entertaining blog entry for everyone out there. Be sure to share and comment.

And raise a glass for all those who, like Eteocles, have given their lives for the protection of the homes they had come to love. Happy reading!

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton

"The Persians" by Aeschylus

Well...another break...another start up. But, at least, I was semi-productive this time. I've been spending my time with some really fun books. All three by the brilliant, well-read Benjamin Wiker. These books really have helped to reveal part of the journey that philosophy has taken through the past 2,000 years. I guess I should probably get to naming these books. :P

The first: "10 Books That Every Conservative Should Read." This was a really positive book. It's definitely aimed at a Conservative audience, but Liberals and many others should still find some positive notes in it.

The second: "Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God." Obviously this has very specific audience; but, again, non-believers can still find some pros to this very densely assembled title. The biggest pro would be correcting any of the flawed arguments that they might so happen to have in their arsenal for debates with believers.

The third: "Ten Books That Screwed Up The World." This was a bit depressing and anger-inspiring at times. But it is worthwhile to read to discover where some of the problems of modern philosophy had originated. Ironically, this book is a more worthwhile read for Conservatives than anyone else. But the non-Conservatives might find it extremely helpful to see if their personal philosophy might have originated with these destroyers of sanity.

Now, finally, on to "The Persians." Overall: very good. Slow to start but, once it picks up, it keeps a decent pace. The main character's in this play were the narrating Chorus, The Queen (Xerxes' mother and Darius' wife), Darius (in ghost form since he's died by this point), and the ever so woeful Xerxes.

When the story begins, Xerxes has been on his campaign to conquer the world. SPOILER: He doesn't succeed. Soon a Herald (oops forgot to mention him as a main character) arrives to tell the Queen of Xerxes' horrific defeat in Greece (300 anyone?). Sadly there didn't seem to be any direct talk of the classic, EPIC battle of Thermopylae. But I digress.

The Herald reveals that Xerxes has become the paragon embodiment of Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall." And the worst part: Xerxes took the entire population of Persian warriors with him. Which means...no one left to defend Persia. *Face Palm* for Xerxes.

As a side note, the Queen offers sacrifice to tempt the spirit of Darius to the world of the living that she can take some solace in the words of her departed husband. Ultimately Xerxes arrives back home and the story ends with him saying "woeful" way too many times to count.

Hope you enjoyed this little blog entry. Feel free to share any comments concerning the theme of this play: Proverbs 16:18. At least, that's the theme that I took from it. Either that, or how woeful one can be after loosing his entire army to his own prideful ambitions; and thus leaving his entire country defenseless against all foreign invaders.

Have a good day. Bye. :-)