Thursday, December 07, 2006
A Love of Logic
I've been throwing a few ideas around in my head trying to figure out what to do next, with no luck. Part of me wants to write the second installment of "Things That Never Happened" about my abstaining from drinking for a month or so, with an ironic twist about the drive home from a Christmas party where I left as the only person 100% sober. Might have been too ironic, but the ending I had in mind was a little too creepy for me to risk putting into word because I fear that it just might have happened if I'd written it down. How stupid is that?
Anyway, with this newfound interest in actually opening books and reading what's inside, I am pulling a rather entertaining excerpt from A.R. Burn's Penguin History of Greece. It really demonstrates how the dialectics that were innovated by Socrates are all but extinct, and it's a shame, because it seems that we're still finding new ways to get on people's nerves that seem to pale in comparison to such classics as this (a conversation between Alcibiades and Pericles):
"A: Could you explain to me what Law is?
P: Certainly.
A: Then please do; because when I hear people praised for being law-abiding, I think that one could never deserve that praise if one does not know what Law is.
P: Well, that is not very difficult. All enactments are laws which the People in parliament has approved and published, laying down what shall be done or not done.
A: - resolving that we should do good things? Or bad things?
P: Good gracious, boy! Good, of course, not bad.
A: But then, if it is not the People, but, as happens where there is an oligarchy, a minority assembles and publishes its enactment, what is that?
P: Everything that the government of the city, after deliberation, publishes, as to what is to be done, is called law.
A: But then if a tyrant, in control of a city, publishes enactments as to what the citizens are to do, is that law?
P: Even what a tyrant publicly enacts, as he is the government, is called law.
A: But, Pericles, what is lawlessness and arbitrary power? Isn't it when the stronger compels the weaker, by force and without consent, to do what he pleases?
P: I agree.
A: Well, then, what a tyrant compels the citizens to do by his enactments, without their consent, is a negation of the law?
P: Yes, I agrree; I withdraw my statement that what a tyrant enacts, without the people's consent, is law.
A: Then what about an oligarchy's enactments, if it legislates for the people without their consent, by compulsion?
P: Everything which forces another to do without his consent, whether by public enactment or otherwise, seems to be arbitrary, rather than law.
A: Well, then, when the people, being stronger than the rich, legislates for them without their consent, is that arbitrary, or is that law?
P: Oh, Alkibiades*, I was good at that sort of thing when I was your age. We used to debate and quibble over just that sort of thing.
A: I wish I could have talked to you when you were at your best, Pericles!" (Burn 254-55)
* - This is an alternate spelling used by Burns, despite my own learning experience of spelling it with a "c". It is not determined after further research which is correct, as I'm sure both are accepted in most circles.
Source:
Burn, A.R. The Penguin History of Greece. London: Penguin Group, 1990.
Anyway, with this newfound interest in actually opening books and reading what's inside, I am pulling a rather entertaining excerpt from A.R. Burn's Penguin History of Greece. It really demonstrates how the dialectics that were innovated by Socrates are all but extinct, and it's a shame, because it seems that we're still finding new ways to get on people's nerves that seem to pale in comparison to such classics as this (a conversation between Alcibiades and Pericles):
"A: Could you explain to me what Law is?
P: Certainly.
A: Then please do; because when I hear people praised for being law-abiding, I think that one could never deserve that praise if one does not know what Law is.
P: Well, that is not very difficult. All enactments are laws which the People in parliament has approved and published, laying down what shall be done or not done.
A: - resolving that we should do good things? Or bad things?
P: Good gracious, boy! Good, of course, not bad.
A: But then, if it is not the People, but, as happens where there is an oligarchy, a minority assembles and publishes its enactment, what is that?
P: Everything that the government of the city, after deliberation, publishes, as to what is to be done, is called law.
A: But then if a tyrant, in control of a city, publishes enactments as to what the citizens are to do, is that law?
P: Even what a tyrant publicly enacts, as he is the government, is called law.
A: But, Pericles, what is lawlessness and arbitrary power? Isn't it when the stronger compels the weaker, by force and without consent, to do what he pleases?
P: I agree.
A: Well, then, what a tyrant compels the citizens to do by his enactments, without their consent, is a negation of the law?
P: Yes, I agrree; I withdraw my statement that what a tyrant enacts, without the people's consent, is law.
A: Then what about an oligarchy's enactments, if it legislates for the people without their consent, by compulsion?
P: Everything which forces another to do without his consent, whether by public enactment or otherwise, seems to be arbitrary, rather than law.
A: Well, then, when the people, being stronger than the rich, legislates for them without their consent, is that arbitrary, or is that law?
P: Oh, Alkibiades*, I was good at that sort of thing when I was your age. We used to debate and quibble over just that sort of thing.
A: I wish I could have talked to you when you were at your best, Pericles!" (Burn 254-55)
* - This is an alternate spelling used by Burns, despite my own learning experience of spelling it with a "c". It is not determined after further research which is correct, as I'm sure both are accepted in most circles.
Source:
Burn, A.R. The Penguin History of Greece. London: Penguin Group, 1990.
# posted by bosstoonlou : 8:48 AM
