The Wrath of Heaven against the Roman State

We’ve now completed the Annals of Tacitus and are poised to finish Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class this week. I’m going to celebrate by reading another Shakespeare play, something particularly appropriate in light of Shakespeare’s role in the T.S. Eliot essay we just read.

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare (GBWW Vol. 25, pp. 489-523)
2. “On Constancy” by Epictetus (GBWW Vol. 11, pp. 127-130; Book I Chapter 29 of the Discourses)
3. “Of Constancy” by Michel de Montaigne (GBWW Vol. 23, pp. 67-68)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapters 13-14 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 140-169)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part VI, Section E (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 281-298; pp. 114-126 of the linked PDF)
6. The Phaedrus of Plato (GBWW Vol. 6, pp. 115-141)

I swear that I didn’t plan in advance to read essays from Epictetus and Montaigne on identical themes this week. It simply worked out that way

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. “Dante” by T.S. Eliot: Eliot writes that the modern world is divided between Dante and Shakespeare; “there is no third.” I think the comparison and contrast of these two authors has to be stimulating to anyone who has read them to the extent we have in this program over the past thirty months. I also feel as though I have to read La Vita Nuova now, even though it’s in neither of Adler’s compilations.
2. “That We Ought Not to Be Angry at Men” by Epictetus: Most of this discourse is not about anger, but about appearances. There’s a lengthy (for Epictetus) discussion of the Trojan War and how the characters allowed appearances to affect their inward states, resulting in many tragic outcomes. “What is the name of those who follow every appearance? ‘They are called madmen.’ Do we then act at all differently? 
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XVI: The latter part of this book is lost, along with all subsequent books of the Annals, so we don’t get any concluding passages attempting to draw lessons from all the events Tacitus relates. However, I found it interesting that in this book, as Nero descends more and more into paranoia and madness, that Tacitus begins to attribute more developments to divine providence: “A year of shame and of so many evil deeds heaven also marked by storms and pestilence. . . . Even if I had to relate foreign wars and deaths encountered in the service of the State with such a monotony of disaster, I should myself have been overcome by disgust, while I should look for weariness in my readers. . . . Such was the wrath of heaven against the Roman State that one may not pass over it with a single mention, as one might the defeat of armies and the capture of cities.” 
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 12: Veblen tries to interpret deity and the deity’s priests as the ultimate participants in conspicuous consumption and waste. “The priest should not put his hand to mechanically productive work; but he should consume in large measure.” I’m sure that would have come as a great surprise to the great majority of Christian priests throughout history, who very often worked in the fields alongside their parishioners. 
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part VI, Sections B-D: In this section Freud gets even more speculative in his interpretations, if that’s possible. Now things in the dream are substitutes or replacements for other things. How do you know when something is itself and when it’s really something else? Clearly, you must assent to several assumptions Freud has been articulating in the previous 100+ pages. 
6. Categories by Aristotle: I probably should have read this work before the Metaphysics. Aristotle provides a very basic (for him) overview of the different categories of analysis: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and affection. He also talks about equivocal definitions of “movement” and “to have,” which often get in the way of clear thinking.

It’s nice to be posting about the Great Books on Monday again following all the schedule interruptions of the last month or two. I have another long trip coming up, but I’m striving to plan the next three weeks of reading so that posting can continue on schedule.

Fiddling While Rome Burned?

Now that we’ve finished Dante’s epic, we can read commentary on it from one of the 20th century’s great minds. It’s a nice way to pass our 4,000th page of Imaginative Literature this week.

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. “Dante” by T.S. Eliot (GGB Vol. 5, pp. 371-403)
2. “That We Ought Not to Be Angry with Men” by Epictetus (GBWW Vol. 11, pp. 125-127; Book I Chapter 28 of the Discourses)
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XVI (GBWW Vol. 14, pp. 176-184)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 12 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 123-139)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part VI, Sections B-D (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 262-277; pp. 100-114 of the linked PDF)
6. Categories by Aristotle (GBWW Vol. 7, pp. 1-21)

This week we also wrap up Tacitus’s Annals, which unfortunately breaks off before the end of Nero’s reign. We’ll come back to his Histories at a later date.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Divine Comedy: Paradiso by Dante Alighieri, Cantos XVII-XXXIII: Dante gives us several moving passages in the final cantos, including the confession of faith before St. Peter and some prayers, but the greatest is probably the last canto where he keeps on referring to the ineffable nature of what he experienced in God’s presence. It’s interesting that even after he is admitted into Paradise, he continues to be purified as he ascends; at one point Beatrice warns him not to look at her smile or he’ll be burned to ash like Semele (check out this opera starring my friend and erstwhile colleague Matt Roberson), but a couple of cantos later she tells him he’s ready to look at her again.
2. “On Sense and the Sensible” by Aristotle: (Please, no Jane Austen jokes.) Reading these ancient works of philosophy/science is challenging; the modern is always tempted to to say, “These guys are ignorant of the real stuff, so why bother reading them?” The thought occurred to me as I made my way through Aristotle’s refutation of the proposition that the eye is fire, etc. However, we shouldn’t mistake a lack of data for a lack of scientific acumen. A closer look brings a greater appreciation of the mode of arguing.
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XV: Well, lots happening here. Foreign wars, the burning of Rome, the suicide of Seneca, and more. I’d just like to remind everyone that Tacitus does not say that Nero “fiddled while Rome burned.” Here’s the quote: “A rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.”
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 11:  I think Veblen twists the understanding of “luck” here. He calls it an “instinctive sense of an inscrutable teleological propensity in objects or situations.” As soon as I saw that, I figured he’d try to link it to Christianity. Sure enough, near the end of the chapter we read of “more adequately developed anthropomorphic cults.” Moderns hate telos if its source isn’t Man.
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part VI, Introduction and Section A: This section deals with conflation in dreams. I don’t have much comment here; I found a lot of his examples interesting. Of course, his attempts to separate the constituent parts of these alleged amalgams are highly subjective, as is so much of the rest of his analysis.  
6. “The Being of God in Things” by St. Thomas Aquinas: As we see elsewhere in the Summa, in this article we have Scripture on both sides of the argument. The impatient modern says, “See! The Bible contradicts itself!” St. Thomas shows otherwise to demonstrate that God really is in all things.

The spring semester has ended for the most part (I still have a couple of weeks left to tie up a high-school class I’m doing), but the summer term has already begun, and I’m up to my eyeballs in graduate students doing tutorials in everything from Rome to Tudor England to the Founding Fathers and Constitution. It should be a stimulating term, and the content is one of the reasons I’m glad I’ve been doing this project. I’m sure that you’ll be able to find some application of the Great Books to your own world as well.

“I Smile at Your Childish Thought”

Welcome to a very tardy Great Books post. This week we take a break from Epictetus in order to read a short treatise by Aristotle (yes, such a thing does exist).

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. The Divine Comedy: Paradiso by Dante Alighieri, Cantos XVII-XXXIII (GBWW Vol. 19, pp. 111-170)
2. “On Sense and the Sensible” by Aristotle (GBWW Vol. 7, pp. 673-689)
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XV (GBWW Vol. 14, pp. 157-176)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 11 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 116-123)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part VI, Introduction and Section A (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 252-262; pp. 93-100 of the linked PDF)
6. “The Being of God in Things” by St. Thomas Aquinas (GBWW Vol. 17, pp. 34-38)

The Dante page count is really long this time because I’m including all the endnotes for the whole work. In retrospect I should have added those pages little by little along the way, but there it is.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Divine Comedy: Paradiso by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVI: I find it amusing how Beatrice keeps on talking to Dante as though he has brain damage. Seeing Justinian in this section was a highlight for me. 
2. “In How Many Ways Appearances Exist” by Epictetus: “Unless piety and your interest be in the same thing, piety cannot be maintained in any man.” Challenging assertion, that. I suppose everything hinges on how one’s interest is defined. Augustine and Aquinas can help us there. 
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XIV: Killing one’s stepbrother is bad enough, but here Nero does away with his mother as well, as though all the hinting around about incest wasn’t bad enough. We also see the downfall of Seneca here; the exchange between him and Nero was really interesting; both of them are excellent liars. 
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapters 9-10: Veblen gets really weird here with the ethnography. I am assuming that his attempt to read the inherited traits of blondes and brunettes would be rejected out of hand by any modern scientist. Worse, he tries to build on that stuff in the following chapter about surviving examples of prowess. I admit, though, that the stuff about sports was amusing.
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part V: Freud finally plays the Oedipus card in this chapter. Although I think he’s full of baloney in asserting “absolutely and unconditionally” that there are “no guileless dreams,” I can’t help but be diverted by his continuing references to classical mythology and literature, quoting of Shakespeare, etc.
6. “The Infinity of God” by St. Thomas Aquinas: What I found striking about this section was St. Thomas’s frank dismissal of Aristotle’s interpretation of elements of the infinite. He essentially says, “The ancients knew a lot but they got this one wrong.” I guess he’s not afraid to put his foot down when he finds an irreconcilable conflict between the Philosopher and the Scripture.

After about six days in Florida, I’m now home for two whole weeks before I have to leave town again. Will I be able to get back on a proper posting schedule for this project and for everything else on this blog? I’m sure that’s the question everyone is dying to know. I’ll just say that I’ll do my best. In the meantime, go read some philosophy!

How Many Psychoanalysts Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

How many do you think it takes? (Get it?)

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. The Divine Comedy: Paradiso by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVI (GBWW Vol. 19, pp. 90-111)
2. “In How Many Ways Appearances Exist” by Epictetus (GBWW Vol. 11, pp. 124-125; Book I Chapter 27 of the Discourses)
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XIV (GBWW Vol. 14, pp. 141-157)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 9-10 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 89-116)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part V (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 205-252; pp. 57-93 of the linked PDF)
6. “The Infinity of God” by St. Thomas Aquinas (GBWW Vol. 17, pp. 31-34)

This will be my first time to read the Paradiso. I know most people find it not as interesting as the other two sections (for some reason suffering is more stimulating to people), but I’m actually really excited to explore the depiction of the seven virtues.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri, Cantos XVII-XXXIII: Goodbye, Virgil; hello Beatrice. It had been several years since my last reading of this section, and I had forgotten how many cantos were devoted to the Garden of Eden atop the mountain. The confluence of some other things I’ve been reading this week led me to focus on the discussion on the necessity of ordered love in Canto XVII. Pace the Beatles, love is not all you need; the love must be properly directed and in correct proportion.
2. “What Is the Law of Life” by Epictetus: Can you guess it? OK, I won’t keep you in suspense. The law of life is, “that we must act conformably to nature.” I also like the statement that the beginning of philosophy is “a man’s perception of his ruling faculty”; in other words, acknowledge your mental limitations and build up your reasoning capacity by stages.
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XIII: Once again, domestic intrigue overshadows foreign wars. In this case it’s young Nero’s increasingly nasty acts that take center stage, most notably his murder of Britannicus by poison at a dinner party. We do get to see here a little bit of Seneca, who tried to mitigate Nero’s worst traits.
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapters 7-8: Veblen’s theoretical Marxism shines through more clearly in these chapters than in the previous ones. He flat out states that every social phenomenon is reducible to purely material factors, and (in so many words) that the ideological superstructure never catches up with the material substructure. The leisure class retards social “progress” because it does not feel the constraints of the changing material factors, and it perpetuates outdated customs, blah blah blah. I’m sure this all sounded more persuasive a century ago.
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part III-IV: Freud bends over backwards to deflect the accusation that his theory of dreams as wish fulfillment is a hasty generalization, and in doing so essentially makes his theory non-falsifiable. Of course you can interpret any dream as wish fulfillment if you’re clever enough, but it by no means follows that you must. Curiously enough, the night following my reading of this passage, I had a dream (unusual for me to have one I remember in the morning) that could by no means be interpreted as a fulfillment of a wish of mine in any conventional. Freud no doubt would say to me that I simply wished to prove him wrong, and therefore I dreamed what I did in an effort to fulfill my wish of proving him wrong. 
6. Cratylus by Plato: Fortunately, I have a smattering of Greek and was able to follow the discussion about the etymology of words, placement of accents, etc. Socrates argues that names are significant and that legislators (the name-givers) should take great care in what names are assigned to things, places, and people. It’s curious that this dialogue’s namesake only participates in about one third of the discussion.

With all the traveling I’ve been doing and with the end of the semester upon us, it’s a miracle I’m anywhere close to keeping up with the reading schedule. There was a conference in Maui, and then my niece’s wedding in Nashville, and now a family vacation to Orlando. Activity is great, but there can be too much of a good thing. My day started about twenty hours ago and is just now winding down. My apologies if any of the above post is incoherent!

If the World Stinks, It’s Not God’s Fault

This week we pass 13,000 pages in the Great Books Project. And I don’t care who you are; you have to admit that a program where you read Dante, Freud, and Plato all in the same week is at least a little bit cool.

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri, Cantos XVII-XXXIII (GBWW Vol. 19, pp. 66-89)
2. “What Is the Law of Life” by Epictetus (GBWW Vol. 11, pp. 123-124; Book I Chapter 26 of the Discourses)
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XIII (GBWW Vol. 14, pp. 125-141)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 7-8 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 70-89)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part III-IV (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 189-205; pp. 44-57 of the linked PDF)
6. Cratylus by Plato (GBWW Vol. 6, pp. 85-114)

Cratylus is a new one for me, so I’m especially looking forward to that.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVI: Obviously there is plenty to chew on here, but I was especially struck by the discussion in Canto XVI about free will. Fortunately for us, Dante was a student of philosophy, and he doesn’t give us anything trite or banal: “You lie subject, in your freedom, to a greater power and to a better nature, and that creates the mind in you which the heavens have not in their charge.”
2. “How We Should Struggle with Circumstance” by Epictetus: Most of this discourse is going over what by now is familiar ground: only the internal is your own, do not be distressed by the external, etc. I found the middle section rather puzzling; Epictetus says it’s inconsistent to suppose that it’s night and also to think that it’s night. Maybe there’s a translation issue or a typo of some sort. 
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XII: Agrippina is a rather unpleasant character. Paranoid and vindictive, she stiffs her stepson Britannicus and has her husband Claudius killed after securing the succession for her own son. Next to all of this intrigue, wars against Parthia seem positively ho-hum.
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapters 5-6: “Our standard of decency in expenditure, as in other ends of emulation, is set by the usage of those next above us in reputability.” I actually have no problem with this statement, but I do differ with Veblen on the motive; whereas he attributes it purely to envy, I think it’s much more likely that the higher class is “educating” the lower class as to what’s possible in a standard of living. The higher standard is worthwhile in itself; Veblen occasionally admits this, and why he doesn’t think that this is a sufficient reason for pursuing it is beyond me.
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part II: Freud treats us to a very detailed analysis of one of his dreams in this section. I don’t know that I’ve ever recalled so many details of a dream as he claims he does in this instance. His interpretations of the various details seem plausible but by no means compelling. What makes Freud’s interpretation correct and not merely speculative? 
6. The Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, Additions:  As I feared, these additions prove to be nearly unintelligible unless read in context with the earlier sections, something I am not about to go back and do on this reading. If anyone else wishes to do so, I commend him heartily.

I’ve only made up one day of my posting schedule this week, even though the kids were out of town visiting grandparents. The impending end of the semester has resulted in my having to scramble to meet many deadlines. I hope that your schedule is a bit more relaxed than mine at present, and that you will find some time to read this week.

It Only Counts If Others Are Watching

This week we are closing in on 13,000 pages of total reading in the Great Books Project. Simply typing that makes me tired.

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVI (GBWW Vol. 19, pp. 45-66)
2. “How We Should Struggle with Circumstance,” part 2, by Epictetus (GBWW Vol. 11, pp. 122-123; Book I Chapter 25 of the Discourses)
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XII (GBWW Vol. 14, pp. 110-125)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 5-6 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 43-70)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part II (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 178-189; pp. 35-44 of the linked PDF)
6. The Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, Additions (GBWW Vol. 43, pp. 119-154)

Fair warning: I doubt that this Hegel selection will lend itself to reading straight through. I suspect that we’ll just need to do an inspection of these addenda.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Divine Comedy: Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Cantos XVIII-XXXIV: I’ve always found it interesting that Dante places Mohammed with the schismatics. I also paid more attention during this reading to the various demons and monsters Dante and Virgil encounter and who lie to them or help them get from one circle to another. 
2. “How We Should Struggle with Circumstance” by Epictetus: In a style reminiscent of some New Testament writers, Epictetus writes that difficult circumstances are providential, that they are a means of testing or preparation. I like the line, “no poor man fills a part in the tragedy, except as one of the chorus.” 
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XI: Books VII-X and part of Book XI have been lost, so we jump from the death of Tiberius into the middle of Claudius’s reign, completely skipping over Caligula. The main subject in the surviving portion of Book XI is the adultery and fall of Claudius’s wife Messalina. 
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapters 4: According to Veblen, our dominant economic urge is “conspicuous consumption.” We consume things not because we enjoy the consumption, but because we want other people to see us doing the consuming. Consumption is virtuous only insofar as it is “wasteful,” or not helpful to human life in general. One problem (of several) with this reasoning is that Veblen’s definition of “wasteful” as he elaborates it appears to include anything that’s not manufacturing or agriculture. This is a big problem for his theory in an economy in which the majority of people are employed in providing services.
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Introduction and Part I, Sections D-H: I couldn’t help laughing out loud at Freud’s 1909 addendum in which he complains that his critics have misrepresented his ideas: “My only possible answer to my critics would be a request that they should read this book over again—or perhaps merely that they should read it!” For the rest of the selection, the part I found most interesting was the discussion of whether the ethical sense is present while we dream in the same way it does when we are awake.
6. The Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, Third Part, Sections III: “Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one of its members that the individual himself has objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical life.” Eeeeeekkkkk! It’s telling how Hegel firmly subordinates the church to the state in his lengthy discussion of religion.

Many apologies for the extremely tardy posting this week. I was out of town for a conference from early Sunday through late Wednesday, and attempts to catch up on my workload swamped me through today. With my children out of the house for the next week, I have high hopes of making up most of the time in the next few days.

Midway in the Journey of Our Life I Found Myself in a Dark Wood

Have you noticed that reading the Great Books inevitably affects other areas of your life?For example, the most pressing question I’m dealing with after beginning Dante last week is whether this thing deserves my attention. (OK, actually that’s not the most pressing question I’m dealing with.)

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. The Divine Comedy: Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Cantos XVIII-XXXIV (GBWW Vol. 19, pp. 22-44)
2. “How We Should Struggle with Circumstance” by Epictetus (GBWW Vol. 11, pp. 121-122; Book I Chapter 24 of the Discourses)
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book XI (GBWW Vol. 14, pp. 100-110)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapter 4 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 29-43)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Part I, Sections D-H (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 155-178; pp. 16-35 of the linked PDF)
6. The Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, Third Part, Section III (GBWW Vol. 43, pp. 83-118)

It will be a long slog through Hegel this week. I apologize for that, but I didn’t see a good way to break up the section. Linger a little longer over Dante to make up for it.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. The Divine Comedy: Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVII: It has been about fourteen or fifteen years since my last complete read-through of this work. This time, I enjoyed the description of Limbo; I think I may require my students to read that canto in the future because so many figures we study appear in it. The last time I read this, I had never read anything by Epicurus, so his appearance in the circle of heresy caught my attention.
2. “Against Epicurus” by Epictetus: Speaking of Epicurus, I was surprised that of all the apparent differences between Epicureans and Stoics, what Epictetus criticizes him on here is specifically his admonition against childrearing. This really grabbed me because I recently had a student who interpreted something from Epictetus’s Enchiridion as saying that Epictetus himself recommended having nothing to do with children.
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Books V-VI: It’s too bad that the majority of Book V has been lost. After Tacitus spends so much time getting you to despise Sejanus, you really want to read about his downfall, but can’t. At least at the end of Book VI we do away with Tiberius, whose increasingly tyrannical behavior and constant debaucheries—including, apparently, child molestation—turn one’s stomach. I couldn’t decide which was worse: Tiberius’s reign of terror, or the story of the innocent girl who was condemned to death because of her parentage and who was raped immediately before her execution so the precedent against capital punishment of virgins wouldn’t be broken.
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapters 2-3: Veblen’s descriptions of pecuniary emulation and conspicuous leisure seem plausible on their face to a culture familiar with the idea of “keeping up with the Joneses,” but on closer examination seem lacking. Does he really think that people try to spell correctly so that others will know that they haven’t been doing anything productive with their time? I refuse to believe the story of the French king who let himself be burned to death rather than move himself unless Veblen at least provides me with a name. There are no citations or specific references of any kind!
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Introduction and Part I, Sections A-C: So far, I’m actually enjoying this book. Freud relates a number of fascinating anecdotes, such as the one about the scientist who dreamed a plant name he didn’t consciously know and then found a book years later in which he had written the name. Even more interesting was the one about the man who dreamed an entire sequence of events leading up to his own guillotining, and then awoke to find that the headboard on his bed had fallen and struck his cervical vertebrae.
6. The Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, Third Part, Sections I-II: “Our objectively appointed end and so our ethical duty is to enter the married state.” I’ve never heard it put quite that way before, but there’s a certain logic to it, I suppose. Then there’s this: “The family, as person, has its real external existence in property; and it is only when this property takes the form of capital that it becomes the embodiment of the substantial personality of the family.” Bill Bonner, call your office.

Suddenly we have 80-degree weather here in Alabama. The season’s nice cool weather is probably gone for good. That means air conditioning and higher electric bills, but maybe also some outdoor reading when there’s a good breeze. Have you blocked off some time on your calendar for reading this week? Do it now!

What is “The Great Refusal”?

With all the comparisons between Popes Benedict XVI and Celestine V that have been floating around recently, I couldn’t help but take special note of a particular passage from Dante’s “Inferno,” which I’m reading this week as part of my Great Books Project.

In Canto III, Virgil leads Dante through the gates of hell. Immediately Dante notices a large group of people wailing in various languages. When he asks who they are, Virgil replies,

Such is the miserable condition of the sorry souls who lived without infamy and without praise. They are mingled with that base band of angels who were neither rebellious nor faithful to God, but stood apart. The heavens drive them out, so as not to be less beautiful; and deep Hell does not receive them, lest the wicked have some glory over them. . . . These have no hope of death, and their blind life is so abject that they are envious of every other lot. The world does not suffer that report of them shall live. Mercy and justice disdain them. Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass on.

Dante continues to look at the huge procession of people. He claims to recognize some of them, and then he writes, “I saw and knew the shade of him who from cowardice made the great refusal.“

What does this have to do with popes? Dante does not give any further explanation in the text, but a footnote explains that early commentators all identified this character as Celestine V! If that’s true, then Dante and his contemporaries viewed “the pope who quit” as a big chicken who deserved to remain nameless throughout history. That’s quite a contrast to the modern authors who tend to laud him as being someone too pure for the corrupt church of his time or something of that sort.

Time Preference and Interest

Week 7 of the Mises Institute’s Home Study Course in Austrian Economics includes one audio lecture and three book chapters dealing with time preference and interest.

1. “Time Preference and Interest” by Jeffrey Herbener: This lecture has a good summary of Ludwig von Mises’s rebuttals to the detractors of the idea of time preference, supplemented by Herbener’s own illustrations of objections he has encountered in his university classes. I also like the illustration here of how originary interest comprises part of the entrepreneur’s gross profit.
2. “Frank A. Fetter: Forgotten Giant” by Jeffrey Herbener (Ch. 9 of Randall Holcombe, ed., Fifteen Great Austrian Economists): Before reading this chapter, I knew practically nothing about Frank Fetter, having never read any of his work. He wrote a treatise in 1904 demonstrating that time preference is the source of interest rates, not the productivity of capital. Herbener writes that Fetter’s work on capital and interest as never been surpassed. A couple of other things jumped out at me here. First, Fetter understood that man’s wants are not limited to narrow self-interest or material desires, but include social and spiritual desires as well, and that economics can say something about that. Second, Fetter understood that labor, like capital, is a heterogeneous resource; men differ in their capacities, and we should expect differing degrees of success having nothing to do with exploitation among workers. This probably isn’t news to anyone today, but plenty of 19th- and early 20th-centuries socialists disagreed.
3. “As Time Goes By: On the Factor of Time in Human Action” (Ch. 3 of Gene Callahan, Economics for Real People): I really liked a couple of paragraphs in this chapter where Callahan rhetorically asks why, if everyone knows that savings is the road to wealth, people don’t live at a bare subsistence level in order to maximize savings. He answers his own question this way: “There would be something very curious about a world in which people worked hard so that they could save for future consumption–yet never engaged in that future consumption, because when that future arrived, they were saving for consumption in an even more remote future.” We consume to alleviate present dissatisfaction, but that’s also why we save; anticipation of future dissatisfaction is also a source of present dissatisfaction.
4. “Production in an Evenly Rotating Economy” (Ch. 6 of Thomas Taylor, An Introduction to Austrian Economics): The evenly rotating economy is an imaginary construct where there is no change in technology, resources, or preferences over time. Taylor shows that such a scenario, there would be no entrepreneurial profit, only profit deriving from interest. Capital goods would command equal prices across all possible lines of employment, and “the price of each product would (except for the interest factor)equal the summation of the marginal value products of its complementary factors of production.” Interest rates would also be uniform throughout the economy.

Allow me to remind you that Dr. Herbener teaches Austrian economics at Liberty Classroom. Please join the party over there!

Being an Emperor’s Heir is a Dangerous Job

While I wasn’t paying attention last week, we passed the 3,000-page mark in the Man and Society category of the Great Books Project. We should hit 13,000 pages overall in the next few weeks.

Here are the readings for the coming week:

1. The Divine Comedy: Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVII (GBWW Vol. 19, pp. 1-22)
2. “Against Epicurus” by Epictetus (GBWW Vol. 11, pp. 121; Book I Chapter 23 of the Discourses)
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book V-VI (GBWW Vol. 14, pp. 83-100)
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Chapters 2-3 (GBWW Vol. 57, pp. 9-29)
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Introduction and Part I, Sections A-C (GBWW Vol. 54, pp. 135-155; pp. 1-16 of the linked PDF)
6. The Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, Third Part, Sections I-II (GBWW Vol. 43, pp. 58-93)

To compensate for diving into Freud for the first time, I’ve also scheduled us to read the last of the five great epics of Western civilization over the next several weeks.

Here are some observations from last week’s readings:

1. Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello: This play is so clever in exploring the tension between “reality” (as represented by the characters’ story) and the requirements of representing reality on the stage. Then it gets all degraded with the pseudo-incest stuff. I’m not clear on what place the gunshot and death at then end has in connection to what has gone before, though. 
2. “On Precognitions” by Epictetus: I’ve normally thought of precognition as a kind of foresight, but Epictetus appears to be using it in the sense of a “conception of the good,” or at least a judgment about which action will lead to the best outcome. Epictetus, not surprisingly, advises focusing on what we can control, i.e. the inner life. 
3. The Annals of Tacitus, Book IV: Tacitus writes that this is when Tiberius becomes a tyrant, and that it’s because of Sejanus. However, Sejanus’s plot hasn’t been fully realized yet, so I assume Tacitus that it’s Sejanus’s malign influences on Tiberius he’s talking about. The poisoning of Drusus is dealt with surprisingly quickly. I also found it noteworthy that Tacitus lingers over the court case of a son accusing his father. To Romans (as I suppose it should be to us) that is something monstrous.
4. The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Introduction: Veblen posits a contrast between “exploit” and “drudgery” in primitive society. The guys who go out and kill huge animals, fight other people, etc., have prestige and exercise power in the tribe. This includes priestly figures who, I guess, demonstrate their prowess with the unseen world. Those involved in industry, such as growing crops, are seen as inferior. An interesting idea, to be sure, but like Hobbes, Rousseau, and the rest, Veblen is speculating, not demonstrating.
5. On Floating Bodies by Archimedes: Amazingly, Archimedes can tell us what solid bodies floating in liquid will do without ever actually looking at one. As far as I can tell, the math works, even though I started getting lost in the second half. 
6. The Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel, Second Part: Apparently Hegel, like William James, thinks that intention is the judge of our actions. That puts him in tension with W.K. Clifford and some of the other authors in the Great Books corpus, to say nothing of Thomas Sowell, every Austrian economist, etc. I noticed that Hegel also defines action differently from the Austrians, as the “externalization of the will,” something which requires an external environment. In other words, something like reflection would not qualify as action for Hegel.

We’re now 27 months into this project. Can you believe it? I find it amusing that I recently got a comment on my original “Master Plan” post to the effect that I’d give up on this the first year. Yet here we are.