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Tag Archives: knowledge

Confucius, What Would Be Your Top Priority as a Ruler?

07 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Philosophy, Political Philosophy

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Confucius, friendship, Government, knowledge, Lunyu, Philosophy, political philosophy, Ren, The Analects, virtue, Wisdom

Confucius

“Confucius said, ‘If you put the honest in positions of power and discard the dishonest, you will force the dishonest to become honest.’

Zi Lu asked about how to govern. Confucius said, ‘Lead the people and work hard for them.’

‘Is there anything else?’

‘Do not be easily discouraged.’

Zhong Gong, currently serving as chief minister to the head of the Chi family, asked about government.

Confucius said, ‘First get some officers; then grant pardon to all the petty offenses and then put virtuous and able men into positions of responsibility.’

Zi Lu said: ‘The ruler of Wei is anticipating your assistance in the administration of his state. What will be your top priority?’

Confucius said, ‘There must be a correction of his language.’

Zi Lu said, ‘Are you serious? Why is this so important?’

Confucius said, ‘You are really simple, aren’t you? A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows cautious reserve.’

‘If language is not corrected, then what is said cannot be followed. If what is said cannot be followed, then work cannot be accomplished. If work cannot be accomplished, then ritual and properties cannot be developed. If ritual and properties cannot be developed, then criminal punishments will not be appropriate. If criminal punishments are not appropriate, the people cannot make a move. Therefore, the noble man needs to have his terminology applicable to real language, and his speech must accord with his actions. The speech of the noble man cannot be indefinite.'”

__________

From parts 12 and 13 of the Analects of Confucius. (There are full versions of the text all over the internet — a good one is here.)

At the end of Book 12, as Confucius discusses friendship with his devotees, the following exchange occurs:

Fan Chi asked about the meaning of ren (Confucian virtue denoting the positive feeling a virtuous person experiences when being altruistic).

Confucius said “love others.” He asked about the meaning of “knowledge.”

The Master said, “Know others.” Fan Chi couldn’t get it.

Zi Gong asked about the way of friendship. Confucius said, “Speak to your friends honestly, and skillfully show them the right path. If you cannot, then stop. Don’t humiliate yourself.”

Which brings up some related reflections:

  • Socrates explains the significance of friendship
  • Epictetus summarizes his path to self-improvement

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Partying with the Greeks

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in History

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Ancient Greece, Archilochus, Greece, Greeks, Homer, jokes, knowledge, merriment, parties, poetry, Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, sobriety, society, Song, symposia, Thomas Cahill, Wisdom

Greek Symposia

“Banquets of like-minded friends were called symposia. (The singular, symposium—the Greek original is symposion—means ‘a drinking together,’ that is, a drinking party.)…

There was plenty of tension in Greek life, since the Greeks, however many parties they threw, became as time went on even more bellicose than they had been in Homer’s day. These symposia may have been, as much as anything, occasions to release the pent-up anxieties of a society always at war—’the father of all, the king of all,’ ‘always existing by nature,’ as the Greek philosophers expressed it. Enough wine and one could forget about the war of the moment or, if not forget, reduce its importance at least temporarily. Thus this ditty attributed to Theognis, an early-sixth-century songwriter of airy facility who believed in good breeding, great parties, and lively romance, the Cole Porter of ancient Greece:

Strike the sacred strings and let us drink,
and so disport ourselves ’mid sounding reeds
that our libations gratify the gods—
and who gives a shit about war with the Medes

But as tends to be the case when drunkenness substitutes for thoughtfulness, the hilarity often ended badly… There’s sadness beneath the merriment. It is as if, no matter how much these revelers sing, dance, howl, recite their jokes, and screw one another, a constant, authoritative note of pessimistic pain sounds beyond all their frantic attempts not to hear it. Even Archilochus, a sensational athlete in his time and a master of the revels if ever there was one, cannot deny that none of these nighttime activities makes good sense. In his most thoughtful lines, he seems to remove the mask, denuding himself of his gruff and rollicking persona, and to counsel himself in the clear light of day not to excess but to sobriety—to balance, modesty, and even resignation:

O heart, my heart, no public leaping when you win;
no solitude nor weeping when you fail to prove.
Rejoice at simple things; and be but vexed by sin
and evil slightly. Know the tides through which we move.

The last sentence is quietly ominous. The tides through which we move—the highs and the lows, the peaks and the troughs—tell us repeatedly that nothing lasts… Let us temper our excitement and agitation, whether for the ecstasy of battle or the ecstasy of sex, whether over great achievement or great loss, and admit to ourselves that all things have their moment… If we live according to this sober knowledge, we will live as well as we can.”

Archilochus

__________

From the closing of chapter 3 of Thomas Cahill’s Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter.

I wrote some comments about the above bust of Archilochus in a post yesterday. Check it out, as well as the sources (brought to my attention by Ted Rey) of the lines from Archilochus cited above.

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Being Friends with Socrates

05 Thursday Sep 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Philosophy

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Amy Bonnette, Cornell West, friendship, General Philosophy, Jesus, Jesus Christ, knowledge, Memorabilia, reading, Socrates, understanding, wealth, Wisdom, Writing, Xenophon

Socrates

“Antiphon once said to Socrates in a conversation: ‘Socrates, I, for my part, hold that you are just, but not in any way wise. And in my opinion you even recognize this yourself. At any rate, you demand no money in exchange for associating with you. And yet if you thought that your cloak or your house or any other of your possessions were worth money, you would not only not give it to anyone for free, but you wouldn’t even take less for it than it is worth.

‘Surely it is clear that if you thought as well that associating with you were worth anything, you would exact no less money for this too than it is worth. Just, then, you may be, in that you do not deceive on account of greed, but not wise, since what you understand is worthless.’

And Socrates replied to this: ‘Antiphon, among us it is held that youthful bloom and wisdom are nobly bestowed, or shamefully bestowed, in like fashion. For if someone wishes to sell his youthful bloom for money to whoever wishes it, they call him a prostitute; but if someone makes a friend of one whom he recognizes to be a lover who is both noble and good, we hold that he is moderate. Similarly, those also who sell wisdom for money to whoever wishes it they call sophists just as it they were prostitutes; but we hold that whoever makes a friend by teaching whatever good he possesses to someone he recognizes as having a good nature – this one does what benefits a gentlemanly (noble and good) citizen.

Accordingly, Antiphon, just as another is pleased by a good horse or a dog or a bird, so I myself am even more pleased by good friends, and if I possess something good I teach it, and I introduce them to others from whom, I believe, they will receive some benefit with a view to virtue. And reading collectively with my friends, I go through the treasures of the wise men of old which they wrote and left behind in their books; and if we see something good, we pick it out; and we hold that it is a great gain if we become friends with one another.’

When I heard these things, I formed the opinion that Socrates himself was blessed and that he led those who heard him to nobility and goodness.

And again Antiphon once questioned him about how he could believe that he made others fit for political affairs, since he himself did not engage in political affairs. Socrates said, ‘In which case, Antiphon, would I more engage in political affairs, if I engaged in them by myself, or if I should attend to there being as many as possible competent to engage in them?’”

__________

From Book I, Chapter VI of Xenophon’s Memorabilia (Amy Bonnette’s translation).

Like Jesus of Nazareth, Socrates never wrote a book. We know his words through the conversations and monologues that his acolytes recorded.

Cornell West was once asked what question of history most sparked his imagination. His answer: “I sometimes wonder why Jesus never laughed and Socrates never cried.”

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Bertrand Russell: Why I Lived

15 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by jrbenjamin in Biography, Philosophy

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Bertrand Russell, knowledge, Life, Love, memoir, pity

NPG x14654; Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell by Howard Coster

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy — ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness — that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what — at last — I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.”

__________

Bertrand Russell, writing in the prologue to his autobiography.

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