Books are Good

One interesting observation that I have made over the course of my time at Baylor, is the extent to which being well read is becoming less and less valued. What is being well read? It is not necessarily reading extensively, nor being up to date on all the New York Times Best-Sellers. More nearly, it is having read the classics – not only fiction, but classic philosophy, mythology, important scientific works, etc. Why would anyone want to be well read? Well it seems to me that there are all kinds of references that are thrown around everyday that are throwbacks to these classics. Having read these texts allows us to better appreciate conversation and references in everyday reading.

A much more important point and a better reason to be well read is the extent to which these classics tell us something about ourselves and human nature. After all that is really why these books are interesting and why we should want to invest so much time in reading them. In the end they are useful to us, not simply to help us make witticisms that go over most people’s heads, or to make ourselves sound more intelligent than we are, but more nearly as being informative and thought provoking. In reading these texts we see ourselves reflected back, and can identify with them. I am always amazed when I go to the bookstore at the end of the semester to sell back a few books, and see people returning classics. Granted, they may have other copies of their own but I take it most are simply returning the only copy they have ever, or will ever own - and for what? A few bucks to buy a sandwich or beer? What a waste! It’s one thing to sell back an expensive text book that will probably be obsolete in another year, but it is quite another to sell back something that is worth infinitely more than the bookstore is willing to give you for it. I don’t think people realize the true value of what they are often forced into buying by their professors of that elective class they had to take for some reason as part of their graduation requirements. Indeed, as that old adage goes, “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, but perhaps you can judge a person by the books they have in their library, if they have one at all…

Heresy among the ancients

For the majority of the past week I have been working on my senior thesis which deals with Nietzsche and Walter Kaufmann. While doing a bit of research I actually stumbled across a discussion of many of the ancient thinkers that we have covered heretofore in class. Kaufmann’s discussion is interesting insofar is it highlights an aspect of ancient thinking that perhaps has been glossed over, and which offers a unique characterization of what it means to do philosophy. Kaufmann’s contention is that these ancient thinkers were heretics. That is, their thinking “not only opposed the common sense of their time and some of the most revered names of the past but they did not presume to speak in the name of the Lord or to interpret correctly a previously misunderstood tradition. They pitted their own thinking against the religion and the poetry they knew. And by breaking the exegetic mode of thought and every other form of appeal to authority, they initiated philosophy.” The radical departure from the past that each of the ancient thinkers presents is in a sense very refreshing. It is extraordinarily unique and perhaps not the same kind of philosophy that is done today. In the case of the Milesians, how easy would it have been to reinterpret Thales, or Anaximander, in order to make Anaximenes point, rather than saying, “No, the arche is not water, but x substance.”

The point at issue is the extent to which each philosopher saw himself as breaking from tradition and contemporary thinking. It seems too often we revere tradition or authority to the extent that we see our ideas not in their own terms, but in terms of the tradition. We are afraid to break with established claims and hence hedge our ideas on reinterpretation or exegetical philosophizing. True philosophy begins when we can clearly state our ideas, differentiate ourselves from tradition, and not second guess ourselves when we find that we are in opposition to tradition or contemporary authority. To do philosophy, we cannot be unsettled to find that we are heretics.