Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
55. Poetry, Scripture, and Wonder: Philomuthos vs. Philosopher, and the Historian's View
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/055-poetry-scripture-and-wonder-philomuthos-vs-philosopher-and/

[0:00] So, just wondering. I know at the University of Dallas, a lot of people want to say that that poetry is wisdom. That the wisest men are poets, perhaps based in part upon this likeness between the the wise man and the Philomuthos. But most of Aristotle's is talking there not about the poet but the Philomuthos, right? Right. And and perhaps the poet himself could be a Philomuthos to some extent, right?

[0:39] But the poet is named from the Greek word for maker, right? And the poet is named by by Antonomasia, the maker. And Plato in the Symposium, I think it is, which is about love, right? Symposium. And you know, sometimes we use the word "lover" by Antonomasia for the romantic lover, you see. So you probably wouldn't call a philosopher a lover, although he's a lover of wisdom, right?

[1:14] And Plato's trying to explain that use of the word "lover" and he compares it to what, to a Greek, would be more known, that the word "poeta. "

[1:25] You're giving the the name of the what hole to the part. He says, "But the universal hole of the part. " That's the example, really, kind of like Antonomasia. So in Greek society, there are all kinds of makers, huh? But the most wonderful maker is the what is Homer, right? So he's called the maker, the maker. And the romantic lover stands out by his absurd behavior, right, and activity, right.

[1:56] Usual one, like Romeo, there closing the shutters, you know, and staying in the dark room, you know, and his father's so worried about him. He stands out by his strange behavior, you know, and not dressing properly and all kinds of things. So he gets the name. So the name "lover" is given to him by Antonomasia. It's called the lover, and

[2:21] so I mean, don't identify the poet, the maker, right, with the Philomuthos. Now the poet may be a Philomuthos, but he's not. Called a poet because of the Philotheus, he's called the poet or the maker because he makes these wonderful fictions.

[2:46] Why? Why the Greeks regard that as the, you know, among all the things you make, is a question you can examine, but you know, you can't simply confuse those two. Even the Philotheus, yeah, yeah, and even the Philotheus, you're saying you know talking about the poet, the philosopher, this text, right? It's not exactly the same thing. I'm just saying, based on this similarity, some people. Yeah, yeah, but here Aristotle is not giving a similarity between the poet and the philosopher, but between the Philotheus and the philosopher, and he's he's saying that the Philotheus is a philosopher, which is like saying, he's not simply a philosopher, but he's not he's he's not simply therefore a philosopher, but in some imperfect way, he has something of the

[3:41] philosopher, right? And what he points out here is that the aspect of wonder, right? But even the wonder of the Philotheus is not the wonder of the philosopher; it's a stepping stone to that, it's a preparation for it. Thomas talks about the

[4:01] theologizantes poetae Yeah, yeah, says that Perseus and the seven wise men. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have to look at at what Shakespeare says about the poet.

[4:21] You see the difference. What's interesting? I have a question, though. When they when they speak about how the mystical, the mystical insights of the the great mystics were, you know, those mystics attained a wisdom that surpasses any other, and yet when you read their texts, like when you read St. John the Cross or St. Teresa of Avila, they say that the only way that they can even begin to imperfectly express the their intimate knowledge of God, which is derived from their union with God, is through the use of metaphor.

[4:58] Well, there's there's two things to be said there, though. One is going back to Aristotle. He says God alone, right, should be said to be wise, or God most of all, right. So, if one could partake of God's own wisdom, right, then one would have a wisdom, according to Aristotle's own statement there, higher than the wisdom of the fourteen books here, right? Okay.

[5:29] Now, did Aristotle know that God had spoken to us and so on, right? You know, certainly he didn't know Christ because Christ didn't even come come yet, and therefore in the Testament, as far as we know, I don't know any evidence he knew the Hebrew scriptures, right? You know,

[5:52] okay. But now, if you look at the the sentences where Thomas is doing something analogous, like the first question of the Summa, you know, his interesting article, and it says whether the modus, right, the way of proceeding of Scripture, the second Scripture, is

[6:20] artful. I think the Latin was artificiosus, right? That wouldn't translate that artificial, because of the majority sense of artificial. No, he says the article is on the modus of Scripture, but more precisely, the article is whether the modus, the way of proceeding of Scripture, is artful.

[6:46] And you can see the influence of Aristotle when he the way he asks the question, right? What does it mean to ask before you try to answer it? What does it mean to ask whether the method, if you want to put it that way, the modus of sacred Scripture is artful? What does that mean?

[7:21] No. What? Orderly. Well, that might be involved, but if you go back to Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle talks about how to proceed in ethics and so on, and he gives, in a sense, the same principle we saw in the second book of Wisdom, and to some extent, he's more what expansive, right? The kind of paradox there, right?

[7:50] And when when the way this the De Trinitate talks about you know this, he refers to the Ethics, right, not to the to the second book, and it's because Aristotle's more explicit there, right? And Aristotle makes this beautiful comparison to the arts and even to the mechanical arts, right, where you have to understand the matter you're you're going to work with, right, and you have to find the tools and the ways of working that matter that fit that matter, right.

[8:27] So, at least what Thomas means, right, is the way of proceeding of sacred Scripture. Does it fit the what, the matter of sacred scripture? Okay, and then you could take again what the great Boethius says. You know that it has to fit the matter and how we are to the matter, right? Okay,

[8:53] and then he begins to show and give reasons why the way sacred scripture proceeds is artful, right? But also why it proceeds in more than one way, okay?

[9:12] And that's really a beautiful text. Now, at the beginning of the commentary on the Psalms, you have a little bit of this because Thomas there touches upon the fact that he talks about the other book that different books of Scripture proceed in different ways, and that the Psalms proceeds, you know, orativus and laudativus, right, prayerful and praising, right. But but he doesn't go into everything goes into in the sentences.

[9:49] So he gives the reasons there why sometimes Scripture proceeds in a prayerful way, right? Because the beginnings of this knowledge are from God, right? And therefore, we have to receive them by prayer, right? Okay. But he also gives the reason why sometimes Scripture proceeds by way of metaphor and parables, right? Why it sometimes proceeds by way of argument, right? And sometimes why it proceeds by way of command and so on, right?

[10:31] But he breaks this down. I'm going to kind of give a oral exposition to what Thomas does there. And but Thomas would take the Epistles of Saint Paul, right, and the Book of Job proceeding, you know, modus disputativus, you know, and or modus argumentativus, right? Okay. But a book like say the Song of Songs proceeds in a quite different way, right? And there's a reason why you have both books in Scripture, right?

[11:06] Okay. Well, now if you look at the Summa Theologiae, Thomas has an article there. You may remember whether it's argumentativus, right? Okay. And though he does have an article about metaphors and so on, in the Summa Theologiae he's going to proceed what in the modus argumentativus, right? So he's imitating one of the modes of sacred Scripture, right? Okay. Just like, you know, Christ of course combines all these modes, okay.

[11:44] So when he's asking the Pharisees, what do you think about this Christ whose son is he, You know, and so on. He's proceeding a little bit like Socrates, right? He's seeing modus disputativus, huh? But then when he teaches the Our Father, you know, it's a different way, right? And so on. But in the other books of Scripture, you tend to have one more dominant than the other, right?

[12:06] And so the way in which John the Cross proceeds in these what they call poems, right? But they aren't really poems in the in the sense of the poet. Is is like the way that the Song of Songs proceeds, seems to most like that, huh? And the reason why we proceed in that way in the Song of Songs, and there's a reason why we proceed in a different way in the others.

[12:35] So you can't say that that you should proceed in the way you proceed in the Song of Songs only, or you should proceed in the way you proceed in the Epistle of St. Paul, you know. Of course, when Thomas lays out the Epistle of Saint Paul, you know, I mean there are syllogisms in there, you know. I say so. He is. He's right, you know. But I didn't see that, you know.

[12:57] And you realize argumentative Saint Paul is, huh? And not entirely argumentative, I mean, compared to other books of Scripture, right? And that's probably why the Dominicans are so much. in. This is the same fall, you know. But but the Song, of Songs, and the Psalms, they proceed in two different ways. When you say that the writings of Saint John and the Cross are not poetry, I guess there's kind of a confusion, general confusion about that, because the greatest poets of the Spanish language who came after Saint John the Cross all all praise them.

[13:33] Yeah, they may be confused about that. But what do you mean by a poem, see? I'm trying to. Doesn't Saint John the Cross refer to his poetry as poems? Well, I think they might do that. Yeah. I mean, is it a poem in the way the the Iliad is a poem? No, it's really not. See, is it basically he's trying to make an imitation or a likeness that he's trying to do?

[13:57] Basically. Does it go back to what you were saying the other day that that in poetry, the poetry of say Homer is raising words below? That's part of it, you see, because you see, some people call poem anything that has meter and rhyme, right? Okay. Well then you have to classify the adorote devotee, right, as a poem, right? Okay. But is the adorote devotee a poem? What?

[14:27] Well, it's basically a prayer, right? It's a prayer in meter, right? I guess so. It's a prayer that has you know rhyme and so on. Naming it from its purpose, right? Yeah, yeah. And Aristotle in the book on the Poetic Art, there he compares Empedocles, who wrote in verse, right, with the poets, right. And you shouldn't classify Empedocles as a poet, see, because he he's philosophizing, even though he's putting his things into into meter and maybe rhyme.

[15:09] I don't know what the rhyme was. Assume was meter, right? Should we classify Dante not as a poet or rather as a theologian? Well, he's a little, you know, he's got some problems there, right? Some problems about classifying him, right? You know, and I think you should do that for later, you know, problem of Dante. But

[15:33] so, somebody asked me, "What is the Adoro te devote? " It's not an imitation, right? A Shakespearean sonnet, I define as a likeness of thought and feeling, right, in fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, divided into three quatrains, the alternating rhyme, and repeated by rhyming couplets. That's the definition, right? No, whatever. You know, I'm kind of stupid there in Latin. So, but it seems that the adorote devotee is written in a meter, right?

[16:07] And sometimes they call it in the Latin the rhythmus. As Thomas said, there is a rhythm there, and there's, and you know the rhyming that goes on there, right? In the each quatrain, there's a number of quatrains, right? But is that a likeness of thought and feeling? No, it's a prayer, basically a prayer. And so, I don't think it's particularly helpful to call the adorote devotee a poem, if by poem you mean an imitation or likeness.

[16:37] Thomas is not composing an imitation or likeness there, like Shakespeare is in the sonnets. He's composing a prayer. And I've heard it said, I don't know, that the Our Father, you know, when it was in Aramaic, it had a a rhythm, you know, or a meter or something. And but Our Lord was not giving them a likeness of thought and feeling, or like the sonnets of Shakespeare.

[17:06] He was giving them a prayer, right? Classified as a prayer. In the same way, the Psalms, although they might have in the in the original language, like the adorote devotee, they might have had a rhythm, right? Or I don't know what else. They're not poems; they're prayers, basically, right? And of course, some of them are, you know, are maybe a little prophetic, right? And and some are historical, but but mainly it's in the manner of a prayer, right?

[17:40] What did Thomas say? So, hymns would be classified as prayers that have rhythm and rhyme for the sake of song, or to be sung. Well, again, yeah, they had something—the music. They obviously had something to it, but but

[17:58] you listen to the nuns up here in the choir and so on, and you listen to the words and so on, and the music concentrates on the words. We said the music is all together being sermon.

[18:12] You ask me what the nuns doing up there? They're imitating. No, as far as I can see, they're praying and praising, and praying, praising. You know, they're proceeding in the way that Thomas says the Psalms proceed, ornatibus and nautibus, and maybe the Psalms originally, right had some kind of rhythm and things of that sort, some kind of meter, but still, the one saying or singing the Psalms would be what, essentially praying and praising.

[18:52] Even he's praying and praising in meter, right? I use that prayer, the adorote devotee, and the other prayers I use that are not in meter, right? I don't think. Oh, now I'm turning to poetry, and I go, no, no, this this is another prayer, but it happens to be in what meter and in some rhythm, and therefore it's. You know, it's easier to use, maybe you know, than something that isn't meter because we naturally like meter and rhyme.

[19:23] Yeah, yeah. But coming back to your question, though, you know, you know about the the likeness or difference between the poet, the Philomythos, and the philosopher. But it's a little different question to ask. You know, is the Philomythos like a philosopher? But yes, but how does he differ from the philosopher? Right. That's another question to ask. Is the poet the same as the Philomythos? Right. Well, when I read Homer, I would say I'm a Philomuthas, right?

[20:06] He's an imitator of wonders. Yeah, there are wonderful things in the Iliad, right? Odyssey, and so on. And but I don't think I'm a poet when I read Homer, right? I've been inspired a bit to be a little poetical, so.

[20:23] When I read Shakespeare, I don't think I'm a dramatist or a playwright. But I think my my excessive devotion to Shakespeare satisfies me as a Philomythos, right?

[20:39] So I think you have to divide the questions there. So the lover of myth versus the maker of myth. Yeah. The lover of plays versus the composer. Or you could say the the lover of music versus the composer of music, but I think it's far more evident

[21:05] that the one who who makes music must be the lover of music even more. Mozart was probably a greater lover of music than than. It could be, yeah, yeah, but they still say, you know, his being a lover of music is not the same as him being a musician, right? He's a musician because he can make these things, as he said, like a cow pedals, you know, as he said.

[21:32] And of course, you know, we have some times when Mozart was by necessity forced to write some things he didn't want to write, you know, but the music's some horrible things, anyway. But

[21:48] these are two different things, right? So poet doesn't mean a lover of of myth, even if he does love it. He means he's a maker of these things.

[22:04] Another thing that people say is that, I mean, they I guess they fail to make a distinction and they say that philosophy ending in wonder, and they look. They look at many philosophers and many students of philosophy, and they see that there's a lack of wonder. That many people who pursue philosophy lose their wonder. Yeah, about the world, and they say that the poet and the lover of poetry

[22:34] feed that wonder and nourish that wonder, so that there's something more, more, more like wisdom in poetry. For that reason. Well, I see what you're doing. There's mixing up some things. I was quoting. Yeah, I know. I was quoting Albert the Great there, right? He says that poetry, meaning that poetry, something like Homer, they do motum admirandi gives us the way of wonder, right? Okay. And so it gives us, but to be say more precisely, it gives us the wonder of the philomythos, which is not the wonder of the philosopher, but it's a stepping stone to it, right?

[23:16] Okay. That doesn't make the man who makes something that arouses the wonder of the philomythos from that fact makes him what the philosopher, right? Wonder is the beginning of philosophy, right? As far as those philosophers who don't wonder, they're not really philosophers in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle use the word philosopher, because Socrates, if you look at the text in the Theaetetus, he's very clear: there is no other beginning of philosophy than wonder.

[23:49] That's it. You don't have the wonder, you're not a philosopher. It's the end of it. And so. That's for the beginner, right? Once something is acquired. Well, yeah, you could make some distinctions there, yeah, but there's no there's no beginning of philosophy other than wonder. This is they don't even qualify, right? And you say it is. You know, many senses of beginning there in the fifth book, right?

[24:14] And even the you know the axioms or the principles of science are beginnings of that science, right? But he seems to say wonder is the beginning. It looks like Monsignor Dionne, right? Because the wonder has to come first, and so if a man doesn't have the wonder, he he he would never become a philosopher, really. Monsignor Dionne said, you know, teaching without wonder is nothing. But since we never comprehend God, I mean, it seems like I mean wonder is always going to be it, right?

[24:47] We never we never fully comprehend the mystery of. But the wonder Aristotle has at the end, once he's come to know God, so far as reason can come to know him, right? Is a wonder that proceeds from not ignorance, right, of God, but from the excellence of God. God is. So what Cardinal Newman, that beautiful prayer where he speaks about. The beatific vision—how how we will go from wonder to wonder and mystery to mystery—that would that would speak what you're speaking of now.

[25:20] This, yeah, yeah. If you want to look at the, I don't think Aristotle is contradicting himself when it the. So those are two different senses of the word wonder. Yeah. Because they are said with a different ratio to the same thing. No, because the one is the beginning of philosophy, proceeds because you think yourself ignorant, right, of what the cause is. Because you don't know the cause. But the wonder that he has here.

[25:54] You do know the cause, and there's a wonder. Yeah, it's in in the eighth reading of the of book Lambda there, cross book. But I mean, in both cases, it's said with a different cause, right? Yeah, but he says he's getting to talk about God. There, he says around nine twenty-four. Lambda. Yeah. ten seventy-two B. twenty-four.

[26:23] It's just been talking about about God, right? So what was what line was it again? It's line line twenty-four, ten seventy-two B, line twenty-four. It's in the eighth reading. If we have.

[26:44] He just got to considering, showing the kind of knowing God has, right? He says, "If then, right, hous ho theos, thus he has himself well, as we only sometimes, huh? Now we only sometimes understanding wonderful things, right? But God, Huthias, he's always understanding, right? Wonderful things, himself, right? Then it's thaumaston, right? This is wonderful, you see. He's he's seeing that's arising from his seeing that the best state that we're ever in, we're understanding something wonderful, right?

[27:26] Something good. God is always in that state, right? That's that's he marvels, right? thaumaston right? And ei de mallon, if he's understanding always better than we ever understand, huh? Eti even further, thaumasioteron it's even more wonderful. He says, right, right. Okay. But he has himself thus, and then he says, and life then belongs to him, for the act of the mind new is life, and this is act,

[28:05] because later on he looked a little bit later that so that life Zoe, huh? Line nine twenty-nine, and eternal, and so belongs to God, and then he says what? Not only not only does it belong to God, but touto gar ho theos. That's what God is. Not only does life belong to God, but God is life. You know, but what I want to refer you to was was one of above, the the.

[28:31] where Aristotle he finds it thaumaston wonderful, that the most wonderful moment in our life, right, when understanding something beautiful, right, but we're rarely in that because we're so enslaved to all these things, right. The most wonderful moment in our life, God has that always, right? That's wonderful, right? See, and then if He has always what we rarely have, but has it, you know, much more than we have it, right?

[29:06] It's even more wonderful, right? So it's proceeding from a certain knowledge of how wonderful, how excellent that is, huh? Would you say that wonder is still based on not seeing what God is? That is, you see. that... Well, maybe a little bit of it. but I don't think you should confuse it with the one that is the beginning of philosophy, where you don't know what the first cause is, And when we get into the questions of the third book, right?

[29:33] All these questions about the first cause and what it is, right, and questions about causes. Does God wonder in that second sense? No, I said there may be an aspect of our not comprehending His excellence, right? But I'm saying the wonder that He has there is proceeding from His understanding or knowing that God always has what we rarely have, and better than we have it, even when we rarely have it, right?

[30:05] So in that case, if it's something that God doesn't have, what he'd say is that your knowing this enables you to wonder at something you couldn't wonder at otherwise.

[30:19] Yeah, but it's proceeding from his his knowing God in some way, right? This wonder, see. Why the wonder is the beginning of philosophy. doesn't proceed from your knowing the cause, but for your recognizing your ignorance of the cause and your wanting to know the cause. So that wonder, that wonder, that wonder diminishes. This wonder could grow the more you see God, right? The more you understand God, then you can see.

[30:46] So what's common to them is knowledge of what's common. Then that there's some lack of knowledge. You quite use the word wonder in both cases. Well, it may be equivocal by reason, huh? Sure, but yeah, yeah. What's the reason? Well, it may be that there's that there's something above us, right? In both cases, right? Yes. Yeah, there may be something that effect done.

[31:18] It's a little bit like you know, I remember Father Boulay talking about that. you know, they carry the word fear over, you know, physical fear and all the way up to the, you know, the fear that those seeing God have, right? You know. The meaning of fear has changed a lot, right? You know, but it is still a kind of fear or awe when you see God as He is.

[31:45] So it's not as if Aristotle's some clod, you know, that he doesn't have a certain kind of wonder when he when he when he considers God, but it's a different kind of wonder than was at the beginning of philosophy. As they say in English, these are not the best words, maybe for it, right? But curiosity, which, and Thomas will name the vice, right? But it's used commonly, right, by scientists and people for the wonder that gives rise to the investigation.

[32:18] And Max Born, a very great physicist in the twentieth century, says explicitly a very nice passage. You know, where he talks about the two aspects of science: the technical aspect and the desire to know, right, and each has their place, you know. But then he says,

[32:44] nothing great can be accomplished in science without the elementary curiosity of the philosopher. Well, there he's talking about curiosity, somewhat in the sense of the wonder that Aristotle says at the beginning of philosophy. He sees that right. He's not using curiosity there in the pejorative sense, okay?

[33:12] Horton, who was from Harvard, there. I have a copy of his talk, but it's in French because I picked up another in Quebec, you know. But I think it was on the tenth anniversary of Einstein's death. There is a symposium on what's still alive, and Einstein, and so on. And they've got just some of the famous scientists around the world to talk. So Heisenberg is a talk in there, and so on.

[33:38] But Horton was working on the on the letters of Einstein, you know, and kind of this sort of the talk to give there, and

[33:49] he's talking about the break, you know, between Einstein and what am I saying? Well, it was an earlier physicist who did a lot writing about science anyway, and they broke precisely on Einstein's desire to know the laws, right? You see, kind of the aspect of wonder, right? Now, so anyway, Max Born worked with Einstein in Berlin, and he worked with Heisenberg and Bohr and. He got the Nobel Prize himself, and so on.

[34:30] So he's kind of a good witness to this, right? He says nothing great can be accomplished in science without the elementary curiosity of the philosopher. Their curiosity is being used as something of a, of a what? Synonym, right? For wonder in the sense of what? The wonder is the beginning of philosophy, right? But then in that other passage I quoted, where I use the word admiration, admiration comes from the Latin word for wonder too, right?

[34:55] But we use in English the word admiration more, right? For something that proceeds not from ignorance, but from knowledge of the excellence of something. That's why I quoted the the praise of Sylvia, right? Who is Sylvia that our Swains do commend her on? Heaven lent her such graces that she might admired be, right? Okay. So when you admire somebody, you see something in them that's excellent, right?

[35:23] Worthy or beautiful, whatever it is. And so it proceeds from a kind of knowledge, right? That seems to me a somewhat different sense, right? Of wonder, okay. And so if you wanted to give, I would say these are the most perfect names. If you wanted to give a name, a different name to those two kinds of wonder to distinguish them, you might call one curiosity in English, you know, but be using more in a good sense, like with more, rather than Thomas's curiositas you know which names the vice and admiration, right?

[35:57] Okay. And and that's the distinction. So curiosity is naming more the wonder that is the beginning of philosophy. Admiration, right? It might be seem to be the word that Aristotle has here, but that proceeds from some kind of knowledge, right? Of the excellence of the thing. And and maybe you would use that word more when in your knowledge of the excellence of the thing you can't fully comprehend the excellence of the thing, right?

[36:38] There's some aspect of ignorance you want to say that, right? Which maybe you know lends itself for the use of the same word. But still fundamentally, it's not proceeding from ignorance of that thing, right? Because your ignorance of that thing, but first of all because of the excellence you see, greatness of this thing.

[37:01] When you were mentioning that poetry is. More like philosophy than history is. Aristotle said that, yeah. Right, about the singular. I was reminded of my principal, who's a historian, who's a fan of a certain Renaissance book, and. I don't remember his name now. Who places history at the top of all the liberal arts because it gives you the understanding of human nature and of all causes of things human.

[37:27] What would you put at top? History. Yeah. I just wonder how this. I mean, is is the induction of human nature through the particulars of history proper to history, or is that something else that something that the scientist does? You see, if you meet a pure historian, now it was first an assumption that we had a very good historian, D. Fee. This was pretty good. He's the guy who introduced me to McNeil's *The Rise of the West* and so on.

[37:58] And actually, his own copy was was, uh, one that his thesis director had given him as a personal gift. You know, a professor invites a student, right? So, kind of a gift that a professional historian gave to a historian. And he introduced me to this, so very, very good history. But D. Fee was a pure historian, right? Okay. And when the thing came up about historical parallels, you know, which would be the starting point for maybe seeing something more general than the singular, you know.

[38:31] And he said, "The purpose of history is not to point out historical parallels. " He said, "The purpose of history is to show the fallacy of all historical parallels. "

[38:46] Now, if that were the purpose of history, right? Then history would be showing the fallacy of trying to make any generalization from history, right? Now, maybe that's an exaggeration in part, but there is a lot of truth to the historian because

[39:14] the, as another historian said, history is always more complicated than we think. And the reason why history is called history is by antonomasia as Thomas explains, it's the nature of a history to be incomplete. And so, if history is always more complicated than we think, history is, by antonomasia something incomplete, and therefore it gets a good name, right? History. But um, it means basically investigation, right? Investigation is not complete.

[39:53] But the historian, knowing these things, knowing the complication, he sees the differences between the things that. we dimwits might say are parallel or are like right, and if you try to bring up with Dave Fahey, you know, two things being parallel. Oh no, they're all all kinds of differences. You know, as I can see, right? You know, but but but in a sense, it makes him a good pure historian because he's going to what?

[40:24] Not be superficial. He's going to you know, that's what pure historian is like, right? And it's kind of kind of funny, you know. Used to go out to eat dinner and myself and Dave Fahey, and the German professor was kind of an old guy, right? But kind of stubborn in some ways. And one time, you know, at a dinner, and he was stingy too, you know, and you know, kind of tight with his money, right?

[40:48] So one time at dinner, the the dates of Shakespeare, oh, it came up, right? And the German professor was maintaining the dates were this and Dave something else, right? But Dave had a phenomenal memory for dates. I guess the students used to try to catch him on a date but couldn't ever do so, you know. So Dave was getting a little bit, you know, impatient with this German professor maintaining this, right?

[41:15] So Dave said, "I'll bet you," you know. So they bet. Of course, Dave won, and the stingy German professor had to pay pay the money for the thing. So from then on, any time a date came up, Dave said, "I'll bet you," And right away he would accede to the authority of the German professor. It's kind of funny, but I mean, and then you get an idea, you know, how Dave was a pure historian and he knew these these dates and he knew these details and any parallel that I brought up, you know, I mean, he would shoot down with the details of the thing and show you know really and it was very superficial, like this I was saying.

[41:55] They're really very different. These things, you know, and and so on. So that was his principle, right? Purpose of history is not to bring together parallels that you can universalize or generalize or get something philosophic. You know, it's to show the fallacy of all those those things.

[42:14] And I think that's what the pure historian is like. He wants to see the uniqueness of this event or this period, right? And he doesn't have much patience with us, not sufficiently, you know, historical minds. You know, they're seeing these superficial and and essentially meaningless parallels that used to prop up our our pseudo science, right? Then, as the oft-repeated claim for history that we should study so we don't repeat our mistakes—a fallacy, also.

[42:49] Because what's what's the same about what we're about to do and what we have done if you appear history? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be a pure historian Yeah I mean, I mean, you know, and in other words, he said, "Well, you know. " We say all these things, you know, because they won't pay, us if we don't have something good. Dave's basic principle was: he says, if somebody wants to pay me for doing what I like to do, fine.

[43:19] So, someone wants to pay me for doing this work, research, and we have to give these, you know, pseudo reasons, right? You say, "you're gonna learn from the past, you're gonna, you know, have some knowledge of human things, you know, but that's just for public consumption, you know. " The inner, the inner side is, you know, there is none of that. That's all fallacy. It's like a camera.

[43:43] What? It's like a camera. No, but I mean, it's it's incredible. I wish I'd copied down this historian who said, you know, history is always more complicated than we think, huh? Because I used to talk in about the principle simplicity they call it sometimes in science, right? And Einstein and Heisenberg and all these guys speaking, this is extremely important in science, right? But I said, does that mean this would be a good principle everywhere, right?

[44:15] And when you get to human affairs, you know, I mean, Marx is simplifying things by reducing it to economic mode of production, but that's not a simplification, right? But if history is always more complicated than we think, right? Then the principle simplicity would be a very bad principle for the historian to work with, right? But apparently, it's it's very important for the great physicists. And none of these guys—Galileo, or Kepler, Newton—makes it a basic principle of all his work, right?

[44:46] And Galileo has it, Kepler has it, right? You find the great physicists like Einstein or Heisenberg or inculcate the principle, right? So I always would bring in this what the historian said, but I copied down who it was exactly where. but doesn't it. Show a sort of weakness in the mind that he can distinguish but can't see the same. Yeah, but you know, the the- the light, they can see the likeness there, but I mean, just you know, I mean, you know, there is a thousand elements in this and a thousand that maybe two or three are alike, but I mean, there's 999.

[45:21] Yeah, I mean, you know. Kind of fun to talk to these guys while you hear about a period, you know, and they go on, on, on in detail, you know, and his name is different and uh they pronounce in different languages. Yeah, yeah, it's more interesting, right? You know, I mean, you know, if you just see these superficial likenesses, you know, everything's the same, you know, you know, then you know, why study history, you know, It wasn't unique, right?

[45:48] It's the same thing again. I mean, why study it then? He doesn't like the proverb. there's nothing new under the sun. I suppose not. It's never the same. History never repeats itself, you know, that's a terrible thing to say. I suppose.

[46:06] And see, David's been gone for a long time, but finally got married. I didn't think he would. but he finally did, so. Also, one more question before I make my grand exit. I teach Homer. will be my second year teaching Homer. Yeah. I was just wondering if you had any principles of of why it's great and what I should kind of inculcate in my students somehow.

[46:32] Well, that is a vast subject. It is a vast subject. I'm about to go to church here. Oh, sorry. I have to come back tomorrow. Yeah. Aristotle is supposed to have written a work on Homer just for for um, uh, Alexander the Great, right? Which has been lost, and just you know do what you're asking me to do, but we'll have to find that work, you know, before.

[47:01] But I think I've got to go to church now. Come and excuse me.