Menger and Economics

I am beginning Carl Menger's Principles of Economics. This is the formative text of the Austrian School, and, I believe, the formative text of all logos-rooted economics. Menger's theory of utility and value, while still influential, have been overcome in the West by the doctrines of Keynes; specifically his General Theory. (that work I shall read, but only after finishing Principles, Human Action, Socialism, and Theory of Money and Credit) Menger roots his theories in Aristotle's reasoning that humans act towards their perceived happiness, and this principle is the only assumption that the Austrians make. Any theory of state, economics,or regulation is grounded ultimately in human action.

I personally love Menger's prose. He is clear, methodical, and precise. Everything comes under his grasp in his little book that shook the "classical" school to its roots. Ever after, however discredited his theories become, his and the Austrian's School remains in my opinion the only reasonable and consistent method of thought with respect to economics.

Too many people do not study economics and thus are easily seduced by the promises of the socialist state. Menger and Mises obliterate this state in their writings and lay out the case for laissez faire government, stronger than anything I've ever read. Their writings are the foremost reason I abandoned the conservative camp and joined the libertarians, at least in name. After coming to St. John's and reading The Republic and Thucydides, I became convinced that man's problem is moral, not political problem and thus cannot be solved by means of politics. Whether it is a socialist utopia or a free-market paradise man's problem - injustice - remains. Socialism is inefficient and ultimately totalitarian, but capitalism, when untempered by morality, will consume itself. Man's problem may be solved by Christ and his Church alone. Thus I will work to that end and abandon politics. In the meantime I will enjoy Menger, Mises, and Rothbard.

Bit Off More Than I Could Chew

You knew that already, of course. I tried to translate the book of Romans, read Thucydides, Aristotle, and Plato, but I only got through most of the Gorgias and part of De Anima. I will still work on the latter, but I'll try and read Thucydides over the fall semester, and I'm translating I Corinthians 13.

I must try harder to set attainable goals for myself - it's depressing to fail so often. But which is it - that I bit off more than I could chew or I'm just lazy?

Macdonald and Lewis

I finished all the Chesterton I'm likely to finish save for a few more pages in his Heretics. After that I really need to read his Orthodoxy, but you knew that already. Blake Edwards said that book nearly caused him to join the Roman Catholic Church (too bad it didn't fully accomplish that goal), so it's gotta be pretty good. I've read his Everlasting Man which I love greatly. His prose in general is like a good thick meal. It is rich prose, rich as plumcake. Yet its imagery is bold and riveting even when it seems opaque as mud.

I made the jump and purchased Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia the other month because I am nineteen and am required to own his septilogy. There is no excuse for a reader of my stature to be without such essential Lewis. His prose is very, very fine and he is a spectacular storyteller as well. The magic of The Horse and His Boy will never lose its charm for me, or The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I devoured most of the Chronicles in a few days and moved on to Lewis' inspiration: George Macdonald, who deserves a paragraph all to himself.

Now George Macdonald is a very different author than Lewis or Tolkien. He predated them, for one thing, but you wouldn't (at least I didn't) notice that too much. His prose is a bit more archaic and formal, most recognizable in his adult fiction and the Curdie books, but his writing...oh! his writing! He was an absolute master of the mythopoeic 'genre', or rather: he creates myth, much like the ancients created their myth. Now if anyone truly knows me, he would know that that is the highest compliment I can give a work of fiction, that it be mythlike in nature. Cut short, I believe that myths are one of God's way of revealing himself to his highest creation along with reason, the Greeks, and his own revelations. And Macdonald does this myth writing better than any man I have yet met; his dreamlike, wandering prose so affects me that I plunge into his books like none other. I devoured Lilith in only a few days and I'm absolutely tearing into Phantastes. And they are amazing to me. It's not so much the 'plot' (as a purely literary author, perhaps Macdonald is not even third best in my mind) as the sequence of events, the essence of any myth, not the words. To paraphrase Lewis, if the myth could be told in colors or images, it would hold every bit as much power.

There is my rambling about Macdonald. Now I really need to finish De Anima before I read it in seminar in the fall, and I would like to get through most of the Old Testament - I'm currently in I Samuel (and the 1611 KJV is a real treat, let me assure you). In other words, I have a lot to read, but at least I have time in which to read.

Wish me luck!

Summer Reading - Chesterton, Aristotle, and the Bible

Reading is ever so much fun when there's no schedule to follow - I can spend as long as I wish on one book and that is just fine. Most recently I have finished Chesterton's The Everlasting Man; a treatise on natural history and Christ's place and transforming thereof. You already know how much I love Chesterton's prose - it may well be the finest prose I have yet read in an original tongue. His rich imagery and ruthless logic coupled with his dry sarcastic wit (not to mention his Classical education) exalt him far above writers such as J.K. Rowling, Christopher Paolini, and even better writers such as Weis, Hickman, and Gamel, who are fine storytellers (except maybe for Paolini, for reading his work is like perusing a Warcraft game on paper) but not so fine writers. I read all the DragonLance books when I was younger and still enjoy most of what Weis & Hickman wrote themselves, but I can easily recognize that their writing as writing do not match up to the fantastics of Tolkien, Lewis, Heinlein, Herbert Verne, Wells, or Bradbury. They also are wonderful storytellers, especially Bradbury, but they are great writers as well; it is a pleasure to read their words in addition to admiring their story.

Good prose exalts the mind and benefits the soul. Reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is good for you in every sense of the word. Reading classical literature is good for the soul in addition to stimulating the mind and exposing it to high quality reading. Once you get into classical prose you will find works by authors such as those in the first list fun to read (Mom would call it chocolate for the brain but not good chocolate) but lacking the solidity and feel of good thick prose. When all is said and done, would you rather have DragonLance on your shelf or The Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter or Dune? I would of course prefer to read them all, for modern literature is easy. You can breeze right through it and read hundreds of pages in one sitting, whereas even The Hobbit is mildly dense though it is a children's book, and Chesterton and Lewis (especially their adult fiction) is thick and rich, preventing you from swallowing it whole.

The written word is capable of such beautiful, terrible power it is a shame to see us as a culture debasing it. Children do not read Tolkien - they read dumbed down version of Weis & Hickman, Harry Potter (whose volcabulary is roughly that of an eight year old), or Paolini. We need to read! We must read the great books of children's literature to prepare us for adult classics! It's terrible that adults do not read Plato, Aristotle, and Homer! It's terrible that teenagers go through adolescance without reading Austen, Tolkien, Lewis, or Bradbury! It's terrible that boys who watch Star Wars don't read Dune! We need to read!

On Reading Aristotle

Currently I am reading his Metaphysics. To put it bluntly, it's a bitch. It's every bit as hard as the Physics and then some. But we only have two seminars on it and I want both of them to count. This means I want to understand the readings as well as possible. They are rather short, which makes this possible, but very difficult, doubly so because I have not been doing this all along. But that is in the past and learning to read is what freshman year is all about at St. John's.

It basically means spending five or ten minutes on each page, going over the arguments again and again. Aristotle writes very elliptically and never minces words or repeats himself. If he says it once (women are inferior, Politics) he expects you to remember and rarely elaborates. Sometimes his work seems almost fragmentary in the sense of my wanting him to pursue the dialectic further. Since he doesn't do this, we are left with nothing but our wits to follow the Philosopher. I, the Philosoraptor, try to run down his road. But my problem is compounded by the arrangment of the readings. Because there is a severe lack of time in which to read everything we skip about 85% of the Metaphysics and read very small selections. But everything Aristotle says builds upon what he has said previously and without a foundation I personally am left with little recourse other than to a) puzzle out his arguments myself, b) take his word for it, c) read the Metaphysics in its entirety later, though when exactly I don't know.

Grumping aside, Metaphysics is a great read and will be an instrumental step in my learning to read all over again. I will add it to the (alarmingly growing) list of books I need to read ASAP: Gorgias, Peloponnesian War, Histories, Nicomachean Ethics, On the Soul, and Physics.

Ah me. Ever ambitious.

Breaking the Chain with Bad News

So I have broken my month-odd silence. For a while, I considered taking this blog down because it really wasn't performing any useful function and the questions I pose here tend to border on the absurd. Granted, what do you expect from a freshman Johnnie? Even so, I would prefer something more intelligent. And so I will begin posting again, but the posts may be different, they may not mark every book I read, and they may be few and far between. That's okay.

To begin, Annapolis doesn't read De Anima (the inspiration for all my side-blogs) sophmore year and this is driving me insane. How could the two programs of study be so different in that respect? They read Solon and Lycurgus and we don't. Big deal. But this is Aristotle we're talking about, and it's high-quality Aristotle! How could they not align the years better?

I'm not picky. I'd be cool reading De Anima this year. I'd also be down with reading it next year, but I want to read it in seminar sometime!

I will do what I can; I'll read it multiple times over the summer and very carefully too (this brings the number of books to read to four) in addition to Thucydides, Gorgias, and Nicomachean Ethics.

I have the Sachs translation which is very good, so I'm all set.

K. Time for some Physics reading. Toodles.

Mind Burst By Aristotle

I just read his Nicomachean Ethics in seminar and it blew my mind. It had the effect of exciting me because it's different (I was etting a little tired of Plato) but it also made me appreciate Plato so much more. I love the Platonic questioning. But Aristotle is not concerend with abstract absolutes - he wants to know how we can be made better people RIGHT NOW. That is what his Ethics is all about - he even gives us definitions of virtue and justice! Amazing.

The part where he analyzes what happens when humans act wrongly is what really burst my mind. I don't know what to think anymore except think that Socrates is wrong. Dead wrong.

Sorry this is so truncated - I have a lot on my mind and the Anime Club meets in five minutes. But before I leave I'll jot down some thought on my second semester seminar paper:

My choices are :
Human Nature in Thucydides
Justice in the Crito
Ethical Human Action: An Analysis of Aristotle's Praxeology.

I am pretty excited about either one of these, but choosing will be a bear. I will choose a topic and write a goodly amount over spring break, however. You can be sure about that.

Okay, time for some Haruhi. I'll write later. (I mean it this time)

Self-Justification, Temper, and Socratic Method in the Laches
Timothy Davis
Freshman Greek – Pagano
02.23.08

In the Laches, we are presented with a very clear demonstration of Socratic Method and instruction. Indeed, this is the major focus of the dialogue, for no answers are produced by its conclusion and the dialogue ends in more bafflement than it began. The only gain from the conversation directed by Socrates is that the characters and the reader will have discovered and become familiar with Socrates’ methods in pursuing an argument.
This, though, is only the first understanding of the dialogue. Beneath the arguments and definitions of courage, there is tension between two of the characters, Nicias and Laches, which shapes the inquiry of the dialogue and is the reason for the squabbling that occurs instead of joint effort into the argument.
The question posed by Socrates in the Laches is, “What is virtue?” and quickly becomes, at Socrates’ recommendation, “What is courage?” because “the inquiry will likely be easier for us.” (190c, Allen) This retreat towards courage from the larger issue of virtue is in direct opposition to the Meno, where Socrates rejects Meno’s examples of virtues and forces him to consider virtue as a whole, and gives evidence that Socrates is engaged in a demonstration of the proper method by which to answer a universal question rather than a single-minded focus on answering the question.
Lysimachus and Melisias wish to properly educate their sons and inquire whether training them to fight in armor will benefit them. Socrates points out that outward training is only done for the purpose of benefiting the soul and acquiring their agreement, directs the conversation towards how to benefit the soul, and therefore towards virtue. At his request, two respected Athenian generals, Laches and Nicias, engage in dialogue with Socrates about the definition of courage. This dialogue provides Socrates with the chance to illustrate his methods, for both Laches and Nicias engage in the attempt to answer Socrates’ question with opposite errors.



Outline:

Analyze Socrates’ method in the Laches.
Analyze the ‘drama’ – the squabbling between Nicias and Laches
Discuss how the drama affects the dialogue, conclude.