The Form of Cuteness

Snickers

According to Plato, these kittens are both cute...and ugly. In his famous explanation of how we know what we know, which includes his Divided Line simile describing the different degrees of knowledge, Plato says that some sense perceptions 'summon' thought while others do not. When I see these kittens frolicking in the garden or sleeping together in one big intertwined ball of fur I am not compelled to ask if a kitten is at the same time the opposite of a kitten. However, what about their bigness? Their smallness? And what about their cuteness?? Now, Plato says, my understanding has been awakened, or summoned, by the perception of these qualities. Big compared to what? Small compared to what? Cute compared to what??

Compared, of course, to the Forms, the perfect, intangible, objective, transcendent First Principles which Plato believed exist independent of any object and can only be known by the reasoning soul. Thus, the Form of Cuteness. And while these kittens, as physical beings, can only represent the Form of Cuteness I just have to think that they must be in one of the very highest categories of things cute. And sweet. And adorable.

Guinevere

Turning to Learn

While many ceremoniously began the school year last week with special breakfasts, school orientations, and new uniforms, our efforts at education commenced inauspiciously: I overslept and by late morning we were still taking stock of the supplies we needed to purchase at the nearby maktabi (office supply store).

As I did last year, I began our season of study by reading aloud this essay by George Grant. Just slightly different than the Knowledge is Power philosophy that I was raised on, Mr. Grant's essay reminded us that the beginning of true and right learning is repentance, a humble turning of ourselves away from ourselves, towards community and the pursuit of truth:

"At the beginning of every academic year I like to remind myself and my students that true education is a form of repentance. It is a humble admission that we've not read all that we need to read, we don't know all that we need to know, and we've not yet become all that we are called to become. Education is that unique form of discipleship that brings us to the place of admitting our inadequacies. It is that remarkable rebuke of autonomy and independence so powerful and so evident that we actually shut up and pay heed for a change.

C.S. Lewis said it well: "The surest sign of true intellectual acumen is a student's comprehension of what it is he does not know; not what he does know. It is a spirit of humility that affords us with the best opportunity to grow, mature, and achieve in the life of the mind. It is knowing how much we do not know that enables us to fully embark on a lifetime of learning; to recover to any degree the beauty goodness and truth of Christendom."

Likewise, G.K. Chesterton asserted: "I am always suspicious of the expert who knows he is an expert. Far better to seek the wisdom of the common, the ordinary, and the humble--for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble."

Active Son, Artist Son, and I are beginning our year with readings and discussions from Plato's Republic, which by the way, should be read and discussed, at least in part, by every high school student. As we considered Plato's proposals for the desired education of philosopher/kings, i.e. the idea rulers, we again found this idea of turning:

Socrates: Then here is how we must think about these matters, if that is true: education is not what some people boastfully declare it to be. They presumably say they can put knowledge into souls that lack it, as if they could put sight into blind eyes...But here is what our present account shows about this power to learn that is present in everyone's soul, and the instrument with which each of us learns: just as an eye cannot be turned around from darkness to light except by turning the whole body, so this instrument must be turned around from what-comes-to-be (things we know by our own senses) together with the whole soul, until it is able to bear to look at what is and at the brightest thing that is--the one we call the good. Republic 518b:5

Plato's Republic

Priming the Pump, II

I first read The Abolition of Man some years ago but since I know my tendency to not grasp Lewis's profound ideas the first time around and also my need to be reminded of truth once grasped, at least in part, I decided to read it again a few weeks ago.



The Abolition of Man, How Education Develops Man's Sense of Morality

And now, after 19 years of raising children I am coming closer to articulating one of the fundamental truths for affecting the lives of my children. Just in time, as a friend and mother of four small children is coming over tomorrow to ask me about child-rearing and home education. And, about time: it takes me a long time to synthesize and articulate my own philosophies so I am thankful for clear thinkers such as Lewis, who do the hard work, giving words to my intuitions and daily practices. And because there is nothing new under the sun, I am glad to consider the view of the ancients, as does Lewis, in his essay, "Men Without Chests".

In his critique of modern education, Lewis laments that in our attempts to protect children from propaganda by fortifying their minds against emotion and with mere knowledge that we famish their natures. Says Lewis, "the right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments". (p.24)

Lewis cites examples from ancient wisdom:

~"St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections"--or, ordering of affections--" in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it."

~"Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought."

~"In the (Plato's) Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one 'who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of a gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her."

It is this proper ordering of sentiments/emotions which give men chests:

Again drawing from Plato's Republic: "As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element'. The head rules the belly through the chest--the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. (Italics, mine)

And thus, it is this proper ordering of affections, learning to love what is love-worthy, which should be our greatest goal as we raise and educate our children. An online friend who has been living this and writing about this idea for some time recently summed it up like this, per her notes from a recent conference:

"In his reflections on classical education he (John Hodges) makes the point that education is not just To Know something but rather To Love something. Education is the shaping of the sensibilities (Ordo Amoris). Truth, beauty and goodness cannot be separated. That is a pretty cool idea, no?

So, where to begin? As a Christian parent and educator, I begin with God's Word:

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things..." ~Philippians 4:8 (ESV)

Do we know, perfectly, what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise? I don't think we do, which is probably a good thing or else someone would write a curriculum or textbook about it. But we are not lost in the cosmos: God's revelation of Himself, the perfection of all these qualities as given to us in His Word and His Son, Jesus, provide the perfectly veiled clues which lead to discovery for those who humbly approach Him; It is His Word which leads us in the joyful 'work' of making these discoveries of truth in community with others and, particularly with our children as we seek to teach them to love all that should be loved and in its proper order.

Reading Ruminations

From this week's reading:

ESV Study Bible

"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 29:29

The Hobbit

"Then the hobbit slipped on his ring, and warned by the echoes to take more than hobbit's care to make no sound, he crept noiselessly down, down, down into the dark. He was trembling with fear, but his little face was set and grim. Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago."

"It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait."

Chapter XII, Inside Information

Escape from Reason

"This new way of thinking spread in three different ways...it spread by classes...What is left was a middle-class that was not touched by it and often is still not touched by it...They do not understand why the think in the old way--they are continuing to act out of habit and memory after they have forgotten why the old form was valid. Often they still think in the right way--to them truth is truth, right is right--but they no longer know why (italics, mine). So how could they understand their children who think in the new way, who no longer think that truth is truth nor that right is right.

Chapter 3, Section Kierkegaard and the Line of Despair

He is There and He is Not Silent

"The dilemma of modern man is simple: he does not know why man has any meaning. He is lost. Man remains a zero. This is the damnation of our generation, the heart of modern man's problem. But if we begin with a personal beginning and this is the origin of all else, then the personal does have meaning, and man and his aspirations of the reality of personality are in line with what was originally there and what has always intrinsically been."

Chapter 1, The Metaphysical Necessity

Swallowing the
Golden Stone, Stories and Essays

...But the naming of stark creation was only one of the languages which the Creator used. There are two kinds of divine talk remembered in Genesis, for what God had made, he also named. Light and its temporal period he called "day." Its dimming and the period of its absence he called "night"...

Now, it is of crucial importance to understand that this naming did more than associate a particular sound with a particular thing. God's naming did more than produce the "word" by which speakers could refer to the object represented by that name. For the Hebrews, language was always an action. To speak was to accomplish. And to name a thing was actually to affect the thing named: it finished its creation, as it were, in three distinct ways:

1. The thing which is, but isn't named, cannot be known. If you can't talk about it, neither can you think about it or consider it or meditate upon it--nor, in consequence, can you know it at all! For the Hebrews, language is the stuff of knowing. Only when the created thing takes its place in language does it fully enter the realm of human awareness.

To name a thing, therefore, is to clothe it in visibility. To name a thing is to make it knowable, to grant its place in the human conception of the world. It seems suddenly to appear, that which had in fact existed before its appearing... (p.49)

Institutes of the Christian Religion

"This knowledge (of God's Providence) is necessarily followed by gratitude in prosperity, patience in adversity, and incredible security for the time to come."

Book 1.17.7

A New Kind of Atheist~0r~An Irony Observed

I found out about about this Atheist Bus Campaign presently underway in the UK while doing a little blog surfing yesterday. The following observation is from Rebekah at Femina. Wish I'd seen it first and said it first. She is spot on:

"Yes, I know this is old news. But now you can’t go two steps in Oxford without being greeted by this merry little message on the side of basically every bus that zooms past - and every time I see it I just get extensively cracked up!

I mean, seriously. “There probably is no God.” What kind of gung-ho message is that?! Honestly - they’re practically begging every resident of the UK to seriously consider Pascal’s Wager . . . which you know they never would have done in a million years otherwise.

What kind of atheism is this anyways? I think they need to get out more and read a bit more Nietzsche. Nietzsche would never have settled for a peppy little message in pink that contained the word “probably”. And that little word “probably” is no doubt unsettling numerous middle aged women across the nation who had never given it a thought up until now, and are suddenly wondering every five minutes if they’re willing to bet their soul on that very uncertain message.

They’re also selling t-shirts by the way. It’s quite hilarious that now there’s a category of atheist kitsch. It must mean that all those Christian billboards and John 3:16 shirts are working far more than I suspected they were. The atheists have finally had it up to here, and are now copying the pop evangelical methods of getting the message out there! It’s kinda fun to have it go that direction for once. It used to be that across from every music store in every mall there was the Christian answer to it - full of knock-offs and almost-as-good-as paraphernalia. But it’s quite hilarious to think of the atheists then having to put up their own little kiosk with their not-quite-as-powerful answer to the evangelicals . . . tacky little key chains with humanist slogans and “I’m pretty sure there’s no Hell” bookmarks and inspirational posters that say things like, “I don’t think that Final Judgments are very nice to think about.”

It’s quite heartening, really."

We've been tracking with Socrates this week, the boys and I, studying about the Dialogues, reading The Euthyphro, and enjoying Socrates brilliant use of irony. I just have to think that he would have a bit of fun with the authors of this campaign.

Philosophy~What is it good for?

"If you should ever decide to study philosophy, someone is sure to ask you, "What can you do with it" The answer is "Nothing. But it can do something with me."

Philosophy 101 by Socrates, Peter Kreeft

The Problem of Evil

It is the problem of problems, isn't it? Even approaching it in a blog post is probably, for me, complete folly. Huge subject. Infinite God. Pooh-brained me. However, circumstances in the lives of friends and conversations with several others who are struggling to make sense of this deep mystery has caused me to think anew. An author who always helps me think, Peter Kreeft, entered our home again last week, this time in the form of his book Three Philosophies of Life.



The entire chapter, Job: Life as Suffering, is wonderful but here is a short passage which ever so concisely, eloquently, reasonably, and triumphantly helps to clear my fog:

"When Saint Thomas Aquinas stated in the Summa the problem of evil as one of the two objections to the existence of God, he remembered what many philosophers forget: that the solution, God's solution, is concrete, not abstract; dramatic, not schematic; an event in time, not a timeless truth. Saint Thomas stated the problem as follows:

"'God' means infinite goodness. But if one of two contraries is infinite, the other is totally destroyed. Yet evil exists [and is not destroyed]. Therefore God [infinite goodness] does not exist."

And he answered it as follows:

"As Augustine says, Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil."

(my insert) "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.: Romans 8:28 ESV

In other words, life, like Job, is like a fairy tale. To get to live happily ever after, you have to go through the dung heap. Evil is only temporary; good is eternal. Once again, in a word, "wait".

But wait in faith. Jesus told Martha, before he raised her brother Lazarus from the dead, "Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God." Seeing is not believing. but believing is seeing, eventually. Job does not wait patiently, but he waits. Job's faith is not sunny and serene, but it is faith. It is not without doubts. (Indeed , his doubts came from his faith. When faith is full, it is open and can include doubts; when it is weak it cannot tolerate doubts.) But Job remains a hero of faith. He waits in faith, and he sees the glory of God. He is blessed in the very waiting, in the dung, in the agony, and he is doubly blessed in the finding, in the end." (pp. 75, 76)