This was such a rich and important discussion. As someone who has taught, and been a student, I agree that it’s important to present students with works that they will not understand fully until enough life experiences have accumulated, that it’s necessary to sow the seeds early because when the time comes, students will remember and return to those works. Very important to me was the point that we have agency and that “mental anguish is a choice”; the distinction between “instrumental reason” and “natural reason” which aims at improvement of the human condition; the necessity of cultivating the soul Ovid saw himself, not as a singer (like Virgil), but as a “condito,” an architect that builds rooms where valuables are stored. Those valuables would be the inner life and the soul.
I do think that the set pieces in Cicero’s dialogues were probably indebted to the courtroom where the prosecution and the defense present summations before the case goes to a jury or to a judge.
Finally, the response to the young person who says they just want to have fun, Well, what do you do after you’ve had fun? reminds me of Apuleius’s “The Golden Ass.” Both Apuleius and his protagonist Lucius had reached just that point—mid-life crisis—and though Apuleius turned, not to philosophy, but to the cult of Isis, the journey is from the life of a beast to becoming human, a person who makes moral choices.
Thank you for posting this very valuable interview.
Susan, thanks for the feedback, appreciated! Yes, I’ve experienced myself the benefits of my teachers sowing seeds when I was too young to fully appreciate them. They germinated later on and keep providing fruits.
Recommend you look at the Renaissance Project by David Fideler. It address this very issue. I attended the first meeting Florence. It was an amazing and healing experience.
This was such a rich and important discussion. As someone who has taught, and been a student, I agree that it’s important to present students with works that they will not understand fully until enough life experiences have accumulated, that it’s necessary to sow the seeds early because when the time comes, students will remember and return to those works. Very important to me was the point that we have agency and that “mental anguish is a choice”; the distinction between “instrumental reason” and “natural reason” which aims at improvement of the human condition; the necessity of cultivating the soul Ovid saw himself, not as a singer (like Virgil), but as a “condito,” an architect that builds rooms where valuables are stored. Those valuables would be the inner life and the soul.
I do think that the set pieces in Cicero’s dialogues were probably indebted to the courtroom where the prosecution and the defense present summations before the case goes to a jury or to a judge.
Finally, the response to the young person who says they just want to have fun, Well, what do you do after you’ve had fun? reminds me of Apuleius’s “The Golden Ass.” Both Apuleius and his protagonist Lucius had reached just that point—mid-life crisis—and though Apuleius turned, not to philosophy, but to the cult of Isis, the journey is from the life of a beast to becoming human, a person who makes moral choices.
Thank you for posting this very valuable interview.
Susan, thanks for the feedback, appreciated! Yes, I’ve experienced myself the benefits of my teachers sowing seeds when I was too young to fully appreciate them. They germinated later on and keep providing fruits.
The discussion with George Thomas was superb. Thanks for doing this.
Glad you liked it!
Recommend you look at the Renaissance Project by David Fideler. It address this very issue. I attended the first meeting Florence. It was an amazing and healing experience.
Thank you. I know of David’s project, but haven’t checked it out yet.