Poetry and Philosophy

How should the soul be instructed? Plato gives two accounts to lead men's souls to the harmony of justice. One account is the allegory of the cave, the other is Diotima's ladder of love. I often think of Plato watching the great tragedies, taking notes in the bleachers. Does philosophy get us further down the …

Climbing Diotima’s and Jacob’s Ladder

Dante's Paradiso, In the Sphere of Saturn, canto 22 where the contemplatives stir, Beatrice would not smile. However, in the Fixed Stars, canto 23, she finally does. Beatrice says to Dante: "Open your eyes and see what I now am; the things you witnessed will have made you strong enough to bear the power of …

Paradiso Canto 4: The Usage of the Timaeus as Comparison to Heaven

In Paradiso, Canto 4, Beatrice tells Dante, You reason: 'if my will to good persists, why should the violence of others cause the measure of my merit to be less?' And you are also led to doubt because the doctrine Plato taught would find support by souls, appearing to return to the stars... (lines 19-24) …

Divine Justice, Job and Greek Tragedy.

Job's 3rd friend, the young one, intervenes and suggests who are we to say we can ever comprehend God's justice? Who are we to hubristically ask the question, "Why me?" and expect an answer? I believe a culture that doesn't expect an answer, is a culture that is failing. I believe Job was right in …

How Faustian Ethics Relates to Spinoza’s

Spinoza has a quirky way of ordering his Ethics. Quotes from his Ethics are within quotations marks. Proposition 39 "He whose body is capable of the greatest amount of activity has a mind whose greatest part is eternal." Proposition 40 "The more perfection a thing has, the more active and less passive it is. Conversely, …

Examined Life in Literature

Quote from Nietzsche and Depth Psychology: "[A]ny great artist will tell you (they are often anxious to do so) that their relation to their "daemon" or "muse" or simply "passion" is still one of intimate otherness. Thus Parkes points out that "it is a maxim of depth psychology that when something of one's own is …

On Socrates’ Final Words

Socrates' last words: "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and …

Passage to the Underworld (The Fall of Mephisto writing sample)

The cavern covered the riverbank completely, and there was a pale glow of light far, far ahead on the other side of a great mass of water. The mist ahead obfuscated his eyesight, making the path ahead blurry and undiscernible. Mephisto approached the figure. He wore a dirty, dark robe, and his eyes shined like …

Dante’s Purgatorio: The Necessity of Christ

"Foolish is he who hopes our intellect can reach the end of that unending road only one Substance in three Persons follows. Confine yourselves, o human, to the quia, had you been able to see all, there would have been no need for Mary to give birth. You saw the fruitless longing of those men …

Philosophical Underpinnings of Loki: Episode 4

As noble and true Plato's Republic seems to be, there is a dark side to it, for Socrates' expresses the need for a "noble lie" which carries a lot of weight on how to organize his static state. The noble lie appears to be a marriage lottery but it's actually a way to control the …

Faust’s Unlikely Guide

Many great characters have a guide. Homer was Virgil's guide, Virgil was Dante's guide, Morpheus was Neo's guide. Both Morpheus and Virgil were men of cracked faith, spoiled by what they didn't know, disillusioned by revelation. It's interesting that Faust's guide wasn't Dante. Nor was the great Earth Spirit Faust's guide because he was unworthy …

Dissonance in The Deep (Writing Sample from Undercurrents)

The angel rose from his throne, spread his wings, and shot off into the darkness, further, and further, past the dying stars and floating asteroids. Until the gravitational pull was no more, he shone his light into the darkness, but he saw nothing. He strained his eyes and shone brighter, but it was folly, for …

Converted into Original Chaos

Dante's Inferno has an extraordinary passage where Dante likens Christ's harrowing of hell to the pre-Socratic Empedocles' cosmic forces of Love and Strife. The Inferno passage is: Now I would have you know: the other time that I descended into lower Hell, this mass of boulders had not yet collapsed; but if I reason rightly, …

Reason’s Peevish Blame

Before the story of The Castle Otranto, the story that started gothic literature, there is a sonnet tucked away. It's Romantic in its implications for it warns us of reason's peevish blame. That reason, science, mathematics, don't always cut to the heart of the matter. Oh! guard the marvels I relateOf fell ambition scourg'd by …

Keats on Negative Capability

The advantage of Negative Capability is that your identity isn't an obstacle. You can step outside of yourself and not be Stephen or Helen, be wrapped up in one's biology, or psychology, or social/environmental situation, but as a pure human being untainted by the products of what made one. If this is truly possible is …