I’m embarking on a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week 1.

Readings

Following Gioia’s plan, I read six of Plato’s dialogues:

I used the beautiful edition published (for free) by Standard Ebooks, which uses the Jowett translation.

I read The Republic in high school (long before I grokked its relevance) but the other dialogues were new to me. I also read Phaedrus two years ago (using this same edition) so I was familiar with the style and substance of Socratic dialogues.

Euthypro, the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo all deal with Socrates’s last days: preparations for his trial, his defense, reflections after his condemnation, and his final thoughts before his execution. Throughout, he reasons with his interlocutors about moral concepts such as the differences between piety and justice and the need to honor social contracts – even (or especially) when they work against you.

One surprising revelation: how much “Christian” thinking is found in these (earlier) pages. The soul/body duality stood out in particular. The former is unchanging and invisible; a higher order of being that transcends material imperfections. Socrates and his compadres express no doubts about the soul’s existence.

Book I of The Republic explores the relationship between justice and injustice. Thrasymaschus argues that justice is whatever gives advantage to powerful people. Socrates dismantles his arguments. (I expect Nietzsche will have something to say about this.)

Book VII is where the famous Allegory of the Cave turns up. It’s the part of The Republic I remembered most, perhaps because it’s come up in so many other places. It was useful to revisit it in its original context. The gist is fostering intellectual discipline, which is one of the points of this “Humanities Crash Course” project.

Socrates was a model of integrity. Values aren’t worth much if you’re not willing to die for them.

Audiovisual

Socrates wouldn’t have folks wasting time with music and other such frivolities. Fortunately, we’re not living in his republic!

Music: Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations, both by Johann Sebastian Bach. I knew both works but revisited recordings by Keith Jarrett and Glenn Gould, respectively.

Painting: The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, which depicts the events from this week’s readings. This video explains the painting and its context:

I’d seen this painting before, but hadn’t appreciated what it represents. I don’t buy into the “emotion = weak” vibe, but I can see why this is David’s focus in a world rocked by revolutionary change.

Cinema: FORBIDDEN PLANET. I can’t blame Gioia for this one; it’d long been on my to-watch list. It hasn’t aged well: the film’s gender dynamics make it “of its time” and almost unwatchable. Saving graces: the pioneering electronic score and Leslie Nielsen in a straight role.

Note-taking Notes

I started a new note in my main Obsidian vault to capture insights from the Dialogues. This is different from my regular practice; I usually only create a “literature note” when I’ve finished the book. But in this case, I only planned to read six dialogues, not the whole book.

This note includes a separate section for each dialogue. (I have an earlier note for Phaedrus; I may refactor it into this one.) In each of these sections, I added my impressions followed by a summary prompt for GPT. E.g., Write a concise summary of Plato’s “Crito”:

Plato’s “Crito” is a dialogue between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito, set in Socrates’ prison cell where he awaits execution. Crito visits Socrates with the intention of persuading him to escape and avoid his impending death sentence. He argues that Socrates’ death would be a loss for his friends, would reflect poorly on them for not saving him, and that it is unjust for Socrates to comply with an unjust verdict. Socrates, however, counters these arguments by emphasizing the importance of living a just life over merely preserving life itself. He argues that escaping would violate his social contract with the state, undermine the rule of law, and harm his soul by committing an injustice in response to another injustice. Ultimately, Socrates chooses to accept his fate, prioritizing adherence to moral principles over self-preservation. The dialogue explores themes of justice, duty, and the individual’s relationship with society and laws.

While LLMs don’t do well with very recent stuff, they know a lot about older works such as the Dialogues. Asking the AI for a summary is a useful way to validate and clarify my understanding. (To include the LLM’s output inside the Obsidian note, I’m using the Text Generator plugin.)

Sometimes, I also ask the AI for thoughts on how the text I’m studying might relate to other works. In this case, I asked about the influence of Plato/Socrates on Christianity and the relationship between Thrasymaschus’s argument in Book I of The Republic and the work of Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche. Again, I found the answers insightful. Here’s an example:

Thrasymachus’s perspective in Book I of Plato’s Republic argues that justice is the advantage of the stronger, suggesting that those in power define what is considered just to serve their own interests. This view challenges the notion of objective or universal justice.

Friedrich Nietzsche similarly critiques traditional moral values and posits that they are human constructions often serving the will to power. Both Thrasymachus and Nietzsche are skeptical of conventional morality and emphasize the role of power in defining values. However, Nietzsche goes further by promoting the idea of re-evaluating values to create new ones that affirm life and individuality, whereas Thrasymachus’s view remains more descriptive about existing power dynamics.

One could go deep with this stuff. But I’ll take it slow as I build the habits to continue this project throughout the year.