Seeking Self-Knowledge in Conversation with Another

 As with Alcibiades, so with Critias, Socrates emphasizes the need to seek self-knowledge in conversation with another. As Socrates understands it, self-knowledge is not a product of introspection. As knowledge of what makes a human being human, self-knowledge is not at all self-contained or independent. It requires knowledge not only of other human beings but also of the nonhuman things to determine the difference between them and thus what is distinctively human. As knowledge of one's limits, self-knowledge as Socrates understands it entails recognition of one's lack of self-sufficiency and the consequent need to join with others. Self-knowledge as Socrates understands it consists in knowledge of one's ignorance rather than, as Critias claims, knowledge of knowledge. 

 Catherine H. Zuckert, Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, University of Chicago Press (Chicago: 2009), pp. 243-244.

Two Poem Drafts

 Summer Coming In

Someday
when the world is old and broken,
and you and I awake
in the grass among  the ruins,
we'll rise and walk our way,
and tell old tales of elves and men,
and, still dreaming of the past,
we'll watch the summer coming in.

Somewhere
beyond the world's most distant shore,
we'll build a city new
whose gates shall shine forevermore.
We'll settle there in peace,
and tell old tales of elves and men,
and, resting in content,
we'll watch the summer coming in.

Somehow
we'll see all things that eyes can see,
and sail upon the calm
of some dark infinity;
though mortal loves all fail,
we'll tell old tales of elves and men,
from them learn to love anew,
and watch the summer coming in.

Interweaving

Cast, if you will, the silver star upon the sea;
the darkness and the deep is boiling inside me;
sing, if you wish, of the sun and the light,
but I find only silence and my eyes are without sight.
Where is the path to the glory of dawn?
Not in the lands where the sunstar has shone.
Down in the hedges, the witches cast spells;
in cottages women sew charms against hells.
Light with the darkness, and night with the day,
in a strange ring-a-rosie are busy with play.
That interweaves with a little of this,
and misery kisses its cousin named bliss;
such is the way in the lunatic realm,
though brighter than light is eternity's calm.

Pneuma Kyriou ep' Eme

 And he went to Nazara, where he had been reared, and he entered, according to his custom on the day of the sabbaths, into the assembly, and rose to read. And there was handed over to him the scroll of the prophet Esaias, and having unrolled the scroll, he found the place in which it was written:

Lord's Spirit upon me,
on account of which he has anointed me to acclaim to the beggarly:
He has sent me
to heal the battered in heart,
to herald freedom to the conquered, sight again to the blinded,
to commission in freedom the shattered,
to herald a year of Lord's acceptance.

And having rolled the scroll, given to the attendant, he sat, and the eyes of all in the assembly were gazing at him. He began to say to them: Today this Scripture is completed in your ear.

And all witnessed him and wondered at the words of graciousness proceeding from his mouth; and they were saying, Is this not the son of Ioseph? 

And he said to them, Surely you will relate to me this adage, Physician, cure yourself! What we have heard has happened in Kapharnaoum do also here in your homeland. He said, Amen, I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in his homeland. In truth I say to you, many widows there were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut for three years and six months, when there was great famine on all the land, and Elias was sent to none of them except to Sarepta of Sidonias, to a widow woman. And many lepers were in Israel with Elisaias the prophet, and none were purified except Naiman the Syrian.

And all in the assembly were filled with fight, hearing this; and rising, they banished him from the city and led him to the mountain-ridge on which the city had been constructed, in order to cast him down. He, having passed through the middle of them, left.

[Luke 4:16-30, my rough translation. It is very difficult to translate the Scripture reading into English in a way that captures the forcefulness of some of the Greek words used -- for instance, we usually translate 'poor', but it literally means 'crouching like a beggar', i.e., beggarly or destitute. It is also clear in context that Jesus is not speaking economically; we are all the beggarly, Jew and Gentile. (The beggarly state is paralleled with starvation in the days of Elijah and leprosy in the days of Elisha, and in those the point is clearly that these are things that both Jews and Gentiles suffer.) The other words (battered, conquered, blinded, shattered) are words that would be used to describe a people who were utterly defeated in a terrible war. But the active verbs tend in the opposite direction, starting with the strongest one, euangelisasthai, to announce good news, which gives us words like 'evangelize' and 'gospel', and is a word that you would have used for the proclamation or acclamation of a great military victory or something similar.

This briefly summarized sermon is often presented as an inspiring sort of proclamation by Jesus, and it is clear that this is part of the point ("gracious words"), but it is also a judgment. The prophesy is completed simply on being heard, on reaching the ear. But what that means, the synagogue congregation doesn't know. And Jesus's response to their astonishment is not so gracious; he compares Nazareth unfavorably with Capernaum, comparing the situation to when only the Gentile widow of Zarephath or the Gentile official from Syria were faithful in the days of the prophets of Israel, and thus only they received the divine salvation from their ills. Jesus proclaims the good news to the people of Nazareth, and also tells them that they are already too faithless to receive the blessings of it, unlike the people of Capernaum. It's not surprising that they have some vehement resistance (thymos) to this, which leads them to try not only to banish him but also throw him off the ridge. There is then extraordinary artistry in the extremely terse anticlimax: He just walks straight through them and leaves. (After he leaves, he will then go to Capernaum.)]