classics digests, reflections and reviews
In Book 8 of Paradise Lost, there is an interesting discourse between God and Man on the state of solitude and happiness. Adam expresses his desire for rational companionship, without which he cannot be happy or content. God then asks Adam whether he thinks God, who is alone for all eternity, is possessed of happiness. Adam: Thou hast provided all things: but with mee I see not who partakes. In […]
Read moreA passage in Book 3 where Milton laments his blindness reminds me of the suicide speech of Sophocles’ Ajax. Such is the power of poetry, which made me realize for the first time, that blindness is death, spiritual blindness in particular. Milton uses the same metaphor more explicitly in Samson Agonistes. Ajax But you, Sweet gleam of daylight now before my eyes, And Sun-God, splendid charioteer, I greet you For […]
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The Fall of Satan Confounded though immortal: But his doom Reserv’d him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes That witness’d huge affliction and dismay Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate: … O how unlike the place from whence they fell! … Yet not for those, Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage […]
Read moreBeing, Thought and God Thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the essence, is thought. But it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore […]
Read moreUnity and Measure To be one means ‘to be whole and indivisible’, being essentially one means a “this” and capable of being isolated in time, place, form or thought; but it means especially ‘to be the first measure of a kind’, and most strictly of quantity; for it is from this that it has been extended to the other categories. For measure is that by which quantity is known; and […]
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Recently, I’ve had some interesting discussions with a couple of Straussians who argued that Plato didn’t really believe the Theory of Forms or the existence of gods, and that those metaphysical and theological notions are only means to an end, which is to teach people to lead a virtuous life, in other words, they serve as instructional tools for ethics. I asked them if Strauss provided any concrete evidence from […]
Read morePotentiality and Contraries There is difficulty in the question how the matter of each thing is related to its contrary states. It is the matter of one in virtue of its positive state and its form, and of the other in virtue of the privation of its positive state and the corruption of it contrary to its nature. The corpse comes from the animal, and vinegar from wine, as night […]
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