L18-205_ Language & Mediation Getting ready for Aristotle

Learning to write, learning to read Plato learns to WRITE: Phaedo, Republic, Phaedrus But: Plato learns to READ: Parmenides, Cratylus, Theatetus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus Plato learns to be a polemicist & ideologue: Ion, Gorgias, Timaeus, Laws More generally: What have you been taught? HOW have you been taught?

Intelligibility and Meaning The view we normally take of “meaning” is thoroughly Platonic, as if words HAD a “meaning” as if it were a property of a thing. The assumption is that a word must have a meaning, and only one can be right—and that the meaning of one word can be specified by another. We don’t recognize that the paradoxes and regressions to which Plato’s middle period theory of forms is subject are a direct result of a simple belief in MIMESIS. There is an Original, from which are derived Representations, and we treat the specific word as a represtentation of a singular meaning O R

But every word in any language is an INSTRUMENT Analysis of words: First, DIVISION. A word has a definite structure (without which you could not identify it); in alphabetic languages like English and Greek, it is composed of LETTERS. Look at slides from yesterday for Plato’s reliance on this model. Secondly, it part of a system of FUNCTIONS Count, Person, Number, Case, Relation (word order, prepositions) Latin: Nero interfecit Agrippinum. Nero killed Agrippina Agrippinum interfecit Nero Nero killed Agrippina Interfecit Agrippinum Nero Nero killed Agrippina CASE RELATIONS

WORDS HAVE STRUCTURE, HISTORY, PATTERNS OF USE, EACH OF WHICH IS... SIGNIFICANT. That is, change any element, select different relations, and it makes a difference. SIGNIFICANCE MEANING Meaning is an EVENT of synthesis: the significant elements are ordered and combined. The result is INTELLIGIBILITY. You understand. Your desktop dictionary is a traitor and unaided, will make you stupid. OED- The word “OBNOXIOUS”

Reading an analysis. If you read something, and you can’t follow it, or it doesn’t click, ANALYZE IT. That is, take it apart. First, note that the relation between Significance and Meaning is a relation between Part and Whole, but secondly, is hierarchical. In a word, the letters are significant: change one, and you change its intelligibility. In a sentence, the word is significant In a paragraph, the sentence is significant In a chapter, the paragraph is significant. YOU DON’T EVER GET “MEANING” in a single step. Furthermore, what you get is INTELLIGIBILITY, understanding, NOT “meaning” as if it were a simplification. Unless you can integrate, the event doesn’t happen

EDUCATION WHAT IS IT? Look at the word. E DUCO, DUCERE TO LEAD FORTH or DRAW FORTH It is not filling a slop bucket It is not like feeding ducks It is not like putting money in the bank It is like nothing you have ever associated with the word.

WHAT DOES IT REQUIRE First, a high degree of mental (and physical) acutiy. If you are not paying attention, education doesn’t happen. Second, it presume the ability to encounter something (say, in print) and be able to FIGURE IT OUT. Does someone else need to tell you what to think? KANT: what is enlightenment Third, it requires that you THINK, as an active verb. University of Michigan word association: top associations with THINK? PAIN AND TROUBLE.

A CURRICULUM? WHAT IS THE STRUCTURE OF THAT WORD? CUR (RUN) CULUM (CIRCLE) LITERALLY, TO RUN IN A CIRCLE. What are you required to study? A writing course. Duhh. A quantitative reasoning encounter Four VLPA, NW, IS courses from a vast smorgasboard (I’m implicated) A major (40-60 hours) What does this prepare you for? Does it provide an education?

ARISTOTLE: CATEGORIES First, notice all the places where Aristotle is implicitly responding to problems in PLATO. If you have READ the selections from Plato, you have just exactly enough to really follow everything that Aristotle does. But if you read it as if you could skim it, you will have difficulty. Aristotle demands your attention. If you read for plot, there is none. If you are looking for characters, they are on vacation. If you want education, that’s really possible here.