As I walk through the circles of the shades of the dead..

      As it is often said Divine Comedy, which tells Dante’s fictional journey from Inferno to Paradiso, is not a poem about the afterlife, but it is for the living, that is to say it is an allegory of human life from the lowest forms to the most virtuous form. In that respect, it can be regarded as the journey of self-realization in the process of searching for the place of human nature in the cosmos. Dante, as the only living soul going through the circles of the Inferno to lead his way to Paradiso, places himself in the center of the poem meaning that this journey is in a way his journey of self-realization. After the loss of his pure earthly love Beatrice, he deviates from the peaceful state he was in and becomes possessed by the desire to know about his position in the cosmos. In such a state, blinded by his desire, he finds himself in a forest that is the start of the journey he was called to, by the same reason that made him lose his sight. In the divine context of the journey Beatrice, a pure soul from the heaven, sent Virgil to guide Dante through the circles of Inferno and the terraces of Purgatorio to lead him to the Divine Love. The loss of the earthly love he found strength in, caused him to rely too much on his intellect, but the transformation of that love to a courtly love guided his way to find answers that he could not reach only with his intellect but by using his intellect as a medium.

Dante encounters suffering souls in the Inferno and Purgatorio for various sins they had committed during their life time. In Inferno, where the static souls condemned to misery for eternally are, Dante faints several times after what he sees. He is in a half sleepy mode all the time and he needs Virgil’s guidance, and protection. Inferno is the place Dante himself also considers the sins he possibly committed up until that time in his life, but he still does not know how to handle his desires. Only after Virgil disappears on the Earthly Paradise and Dante confesses his sin to Beatrice, he gets out that half sleepy state and becomes active. In other words, he is not anymore driven unconsciously to the souls who are suffering, instead he turns his head to look at the light intentionally, meaning that his character went through a change that he is in control of his own actions from now on. What is important for the sake of the analysis on self-realization here is to focus on Dante’s encounter with the sins that he attributes to himself, namely, possession of romantic love, relying on the power of literature, and his obsessive search for truth by means of intellect. Divine comedy is such a masterpiece because Dante uses counter virtues of the sins he believes that he committed to express them in his poem, by applying the rules of poetic justice. Poetic justice is a term derived by Aristotle’s attempts to explain poetry as a medium, which is superior to history in the sense that it shows what should or must occur, rather than merely what does occur. The concept of contrapasso, i.e. that the sin and the punishment itself are essentially the same, plays an important role for Dante, in order to communicate with the reader through his poetic justice. Before proceeding with Dante’s encounter with Ulysses, I would briefly like to mention his first encounter with the punishment that those receive who committed the sin of the possession of romantic love, Francesca and Paolo. That sin is also in a way relates to Dante, because after the death of Beatrice, Dante possessed by his romantic love loses his sight and turns too much to himself forgetting that he is a part of the divine design.

            Dante meets Francesca on the second circle of Hell, which is the first circle that the souls endure punishments for their sins. Since the degree of the punishment gets heavier through the inner circles, possession of romantic love is the lightest crime in Dante’s Inferno. The reason for that can be explained by the nature of love. It is impossible to love any other person intentionally, love is the purest form of desire that is not related to any other materialistic gain. That is why it has to happen naturally or it would not be love. It is such a strong feeling that disables the person’s reason in his/her actions. As Francesca puts it:

Love, that can quickly seize the gentle heart,

took hold of him because of the fair body

taken from me—how that was done stil wounds me.

Love, that releases no beloved from loving,

took hold of me so strongly through his beauty

that, as you see, it has not left me yet.[1]

It is understood from Francesca’s words that she is still in that state of being blindly in love.

Dante chooses the metaphor of a furious wind to describe this state, into which the lovers are thrown by their passionate feelings. In the moment of love they forget about the outside reality and driven into committing the sin of lustfulness by their desires. All the people Dante meets in that circle, Semiramis, Helen, Paris, Cleopatra, had caused great pain, even to the ones who are closest to them, in that state of blindness. That is why the punishment they endure is in the form of that assailing wind, driving on the spirits with its violence: wheeling and pounding, harassing them.[2] The sinners of the second circle, harassed by that storm are feeling the pain of both their love from inside and the punishment from outside. For Francesca’s case, she is suffering from that hellish hurricane but what is still more painful for her is the longing she feels for her lover. When Dante asks her about her longings she replies “There is no greater sorrow than thinking back upon a happy time in misery…”[3] This sentence is an emphasis on Dante’s first confrontation with his sins, because it also refers to his feelings after he loses Beatrice, physically, until he transforms his love to a medium to grasp the Divine Love.

            The reference to the strength of poetry and literature is also important in Francesca’s story. She tells Dante that she fell in love with Paolo while reading Lancelot. As Dante used to write love stories before Divine Comedy, he knows how those stories could be evoking the inner most desires of humans. With Divine Comedy he changes the way that he uses his talent in order to analyze the human nature in a divine context and evoke virtuous behavior for the reader as well as himself. He tells in Canto XXVI:

and more than usual, I curb my talent,

that it not run were virtue does not guide;

so that, if my kind star or something better

has given me that gift, I not abuse it.[4]

In that context, for a better understanding of Dante’s self-realization it will be appropriate now to focus on his confrontation with the sin of possessing knowledge through his encounter with Ulysses.

            Dante encounters Ulysses in the seventh pouch of the eight circle of Inferno being punished for the sin of spiritual theft. Ulysses and Diomedes, burning with fire as a fireball approach him and Virgil speaks to them asking one of them to tell how he died. Ulysses starts telling the story of his last journey after he sailed away from Circe, how his fondness for his son or his love for Penelope was not able to defeat in him the longing that he had to gain experience of the world and of the vices and the worth of men. His intention is to reach what is beyond the seen, as he tells to his comrades:

‘Brothers,’ I said, ‘o you, who having crossed

a hundred thousand dangers, reach the west,

to this brief waking-time that stil is left

unto your senses, you must not deny

experience of that which lies beyond

the sun, and of the world that is unpeopled.

Consider well the seed that gave you birth:

You were not made to live your lives as brutes

But to be followers of worth and knowledge.’[5]

After seeing a very high and dark mountain, the sea closes over Ulysses and his comrades. Ulysses was punished by facing his death just like in the story of Babel Tower that was build to reach heaven and the builders of the tower were punished by being sent to different parts of the world and given different languages in order not to be able to communicate with each other and give up their trial to reach heaven by physical means.

            Ulysses’ story shows great similarity with Dante’s story on the basis of their search what is beyond the sun. Before Beatrice calls him for his transcendental journey, Dante was in such a similar state to Ulysses that he was trying to understand the place of the human in the cosmos by means of his intellect, that is to say producing thoughts and theories according to what he sees on earth. He confesses to Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise: “Mere appereances turned me aside with their false loveliness, as soon as I had lost your countenance.”[6] As Ulysses tries to go beyond the sun with the belief of driving his ship always to the west he will reach the unpeopled place, Dante uses his talent in poetry to see what is beyond his reach. He repetitiously uses the metaphor of poetry in his poem as the ship of the sailor—cantos I and VIII of Purgatorio—to indicate the voyage of the pilgrim soul towards God in Divine Comedy. In that respect, Dante directing his ship towards God with Divine Comedy, differs from the Pagan Ulysses, who is unaware that his aspiration to reach the forbidden ground is in a way challenging the Divine Law.

Dante’s whole journey is fictionalized with a strong reliance on the Christian Theology, that is to say Christian teaching defines human nature as a body that will expire at some point and the souls that found form in that bodies will be judged according to the life they led on earth to find a place in the infinite kingdom of God. The important ingredient in that teaching is the use of human intellect, in other words humans are free to choose whatever action to take on earth, but that intellect is only a medium to grasp the beauties of afterlife because a final understanding of the meaning of existence is a kind of knowledge that only God has. In that respect, human existence finds its completeness only by reaching the Divine Love as Dante puts it with Beatrice’s words:

“The greatest gift the magnanimity

of God, as He created, gave, the gift

most suited to His goodness, gift that He

most prizes, was the freedom of the will;

those beings that have intellect – all these

and none but these – received and do receive

this gift: thus you may draw, as consequence,

the high worth of a vow, when what is pledged

with your consent encounters God’s consent;

for when a pact is drawn between a man

and God, then through free will, a man gives up

      what I have called his treasure, his free will…”[7]

In that sense, Ulysses’ journey to reach beyond the sun without such knowledge of God based on Christian Theology proves to be a futile impulse in Dante’s poem. Dante considers Ulysses’ aspiration as a noble one because his journey aims to understand the meaning of human life, but because he does not have a notion of God he fails in his mission. Ulysses does not know when to surrender his free will to God and pushes the limits of human possibility insistently. In the end Ulysses and his men perish in a whirlpool after seeing a dark image of Mount Purgatory from a distance but even before reaching it, since Mount Purgatory is off limits to Pagans.  In that respect, it is possible to follow how similar Dante’s and Ulysses’ journey start and differ in the end with the last lines of Divine Comedy:

As the geometer intently seeks

to square the circle, but he cannot reach,

through thought on thought, the principle he needs,

so I searched that strange sight: I wished to see

the way in which our human effigy

suited the circle and found place in it –

and my own wings were far too weak for that.

But then my mind was struck by light that flashed

and, with this light, received what it had asked.

Here force failed my high fantasy; but my

Desire and will were moved already – like

A wheel revolving uniformly – by

The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.[8]

            To conclude, Francesca’s and Ulysses’ stories are the two prominent parts of Dante’s poem in order to analyze his journey as the journey of his self realization in a divine context.  Dante aiming to understand the cause of his existence bases his search on Christian teachings and acknowledges his possessions to purify his soul from the marks of the sins he committed by using the power of his poem. Francesca and Ulysses are the two figures that he chooses to express his confrontation with the sins of possession of love and knowledge. Francesca serves as a medium for him to express his longing for Beatrice and acknowledge the consequences of that longing. Ulysses’ story is a metaphor for his struggle to place human life on a broader context and find answers that he lacks. Dante places both characters in Inferno because the former ignores the greatness of Divine Love and the latter lacks the knowledge on the existence of a divine design. The pilgrim Dante witnesses their suffering and comes to realize the meaning of his existence in the divine design by means of the beautiful poetic design of Dante the poet.

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[1] Inferno, Canto V

[2] Inferno, Canto V

[3] Inferno, Canto V

[4] Inferno Canto XXVI

[5] Inferno Canto XXVI

[6] Purgatorio Canto XXXI

[7] Divine Comedy, Paradiso Canto V

[8] Paradiso Canto XXXIII

Casablanca

           Literatürde adına sıklıkla methiyeler düzülmüş olmasının yarattığı baskı dolayısıyla bir hayli güç oldu Casablanca için bir giriş yapmak. 2. Dünya Savaşı'yla Avrupa felakete sürüklenirken, Amerikan sinemasının, Hollywood demek daha doğru olur, film piyasasında tekel olma yolunda mihenk taşlarından biri olan Casablanca, bu felaket içinde kendini var eden, kaybeden ve tekrar bulan bir aşkın ekseninde dönüyor, döndürüyor izleyeni. Murray Burnett ve Joan Alison'ın "Everybody comes to Rick's" adlı tiyatro oyunundan uyarlama filmin kanımca en güzel tarafı senaryonun salt bir aşk hikayesi olarak okunamayacak kadar zengin ve ahenkli oluşu. Savaş Avrupası'nın askeri ve politik durumunu, Afrika'nın bir liman kentinin sosyal ortamından Amerikan bakış açısıyla aktaran filmdeki her karakterin kendine has yöntemlerle sergilediği direnişi, en az konu alınan 3 kişinin sıkışıp kaldığı aşk öyküsü kadar vurgulu.
       Nazi istilasıyla Paris'ten kaçan direnişçilerin "özgürlükler ülkesi" Amerika'ya ulaşabilmelerinin tek yolu hala ele geçirilmemiş Fas'ın Casablanca kentinden Lizbon'a giden uçağa binebilmek için vize alabilmeleridir. Benzer bir amaçla Casablanca'ya gelen Amerikan vatandaşı Rick (Humphrey Bogart) ülkesine dönmemiş ve kendine orda etliye sütlüye karışmadığı bir yaşam kurmuştur, ta ki unutamadığı aşkı Ilsa Lund'ın (Ingrid Bergman) yolu Casablanca'ya düşene kadar. İlk bakışta klişe denebilecek bir öykü olmasına rağmen Casablanca'nın türünün ilk örneklerinden olması ve daha sonra çekilen aşk filmlerinin bu filme öykünmeleri senaryoyu çekici kılarken, filmdeki oyunculukların mükemmele yakın olması filmi 64 yıldır en çok izlenenler listesinde başlarda tutuyor. Dönemin anti-kahramanı Humphrey Bogart alaycı mizah anlayışı ve kendinden emin oyunculuğuyla unutulmayacak bir Rick Blaine karakteri yaratmış. Ilsa Lund ise Ingrid Bergman'ın duru ve güçlü oyunculuğla kendini bulmuş diyebilirim ancak başrollerden şöyle biraz kendimi sıyırabildiğimde Louis Renault rolunde Claude Rains'i bütün film boyunca keyifle ve hayranlıkla izlediğimi söylemem lazım. Bu derece güçlü oyunculuklar izleyebilmek için teşekkürleri biraz da siyah-beyaz dönemin efekt bombardımanından uzak, yalın sinemasına iletmek lazım...
            Bir miktar karafilm özellikleri taşıdığını düşündüğüm Casablanca'da bütün karakterlerin her konuda hazır cevap halleri hiç sekmeyen bir ritim yaratırken, filmin genelindeki ince mizah anlayışı kahkahalarla güldürmese bile özellikle son sahnede tatminkar bir gülümsemeyle uğurluyor seyirciyi. Birçok farklı ulustan insanı birada tutan Casablanca'nın ulusal farklılıklardan doğan komik unsurlar taşımasının yanısıra, doğru yönelttiği ama oku fırlatmadığı eleştirel bir bakış açısı var ki bu da Rick'in herşeyi bilen ama hiçbirşeye müdahil olmayan tavrıyla birebir örtüşüyor. Bu açıdan senaryo bütün karakterlerin uluslarını temsilen sahneye çıkması ve film sayesinde Amerika'nın savaşa geç müdahelesini sonuçta iyiye hizmet ettiğini belirterek Rick üzerinden haklılaştırması şeklinde de okunabilir.

The Divided Line: Hesiod, Socrates, Plato

Republic is a text that should be read attentively to be aware of how the theme of philosophical education is carried along on two different levels. The first level can be regarded as the education of Adeimentus and Glaucon by Socrates. The second one, on a broader sense, is the educational purposes of Plato on the readers that can only be accessed via the understanding of the text in its completeness. It is important to note that the text can be misleading if the reader only focuses on the former level and ignores the latter. That is to say, how Socrates proceeds on the path of education is confusing with all the different ingredients of the discussion. Without noticing the irony, that is the medium used by Plato to awaken the reader, it is very likely for the reader to get lost in the contradicting claims of Socrates when he introduces the analogy of the ideal city and its correspondence to the soul, which is actually in collision. Furthermore, the allegory of the sun, the divided line and the cave introduced in the books 6 and 7 are also in collision with the analogy of the ideal city, but they perfectly serve as means of understanding the way how Socrates approaches to the matter of education.  

It is not easy to analyze the text separately on the two different levels mentioned above since what Socrates and Plato aims in the sense of education are harmonious. Therefore, it will be appropriate first to focus on the form of education as understood both by Socrates and Plato and trace the signs of that form in the text. As far as the discussion in Plato’s texts leads, one comes to a sense of education through which the individual trades off the beliefs to the truth in order to attain virtue. Yet such a journey of mind necessitates willingness, which is the foremost aim of education. That is to say, since acquiring virtue is not something for the ignorant mind, it should be awakened through dialectical discussion as it is in Socrates and Plato. In that regard, every piece of text involving Socrates discussing with a less virtuous mind can be perceived as a way of education. And each example of this educational process finds its ultimate form – abstract – in the allegory of the cave. The individual in the conformity of the socially accepted norms, two-dimensional shadows on the wall in the case of the cave, should be taken out of his ignorance - the cave - and be exposed to the sunlight to realize the real form of the objects to have an understanding of the good. This methodology of education presented in the allegory of the cave is reflected upon the Socratic dialogues. What Socrates does is first to destroy what his listeners, Adeimentus and Glaucon, believed so far which in turn leaves these minds in a loose, shaky ground of existence. In that regard, Socrates defines this first encounter with truth as such:

“…This instrument by means of which each person learns, is like an eye which can only be turned away from the darkness and towards the light by turning the whole body…Education, then, would be the art of directing this instrument of finding the easiest and most effective way of turning it round.”

For that matter, the first aim of education is to save the person from the weights implanted on soul by custom and habit. Socrates seems to manage this objective through questioning the taken-for-granted beliefs and opinions of individuals until they reach a point at which their eyesight is coerced to look for truth. For those who are capable of divine rational thought with a pleasant nature the discussion leads to a new realm of understanding and thinking by following the arguments of Socrates. Here, it is important to ask to what degree Adeimentus and Glaucon achieve the aim of Socratic education. The answer to that question leads the reader to separate the two levels of education that is carried throughout the text. To illustrate, the very nature of Platonic dialogues is based upon logical, strictly constructed, step-by-step arguments and allegories because of the need to take things slow. On several occasions, the figures beside Socrates may seem numb to the reader because of demanding repetitions and examples on the issues examined in the text. Phrases like ‘How do you mean?’, ‘What is that?’, ‘such as?’, ‘Explain’ don’t seem to be accidental responses on the part of the person exposed to Socratic dialectics. On the contrary, these are very reflective of the current state of mind in which the eyesight is not yet accustomed to the new environment. Besides from that, in Platonic dialogues, most of the responses are just remarks of agreement or understanding like, ‘certainly’, ‘precisely’, ‘I agree’ and such. These remarks are crucial to understand the role of the educator at that point in terms of providing a well-structured dialectical way of thinking to the person to expand and accustom his/her eyesight.

            Following, as the soul is exposed to this new environment, it tends to go backward and forward but not in a linear line of thought. The person is inclined to be confused and run away from the new things pointed out at him, as it was the case with Thrasymachus and Adeimantus at some occasions. This experience is illustrated in the allegory as such:

“And if he was dragged out of there by force, up the steep and difficult path, with no pause until he had been dragged right into the sunlight, wouldn’t he find this dragging painful? Wouldn’t he resent it? And when he came into the light, with his eyes filled with the glare, would he be able to see a single one of the things he is now told are true?”

This is a very important passage to understand the painful nature of this experience. Once told the truth – as he conversed with Socrates – the person is left with nothing to rely on. That is because although we have seen that Glaucon and Adeimentus have followed the arguments and agreed by all means, so far, it is not mentioned what happens to them afterwards. It seems like the role of the educator stops at some point and the rest is due to the person involved in this dragging.

            After analyzing the methodology that Socrates is using towards the education of Adeimentus and Glaucon in coherence with the allegory of the cave, it is easier to have an understanding of what Plato is trying to achieve with the characters in the text. It is now appropriate to consider the discussion as a whole to see how Plato uses the irony in Socrates’s discourse on the ideal city and distinguish the reader of the text from the participants of the discussion. The book opens up with the discussion of justice, whether justice is beneficial for the soul or not. Socrates brings in the analogy of the ideal city to explain that justice is good for the individual. The city he is describing can be regarded as another form of tyranny with the philosopher king ruling according to his knowledge in the form of the good, which cannot be understood by any other individual in the city. Although the people have no access to that knowledge, they are willing to give the authority to the philosopher, who in turn separates them from their children, bans them from owning a property and enforces them to do the same job until the end of their lives and still, that form of a city is described as the totality of the happiest demos. What is more absurd is that the participants of the discussion fall short in opposing Socrates that what he describes does not seem to be ideal and at the end they are convinced that it is the ideal city.  Throughout his discussion, Socrates is figured like a magician who is lulling Adeimentus and Glaucon with the story of the ideal city. The reader comes to realize that he/she is also being lulled when Plato starts to give the signals of the collision between Socrates’ ideal city, which is reduced to the will of the philosopher just like in Hesiod – the will of Zeus- and the ideas that are advocated in the allegory of the divided line and the cave. What Socrates claims with those allegories that every individual should be turned to truth, does not hold with what he describes for the situation in Kallipolis. My interpretation for that collision would be that Plato is using irony to provoke some kind of a reaction among his readers against the philosophical inquiry of the ideal city. After introducing the medium to understand the form of the good with the allegory of the sun, he awaits the reader to identify himself with the philosopher in the ideal city, encourage him to break his chains and become the ruler of his own city. In other words, what Plato does is first to show the reader how to use Socratic dialectics and expect the reader to oppose to Socrates for the sake of their own philosophical inquiry.

In that regard, the eventual reach for sunlight is up to the individual in terms of capacity, self-discipline, courage and the other virtues mentioned as necessary inputs for a philosopher to become. It makes much more sense to think this way in terms of perceiving education as a means to get at that very point of self-realization. The following steps should be taken individually on the basis of the truth told and the methodology learnt. In that sense, it is possible to say that Socratic education is not “putting sight into eyes which were blind.” If I am to summarize here what has already been discussed about Socratic education above, it is the education that leads the individual to the point where he starts to question the knowledge already put in him. That is to say, Socratic education serves as a mean for the individual to investigate the aim of his actions rather than act accordingly what he has been told to achieve the good.

After interpreting Socratic education in those terms, what I would like to follow with is the comparison of the form of education in Hesiod’s text Works and Days and Socratic education in contrast. To make that comparison, it is crucial for me to first clarify how I perceive the myth of Er in the end of book 10 to avoid any misunderstanding in the analysis. In book 3, Socrates explains in detail how the stories told by the poets can be harmful for the education of the guardians in Kallipolis. He proposes a strict censorship on the stories to be told to the guardians in their education process, especially the stories on the gods; “When it comes to stories about the gods, then this is apparently the sort of thing which from their earliest childhood people must be told- and not told- if they are to show respect for the gods and their parents, and put a high value on friendship with one another.” In his discussion Socrates emphasizes how imitation, in that case tragedy and comedy, relating to the irrational part of the soul can ruin a blind individual if he accepts what he sees as the truth. What is underlying in this discussion is that poetry is such a powerful device to affect individuals in their choices so that no one else than the philosophers, who have the knowledge of the truth, can appreciate poetry as a work of art. The great value he gives to art is far more obvious in the discussion in book 10 when he chooses to end his discussion with a myth right after explaining how imitation is two removes from the truth. My interpretation of the reason why he chooses the myth of Er to end his discussion would be that he himself as the philosopher who is educating the guardians in his city according to the limitations that he put on their education, I prefer to call Adeimentus and Glaucon as the guardians after reading the whole text because they did not turn out to be the philosophers, uses the power of art to lead them to the good. The myth of Er in that respect is a well chosen story, in which there is no confusion about the gods’ existence and the good way of living in Socratic terms.

Hesiod’s text Works and Days offers a complement to what Socrates is doing in the end of book 10 with the myth of Er by taking the discussion to a metaphysical level that cannot be judged by the mortals, but it offers a contrast in the sense of Socratic education that is explained in the first part of the essay. What Hesiod does in Works and Days is much closer to how education should not be according to Socrates. By telling the myths about Prometheus, Pandora and the five Ages of Man, Hesiod tries to put knowledge into his brother Perses’ soul, who he believes to be blind. His form of education differs from Socrates’s in methodology. While Socrates is using dialectics to improve the eyesight of his interlocutors, Hesiod prefers story telling. Both texts focus on the theme of living a good life, but Hesiod’s approach to goodness and justice does not rely on understanding the true nature of those concepts. Instead, his approach can be regarded as materialistic in order to prove that a just life is better for his brother. Hesiod advises Perses to be just in order to be nourished by the gods:

But to man he has given Justice and she proves to be far the best;

for if a man, of his knowledge, wills to speak justly, to him

Loud-Voiced Zeus grants prosperity;

but to him who will lie by witnesses, swearing falsely,

consciously, and injuring Justice shall fall to sin past cure,

his generation after him is left weaker;

but the generation of the just-swearing man remains better then before.

This passage is to some extent similar to what Socrates is telling with the myth of Er, but the main difference between Socrates’s story and this passage, also the Republic and Works and Days, is that the individual is rewarded or punished by the gods in their lifetimes according to Hesiod and the reward for justice is prosperity, whereas Socrates mentions of a punishment in the afterlife. What Socrates proves in book 1 and 2 is that justice should be applied for the sake of being just, in that sense Hesiod’s advice to Perses on being just to get prosperous would be an unjust behavior according to Socrates and it would offer a contrast in educational terms to turn the blind souls to the truth.   

            Another point that serves as a contrast to Socratic education in Hesiod’s approach to educate his brother according to the good way of living is the matter of individual choice. Hesiod’s educational discourse is formed on the basis that Zeus is the outer authority to whom mortals should obey and make sacrifices. That is to say, human actions are in the control of Zeus and he may be held responsible for both the good and bad in human actions. At this point, what Hesiod does is to draw the territory of the human actions according to an outer authority and come up with conclusions in this context, without leaving enough space for the individual choice. On the contrary, Socrates emphasizes the importance of self-realization and encourages the individual to take the full responsibility of his actions as he derives in Book 2 that “Since god is good, he could not be responsible for everything. Some of the things that happen to men are his responsibility, but most are not; after all, we have many fewer good things than bad things in our lives. We have no reason to hold anyone else responsible for the good things, whereas for the bad things we should look for some other cause, and not blame god.” For Socrates, gods should not be considered as the authority for the mortals, instead they are reflected as the role model for the ultimate goodness. He again refers to the importance of individual choice in the myth of Er, when the souls are choosing a new form for their new life. This shows that individual soul, always in progress, can be directed to apprehend the consequences of his own actions with the proper education and then choose what is best for himself, which will also lead to what is good for everyone around him.

            In conclusion, Hesiod’s Works and Days is in contrast with Socratic education on the basis of reasoning. Since it is claimed that Socratic education is a journey that one takes to better understand his own existence and the true forms of the objects, Hesiod falls short in bringing his reader to that point of self realization because his sheer advices lack the proper reasoning. In the course of the analysis above, one can argue that the approaches of Hesiod, Socrates and Plato to education can be reflected upon the allegory of divided line to show how Hesiod’s advices coincide with the belief part in the divided line, Socratic dialectics with the thinking process and Plato’s artwork Republic, in its completeness, with the understanding part.  It will not be wrong to say that after reading the Republic attentively, the reader, taken to the level of understanding with the presented methodology, is left to answer the questions aroused in the text on justice and goodness in his/her subjective manners. That is to say, Plato achieves his aim by using Socratic education to bring the reader to level where he/she is ready to acquire the true knowledge of things in his/her own understanding.

Iliad and Liberal Education

Iliad, as a literary artwork, reminds of human excellence and greatness in the field of poetry. Being one of the oldest epic poems, Iliad is a product of human excellence not only in terms of form, but also the themes Homer touches upon - anger, justice, the divine, love - have challenged many great minds, and are still disputable in modern times. In this sense, Iliad serves as an epic beauty, in which Homer aesthetically harmonizes the content and the form. Therefore, if liberal education is an experience in things beautiful, should the Iliad be regarded as a part of liberal education?

            In order to analyze Iliad as a text for liberal education, it is important to understand what is meant by liberal education and the aim of this type of education. According to Strauss, “Liberal education is education in culture or toward culture.” Since culture here refers to the cultivation of mind, the aim of liberal education is to awaken the individual from his/her torpor embedded in mass democracy. To move from the concept of modern democracy shaped by the ignorant members of mass culture to the ideal democratic state, Strauss suggests individuals to transform the monologues of the greatest minds into a dialogue. That is to say, one should develop an awareness of cultural and historical differences and avoid the deterministic approach to learning inherent in modern thought. In doing so, by employing dialectics, individuals will be able to recognize and appreciate human excellence and greatness.

            Given that framework, on what, for Homer, does human excellence or greatness lay? Is it possible for the reader to develop a dialogue with Homer to realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world? Does Iliad as an epic poem scoping on Trojan War – one of the oldest literature on human violence - somehow relate to the goodness of the world? To answer these questions one can argue how powerful is the narration of Homer on violence, as the reader identifies with that violence in the most possible peaceful way. His fulgent storytelling goes hand in hand with what is natural, and nature itself. One of the good examples of this relation to nature is his representation of the battle field before Hector kills Patroclusin in Book 16:

Winds sometimes rise in a deep mountain wood

From different directions, and the trees—

Beech, ash, and cornelian cherry—

Batter each other with their long, tapered branches,

And you can hear the sound from a long way off,

The unnerving splintering of hardwood limbs.

Homer’s use of similes of this kind takes the story of the harsh violence into slow motion, giving time to the reader to stop and think about human nature for a better understanding of being. Direct references to the god made nature, and the pure essence of human actions are represented without any signs of vulgarity. Strauss says that “Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity.” Vulgarity here, referring to its Greek use, is expressed as a lack of experience in beautiful things. Iliad, consisted of many beauties like the simile represented above, in its completeness is a form of aesthetics. Therefore, one can agree when Strauss favors the classical literature and Greek philosophy as the two fields in which one can find beauty in its highest form. Though this belief is not exclusive of the modern approach to sciences, there is a greater emphasis on the need to read classical texts for their own sakes, for the beauty they offer to the reader.

In The Republic, book 10, Socrates discusses that the art works such as paintings or poems would be dangerous for the citizens of Kallipolis. Although he claims to admire the works of Homer, those poems have the potential to be dangerous in a way that they can provoke the irrational element of the soul and be a destructive influence on the minds of those who hear it. If the effect of Homer’s poems on the ordinary citizen is set aside and the effects on philosophers is considered, Socrates’s discussion reveals how powerful Homer is as a poet even for those great minds like Plato and Socrates. Their interest in Iliad and other poems is not only because it is a pleasure to read them; but because of their power for reproduction in philosophical form. That is to say, with an erotic perspective, one may defend the beauty in Homer not as a plain pleasure of verbal excellence; but also as an object of beauty, which leads great minds to create new ideas of human greatness.

            To proceed in the line of discussion on Iliad as a part of liberal education, it is also as important for me to read and understand Iliad in its depth in order to have a full access to the works of the following great minds. Iliad’s epic beauty provided Homer an authority over the depiction of Gods and the Greek mythology in general. Since Iliad is the pioneer in bringing about the issues of the divine and justice in Western literature. In that sense, Homer can be perceived as a mediator between the history and his audience through the means of epic improvisations as it is argued in the introduction to Iliad there is no other reliable source to refer in terms of the period Homer describes. In that respect, it is that aesthetics present in Iliad which makes it as powerful as it is both for people of its age as a guide for tradition and religion, and of the contemporary as an historical source for Greek mythology and a marvelous piece of poetry.

The Lilac Government - Anecdote

          

         The liberation movement at the end of the 1960’s has nearly resulted in a civil war in Turkey between the nationalists and socialists, which ended up with the military coup in 1971. Many socialists were arrested and soldiers were searching the houses of the socialists for potentially harmful political books. It is not surprising that The Republic was the hand book of the socialists who were in search of the ideal city. The name ‘Plato’ is translated to Turkish as ‘Eflatun’, which is also the same name for the color of lilac. While soldiers were searching for the books to be burnt in one of the socialists’ house, they came across with The Republic, on which was written ‘Eflatun - Devlet’ in Turkish. The exact translation makes it ‘the lilac government’ in English. Just like the carefully educated guardians of Kallipolis, the Turkish guardians were also kept away from the dangerous books, which could harm their belief in their government, that is why they could not recognize The Republic. Instead, their reaction was that they said they have heard about the red government before, but not the lilac one. So they did not take the book to burn with the others.

            It would be unreasonable to compare here the political system of Turkey with the system in The Republic. However, for the sake of the argument, it is possible only to say that at that time the Turkish political system was an unqualified copy of the totalitarian regime that Socrates describes. Socrates’ theory on the ideal city mainly relies on the education of the guardians and the philosopher kings. Assuming that philosophers are the ones who have the knowledge of the good, they should be the rulers and provide the proper education to the guardians for the common good of the city. The system he represents can be seen as a totalitarian regime in the sense that philosopher kings, who have the knowledge on ‘the good’ that the citizens are not able to access because of their inabilities, will decide for the common good of the passive demos. Although the city is ruled by autocracy, it is not tyrannical regarding that all the guardians are good to the people and the city is imagined according to the harmony and the happiness of the people. This harmony was the reason for the Turkish socialists’ interest in the book. In their egalitarian beliefs, they wanted to approach to a better state similar to the idealized system in Plato’s book. One can argue that the missing point in their actions relating to the book is Socrates’ argument on the will of philosopher kings to rule. Socrates claims that the philosopher does not have any interest in ruling the city, but because he is the only one who have the wisdom to rule the city, it is in a way demanded from him and he should not resist to that demand. This argument shows that the change should start within in the individual so that they will be able to demand the service of the best ruler. Nevertheless, socialists of the time wanted to bring the change to the public by political means, but the individuals were not introduced with the idea of the good. At this point, what I would like to claim with the above anecdote is that the political reading of the book, as the socialists did, can be misleading. To put it differently, Socrates tries to avoid the political understanding of his  arguments in the book, when Adeimentus and Glaucon demands him to explain how it can be possible to create such an ideal city, and pull their attention to the philosophical argument first to give them a perspective on the philosophical inquiry.

            In order to differentiate the philosophical implications of the text from what has actually been said in the line of argument on justice in Kallipolis, it is important to look at the path that Socrates’ argument follows. In the search for the true nature of justice, first Socrates introduces the idea of ‘the goodness’, which exists on a transcendental level. Since this abstraction is beyond human understanding, he assumes a city which consists of a ruling class, guardians and the public. He claims that the only possible connection of the city with the idea of the goodness can be through the philosophers because only philosophers recognize and take pleasure in the single form behind the multiplicity of appearances. Guardians are educated through this understanding of the good to be courageous enough to protect it. Then he uses this analogy to reflect the virtues of the soul, in which there exist both rational and irrational elements. At that point, the analogy of the city and the soul collide in each other and the state of the city does not fit in the state of the soul. Adeimentus and Glaucon, with Eros in themselves, demand Socrates to explain how such a system can be applicable insistently with the desire to believe in the idea of the good. Socrates, satisfied to see that the discussion triggered the desire for the search of the true nature of the individual, then passes on the topic of the philosopher’s education.

            The introduction of the discussion on the philosopher’s education takes the argument to another level. This part of the book can be seen as the exercises part at the end of a chapter. While discussing the virtues of the philosopher like wisdom, good memory, and justice, Socrates further provokes Adeimentus and Glaucon, already planted with the idea of the good, to practice philosophical inquiry. According to the path that Socrates follows, one can argue that the sections in his divided line analogy at the end of book 6; conjecture, belief, thinking, and understanding, refer to the phases they have been through from the beginning of the discussion. Adeimentus and Glaucon in book 6 are in the thinking section regarding their enthusiasm to have the knowledge of the good that Socrates is talking about. Socrates claims that it is not possible for humans to fully understand that transcendental energy, but tries to improve their vision with the allegory of the cave that one should go out in the sun to have a better understanding of the ideal forms. Here, he uses the philosophical nature as an image to describe the divine motive in the individual soul. In a way, his discussion leads Adeimentus and Glaucon to the highest degree in the divided line, which is understanding, through being aware of that philosophical nature of the soul to get out of the cave.

            To conclude, when Socrates asks in book 5 that "do you think our inability to show that it is possible to found a city in the way we have described makes what we have to say any less valid?", this question alters our understanding of the function or significance of Kallipolis by freeing the reader from the political constraints of the city and emphasizing the importance of the education of the individual soul. Just as Glaucon, the reader is also encouraged to search for the divine in the soul. If it can be recognized through the help of the proper education,  then the discussion on justice will come to an end because it is impossible for the individual to act unjustly after reunifying with the knowledge of the good. In other words, with this question the reader realizes that Socrates wants to stimulate the change that is required for a just society starting from the individual and his main aim is to practice this educational matter with the people he is in dialogue with, in that case they are Adeimentus and Glaucon. What Plato does with The Republic is to invite a large number of the readers in the discussion, again for the educational purposes that he believes in just like Socrates.

Philosophy and Storytelling: Socratic Theology vs. Hesiodic Theology on the Basis of Rationality

The Greek word “theologia” is a compound of “theos”, which is God, and “logos”, which is discourse. The word is said to be used first by Plato in The Republic, but Tom Griffith in his translation refers to the term as “to talk about Gods”.  The importance of Gods is obvious in both Hesiod’s and Plato’s texts and the talks about Gods repetitiously partake, but there is a slight difference between Hesiod’s discourse and Socrates’s. To be able to decide whether Socrates is rational and Hesiod is irrational or vice versa, these two different attitudes towards Gods should be examined.

            To make a rational analysis on the two different theologies and their rationality, it is meaningful to define rationality first. The etymological root of the word “rational” is the Latin word “ratio”, which means “reason”. Therefore, a rational theology should be a reasoned discourse about the Gods. What is meant by reasoned discourse is that contradiction should be removed from the line of argument. In this context, my claim is that Hesiod’s text includes inconsistencies concerning the understanding and application of goodness.

Works and Days is a text in which Hesiod tells the stories of Gods to show his brother Perses the good way of living, and gives him advices to go that way. By telling the myths about Prometheus, Pandora and the five Ages of Man, he gives a description of Gods to whom he attaches human emotions. The Gods in Hesiod’s text are more or less like human beings in their relations to each other and mortals. They expect to be honored by the sacrifices of the mortals, get angry by their disrespectful actions and take revenge by punishing them. The distinction between mortals and immortals is based on a power relation. The Gods, who have the power to create as well as destroy, are superior to the human kind in that respect. This reduced power relation between mortals and immortals results in a utilitarian understanding of goodness and justice. Hesiod advices Perses in the lines 279-285, to be just in order to be nourished by the Gods:

But to man he has given Justice and she proves to be far the best;

for if a man, of his knowledge, wills to speak justly, to him

Loud-Voiced Zeus grants prosperity;

but to him who will lie by witnesses, swearing falsely,

consciously, and injuring Justice shall fall to sin past cure,

his generation after him is left weaker;

but the generation of the just-swearing man remains better then before.

The leitmotif of Hesiod’s words above is that justice brings humans prosperity and unjust behavior will be punished by Zeus. Distant from understanding the true nature of goodness, Hesiod’s reasoning in the just behavior is materialistic gain or the fear of the God. To me, this approach to justice is contradictory to the concept of being just, because justice can only be applied for the sake of justice not for the sake of any other materialistic concerns, or it would not be a just behavior.

            Another contradiction in Hesiod’s theology is that although he claims the ones who live their lives truthfully and care for justice and goodness in their actions will be rewarded by the Gods, one cannot be sure about their destiny because it is all up to Zeus’s will. After making a long list of things to do to have a good life according to Zeus’s will, Hesiod informs Perses that Zeus’s will is unstable:

But sometimes the mind of Zeus, aegis-bearing, is one way

and sometimes another; for mortal men it is hard to fathom.

Is it possible to lead a just life according to the God’s will, which is a part of its unstable nature? How did Hesiod have the access to that detailed knowledge about the Gods’ existence? There seems to be no answers to and even place for this sort of questions in Hesiod’s text. Hence, the appearance of Gods in Hesiod’s text is ambiguous and his theology is inconsistent according to the above arguments. The underlying reason for that inconsistency is that Hesiod’s discourse on the Gods is formed on the basis that Zeus is the outer authority to whom mortals should obey and make sacrifices. In a way, human actions are in the control of Zeus, which means that he may be held responsible for both the good and bad in human actions. At this point, what Hesiod does is to draw the territory of the human actions according to an outer authority and come up with conclusions in this context, without questioning the reasons for that kind of actions.

            On the contrary, in Republic Socrates, follows a path in his discourse on Gods starting from the individuals’ actions and their consequences. By applying dialectics, he questions the nature of justice and just behavior. He emphasizes the importance of knowledge and wisdom, which are the greatest virtues of the soul, in order to be able to apply justice. For a deeper understanding of the soul he uses the allegory of the ideal city. In his argument a greater emphasis is put on the education of the guardians of the city through which the argument is then carried on the level of self-discipline. The main point in Socratic theology is that individuals are held responsible for their own actions, and if there is to be a control mechanism for their actions, this mechanism will be set through the education of the soul and the body to create a balance for all the elements in the soul. He places Gods in his allegory as the role model for the ultimate goodness. Goodness is the only characteristic that he attaches to the existence of Gods. This ideal form of the good then becomes his reason in explaining the importance of self-discipline and education as he derives in Book 2 that “Since god is good, he could not be responsible for everything. Some of the things that happen to men are his responsibility, but most are not; after all, we have many fewer good things than bad things in our lives. We have no reason to hold anyone else responsible for the good things, whereas for the bad things we should look for some other cause, and not blame god.”At this point, his arguments complete a circle, he starts with the need of proper education to have a better understanding of the true nature of things and then this understanding again leads to the importance of proper education of the soul and body to handle the consequences of being. Although it is sometimes hard to fully follow his reasoning, what I look for, in my quest for rationality in his theology, is the absence of contradiction and I can claim that there is an apparent consistency in his arguments. 

            To conclude, Socrates and Hesiod were different in the methods they used to develop their arguments, the method of the former is philosophizing on the human existence, and the latter is storytelling on the existence of the Gods. According to the Latin writer Varro, the discourse on the Gods can be distinguished into three categories; mythical (concerning the myths of the Greek gods), rational (philosophical analysis of the gods and of cosmology) and civil (concerning the rites and duties of public religious observance). It will not be wrong to claim that Hesiodic theology is more coherent with the mythical discourse and Socratic theology with the rational discourse.