Kendra’s Comments (group member since Aug 26, 2016)

Kendra’s comments from the Reading Classics, Chronologically Through the Ages group.

"In the history of human liberty, Locke’s essay Concerning Civil Government stands out not only as a great contribution to political theory, but also as an effective instigator of political action. It is a stirring pronouncement of the principles of the English 'bloodless revolution' of 1688, which brought about fundamental innovations in the British constitution. It also set the stage for the American Revolution of 1776 by furnishing inspiration to the writers of the Declaration of Independence.

Its central doctrines of man’s natural and unalienable rights, of popular sovereignty, and of the right of rebellion are eloquently set forth in the opening paragraphs of the Declaration. 'That all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights,' that 'governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,' and that when government becomes destructive of human rights, 'it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it' — these are the principles (and, for the most part, the words) which Thomas Jefferson and his associates adopted from Locke and put to good use.

While the image of good government that Locke had in mind was a constitutional monarchy, in which the legislative power of Parliament was supreme but in which the king retained certain executive prerogatives, the republican form of government set up by the Constitution of the United States is a more thoroughgoing embodiment of his ideal of government by law rather than by men. All our political liberties are rooted in the rule of law. It is this which makes constitutional government 'free government' — government that secures to all of us 'the blessings of liberty.'" Source

"No work of science has drawn more attention from philosophers than Newton's Principia. The reasons for this, however, and consequently the focus of the attention have changed significantly from one century to the next. During the 20th Century philosophers have viewed the Principia in the context of Einstein's new theory of gravity in his theory of general relativity. The main issues have concerned the relation between Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravity and what the need to replace the former with the latter says about the nature, scope, and limits of scientific knowledge. During most of the 18th Century, by contrast, Newton's theory of gravity remained under dispute, especially because of the absence of a mechanism — in particular, a contact mechanism — producing gravitational forces. The philosophic literature correspondingly endeavored to clarify and to resolve, one way or the other, the dispute over whether the Principia should or should not be viewed as methodologically well founded. By the 1790s Newton's theory of gravity had become established among those engaged in research in orbital mechanics and physical geodesy, leading to the Principia becoming the exemplar of science at its most successful. Philosophic interest in the Principia during the 19th Century therefore came to focus on how Newton had achieved this success, in part to characterize the knowledge that had been achieved and in part to pursue comparable knowledge in other areas of research." (Source)

Susan Wise Bauer recommends reading at least "Rules" and "General Scholium"

Shefalika wrote: "Hello everyone! I am a management consultant by profession with a degree in English lit.(hence the inclination towards classics) and an MBA. I've been constantly trying to make reading a consistent..."

Welcome and good luck with your reading endeavors! While we are following a reading schedule, feel free to follow your own plan and comment on old discussion posts - the conversation can continue, even if it's not our current read.

"A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (also known as The Sovereignty and Goodness of God) was a book written by Mary (White) Rowlandson, a colonial American woman who was captured during an attack by Native Americans during King Philip's War and held ransom for 11 weeks and 5 days. After being released, she wrote the book, which was a work in the literary genre of captivity narratives. It is considered to be one of America's first bestsellers, four editions appearing in 1682 when it was first published." (Source)

"The Pilgrim’s Progress, religious allegory by the English writer John Bunyan, [was] published in two parts in 1678 and 1684. The work is a symbolic vision of the good man’s pilgrimage through life. At one time second only to the Bible in popularity, The Pilgrim’s Progress is the most famous Christian allegory still in print. It was first published in the reign of Charles II and was largely written while its Puritan author was imprisoned for offenses against the Conventicle Act of 1593 (which prohibited the conducting of religious services outside the bailiwick of the Church of England)." Source

I'm nearing the end of Paradise Lost and I have a few thoughts I want to share. Despite being raised Christian and having read the bible story of Adam and Eve plenty of times, this dramatization of it brought about some new thoughts and perspectives.

Satan's portrayal as the hero and main character of the story really is interesting. I, too, found myself rooting for him and rolling my eyes at those working against him.

Something that really stood out is the misogynistic portrayal of Eve. When the angel comes to warn them not to be deceived and sticks around to have a meal and answer their questions, Eve is dismissed when she asks about heaven and basically is told to stay in her lane. That her natural and innocent curiosity is demeaned, while Adam's is praised really rubbed me the wrong way. And then, later, when Eve is mourning her sin, she attributes her falling for the deception to being female.

I'm also newly disturbed by Adam and Eve being told to avoid knowledge and understanding. While I know I'm considering this from a perspective of a culture that highly values education and intellect, as well as the ideals of democracy, alarm bells sound when someone is told to avoid knowledge for "their own good" and to just blindly trust those who have the knowledge. In this I see the roots of how Christianity has been used to control and oppress throughout history.

I laughed when Eve suggested that a solution to their problem would be to just not have children and/or commit suicide, because that was a thought I had a few moments prior. The problem wouldn't exist if she ceased to exist, right?

Having - to use a biblical analogy - thrown off the yoke of Christianity in my own life, I was doubtful if it would be worthwhile or enjoyable to read some of these overtly Christian books, but I am finding that they allow me to re-evaluate how these concepts have influenced society throughout history, and to identify some unquestioned ideals and assumptions that are so blindly accepted in America to this day.

"Molière's play Tartuffe (also sometimes referred to as Tartuffe, or, The Imposter) is a masterwork by France's most celebrated comic playwright. Tartuffe is set in the realm of seventeenth-century Parisian high society during the reign of King Louis XIV.

The character of Tartuffe represents those members of society who preach religious piety but do not themselves live by the morals they try to force upon others. Because the play focuses on the issue of religious hypocrisy, it was highly controversial at the time it was written and was banned from public performance for five years." Source

Looks like an amazing list! Please share your thoughts as you work through it.

“Many scholars consider Paradise Lost to be one of the greatest poems in the English language. It tells the biblical story of the fall from grace of Adam and Eve (and, by extension, all humanity) in language that is a supreme achievement of rhythm and sound. The 12-book structure, the technique of beginning in medias res (in the middle of the story), the invocation of the muse, and the use of the epic question are all classically inspired. The subject matter, however, is distinctly Christian.

The main characters in the poem are God, Lucifer (Satan), Adam, and Eve. Much has been written about Milton’s powerful and sympathetic characterization of Satan. The Romantic poets William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley saw Satan as the real hero of the poem and applauded his rebellion against the tyranny of Heaven.” Source

I found this review to be extremely amusing and interesting (warning for spoilers and language)

What struck me most about this book was the level of Bunyan's anguish and emotional/spiritual distress. To some extent, I could relate to it, although the result of my personal experience was quite different.

I was raised Christian and experienced a certain degree of anguish as I wrestled with wanting so badly to believe that it was true, alongside the fact that I simply did not believe and could not force myself to do so.

While Bunyan does not wrestle so much with belief as with his personal sense of salvation, his experience portrays the more general journey of arriving at a belief. It's not usually a single moment of understanding followed by unwavering confidence. There's a lot of waffling and uncertainty and struggle as we travel to our own sturdy ground. The journey is not always linear, but we get there eventually. Bunyan did, and so did I.

“Grace Abounding [to the Chief of Sinners is a] spiritual autobiography of John Bunyan, written during the first years of his 12-year imprisonment for Nonconformist religious activities and published in 1666. Bunyan’s effort to obtain an absolutely honest, unadorned rendering of the truth about his own spiritual experience caused him to forge a highly original style. His description of the inner life of the Christian is rich in powerful physical imagery; he feels ‘a clogging and a heat at my breast-bone as if my bowels would have burst out’ and states that a preacher’s call to abandon the sin of idle pastimes ‘did benumb the sinews of my best delights.’” Source

While I stopped reading the descriptions about 100 pages in because I didn't feel like I was gaining anything meaningful from them, I took time to look at all the drawings. It is interesting to consider how incredible these details were when Hooke published them - no one had see the way the legs of a flea work and it was a marvel. I wonder what Hooke would think about modern microscopes, capable of a much greater magnification than he ever achieved.

“Robert Hooke (1635–1703) was not only a scientist, he was a mapmaking pioneer, architect, astronomer, biologist and ingenious experimenter. He was a founding member and ‘curator of experiments’ at the Royal Society, an academy at the cutting edge of scientific discovery in Britain.

Micrographia was the first important work on microscopy, the study of minute objects through a microscope. First published in 1665, it contains large-scale, finely detailed illustrations of some of the specimens Hooke viewed under the microscopes he designed. At the end of the book, there are observations of the stars and moon as seen through a telescope.
By changing our perspective, Hooke gives power and beauty to things that might otherwise be dismissed as disgusting or trivial – the surface of frozen urine, the eye of a grey drone-fly, a piece of moss, the body of a louse, an ant or a flea. Alongside the engravings, he writes entertaining accounts of his observations. Hooke is witty and even poetic, using similes to help us imagine the world he sees through his lenses.” Source

Danielle wrote: "I enjoyed reading the Meditations on First Philosophy. I found it interesting how Descartes's argument moved from a reluctance to trust anything as definitively existing except himself through his ..."

I agree it is interesting how he comes to the conclusion that his senses can be trusted. The lecture I posted above mentioned that he came to that conclusion so subtly that it took some time for the church to realize that it was actually in opposition to their teaching, and they did eventually ban the book.

As to your point about writing in the first person, I think it makes sense given that this book is, in some ways, a personal journey. I have wondered why Bauer included this book under the "autobiography" category and, while it is in no way a story of Descartes' life, it is a story about the journey of his mind. He brings the reader along with him and explains how and why he is engaging in this mental journey, so to put the book in anything but the first person would create a degree of separation between himself and his ideas.

I think Descartes' arguments become weaker in the later meditations. While built on a strong foundations (I think therefore I exist), he ventures into claims that seem to me to be more subjective.

One of the most well-known ideas popularized by Descartes is the separation between body and mind. This idea is so enmeshed in culture that it is something I didn't take the time to really consider before reading this. I didn't necessarily come to a conclusion -- I think both sides of the argument have uncertainties they need to contend with -- but this experience at least proved one of Descartes' claims: we need to observe and question the base assumptions we learned in childhood.

While I haven't watched all of it yet, I found this lecture series to be very interesting and helpful in understanding what Descartes is saying. Highly recommended!

"In 1641 Descartes published the Meditations on First Philosophy, in Which Is Proved the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul. Written in Latin and dedicated to the Jesuit professors at the Sorbonne in Paris, the work includes critical responses by several eminent thinkers—collected by Mersenne from the Jansenist philosopher and theologian Antoine Arnauld (1612–94), the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), and the Epicurean atomist Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655)—as well as Descartes’s replies. The second edition (1642) includes a response by the Jesuit priest Pierre Bourdin (1595–1653), who Descartes said was a fool. These objections and replies constitute a landmark of cooperative discussion in philosophy and science at a time when dogmatism was the rule.

The Meditations is characterized by Descartes’s use of methodic doubt, a systematic procedure of rejecting as though false all types of belief in which one has ever been, or could ever be, deceived. His arguments derive from the skepticism of the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus (fl. 3rd century CE) as reflected in the work of the essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) and the Catholic theologian Pierre Charron (1541–1603). Thus, Descartes’s apparent knowledge based on authority is set aside, because even experts are sometimes wrong. His beliefs from sensory experience are declared untrustworthy, because such experience is sometimes misleading, as when a square tower appears round from a distance. Even his beliefs about the objects in his immediate vicinity may be mistaken, because, as he notes, he often has dreams about objects that do not exist, and he has no way of knowing with certainty whether he is dreaming or awake. Finally, his apparent knowledge of simple and general truths of reasoning that do not depend on sense experience—such as “2 + 3 = 5” or “a square has four sides”—is also unreliable, because God could have made him in such a way that, for example, he goes wrong every time he counts. As a way of summarizing the universal doubt into which he has fallen, Descartes supposes that an 'evil genius of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me.'" Source

Welcome, Erin! (Sorry for the delayed reply) I look forward to discussing some of these books with you!

"The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is a 1632 Italian-language book by Galileo Galilei comparing the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system.

In the Copernican system, the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun, while in the Ptolemaic system, everything in the Universe circles around the Earth. The Dialogue was published in Florence under a formal license from the Inquisition. In 1633, Galileo was found to be 'vehemently suspect of heresy' based on the book, which was then placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, from which it was not removed until 1835 (after the theories it discussed had been permitted in print in 1822)." Source

“In the 17th century, Francis Bacon, an English philosopher, [developed the Baconian method] as a scientific substitute for the prevailing systems of thought, which, to his mind, relied all to often on fanciful guessing and the mere citing of authorities to establish truths of science. After first dismissing all prejudices and preconceptions, Bacon’s method, as explained in Novum Organum (1620; “New Instrument”), consisted of three main steps: first, a description of facts; second, a tabulation, or classification, of those facts into three categories—instances of the presence of the characteristic under investigation, instances of its absence, or instances of its presence in varying degrees; third, the rejection of whatever appears, in the light of these tables, not to be connected with the phenomenon under investigation and the determination of what is connected with it.

Bacon may be credited with recognizing, in their essence, the method of agreement, the joint method, and the method of concomitant variations. His emphasis on the exhaustive cataloguing of facts, however, has since been replaced as a scientific method, for it provided no means of bringing investigation to an end or of insightful delimitation of the problem by creative use of hypotheses.” (Source)

“The ‘Authorized Version’ of the Bible, a translation sponsored by King James of England, affected the English language for centuries afterwards, and the Psalms – the Bible’s book of poems – has colored the language of poets right through the twentieth century. The translators of this 1611 English-language version of the Bible intended to make a Bible that was accessible to all readers. Translation, they wrote in their preface, ‘openeth the window, to let in the light…breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel…putteth aside the curtain, and we may look into the most Holy place…removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water.’ In their attempt to make the Psalms ‘open’ to seventeenth-century English, the translators rendered Hebrew poetry into good English, keeping some Hebrew conventions and doing enormous violence to others.” (Bauer)

If you would prefer to only read a sample, Bauer recommends the following: Psalms 1, 2, 5, 23, 27, 51, 57, 89, 90, 91, 103, 109, 119, 121, 132, 136, 148, 150