Hey folks, welcome back to New Zinkory. And if you're hearing my voice, that can only mean that David Barr once again has stuck somewhere eating a sandwich. He's not with us tonight. He sends his regrets out.
Where is David tonight? He's eating a sandwich. That's what I said. Okay.
Just confirming what I thought. Tonight, we are very lucky. We're very fortunate to have a repeat guest on the show. In fact, he was our very first guest way back when over a hundred and some odd episodes ago, the distinguished professor Charles Butterworth, my former professor, David's former professor as well.
And Alex also said it on some of his classes. Charles Butterworth is the professor emeritus of government at the University of Maryland College Bar. He's been in the middle of the world, Dallas, or Tails. Washington, D.C., University of Maryland.
He's been in Paris. He's been in several places in the least. Our audience would know him, I suppose, most of all, for his famous translations of the works of Al-Farabi and the Verui's with Cornell Press. He's done Al-Farabi, the political writings, which contains the Slico-Dapharisms and other texts.
He's done Volume 2 of the political writings, which is Al-Farabi's summary of Plato's laws and his political regime. He's also done Al-Farabi's philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. That's also with Cornell Press and then also the Verui's the decisive treatise, which is one of my favorite texts as well. And I'm sorry, go ahead.
I did that. Oh, did I say something wrong? The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. That was most of my thesis.
All right. You just edited it. Tom Pangolin, I wrote an introduction to the new edition of it. But you also did a translation as well of three of the very short treatises, right?
Oh, yes. The short commentaries. And I hope before the end of the year, early in the next year, to have the full set of 12, all 12 of those short commentaries out in Arabic and in English. That I did not know.
What press? That's a great surprise. What press? The Zatuna College Press in Berkeley, California has expressed interest in it.
And I think they will probably do it. And they're also publishing your text that you've been working on for many years now. The Raffaubi text. Correct.
They have many things going for them. It's a Zatuna College is an Islamic liberal arts college in Berkeley. And the one of the founders is a Berkeley graduate in philosophy. They perform very interested in philosophy.
And they do a remarkable job of Arabic, English, hardback editions and very affordable questions. Right. So that's a text that has the Arabic on one side and English on the other side, like here Decisive Treatise. Correct.
Yeah. Very good. Yeah. I have that decisive treatise and I walk around with it.
I'm reading it. You know, I'm in a coffee shop trying to impress people. Nice. Very good.
Yeah. And so that's almost finished on the book letters. It's done. It's all hands of Zatuna Press.
And it's a matter of wherever they are with respect to sending it out to be vetted by readers. That's where we are. So we can have you back on to do the book of letters when that book comes out. Is that what I'm here?
We'll have to let you read it first and see whether you think this is the kind of flavor. Well, it's about metaphysics. Right. So, right.
Yeah. The book of letters is a title coming from Aristotle's metaphysics. Maybe from Aristotle's metaphysics. It's just controversy that the Arabic is qi'tab al-huruf and harf plural.
Huruf means either letter letters or particle. And what Al-Fadabi really does is speaks about the particles, the kinds of things that you find in Aristotle in order to talk about the different ways that you speak about what is from by of something. And then of course the other possibility is that it's a sly reference to the book that Aristotle wrote that is known in our tradition by distinct letters, alpha, small alpha and so forth. Yeah.
And before we move on to what the subject for tonight, I was just wondering if you could give us a brief, a very brief source in the Office of the Twelve, shorter works or commentaries by Avera Wiesen. If you have any sort of selling point, like one or two of your favorites or ones we should pay particular attention to at some point. What are they? The short commentaries are part of a series of short commentaries that Avera Wies wrote on different subjects that Aristotle addressed.
And this would either be called the short commentaries on logic or for some reason at some point the title became used among different people of what is necessary in and in the subject matter. In this case, what is necessary in logic? Al-Varoori v'ilmantek. And there's another one which is Al-Fadabi's commentary, not on Aristotle this time, but on Ghazali and on Fic, on jurisprudence.
So Al-Varoori v'ilmak. And there are a number of things like this. What's important about the ones that I'm working on is that Avera Wies goes through all of the elements leading up to the categories, then goes through what we know as the traditional eight books of the logic and tries to explain how it is that one understands judgment or a cent and understands certainty. And then how to make certainty, how to bring about a cent.
It's very close to the kinds of things that you find in Al-Fadabi, but it's much more organized. It's very clear. Many of the treatises are exceptionally short. But for some reason, the treatise dedicated to demonstration is excessively long.
And it would seem- What was that posterior analytics, you think? A posterior analytics. Which is itself a very short treatise, by the way, of Avera-sons. Yes.
It's the longest one in this series. And he tries to show all of the different kinds of necessary conclusions, necessary considerations, necessary syllogisms or demonstrations that one can formulate. Wow. And do I?
I feel like I remember that he wrote these under the commission of a sort of minor political ruler. Is that right? Is that right? Is that right?
Ospus' protection and instigation of his ruler was in Marrakesh. And Avera-sons went back and forth from Kaudaba to Marrakesh to during the most fruitful years of his life. And then Ibn Baja and Ibn Tufayim figured prominently in helping Avera-sons get into this privileged position. Yeah.
Alex, maybe you should write Biden and ask him to pull you to write commentaries on Plato and Aristotle. I mean, he might even pull me to write commentaries on like peanuts cartoons or something like that. He forgave on a jughead comic. There's one other translation to transition that we haven't.
Oh, oh. Oh, so. El-Raziz. Oh.
Look at the philosophical like. Right. Look at that. Oh, that's right.
Oh, that was a good transition. Yeah. So who are we talking about? We're talking about El-Razizi tonight.
Yeah. Right. Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakaria Al-Razizi. Yeah.
So who is this person, first of all? This is not a figure. I mean, you know, we have a pretty sophisticated audience. Audience flat-rays always necessary.
But even they may not have heard of El-Razi. His name says where he's from. He's from Hawaii. Right.
And this is a place just not that far into Iran. And what's quite interesting is that he's a near contemporary of al-Fahrabi. Oh. Six or seven years apart.
Oh. That's where al-Razizi might say, by never citing him. Okay. You'll have to explain that for the folks at home.
Why is that an honor? No, that's time you see. Time you see. In other words, this man is somehow not anybody I would date to mention.
Does Razi ever mention Al-Fahrabi? No, he doesn't. He turns the couple. I see.
Right. There's no reason that other one would be ignorant of the other. Right. El-Fahrabi isn't Baghdad.
And Al-Razizi comes and goes to Baghdad. So they had to go through the same circles, overlap in different ways. Yeah. And this is the 10th century AD.
We're talking about, yeah. Nine hundredths. Nine fifty, nine, six. Yeah.
Okay. And eight seventy-five to nine fifty-four are fine. And Razi is just a few years off that. I think what's interesting for us, and maybe either one of you want to bring this up in a different way.
But what makes Al-Razizi so very interesting is the way Shlomo Penis brings him into our attention. And it was the work that Penis did on Al-Razizi that somehow caught Leo Strauss's eye and his imagination. And if I could, I'll just say a few words, but not too much. But what I'm fascinated about is what is going on.
We're talking about now the the middle 1930s through the early 1940s. What's going on with these German Jewish scholars? At a certain point their acquaintance begins earlier, begins in the 20s, in Berlin. But then as they are forced to disperse because of the events of national socialism and find themselves in different places, they nonetheless all continue a very intense scholarly life.
So Leo Strauss had a close connection to another prominent German Jewish scholar, not German Jewish, I mean we phrase that a scholar whose language was Jewish, but was actually checked. And I'm speaking about Paul Kraus, who some years later becomes Leo Strauss's brother-in-law. And the father of Jenny Strauss-Clay, right? Correct.
Yeah. And I had the occasion to read some of the correspondence that Kraus had with a very interesting Indian Arabist scholar. I'm drawing a blank right now, but his name will come back to me in a moment. I knew the son of the scholar.
And surely before the son died, we read the Kraus Hamdani correspondence. What's fascinating was the discovery that is going on among the Arabists using the word politely, not with the contempt that is usually orientalists of that time period. People who are trying to understand what it is that thinking written in Arabic can contribute. The man in question is, well, saying Hamdani, his son was a very prominent historian of Islam, is my only thought.
And his two my acquaintance with his son that came across his correspondence. So there's Kraus, there's show more penis, there's Leo Strauss. And what binds all of them is, first of all, an intense interest in Plato, and then an attempt to reach out perhaps with the guidance of my monadies, perhaps for other reasons, to figure out what Arabic philosophy can contribute. Kraus got especially interested in what we probably call esoteric or is my only thought.
And this is what I'm saying, Hamdani's son, his name comes coming into my mind. And it slips out. Let me ask you a question, then maybe you can remember later. Is my only thought.
I'm not so gany. I'm not so gany. It's my only the esoteric thought in the Islamic tradition. Am I correct in first of all, this now for all, we talk about this, but the second of all, aren't there different versions of it?
Isn't there one that seems more like, is it fair to say, mysticism? Is that not? It's all very mystic. It's virulent, I'd probably call it, nastick.
But what Kraus was interested in was the real core of, and this is my Lee doctrine, when young Hussein Hamdani is sent to England to do a PhD in the mid 20s, he goes with a trunk full of manuscripts that nobody has ever seen, that the community had preserved. And of course, when Paul Kraus meets him and finds out about this, he's just simply beside himself with eager interest. So Kraus, this is a big bent in Paul Kraus's different interests. It isn't the bent that Leo Strauss takes.
And I think it's fair to say that it's not the bent that Shlomo Penis takes. Shlomo Penis is above all, a historian of philosophy, not for my money, maybe others would correctly, not quite as philosophically minded as Leo Strauss, but certainly a very serious scholar. And then he goes to Penis that we owe the English translation of the guy to the perplexed. Right.
Well, and let's give the good translation. Let's give credit, the good translation. Let's give credit for credit is due. There's also a young man by the name of Ralph Lerner, a young man in those days, Ralph Lerner is now 90-something, who did a marvelous job of helping put the English filter through Penis' attempt at translating my monities into much clearer prose.
I mean, there was something going on in each of you. Can I appreciate this? Imagine having to translate Greek or Arabic into a language that is only your second language. Or maybe your third.
I've often thought about this, actually, Charles. I'll just say that I'm of two minds about this, because on the one hand, it seems immensely more difficult. But on the other hand, it strikes me as potentially more easy. And I've thought about this in actually in the case of Leo Strauss writing his own works.
I think that because the language is foreign to you, it might be easier to keep terms straight in your head. In other words, the familiarity makes it easier to slip into sort of just speaking casually. Whereas if you're doing a foreign language or a second language, you can easily compel yourself to be very strict. And I don't know if that's true about Strauss writing himself, but then, but yeah, you're adding the translating part just seems awfully difficult.
I remember in grads, we took French and Greek back to back in the hours and the same hour, like one end at one and the other one started at two. And I just remember, like, my mind was always mixed up. I kept writing my little D's as delta as it was, as it was a big mistake. To bring us to the text of hand, am I right in connecting this way?
You just said, we're reading Alrazi's book of the philosophic life. Are we relying on Krauss's work here at all? Are we relying on Strauss's? Did you do Strauss?
I'm sorry, Krauss. It's addition, right? That you used? No, the addition that I use is, yes, I'm sorry.
The Krauss's. Are using Krauss's addition. Yeah. Okay.
Very good. How did I get off on to Penis? We're talking about Krauss. Yeah.
Good thing David Barres is here. I just want to point that out. So let's, I think what you've just said is helpful for the next sort of transition. We're going to get to the poop eventually, but...
You do the Strauss thing right now? Yeah, I think so. Krauss edited this work. And through Krauss, right, it found its way to Strauss.
And he saw something in this book on Krauss to Strauss. Yeah, from Krauss to Strauss. Neither was a Laus. Okay.
Sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. I'll try to do it more seriously. Anyway, anyways, it finds its way across to Strauss.
And then he, and he sees something in this work that's really helpful for his own thinking, right? So when you think of some of Strauss's earlier socratic, right? So like he, in 64, right, he writes the city of man, and he marks that as his, as his, the beginning of his period of focusing mostly on Socrates. And then you get Socrates in his own.
But even in the problem of Socrates, which are from the 50s, those, those lectures, he's looking at Aristophanes as a kind of, as maybe what you see in the clouds is having affected a turn in the historical Socrates. And he would eventually, I think it's in 1967 that Socrates and Aristophanes has published. Yes, sir. In the 60s, that's when he publishes Socrates and Aristophanes.
And it was in the introduction he touches on O'Ranzi, or does he mention this at the very end of forgetting now? It's at the very end. At the very end, he mentions... It's 1966.
I can't believe you were off by a year there, Alex. Just for the record. And that's very sad. Anyway, you missed El Razi.
Yeah. So I have the text here that we could read where he says... Please do. Please read it now.
So it's on page 314 of the Aristophanes. Okay. And he says, Leo Strauss speaking, one can easily receive the impression that Plato and Xenophon presented their Socrates in conscious, contrary distinction to Aristophanes presentation. It is certainly impossible to say whether the platonic is xenophonic Socrates.
Who's his being as much the poetry as does the Aristophanonian, Aristophonian, Socratic Socrates. And he refers to Plato's second letter, the 314C14. It's almost equally difficult to say whether the profound difference between the Aristophanes and Socrates and the platonic Xenocratic Socrates must not be traced to a profound change in Socrates himself. To his conversion from a youthful contempt with a political or moral things, from the human things or human beings to a mature concern with them.
The clearest and most thoughtful exposition of this possibility known to me is to be found in Muhammad ibn Zakaria, El Razi's, the philosophic way of life. And then he references Paul Cross's translation. That's the final words. That's the final words of the book, by the way.
Right. Yeah. That's important. Yeah.
All of there is not any place, which is pretty remarkable. I mean, he's a book on all Plato on all of his down of bond, right? But here he wrote a book on all of this. And he ends with a Muslim thinker.
I mean, that's a remarkable. He never changed. It's such a... And not Elle Farabi.
Yeah. Who I think would be fair to say was at least partially responsible. I think you talked about this in article. At least partially responsible for Strauss's turn to Plato, right?
I mean, this is my monodysyl style. Yeah, very yup. Yeah. I mean, he's...
He's not a book. I'm sorry, Alex? I mean, yeah, he showed up the way the political reading of Plato does. All the more curious that it would end with his reference to Alrazi.
That's all. I mean, we will turn to that. Now, Strauss's reign had in 1966, and that's what you were a student with him around that. Yes.
Oh, wow. And didn't he or any approach you about translating this? He said... He was where this translation was.
It would be very nice because what we had at the time, we had Strauss's translation. We had Strauss's presentation of the text in Arabic in a volume called Raziana. And then we had a translation that he did in French. And Strauss thought that it would be very good to have an English translation of it.
He didn't say, you know, will you do it? But he just, in the off-hand way, that he would do it. It would be nice to have a translation of this. So you did this in grad school?
I did it sometime around... Okay. ...forget now when I did it exactly. And did you consult the French translation too or just the Arabic?
I did consult it. I thought at the time that I improved upon it. Oh, where? I'm not sure that I would say the same thing today.
Okay. It is a sidebar, this is my integration. But my very first translation was you nudging me to do one. I don't know if you remember this.
My second year of graduate school, you did that course on Plato's laws. And you said, Mr. McBryer, we'd like to do the epinomas, but there's just no adequate translation of it. And so I spent all summer translating it and the whole class read it.
And I felt really overwhelmed. I felt it was beyond my capacities. But anyway, I think it was an excellent exercise. I still had that translation hanging out.
So once Cornell decides to publish, they have the roots of political philosophy, the 10s, the first of the credits I was, once they do the twigs, the shorter ones, I'll try and get it off. I'll try and get it off. But yeah, so thank you for that. No, it should.
It should see the light of day. Yeah, it should. It should. It should.
It should. It's interesting. We'll buy one. But any bet.
So El Rossi is the origins of the book of the philosophical life. Can you just give us a brief overview of the text? Would that be a good place to start? It's not very long.
No, it's a very nice read. There are a couple of things that are interesting. It's an apology for oneself. He's trying to defend his way of life.
And he's defending himself against some quite ludicrous charges about what Socratic philosophy or the person of Socrates represents. The Socrates that is being criticized and one shouldn't be like is the Socrates who's very ascetic. It looks like I'll just put it in a word without going through a diogenes. This is a take off on diogenes.
And so it says, well, this is not really the way I've ever lived my life. And then the charges. And so, you know, therefore, I'm not really guilty of it. But by the way, that's not what Socrates was all about either.
And then the idea is, well, if you're not like that and he's not like that, you must still be something wrong with you because there's nothing good about philosophy. So then, Razi is at the obligation that he has is to prove that there is merit to philosophy, that it helps you lead a better life. And so the book then turns into an attempt to show A, how he is led a good exemplary life himself and B, how he's done so with the help of philosophy. Can I ask a question here?
I mean, I haven't read Farabi's philosophy of Plato in a while, but I don't recall him mentioning Socrates, really. He does a lot. It feels like he's mostly talking about Plato. Yeah, he does.
Well, I mean, but the big point is the difference between the way of Socrates and the way of Thessymachus. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Socrates or Al-Funabi sought a single mind of the good and the true.
That's not such a big theme for Razi. But for Razi, it seems to me the more important thing is how can you live a balanced life in your search for pleasure and of what is a pain? Right. Yeah, and it's much more of a moral focus, right?
Yeah. The sort of basic structure of life. That's not about pleasure and pain, right? So we should add here, Razi was a doctor, right?
And a lot of the discussion of pleasure and pain is based on a kind of medical metaphor, right? So you might cut off a gangreness finger or something like that to save the rest of your body. And though it is painful, it's ultimately will secure you more pleasure. And then this is then set.
So it's aesthetically, it makes sense. This is then set within a kind of theological framework, right? Where you have the sense that, well, likewise, you know, you don't don't stray and from the law and then, you know, I'll award you, right? So there's, and it's not, you mentioned that it's an apology, but it's actually very similar to what you discussed this a bit.
So the translation we should say is an interpretation. If anybody wants it, just shoot us an email or send us a message on Twitter. Or pay for it. So the interpretation gets the $2.99.
Or pay for it. And Tim Burns. We don't want to offend Tim Burns. Anyway, go ahead.
Sorry. Listen, listen. But, and then his students do his students do. Anyway, sorry.
So, which also has your essay in it, but it's very similar to Socrates and Plato's apology, where he has this pneumonia on it and he immediately tries to worm it into a theological framework that resembles kind of, but not really the sort of Olympian gods and all that sort of sort of sort of, I thought maybe you could talk about some of those parallels of this sort of moral defense with theological appeal of uncertain sort of commitment on our Rosie's part, similar to Socrates, right? Well, let me go back to something else that you said that I think is important. Yes, Rosie is a physician. And the sister volume to this book is called the tip of the honey, the spiritual, it's been trying to come down to us by the title of the spiritual physics, PHY, S.I.C.K.
The spiritual medicine would be a better, I think a better way of putting it into English today. What the tip of our honey does is to take all of the points that Rosie makes in passing here and develop them much more thoroughly as an ethical teaching and an ethical program. But here the notion is to explain how to make this balance in life and to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and protect life, all life while you're doing so, except that there's a problem with protecting all life, because there are some forms of life that seem to be dangerous to human beings and others that are not only dangerous, even though they're useful animals that you eat, for example. But there are kinds of animal beings that are not only dangerous, but seem to have no great purpose in the universe.
He is like a viper. Yeah, exactly. Which of course I took to be a reference to Al-Porabi, unless both of them are appealing to a common source. Because the viper is in the beginning of the Plo-Rajim, like the Nature's Fertile Hierarchical Except the Viper, am I misremembering that?
I'm not remembering it. Oh, so I'm going to be great as well. I mean, I'm clearly wrong. No, no, to be re-examine.
You know, what's more important for Al-Porabi seems to me is the end of the political regime and the weeds. I thought it was vipers and weeds. They're not handed hand. Oh, okay.
Got it. All right. But yeah, I mean, there is a problem about micros. What is their usefulness in life?
And in the great scheme of things. And anyway, Razi makes that an issue and he tries to show how we need to balance preserving ourselves with doing as little harm as possible and trying to find a way of life to go beyond preservation. The preservation would be the lower limit. And how do we attain an upper limit, the limit of what we strive for as human beings?
And this, Alex, I think is where the question of spiritual things come in. I don't see Al-Razi here being as guided by the conventions of religion as one might expect, but he is certainly not disrespectful of them. In other words, he does respect them. He pays lip service to them, but he tries to show that you can live a life that's perfectly defensible without focusing solely on revelation and the teaching of revelation.
One of the things he does is if I'm not reading too much into the text, he plays on the word sunnah, which is the revealed law of the Quran is called the shari'a. And the shari'a is also a path. Well, a sunnah, which happens to be the practical teaching of the, I'm sorry, the practical, the sunnah is the way the prophet acted and things that he said. And so what happens is that Al-Razi speaks about paths as soon as a path, but he speaks about not the path, but paths, soon as.
And I think he's just playing with this. So Charles, you mentioned this multiplicity of paths. And I was sort of struck by the way that he treats other religions. He seems to be judging all the other religions from a human point of view that there are some religions that are overly aesthetic or overly denying of the role of pleasure plays in the life.
And some that seem sort of fine. Some Hindu practices seem excessive and some Christian practices seem OK. Of course, some Islamic ones seems to go. So I was wondering if you want to speak about that.
And one sidebar, I inferred that Al-Razi consumed wine on occasion from this treatise. That was a small inference I made. I don't think it's an inference. I think he says so.
OK, so that's an experience. OK, good. All right. But the more serious question that about paths.
No, I mean, but it's related. Yes, it's related. I took the reference to the accesses in asceticism related to other religions to be an indirect complement to Islam. We all do this in Islam.
Right. So much so if we follow the teaching that has been passed on to us, we'll be better off than these other people. Yeah, but there are. But I mean, there are we know historically, right?
There are Muslim ascetics who take it to the extreme, just like there are other religions. No, is he just ignoring those or is I mean, doesn't mean to file himself kind of joke about some of these things? I can't. OK.
Well, you're thinking about in Haight of Anakazan, when Haight, the practice of all. Goes to great amasiation and the spinning in circles and that is what I was thinking. Yes. And it doesn't get him anywhere, fair enough.
But because Oli doesn't he go off and live in the mountains for a while? Is that not an extremist asceticism? Doesn't he live by him in solitude? Yeah, there's a mortify himself when he does so.
OK, yeah. And I don't know of anything where you can find al-Hazali. Exbounding upon. Yeah, OK.
Can I take us back then? No, no, no, no, if Al-A-Tadi question, but I was going to take us back to the beginning. So I'm going to push. I'm going to push in a way that isn't necessarily my opinion or my take on the text.
I'm going to push back a little bit. So the critics. And then Al-Razi's sort of defense. So what Strauss has to say is that this sort of marks the Socratic turn.
I'm very sympathetic to that. But the account of the Socrates pre-Socratic turn, I'm not sure. It seems like a caricature of the pre-Socratic Socrates if you may. So let me, I'm just going to read the beginning.
And then you see if I'm, I don't know if Razi is imputing to the critics, this sort of embellished or a caricature of Socrates or if that's actually the critics of you. So for example, here's what they say. So Al-Razi, may God join gladness and repose to his spirit. This is right at the beginning.
Said, when people of speculation, discernment, and attainment saw that they were engaging with people and becoming involved with the means of making the living. They criticized us and found fault with us claiming that we were turning away from the life of the philosophers, especially the life led by our leader, Socrates. So apparently the critique is that they're insufficiently ascetic of him, of him. So Al-Razi's critic is saying you're insufficiently ascetic of him, of him Socrates.
It's related that he did not call upon kings. Okay, fine. But made light of them when called upon him, fair enough. Did not eat pleasant food.
Question mark. Did not wear fine clothing. Okay, fine. Did not build.
Fine. Did not acquire. That's a simple example. Did not be get.
Okay, he didn't have kids until he was older. Did not eat flesh. Question mark. Did not drink wine.
Question mark. Did not go to parties. Question mark. So some of them seem okay, fine.
That does seem like the account we get in Plato and Zenithin. Some of it seems not quite right. Do we have any indication that Socrates was a T-totler in his youth anywhere? And I guess my question here is, who's exaggerating?
Razi or these men of speculation? And let's be clear, the people accusing him, right, are not making a distinction between young and old. It's a fact. Right.
That's very complex. I don't know what he said that he dines, right. He did drink a nice clothing. In fact, I was looking at this.
I was like, it seems like most of these are just answered by Clittus and Pozio. I don't want to think about that. Right. There's this line in Zenithin at the end of the memorabilia where Zenithin gets onto his associates for eating too much meat.
He says they should eat more vegetables, basically. But I have no, and Charles and I have talked about this off-line because I've tried to find evidence that any of these guys actually read Zenithin. I've always come up short, so it's all plain. You're missing two of them, most ridiculous, right?
He launched the task in the desert. Oh, no, sorry. Didn't the positive one. But instead, he did this.
He only ate vegetables. He wrapped himself in a regular garment and he lodged himself in a casket in the desert. Now that seems the most obvious of the postures. Except for the next one.
I just learned. Okay. Didn't I practice dissimulation? Yeah.
But that obviously calls in the question all the beginning. Right. Yeah. And this is what I, when we were speaking earlier, I said, this is the guyogeny's caricature.
I see. Okay. I see. Very good.
So now his, so then I'll rise these defenses to make a distinction between the early and the later. We should probably like just lay out this. And the early ones. You have this mortification, this asceticism, right?
Which has a kind of anti-human quality to it. It's not clear that there's a sort of an Arasic signals that he went through a similar shift. But it's not that he's like contemplating the cosmic gods or something like that. I just saw his wrapped up with the heavens, though, as you see him like Aristophanes, right?
But there is this obvious neglect or the demotion of human needs and a sort of full human life, right? Whereas later he comes around to that. So can you, maybe you can just detail for us what the Socratic term is according to Al-Razi and what some of the, because there's a sort of moral side to it. But then as you show in your essay, there are sort of larger philosophical implications to some of these practices, right?
And so a suggestion of a deeper could turn that has a moral effect or something. Well, let me turn that on you. What do you see that Socratic term as being? Either in Razi or in played.
No, for Razi, which makes, which makes Leo Strauss think that we'll learn something. Right. I was wondering, I mean, I don't have an answer. I want Alex to answer this, but I will say this is where it's clear.
You guys have helped me clarify why Strauss thought this was so important. Razi seems to be the first one who clearly identifies this as a credit term, which is so important for Straussian understandings of what Socrates is up to in the play conic dialogues. And also Zenith and by the way, but less happiness. Do you see that, Alex?
I mean, I see a hint of it, right? The turn from, so I mean, the way you would see it in Plato, right? It's something like whether it's the Parmenides. I mean, I'm sort of a- Oh, I see.
I think I see what you're asking for. I think I see what you're asking, Charles. It's a single-minded sort of zealous pursuit of philosophy to the turn is actually, you know what some pleasure is okay. And there's some balance.
So it's not this dark turn from free-secretary to Socrates to Socrates that we see in Plato. It's this turn from a youthful, overly ambitious, totally out of whack, totally out of whack. So he's so focused on philosophy that he doesn't even wear clothes, very close to sort of recognizing that actually having kids is okay and talking to the rulers every once in a while is okay. So you mentioned this over and over in your article and I, of course, the balance.
The turn is from an unbalanced philosophical life to the balanced philosophical life. That seems like what Rosie is saying. Is that right? You were going to say something else.
Well, I was going to say, Plato, you have this sort of turn from natural science in the Fido or from pure being in the Parmenides or, I mean, in the supposed to be like turn from love of youth. So that's a little bit of an outlier. But do you think it gives like physiological arguments? But even though it's like you have these sort of pre-socratic, like, Parmenidesian or, you know, physicist Socrates, you are concerned with political philosophy.
That doesn't seem to be what exactly is going on here. There is this, and this is maybe where Strauss is sensing, I don't know, maybe he thinks he read herself and he's like, there is a kind of comedic exaggeration in the youthful side, right? But there is, I think, something in common between the Aristophanic early Socrates and the Potonic early Socrates, which is that they both turn away from the low to the high, right? So I mean, the great example of this in the Parmenides is he's not concerned with hair, mud and dirt, right?
And he doesn't want to look at the ugly side of things or even in the symposium, he's so concerned with beauty, right? That he doesn't want to look at the ugly side of things. That's kind of, that's a bit of a caricature. That's, I think, something wrong.
I don't know, there's a sort of, I wonder where Al-Rasi is getting this view, right? That there's this ascetic thing that's that's laughably overzealous and unconcerned with a balanced human life, this balanced life. I don't know the answer to where he's getting with you. I mean, it could be that he's conjuring it up himself.
This is what my opponents say, but you know what I mean? I mean, make a really good case of how ludicrous what they say is. What I find fascinating is that what we're supposed to learn here is the way thisocratic turn leads to awareness and concern with politics. And for the life of me, I can find nothing political in Rasi.
Even though he mentions at one point justice, his understanding of justice is also wanting. You know, so what it is that Leo Strauss wanted us to see in this continues to elude me. I don't know if either one of you have a better idea. And you know, the thing to remember, this man Paul Kraus in this is interesting in it's my only thought.
He's also the man who was preparing for Abi's commentary on Plato's laws with Leo Strauss. And they were going to bring out an edition of her. This is the one when Muslim Matt D did a devastating review of the I think it was vaults, but I could be wrong as to who did the yeah, it was vaults. The vaults are Rosenthal edition translation of the Fonabian Plato's laws.
He had access to the notes that Kraus and Strauss had worked on and he cited these. So they're really drawn to Rasi by their interest in Plato. If so, what is it that we're supposed to gain from this? And I guess the issue is, which does elude me, what did Kraus see that Strauss thought was so important?
Can I have a suggestion? And this is a flight of, you know, this shoot it down if you will. My first answer would be that the Plato's depiction of Socrates is turned to moral and political things is a sham. That Socrates never actually was interested in moral and political things per se.
Here's what I have in mind. In other words, that he actually turned to this more balanced life and that the life is a life of pleasure. And I'm not exactly sure how these discussions of political things for them, but let me just try the following. Here's what Strauss says.
It is almost equally difficult. You're reading from the Aristophanes? Yeah, sorry. I'll read it again.
This is the final page, page 314. It is almost equally difficult to say whether the profound differences between the Aristophanes Socrates and the Platonic and the Phonics Socrates must not be traced to a profound change in Socrates himself. So here, our understanding of Plato and our understanding of our Razi agree. Colin, to his conversion from a youthful contempt for the political and moral things Plato and El Razi seem to agree for the human things or human beings to a more mature concern with them.
So if it's, I mean, like, notice, I mean, Strauss is always deeply careful. So his conversion from a youthful contempt for them, political or moral things for the human things or human beings to a mature concern with them, to a mature concern with them that what is the antecedent of them? Does it govern all of the precedents? The moral and political things or is it only the human things?
In other words, let me try the following. I'm just trying to chase this trace this out. I could be completely wrong. But is what El Razi is saying is that Socrates actually became interested in human things, but not in fact the moral and political things, but those are separate categories of things, if that makes sense.
And that pleasure is somehow bound up with the human. In other words, if the early Socrates was deeply ascetic, he didn't understand what it means to be human. And later, he recognized that there should be greater room made for pleasure. And the only reason, correct me if I'm wrong here, Charles, that Razi seems to think the only reason to deny yourself pleasure, the only reasonable justification for denying yourself pleasure is the hope, the reasonable hope of a future greater pleasure or the avoidance of some pain.
Can I clarify the point here? Yeah, I'm not sure. I just came to me so I could be completely wrong. But what I took him to be saying here is that that first line is certainly impossible.
Charles, what is really going to repeat it? This is right before we used to review. Okay. It is certainly impossible to say whether the Potomics and theophonics of oasis being as much depotry as does the Aristotle and he and such.
Which means he's just as much an invention. Yeah, he's an invention or an exaggeration of preparation. Right. And therefore, we have two poetic exaggerations, which might reflect a historical sequence.
Right? You got it. Early as portrayal, we have of Socrates, right, is from the clouds. Erstophanes.
Erstophanes. Yeah, Erstophanes. So Plato and Zephano writing later and are engaged in a kind of retrocard like defensive Socrates. So he says, oh, yes, he was never like this.
Never mind what he reveals on his death bed in the future. And so both are exaggerated. Yeah, well, he's on one hand and Plato's on the other. The only person I think Strauss is saying, who has posited that as an account of the historical Socrates, right?
Because if you read Erstophanes, he's always just deluded about human things, right? Doesn't turn. Yeah. If you replayed on Zephano, he was always concerned with that, except if you read the Fido and he's out of the apology, you can see this.
But Arashe seems to, and I think maybe he's really carefully read Plato's apology. That's what it looks like to me. Right. There's an insinuation, right?
He's like, I don't do natural science. Then he mentions certain things that are mentioned in Attic's algorithm. So clearly, he studied it at some point. Right.
So I think maybe he's bigger, but he seems to have put that together and suggested that there was actually a historical sequence in Socrates. Like, he's not just saying nobody has actually entertained this possibility, right? That these multiple images are actually a historical sequence. Right.
So that what he's saying, and then from there, we can then ask the question, what is that shift in that sentence, right? You look at that for the political or moral things, but the human things are human beings, so mature concerned with that. And what is that meant to include all of them, one of the four, one girl? Only the last one.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But triggers my imagination about all of this.
I remember that at this period of time in Strauss's own writing, he's very concerned about making a defense of virtue, especially moral virtue. Does Razi help him do this in a very pedestrian way? Yes. Okay.
Or perhaps that's too snotty a characterization. And I should say in a way that is open to most people. Yes. Yeah.
Okay. And then the last thing comes across here, or the image that I got, the key of M.F.N.S.E. is here is somebody who is really quite contented with himself at this time, Jovai. And his only regret is I wish I'd better appreciate it by others.
It's fair. Yeah. It's one other. Yeah.
It's one other criticism. It's a self-criticism. I shouldn't have worked so hard because I've ruined my eyesight. Yeah.
So he's a little older. He says his hands hurt. Yeah. I was wondering, is he dictating this?
So it's like an oral defense. He's a parallelist to the apology. He's kind of interesting, right? This older man who's maybe losing a little bit of his, you know- It's an apology.
Yeah. And he's defending himself again. I mean, there's so many details that line up, but obviously there's significant. Right.
So he made a way- One of the things that- No, go ahead. In a way, it's like a self-defense that helps us read Plato a bit more. One of the things that Masamati discovered in some way is that Al-Farabi did dictate his most of his books. I once traced down how he- Wow.
Put that together. One way to figure it out is to pay careful attention to the repetitions in Farabi's writings and to note that the repetitions then have minor changes from one writing to another. So he uses the process of dictation to make subtle changes. Anyway, Masamati, he always kept it at a conjecture level, but he was pretty sure he could pin this on Al-Farabi.
So Alex, that goes to your question. It's very likely that this is what happened. The dictation was the way things were handled. Wow.
And it seems like such a better way to write. It's just sort of thinking and you can just speak at hand to see if such better. Well, try it sometime. I have.
The software is just not good enough yet. I love word processing as you can constantly change things, but you know, this is such a disconnected thing. Sorry. The late Charles Kraut- No, I'm just saying, the late Charles Kraut-No, who was a quadrable e-jic.
Right. He learned to- he dictated all of his articles. So he really learned to think you cannot write them. So you learned to think and speak in full paragraph.
So even if you see him interviewed, that's very clearly exposited. Right. And certain very excellent professors have noticed are able to think and then speak and clear. I also am able to speak in very coherent paragraph speeches.
I cut myself off every Sunday. Exactly. You're saying it's not bad. But Charles, I mean, we're coming up on about an hour.
Is there anything else on this text that it's worth? What we can keep going as long as you want, but is there anything we've omitted? No, I think the important thing is to try and decide what it is that makes this text valuable, makes this text worthwhile. Right.