Welcome back to the new Thinkery My Name is David Warren with me. It's always just my good friend Alex. How are you Alex? Buenos díngdàn días David.
Thank you. And when Ben Nilo is at for Greg, I'm at Google. How are you doing Greg? I'm very well this evening.
It's a pleasure to be with you gentlemen on this show this evening. Which word is Spanish? Gregorio. I don't.
Like you guys are doubting me. And in French it's Gregoir. Gregoir. And German is gay work.
Is that right? Yeah, it's gay work. Got her. Oh, that's pretty cool.
I'll tell people that are gay work. That's pretty cool. Are you sure that's not George? No, it's gay work.
I mean, no, that gay org is the cognate to George, not Gregory. I'm excited for today's episode, Alex. You know, when we pick episodes at the New Thinkery, sometimes they reflect our souls. Hey, for instance, any Marquis-Desard episodes, clearly something that I've driven and any French philosopher, Alex, or any too dark and nihilism is driven by Alex.
But when it comes to animals and arrows, that's a great choice. And today we're talking about those things, right? Who doesn't like books about animals? Old Yeller?
Where the Red Fern grows? I mean, there's just so many great books about animals. Of Mice and Men. Of Mice and Men.
That's also about hunting hairs, right? That's right. Exactly. You wrap it up on these.
And they love them. This is a great episode because we are using one of the podcast hosts, books. Xenophon The Shorter Rings, edited by Gregory A. Big Breyer.
The Shorter I was looking at this. First of all, Mike, my desk is a little wobbly because this was sort of running it to the longest time. Shorter writing goes on the Shorter. Exactly.
Yeah. But reading the last chapter, the ones still they're hunting with dogs translated by Mike Michael Ehrman-Trougte, Gregory A. McBrayer. Yeah.
It's fantastic. Now, I was really interested. I read the essay, which is by Michael Ehrman-Trougte. Right.
Right. I thought this guy seems pretty smart. Let me go look up. I couldn't find anything about the contributors to this.
Yeah. That's a big omission there. There was something about you, but usually in an edited collective volume, you put something about it. So my question for you is why are you taking Wild and Stolen Valley?
Right? Listen, I tried to actually cut everyone else's name out entirely. You're putting xenophones in? Are you ready to take that?
They wouldn't want to Ehrman-Trougte's translation. They wouldn't let me just put my...I just wanted to be Xenophon McBrayer. That's all you need to know. Yeah.
But... I mean, you would have taken the air for Cornell. Right. Yeah, for euro by Greg.
I wrote it. That's right. Well, Greg, I'm really proud of...I always show off. And I always make note talking to people.
This is your audition. We're proud of it. All of our works. And so, for sure, this is really great.
I'm really pumped that you. It was a labor love and it took a long time. And who's the first book review? First book review.
The first book review was in the very last edition of the Weekly Standard by one David Barr. Yeah. I like to think I shut that magazine down. But I love this note.
Too much waste. I've got that. I'm going to review it for American greatness and possibly also, I don't know, with another one. When you want to shut down?
Yeah. I know. I think this might be the first podcast anybody's ever done this text. But there was one other podcast done with this very kind old woman.
Really? Sweet. Sing songy voice. Did you have you seen this one?
No. What is it? Alex? Hold on.
Let me find it. You guys talk amongst yourselves. Okay. Maybe while we're talking, most of the folks who are listening probably know who's going to podcast.
It was a wild hunt. Right. Right. Right.
That was me, Alex. That was not a sweet one. I thought it was an old woman. It had a very shrill kind of crackly...
I appreciate this very much. Okay. My voice is deep. I'm a man.
Alex, the Wyoming Huntsman. That's... I thought that was Greg's video series that people shouldn't watch unless they're over 18. Right.
We know how to play for a little bit. Let me try to tee you up. Sure. What are we doing?
We're discussing this treatise on hunting. I mean, it seems your decision in a nature show. I guess it isn't the deepest sense of it, but it's not... Yeah.
This is something... Yeah. Show sponsored by Outdoor Magazine. What's going on here?
Why do we... We didn't select it to be funny. So clearly there's something deeper at play. Zanafon again is astounding.
Please talk to this. It's just breadth of interest is remarkable. And this is something you don't come across from your average philosopher that I can call. No, that's right.
And Zanafon to be clear never calls himself a flosser. And so this is why most scholars... It's contemporary anyway. Most contemporary scholars, most people who call themselves flossers don't rank Zanafon among them.
I think that's wrong. And this is the one work of his where I think he comes the closest to conceding or admitting that he is a flosser in the final chapter. We can talk about that in just a little bit. But just a real quick, you mentioned you're right.
Like who is Zanafon? He's got this breadth of writing. Unlike Plato who wrote only Socratic Dialogues. I'm sure Alex can quibble the laws and the eponymous don't feature Socrates, but a Socrates-like character.
But as in by contrast, he wrote Socratic Dialogues too or Socratic works I suppose. But in addition, he wrote a couple of sort of adventure stories about Cyrus' Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. And a couple of generations later Cyrus the younger's attempts to overtake the Persian Empire. And then he's got a handful of political treatises.
He wrote something on the regime of Sparta, which we originally talked about doing in episode on, but we decided to do this hunting one instead. He wrote one on Athens, although that's most scholars deny that that is a work by Zen. He wrote a short treatise on how Athens can improve its political economy. And then he has...
There's also the Sistry book by the way that finishes the publication. He has these fiber-so books on, I don't know what you want to call it, handbooks on skills, things that really decent guys should know. How to hunt, how to tend to horses, how to lead a cavalry, these kinds of things. And so we're reading one of those.
And the one we're reading is called, I think I translated it, The One Skilled at Hunting with Dogs. It's often referred to by its retidal kinaigetikos. The One Skilled at Hunting with Dogs, one of the reviews actually pointed out that I was... because I am trying to be very literal with these translations.
And actually even more literal would have been the One Skilled at leading dogs. And so the word hunting actually isn't in the title, sort of curious. And only I mentioned this one by contrast, because he wrote another work on how to command a cavalry or how to rule a cavalry. So there seems to be some distinction between ruling horses and leading dogs.
So there's a difference between leading and ruling a pair. And then also Greg, could you recall to us the very beginning of the Syro-Paidaya, this education of Cyrus, it begins with the relationship of animals that you have in mind. Yeah. Ruling men is akin to ruling animals.
Right. At the very beginning he says, we looked around the world and the political world, we noticed that ruling humans is just about impossible. And then we looked at household, we know it was the same, and then we looked around and saw animals. And saw that on the basis of a handful of observations of domesticated animals, we made the conclusion, which is not a very good logical jump.
We saw cows and horses submitting to rule. Therefore, we judged humans are harder to rule than all other animals. And so you're right, the education of Cyrus seems to set up this question of ruling human beings versus ruling animals very nicely. But here we're reading a text that is ostensibly about hunting, and it is about hunting, and has been read that way for 2000 plus years.
How long is it? How long is it? I mean, the text is only 13 chapters. 25 pages.
We will not be sending out the PDF of this because you'll be taking money out of my estate. So, you know, otherwise we would definitely just getting the happiness sent out. Just PDF this part. I'll have to clear with Michael Airmen-Trouble.
Where was I? This is the treat. What's that? It doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist. So this is a work on hunting rabbits, principally. It doesn't seem like a fake name. Michael Airmen-Trouble?
Yeah, like Airmen-Trouble. It's the name. If you guys watch the television Breaking Bad, better call Saul? Yes, that's how I read his name.
Michael Airmen-Trouble is like the main right hand man of the main bad guy. I told you. So in my head, I always had this guy, this bad guy being the hero of this, the translator. I like the literature.
I've got so much to say about Zenith, and we do this for like hours. I'm going to begin by saying, probably will spend the least amount of time on it, is that the majority of the book is actually about hunting with dogs and hunting rabbits. He talks about hunting various kinds of other animals as well, but principally it's about hunting rabbits. And I just want to point out that even into the 19th century, apparently British people looked at this as a text on how to hunt.
So here's a quote from a guy named William Blaine who translated the kind of ghetticuss, I think in the 18th century. So here's a quote he says. Now, I've been indeed astonished in reading the kind of ghetticuss of Zenith, to find the accurate knowledge that great man had of the nature of the hair and the method of hunting her and to observe one of the finest writers, the bravest soldiers, the ablest politicians, the wisest philosophers and most virtuous citizens of antiquity. So intimately acquainted with all the niceties and difficulties of pursuing this little animal and describing with great precision that would not just raise the eldest of sportsmen of Great Britain who never had any other idea interfere to perplex his researches.
So there is this long history of reading this text as a sort of manual for how to train dogs and how to hunt rabbits. I was surprised at how detailed and reliable it seemed. Yeah. I went hunting in the sense of I've gone fishing unsuccessfully and I've gone crabbing.
Is that count? I've never... Yeah. Was it?
No. Sorry, Alex, you were going to continue. He's just asking us so you can tell stories about how he killed something. No, I mean, no, no.
No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no.
No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no.
No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no. No, no, no.
No, no. Uptain a deer license, so we went squirrel hunting instead. I, my father shot a squirrel and it dying was about the saddest thing I'd ever experienced so fast around. I mean, we're like, let's just go to Target Range, please.
I had a friend whose name we would have to redact. We need a girl in high school who she wanted her parents to buy her a BMW SUV and they said, why? You have to perfectly find brand new route for. She purchased for you.
She didn't want to rap for it, right? So, they would drink and then in the backwoods of these long windy roads and Bethesda, they would try and hit deer to total the car. Oh my gosh. Yeah, they were trying to do that?
Yeah, yeah, they were never successful. Oh, but that's good. Anyways, well, there was that time I was trying to go cat hunting, but you accidentally kicked us a scon right there. Yeah.
Yeah. So anyways, um, they tried to kick a cat and he turned out it was a scon. So anyways, you know, I was surprised by how reliable and careful and sensible it all seemed because, you know, my, you know, a similar text in the sense that it's offering, you know, information, practical information useful to kind of like an every man who's trying to cultivate some kind of virtue is in he sees works and days. And it's all these farming advice and the classes is always say, Oh, this is an instruction made on this is the worst damn instruction manual ever.
It doesn't really tell you much of anything at all. It contains all sorts of weird information like you need a seven foot log for the axle of your cart. But if it's eight foot cut one foot off, like weird little details like that. And then he says there's like a hundred pieces you need and he only tells you about that.
So it's pretty useless as far as information goes. This is like, it does read like you could be reading this and then going out and then going back and reading diagnosing your problems. It seems like you actually maybe want to go hunt some stupid, uh, wastards. Yeah, I think we'll talk about this in just a moment.
I think there are other things going on in this text, but it is a mark or a, I think it's a sign of something's amazing capacities that he can write a text that simultaneously is a tree is on hunting and also doing something more deeply philosophic. Same time, like I think it's easy. Like you just, I'm not saying what he's easy, but I think it's easy to write something that's doing two things at the same time. And you're doing one of those things very poorly, but to do two things at the same time and for them, both the work is is quite impressive.
Well, I think I'm going to ask you a quick question. So, uh, so in the philosophic writings of the time, the parallel between philosophy, a philosophy in hunting already been drawn out so that people would be attuned to kind of, to kind of be on the lookout. That's a great question. Um, maybe Alex speaks of the extent that it's in Plato, but it is in Zenithin in the memorabilia by Zenithin, which is his recollections of Socrates' conversations.
Socrates regularly sort of likens a hunting philosophy and he likens sort of hunting friends to hunting students. Um, he explains to this beautiful, empty, adotic he needs that hunting friends is more complex than hunting hairs. And so in the memorabilia, uh, there does seem to be this metaphor of philosophizing, uh, being somehow relevant, sort of an image of, assuming hunting being an image of philosophy. And I think it's in, was it the office or the statesman as well?
It's in the office. In the statesman, they're looking for the statesman, they call it the search, it's a thesis. In the office, the search for the soft is actually called a hunt. Well the soft is also called a hunter and the first example they use, so they come up with a model, uh, that they get, or an example that they use and build a model on it for what the soft is does.
He's compared to an angler to somebody who fishes, right? And, um, which is kind of interesting because when they also describe their own activity as a kind of hunt, but they talk about being on the tracks of the beast at at least one point. So I wonder, this came up in one of the pieces we read. There's a couple essays, the image, right?
That's very good. Another helpful piece is by Barry Cooper. Um, and one of the things I think he points this out is, um, is that certain forms of hunting were higher steamed than others. And actually fishing was quite low, at least in the laws according to the laws, but hunting while the animals was higher.
So there is that parallel as well that both the soft is in the philosophy seem to be hunting something. And this may, maybe this is a good point to transition to the structure of the work that you get. You get a, you get a one chapter introduction, uh, that sort of talks about the, the students of care on, right? And then you get, uh, what is it?
Two through 11 is on hunting and Greg can break this out more. Within the last two chapters, you get a defense of hunting as an important or even sort of introductory or really core part of education or pidea. And then you get this discussion of philosophy versus sophistry. And it's interesting.
And this gets, I think back to your point, Greg, about how it can do both things as well as both good as a philosophical. What is that? Same thing. What are we talking about here?
I mean, we, I mean, we sort of alluded to it. We didn't make it clear. So it's about hunting rabbits and. And philosophy that philosophy, let me sort of talk about it.
Yeah. So there's a, there's, so it does both well, I get the sense that like Xenophon was out actually hunting and he was doing the songs and then he did sometimes about dogs. Sometimes he went after Boer and he was out in war and he's thinking about how similar it is to both of his activities, I engage him, being a general and being a philosopher. And he sees certain kinds of hunting, I think is more akin to one and other kinds of his more akin to the other.
And so he does well because he enjoys the activity. He sees its merits. He's thought about it deeply. He sees its problems as well.
I think it's pretty clear, but also it's, it's virtues, both moral and philosophic. That's right. Well, it's not hunting for philosophy. It's, it's the quest for wisdom, right?
Or how would you, how would you articulate that precisely? Sure. I'll give a shot. He's a genuine question because I'm speaking casually.
No, I'll try. OK, so I go on. I've been reading this extra while. I, I still haven't figured it out fully, but I think I've begun to crack it.
What it's about. And so I think that hunting is a kind of metaphor for doing philosophy. And so I think that the various kinds of hunt are various forms of philosophic inquiry. That's my suggestion and that the Huntsman is the philosopher and that the hounds, the puppies that one trains to hunt with you are your students.
So I actually, and I think that there's a lot going on is work. That part of the, what's going on is Zenith and is talking about how a teacher, a philosopher cultivates different kinds of students to help them in their pursuit of philosophy. And there are different kinds of dogs and there's certain kind of dogs whose souls aren't prepared to do philosophical degree, some are lazy, right? Some are too good looking, apparently being a too good looking, this problem.
I'm not having a right kind of nose these kinds of things. And so I think that what's going on, the one that's jumped out, and I think I got this from Barry Cooper, but as Alex was asking me, I couldn't find it quickly in the text. The Greek word for rabbit is Lagos, L-A-G-O-S, the Greek word for speeches or speech in singular is logos, L-O-G-O-S. And so Zenith and is not above a good pun.
I think that the vast majority of the text is about how to go through speeches, I think with students. Some students are too eager and they want to rush through the speech too quickly and they want to chase the rabbit down. Some have to be slowed down, some have to be sped up, some have to be encouraged. I'll go ahead and lay this on the table now.
I'm sorry, Greek nouns declined. So in one of its manifestations, the noun for bore is a hominin with the Greek word for being. That's the one that Cooper points out. OK, that's the one that you figured out the Lagos logo.
Is that right? No, well, OK. Good, good, I should publish that. I mean, it's good, but it's also bad because your brain is both good and...
Yeah, that's fair. Do that information really well. So let me try and just so very quickly, I think. So I think those are two that are going through speeches, and that's what's encouraged, by the way.
Let me prepare this back to hunting just a moment. But the punsling of borers or the hunting of being metaphysics, basically Zenith says stay away, it's too dangerous. And so I think that you go back to philosophy here. And hunting, the vast majority of the street is about how to hunt rabbits.
And that seems to be where you should keep your dogs. Now, Alex mentioned that hunting is more impressive than fishing, but within hunting, hunting of rabbits. I mean, you're not like thinking about mighty hunters out there, rabbit hunting, right? They're hunting big game and wild game and dangerous game.
And it's a game. But for example, if an abore is an abore, the animal that kills... This is the famous person. It wounds a dislike.
It wounds a variety of this. Isn't the culprit behind the death of Alex? No, book one. That's right, actually.
And then it's the king who invites a man who had been cursed and lends him suker. And then a bore, he's charged with protecting his son or something like this. Yes, that's right. And there's also the very famous bore hunt.
So what Alex went over very quickly is the introduction of the book is a weird account of a number of students of Chiron. And these are all not all. They're mostly demigods who are students of Chiron. And several of them accompanied one other on a famous bore hunt and were killed.
So the book opens in this very weird way and it ends in this very weird way, which is sort of typical of Zenith. And the intro talks about trying to sort of persuade the youth that hunting is a noble activity and they should do it. So Zenith seems to be working against a prejudice against hunting, just like he's working against a prejudice against philosophy. And he goes through all these demigods who had Chiron and they taught him how to hunt.
Well, the curiosity is all the footnotes that your translator's health would provide. You point out that most of these people actually had pretty nasty hunting accidents. Some of them were killed on hunts. And so there's some question about how serious are we supposed to take this intro?
It's very curious. It's very curious. Small things are all paired. These very ones.
There's several pairings of divine beings. The first ones, Paul and Artemis, are the gods to whom Zenith and sacrifices and dedicates his estate that he retires on outside of Smarta. And so there's clearly some connection here to Zenith and his own life. One of our viewers or audience members asked about the connections in the Avocis and that's one that we can touch on later.
But that's there. Can I ask you a question? Whose idea was it to put a footnote after every single name of the people in the thing, cluttering the door member? And I'll just put a footnote at the end of the list.
It's trending myself looks smarter. Because when it came to the meaning of names, like as he gives names for dogs, it does. You just have one footnote with a nice chart. Yeah.
I don't want to say this book is garbage. Anyway, so I want to talk about the joking. It's a joke. I do have a how it's got ahead.
But I do want to return maybe toward the end about keeping with this parallel philosophy, the dangerous kinds of philosophic hunts. Anyway, we're all aware of classmates who have. And how can ruin the youth? Especially metaphysics.
But also ruin the peopleizing that can be. Yeah, but also ruin the philosopher. Right? So the reason you might take another person on you with a hair hunt is that if the hair gets like a wild hair up, it's asked, you don't have to worry about getting gored.
Whereas if the boar somehow like brushes away your spear, you drop to the ground, but he's going to trim you. You better hope that the guy that's with you can help you. So you don't need to worry about the moral virtue of your net keeper. The same way you need to worry about the more virtue.
Because what happens is you need the other guy to kind of come up and shout so that the boar gets distracted and charges him. And then he relies on you to help secure the boar, right? So he needs to assume the risk on the hope that you'll have the wherewithal to get up and immediately try to kill the boar. Right?
So there's sort of different, there's real, I think substantive differences in the kind of person that's going to be more inclined to one form of hunting than the other. And so, now I don't know how this ties out if the boar is a metaphor for being. I think so. Let me add to that.
Just real quick. So this is chapter 10, this on page 3 12, I'm sorry, 317 to 319. So I'm going to get 318 to 319 real quick. So this is, I'm just going to point out, I did help translate this, obviously.
And so there's an opinion that I've always had that you should be literal in translating. But I was always a little reluctant, of course, to help you out, I don't know what to do. And so there was one thing that I translated here, I stuck with the translation that I thought was most literal, even though I was like, this doesn't make sense. Every other translator made this slide change.
And I only on this last reading this last week, that I think I discovered why Zenfins trips you up this particular word. So this is an inspection 13. So sometimes you gotta be careful because the boar will throw himself flat on his face and hold on to the wood beneath him. I'm sorry, if the boar attacks you, what you should do is throw yourself flat on the ground and hold yourself to the wood beneath you.
And every other translation said trial or something like this. And I was like, I'm gonna say wood, even though it doesn't seem quite right. But this last time I was looking in, and I'm sure, Alex knows this, what do you think the Greek word for wood is there? Hulae.
It's hulae, which is of course. So this is now the chapter on being metaphysics. This is Aristotle's word for matter, one of the four basic elements. And so then you look at the top of the next page.
So investigating being is so risky, you might just turn into a materialist or something like that. I think that's part of it. But also, look, he goes through, I think, the four elements here. So then he says this weird thing about how the boar will, you gotta watch out the boars task is so hot and light your hair on fire.
It seems ridiculous. Is that true, right? No, of course it's not. So weird.
So if you come at earth, fire, and then he talks about how it may try to throw you up in the air. So it can get you better. And then he talks in section 21 about the tire out in water. So I think he's walking through and entirely figured this out.
But again, I think in this chapter, what he's doing is walking through an investigation of metaphysics. And what's one of the questions in metaphysics or what are the elemental beings? And at least from Aristotle, and not just Aristotle, we get the notion that these might be four of them. But I do think everything else you said is right.
But it's dangerous. And there are these look at how many times necessity or necessary person as chapters compared to other chapters. Yeah. Just like in the Republic, if you go directly being able to blind you.
Yeah. And so what you'll need is you'll need a friend to distract being, I guess, like you can get your bearings or whatever it is. But maybe the best way to be safe from it is to have somebody else to almost get bored. And this is the one where you use a fellow hunter.
You don't use the hounds. So you need another philosopher to help you do this, it seems. But then so then you go back to the hunting with hair and right or hunting, not with hair. Hunting the hair is what you would do as a bald man.
Yes, I would. Constantly that's for hair. Very nice. But so there was one chapter that stuck out to me because this is on the one skilled at hunting with dogs, right?
And that when you get a gosh, this Greek word, which is naming a person, right? At the ending is absolutely a person. There's also be the speech about the skill of hunting. It could be logos, right?
But yeah, it's probably a man. It's probably a man. Yeah. So the book concerning that.
Yeah. So but anyways, but there's one and he talks, you know, chapter two is about bad dogs, chapter three is about good dogs. Is that right? And then he gets more into like the equipment and stuff and going out and actually hunting.
And then the last chapter in this discussion of hunting with hairs. So yeah, you guys, yeah. So conditions for the hunting of hairs, which includes the hairs nature, but also the seasons and the season, which is better and worse for dogs to track than equipment and the hunters in chapter six. And then he gets into the breeding, nurturing and the initial training of dogs.
And then you get a chapter seven chapter seven, then chapter seven, then chapter here, you get tracking hair and snow, which is necessarily without dogs, not just because the scent can't be found. But because it's not great for the dogs. They're no, it's their policies. It's not, they can't be out there.
Right. Right. And that struck me as, as, and correct me if you think I'm wrong, Greg, that certainly is almost the most important chapter because the hunter is not relying on anybody else, the neck keeper. There's a usually go out as you with your dogs and you're behind them, right?
The dogs you let them out. Then you kind of keep up with them. And then there's a necky who's way out ahead of the dog setting up the nets, right? You take the dogs out of the equation.
You don't need the neck keeper anymore. You can do both. So you're, you're laying the nets, you're following the tracks, which are actually more precise than the scent, which can get all confused for reasons he gives. And so it seemed like it was the most direct engagement between the hunter and the hunted, right?
And the specific tracks and sort of following it along. If this is a metaphor for logo, it seems like students are good at maybe what's that books? What do you mean? Written, written speeches?
No, I was thinking it was more like arguments. Like students might be good at like kind of sniffing out. Oh, there's something over here. And then you can go and check it out.
But for specifically following the tracks of an argument, you need to have the philosophers acumen, right? And, and follow through with it. OK. And it's in that chapter that he uses a very strange turn of phrase.
Which says, this is on page. I'm using a different edition. I'm not sure. On page three.
He says, the hair often wanders about since it is perplexed about where it will lie down. And at the same time, because as a consequence of always being pursued, it is accustomed to employ art in walking. So it seems like here, you're most able to discern the technique of the which is strange. You don't use the word art or technical competence of animals.
That's related to our reason. So it seems like here, your closest to discerning the actual nature of the law go, or the sort of art of speeches is what it would be, right? And which is interesting. That's a phrase that's used in the Fido.
So I wonder if there is chapter eight is OK. You've kind of figured out like what the animals are doing. Let me go out now by myself. And that's in a way, the sort of solitary philosophic activity.
Though there are other passages in other chapters. I mean, we can talk about that seem also kind of reminiscent of the philosophic life. I do think there are there's hunting with students. There's solitary hunting.
And then there's errand dangerous risky hunting. If you don't know what you're doing, which is the boar slash being. So I think these these workplace points are so interesting. But also other various even more problematic animals, right?
So there's a transition between hunting hairs and hunting boards. It's deer, dulphons and deer. And there's this that's one of the more you can lure the deer out by trapping the baby first and the baby meat tastes so good. But then all right, so fun.
Hairs, deer, boar, and then wild animals caught in foreign lands. Lions, leopards, lynx, panthers and bears. These even more dangerous animals that you should apparently steer entirely clear from. We don't have to dwell on this, but at least let me mention that the education of Cyrus makes great mention of hunting these more dangerous wild animals and Cyrus hunts them.
But to an even greater extent, the Assyrian king whom Cyrus goes after hunts even more dangerous animals than Cyrus does. So there's something going on there. I take it to be a sign maybe that's pointing maybe to the fact of character of Cyrus's education. If if hunting is a metaphor for education, it seems point to the fact that education may be I'm not sure.
David, I have a question about an aspect of this tree that doesn't or a missing part of the street is that what would you love and announce? I know what you're about to say. No, you're about to ask where in xenophons hierarchy of hunting animals goes the hunting of beavers. What's it going to say that?
It's you in your face. I swear I wasn't going to answer is it's it's in book three, chapter 11 of the memorabilia. I appreciate it. I'll go.
I'll go. I'll go. And later tonight. No, my question is, look, what is the what's the purpose of hunting?
And it's ultimately a nourishment. So that involves the preparation of the animal. But we don't get that crucial piece of advice with in this treatise. It's almost like there's a part missing or another treatise that would be needed to, I think, complete one's education.
So if this is how to hunt for arguments, which arguments are best to chase down, where the risks involved in hunting various types of arguments, well, okay. And now you've caught one. And what then right now, right? So you've captured it, right?
You've prepared it and you presumably nourish you into our ways. And so I may just be overcomplicating things. No, I don't think you are. No, look, at the very beginning, Zenith and says, most people despise hunting and the rest of education.
And so the idea here is that this is all education. And then in chapter 13, which I think is probably the most important chapters is kind of tips us off that there's the fact that there's something more serious going on. What's not been implying is that this hunting will educate you in virtue and that this will make you wise and good according to according to Zenith. So you're actually, that's a great question because you're right.
Sometimes he's like, actually, the hunting is not that important. Sometimes it's just an animal and you can just give it to the dogs to play with because it's not that big deal. Right? Okay, fine.
They figured out the argument they can do it. But it seems like somehow this training is like training for work. And but it's a training that can make you good, he says. And he can trust the education that he provides here with the Sophistic education, which does not make men good, but only to appear to be so.
So I mean, yeah, I mean, the metaphor doesn't quite hold up. Like hunting seems to be for its own sake. If you're just kind of tossing away the game, it's not for the notion. That comes up in chapter five, which is a passage I think everyone's attention is drawn to.
It's chapter five, section 33, H3O6 in the airman, trout in the prayer. I'm supposed you didn't put your name first, but they're a John McBrayer translation. I want a third one. So I put mine in the middle.
No, well, yeah. You said, Sue, it says 33. Yeah. So charming is the wild.
Yeah. This is weird. Yeah. The hair that there is no one who seeing it.
So just observing seeing it being tracked, discovered, pursued and caught would not forget if he was passionately in love with self-man. And I'm assuming correctly, what's the Greek for someone's the teenos there? I don't know. I think that's right.
Yeah. It could be something there because there was usually takes, I think, the Janitor anyways, so it could be something too. In any case, I think the interesting thing here is that there's nothing about like eating, right? It's the process of, oh, I've seen the tracks.
Oh, I found. Oh, there it is. And oh, we're chasing that and we got it, right? And that this is enough to make you forget your arrows, right?
For someone or something. Two. Two is the stomach or something. Two.
To you. Oh, two. So, okay. So then that's definitely not do it.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So any case.
So I think there's, I think there's something really interesting about this. One, I think it might be Eremantrad who brings this up. I don't know if I forget. Probably anything good here is probably Greg.
It was probably Greg. I think Eremantrad is a great student. It just seems. Right.
Very easy enough. I think it's kind of fun to have multiple names for yourself, actually. Greg, we probably should have done the honor of inviting us a guest. I probably should have done well.
Next time we can do it again. Once I figure more about what the text about. He, so it makes a stupid fishing trout joke, but I'll just move on. Pretty good.
So he, so there's, there's something I think interesting here, which is I think he's Eremantrad brings up all the, in the list of examples, I think Cooper is also hot on the trail of this one, which is that there is connected with hunting and a desire to be virtuous and desire for immortality to be beloved. So I think odds, et cetera, all that stuff comes up. But I think this is actually Cooper brings up that, well, if you look at this, you actually forget your arrows. You forget your arrows for loftier things and you're just charmed by the activity and the behavior of the art you could even say of the hair.
And you can see this. Like I used to, I used to take my, I used to have a bigger dog and he was an English pointer, I'm pretty sure. And I would take him out and he, I would let him off leash and he would ferret out animals sometimes and he wasn't skilled in hunting because I had never trained him. I, I thought he was, anyways, the breeder told me or the adoption of the place.
I made the mistake of getting a crappy used dog like Greg has and all his pure bread like dogs. Anyways, we saw the rescue dog told him risk and absolute people, man. I love how Greg thinks his chihuahuas are like on a log floating down stream. Like you got, you got a dog that we want to, let's just be honest.
Anyways, so I rescued this garbage dog and he, but I was letting out and because I thought he was, they told us he's half lab half boxers, I got to be a nice home dog. Sometimes he's pointed and he's to run like 30 miles a day. I just, you know, so anyways, but I would take him out for these long hikes and I would let him go and the way he would bow to you, so much energy, the way he would bow over and under things and he sometimes find an animal and be chasing and you watch the animal darting around and trying to like fake out the dog and dog has to double back. It's fascinating to actually see that.
I take the balance. You answered my question. So my satisfaction then there really doesn't need to be a second treat as sort of positive missing treat as on preparation or nourishment, right? If like philosophy, that's a unceasing quest, then maybe this is efficient.
Yeah. I think that's great. I was trying to make right. Yeah.
No, sorry. Greg. I was like, there's this. It's kind of self-contained as a worthwhile activity.
You can use it as a means to other things, but right. And it can be that, right? But it can also, and that's maybe why you would hunt with on board, right? Because then you need friends and you work to go out and work together, but you can hunt hair on your own and are in quite a bit about the behavior of animals.
Yeah. At least that just occurred to me then. You need to fell off losses that one mentioned in memorabilia of socks. He's getting together with his close friends and reading the great works by the men, the wise men of old.
And so then I wonder about is that what they're doing? Are they actually, they're not going through the arguments anymore. They're actually, if they've graduated from simply being his students, his friends, are they actually going through the metaphysics, these kinds of more difficult philosophical texts? I want to back up just a moment too, but I've been teaching for 20 years or so.
And one of the things I've noticed is I've downloaded a little more distance from students is this really, the students are like puppies and they are, they do have distinct personalities, but there are also common types. Like we all know that the pig headed type of kid who comes in and thinks he knows everything, right? Like that kid has to be treated differently than the kid who comes in and shying won't say anything. Like you see, and by the way, there may be different types who are open to the prospect of studying philosophy, but there's this range of types and you've got to treat different types of puppies, different types of students, differently if you actually want to try and encourage them to do some need the positive expectation to keep going and some need to be scaled and remain back.
And some need to be broken, some need to be shown. We interview every kid at the Ashford's fellow program. One kid I ever stands out. Good kid, he's still in the program.
But it just took me 45 minutes to get him to say, I don't know. He had an answer for everything. And it was quick. And it was like, he's just, I know it, I know it.
I was like, OK, kid, let's figure out how we get you to the. And then finally when you realize, oh, I don't know. OK, so now we can actually have a conversation. I don't know if that's a fair answer.
You see this in Plato, right? With certain context, young Socrates versus the Aetetus, a lot of colleges, I demand this, right? Very good. But I remember when I started grad school, two when I was talking to my advisor, Ronna Burger, it was like one of my first meetings with her.
And she's like, I can already tell what I'm going to have to do with you. I was like, what? She goes, yeah, that's kind of me. I just fully you down.
I was like, oh, really? She goes, yeah, but you know what? It's easier than the other way, which is trying to get somebody to edge on for it. He actually, I think touches on that.
Yeah. Yes. Right. Can I ask you a question, Greg?
So I was thinking about this idea that dogs might be like a metaphor for students, which obviously there's examples of like the Republic. It's the philosopher puppies or whatever. And actually does say it, as I mentioned, I mean, and the memorabilia. I want to circle back to those God things.
I want to get your thoughts on it. So this is all about philosophy and going through various kinds of speeches. So my students, I just taught this last week. One of their questions was, is there anything in here about going through religious texts?
Is that one of the things that Zenithin is talking about here? And of course, the book begins with a super religious opening. And so that's definitely something I think we're pondering. Let me point out the very beginning of the text and you and I texted about this two Alex.
The book begins by saying hunting is a gift of the gods. Dogs are a gift of the gods. So we owe dogs existence to the gods. But in the very next chapter, Zenithin points out that at least one of the two dog species is the product of human.
It's a mythical human being. I suppose you're a mythical quasi divine person. So maybe it's a little mixed up, but it's human superintendents that makes and preserves one of the two dog species. So at least half of the dogs are not thanks to the gods.
It's all it's actually human doing. I don't know if Zenithin would have been aware of this, but it sure seems like it. All dogs actually are the product of human intervention. We made them.
And so it's not it's not thanks to the gods at all that we have dogs. It's thanks to human beings figuring out some weird ways to tame various wolf species and breed them to become more desiccated. So I don't I mean, my question is sort of, I guess I'll ask my question two ways. One, do you think there's anything in here about how the philosopher approaches religious texts?
And two, am I right to see that this undercuts the trappings of the text seem very religious and here we go. I think I figured it out. Actually, I just asked the question. Maybe figured out.
Do you know what? That's a really interesting question. It just happens to have a really I just remember. You remember your point, man.
You know what? You know, the part where he says a philosopher should avoid the holy grounds or something like this? Maybe that's the answer. They should just be very careful about hunting about going through those arguments.
I don't know that that digist. Well, there is there is a there is a worry that if you do the wrong thing, it would be impious, right? So as an art taken an abstraction, right, it's deeply impious, avoiding the sacred grounds and stuff like that might be a way of an example of making flossing more respectable, right? Hiding it's it's listening.
I think that's right. Reading somehow the art impinges on religious texts, but you should never be too forward about it. And it's interesting. It's interesting that the text in which Zenefine is most forward, as you put it, Greg, about him being a philosopher, he employs the most like extended and distanced metaphor.
So he's like, hey, just so you know, philosopher. Very good point. There's a bunch of stuff. And but when you tease it out, there's a lot there, right?
Right. It's also I'll read this actually just a moment. Yeah, this really does amplify the point. He really is sort of encouraging philosophers to be careful and quiet about the fact that they're philosophers.
Yeah, it would make sense that it's in this really obscure other way. Textives where he actually does seem to concede that. And also I want to read this at least before we call it a day. This is chapter 13, Section six.
This I think is the most I think the most extended treatment Zenefine gives about his own manner of writing. And we've talked about this when we've done other Zenefines episodes. And one of the things we mentioned is that wide of current scholars not think Zenefine is very impressive, right? And they sort of think he's sort of a second or third tier writer.
Here I'm going to summarize this and then I'll read it out loud. Here's an basically says, yeah, I'm aware that you guys are going to think I'm kind of a bad writer, but there's actually a deeper order and beauty to what I'm doing that will take work to uncover. So this seems to me, you know, you got to read a different section. This is an amazing admission that he's like totally aware.