Dear Master,
Thirty five years ago, on Thursday October 15, 1980 the
Czechoslovak Communist Party cultural weekly Tvorba published a letter addressed to Professor A. Diemer,
President of the International Federation of Philosophic Societies. The Letter
was written by Professor Radovan Richta, Director of the Institute for
Philosophy and Sociology and Member of the Presidium of the Czechoslovak
Academy of Sciences. Richta wrote: ‘Tomin is a man who is worth nothing in
philosophy … It is self-evident that Mr Tomin would not find the means to live for a single week if he
were interesting merely for what he did in philosophy … I think that the people
who supported and visited Mr Tomin will find themselves convinced, in a short
time and on the basis of their own experience, that there has been no case of
suppression of freedom of philosophers in the CSSR, but rather that it was a
case of one person who wanted to profit from the hopes of some circles to
intensify the world crisis and to poison efforts at international cooperation.’
Less than ten years later, a day after the beginning of the
Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Nick Cohen, a prominent British
journalist, wrote in ‘The Pub Philosopher’: ‘Jonathan Barnes, Professor of
Ancient Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford, impatiently brushed aside the
suggestion that the Conservative’s reduction in funding for British philosophy
since 1980 might explain why there was never an academic post for Tomin at
Oxford. “That’s not the point at all,” he said. “He would not be accepted as a
graduate here, let alone be given a teaching job. He’s like a recalcitrant
student who can’t admit he’s wrong.” … Tomin has revived an ancient tradition
that the Phaedrus was Plato’s first
dialogue … Barnes thinks that even if Tomin’s views were not “baloney”, there
are no interesting consequences.’ (The
Independent Magazine, November 18, 1989)
Ten years later, in a book published to celebrate the tenth anniversary
of the Velvet Revolution, Barbara Day wrote: ‘A fund set up by the philosopher
and Vice-Provost of Worcester College, David Mitchell (under the patronage of
the Northern Dairies Educational Trust) yielded enough to keep the family for
another two years, but it had become apparent that Julius would not find a job
answering his ambitions within that time, or ever … his knowledge of certain
parts of Plato’s work was more thorough than that of any philosopher in Oxford,
but his limited acquaintance with the breadth of western philosophy would have
been unacceptable in any of the posts for which he diligently applied.’ (The Velvet Philosophers, The Claridge
Press, 1999, p. 67).
It is not true that I diligently applied for academic posts;
my work on Plato and Aristotle demanded a total commitment. My ambitions were
great, but very different. In an open letter to the 18th World
Congress of Philosophy in Brighton I wrote:
‘Philosophy has claimed schole,
that is free time for free inquiry, as its birth-right. In exchange it
presented mankind with treasures of thought for each generation to appropriate.
It is in the interest of society, of its cultural well-being, to provide
philosophers with the free time needed for the task. And if society as a whole
loses sight of this, philosophers worthy of that name have no excuse for doing
likewise. The work needed to appropriate the heritage of philosophic thought
has presented philosophers through the ages with an indispensable activity
independent of the vagaries of political systems and job markets. If true to
itself, philosophy can generate freedom, intellectual and moral self-reliance,
being-for-others as a precondition for truly being-for-oneself; it can generate
hope where unemployment sows despair and turn the waste of human potential to
benefit. The climate of academic philosophy today must be questioned from
within this perspective. Are graduates of philosophy prepared to stand on their
own feet as philosophers, even if struck down by unemployment? Is not philosophy
presented to them in a distorted form so that they readily discard it the
moment they cannot get a living from it? Wherever it takes effect, such a
distortion must effect the roots of academic philosophy itself, and ultimately
disqualify it from its place in higher education; philosophers themselves
become dispensable, surviving at universities, if at all, by the grace and
favour of politicians, who keep them as a mere cosmetic. To underline my point,
let me cite classical philosophy – that branch of philosophy that more than any
other seems to be confined to centres of academic excellence.
Academics in the past did a splendid job in opening the
gates to a fuller appreciation of ancient philosophic thought – we have
excellent lexicons, grammar books, critical editions of the texts, commentaries
on Plato’s and Aristotle’s works. Never since ancient times has there been such
an opportunity for a comprehensive and immediate understanding of the Greek
philosophic texts as there is now. Yet, classical philosophers based at our
universities are today so far removed from enjoying direct access to the
original texts that an immediate understanding of the Greek text seems to lie
beyond their horizon. How could this state of affair have arisen? Ancient Greek
is a dead language, but it is a human language none the less; the only way to
learn it adequately is through Greek literature. One of the great assets about
mastering Ancient Greek is that it can be done only through reading and
rereading Plato and Aristotle, Herodotus and Thucydides, Aristophanes and
Euripides … Hesiod and Homer. The language is absorbed by us in proportion to
our acquiring the rich heritage within which it is preserved and which it
discloses to us. A wide reading of Greek Literature is thus an absolutely
prerequisite medium for adequate understanding of Plato and Aristotle. But what
is the approach to Ancient Greek in our schools? Students are drilled in
vocabulary and grammar, not as means to the understanding of the texts directly
in Greek, but as tools to mastering the translation of prescribed, selected
texts. Apart from the reward of good marks and their tutor’s praise, such
labour is practically meaningless, given the range of translations of the
classics with which past generations of academics have endowed us. Many years
of energy are invested in a discipline whose end results are graduates and
academics for whom the direct reading and immediate understanding of texts in
the original remains beyond their reach.
And yet, our custodians of classical philosophy do set out
to present to their students a comprehensive understanding of Plato and
Aristotle as part of the curriculum. Such an understanding, based on a
fragmentary experience of the originals complemented by a load of secondary literature,
must of necessity fail to meet any real confrontation with the totality of
Plato’s or Aristotle’s texts. Each subsequent generation of students is less
able to find its way to an authentic apprehension of Plato and Aristotle, and
thus becomes less qualified still to challenge their teachers; students are
encouraged, if not forced, to spend most of their time with their teachers’
interpretations, and with the secondary literature which their teachers have
themselves imbued. If ever the dominant interpretations are questioned from
without academic structures, then the whole body of classical philosophy closes
ranks in self-defence – frustrating discussions, exercising its monopoly on
academic publications and lecture rooms.
Is there any inherent necessity governing this unfortunate
development? Any classical philosopher in East or West may reflect on his or
her work, and ask whether it is not the academics themselves who in this way
are the losers. Is such drudgery worth their pay, if they lose sight of the
only worthwhile reward, namely an understanding of the subject they teach? They
can reverse their course. Although years of conditioning have habituated their
brains to translate the moment their eye falls on the original text, it is
surely time to start again, differently, to dare to read and read, to break
through to a direct understanding of the texts.
Such a radical reversal must have far reaching consequences.
The new approach would entail sharing it with students, for whom the subject
would thus be opened as a lifetime endeavour, not to be embraced or discarded
according to the fluctuations in the job market. In the present academic and
social climate in East and West one must face the eventuality of growing number
of unemployed classical philosophers, deeply devoted to their subject that in
its essence requires a life-long pursuit. To provide them with elementary
conditions for decent human existence would be the duty of the society, and it
would be the duty of universities to impress the situation on politicians of
the day. Of crucial importance would be a continuing contact with employed
academics, profoundly stimulating to both sides.’ (The open letter was
published by The Times Higher Education
Supplement on August 19, 1988)
Thanks to the British welfare system I was able to devote
myself fully to philosophy during the past thirty five years. This has given me
a great advantage in any discussions on philosophy I have had during these
years, be it in Oxford or in Prague. I have fully used this advantage, which
meant, unfortunately, that I was progressively deprived of any opportunity to
engage in such discussions (See e. g. ‘Reflections on a recent conference of
classical philosophers’ on my website).
Dear Master, in February of this year I wrote to you: ‘Thirty five years ago, in April 1980 the Master of Balliol,
Dr Anthony Kenny, gave a lecture on Aristotle in my Philosophy seminar in
Prague. To commemorate this anniversary, I should like to present a lecture on
‘Plato’s Parmenides in the light of
Aristotle’s testimony’ at Balliol.
My views on this dialogue differ from the accepted views. I
should therefore greatly appreciate it if a specialist on Plato’s philosophy
would chair the lecture and open it with an explanation of the currently
accepted views. The interpretation of Plato’s philosophy in its entirety
depends on the interpretation of this dialogue; I hope that Oxford classical
philosophers will use the occasion to vigorously defend the accepted views in
discussion following the lecture. My views on the dialogue are available to the
public on my Blog I devoted to it nine entries, beginning with the entry of October 16
2014 ‘A note on the 3rd book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics’; so far the last is the entry of February 6, 2015
‘Aristotle’s response to Plato’s Parmenides
in Metaphysics M’.
I hope you will accept my proposal and I look forward to
hearing from you soon.’
I received no reply to my letter. Allow me to repeat my
request. In the meantime, I have made substantial progress in my work on the
proposed theme, to which a number of recent entries on my blog can testify. (See
especially ‘Three days in Prague devoted to philosophy – the third day’, posted
on September 11, and ‘Plato’s defence of the Forms in the Parmenides in the
light of its dramatic setting’, posted on October 9.).
I hope to be hearing from you soon,
Regards,
Julius Tomin
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