Tusculan Disputations & List of StoicTexts

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could be convinced not to worry about death, pain, and other mental anguishes with no tricks or drugs? Well, there is some old school medicine that does work. Somehow, antique stuff tends to pushed back by newer, shinier offers, but the Tusculan Disputations, among others, deserve to be brought back to the foreground. Written by Cicero in dialogue form after retiring from public office and taking philosophy full time,  it delivers on this promise.

It consists of five journées (can't find an English equivalent: 'days' doesn't quite capture it) of Cicero and interlocutor covering different evils, one at a time. These are: on Death, on Pain, On Affliction, on Other Tribulations (Fear, Joy, Desire) and On How Happiness can be Attained by Oneself. Though presented sequentially, each one can be read by itself and each is prologued with an address to Brutus (yes, that Brutus) to which the work as a whole is dedicated. Chronologically, the Disputations can be placed second in a series of related treatises that also include On the Ends of Good and Bad Things (De Finibus) and On the Nature of the Gods. These treatises, and more, were written in a down period of Cicero's life where he no longer held an important sway on Rome's politics and was grieving over the loss of his daughter.

There are only two participants: Cicero and his interlocutor.The opponent or interlocutor hardly puts up a fight and is always overwhelmed by Cicero's reasonings. These cover all the bases and if something somehow is left out, it is usually pretty minor. Unlike in some Plato's Dialogues, the interlocutor has the courtesy to allow the defendant, in this case Cicero, lengthier, uninterrupted expositions.

Some working knowledge of mythology, a prior read of the Iliad, a passing familiarity with Plato's Dialogues (Apology, Fedo)  and a feel for Roman history I'd say are required to not get lost in the references. Other than that it is an easy straightforward read.

Technically, Cicero's philosophy belongs to that of the New Academy (I think) and tries to stay away as much as possible from the Epicureans and avoid the argumentative excesses of the Stoics. However, I feel that he leans more to the latter.

Far from being a disjointed collection of maxims and viewpoints, Cicero's work is meticulously crafted and seamlessly systematic  which makes it a joy to read. In the end, Cicero's arguments are very convincing, even if you assume a show-me attitude. He completely won me over on each and every of the five days and has changed me for the better. By itself it can work as a self contained secular life philosophy (though I still feel that the Bible and divine revelation is what really allows it to turn full circle).

The Tusculan was the best book I read in 2013. Now that I'm on a roll here I'll mention my "Hall Of Fame" stoic writings:

1. The Tusculan
2. Epictetus' Discourses
3. On Anger by Seneca
4. Epictetus' Handbook
5. Seneca's Letters to Lucilius
6. Seneca's other Moral Dialogues 
7. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. 
8. Fragments of the Ancient Stoics
9. Musonius Rufus' Sayings
10. On Duties by Cicero

The first three by themselves make an unbeatable trio.

Honorable mentions:

• Life is a Dream by Calderón de la Barca. Worth a read in any case
• Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy

And one more thing: if you are interested in the life itself of Cicero, there's a great bio from Anthony Trollope on Librivox. Although the ongoing theme with it is that Cicero is wrongly accused by other authors of being a coward or unsteady in his views and political affiliations, it is a fine read for all the detail and context that Trollope provides. I'm re-listening to it right now. If you're in a hurry, Plutarch's life on him might suit you.

Ghostly occurrence

Time now for this year's Halloween special. 

A certain man had just died and left his house unoccupied. My cousin, who lives right at the US border and some of his friends decided to take a look inside at night. Among whatever else they might have found, they discovered a book of black magic. To have a better look at it they swiped it and buried it in an empty lot somewhere for later perusal. When they came back for it a couple of days later, the book was gone. They went back to the empty house but found it now guarded by a police officer.

This happened back in the 80s. My cousin told me about it not long after and I stayed with the story all this time, retelling it from time to time and probably adding some of my own and forgetting some other parts.  You know how it is with these stories where it is always a cousin, as in this case, or a friend of a friend that has the adventures. These people consistently seem to have more interesting lives than one does. Well, unlike the friends of friends that are unreachable by the degrees of separation, I could contact my cousin anytime. I decided to corroborate the facts next time
i saw him.  If I got full confirmation, or better still, more details, I was sure to submit it to the Hometown Tales podcast. My opportunity came in 2005 at my brother's wedding. There, I took my cousin aside and had him listen to the story told back to him which he heard with amusement. He chuckled at the buried book bit and when I pressed him to verify what I had just told him, he paused for a moment, solemnly pronounced that something of the sort did happen and said no more.


You can read last year's special here

Better by Gawande book review

Surgeon Atul Gawande has also a fine penmanship. After reading his book on when things go awry in medicine, Complications, I was eager for more and immediately began reading  his next book, Better.

Better is the inside view on how doctors, and medicine as a whole, tries, and often succeeds in  getting better results: less deaths per thousand cases, more with less, new approaches to old problems.

Despite its engaging stories, Better is not a mere continuation of Complications. It has more insight and footholds on which our minds can work upon making it a companion of sorts to Talent is Overrated of which we talked last time.  Probably one of the greatest interest for us, lay readers, is how we ourselves can get better at our own particular endeavors by looking at a generally veiled field, that of medicine, which not only relies on performance but which has lives on the line as well.

Besides the performance and ingenuity sections there is also one on doing right which explores the ways how doctors not only have  to perform well, but also do what is right simultaneously, which can and do conflict with one another.  Nudity, negligence and malpractice, insurance companies and compensation are explored here.

Gawande has two more books to his credit, The Checklist Manifesto and Being Mortal.

Talent is Overrated by Colby book review

Being the heirs of the Judeo-Christian tradition, we Westerners conceive of talent as a divine gift stemming perhaps from the Parable of the talents in Matthew. It may come to a surprise that talents, in the modern sense of the word, have a dominating component of behind-the-scenes thought & effort.

In Talent is Overrated, Colby makes a quite convincing case that talent is not the result of luck or grace but rather from directed effort towards a goal. In the first four chapters he examines the evidence bringing many specific cases to bear, such like that of Mozart, and puts forth an alternate hypothesis to the gift/luck scheme that, in its core, consists of conscious, deliberate practice.

Once he has convinced the reader he minutely looks at the specific components that makes talent happen in chapters 5-7 and, what may be the best part, how to do that for oneself.  These chapters warrant careful combing. For these I'd recommend have take pencil & paper close at hand to unearth all the treasures.

The application doesn't end with the individual as Colby expands the framework to include organizations. In chapter 8 he shows that this can be done and what steps might be necessary to incorporate the framework to larger scale entities.

On the closing chapters he addresses some miscellaneous topics, such as creativitity & innovation, youth & age and the sources of passion.

For someone who simply wants to get better at something or excel at top levels or who coaches someone else on physical or mental skills, this book might refocus your efforts for the better or reinforce what you already believe works.

If you're in a hurry, some of the very same concepts, but without the application component, are explored in the Scientific American July 2006 cover article, Secrets of the Expert Mind by Phillip E. Ross. Now, If you want an even deeper understanding on how this stuff works there is The Mind And the Brain by Sawyer. The Willpower Instinct is also a good companion to any of these.

The Way to Willpower book review

It is reasonable to suppose that once that you have struck gold, the neighboring lots might be valuable as well. Same thing happens with authors: once you have found a great book from one, it is not too far off to think that he or she might have others. Having greatly enjoyed Thinking As a Science by Henry Hazlitt I came across his bibliography on Wikipedia and discovered that he had a book on willpower as well. I immediately went on to acquire it and it also is great stuff.

As with Thinking, Hazlitt goes with great care dissecting the subject and making it accessible to the reader. This book, having been written in the early 20th century lacks all of the recent scientific developments of which The Willpower Instinct (the other great book on willpower I've read) bases itself on. Notwithstanding,  Hazlitt builds his program on the philosophy and psychology from his time and ends with commendable results. The founding stone for his method, and a very controversial one at first, is the negation of the existence of the will.  Allowing that, he builds on it by adding the costs of exercising willpower and the way of habit formation. This trio allows him to offer methods and recommendations that if, are unexplored by The Willpower Instinct, are no less powerful.

Once more, as in Thinking, one is very well rewarded by taking notes.

Thinking as a Science book review

In his latest book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, cartoonist Scott Adams describes the ways he has found to to hack his wet computer, ie his brain, for success, health and happiness. His advice is a bit spooky as it goes the grain of established wisdom and because of, as he readily admits, the source. However, its a fine book and the contents appear as they might work.

I bring that up as excuse to mention Thinking as a Science by Henry Hazlitt. This one too, helps one get hold of the resources of one's own mind but in an organized, rational way. In a sense: hack it too. Somehow, this gem has fallen out of the attention of the wider public, and deserves to be brought more to the forefront. The goal of it is to bring method to the thinking process and this geared towards the solution of practical problems.

Here's the table of contents:

I The Neglect of Thinking

II Thinking With Method

III A Few Cautions

IV Concentration

V Prejudice and Uncertainty

VI Debate and Conversation

VII Thinking and Reading

VIII Writing One's Thoughts

IX Things Worth Thinking About

X Thinking as an Art

XI Books on Thinking

Chapters 2 & 4 are the core of his system. Chapter 2 spells out the different thinking methods one can unfurl at a given problem and how to thread them together. Chapter 4 is of particular interest are his recommendations on concentration, which jibe well with the views of William James, neuroplasticity and zen practice. By itself, this one is worth its weight in gold.  Other chapters reinforce the method like nos. 3 and 5 while  chapter 6 extends the method to include other persons. This area has been explored and expanded by other authors independently, so you might also want to check out other books devoted to it.

All throughout, but on chapter 7 in particular, this book is surprisingly against reading. Drawing heavily from Schopenhauer's essay On Thinking for Oneself, Hazlitt believes that reading actually is an excuse for not using one's own mind and offers remedies.  This part reminds me about Brottman's Solitary Vice which also assails reading as an act but from a different angle. Despite his apparent aversion, he obliges and shares his advice on tackling texts. Another virtue of his advice on reading is that it is easier to apply than others, such as Adler's of which we talked recently.

I admit it:  I too usually shoot from the hip when faced with problems, rather than taking a more rational stance as a Hazlitt proposes. If you're anything like me, you  are likely to do likewise. Why shortchange ourselves, when there's help at arm's reach? As I see it, there are two aspects to habitual use of thinking as a science: 1) the acquaintance with the techniques, starting from actually being aware that there are such; and, 2)  getting into the habit of using them when needed, which I feel is the most difficult part (more on this related to chess on a previous post). Good ol' Harry Lorayne used to stress this point. Hazlitt retakes it on the second to last chapter and offers guidelines.

A further reading section is included at the end (with commentary).

The book stands on its own, but Hazlitt made a retrospective comment on it on a later book, The Wisdom of Hazlitt, which rounds off his system. Here, a mellowed Hazlitt relaxes his  stance against reading and gives further advice . The further reading section is now greatly expanded.

One of the best books I've read over the last couple of years, because, if anything, challenges ones viewpoints. Bring out pen and paper.

Reading Set: An OED stunt journalism project

Is it me or have we seen this one before?

In Reading the OED, under the letter 'S', Ammon Shea issues a friendly exhortation to the reader to read the longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary which is for the word 'Set'. Within the proposal one can notice some challenge undertone  which makes it too good to pass. So, having already read his experiences with the whole dictionary, liking the word 'set' myself, and wanting to experience some stunt  journalism firsthand I decided to take him up on the challenge.

The first difficulty was to actually be able to read the words. Yes, I have a set handy, but that is the 4 in 1 compact version, the one with the included magnifying glass. For a quick look up I can  easily do without any magnification, but not wanting to to reenact any of Shea's physical discomforts I brought out the glass. Setting it at about two inches from my eyes and five from the page I got comfortable sized text.

Now, since I decided not to rush through the definitions, I decided to break the job into 5 to 10 minute segments. I figured this would give me both the experience and the greater attention span without any of the physical strain. Since my available deskspace was already taken over by other projects I decided to lay down the dictionary flat on the floor and read hunched over it.

As I read I found that my gaze is constantly wandering from the older quotations to the the newer ones and from the quotations in general to the next definition. I attribute this to my greater interest to actual meanings and elegant corralling of signification than Old or Middle-English archaeological sifting. This is just me; I'm sure older eras of the language can be fascinating enough for a lifetime, but I'll pass on that. Also, after two or three of the quotations, generally the more recent ones, I get already the sense spin at hand and don't really feel the need for more.  Yet, there are many more still to go through and one feels under some sort of obligation to at least acknowledge them.

Part of the whole in stunt reporting is embarrassing yourself when explaining your project to others.  One day when my nephew, Matt, came in for a visit he found the oed lying open on the floor and asked what was it. I took the opportunity to briefly introduce him to it telling him that it was the largest dictionary in the English language.

"But, what is it doing here?"

"Oh, I'm in the middle of a project: I'm trying to read all the entries for the word 'set', which I'm told is the longest defined word in the book here. Someone says its quite difficult to go through all of them. It is 25 pages in all."

He, quite prudently, did not pursue the topic, thinking perhaps that his uncle was odder than he previously imagined.

On another occasion my dad came up and asked me

"Are you looking up something?"

"No, I'm trying to read all the definitions of a word"

Next day he asked again

"Are you looking up something?" as if the previous conversation had never happened.

"I told you yesterday. Do you remember?"

"Ah, yes I remember. You told me that you were reading it because it has lots of words."

Anything interesting?

The senses themselves generally do stand well separate, yet sometimes the senses  threatened to go and stay in unfamiliar territory, but they always came back. After all, most of the definitions are senses of put or place, only each differentiating from the other in their own particular twist. Sometimes however I cannot tell one sense from another like sense 1 (first def) and sense 15 (third def)  which both refer to the setting of a heavenly body like the sun: they both look to me the same (oh, I get it now, one is the verb and the other is the verb as a noun […]).  It also appears that s.34 (setting a fire) could be included in s.25, but a distinction is made, which I've not yet  fathomed.  Alternate spellings of other words like suit or sit add some amount to the bulk. In at least one instance these came round in a full circle.  A hen can set itself on eggs (s. 5b) or if presumably it doesn't want to on its own, you can either set the hen to the eggs (s. 1c) or set the eggs to the hen (s. 15d). This pun has been made before, but isn't this an instance fowl play?   Before brushing ourselves clean of feathers let's not forget that also the eggs themselves, as a clutch, can be a set (s. 9e).

Just by reading this word I also got the eerie sense that Shea describes about doubting if one is speaking English at all when talking to others.  There are so many shades of meaning that one feels dizzy.

The sources are varied and mostly obscure to me. The most notable find is the letters of king Richard III taken as a source.

As for typos I only found one on s. 109 where "to cause to move" is printed as "to canse to move" as far as I can tell.  Even with the glass I can't really be sure if it's a misprint or not, though I believe the type was not set right for this word (Ok. I'll stop now).

So in true stunt fashion, I must state what I've learned from the experience. I've learned that I wouldn't read the OED more than an hour daily (30 minutes appears to be my max) even if paid. I've learned that even one word can surprise you with a kaleidoscope of meanings; that citations can be boring  as [fill in the blank]. I've learned why the setter dogs are called that (they are set to game), how old are pancakes (dating at least to the XV century; try to to find where I got that from), what do you set on the Ready, set, go! (your muscles), and that there is more than one way to have your eggs set.