Echoes of Humanism

Welcome to my Great Books journey! As someone deeply passionate about classical education but pursuing it outside traditional academic channels, I've embarked on a self-directed study of the foundational works that have shaped Western thought and literature. This page serves as my digital commonplace book, tracking my progress and reflections as I work through these timeless texts.

While I'm not affiliated with any formal institution, I've structured my reading around established Great Books curricula, particularly drawing inspiration from programs like St. John's College and Mortimer Adler's approach while interjecting the work of John Vervaeke and Richard Tarnas. The database below captures my progress, annotations, and evolving thoughts as I navigate through these works.

I'm particularly meticulous about choosing the right translations, as I've learned how significantly they can impact one's understanding and enjoyment of these texts. Within each page, you'll find my notes on the specific editions I've selected, along with brief explanations of why I chose them.

Feel free to follow along with my journey, use my translation recommendations, or engage with the ideas I'm exploring. This is very much a living document, so keep checking back for updates!

</aside>

Flow States and Ancient Wisdom

The concept of flow state, much like the ancient Greek pursuit of excellence, represents a heightened state of consciousness where insight and intuition merge. This cognitive state bears striking parallels to classical philosophical practices, where direct engagement with one's environment leads to deeper understanding. Similar to how Greek philosophers sought to understand patterns in nature, flow state involves implicit pattern recognition and learning. When we enter this state, whether through physical activities like rock climbing or through contemplative practices reminiscent of ancient rituals, our minds form new neural connections and insights.

These moments of insight, comparable to the sudden understanding (nous) valued in classical philosophy, occur as bursts of clarity that transcend ordinary conscious thought. The process creates a self-reinforcing cycle where intuition and explicit knowledge work in harmony, much like the Greek ideal of combining practical wisdom (phronesis) with theoretical understanding (episteme).

The brain forms novel connections during flow states, similar to how ancient thinkers bridged seemingly disparate concepts through metaphor
This enhanced state of consciousness can be accessed through various practices, from physical engagement to contemplative exercises
The resulting insights often transcend conventional cultural frameworks, allowing for deeper understanding of complex patterns
Related Ideas

Related Listening </aside>

Related Reading No. 1 </aside>

Ancient Greece

The birth of Classical Greek civilization also marks the birth of the rational and analytical elements which are characteristic of Western civilization in general.

The Classical Ideal

It is generally said that Greek architecture, art and literature moved toward, and then successfully embodied, the Classical ideal. This concept is notoriously difficult to put into words. The term can have at least three different meanings, all of which embody some aspect of our reactions to ancient Greek culture.

In the first instance, when applied to all the arts, the Classical ideal means a degree of idealization, so that not only objects, but also characters and events, are presented in their noblest and most elevated aspects. They are also presented in ways that suggest they sum up what is presented without unduly exaggerating mannerisms or characteristics which might distract the spectator from the essential qualities of what is being shown.

In the second place, in the visual arts primarily, the term suggests a way of working which makes human beings the essential measure of the work. Although, in the seventeenth century, the idea of classicism was to be extended to embrace the idea of the so-called “classical landscape,” Greek architecture and art are focused on human beings. They derive their whole system of proportions from the human body. This system of proportions, in turn, becomes a structure of mathematical relationships which enable the architect in particular to achieve visual harmony, not through intuition, but through applying a known and universally accepted set of rules.

Greek Drama

During the tumultuous period of the 8th-7th century BCE, as Greece was emerging from its Dark Ages and developing the alphabet, Hesiod wrote during a time of significant agricultural and social transformation. His works reflect the transition from oral to written tradition in Greek culture, as well as the emergence of the polis system. His two major works, the "Theogony" and "Works and Days," captured both the religious worldview and the practical concerns of a society moving towards more organized city-states.

Hesiod wrote from the perspective of a farmer in Boeotia, providing unique insights into the lives of common people during a period when Greece was experiencing significant economic changes, including the rise of a merchant class and the development of coined money. His poetry bridged the gap between the aristocratic traditions of epic poetry and the everyday concerns of the emerging middle class.

Nearly two centuries later, Aeschylus lived through one of the most dynamic periods in Ancient Greek history. Born around 525 BCE in Eleusis, he witnessed Athens' transformation from tyranny to democracy, fought in the Persian Wars at Marathon (490 BCE) and possibly at Salamis (480 BCE), and saw his city rise to become the dominant power in the Greek world. These experiences profoundly influenced his theatrical works.

Writing in the aftermath of the Persian Wars and during Athens' Golden Age under Pericles, Aeschylus transformed Greek theater by introducing a second actor and reducing the chorus's role. His innovations reflected the growing complexity of Athenian society and its wrestling with questions of justice in a new democratic system. Homer and Hesiod, Aeschylus and Sophocles all expressed something like a common vision, reflecting a typically Greek propensity to see clarifying universals in the chaos of life.

And from Typhoeus come boisterous winds, which blow damply…fitfully upon the seas. Some rush upon the misty sea and work great havoc among men with their evil, raging blasts; for varying with the season they blow, scattering ships and destroying sailors. And men who meet these upon the sea have no help against the mischief. Others again over the boundless, flowering earth spoil the fair fields of men who dwell below, filling them with dust and cruel uproar.

-Hesiod, Theogony

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ancient-greece-declassified/id1158506284?i=1000380542162

Great Books Readings (#1 + 2)

</aside>

Untitled

The Greek universe was ordered by a plurality of timeless essences which underlay concrete reality, giving it form and meaning. These archetypal principles included the mathematical forms of geometry and arithmetic; cosmic opposites such as light and dark, male and female, love and hate, unity and multiplicity; the forms of man (anthrōpos) and other living creatures; and the Ideas of the Good, the Beautiful, the Just, and other absolute moral and aesthetic values. In the pre-philosophical Greek mind, these archetypal principles took the form of mythic personifications such as Eros, Chaos, Heaven and Earth (Ouranos and Gaia), as well as more fully personified figures such as Zeus, Prometheus, and Aphrodite. In this perspective, every aspect of existence was patterned and permeated by such fundamentals. Despite the continuous flux of phenomena in both the outer world and inner experience, there could yet be distinguished specific immutable structures or essences, so definite and enduring they were believed to possess an independent reality of their own. It was upon this apparent immutability and independence that Plato based both his metaphysics and his theory of knowledge.