Saturday, November 28, 2015

The Parmenides and the Symposium - their dating

The Parmenides is narrated by Cephalus of Clazomenae who came to Athens with his friends. They met Adeimantus and Glaucon (Plato’s brothers) in the Agora. The two were his old friends and greeted him heartily: ’if you need anything we can help you with, tell us.’ He told them that the very purpose of their coming to Athens (from Clazomenae in Asia Minor) was to see them and ask their help, for his friends, deeply interested in philosophy, had learnt that Antiphon (Adeimantus‘and Glaucon’ half-brother) often heard from Zeno’s friend Pythodorus the arguments that Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides once exchanged, so that he remembers them. Adeimantus confirmed this to be true (alêthê): ‘for he rehearsed the arguments diligently when he was a youngster’ (126b8-c7).

Adeimantus and Glaucon point us to the Republic in which they play an important role; there they compel Socrates to transcend his philosophic ignorance (Republic 357a-368c), to construct the ideal state as the embodiment of the Form of Justice, and outline the road to the Forms.

Glaucon points us to the Symposium with its outline of the road to the Form of beauty. The introductions to the Parmenides, the Republic, and the Symposium bear marked similarities that bind them together. In the Symposium, like in the Parmenides, we learn that the narrative is mediated: Apollodorus, the narrator, was a child when the symposium took place; he had heard it from Aristodemus and was well prepared to deliver it for he had narrated it to Glaucon before narrating it to his friends. Apollodorus opens the dialogue with the words: ‘Concerning the things about which you ask to be informed I believe that I am not ill prepared with an answer. For the day before yesterday I was coming from my home at Phalerum [a harbour] to the city, and one of my acquaintance [Glaucon], who had caught a sight of me from behind, calling out playfully in the distance, said: “Apollodorus, halt! … I was looking for you, only just now, that I might ask you about the speeches in praise of love, which were delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon’s supper. Phoenix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me of them; his narrative was very indistinct, but he said that you knew, and I wish that you would give me an account of them”.’ (172a-b, tr. Jowett) The Republic, narrated by Socrates, opens as follows: ‘I went down to the Piraeus [an Athenian promontory with three harbours] with Glaucon the son of Ariston … we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him.’ (327a-b, tr. Jowett)

In my first reflections on ‘A year on my blog with Plato’s Parmenides’ I wrote: ‘In the Parmenides it is a very young Socrates who is instructed in philosophy by the venerable Parmenides; in the Symposium the wise woman Diotima introduces presumably an even younger Socrates to the Form of beauty and thus prepares him for his life devoted to philosophy.’ This needs to be qualified, for Diotima is not sure whether Socrates would ever be able to see the Form of beauty: ‘These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter (Tauta men oun ta erȏtika isȏs, ȏ Sȏkrates, k’an su muêtheiês); to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can’ (209e5-210a2, tr. Jowett). Jowett’s ‘the greater and more hidden mysteries’ stands for Plato’s ta de telea kai epoptika, which Liddell and Scott translate ‘the highest mysteries’. What is lost in these explications is seeing, which is expressed in epoptika, seen by the mind’s eye.

 ‘The lesser mysteries of love’, into which even Socrates may enter, Diotima describes as follows: ‘Wisdom and virtue in general’ (phronêsin te kai tên allên aretên), especially ‘the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom (tês phronêseȏs), which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice (sȏphrosunê te kai dikaiosunê). And he who in his youth has the seed implanted in his soul, when he grows up and comes to maturity desires to beget and generate … when he finds a fair and noble and well nurtured soul … to such a one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man, and he tries to educate him.’ (209a3-8, tr. Jowett) The young Socrates entered this stage somewhat prematurely in Parmenides’ view: ‘You undertake to mark off something beautiful and just and good and each one of the Forms (hekaston tȏn eidȏn) too soon, before being properly trained. I realized this yesterday, when I heard you discussing with Aristoteles. Believe me, your impulse toward argument is noble and indeed divine. But train yourself more thoroughly while you are still young.’ (Parmenides 135c8-d4, tr. Allen; Allen translates hekaston tȏn eidȏn ‘each one of the characters’.)

Concerning the ascent to the Form of beauty, the Beauty itself, Diotima says: ‘He who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to seek the company of corporeal beauty … in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form … he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom (en philosophiai aphthonȏi); until on that shore he grows and waxes strong … He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love (hos an mechri entautha pros ta erȏtika paidagȏgêthêi), and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes towards the end (pros telos êdê iȏn) will suddenly perceive (exaiphnês katopsetai, ‘suddenly will see’) a nature of wondrous beauty … which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul … but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other beautiful things, without itself suffering diminution, or increase, or any change.’ (211a4-b5, tr. Jowett)

Jowett’s ‘he will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty … beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other beautiful things, without itself suffering diminution, or increase, or any change’ obscures the fact that Plato formulates here the theory of participation of sensible things in the Forms as it is viewed by a person that attained the vision of the Form of beauty. Let me follow the original more closely: ‘He will suddenly see a beauty of remarkable nature (exaiphnês katopsetai ti thaumaston tên phusin kalon) … in itself and with itself (auto kath’ hauto meth’ hautou), of simple form (monoeides), eternal (aei on), all the other beautiful things participating in it in some way like this (ta de alla panta kala ekeinou metechonta tropon tina toiouton): as all the other things come to be and perish (hoion gignomenȏn tȏn allȏn kai apollumenȏn) the beauty itself becomes neither greater nor smaller, nor suffers any change (mêden ekeino mête ti pleon mête elatton gignesthai mêde paschein mêden).

Let me further note that Jowett’s ‘when he comes towards the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty’ for Plato’s pros telos êdê iȏn exaiphnês katopsetai ti thaumaston tên phusin kalon in line in line 210e4 loses the etymological connection with ta de telea kai epoptika in line 210a1, where Diotima expresses her doubt, whether Socrates will ever be able to reach this stage.

***
Plato went to Sicily in 367, shortly after the death of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. He went there on the insistence of Dion, an aristocrat and devoted follower and friend of Plato.  Dion believed that with Plato’s help the young Dionysius could be turned to philosophy and Syracuse become the ideal state of the Republic. But Dion was exiled soon after Plato’s arrival, and Plato spent there an unhappy year, pining after his teaching in the Academy: ‘leaving my own occupations, which were certainly not discreditable ones’ (katalipȏn tas emautou diatribas, ousas ouk aschêmonas, Seventh letter, 329b1-2, tr. Harward).

Plato left Sicily in 366, agreeing to return: ‘At that time there was a state of war in Sicily. Dionysius said that, when he had put the affairs of his empire in a position of greater safety for himself, he would send for Dion and me again … I agreed to come again on these conditions.’ (Seventh Letter, 338a4-b2, tr. J. Harward)

Aristotle’s criticism of the theory of Forms in the 1st book of the Metaphysics allows us to surmise that objections against the Forms were ripe among some of Plato’s disciples in the Academy. Before leaving Athens, Plato had to protect his disciples from objections against the Forms. He returned to Sicily in 361 and had thus five years in which to think of how to prepare his disciples for his departure. But how could he do so if he had no telling arguments with which he could refute the arguments raised against the Forms? That this was so is made abundantly clear by Aristotle, who as a Platonist raised arguments against the Forms in the first book of Metaphysics, using the first person plural in the sense ‘we Platonists’, and pointedly repeated the same arguments in the 13th book after distancing himself from Platonists. These arguments are raised against the theory in the Parmenides, where they are left unanswered, yet declared as false (133b7) and only seemingly ‘saying something’ (dokein te ti legein, 135a6).

Parmenides in the Parmenides voices some of the most telling arguments against the Forms, while declaring the Forms immune against any arguments. This strategy could be adopted by Plato only if the discussion between Socrates, Zeno and Parmenides staged in the dialogue did take place in reality, if Socrates in his youth contemplated the Forms and on that basis challenged Parmenides’ thesis that ‘all is one’, if Parmenides in turn subjected Socrates’ Forms to criticism, and if those arguments were learnt and diligently rehearsed by Plato’s half-brother Antiphon in his adolescence. For then it means, that Plato was well acquainted with such arguments against the Forms long before Aristotle and others raised them in the Academy, and that such arguments have no power against those who can see the Forms.

Parmenides introduces the greatest difficulty concerning the Forms in the Parmenides as follows: ‘If someone should say that the Forms cannot be known, one could not show to him that he is saying a falsity (hoti pseudetai), unless the objector happened to be a man of great experience and natural ability, willing to follow a man who would show him the Forms in the course of a copious and lengthy undertaking’ (133a11-b9). The objection that the Forms cannot be known is thus qualified as false from the outset. ‘A copious and lengthy undertaking’ points to the Republic in which Plato demonstrated that only the Forms can be known, for only they truly are; all other things are subject to constant change and can be apprehended only by opinion that lacks the certainty of knowledge. The words ‘lengthy undertaking’ do not render the full force of Plato’s porrȏthen pragmateuomenou, which means ‘undertaking the task from afar’; in the Republic it takes Plato the first five books before he tackles the task in the sixth and seventh book. This is why after writing the Parmenides he decided to write the Symposium, in which the journey to the Forms is described powerfully in a concise manner.

In the Symposium, Diotima’s depiction of the Form of beauty parries Parmenides’ main objections against participation of sensible things in the Forms. Parmenides asks Socrates: ‘Do you think, as you say, that there are certain Forms by partaking of which these other things have got their names?’ When Socrates agrees, Parmenides goes on arguing: ‘Then each participating thing partakes  either of the whole Form or of a part of it … So being one and the same, it will be as a whole at the same time in many things that are separate, and thus it would be separate from itself.’ (Parm. 130e5 – 131b2) Diotima depicts Beauty as ‘being in itself and with itself, of simple form, eternal, in which all the other beautiful things participate so that while all the other things come to be and perish the beauty itself becomes neither greater nor smaller, nor suffers any change.’ (Symp. 211b1-5)

Aristotle’s passionate plea directed against the Forms in the 1st book of the Metaphysics indicates that after Plato’s departure from Athens the Parmenides jointly with the Symposium, and with the Republic to which they both are pointing, had the effect Plato had hoped for. Aristotle says in despair: ‘In general, though philosophy seeks the cause of perceptible things, we have given this up, for we say nothing of the cause from which change takes its start; but while we fancy we are stating the substance of perceptible things, we assert the existence of other substances, while our account of the way in which they are the substances of perceptible things is empty talk; for ‘sharing’ (to gar metechein), as we said before, means nothing (outhen estin)’ (992a24-29, tr. W. D. Ross with a minor change; Ross translates heteras men ousias einai phamen ‘we assert the existence of a second class of substances’, I have translated ‘we assert the existence of other substances’).

Friday, November 27, 2015

Good news

Dear Rector,

This week the Czech Pension Service began to send me an old-age pension. So I won't do any busking at St James after all. Still, my attempt to do so remains deeply inscribed in my mind. For when I visited St James while the Sunday November 22nd Service was still on, I read the program for the Communion on the board. There was to be read the Epistle to the Hebrews. It conjured up great memories in my mind. In 1977 I read the Epistle with Jan Heller, Professor of the Old Testament studies at the Protestant Theological Faculty in Prague. It took a lot of courage to do so on his part, for I was one of the signatories of the Human Rights document Charter 77. To illustrate the atmosphere of those days; I walked along the Paris Street and saw a friend I hadn't seen for years; a teacher of logic at the Philosophy Faculty of Charles University. Delighted, I called his name 'Karle'! He furtively looked around, turned back, and ran away like a small frightened kid.

My reading the Epistle to the Hebrews with Jan Heller was a very important experience for me. Since then, I had only two comparable experiences. In 1983, in Oxford, I read Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics with the Master of Balliol, Dr Anthony Kenny, the whole of it, just the two of us, at Balliol College. And then, again in Oxford, I read Paul's Epistle to the Romans with Catherine Ross and a few of her friends. Catherine was a retired teacher from Somerville College, and a daughter of W. D. Ross, unquestionably the greatest English speaking Aristotelian scholar.


With best wishes,
Julius Tomin
PS If you have time, you can hear my readings from The New Testament in the Ancient Greek on my website www.juliustomin.org

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

A year on my blog with Plato’s Parmenides

On October 5, 2014, I wrote to Professor Drummond Bone, the Master of Balliol: ‘My next paper will be on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as their thoughts are reflected and interlinked in Plato’s Parmenides. The Parmenides is a late dialogue; in my view Plato wrote it in preparation for his third and last journey to Sicily. Aristotle was at that time 23 years old and had been for 6 years in Plato’s school. Plato’s Parmenides is preoccupied with criticism of the theory of Forms, which we find in the opening book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. A great 19th century German scholar Siebeck believed that the Parmenides was directed against criticisms urged by Aristotle in discussion with Plato. Ross notes that Siebeck’s ‘theory has but little evidence in favour of it’ (Ross’ note on Met A, Ch. 9, 991a12, 13). I believe that Siebeck is right, but it will take a lot of work to properly support his view.’

I hoped against hope that the Master would invite me to present the paper at Balliol, for I had always enjoyed presenting ‘papers’ without a paper in my hand, before writing any paper on the proposed subject. For whenever I had an opportunity to do so, I chose a subject to which I had devoted a lot of thought, and then I always found it the greatest and most rewarding challenge to rethink the subject on the spot, anew, for an interested audience.

I found an inspiration for doing so in my late teens, in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus speaks to his disciples about persecutions awaiting them: ‘You will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be a time for you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand and contradict.’ (21, 12-15)

I have always read the Gospels in a secularised way. Face to face with ‘kings and governors’, not thinking of ‘what will they ask?’ ‘what shall I say?’, trusting in their cause, Jesus’ disciples were most likely to derive their answers from the most relevant parts and aspects of their experience as Christians, and thus make their responses most powerful. I was privileged to follow Jesus’ guidance on many occasions: during my first imprisonment in mid 1950s, and then again in the late 1970s, whenever I was interrogated by the police.

But I find Jesus’ advice most important, most fruitful and rewarding when I have an opportunity to talk on philosophy. Concerning Plato’s Parmenides, I enjoyed two such occasions. Three years ago I was invited to give a talk on the dialogue to a group of Plato enthusiasts led by Noel Bolting (his group is called Noboss). And then I was allowed to give a talk on it in the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. On these two occasions there was nobody able or willing to challenge my views in the discussion, which was a pity, for my views on the dialogue challenge the very foundations of the Platonic scholarship of the past two centuries, constructed on the view that Plato conceived the theory of Forms some ten years after the death of Socrates. Regrettably, I shall not be given an opportunity to discuss the dialogue properly before writing the paper, for both the Master of Balliol and the Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Religious studies at Charles University left my offers to present my talk on the dialogue to their students and colleagues unanswered; and so I shall do my best to write the paper without it. Instead, I shall review the entries on my blog devoted to the theme, choosing, reordering, and revising the passages relevant to the task.

***
From ‘Plato as a critic of Aristotle’, posted on November 14, 2014:

In the 1st book of the Metaphysics Aristotle writes: ‘Above all one might discuss the question what on earth the Forms contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or to those that come into being and cease to be. For they cause neither movement nor any change in them. But again they help in no wise either towards the knowledge of the other things (for they are not even the substance of these, else they would have been in them), or towards their being, if they are not in the particulars which share in them.’ (991a8-14, tr. W. D. Ross) Ross notes: ‘This argument is met by Plato in Parmenides 134 D; this is one of the points relied on by Siebeck for the proof of his theory that the Parmenides (with the Sophist and the Philebus) was directed against criticism urged by Aristotle in discussion..’

The importance of Siebeck’s theory becomes apparent if we compare Parmenides’ criticism of the Forms in the Parmenides with Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s theory of Forms.

Parmenides opens his enquiry about the Forms by asking Socrates: ‘Do you mean that there are certain Forms by partaking of which these other things get their names? As for example those things that partake of similarity become similar, of largeness large, of beauty and justice just and beautiful?’ When Socrates answers: ‘Yes, certainly’, Parmenides argues: ‘If being one and the same, it would be present as a whole at one and the same time in many things that are separate from it, it would thus be separate from itself (kai houtȏs auto hautou chȏris eiê, 131b1-2).

Siebeck points out that this argument against the Forms can be found in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z: ‘Now if the animal in the horse and in the man is one and the same, as you are with yourself, how will the one in things that exist apart be one, and how will this animal escape being separate even from itself’ (kai dia ti ou kai chȏris hautou estai to zȏion touto, 1039a34-b2, tr. Ross; Ross translates Aristotle’s chȏris ‘divided’; to elucidate the mutual relation of these two passages, I translate it as ‘separate’, as it stands in Plato’s text). (See H. Siebeck, ‘Platon als Kritiker aristotelischer Ansichten’, Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 107 Band, Leipzig 1896, pp. 3-5)

When Socrates admits that it is not easy to deal with this difficulty, Parmenides asks him whether it was not the following consideration that has led him to assume each Form to be one: ‘When a number of things seems to you to be large, it perhaps seems to you that there is one and the same Form as you look on them all; hence you conceive of the large as one.’ When Socrates admits that Parmenides is right, the latter asks: ‘And what about the large and all the other large things, if in your mind you look at them all in the same way, will not again some large appear by virtue of which they all appear large? – So another Form of largeness will make its appearance, which came to its being over and above the largeness itself and the things participating in it; and upon all these again a different one, by which they all will be large. And so there will not be one of each Form for you, but their multitude will be infinite.’ (132a1-b2)

Siebeck notes that this argument appears in the 1st book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics as ‘the Third Man’ (tritos anthrȏpos, 99b17, Siebeck p. 3).

Socrates does not give up: ‘But may not each of the Forms be just a thought of them (toutȏn noêma), to which it would appertain to be born nowhere else than in souls; for in this way each would be one and would no more suffer what was said just now (132b3-6).’ Parmenides asks: ‘Is each thought one, but a thought of nothing?’ (133b7) Guided by Parmenides, Socrates admits that each thought is a thought of something that is one, which that thought thinks to be present over all, to wit a Form which is one, ever being over all, and that all this appears to be so by necessity. Parmenides asks: ‘Is not this necessity the necessity that compelled you to say that things participate in the Forms?’ (132c9-10) Parmenides thus reduces Socrates’ new suggestion to his original theory of Forms with all its difficulties.

It appears that Aristotle had the Parmenides in front of his eyes when he wrote in the 1st book of Metaphysics: ‘According to the assumption on which our belief in the Ideas rests, there will be Forms not only of substances but also of many other things (for the thought is one (to noêma hen) not only in the case of substances but also in the other cases, and there are sciences not only of substance but also of other things, and a thousand other such difficulties confront them).’ (990b22-27, tr. W. D. Ross, with one exception; Ross translates Aristotle‘s to noêma hen ‘the concept is single’, which obscures the relation between Aristotle’s passage and Parmenides’ argument).

Socrates makes one more attempt to save the Forms: ‘It appears to me that these Forms stand in the nature as paradigms; the other things resemble them and are likenesses of them and this participation of other things in the Forms is nothing other than their becoming a resemblance of them.’ Parmenides asks: ‘If something resembles the Form, must not the Form be similar to that which is like it, in so far as it resembles it? – And must not that which is like that which is like it of necessity participate in the same Form?’ Parmenides thus shows Socrates that his Forms viewed as paradigms end up being infinitely multiplied, and concludes: ‘So the others do not partake of the Forms by similarity, but one must look for something else by which they partake.’ (132d1-133a6)

Aristotle notes in the 1st book of the Metaphysics: ‘To say that the Forms are paradigms and that the other things share in them is to use empty words and poetical metaphors.’ (991a20-22)

***
From ‘A note on the 3rd book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics’, posted on October 16, 2014:

The difficulties that Aristotle puts forward in the 3rd book concerning the theory of Forms are closely related to the arguments on the basis of which he refutes the theory in the 1st book of Metahysics; these arguments resemble those that Parmenides urges against the Forms of young Socrates in Plato’s Parmenides. Thanks to Siebeck, I began to consider the possibility that Plato wrote the Parmenides in preparation for his third and last journey to Sicily. What are my reasons for this dating of the dialogue?

In the opening part of the Parmenides we learn that Zeno, a disciple of Parmenides was reading his treatise to interested listeners, one of whom was Socrates. Towards the end of the reading Parmenides entered the party, accompanied by Aristotle who ‘later became one of the Thirty’ (127d2-3). The Thirty would have put Socrates to death had their rule not been overthrown (Cf. Plato, Apology 32c-d, 7th Letter 324b-325a; Xenophon, Memorabilia I.ii.29-38). All those who knew of Aristotle’s objections to Plato’s Forms were bound to ask: Isn’t Plato pointing his finger at his disciple of the same name? Isn’t Aristotle bent on destroying Plato’s theory of Forms, and thus obliterating Plato as a thinker?

Parmenides subjected Socrates’ theory of the Forms to severe questioning, refuting with ease the reasons on the basis of which Socrates had considered the Forms, as well as the arguments he came up with in the course of the ensuing discussion. Yet instead of rejecting the theory as indefensible, Parmenides ended the discussion with a passionate defence of the Forms: ‘The Forms are necessarily involved in these and many more difficulties, if these Forms of things exist and one is going to define each Form as something in itself. So that the hearer is bound to be in difficulty and to argue that the Forms do not exist, and even if they do exist, they must of necessity be unknowable to human nature; and he will seem to have reason on his side, and as we were remarking just now, will be very difficult to convince. Only a man of considerable natural ability will be able to learn that there is a kind (genos ti) of each thing, an absolute essence (ousia autê kath’ hautên) … If a man, casting an eye over all the present and any similar difficulties, will not allow the Forms to exist and will not define the Form of each single thing, he will not have anything to which to turn his mind, and so he will utterly destroy the power of reasoning’. (134e8-135c2)

Before leaving Athens, Plato had to protect his disciples from objections against the existence of the Forms; although he directed his defence of the Forms at every one of his disciples, he appears to have aimed it especially at Aristotle, who was the most gifted among them and who had urged arguments against the Forms. Aristotle could not but see the dialogue as a question directed at him: will he prove to be ‘a man of considerable natural ability able to learn that there is a kind of each thing’, or will he fail?

The unceremonious manner with which Aristotle in the 1st book of the Metaphysics rejected the Forms on the basis of arguments marked in the Parmenides as irrelevant, while speaking about himself as one of Plato’s disciples – using the first person plural in the sense of “we Platonists” – indicates that he wrote the 1st book after Plato left Athens for Sicily and before he returned. Nobody expected that Plato would come back; he was in his late sixties when he went to Sicily, and he went there to help establish a state in which philosophers would rule.

***
Ross notes that the 3rd book of the Metaphysics refers to the 1st book as “our prefatory remarks” (995b5) and “our first discussions” (997b4)’, that the 3rd book ‘announces itself as following the 1st book’, and that the close connexion between the 1st book and the 3rd book is further indicated by the use of the phrase ‘the science which we are seeking’ (hê epistêmê hê zêtoumenê) and the use of the first person plural in the sense of “we Platonists”. (W. D. Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, OUP 1924, p. xv) Convinced as I have become that the 1st book was written in the interval between Plato’s leaving Athens in 361 BC and his return from Sicily in 360 BC, the close connection between it and the 3rd book made me believe that the latter was written during that period as well.  But my reading aloud and recording the 3rd book compelled me to revise this dating, for I found that in all relevant respects it stands in sharp contrast to the 1st book.

In the opening sentence of the 6th, that is the last chapter of the 3rd book, Aristotle asks: ‘In general one might raise the question (aporêseie an tis) why after all, besides perceptible things and the intermediates [i.e. the mathematical objects], we have to look for another class of things, i.e. the Forms which we posit’ (ha tithemen eidê, 1002b13-14). He argues that ‘if there are not – besides perceptible and mathematical objects – others  such as some maintain the Forms to be, there will be no substance which is one in number, but only in kind: – if then this must be so, the Forms also must therefore be held to exist. Even if those who support this view do not express it accurately, still this is what they mean, and they must be maintaining the Forms just because each of the Forms is a substance and none is by accident.’ After thus making a powerful case for the Forms, Aristotle refers to his earlier considerations that questioned the viability of the theory of Forms: ‘But if we are to suppose both that the Forms exist and that the principles are one in number, not in kind, we have mentioned the impossible results that necessarily follow.’ (1002b12-32, tr. W. D. Ross.)

Aristotle devoted his 3rd book to the task of facing and overcoming difficulties, aporiai, opening it as follows: ‘For those who wish to get clear of difficulties [euporêsai literally ‘walk well’] it is advantageous to discuss the difficulties [diaporêsai; the prefix dia gives diaporêsai the force of ‘going through all the difficulties’] well; for the subsequent free play of thought [euporia, literally ‘easy walking’] implies the solution of the previous difficulties [tȏn aporoumenȏn], and it is impossible to untie a knot of which one does not know. But the difficulty of our thinking [hê tês dianoias aporia] points to a “knot” in the object; for in so far as our thought is in difficulties [hêi gar aporei], it is in like case with those who are bound; for in either case it is impossible to go forward.’ (Tr. W. D. Ross, 995a27-33) Aristotle’s listeners/readers were bound to be reminded by these opening lines of Plato’s Symposium, in which Poros (‘ways and means of achieving, discovering’), the son of Mêtis (Wisdom), fathers Eros. Devoting his whole life to the pursuit of philosophy (philosophȏn dia pantos tou biou, 203d7), Eros is all the time on the roads, all the time searching; yet what he finds is again and again escaping him (203b-204a). In the Parmenides it is a very young Socrates who is instructed in philosophy by the venerable Parmenides; in the Symposium the wise woman Diotima introduces presumably an even younger Socrates to the Form of Beauty and thus prepares him for his life devoted to philosophy. Playfully alluding to these two dialogues, Aristotle in the 3rd book of the Metaphysics dons the cloak of a searching philosopher and retrospectively marks the arguments raised against the Forms in the 1st book as part of an on-going investigation.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

2 Busking at St James with Homer read in Ancient Greek

Dear Rector,

On November 19 I informed you that on Sunday, November 22, I would busk in front of St James before the Sunday Service, from 9:45 to 10:00, reading Homer’s Iliad in Ancient Greek. Before writing to you I went to St James. I appreciated the grand porch of your church, and thought: if the weather is too bad, I shall just stand in the porch with my little poster ‘Busking with Homer read in Ancient Greek’ around my neck, reading the Iliad just for myself, for reading it aloud in the porch would hardly be appreciated. Then I received your reply: ‘I’m very sorry to hear about your situation but I need to let you know that we do not have a service in St James at 10am this Sunday, 22nd November.’

Your reply made think: ‘Did the Rector decide to cancel the Communion because of my intended busking?’ I apologize for that thought, but your reply has made me realize that I should justify my intention to busk in front of St James a little better and more thoroughly than I did in my letter of November 19. In that letter I wrote: ‘I take recourse to busking because my only income is a State Pension of £26.95 a week; all my appeals to the Pension Service to revise the debt of £11.956.70, deduced from my benefits since 2009, have been in vain (see ‘An urgent request addressed to the Pension Service,’ ‘It is all wrong – a letter to the Pension Service’ and ‘It has nothing to do with Oxford University’ posted on my blog http://juliustominquestions.blogspot.co.uk/ on June 10, 15 and 19 respectively).

I cannot expect that you or any member of your congregation would look on my blog and read the suggested posts. I have now re-read them, and realized that only one of them is relevant, ‘It is all wrong – a letter to the Pension Service’ posted on June 15, for it explains why I cannot accept the Pension Service’s explanation of my alleged debt: ‘The overpayment was because of undeclared earnings by your partner’. I hope that as I shall go on busking at St James, members of your congregation will join me in demanding that Pension Service justify their statement by giving us the facts concerning the alleged ‘undeclared earnings by your partner’.
‘It is all wrong – a letter to the Pension Service’ follows:

‘Dear Glyn Caron,

In my letter of 10 June 2015 I asked: “On what basis have the Pension Service found me in debt of £11,956.70?” On 12 June you replied: “The deductions are for an overpayment that dates back to 10 October 2008. The overpayment was because of undeclared earnings by your partner.” Would you justify your statement by giving me facts? I must repeat my question: “On what basis have the Pension Service found me in debt of £11,956.70?”

Before I get the facts, let me ask: If the overpayment goes back to 10 October 2008, why was I charged with the debt of £11,956.70 almost a year later? The circumstances were dramatic. Let me quote from my letter to Ursula Grum of 7/10/2009:

“In a letter of 08/09/2009 you informed me that my Pension Credit was overpaid £158.34 for the period 06/07/2009-26/07/2009. I received the letter on Monday September 14. In the letter you stated: ‘The overpayment occurred because on 09/07/2009 your circumstances changed and the office that paid your benefit was not told at the correct time about a change to the level of earnings in your household.’ This allegation is false. On 23 July 2009 I sent The Pension Service a letter, in which I informed you of my wife’s earnings for three days of supply teaching for the period 2 to 14 July, and I enclosed the three pay slips. I did so as soon as my wife received the pay. I did not contact you on the day I received your letter of 8/9, for I expected a visit from the Pension Service Customer Liaison Officer, announced for the next day, with whom I wanted to discuss the issue.

On September 15 I was visited by the Pension Service Customer Liaison Officer to whom I showed the relevant documents concerning the supposed overpayment. At that point she gave me your letter of 11 August 2009 in which you inform me that in the period from 01/08/2005 to 12/10/2008 I was overpaid £11,688.36, and from 13/10/2008 to 19/10/2008 I was overpaid £75.28, that is in total £11,763.64. I phoned your department in the officer’s presence, appealing against your decision.”

Now back to your letter of 12 June 2015; you wrote: “The deductions are for an overpayment that dates back to 10 October 2008.” I find the date intriguing.

Early in Autumn 2008 I informed Classicists and classical philosophers that I put on my website the first volume of The Lost Plato, which focuses on nine dialogues of Plato which I consider as written prior to Socrates' death. I indicated that I was preparing its sequel, a systematic study of the dialogues written after the death of Socrates. I asked: “In your view, should this work be undertaken? If so, what can be done that it is undertaken in conditions worthy of the work it requires? If you think that such work should not be undertaken, could you tell me why?” Nicholas Denyer's replied ‘no’, which he justified as follows: “You do not name the nine dialogues you view as written before Socrates' death. But whichever nine dialogues you were to name, there is no reason to suppose that your view about their dating is correct. Amplifying a view which there is no reason to suppose correct is not a good use of your time and talents.” Nicholas Denyer said his NO without looking at least at the few pages of the ‘Introduction’.

In October 2008 I wrote to my colleagues: “I should like to inform you that as of yesterday my questions acquired an unexpectedly grave existential dimension. From the Stroud District Council I received the following letter:

‘We have been advised that your Pension Credits have stopped, which may affect your entitlement to Housing or Council Tax Benefits. We have therefore suspended payment of these benefits in accordance with Regulation 11 of the Decision and Appeals Regulations 2001. There is no right of appeal against this decision.’

I phoned the Council, informed the lady I spoke to that my wife, who was self-employed on a part time basis until September is now studying at Cheltenham, taking a year-long post-graduate course to become a teacher. The lady told me that on the information they received from the Pension Service my Pension Credits were disconnected as of July 2008. This surprised me, for when I asked my wife a few days ago whether I was receiving the pension credit as normal, she looked at my account and said ‘yes’. I was advised to contact the Pension Service, which I did. The lady I spoke to at that office told me that my last Pension Credit payment would be sent to me on October 19: ‘Your Pension Credit is stopped because we have been informed that you and your wife are receiving Working Tax Credit.’ I told the lady that they were badly misinformed, for my wife ceased to work, as I duly informed their office at the beginning of September. I pointed to a letter I received from her office on 10 September, which said: ‘Thank you for informing us of the cessation of your partner's self-employment.’

The Pension Credit I have been receiving until October 19 was £62.79 a week. Since we neither smoke nor drink, and live all in all frugally, we have been able to survive.

This morning I received a letter from the Pension Services, dated 13 October 2008, which says that ‘from 21 July 2008 you will get £5.10 a week. From July 2008 you are not entitled to Pension Credit.’ The section ‘How Pension Credit has been worked out’ says ‘the minimum amount of money the Government says you must have each week taking account of specific circumstances is £189.35. State pension for Julius Tomin £31.38. Working Tax Credit for Doina Cornell £70.18. Earnings of Doina Cornell [my wife has kept her maiden name] £82.69. Total income £184.25. Your appropriate amount of £189.35, less your total income of £184.25. So your total guarantee credit is £5.10.’

I see a certain similarity between Denyer's NO and the Pension Service calculations. Denyer does not need to look at a single page of The Lost Plato in order to proclaim confidently that there is no reason to suppose that my views are correct and that therefore my question whether my future work deserves to be undertaken in conditions worthy of such work deserves a NO. I may phone and write to the Pension Service as often as I wish, informing the office workers that my wife is now a student, that she has no earnings, that we consequently do not receive any Working Tax Credit - the Pension Credit officers KNOW better.”

You can find the full text of my email on my website www.juliustomin.org, where it figures as email No VI in the "Preface" entitled "Eleven emails on The Lost Plato addressed to classicists and classical philosophers".’

I look forward to busking with Homer at St James next Sunday, November 29, from 9:45 to 10:00.
Regards,

Julius Tomin

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Busking at Balliol College in virtual reality

Dear Master,

Allow me to inform you that I shall be busking at St James in Dursley on Sunday November 22, reading Homer’s Iliad in Ancient Greek.

I came to Oxford in 1980 at the invitation of Dr Kenny, the Master of Balliol and have devoted all my energy to the study of Ancient Greeks ever since, informing academics at Oxford University of my progress (see my website www.juliustomin.org). I intend to go on busking Sunday by Sunday until I receive at least a living wage for my work.

If I lived in Oxford, I would busk with Homer in front of Balliol College, and if I lived in Prague, I would busk in front of the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University. The internet allows me to busk both at Balliol and at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University in virtual reality. I shall be informing you about my work week by week, putting the letter on my blog, and sending a copy of it to a few Oxford University academics. This week I am sending you the ‘Velvet Blues’, which I wrote on the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution:

'Velvet Blues

Twenty six years ago, on November 17, 1989 the Velvet Revolution began in Prague. If not the revolution itself, its aftermath was indirectly linked to my philosophy seminars, which I held in Prague in 1977-1980 for young people barred from university education because of their parents’ participation in an attempt to humanise socialism in our country in Prague Spring 1968. How could the aftermath of the Velvet revolution of 1989 be linked, however indirectly, to my philosophy seminars of late 1970s? In 1978 I invited Oxford dons to my seminar. Roger Scruton’s ‘A Catacomb Culture’ published in the Times Literary Supplement, February 16-22, 1990 is well qualified to establish the link: ‘The publicity-conscious Tomin then emigrated and … Kathleen Wilkes, Alan Montefiore, Bill Newton-Smith and myself … We decided that, although our purpose was charitable … it should not be openly pursued, and that we could henceforth best help our Czechoslovak colleagues working secretly … We were able to set up a network of secret classes – not only in Bohemia, but also in Moravia and Slovakia … a small sum of money had been given for the relief of our Czechoslovak colleagues [the Jan Hus Foundation trust was founded] … Many of our visitors were extremely well known in their own countries … We also encouraged our French, German, American and Canadian colleagues to establish sister trusts, thereby acquiring an international dimension which was to prove invaluable in the hard years to come … We were obliged by our trust to support educational and cultural activities in Czechoslovakia … We therefore began to establish other, purely nominal organizations through which to pay official stipends, so that the names of our beneficiaries could not be linked either to us or to each other … In the mid-1980s, thanks to a generous grant from George Soros (who will surely be commemorated in future years, not only as a great Hungarian patriot, but also as one of the saviours of Central Europe), we had expanded into Moravia … it was a time of miracles … Čarnogurský was made Deputy Prime Minister of his country … another of our beneficiaries was President [Václav Havel], and within weeks we were to see our friends occupying the highest offices in the land … Among those who had worked with us we could count the new rectors of the Charles University, of the Masaryk University in Brno, and of the Palacký University in Olomouc.’

I was in Oxford in the years that preceded the Velvet revolution. Deprived of my citizenship in 1981 I did my best to compel the Czechoslovak authorities to restore it. One of the highlights of my campaign was an open letter to the World Congress of philosophy in Brighton in which I wrote: ‘It took me seven months in Oxford to realize that the Master of Balliol knew what he was saying when he told me after my arrival that there was no place for me in the British academic establishment. I realized that by refusing to give up my approach to philosophy, and to classical philosophy in particular, I was committing myself to a lifetime of unemployment. I decided to return home. At that point the Czechoslovak authorities deprived me of my citizenship. Would the congress support my demand for the restoration of my Czechoslovak citizenship?’ (The open letter was published by The Times Higher Education Supplement on August 19, 1988)

My campaign for the restoration of my Czechoslovak citizenship culminated during Gorbachev’s visit in Britain; I wrote to him: ‘May I use the opportunity of your visit to Britain to express support for glasnost and perestroika in your country, and to protest against the lack of both in Czechoslovakia? In an attempt to give my support and my protest more weight, I shall begin on Wednesday, the day of your arrival, a ten day hunger-strike … Would you join the voices of hundreds of British students and academics who in recent years have petitioned the Czechoslovak authorities to restore my citizen’s rights … When my citizenship is restored, I shall use the expert knowledge in my academic field acquired during my stay in Britain to the benefit of my country. My ambition is to open at Charles University in Prague an International centre for the Study of Ancient Philosophy where academics from Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and other East European countries would regularly meet their colleagues from Britain and other Western countries to maintain our common cultural roots.’ (ApriI 3, 1989)

***
A few months later, a day after the beginning of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Nick Cohen put an end to my hopes. In ‘The Pub Philosopher’ he wrote: ‘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. Tomin believes that they could change utterly philosophers’ understanding of Plato … He thinks Oxford should “help itself” by recognizing that he is right. There is not the faintest possibility that this will happen.’ (The Independent Magazine, November 18, 1989)

***
In February of this year I wrote to Mr Jirsa, the Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Religious Studies at Charles University in Prague: ‘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 the Institute.

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 classical philosophers at Charles University 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, where 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 offer, and so I renewed it on October 11, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the letter that Professor Radovan Richta, Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Sociology and Member of the Presidium of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, wrote to Professor A. Diemer, President of the International Federation of Philosophic Societies. In the letter 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.’

I received no reply to my offer. Let me note that I made similar offers on the same dates to the Master of Balliol, Professor Drummond Bone, to which I received no response.

***
in a book published to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Barbara Day wrote: ‘it had become apparent that Julius would not find a job answering his ambitions … 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).

***
Whoever decided that I must remain unemployed opened for me glorious years during which I could devote myself fully to the study of the Ancient Greeks, informing my Oxford colleagues regularly about my progress and challenging them to open discussion on Ancient Philosophy. But I miss academic contacts, and I miss students. So let me end my Velvet Blues with quotations from Barbara Day’s book that hark to the days in which I could meet students: ’In February 1980 … Steven Lukes [a don from Balliol] also made use of the re-emergence of The Times and published his description of Tomin’s seminars: “The lectures take place in a crowded apartment, with Dr Tomin translating, at times explosively interjecting his own comments, but patiently and carefully pursuing the argument wherever it leads. Abstraction is no barrier to rapt attention. One lecture on Kant, dealing with the most difficult and intricate points, lasted five hours and the audience never faltered. There is a constant sense of drama. Questions are insistent and probing, and the answers matter. The lecturer is treated with respect but not deference.’ (p. 50)

It did not last: ‘During the same days Bill Newton-Smith, Fairfax Fellow in Philosophy at Balliol College was preparing to leave for Prague … It was the 7th March, and just before boarding the plane to Prague he bought the latest issue of the New Statesman. It proclaimed ind red on the front cover: “Inside Prague: Philosophy and the police state”; inside was a four page article by Julius Tomin … He identified 1977 as the year when the state, unable to handle the problem of Charter 77, handed over authority to the security services. Most of the population remained happy to function within the system of security. But the identifiable individuals who made up Charter 77 had put themselves outside the security net. “One finds oneself in the realm of inner freedom and then one faces the question of how to live so that the free life would be worth the sacrifice. That is where philosophy can help.” … Newton Smith set out to visit the Tomins. A few minutes before he arrived Julius, Zdena [my wife] and Lukáš [my son] had been served with a summons to appear at the central police station. Tomin believed the summons was connected with the New Statesman article. However, the present business was philosophy. Newton-Smith was not disappointed: “I have never encountered someone with so much dedication to philosophy that actual and impending problems of the magnitude facing him were set aside. For the next five hours we had an intense, non-stop discussion of the problems of perception and the nature of truth.” The next day they continued the discussion. Tomin explained  to Newton-Smith the difference between Oxford students and those in Prague, who needed to know why they were risking prison for the study of such a thing as philosophy … The lecture (on “The Rationality of Science”) took place in Ivan Dejmal’s flat, and started at 7.30 that evening: The eager, concentrated attention of the dozen students created an intellectually exciting atmosphere. Their excitement was infectious and I was looking forward to their reactions.” Fifteen minutes into the session the door bell rang. Dejmal, who normally monitored the arrivals, was engaged in transcribing the lecture; another student ran to open the door to what he assumed to be a late arrival, and rushed back in order not to miss a word of the lecture. Seven policemen, some in uniform, some in plane clothes, burst in behind him. The uniformed police took the names and details of the students, whilst the secret police demanded that Newton-Smith accompany them. Tomin was ordered to translate their orders to Newton-Smith, which he refused to do. As Newton-Smith was dragged from the flat his last sight was of Tomin, hands bleeding from struggles with the police taking up his lecture and reading from the point where they had been interrupted.’ (pp. 51-52) [I don’t remember the bleeding. I remember taking Bill firmly by hand; the police had to force my hand open so that they could take him away.] I finished reading and translating Bill’s lecture. It was the last complete lecture read in my philosophy seminar.

When Dr Kenny, the Master of Balliol, was giving his lecture in my seminar on Saturday 12th April, his lecture was interrupted before he could properly begin; Kenny and his wife were taken away, my students and I were taken to the Central Police Station in Bartolomějská Street.'

Regards,

Julius Tomin

Busking with Homer at St James

Dear Rector,

Allow me to inform you and your congregation that on the forthcoming Sunday, November 22, I intend to busk in front of St James before the Sunday Service, from 9:45 to 10:00, reading Homer’s Iliad in Ancient Greek.

I take recourse to busking because my only income is a State Pension of £26.95 a week; all my appeals to the Pension Service to revise the debt of £11.956.70, deduced from my benefits since 2009, have been in vain (see ‘An urgent request addressed to the Pension Service,’ ‘It is all wrong – a letter to the Pension Service’ and ‘It has nothing to do with Oxford University’ posted on my blog http://juliustominquestions.blogspot.co.uk/ on June 10, 15 and 19 respectively).

I came to Oxford in 1980 at the invitation of the Master of Balliol. Ever since then I have devoted all my energy to the study of the Ancient Greeks, Plato and Aristotle in particular, informing academics at Oxford University of my progress, as can be seen on my website www.juliustoin.org. My work deserves at least a living wage, and I shall go on busking until I receive it.

A considerable part of my work consists in recording Ancient Greek texts read in the original. An integral part of this work is my listening to the recordings. I am 76, my hearing is deteriorating. If I succeed in getting any money thanks to busking, the first thing I buy will be a hearing aid.

‘Velvet blues’ put on my blog on November 17 bring my ‘busking with Homer’ into a broader context. This is why I am sending it to you in the Attachment.

Regards,

Julius Tomin

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Velvet Blues

Twenty six years ago, on November 17, 1989 the Velvet Revolution began in Prague. If not the revolution itself, its aftermath was indirectly linked to my philosophy seminars, which I held in Prague in 1977-1980 for young people barred from university education because of their parents’ participation in an attempt to humanise socialism in our country in Prague Spring 1968. How could the aftermath of the Velvet revolution of 1989 be linked, however indirectly, to my philosophy seminars of late 1970s? In 1978 I invited Oxford dons to my seminar. Roger Scruton’s ‘A Catacomb Culture’ published in the Times Literary Supplement, February 16-22, 1990 is well qualified to establish the link: ‘The publicity-conscious Tomin then emigrated and … Kathleen Wilkes, Alan Montefiore, Bill Newton-Smith and myself … We decided that, although our purpose was charitable … it should not be openly pursued, and that we could henceforth best help our Czechoslovak colleagues working secretly … We were able to set up a network of secret classes – not only in Bohemia, but also in Moravia and Slovakia … a small sum of money had been given for the relief of our Czechoslovak colleagues [the Jan Hus Foundation trust was founded] … Many of our visitors were extremely well known in their own countries … We also encouraged our French, German, American and Canadian colleagues to establish sister trusts, thereby acquiring an international dimension which was to prove invaluable in the hard years to come … We were obliged by our trust to support educational and cultural activities in Czechoslovakia … We therefore began to establish other, purely nominal organizations through which to pay official stipends, so that the names of our beneficiaries could not be linked either to us or to each other … In the mid-1980s, thanks to a generous grant from George Soros (who will surely be commemorated in future years, not only as a great Hungarian patriot, but also as one of the saviours of Central Europe), we had expanded into Moravia … it was a time of miracles … Čarnogurský was made Deputy Prime Minister of his country … another of our beneficiaries was President [Václav Havel], and within weeks we were to see our friends occupying the highest offices in the land … Among those who had worked with us we could count the new rectors of the Charles University, of the Masaryk University in Brno, and of the Palacký University in Olomouc.’

I was in Oxford in the years that preceded the Velvet revolution. Deprived of my citizenship in 1981 I did my best to compel the Czechoslovak authorities to restore it. One of the highlights of my campaign was an open letter to the World Congress of philosophy in Brighton in which I wrote: ‘It took me seven months in Oxford to realize that the Master of Balliol knew what he was saying when he told me after my arrival that there was no place for me in the British academic establishment. I realized that by refusing to give up my approach to philosophy, and to classical philosophy in particular, I was committing myself to a lifetime of unemployment. I decided to return home. At that point the Czechoslovak authorities deprived me of my citizenship. Would the congress support my demand for the restoration of my Czechoslovak citizenship?’ (The open letter was published by The Times Higher Education Supplement on August 19, 1988)

My campaign for the restoration of my Czechoslovak citizenship culminated during Gorbachev’s visit in Britain; I wrote to him: ‘May I use the opportunity of your visit to Britain to express support for glasnost and perestroika in your country, and to protest against the lack of both in Czechoslovakia? In an attempt to give my support and my protest more weight, I shall begin on Wednesday, the day of your arrival, a ten day hunger-strike … Would you join the voices of hundreds of British students and academics who in recent years have petitioned the Czechoslovak authorities to restore my citizen’s rights … When my citizenship is restored, I shall use the expert knowledge in my academic field acquired during my stay in Britain to the benefit of my country. My ambition is to open at Charles University in Prague an International centre for the Study of Ancient Philosophy where academics from Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and other East European countries would regularly meet their colleagues from Britain and other Western countries to maintain our common cultural roots.’ (ApriI 3, 1989)

***
A few months later, a day after the beginning of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Nick Cohen put an end to my hopes. In ‘The Pub Philosopher’ he wrote: ‘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. Tomin believes that they could change utterly philosophers’ understanding of Plato … He thinks Oxford should “help itself” by recognizing that he is right. There is not the faintest possibility that this will happen.’ (The Independent Magazine, November 18, 1989)

***
In February of this year I wrote to Mr Jirsa, the Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Religious Studies at Charles University in Prague: ‘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 the Institute.

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 classical philosophers at Charles University 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, where 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 offer, and so I renewed it on October 11, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the letter that Professor Radovan Richta, Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Sociology and Member of the Presidium of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, wrote to Professor A. Diemer, President of the International Federation of Philosophic Societies. In the letter 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.’

I received no reply to my offer. Let me note that I made similar offers on the same dates to the Master of Balliol, Professor Drummond Bone, to which I received no response.

***
in a book published to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Barbara Day wrote: ‘it had become apparent that Julius would not find a job answering his ambitions … 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).

***
Whoever decided that I must remain unemployed opened for me glorious years during which I could devote myself fully to the study of the Ancient Greeks, informing my Oxford colleagues regularly about my progress and challenging them to open discussion on Ancient Philosophy. But I miss academic contacts, and I miss students. So let me end my Velvet Blues with quotations from Barbara Day’s book that hark to the days in which I could meet students: ’In February 1980 … Steven Lukes [a don from Balliol] also made use of the re-emergence of The Times and published his description of Tomin’s seminars: “The lectures take place in a crowded apartment, with Dr Tomin translating, at times explosively interjecting his own comments, but patiently and carefully pursuing the argument wherever it leads. Abstraction is no barrier to rapt attention. One lecture on Kant, dealing with the most difficult and intricate points, lasted five hours and the audience never faltered. There is a constant sense of drama. Questions are insistent and probing, and the answers matter. The lecturer is treated with respect but not deference.’ (p. 50)

It did not last: ‘During the same days Bill Newton-Smith, Fairfax Fellow in Philosophy at Balliol College was preparing to leave for Prague … It was the 7th March, and just before boarding the plane to Prague he bought the latest issue of the New Statesman. It proclaimed ind red on the front cover: “Inside Prague: Philosophy and the police state”; inside was a four page article by Julius Tomin … He identified 1977 as the year when the state, unable to handle the problem of Charter 77, handed over authority to the security services. Most of the population remained happy to function within the system of security. But the identifiable individuals who made up Charter 77 had put themselves outside the security net. “One finds oneself in the realm of inner freedom and then one faces the question of how to live so that the free life would be worth the sacrifice. That is where philosophy can help.” … Newton Smith set out to visit the Tomins. A few minutes before he arrived Julius, Zdena [my wife] and Lukáš [my son] had been served with a summons to appear at the central police station. Tomin believed the summons was connected with the New Statesman article. However, the present business was philosophy. Newton-Smith was not disappointed: “I have never encountered someone with so much dedication to philosophy that actual and impending problems of the magnitude facing him were set aside. For the next five hours we had an intense, non-stop discussion of the problems of perception and the nature of truth.” The next day they continued the discussion. Tomin explained  to Newton-Smith the difference between Oxford students and those in Prague, who needed to know why they were risking prison for the study of such a thing as philosophy … The lecture (on “The Rationality of Science”) took place in Ivan Dejmal’s flat, and started at 7.30 that evening: The eager, concentrated attention of the dozen students created an intellectually exciting atmosphere. Their excitement was infectious and I was looking forward to their reactions.” Fifteen minutes into the session the door bell rang. Dejmal, who normally monitored the arrivals, was engaged in transcribing the lecture; another student ran to open the door to what he assumed to be a late arrival, and rushed back in order not to miss a word of the lecture. Seven policemen, some in uniform, some in plane clothes, burst in behind him. The uniformed police took the names and details of the students, whilst the secret police demanded that Newton-Smith accompany them. Tomin was ordered to translate their orders to Newton-Smith, which he refused to do. As Newton-Smith was dragged from the flat his last sight was of Tomin, hands bleeding from struggles with the police taking up his lecture and reading from the point where they had been interrupted.’ (pp. 51-52) [I don’t remember the bleeding. I remember taking Bill firmly by hand; the police had to force my hand open so that they could take him away.] I finished reading and translating Bill’s lecture. It was the last complete lecture read in my philosophy seminar.

When Dr Kenny, the Master of Balliol, was giving his lecture in my seminar on Saturday 12th April, his lecture was interrupted before he could properly begin; Kenny and his wife were taken away, my students and I were taken to the Central Police Station in Bartolomêjská street.