In May 1980
Kathy Wilkes – who in April 1979 opened the visits of Oxford philosophers in my
seminar – arrived to Prague, interested to learn what actually happened during
Kenny’s visit in my seminar. Why didn’t she simply accept what Dr Kenny was
saying about it?
Dr Kenny prepared
his visit in cooperation with the Czechoslovak Embassy in London. Barbara Day
says in The Velvet Philosophers: ‘Part of the purpose of Anthony Kenny’s
visit to the Czechoslovak Embassy on 19th March had been to ask for
clear guidelines as to what was and was not permitted to academic visitors in
Czechoslovakia. This was part of the policy of openness pursued by Tomin on the
basis of Charter 77’s insistence on the right of assembly. Dr Kenny also needed
to know on his own behalf, as he and his wife were due to leave for Prague in
the second week of April.’
Contrast these
preparations with how the affair ended. Barbara Day writes, quoting Anthony
Kenny: ‘We had more than an hour reading Aristotle together … We were
discussing the passage where Aristotle says that philosophy is the most noble
of all pursuits when the police came in.’ Then she says: ‘Anthony Kenny, his
American-born wife and Jacque Laskar, who had been the first to be driven off
to Bartolomějská were held until three in the morning and interrogated in separate rooms …
The Kennys were delivered to the same border-crossing with West Germany as
Newton Smith, and carrying their luggage, walked through the woods of Rozvadov
in the frosty dawn of an April morning.’
…
While the continuation
of my seminar was prevented by the police, other seminars were opened in
cooperation between Oxford dons and Czech dissidents. Let me quote the visits
in 1980, from Oxford or mediated by Oxford, as recorded by Barbara Day: “January:
Kathy Wilkes, February: Roger Scruton, March: W. H. Newton-Smith, April:
Anthony Kenny, Pat Kerans, David Cooper, May: Kathy Wilkes, Roger Scruton, July:
David Armstrong, Christopher Kirwan, Roger Scruton, Tom Nagel and Anne
Hollander, August: Kathy Wilkes, Alan Montefiore, Catherine Audard, October:
Roger Scruton (LH), Kathy Wilkes (LH).” (LH stands for ‘the seminar of Dr Ladislav
Hejdánek‘.)
Let me add
the next year, when I was safely out of the way, having arrived at Oxford with
my wife, my two sons, accompanied by Kathy Wilkes, in the car she rented: 1981
January: Christopher Kirwan (LH), Roger Scruton (LH), February: John Procopé (LH), J.R.Lucas (LH), March: Jack
Scorupski, Dan Dennett (LH), April: Roger Scruton (LH), Gwill Owen (LH), Heather
Allen (proposed setting up of ELT seminar), June: Roger Scruton (LH), July:
Richard Rorty (LH), September: Alan Montefiore & Catherine Audard (LH),
Ralph Walker (PR), October: Dorothy Edgington (PR: Analytical Philosophy),
November: Roger Scruton (LH).
PR stands
for Petr Rezek; it needs explaining. Roger Scruton wrote in ‘A catacomb culture’
(TLS February 16-22 1990): ‘We won the confidence of a large network of people,
none of whom knew the full extent of our operations … Hejdánek’s bravery was of inestimable
benefit. So long as the authorities believed that our interest lay in Hejdánek’s eye-catching gatherings, they
assigned to us a merely symbolic function. We appeared as a quixotic group of
Western academics, making periodic protests on behalf of human rights, and
choosing the eccentric means provided by Hejdánek through which to do so. Behind
this cover we were able to set up a network of secret classes – not only in
Bohemia, but also in Moravia and Slovakia. We began with philosophy, a field in
which our original trustees were most expert, and in which we enjoyed the self-sacrificing
co-operation of Peter Rezek – a night-watchman-cum-concierge, and the most open
and learned of Czech philosophers.’
…
I told Kathy
how my wife, Zdena, took Kenny and his wife for a walk around Prague in the
afternoon; they came to our flat about half an hour before the beginning of the
seminar. Kenny said that his lecture was going to be focussed on a passage from
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and a passage from his Eudemian
Ethics: ‘Would you translate these two passages to your students at the
beginning of the seminar?’ I was relieved when I saw the Nicomachean
passage (10th book 1177a12-1177b6); although I had not read it for
years, I underlined it sentence by sentence with red pencil, marked the whole
passage with a double line on the side, and marked it with an exclamation mark.
But I began to sweat when I saw the lengthy passage in the Eudemian Ethics
(1248a12-1249b25). I said I must read the passage at least once, excused
myself, and retired into the kitchen. I barely managed to read the text once
when my wife summoned me to open the seminar.
The room was
packed, Kenny was sitting in the chair – most students sat on the floor – I came
to sit beside him. Kenny opened the proceedings by addressing me: ‘My talk will
focus on two passages from Aristotle, one from the Nicomachean Ethics
and one from his Eudemian Ethics. Would you translate these two passages
for your students?’ I replied: ‘I will read the passages sentence by sentence
in Greek, each time explaining what the sentence means in Czech.’ In the excerpt
from Barbara Day’s book, quoted above, Kenny described this as follows: ‘We
had more than an hour reading Aristotle together.’
…
I cannot
remember what I was telling Kathy verbatim, but the following three paragraphs
from ‘Pursuit of philosophy’ give the gist of it: ‘Kenny began with the Nicomachean
passage. There, he argued, happiness consists in contemplative activity, and
philosophy is the primary source of happiness. For the Eudemian Ethics,
to which he then referred, happiness consists of an ideal functioning of every
part of soul. Kenny argued that the Eudemian conception is critical of
the Nicomachean conception. Let me quote from his book The
Aristotelian Ethics (Oxford, 1978, p. 214): ‘A person who organized his
life entirely with a view to the promotion of philosophical speculation would
be not wise but cunning, not phronimos but panourgos. The type of
person whom many regard as the hero of the Nicomachean Ethics turns out,
by the standards of the Eudemian Ethics, to be a vicious and ignoble
character.’
After I
finished reading the two passages in the original and putting them into Czech, I
opened the discussion by directly opposing Kenny: ‘In the Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle considers the life in philosophy to be the source of happiness
because the activity of intellect is the highest one. Why should I see it as
opposed to the Eudemian passage? May not Aristotle be pointing in the
direction of the theory fully developed in the tenth book of the Nicomachean
Ethics when he says in our Eudemian passage that the end is the best
as being the guiding and governing principle (to archon), since it is the
best and ultimate, for the sake of which one must live (dei dȇ pros to archon zȇn, 1249 b 6-7)’? In the Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle puts forward reasons why philosophy is the accomplished source of
good life; he points to its being most continuous and independent of external
circumstances. Even if deprived of exchanging ideas with his colleagues (sunergoi)
he may continue to do philosophy. This is especially important for us in Prague
who may face imprisonment any day. It further reminds me of Socrates. In the Apology
he says: ‘as long as I live and as long as I am able I will not stop doing
philosophy.’ (29d)
Kenny did
not oppose the ‘Socratic’ interpretation of the Nicomachean passage. He
questioned instead the philosophic credentials of Socrates. Wouldn’t I consider
Plato a much better philosopher?
I could not
accept that Plato was a better philosopher. Plato is full of Socrates: ‘You
obviously draw a dividing line through Plato’s dialogues. What you view as being
bellow that which you consider as philosophy, you identify it with Socrates.
What you view as philosophy, that’s Plato. I do not draw any such dividing line
through Plato’s dialogues.’
When I came
to this point in my narrative, I said. ‘Kathy, you know that passage in
Diogenes’ Life of Plato, in which it is said that according to tradition
the Phaedrus is Plato’s first dialogue? In all my reading of Plato I
never came across anything that I could view as standing against this ancient
tradition.’
…
It was at this
moment, in this rather hesitant way, that I expressed my adherence to this
ancient tradition on the dating of the Phaedrus. This event has marked
all my subsequent existence, such as my exclusion from academic circles. This
is why it is in May that I intend to ask again for permission to present my
views on Plato at Oxford University, and if stonewalled again, to protest again
in front of Balliol.
…
Kathy
exclaimed: ‘Julius, it can’t be.’ And so, I asked her to come to Prague for a
month so that we could read the dialogue together. It was during that joint
reading that I proposed the first positive argument for regarding the Phaedrus
as Plato’s first dialogue. Socrates ends his Palinode with a prayer to Eros,
the God of Love, towards the end of which he says: ‘turn Lysias to philosophy
as his brother Polemarchus has been turned to it’. (256b) Plato must have
written these lines before the Thirty imprisoned and executed Polemarchus.
…
It may be
argued that the quoted line from Socrates’ prayer to Eros entitles me to view
the Phaedrus as written prior to Polemarchus’ imprisonment and execution
by the Thirty tyrants, but that nothing in it entitles me to view it as Plato’s
first dialogue. But the Polemarchus passage throws light on the Palinode
passage in which the Forms are introduced by Plato to his readers: ‘Of that
place beyond the heavens none of our earthly poets has yet sung, and none shall
sing worthily. But this is the manner of it, for assuredly we must be bold to
speak what is true, above all when our discourse is upon truth. It is there that
true Being dwells, without colour or shape, that cannot be touched; reason
alone, the soul’s pilot, can behold it, and all true knowledge is knowledge
thereof.’ (247c-d, translation R. Hackforth). In the light of the Polemarchus
passage this introduction to the Forms is what it says it is: the first
introduction to the Forms.
Let me add
that the Phaedrus presents itself as Plato’s first dialogue. This is a
point that transcends the framework of this post; it is one of the points I
should like to discuss in the talk on Plato, which I am proposing.
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