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| Magnum Force 1973 |
Socratic philosophy as a form of madness
... ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ ...
The unexamined life is not worth living, so you examine it, but subsequently more life happens which requires further examination, so you examine it, only to find that you were mistaken about the results of your previous examination.
Wash, rinse, repeat ad infinitum. It's like bailing out a boat with a sieve and it drives you crazy, but if you are lucky you realize that you are not the measure of all things.
You have died to the self. Like Sergeant Schultz, you know nothing.
You might as well be a Lutheran then, practicing the Socratic elenchus on yourself by drowning the ignorant Old Man daily in the waters of your baptism:
Baptizing with water indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
-- Martin Luther, The Small Catechism, "The Sacrament of Holy Baptism"
Better to die daily than to die forever.
Paul described this variously, including by underscoring the contingency of human nature, and therefore the possibility of its passibility:
ἑαυτοὺς πειράζετε εἰ ἐστὲ ἐν τῇ πίστει ἑαυτοὺς δοκιμάζετε ἢ οὐκ ἐπιγινώσκετε ἑαυτοὺς ὅτι Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν εἰ μήτι ἀδόκιμοί ἐστε
Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.
-- II Corinthians 13:5
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
-- Philippians 2:12
Perhaps what the Delphic oracle was really trying to get at (Γνῶθι σεαυτόν) after all, as seems to be the earliest interpretation, is that there really is nothing infinitely deep in man, but that man has his limits indeed and must come to know them.
Unlike Briggs.
The saying Γνῶθι σεαυτόν: ‘know yourself’, is of heavenly origin,
It should be fixed in the memory, dwelt on in the heart, whether
You’re seeking a wife, or aim for a place in the sacred Senate;
Thersites had no wish to win the contest for Achilles’ armour,
That breastplate in which Ulysses made an exhibition of himself.
If it’s you who affect to defend a difficult and highly important
Case, then take counsel with yourself, ask yourself what you are,
A powerful orator, or merely a windbag, like Curtius or Matho?
You must know your measure, and be conscious of it in great
Things and in small, even for instance when you’re buying fish;
No point in desiring mullet, if your purse only runs to gudgeon!
Think of the fate that awaits you, as your wallet grows leaner
While your appetite increases, when you’ve sunk your paternal,
Inheritance, your property, your silver plate, all of that heavy
Stuff, with all your fields and herds, in your spacious stomach.
With spendthrift lords the last to go is the Roman knight’s gold
Ring, after which Pollio ends by begging with a naked finger.
It’s not a premature demise, an early funeral, the extravagant
Should fear, but old age, that is more to be feared than death.
-- Juvenal, Satire 11, 26ff.
