Tag Archives: Ved Mehta

Grief (Iliad Book XXII)

April 27, 2023 – 6:54 pm

The fascinating moments in the Iliad are when somebody has to make a decision.

  • Achilles is a killing machine in Books XX and XXI; but back in Book I, enraged by his commanding officer, Achilles could nonetheless decide not to slay him.
  • At the end of Book XXI, Agenor was tempted to hide from Achilles, somewhere away from the walls of Troy; instead he served as a decoy to draw Achilles away from the city gates.
  • Now, in Book XXII, the other Trojans are running in through those gates like fawns. Hector is having trouble deciding whether to join them.

Wall assembled haphazardly of rubble, dressed stone, brick, and tile; weeds grow out here and there
Wednesday morning, April 12, 2023
Akarsu Sokağı (“Runningwater Street”)
Tarabya, Sarıyer, Istanbul

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By David Pierce | Posted in Homer, Plato | Also tagged | Comments (4)

Plato and Christianity

January 11, 2022 – 9:33 pm

Index to this series

This post uses work of Hannah Arendt, Augustine, R. G. Collingwood, Tom Holland, Somerset Maugham, and Ved Mehta.

Elevated highway, way above city streets

Ortaköy, December 27, 2021

In the first post of this series, I gave some reasons to read the Republic, and one of them was the problem of how our political leaders were not always the best. Plato had not solved that problem, since we still had it; but that meant nobody else had solved it either. Plato had at least taught us that people with great worldly power could nonetheless be more miserable than their subjects. In the Republic, Plato has Socrates teach that lesson

  • to Thrasymachus, in the latter part of Book I;
  • to Glaucon, who concludes at the end of Book IV that if having an unhealthy body is bad, having a vicious soul is worse;
  • in Book IX, with the account of the tyrant;
  • with the Myth of Er in Book X.

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By David Pierce | Posted in Collingwood, Maugham, Plato | Also tagged , , , | Comments (8)