[lit-ideas] Whose Trained? Horses Are Trained
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:26:36 EDT
Geary quotes the dialogue:
"Me: "In other words, do you believe in autonomous human beings?"
Walter: "As a character disposition, yes."
and tries to apologise for it:
"I'm not sure what that means. I'm not trained in philosophy."
Who's trained in philosophy. Having now read the books by R. S. Peters, I've
come to realise that 'training' is a bad Americanistic idiom, sometimes used
in England too.
The first 'training colleges' were horsemanship clubs -- and who got trained
where 'horses', never people.
Then there's military training camps, which train soldiers, etc.
But PHILOSOPHIA as Plato conceived it in the Academus grove (if not
Aristotle, the money-collector, in the Lykaeon) was _never_ conceived as having
ANYTHING to do with 'training'.
Singers are trained. Dancers are trained. Philosophers (or wizards of love,
as I prefer) cannot and will not be trained -- less so by _other_ OLDER
wizards of love.
If Geary doesn't know what Walter means by his escapade, "a human being is a
character disposition", that's not because Geary lacks training -- which
nobody gets anyway. it's because Walter is not brave enough that he does NOT
believe in human beings, which is sad assuming he is one, or even not.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza, Esq.
Town:
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jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
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