[lit-ideas] Re: _Philosophy 4_
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 12:49:17 EST
I've been doing some more research on O. Wister ('author of "The Virginian",
&c" and his "Philosophy 4: A Story of Harvard University" London:
Macmillan, 1901. Little Novels by Favourite Authors Series, No. 1. 50c. 95p.
The thing
is online at various places, including
_http://www.fullbooks.com/Philosophy-4-A-Story-of-Harvard-University.html_
(http://www.fullbooks.com/Philosophy-4-A-Story-of-Harvard-University.html) ,
also _http://www.bookstexts.com/philosophy_4.html_
(http://www.bookstexts.com/philosophy_4.html) . In one of those, we have the
illustrations as well, which
will be relevant for my discussion of the thing. THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE being
Bertie Rogers, Billy Schyler -- "gilded youth with colonial names"
Oscar Maironi, a second-generation Italian arrived with the ships, very
poor.
Professor Woodfield, Professor of "Philosophy 4", Emerson Hall, Harvard,
1883 spring course.
However, I have not be able to distinguish the racial characteristics from
the rather dark engravings themselves. One illustration just shows the gilded
youth alone, but there is one showing I believe the three and the Italian
looks pretty full of gravitas alla Cicero, rather than what I had imagined him
to
be.
In the wiki article on Harvard, the tale is explained as evidence of
the racism of Harvard. It is obvious they claim that Wister is defending the
All-American genius over foreign mediocrity, and I may agree.
"Nevertheless, Harvard became the bastion of a distinctly
Protestant elite —
the so-called Boston Brahmin class — and continued to be so well
into the
20th century. The social milieu of 1880s Harvard is depicted in
Owen Wister's Philosophy 4, which contrasts the character and
demeanor
of two undergraduates who "had colonial names (Rogers, I think,
and Schuyler)"
with that of their tutor, one Oscar Maironi, whose "parents had
come over in
the steerage." ("Bertie's and Billy's parents owned town and
country houses
in New York. The parents of Oscar had come over in the steerage.
Money filled the pockets of Bertie and Billy; therefore were their
heads
empty of money and full of less cramping thoughts. Oscar had fallen
upon
the reverse of this fate. Calculation was his second nature." _'_
(http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/862)
And at a later stage Maironi is depicted as a really horrible calculative
creature. I am relieved, when I think that I studied philosophy and was born of
an Italian womb by
(i) the fact that Philosophy was _never_ an Elective with me
as it is with these three stooges, and (ii) I never had to employ
myself as a tutor for the laughter of others!
Anyway, an online article on Harvard fiction expands:
"Just after the turn of the century, when American letters were
still strongly influenced by the Genteel outlook, Owen Wister of Virginian
fame wrote a short novel entitled Philosophy 4. In this work two fair-haired,
hearty, fun-loving, all-American boys, Bertie and Billy, are contrasted to
their supercilious, swarthy, second-generation-American tutor, Oscar Maironi.
Bertie and Billy are well-rounded, while Oscar is a grind. The story centers
around preparation for a final exam in Harvard's Philosophy 4. Bertie and
Billy
pay Oscar to tutor them in the course material, because with playing tennis,
taking carriage rides, and learning to be men, they have not found time to
attend lectures or do the reading. The day before the exam Bertie and Billy,
tired of the city, go out to the country and visit a tavern; Oscar stays in
his
cheaply furnished room to study. As might be expected, Bertie and Billy get
higher marks in the exam than Oscar, thus
proving that well-rounded young American is by nature
more successful that a narrow-minded foreigner.
We are told that in later life Billy and Bertie are both important business
executives, while Maironi publishes a book entitled The Minor Poets of
Cinquesento.
(http://www.erbzine.com/dan/w4.html)
Owen Wister was born in Philadelphia in 1860, the son of physician Owen
Jones ... In 1904 appeared PHILOSOPHY 4, a story about college life at
Harvard.
...
www.erbzine.com/dan/w4.html
In the same spirit, Owen Wister wrote Philosophy 4 (1901), ... 1880s
featuring two fastidious young Harvard dandies named Bertie and Billy whom
Wister
dubs ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=0231051697...
---- MORE FRAGMENTS OF PHILOSOPHICAL RELEVANCE from 'story'. "By starting
from the Absolute Intelligence, the chief cravings of the reason, after unity
and spirituality, receive due satisfaction.Something transcending the Objective
becomes possible. In the Cogito the relation of subject and object is
implied as the primary condition of all knowledge. Now, Plato never--"
"Skip Plato," interrupted one of the boys. "You gave us his points
yesterday."
"Yep," assented the other, rattling through the back pages of his notes.
"Got Plato down cold somewhere,--oh, here. He never caught on to the
subjective, any more than the other Greek bucks. Go on to the next
chappie."
"If you gentlemen have mastered the--the Grreek bucks," observed the
instructor, with sleek intonation, "we--"
"Yep," said the second tennis boy, running a rapid judicial eye over his
back notes, "you've put us on to their curves enough. Go on."
"The self-knowledge of matter in motion."
"Skip it," put in the first tennis boy.
"We went to those lectures ourselves," explained the second, whirling
through another dishevelled notebook. "Oh, yes. Hobbes and his gang. There is
only
one substance, matter, but it doesn't strictly exist. Bodies exist. We've got
Hobbes. Go on."
"So he says color is all your eye, and shape isn't? and substance
isn't?"
"Do you mean he claims," said the first boy, equally resentful, "that if we
were all extinguished the world would still be here, only there'd be
no difference between blue and pink, for instance?"
"It is human sight that distinguishes between colors. If human sight
be eliminated from the universe, nothing remains to make the distinction,
and consequently there will be none. Thus also is it with sounds. If the
universe contains no ear to hear the sound, the sound has no existence."
"Why?" said both the tennis boys at once.
The tutor smiled. "Is it not clear," said he, "that there can be no sound if
it is not heard!"
"No," they both returned, "not in the least clear."
"It's clear enough what he's driving at of course, "pursued the first boy.
"Until the waves of sound or light or what not hit us through our senses, our
brains don't experience the sensations of sound or light or what not, and so,
of course, we can't know about them--not until they reach us."
"Precisely," said the tutor. He had a suave and slightly alien accent.
"Well, just tell me how that proves a thunder-storm in a desert island makes
no noise."
"If a thing is inaudible--" began the tutor,
"That's mere juggling!" vociferated the boy," That's merely the same kind of
toy-shop brain-trick you gave us out of Greek philosophy
yesterday, They said there was no such thing as motion because at every
instant of time the moving body had to be somewhere, so how could it get
anywhere else? Good Lord! I can make up foolishness like that myself. For
instance: A moving body can never stop. Why? Why, because at every
instant of time it must be going at a certain rate, so how can it ever get
slower? Pooh!" He stopped. He had been gesticulating with one
hand, which he now jammed wrathfully into his pocket.
"I can find nothing about a body's being unable to stop," said he, gently.
"If logic makes no appeal to you, gentlemen--"
"Oh, bunch!" exclaimed the second tennis boy, in the slang of his period,
which was the early eighties. "Look here. Color has no existence outside of
our
brain - that's the idea?" The tutor bowed. "And sound hasn't? and smell
hasn't? and taste hasn't?" The tutor had repeated his little bow after each.
"And that's because they depend on our senses? Very well. But he claims
solidity and shape and distance do exist independently of us. If we all died,
they'd he here just the same, though the others wouldn't. A flower would go on
growing, but it would stop smelling. Very well. Now you tell me how we
ascertain solidity. By the touch, don't we? Then, if there was nobody to touch
an
object, what then? Seems to me touch is just as much of a sense as your nose
is." (He meant no personality, but the first boy choked a giggle as the
speaker
hotly followed up his thought.)" Seems to me by his reasoning that in a
desert island there'd be nothing it all--smells or shapes--not even an island.
Seems to me that's what you call logic."
The tutor directed his smile at the open window. "Berkeley--" said he.
"By Jove!" said the other boy, not heeding him, "and here's another point:
if color is entirely in my brain, why don't that ink-bottle and this shirt
look alike to me? They ought to. And why don't a Martini cocktail and a cup of
coffee taste the same to my tongue?" "Berkeley," attempted the tutor,
"demonstrates--"
"Do you mean to say," the boy rushed on, "that there is no eternal quality
in all these things which when it meets my perceptions compels
me to see differences?". The tutor surveyed his notes. "I can discover no
such suggestions here as you are pleased to make" said he. "But your orriginal
researches," he continued most obsequiously, "recall our next
subject,--Berkeley and the Idealists." And he smoothed out his notes.
"Let's see," said the second boy, pondering; "I went to two or three
lectures about that time. Berkeley--Berkeley. Didn't he--oh, yes! he did. He
went
the whole hog. Nothing's anywhere except in your ideas. You think the table's
there, but it isn't. There isn't any table."
The first boy slapped his leg and lighted a cigarette. "I remember," said
he. "Amounts to this: If I were to stop thinking about you, you'd
evaporate."
"Which is balls," observed the second boy, judicially, again in the slang of
his period, "and can be proved so. For you're not always thinking about me,
and I've never evaporated once."
The first boy, after a slight wink at the second, addressed the tutor.
"Supposing you were to happen to forget yourself," said he to that sleek
gentleman, "would you evaporate?" The tutor turned his little eyes
doubtfully upon the tennis boys, but answered, reciting the language of his
notes:
"The idealistic theory does not apply to the thinking ego, but to the world of
external phenomena. The world exists in our conception of it.
"Then," said the second boy, "when a thing is inconceivable?"
"It has no existence," replied the tutor, complacently.
"But a billion dollars is inconceivable," retorted the boy. "No mind can
take in a sum of that size; but it exists."
"Put that down! put that down!" shrieked the other boy. "You've struck
something. If we get Berkeley on the paper, I'll run that in." He wrote
rapidly,
and then took a turn around the room, frowning as he walked. "The actuality of
a thing," said he, summing his clever thoughts up, "is not disproved by its
being inconceivable. Ideas alone depend upon thought for their existence.
There! Anybody can get off stuff like that by the yard." He picked up a cork
and
a foot-rule, tossed the cork, and sent it flying out of the window with the
foot-rule.
"Skip Berkeley," said the other boy.
"How much more is there?"
"Necessary and accidental truths," answered the tutor, reading the subjects
from his notes. "Hume and the causal law. The duality, or multiplicity, of the
ego."
"The hard-boiled ego," commented the boy the ruler; and he batted a swooping
June-bug into space. "Sit down, idiot," said his sprightly mate."
Conversation ceased. Instruction went forward. Their pencils worked. The
causal law,
etc., went into their condensed notes like Liebig's extract of beef, and drops
of perspiration continued to trickle from their matted hair. All three
sophomores alike had happened to choose Philosophy 4 as one of their elective
courses His notes were full: Three hundred pages about Zeno and Parmenides and
the
rest, almost every word as it had come from the professor's lips. And his
memory was full, too, flowing like a player's lines. With the right cue he
could recite instantly: "An important application of this principle, with
obvious reference to Heracleitos, occurs in Aristotle, who says--" In them
the mere word Heracleitos had raised a chill no later than yesterday,--the
chill of the unknown. They had not attended the lectures on the "Greek bucks."
Indeed, profiting by their privilege of voluntary recitations, they had
dropped in but
seldom on Philosophy 4. Their waked-up hearts had felt aghast at the sudden
vision of their ignorance. It was on a Monday noon that this
feeling came fully upon them, as they read over the names of the
philosophers. Thursday was the day of the examination.
"Who's Anaxagoras?" Billy had inquired of Bertie. "I'll tell you,"
said Bertie, "if you'll tell me who Epicharmos of Kos was."
Closeted with Oscar and his notes, they had, as Bertie put it,
salted down the early Greek bucks by seven on Monday evening. By the same
midnight they had, as Billy expressed it, called the turn on Plato. Tuesday
was a second day of concentrated swallowing. Oscar had taken
them through the thought of many centuries.
"Gentlemen," he said, closing the sacred notes, "we have finished
the causal law." "That's the whole business except the ego racket, isn't it?"
said Billy. "The duality, or multiplicity of the ego remains," Oscar replied.
"Oh, I know its name. It ought to be a soft snap after what we've had."
"Unless it's full of dates and names you've got to know," said Bertie.
"Don't believe it is," Billy answered. "I heard him at it once." (This meant
that Billy had gone to a lecture lately.) "It's all about Who am
I? and How do I do it?" Billy added. "Hmm!" said Bertie. "Hm! Subjective and
objective again, I suppose, only applied to oneself. You see, that table is
objective. I can stand off and judge it. It's outside of me; has nothing to
do with me. That's easy. But my opinion of--well, my--well, anything in my
nature--"
"Anger when it's time to get up," suggested Billy.
"An excellent illustration," said Bertie. "That is subjective in me. Similar
to your dislike of water as a beverage. That is subjective in you. But here
comes the twist. I can think of my own anger and judge it, just as if it were
an outside thing, like a table. I can compare it with itself on different
mornings or with other people's anger. And I trust that you can do the same
with your thirst."
"Yes," said Billy; "I recognize that it is greater at times and less at
others."
"Very well, There you are. Duality of the ego." "Subject and object," said
Billy. "Perfectly true, and very queer when you try to think of it. Wonder how
far it goes? Of course, one can explain the body's being an object to the
brain inside it. That's mind and matter over again. But when my own mind and
thought, can become objects to themselves--I wonder how far that does go?" he
broke off musingly. "What useless stuff!" he ended.
"And the multiplicity of the ego?" inquired Oscar. "Oh, I forgot. Well, it's
too late tonight. Is it much? Are there many dates and names and things?"
"It is more of a general inquiry and analysis," replied Oscar. "But it is
forty pages of my notes." And he smiled.
"Well, look here. It would be nice to have to-morrow clear for review. We're
not tired. You leave us your notes and go to bed."
Bertie's and Billy's parents owned town and country houses in New York. The
parents of Oscar had come over in the steerage. Money filled the
pockets of Bertie and Billy; therefore were their heads empty of money and
full of less cramping thoughts. But I was once inclined to applaud his
struggle for
knowledge, until I studied him close and perceived that his love was not for
the education he was getting. Bertie and Billy loved play for play's own
sake, and in play forgot themselves, like the wholesome young creatures that
they were. Oscar had one love only: through all his days whatever he might
forget, he would remember himself; through all his days he would make
knowledge
show that self off. Thank heaven, all the poor students in Harvard College
were
not Oscars! I loved some of them as much as I loved Bertie and Billy. So
there is no black eye about it. Pity Oscar, if you like; but don't be so mushy
as to admire him as he stepped along in the night, holding his notes, full of
his knowledge, thinking of Bertie and Billy, conscious of virtue, and smiling
his
smile. They were not conscious of any virtue, were Bertie and Billy, nor
were they smiling. They were solemnly eating up together a box of handsome
strawberries and sucking the juice from their reddened thumbs.
"Rather mean not to make him wait and have some of these after his hard work
on us," said Bertie. "I'd forgotten about them--"
"He ran out before you could remember, anyway," said Billy.
"Wasn't he absurd about his old notes? "Bertie went on, a new strawberry in
his mouth. "We don't need them, though. With to-morrow
we'll get this course down cold."
"Yes, to-morrow," sighed Billy. "It's awful to think of another day of this
kind."
"Horrible," assented Bertie.
"He knows a lot. He's extraordinary," said Billy. "Yes, he is. He can talk
the actual words of the notes. Probably he could teach the course himself. I
don't suppose he buys any strawberries, even when they get ripe and cheap
here. What's the matter with you?"
Billy had broken suddenly into merriment. "I don't believe Oscar owns a
bath," he explained.
"By Jove! so his notes will burn in spite of everything!" And both of the
tennis boys shrieked foolishly.
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