Book 8 of 2022: The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

The Life of the Mind is the last of more than a dozen books written by Hannah Arendt in her life.  This book consists of two book published in a single volume, the first part on Thinking, the second on Willing.  She finished Willing on a Sunday and died the following Thursday.  In her typewriter was the first page of the third volume which would have been titled: Judging.

We finished a months-long discussion of the book with a review session. I have been part of the Virtual Reading Group of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College since 2018 when I attended a conference on anti-Semitism.  The group meets weekly on Zoom with upwards of one hundred participants each week.  

In Thinking Arendt describes the activity of thinking as an inner dialogue. When thinking we withdraw from the world. She opens the book talking about how in our ordinary lives we are in the world of appearances.  We present ourselves to others in what we say, what we wear and what we do. These appearances, to the extent they are within our control, are the way we present ourselves to the world. These appearances may or may not represent reality, either what we believe to be our true selves or what we others believe. 

Arendt talks about how the age of scientific discovery ended the Common Sense people had. In the 16th and 17th Centuries, an avalanche of scientific discoveries overthrew previous understandings of the world.  I read a book last year titled Being Wrong  that has a lovely description of how we can't trust how the world appears.  And the rest of Being Wrong is about how hard we will fight to be right.

Thinking allows us to withdraw from the unreliable world of appearances into a place where we can consider possibilities.  Thinking always involves language, even when we consider images: thinking beings have an urge to speak, speaking beings have an urge to think.

She contrasts thinking with action: persuading through speech. When we speak, when our goal is clear, there is no inner dialogue. We say the words that will express our thoughts.  

In Willing Arendt shows acts of will to be the opposite of thinking. When we think, we deal with what has happened, with the past. In willing, we decide to project ourselves into the future.  There is an inner dialogue of urging, especially when there is hesitation, but the dialogue is toward an action in the future.  

Arendt shows the development of the concept of will in western thought using those she considers the philosophers of the will.  In her view, the Ancient Greeks never developed a concept of the will.  She credits the Apostle Paul with making clear the function of the will in the life of the mind.  She moves from Paul to Epictetus to Augustine to Aquinas, then has a chapter on Duns Scotus.  A contemporary of Aquinas, Arendt describes the philosophy of Scotus as the "primacy of the will." She credits him as being the most clear philosopher of the will among all those she introduces. I have read nothing of Duns Scotus and found this chapter fascinating.

The best philosophy brings clarity to life. I know so much more about thinking and willing than I did before reading and discussing this book. If you are interested in the Virtual Reading Group, contact the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. 

First seven books of 2022:

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Book 7 of 2022: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

 

In a famous toast at a White House dinner in honor of 49 Nobel Prize winners, President John F. Kennedy said, 

“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” 

I started this book last year and finished it last week.  I am reading The Federalist Papers along with this biography and have reached Federalist 24. After the insurrection on January 6 of last year, I wanted to read about the beginning of democracy in America as the end of democracy approaches.  

The journey has been delightful.  I knew much more about the Revolutionary War than about the politics that led to the nation founded after that war.  

Most importantly, I now can see how much Thomas Jefferson did to preserve our democracy at its beginning.  It seems strange from this far remove to see the strife in the first years of America.  Jefferson's arch rival in George Washington's cabinet was Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson saw the royalist sympathies of Hamilton and was worried he would lead America into either subservience to the English crown or in establishment of an American monarchy.  

At the moment of America's beginning in 1776, it was Jefferson, age 33, who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence--a document so well and forcefully written it largely survived the debate and editing of the Continental Congress.  Although the most significant passage that did not survive debate was a resolution to end slavery with the founding of the new nation. Jefferson would try again after the war, but once the new Constitution was adopted in 1787, he never again made a serious effort to end slavery.  

Jefferson was the third President of the United States, following Washington and John Adams. Jefferson spent a lot of time in France and saw our relationship with France as crucial to maintaining independence.  In 1803, he knew that Napoleon was striving for dominance in Europe and would be ready part with territory in America. In the greatest land deal in the history of the world, Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase, pushing Congress hard to close the deal before the French changed their minds.  Jefferson acquired the vast territory for four cents per acre, a total of $15 million.  The United States of America immediately stretched to the Pacific Ocean. 

Jefferson was far from perfect, as are we all. Jon Meacham's book is clear on his flaws.  He wrote the words that inspired independence for America, he struggled to keep America from falling into monarchy or tyranny. He led America in a way that set it on a course to remain free, if imperfect. 

During his presidency, Jefferson did everything he could to keep the United States out of war. He believed that when a republic goes to war the forces of tyranny become more dangerous. The history of the Roman Republic said this clearly. The road to eventual tyranny was paved with wars. 

Certainly in the past half century, the line from the lies that kept us in the Vietnam War, followed by the Gulf War leaving Saddam Hussein in power, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War all contributed to America electing a President ready to overthrow the government to stay in power.  

Jefferson kept the forces of monarchy from gaining control in the first years of the new American government.  I hope there is still time to keep those who want to establish a Mar-A-Lago monarchy from taking power.  Jefferson, alone at dinner in the White House, was smart enough to find a way to do that. 

First six books of 2022:

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Book 6 of 2022: Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

 

I wrote about this book when I read the first half of it late last year. I finished it and like it even more.   I wrote a post about the book when I had read just the first two chapters. It is here.

In this nearly 400-page book, Ferguson shows how in the past 500 years, Europe and the West went from a plague-infested, stagnant collection of petty warring fiefdoms to domination of the world.  

He makes the case in six chapters, each covering a major reason the West overtook and passed China and the Ottoman Empire: both dominant in the previous 500 years or more.  The chapters:

1. Competition

2. Science

3. Property

4. Medicine

5. Consumption

6. Work

Ferguson looks at the growth and change of each of these areas over the previous five centuries. The final chapter on Work begins with the importance of what is called The Protestant Work Ethic to the rise of the West.  He talks about the role religion played in the rise of the West and in the simultaneous decline of the Asian empires.   

In 1517 Martin Luther started the revolution that split the Christian world. That divide between the Catholic Churches and what came to be known as Protestant Churches led quickly to the freedom that allowed the scientific revolution. That scientific revolution led to the development of medicine. The end of Catholic Church dominance quickly led to the end of the feudal system, to more private property and to the revolutions that would eventually end hereditary monarchy.  

With the end of Church influence in commerce came the end of usury laws. Banking became legitimate. Consumption grew. The economies of the West flourished.

By contrast, China and the Muslim world became more unified and more oppressive in rule and religion. By the 19th Century, all of Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean was under the sway of the West.  

Ferguson chronicles all of the horrors committed by European countries in the Americas and Africa.  He also makes clear how differences in religion and government made such a vast difference in the histories of North and South America.  

I like sweeping histories and this one is very good. I plan to read more of Ferguson in the coming year.  Next I will read his new book Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.

At the end of Civilization, published in 2011, Ferguson talks about the rise of China and the end of Western dominance.  Doom was published in 2021 with China further ascendant and America falling further into the morass of Trumpism.  I heard Ferguson talk about Doom on the Honestly Podcast with Bari Weiss. He definitely had some gloom to go with his doom. I am looking forward to hearing the details.

First five books of 2022:

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie  by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen