By Esther Teichert
Improvisation
Because the people could not stop dancing,
the trumpeter played on.
Past the fine and the ominous double barline,
he played.
The drummer drunk on drumming,
the dancers drunk on booze and spinning.
The music lurched on, sloppy and insistent,
the bass and keys coloring outside of the lines,
with the bliss and concentration of a two-year-old
who missed their nap-time.
Somehow, as the drums and the bass and the piano
stumbled on, just now discovering the joys of this world,
the trumpeter played up, up, up into Heaven,
and discovered the righteous alternative to Babel,
and saw God smile.
By Esther Teichert
Play-Doh, Plato, and Plates
An essay that might read easier if you have a rudimentary understanding of Plato's philosophy on Forms.
Let’s discuss, just for fun, a little scenario in which we have an argument with Plato. Our claim (you don’t have to agree with me, you just have to roll with it for this paper) is that his idea of truth being discoverable via Forms is, although theoretically correct, impracticable.
Imagine that you’re living in a cave, and one day your two-year-old niece is visiting, and the two of you are playing with Play-Doh. You start out by making a little sphere of clay, and then you roll it between your hands until it becomes a long, thin strand of clay.
“Snake!”, your niece calls it. Then, you make a bigger sphere of clay, and, once again, you roll it between your hands until it becomes a long, thin strand of clay. This time, it’s not just a snake, but a “big snake!”.
“Yeah,” you tell your delighted niece, “I made a bigger one!” Now, imagine that Plato is here as well. Plato might take this opportunity to explain his theory of Forms to you. He might point at a large boulder in the corner of the cave and say, “What’s that?”
To which your niece might answer, very astutely, “Big rock!” At this point, the conversation might become a bit complex.
“Yes,” Plato would say, “but what makes the rock big?” Your niece might stare at him for a bit and then go back to playing with the more entertaining Play-Doh, but you, of course, would engage in dialogue with Plato.
“The rock is big because it’s bigger than most of the other rocks in here.”
“On the contrary,” Plato would say, “it has nothing to do with the other rocks in here. Rather, the rock is defined as big because it holds the ‘Form of the Large’ (Melchert, 154).” This means that all of the large rocks in your cave are defined as large because they share a certain characteristic– that is, largeness. Likewise, all of the rocks in your cave are defined as rocks because they share the characteristics that form the Form of Rocks. Therefore, the Form of Rocks transcends the rocks, and defines them. If there were something that was rather similar to a rock, but not quite, it wouldn’t be defined as a rock because it wouldn’t fit under the defined Form of Rocks.
Plato would propose that all knowledge is formed in this way. A higher world of ‘Forms’ defines the things of this world. The things that appear to be to us are simply made up of bits and pieces of these forms. For instance, a square is defined as a square because it shares part in the Forms of Angles, Lines, and Equal (Melchert, 158). It makes sense, really. The Form is like an object, and what we see is as the shadow of the object. (Melchert, 156).
But, for the sake of my argument, pretend that you aren’t so sure about this. Not only are you unsure, but your little niece is here hearing everything that Plato’s saying, and, like the eccentric uncle’s rather wacky political views that you try to gently dissuade your young relatives from at Thanksgiving dinner, you don’t want her to just willingly believe everything that he says. So, you form a cautious defensive line of argument.
“Plato,” you say, “I agree. Mostly. But, think about this. Imagine you have a Form of Plates. Characteristics contained within this form are, among other things: shallow, serving/eating dish, circular, large enough to eat off of–”
“Now, wait just a minute,” says Plato.
“Hold on. Let me finish. So, you have this Form of Plates. And then, one day, you’re eating at a friend’s house, and they pull out a square plate. What do you do? Your entire earth has been turned upside down. Something that would never have passed as a plate when put up to the test of your Form of Plates is now fulfilling the exact purpose of a plate.
Plato might argue, saying that if your stated Form of Plates was correct in its definitions, then the square plate was not, in fact, a plate, but was another type of dish, and also that, as a matter of fact, your definition of the Form was probably flawed in the first place.
To this, you could respond that this perfectly shows the flaw of seeing truth as derived from/defined by Forms. If our stated Form of Plates was correct, then that means there’s another Form that holds square “plates” within it that we haven’t discovered yet. And that’s just in this little scope, the scope of dishes. What other Forms could there be that haven’t been discovered yet? Yet, we’re deriving our truth from these Forms? If we knew the Forms perfectly, we could very well derive truth from them, and have a full understanding of truth and of the world around us. However, we have no way to know the Forms perfectly, other than the rather questionable route of “intuition”, which tends to interpret the Forms differently from person to person.
And, if our definition of the Form of Plates was flawed in the first place, then the Form wasn’t helping us to understand truth in the first place. In fact, our understanding of Forms was holding us back from understanding truth. Again, if we were able to have a perfect understanding of Forms, we would be able to derive truth from them perfectly. But, again, that would be impossible.
So, although the idea of Forms is, when fully fleshed out and explored, quite compelling and also quite possibly a correct idea, when applied to the practice of finding truth, it is rather impracticable as a base concept. Rather, we ought to look at the things around us and draw what conclusions we can from them– always bearing in mind that we don’t yet have full understanding, and always looking for new information to fine-tune our knowledge of truth. The Forms will then be derived from what we see, and will help us to compartmentalize all of the ideas and objects around us. But, until we understand them fully, they cannot form the truth for us. Until we understand them fully, we ought to follow more in the footsteps of Aristotle. Which, of course, will be further explained in my next edition: Arizona, Aristotle, and Air Heads.
By Esther TeicherT
Loss of Words
A villainelle
Maybe the greatest love is something to hide,
tucked down in dog-eared pages of love letters.
Weak loves cry “I exist!”, and then die.
In halls full of flattery and clamor inside,
the two who love most will not speak, they know better.
Maybe the greatest love is something to hide.
“I love you at morning, at noon, and at night”,
they say who cannot face the silent “forever”s.
Weak loves cry “I exist!”, and then die.
A breath in the air and a word in the eyes,
too wise to say always, too brave to say never.
Maybe the greatest love is something to hide.
A loss of words shows an awe larger than life,
while spilling tongues shower their praise on whomever.
Weak loves cry “I exist!”, and then die.
The fullest of hearts is the shyest of brides,
the groom who loves most has no time to be clever.
Maybe the greatest love is something to hide.
Weak loves cry “I exist!”, and then die.
By Esther Teichert
Strife as a Tool for Good
Heraclitus' claims about the necessity of conflict versus the ancient Greek ideas of the universal negativity of strife.
In a world of strife and opposition, it can be tempting to do all you can to avoid those such things. However, these negatives are of the utmost importance to the pursuit of goodness. In this paper, I will be arguing for the perception of strife as a tool for good, by virtue of its root within evil.
In The Iliad, written by Homer and claimed to be inspired by the Muses, Achilles, a famed Greek war hero, is recorded to have said, “If only strife could die from the lives of gods and men” (The Iliad, Book 18, 126). This is an understandable plea, and one commonly repeated throughout history since. However, Heraclitus, an early Greek philosopher, had a surprising answer to this idea of the loss of strife. Heraclitus wrote, “[Achilles] did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the whole; for if his prayers were heard, all things would pass away” (DK 22 A 22, IEGP, 93). Heraclitus claimed that strife (or conflict) and opposition were essential to the existence of goodness.
Consider, if you will, a mild example of strife: an argument in which one person (let’s call her Helen, to match with the philosopher’s H names) believes one thing, and another person (Hannah) fights against that belief not because she truly disagrees, but because she dislikes Helen. In this argument, because Hannah dislikes Helen, she’s going to bring up every possible objection to Helen’s belief that she can think of. This will, in turn, force Helen (if she’s really invested in the conversation) to think of rebuttals to Hannah’s objections, which will force her to refine her own argument and reconsider her belief more critically. This could lead to any of three outcomes: 1) Helen finds that her original belief was, in fact, correct, even when tested against Hannah’s angry retorts, 2) Helen finds that her original belief needs modification, and she is able to find a more correct belief because of Hannah’s anger, or 3) Helen realizes that Hannah is right and her belief is incorrect. All of the outcomes lead to a greater understanding of truth for Helen, on the condition that she is sincere in her participation in the argument. Hannah’s dislike of and contention with Helen led to Helen’s improvement.
The ancient Greeks valued their prowess in battle because skill in war leads to ending war. As dictated by Hesiod, the type of malicious strife that leads to war was disliked by the Greeks (WD 11). However, if, as Heraclitus claims, “all things are good and just” (DK 22 B 102, IEGP, 92), there must be some good even in this strife. Most of the actions which are generally accepted as evil among humans are examples of strife. Murder is a simple case of strife: one human kills another. Bullying is another case of strife.
So, if strife (at least the type of strife Achilles and Heraclitus were referring to, and the type that Hesiod condemned) is generally evil, what can be the good in it? We might also ask, is there any good in evil? I believe that there is. Just as without sadness, there could be no joy, without evil, there could be no good. Evil is what gives good its definition. If, in a world where nobody ever said anything to hurt anyone’s feelings, somebody came up to you and said, “I love your hair,” you would be unsurprised– nobody had ever told you your hair looked bad. Not only that, but nobody had ever told anyone their hair looked bad. So there would be no reason to be particularly glad that your hair looked good, and no reason to be grateful to someone for saying it did. In fact, since, in a world with no evil, nobody would ever think your hair looked bad in the first place, nobody would ever tell you your hair looked good. Everyone’s hair always looks good, and everyone always thinks so, and it doesn’t matter if they say it or not. There would be no point. Not only would there be no point, but there would be no virtue in the good.
If you look from the perspective of self-improvement being a general goal of humanity, the goal of goodness is to become fully good. With each good action, you become more good yourself. But if there was nothing but good to be done, where is the virtue in doing good? Have you really improved? Or have you only done the inevitable?
Imagine Helen and Hannah are taking a multiple choice test in their history class. Hannah, because she hates Helen, desperately wants to beat her score on this test, so she has studied tirelessly. Helen’s been watching a new show, so she regrettably (albeit understandably) neglected to study any of the subject matter for the test. They sit down to take the test. Hannah answers each question carefully, and she checks and re-checks her answers at the end to make sure that she’s picked the mostcorrect answer for each question. Helen, on the other hand, takes the test quickly and guesses on each question, circling whatever answer looks the most correct at first glance. The teacher grades the tests and hands them back, and they both receive 100% on the test. Not because Helen was lucky, but because, on further examination, it turns out that every answer for every question was correct, A, B, C, and D. Hannah and Helen answered most questions completely differently, but they both received 100%. Should Helen be rewarded for getting 100%? Where’s the virtue in it? Helen still doesn’t know the subject matter. She hasn’t improved at all. Just like this test, a world with no wrong choices means there are no right choices. Nothing holds virtue, nothing brings self-improvement. All “right” choices are inevitable.
What if Helen had studied, though? What if, instead of Hannah arguing with Helen, somebody who loved Helen and wanted her to find a deeper understanding of the truth had had the same argument with her? What if there was no evil, but we all knew exactly what was defined as good? Would strife and evil still be necessary? Frankly, no. In a perfect world, we would all study. We would all give Helen the resources to find the truth without malice. We would all be good simply because it was written in the rules, even if there were no consequences. If we had all already reached the pinnacle of self-improvement, there would be no need for strife. I’ll concede that point. But, unfortunately, we are not in a perfect world. We live in a world where some people (also known as everyone) don’t have the motivation to be good for the sake of goodness itself. We live in a world of good people who have not yet reached the pinnacle of self-improvement, and who still need some outside motivation to pull themselves to that point.
So, in our imperfect world, if there was no evil, no strife, there could be no goodness, no virtue, no self-improvement. Heraclitus, in that regard, had a further understanding of the nature of opposition than did the Greeks, with their hopes for the abolishment of malicious strife.
By Esther Teichert
Undying Light
(In response to 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' by Dylan Thomas)
Light spills into eyes and blinds once-grave men--
weak light, light of the sun and the moon and a million stars,
light of the dandelion mocking the lily.
And wild men rage, like Icarus,
and fall.
And good men rage, like Lucifer,
then fall.
And light is lost,
and dandelion chains hold fast
the hell-bound ankles,
dripping with wax and tears.
The lily never touched, the light dying away,
though somewhere above the false wings' reach
it can be touched.
Rage, rage, rage,
and withered weeds run rampant over
God, the brightest bloom, who sighs,
and wishes forgiveness had been sought.
By Esther Teichert
Rationalism, Empiricism, and the Question of Existence
Warning: This essay discusses the topic of suicide.
From the decades-long battle between rationalism and empiricism, there can only come one winner. If empiricism– the idea that all ideas come from sensory experience and perceptions– is true, then rationalism– the idea that there is at least one idea that can be found purely through reason– is not true. There is no middle ground. Philosophers throughout history have been quite divided on this topic, and René Descartes and John Locke, two of the most well-known philosophers, are no exception to that. Descartes argued for the validity of rationalism, and Locke argued for the validity of empiricism. Despite Locke’s denial of innate ideas, which he used to reject the principle of rationalism, and following further down the path of Descartes’ arguments of self-existence, this paper will argue for the existence of a priori concepts, and therefore the validity of rationalism.
Descartes proposed a belief structure in which all of our beliefs come from a few foundational beliefs. As requirements for what could be counted as a foundational belief, he proposed the following criterion: A foundational belief must be self-evident, and a self-evident truth is known based on only itself. In order to find out what belief could be truly self-evident, he adopted a method of skepticism, in which he questioned everything that seemedself-evident in order to find that which was. He began to think of beliefs that could possibly be foundational, and to whittle them down using the process of elimination. In order to reject a belief as foundational, he had to find any way that it could be false– if there was any way to think of an idea as false, then it couldn’t be self-evident, even if it were true. And, if an idea is not self-evident, remember, it can’t be foundational.
“So,” thought Descartes, “What are some possible foundational beliefs?” And he pondered. He had some ideas. What if, for instance, the foundational belief was ‘I have a nose’? It could be. Or, what if it was ‘I’m reading a rather dull essay’? Again, could be. Or, it could even be ‘I am alive’. “But,” thought Descartes, “what if I’m dreaming?” After all, many times, as we’re dreaming, we believe that we’re awake. Many times our dreams seem real. So, even though all of this seems real, couldn’t it all be a dream? Could be.
Well, the foundational belief could be something like ‘I see that word in front of me’, right? Wrong. Descartes, in a truly disillusioning argument, reminds himself that his senses have perceived wrongly before– sometimes he’s thought something was red when it was purple, or some such mistake– so, couldn’t all of his current perceptions be inaccurate? They could be. But what about mathematical concepts? We’ve all, at some point, been mistaken about one of those, even if just for a moment. So, no good.
“Really,” thought Descartes (who must have been in a bad mood at the time), “I could be being deceived about my perceptions of all things by an evil genius.” And, if we can’t conclusively prove our perceptions to be true, then we can’t conclusively say that we correctly perceive or know anything. Yikes. “Well,” thought he, “what about the simple fact that I exist?” And at first glance, this was dismissed as well. After all, the possible evil genius is still ever-present, and they could deceive anyone just as well about that fact as about any other.
“But wait!” says Descartes, and we listen in breathless anticipation. “Either I’m right about the way I view my existence, or I’m deceived about my existence. If the first is true, then clearly I exist. And, in order to be deceived, I must exist, so even if the second is true, I still exist. Either way, I exist. So… I exist.” We celebrate!
Of course, he goes on to further tear apart any pretensions we might have to a meaningful existence, but that’s for another day. All we need to know for now is that he has found a viable foundational belief– existence.
Now, a slight change in focus. Locke, feeling prepared to make some sweeping philosophical statements, scoffs at rationalists. “No idea,” he claims, “is formed independently of one's experience.”
“Think about it,” he says. “An idea independent of all other ideas– an innate idea– will be held in all minds. It will be a universal idea.” And he goes on from there. In fact, he goes on to crush the dreams of all rationalists by saying, “No idea is held in all minds, therefore no idea is innate”. If an idea isn’t innate, he claims it comes from experience. And, since “no ideas are innate,” all ideas come from experience.
We have sensory inputs. We perceive things through our senses, we recognize them as simple ideas, we gather further information from them, and our ideas about the world are, in the long run, completely formed by the things we perceive. That’s what Locke would say, at least.
But hold on a second, Locky-boy. Where are we getting this idea that no ideas are held in all minds? Descartes says that the idea of existence is a foundational belief. So– is the idea of existence held in all minds? Well, you’ll find many people debating about this in the world today. Some goth high schoolers find it to be their life’s calling to say, “Well, we could be living in a simulation, you know?” We (the powers that be) feel rather inclined to chalk this up to philosophical pretensions rather than a quest for true understanding. But that doesn’t explain away the many philosophers who lay awake nights struggling, wondering, “Do I exist?”
So this may lead us to believe that the idea of existence is not, in fact, a universal belief, since so many seem to be uncertain of it. While we may feel inclined to quibble with that conclusion, the quibblation is quite unnecessary. Because the simple fact of the uncertainty of the idea of existence leads us to a universal belief (oh goody!). And that universal belief is this: the importance of existence. An innate thought to all minds is “It is important if I exist”. We may wake up and wonder “Do I exist? Am I simply a figment of imagination? Is that nasty little evil genius up there fiddling with my puppet strings out of pure spite?” And why do we wonder this? Because the fact of existence is important to us. We’re not sure why– nothing has ever really taught us this (in fact, from a young age, we’ve seen people die; their family and friends mourn, but move on and live, just as before. The world goes on.)– but something inside us clings to the idea that we’re real, that we’re something, that there’s something there. Or, if we’ve let go of that fact (goth high schoolers arise!), we’re hung up on the fact that we don’t exist, that there’s nothing real, that there’s really no point anyway– and we see this as some sort of monumental concept.
At the risk of being insensitive, another argument for the innateness of the idea of the importance of existence is the issue of suicide. There’s a reason the world rises up so resoundingly in the defense of “Hold on– it gets better!”. There’s a reason the bullies find their quickest, most deadly ammunition in the taunts about the insignificance of a victim’s existence. There’s a reason that, in the most hopeless of moments, the only solution– the biggest, most permanent, significant solution– seems to be that of an end to existence. It’s because we believe that existence is important.
As children, when we touched a hot stove, it taught us not to touch it again. But why did we care that it hurt? Because we felt that it threatened our existence.
Why does the idea of an evil genius seem so absurd and awkward to us? Because there’s something significant to us in the fact that we exist, and when Descartes first brings this up, we feel that fact begin to slip away. Why the sense of relief when we find that the evil genius only proves more fully our existence? Because we care.
It is a universal idea– that existence is important, whether in the negative, or in the positive. And with only one universal idea, one that can be found without any prompts from perception, rationalism rises from the ashes of Locke’s words and takes flight.
By Esther TEichert
Lyricist's Lament
I wish people were more like cars.
To take a wrench to trauma and fix it
with elbow grease.
To open a handbook
and understand why they left.
I wish leaving was more like not.
I wish bleeding was less like shot.
I wish deep holes were more like scars.
To cover up the makeshift grave with
freshly dug dirt.
To see only a brief divot
where now is blood.
The red drops fall on my notebook pages.
I mistake them for lyrics and sing them for ages.