Paradise Lost: a Divine Comedy or Profane Bathos?

Preface: ix~xi

Starkly can I recall what provoked my writing this book. It was the day I told my wife I was preparing an introduction on Aristotle’s philosophy for a new course I would soon be teaching. That was the gist. The crux lies in the detail. It is long on detail because philosophy demands an exonerating apology before you will ever accept it & must; for you could never do without it; so, for your welfare, to its defense, I now rise. For what has made our lives so miserable is philosophy! Blind to its ubiquity, we are all smug in our ways. My wife, being astute, had seen enough of my witless bliss.

Big changes were in the works. Yet, as far as I could see, everything looked fine; for I regarded myself an unwavering optimist. Sure, I had seen plenty of unpleasantness, so much of it, in fact, that I knew there was enough to go around. Everybody got some. That was life, trying to figure things out. Life, therefore, became the desire to work, in order to become something; so to let us know just what we are, society demands we earn our living. In getting us to work for our lives, society lets us know what we are. Finding us work became society’s job & we became its livelihood. Yet, for all of that, I was still fully committed to Aristotle & never knew it! So, how did she sow the seed of his undoing & mine?

Discerning my industry, watching me pore over his thoughts, she would ask me why I shouldn’t write my own philosophy. Stupefied, all I could think to say was that I couldn’t write my own philosophy because I was writing his, as though she had failed to apprehend my import. Without a moment’s deliberation, but much acuity, she asked why my students should care any more for his thoughts? William Tell could not have pierced my apple cleaner. Her concerns were genuine. Sorely, was I missing the point. It was not his philosophy or my great efforts but my demeanor, the sense of duty & urgency & sacrifice. That concerned her, my need to work so hard for something. This was no first occasion: it was the story of my life! Having been down this road so often, I knew just what lay ahead for me in wait, yet to no avail. Bushwhacked! Knocked clean off my mount, I sat dumbstruck. My efforts all for naught. So, how could I not have seen it coming this time? How had I lost the all-important point? when all the signs were so plainly there!

Not an iota was missed. My wife had caught my drift, assessed it for what it was worth & delivered her prognosis: acute, mortal pedagogy. I was full of myself, again. And if left untreated, I would do myself in. Her intimations, as usual, were dead on. I was in over my head. My hands were full trying to cope with Aristotle’s thoughts & putting together a very short, about a page & a half, & simple Q&A primer to kick off my lecture was all I had in mind to do (unbeknownst to me, the department chair, who had an interest in philosophy, would be auditing that first lecture!). Her Socraticism exposed me before I could expose myself. How was I to understand Aristotle or my students without first knowing myself, the pedagogue who thinks himself wise for thinking himself knowledgeable? No lover was I of wisdom, being slave to my pride in putting it before the truth. For the truth was that I knew nothing, not knowing what the truth even was.