Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [145]
As you revisit Dr. Seuss’s children’s books and maybe acquaint yourself with his paintings for the first time, see if any of these aesthetic theories helps you better appreciate Seuss’s art. If so, then this chapter is a success. If not, don’t give up philosophical aesthetics, altogether. Perhaps there is another aesthetic theory out there that might better suit your taste.21
Notes
Chapter 1
1. Plato, The Apology of Socrates, trans. C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2002), 22d–e.
2. See Plato, Euthydemus 278e; Symposium 204e–205a; Republic 6.505d–e. All citations and quotations from Plato (except from the Apology) are from Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).
3. In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates argues that all people do what they believe at the time to be best at Meno 77b–78b and Protagoras 352c–358e. See also Gorgias 466b–468e.
4. Plato, Apology 30b.
5. Socrates critiques the conventional Greek cultural education at some length in Plato’s Republic, Books 2 and 3 in particular. He takes aim at political rhetoric in the Gorgias, arguing that public speakers and political leaders in general are nothing more than shameful flatterers, telling people what they want to hear to advance their own selfish ends (462c–465e). Later in the dialogue, he argues that music, poetry, and drama—the keystones of Greek cultural life—are just different forms of flattery and rhetoric, aimed at the gratification of the soul without regard to what is best for it (501d–502e).
6. Plato, Apology 38a.
7. Plato, Laches, in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), 187e–188a.
8. Plato, Laches 190e.
9. Plato, Laches 191a–c.
10. Plato, Laches 192c.
11. Plato, Laches 192d.
12. Plato, Laches 195a.
13. Plato, Laches 199e.
14. Plato, Apology 22d–e.
15. Plato, Apology 30a.
16. Several characters in Plato’s dialogues espouse different versions of this worldview, including Polus and Callicles in the Gorgias and Thrasymachus in the Republic. In each case, the character describes his ideas as a matter of common sense.
17. For this argument, see Gorgias 474b–480a, 482a–c, 492d–500a; Republic 4.441c–445a; Theaetetus 173c–177b.
18. See Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (New York: Penguin, 2005); Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Vintage Books, 2005); Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2008).
19. Plato, Crito 46b.
20. Plato, Phaedo 85c–d.
Chapter 2
1. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume I, trans. E. F. J. Payne (New York: Dover Publications, 1969), 275.
2. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, 309.
3. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, 312.
4. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, 313.
5. For a more positive assessment of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! see Benjamin Rider, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The Examined, Happy Life,” in the present volume.
6. The wise man could easily be an allusion to the ascetic St. Simeon Stylites the Elder or any other pillar hermit. These ascetics chose to respond to the suffering of this life by mortifying the flesh and denying all bodily urges and desires.
7. See Plato’s Phaedo (118a). The reference is to the practice of sacrificing a cock to Asclepius. Cocks were traditionally sacrificed to Asclepius by the ill who were seeking a cure. Socrates’ reference on his deathbed seems to imply that he views death as a “cure” to the disease of existence.
8. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II, trans. E. F. J. Payne (New York: Dover, 1966), 605.
9. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 177.
10. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, ed. Adrian del Caro and Robert