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Quote by Allen Ginsberg

“The Wisdom of Solomon (Carl) They censor words not the things they denote: It would create less of a stir to drop a piece of shit on Grant's tomb than to write it out in white paint. Because people recognize that's what memorials are for–old bums & dogs to shit on.”

Quote by Allen Ginsberg

Book:Journals: Early Fifties, Early Sixties
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Journals: Early Fifties, Early Sixties

This book is a compilation of journal entries that offer insights into the author's life and experiences during the 1950s and 1960s. The entries provide a glimpse into the cultural, social, and personal landscape of that era. more

Author

Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg, born on June 3, 1926, was an influential American poet. Known for his free-form poetry and profound political and social commentary, he was one of the key figures of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg's landmark poem 'Howl' was first published in 1956, becoming a milestone in American literary history. more

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“Honest dissent and unorthodox ideas often promote scientific knowledge. Even though more often wrong than right, unorthodox ideas are apt to stimulate some clear thinking among the orthodox. And from time to time, a doubter makes a basic discovery. But the lysenkoism is quite sterile of ideas and of suggestions for new experiments. It urges a retreat to archaic views, long abandoned with sufficient reason. In this, the lysenkoism is comparable only to the anti-evolutionism in the USA. New arguments and new facts mean just as little to the lysenkoists as they do to the anti-evolutionists.”

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“For the Christian, the sacred doctrine is revealed theology; for the Jew and the Muslim, the sacred doctrine is, at least primarily, the legal interpretation of the Divine Law (talmud or fiqh). The sacred doctrine in the latter sense has, to say the least, much less in common with philosophy than the sacred doctrine in the former sense. It is ultimately for this reason that the status of philosophy was, as a matter of principle, much more precarious in Judaism and in Islam than in Christianity: in Christianity philosophy became an integral part of the officially recognized and even required training of the student of the sacred doctrine. This difference explains partly the eventual collapse of philosophic inquiry in the Islamic and in the Jewish world, a collapse which has no parallel in the Western Christian world.”

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“What is called freedom of thought in a large number of cases amounts to—and even for all practical purposes consists of—the ability to choose between two or more different views presented by the small minority of people who are public speakers or writers. If this choice is prevented, the only kind of intellectual independence of which many people are capable is destroyed, and that is the only freedom of thought which is of political importance.”

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“In fact, it is by no means certain that the purpose of Plato or of Aristotle, as Fārābī understood it, required the actualization of the best political order or of the virtuous city. Fārābī adumbrates the problem by making a distinction between Socrates’ investigations and Plato’s investigations, as well as between “the way of Socrates” and the way adopted eventually by Plato. “The science and the art of Socrates” which is to be found in Plato’s Laws, is only a part of Plato’s, the other part being “the science and the art of Timaeus” which is to be found in the Timaeus. “The way of Socrates” is characterized by the emphasis on “the scientific investigation of justice and the virtues,” whereas the art of Plato is meant to supply “the science of the essence of every being” and hence especially the science of the divine and on the natural things. The difference between the way of Socrates and the way of Plato points back to the difference between the attitude of the two men toward the actual cities. The crucial difficulty was created by the political or social status of philosophy: in the nations and cities of Plato’s time, there was no freedom of teaching and of investigation. Socrates was therefore confronted with the alternative, whether he should choose security and life, and thus conform with the false opinions and the wrong way of life of his fellow-citizens, or else non-conformity and death. Socrates chose non-conformity and death. Plato found a solution to the problem posed by the fate of Socrates, in founding the virtuous city in speech: only in that “other city” can man reach his perfection. Yet, according to Fārābī, Plato “repeated” his account of the way of Socrates and he “repeated” the mention of the vulgar of the cities and nations which existed in his time. The repetition amounts to a considerable modification of the first statement, or to a correction of the Socratic way. The Platonic way, as distinguished from the Socratic way, is a combination of the way of Socrates with the way of Thrasymachus; for the intransigent way of Socrates is appropriate only for the philosopher’s dealing with the elite, whereas the way of Thrasymachus, which is both more and less exacting than the former, is appropriate for his dealing with the vulgar. What Fārābī suggests is that by combining the way of Socrates with the way of Thrasymachus, Plato avoided the conflict with the vulgar and thus the fate of Socrates. Accordingly, the revolutionary quest for the other city ceased to be necessary: Plato substituted it for a more constructive way of action, namely, the gradual replacement of the accepted opinions by the truth or an approximation of the truth. The replacement of the accepted opinions could not be gradual, if it were not accompanied by a provisional acceptance of the accepted opinions: as Fārābī elsewhere declares, conformity with the opinions of the religious community in which one is brought up, is a necessary qualification for the future philosopher. The replacement of the accepted opinions could not be gradual if it were not accompanied by the suggestion of opinions which, while pointing toward the truth, do not too flagrantly contradict the accepted opinions. We may say that Fārābī’s Plato eventually replaces the philosopher-king who rules openly in the virtuous city, by the secret kingship of the philosopher who, being “a perfect man” precisely because he is an “investigator,” lives privately as a member of an imperfect society which he tries to humanize within the limits of the possible.”

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“Owing to the position which “the science of kalām” acquired in Islam, the status of philosophy in Islam was intermediate between its status in Christianity and in Judaism. To turn therefore to the status of philosophy within Judaism, it is obvious that while no one can be learned in the sacred doctrine of Christianity without having had considerable philosophic training, one can be a perfectly competent talmudist without having had any philosophic training. Jews of the philosophic competence of Halevi and Maimonides took it for granted that being a Jew and being a philosopher are mutually exclusive. At first glance, Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed is the Jewish counterpart of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica; but the Guide never acquired within Judaism even a part of the authority which the Summa enjoyed within Christianity; not Maimonides’ Guide, but his Mishnah Torah, i.e., his codification of Jewish law, could be described as the Jewish counterpart to the Summa. Nothing is more revealing than the difference between the beginnings of the Guide and the Summa. The first article of the Summa deals with the question as to whether the sacred doctrine is required besides the philosophic disciplines: Thomas as it were justifies the sacred doctrine before the tribunal of philosophy. One cannot even imagine Maimonides opening the Guide, or any other work, with a discussion of the question as to whether the Halakha (the sacred Law) is required besides the philosophic disciplines.”

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