Thank you Tom for insights into this difficult canto 25. If you ever do public talks on Dante, please keep us informed. Pax in Christ, Aaron & Charlotte Pisacane, Philadelphia
This is one of the cantos where I really appreciate the shared reading and your lead. When I first read it through to myself I missed so much. As you say one can always latch on to the images and metaphors, but when it came to the theory around development of body and soul, I was not sure to what extent Dante was repeating recieved opinion of the time or extending it.
This was really nice to listen too, bravissimo! One of the most stunning formulations in Purgatory I think, is the: "when the articulation of the brain has been perfected in the embryo, (..) He breathes a spirit into it". 700 years later we still ponder the same question.. when does consciousness arise or appear in the fetus. The poetry is just so incredibly beautiful!!
Thank you Richard! And that’s right: the issue of when consciousness arises in a fetus + the medieval hints at the mind-body problem make this canto so advanced in historical terms.
This is a fascinating fact that I never knew: that everything that has to do with consciousness and reason in philosophy and theology is connected to language and our ability to use it. Your etymological walk-through of in-fante was amazing. When I was reading this I thought how appropriate to read about the birth of a ghost in October, but Dante's conception of the spirit after death is really quite impressive as an imagined solution. Onward and upward!
Yes it’s the perfect month for any ghosts! I also love etymology. Maybe because I attended a type of Italian high school where they still teach ancient Greek as part of the main curriculum. Don’t remember much but being able to take apart a word like a clock-maker can do with a watch is fascinating.
Statius's speech in this canto is one of many things throughout the Commedia that gives credence to the idea that this poem was, in part, a continuation of sorts of Dante's abandoned Il Convivio. He just weaves the encyclopedic knowledge into it in a different way. I also enjoy reading about scientific understanding of the Middle Ages. It's unfortunate when modern people arrogantly mock and dismiss everything from the past as automatically unenlightened and stupid just because our ancestors had no way of knowing about any other medicine, surgery techniques, etc. Even in my own lifetime, a mere 41 years, I've seen changes in certain treatments and attitudes. Very fittingly, I just today wrote a bloodletting scene in my alternative history about Dante, and there were earlier mentions of the debate between poison miasma, imbalanced humors, and infected spores causing disease. People did the best they could with the information that was available.
@@tomlabooks3263 I just did a vlog discussing some things about my alternative history, as part of Preptober (the month leading up to National Novel Writing Month). With any luck, I'll have several more chapters finished by the time NaNo starts, along with more research about the Middle Ages written in my little notebook with a peacock cover. As I said in the vlog, a past blog post, and an Instagram post, life imitated art when, like Dante, I too had my own moment of "I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul." For awhile, I had second thoughts about being the right person to write this story or to use first-person narration. My doubts and cowardice are now resolved.
I found this fascinating ....I'm thinking with high infant mortality the idea that the rational soul only enters the body when the infant speaks enabled many to live with their losses....
@@hesterdunlop7948 Now I'm reminded of a similar concept in Judaism. Traditionally, babies who die before 30 days (including stillbirths) don't have Kaddish said for them, and aren't buried with the kind of ceremony or grave reserved for even older children. Those who are stillborn or die before eight days don't even get names. That also has its roots in an era of high childhood mortality.
From all the Cantos up to this point, this one really shows how much Dante was ahead of his time. Though many, such as Aristotle, do recognize the conscious state, and its qualitative properties, most accepted it as both intrinsic and having a "higher-order," but reading this Canto, Dante seems to be suggesting a dualism more along that which would be discussed 400 years later. I may be reading too much into that, but it sounds like you are saying the same thing here. When we are done with the Comedy, I am going to have to go back to Aquinas--i didn't know he believed that poetry couldn't achieve a kind of truth.
Exactly! It almost sounds like Descartes’ dualism. Of course the concept that Dante thinks about is “the soul” , but “soul” is really close to “consciousness”. Although not yet an articulation of the modern mind-body problem, we could almost see this canto as hinting at that. Even Socrates, to be fair, criticized his peers who wanted to reduce everything to physical phenomena. He said something like “To say that I am in this prison because my muscles took me here is a very ugly and insufficient explanation” : )
@@tomlabooks3263 Exactly what I was thinking. And it is not the first time I hear what could be a predecessor of a major concept that came years later from the Comedy.
it never crossed my mind to wonder what the word 'infant' meant..i love it..
Fascinating stuff. The Mind Body Problem comic - very relatable.
Such a difficult canto to explain philosophically ... but you did a marvelous job, Tom. Grazie!
Grazie a te, Viktoria! 😄
Thank you Tom for insights into this difficult canto 25. If you ever do public talks on Dante, please keep us informed. Pax in Christ, Aaron & Charlotte Pisacane, Philadelphia
Thank YOU for the kind comment! God bless you both.
This is one of the cantos where I really appreciate the shared reading and your lead. When I first read it through to myself I missed so much. As you say one can always latch on to the images and metaphors, but when it came to the theory around development of body and soul, I was not sure to what extent Dante was repeating recieved opinion of the time or extending it.
So many issues in this canto that we are still more or less debating today, without a real resolution in sight.
This was really nice to listen too, bravissimo! One of the most stunning formulations in Purgatory I think, is the: "when the articulation of the brain has been perfected in the embryo, (..) He breathes a spirit into it". 700 years later we still ponder the same question.. when does consciousness arise or appear in the fetus. The poetry is just so incredibly beautiful!!
Thank you Richard! And that’s right: the issue of when consciousness arises in a fetus + the medieval hints at the mind-body problem make this canto so advanced in historical terms.
This is a fascinating fact that I never knew: that everything that has to do with consciousness and reason in philosophy and theology is connected to language and our ability to use it. Your etymological walk-through of in-fante was amazing. When I was reading this I thought how appropriate to read about the birth of a ghost in October, but Dante's conception of the spirit after death is really quite impressive as an imagined solution. Onward and upward!
Yes it’s the perfect month for any ghosts! I also love etymology. Maybe because I attended a type of Italian high school where they still teach ancient Greek as part of the main curriculum. Don’t remember much but being able to take apart a word like a clock-maker can do with a watch is fascinating.
I don't want to say goodbye to Virgil !!
😄😄 Our collective tears will flow!
Statius's speech in this canto is one of many things throughout the Commedia that gives credence to the idea that this poem was, in part, a continuation of sorts of Dante's abandoned Il Convivio. He just weaves the encyclopedic knowledge into it in a different way.
I also enjoy reading about scientific understanding of the Middle Ages. It's unfortunate when modern people arrogantly mock and dismiss everything from the past as automatically unenlightened and stupid just because our ancestors had no way of knowing about any other medicine, surgery techniques, etc. Even in my own lifetime, a mere 41 years, I've seen changes in certain treatments and attitudes. Very fittingly, I just today wrote a bloodletting scene in my alternative history about Dante, and there were earlier mentions of the debate between poison miasma, imbalanced humors, and infected spores causing disease. People did the best they could with the information that was available.
Exactly. Too easy to feel superior just because you happen to be born later…
Glad to hear that your writing is proceeding! I hope it’s going well.
@@tomlabooks3263 I just did a vlog discussing some things about my alternative history, as part of Preptober (the month leading up to National Novel Writing Month). With any luck, I'll have several more chapters finished by the time NaNo starts, along with more research about the Middle Ages written in my little notebook with a peacock cover.
As I said in the vlog, a past blog post, and an Instagram post, life imitated art when, like Dante, I too had my own moment of "I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul." For awhile, I had second thoughts about being the right person to write this story or to use first-person narration. My doubts and cowardice are now resolved.
I found this fascinating ....I'm thinking with high infant mortality the idea that the rational soul only enters the body when the infant speaks enabled many to live with their losses....
@@hesterdunlop7948 Now I'm reminded of a similar concept in Judaism. Traditionally, babies who die before 30 days (including stillbirths) don't have Kaddish said for them, and aren't buried with the kind of ceremony or grave reserved for even older children. Those who are stillborn or die before eight days don't even get names. That also has its roots in an era of high childhood mortality.
@@Ursulas_Odds_and_Sods Very interesting. I guess abortion is not allowed in Judaism either?
From all the Cantos up to this point, this one really shows how much Dante was ahead of his time. Though many, such as Aristotle, do recognize the conscious state, and its qualitative properties, most accepted it as both intrinsic and having a "higher-order," but reading this Canto, Dante seems to be suggesting a dualism more along that which would be discussed 400 years later. I may be reading too much into that, but it sounds like you are saying the same thing here. When we are done with the Comedy, I am going to have to go back to Aquinas--i didn't know he believed that poetry couldn't achieve a kind of truth.
Exactly! It almost sounds like Descartes’ dualism. Of course the concept that Dante thinks about is “the soul” , but “soul” is really close to “consciousness”. Although not yet an articulation of the modern mind-body problem, we could almost see this canto as hinting at that. Even Socrates, to be fair, criticized his peers who wanted to reduce everything to physical phenomena. He said something like “To say that I am in this prison because my muscles took me here is a very ugly and insufficient explanation” : )
@@tomlabooks3263 Exactly what I was thinking. And it is not the first time I hear what could be a predecessor of a major concept that came years later from the Comedy.