A random thought about Locke's empty mind and Blake's (or is it Plato's?) forms that predate existence.... Noah Chomsky's early works on the development of language and the linguistic organ could be understood (I am not aware whether Chomsky himself did so) as a very modern and scientific counter to Locke. A newborn can impossibly learn language just from observing random mouth noises of their caregivers, without an inborn clue to what parts of those noises could be even viable for transporting meaning.
Chomsky was responding in part to behaviourism (which strikes me also as the more modern extension of Locke’s empiricism). It’s been a loooooong time since I looked at Chomsky’s theories of language acquisition, but I also like Piaget and Bruner who emphasise interaction. What’s important, is the child isn’t a passive slate, and in his own way Blake seemed very attuned to this in his notion that energy is from the body, while reason shapes the mind (which I interpret as the drive being shaped by education, experience, perception etc.)
Thanks again, Jason. A good listen as usual. But I think you're driving a false wedge between Plato and Blake based on a version of Plato that emerged during the Victorian period when the Republic came to be treated as a manifesto for empire. Hence the interpretation of "banning poets" as if a policy statement. Whereas, when you read the work itself, as Thomas Taylor did, it's clear that the section is a thought experiment aimed at Plato's great project of education. It is but one of several possible republics considered by Socrates and his interlocutors, which they conclude would not be wanted in real life. (See Julia Annas's Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, too. She is one scholar alert to colonial readings of Plato, which Blake actually saw coming in his remark about Plato’s writings being stolen and perverted, at the start of Milton. Thankfully the unimaginative reading of Plato is becoming less common again now, even though it is taking time to seep through to popular accounts of Plato and undergraduate philosophy classes.) This suggests that Plato, who is of course highly poetic in all senses of the word, was actually concerned with the failure of poetry, in the hands of poet-priests, one could say, who he argued had turned rites and rituals into dead systems, failing to foster participation with the animate world, which he sought to re-establish in the movement called philosophy. (See Pierre Hadot's What Is Ancient Philosophy, as a vital corrective here.) This is all to say that Plato and Blake are kindred souls not opponents, both seeking to overcome movements that abstract, often in witty, ironic ways, which releases the energy of eternity once again. Also, and I'm not entirely sure I'm hearing you right, but the idea that Blake is some kind of postmodern maker of gods, avant la lettre, if that is what you are nudging towards, doesn't add up on Blake's own testimony, in which he constantly refers to the divine as the source of inspiration, which he then works with. That is what it is to be human, that is what the imagination is. The idea that we are somehow atheistic or agnostic makers of gods, I think he would have called spectrous. But maybe that's not what you're saying.
Thanks very much Mark - I’ve been reading a lot of Plato recently and I’m afraid that, again and again, he is extremely mocking of poets (strictly speaking, I think Socrates admires their technical skill, but he repeatedly dismisses their ability to have any form of true knowledge). As such, I read Blake as a critical friend of Plato (just as he is a critical friend of Milton). Regarding “postmodern”, that’s a word I generally avoid. What I’m not overloading here is a personal interest in Wittgenstein’s language games which increasingly form my approach to Blake. Atheism doesn’t describe my position at all - a-Deism (an entirely made up word) is closer: there is no god “out there” for me - and I’ve come to this position after some 30 years of living with WB. Apologies for short reply: currently writing this on my phone!!!
And (doh!) I listen regularly to your podcasts and they pop up in my feed regularly, but only just realised I hadn’t subscribed (!) Apologies and amended.
Thank you. I'm just thinking about Blake and the Neoplatonist Thomas Taylor's translation of Porphyry's Cave of the Nymphs as a possible context. Why not speak about it in one of the future episodes? Frankly speaking, I don't know much about Blake's interest in Neoplatonism. I can only guess it was rather big.
Blake's had a strong interest in Taylor and Neoplatonism (that's been attested since Kathleen Raine, at least, in Blake and Tradition, and which crops up in writings going back to WB Yeats's edition of Blake in the 1890s). A good person to watch re. Platonic readings of Blake is Mark Vernon @PlatosPodcasts.
A random thought about Locke's empty mind and Blake's (or is it Plato's?) forms that predate existence.... Noah Chomsky's early works on the development of language and the linguistic organ could be understood (I am not aware whether Chomsky himself did so) as a very modern and scientific counter to Locke. A newborn can impossibly learn language just from observing random mouth noises of their caregivers, without an inborn clue to what parts of those noises could be even viable for transporting meaning.
Chomsky was responding in part to behaviourism (which strikes me also as the more modern extension of Locke’s empiricism). It’s been a loooooong time since I looked at Chomsky’s theories of language acquisition, but I also like Piaget and Bruner who emphasise interaction. What’s important, is the child isn’t a passive slate, and in his own way Blake seemed very attuned to this in his notion that energy is from the body, while reason shapes the mind (which I interpret as the drive being shaped by education, experience, perception etc.)
Thanks again, Jason. A good listen as usual.
But I think you're driving a false wedge between Plato and Blake based on a version of Plato that emerged during the Victorian period when the Republic came to be treated as a manifesto for empire. Hence the interpretation of "banning poets" as if a policy statement. Whereas, when you read the work itself, as Thomas Taylor did, it's clear that the section is a thought experiment aimed at Plato's great project of education. It is but one of several possible republics considered by Socrates and his interlocutors, which they conclude would not be wanted in real life.
(See Julia Annas's Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, too. She is one scholar alert to colonial readings of Plato, which Blake actually saw coming in his remark about Plato’s writings being stolen and perverted, at the start of Milton. Thankfully the unimaginative reading of Plato is becoming less common again now, even though it is taking time to seep through to popular accounts of Plato and undergraduate philosophy classes.)
This suggests that Plato, who is of course highly poetic in all senses of the word, was actually concerned with the failure of poetry, in the hands of poet-priests, one could say, who he argued had turned rites and rituals into dead systems, failing to foster participation with the animate world, which he sought to re-establish in the movement called philosophy. (See Pierre Hadot's What Is Ancient Philosophy, as a vital corrective here.)
This is all to say that Plato and Blake are kindred souls not opponents, both seeking to overcome movements that abstract, often in witty, ironic ways, which releases the energy of eternity once again.
Also, and I'm not entirely sure I'm hearing you right, but the idea that Blake is some kind of postmodern maker of gods, avant la lettre, if that is what you are nudging towards, doesn't add up on Blake's own testimony, in which he constantly refers to the divine as the source of inspiration, which he then works with. That is what it is to be human, that is what the imagination is.
The idea that we are somehow atheistic or agnostic makers of gods, I think he would have called spectrous. But maybe that's not what you're saying.
Thanks very much Mark - I’ve been reading a lot of Plato recently and I’m afraid that, again and again, he is extremely mocking of poets (strictly speaking, I think Socrates admires their technical skill, but he repeatedly dismisses their ability to have any form of true knowledge). As such, I read Blake as a critical friend of Plato (just as he is a critical friend of Milton).
Regarding “postmodern”, that’s a word I generally avoid. What I’m not overloading here is a personal interest in Wittgenstein’s language games which increasingly form my approach to Blake. Atheism doesn’t describe my position at all - a-Deism (an entirely made up word) is closer: there is no god “out there” for me - and I’ve come to this position after some 30 years of living with WB.
Apologies for short reply: currently writing this on my phone!!!
And (doh!) I listen regularly to your podcasts and they pop up in my feed regularly, but only just realised I hadn’t subscribed (!) Apologies and amended.
Thank you. I'm just thinking about Blake and the Neoplatonist Thomas Taylor's translation of Porphyry's Cave of the Nymphs as a possible context. Why not speak about it in one of the future episodes? Frankly speaking, I don't know much about Blake's interest in Neoplatonism. I can only guess it was rather big.
Blake's had a strong interest in Taylor and Neoplatonism (that's been attested since Kathleen Raine, at least, in Blake and Tradition, and which crops up in writings going back to WB Yeats's edition of Blake in the 1890s). A good person to watch re. Platonic readings of Blake is Mark Vernon @PlatosPodcasts.