The Odyssey Books 9-10 with Dr. Gregory McBrayer

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Deacon Harrison Garlick and guest Dr. Gregory McBrayer dive into the fiery third part of Book One of Plato’s Republic: the showdown between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus. Thrasymachus bursts onto the scene “hunched up like a wild beast,” roaring that justice is nothing more than “the advantage of the stronger.” What follows is a masterclass in Platonic drama and pedagogy—complete with forced feedings, blushing, and precision battles over definitions—as Socrates methodically unravels the sophist’s position. And THANK YOU again to the Classic Learning Test for sponsoring this episode. Dr. McBrayer and Dcn. Garlick explore why this confrontation matters so much. They compare Thrasymachus to the even more ferocious Callicles of the Gorgias (which Dr. McBrayer also discussed with Dcn. Garlick on Ascend) and discuss whether Socrates truly refutes him or merely “out-sophists the sophist.” They also go back and forth on the famous shepherd-and-sheep analogy, the arts-versus-money-making distinction, and the early hints of the philosopher-king and city-soul analogy. Along the way they surface deeper questions that haunt the rest of the dialogue: Is justice a real thing or merely a name the powerful give to their own advantage? Why does Plato bookend the Republic with religious myths? And how much of Book One is a deliberate deconstruction meant to clear the ground for Glaucon’s more serious challenge in Book Two? More Resources on Plato’s Republic: How to Read Plato Reading schedule, podcast calendar, and more! GUIDE: 12 Questions on Book One of Plato’s Republic Republic Bk 1: Intro, Prologue & Cephalus with Dr. Alex Priou (327a-331d) Republic Bk 1: Polemarchus with Dr. Grabowski & Thomas Lackey (331e-336a)

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, we continue our slow, beautiful pilgrimage through Plato’s Republic. Last week Dr. Alex Priou walked us through the opening and the dialogue with Cephalus. This week we focus on Polemarchus, Cephalus’ son who inherits his father’s argument. We are joined by two excellent guides: Dr. Frank Grabowski, Dean of Faculty at Holy Family Classical School, and Mr. Thomas Lackey, independent scholar and a longtime friend of the podcast. Today, we ask what is owed and to whom. “Shall I be your heir?” Polemarchus takes his father’s definition and attempts to provide a standard: Friends owe friends some good and nothing bad. Notice that the concepts of friendship and the good enter the Republic. Polemarchus’ name means war-lord, and the opening of the Republic made him look like political force, maybe even tyranny (commanding Socrates to wait). In the argument, however, he shows himself to be a good-faith interlocutor. Lackey notes that the Piraeus will later be the center of the revolt against the Thirty Tyrants (the puppet government set up by Sparta over Athens after the Peloponnesian War), and that Polemarchus will die by drinking hemlock (the same death Athens will later condemn Socrates to). The line about being “an heir” applies more directly to Cephalus, but in a way could apply to Socrates as well—Polemarchus is an heir to Socrates, someone who loves wisdom and then dies by drinking hemlock. Further Resources to Help You Read the Republic: GUIDE: 12 Questions on Book One of Plato’s Republic Republic Bk 1: Intro, Prologue & Cephalus with Dr. Alex Priou (327a-331d) How to Read Plato Reading schedule, podcast calendar, and more!

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, we start our slow, beautiful pilgrimage through arguably the most important book in Western philosophy: Plato’s Republic. It is about justice and whether justice is more profitable to the soul than injustice—but along the way it provides rich conversations on the soul, virtue, education, metaphysics, and the afterlife. If you read this book and read it well, it will change your life. And we have an excellent guide and mentor to walk us through the opening of Plato’s Republic and the dialogue with Cephalus in Book One (327a-331d), Dr. Alex Priou who currently serves as a professor of political philosophy at the University of Austin. Today we start something life-changing. Plato is philosophy. To summarize a famous line, all of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, and Plato’s Republic is his masterwork. He does not offer you a sterile, intellectual idea that is neat to contemplate—he makes claims on your soul. For Plato, philosophy is transformative. The goal of the pursuit of wisdom is to have a good soul, a beautiful soul. Further Resources to Help You Read the Republic: GUIDE: 12 Questions on Book One of Plato’s Republic How to Read Plato Reading schedule, podcast calendar, and more!

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, we are preparing to read Plato’s Republic (we start next week!). Before turning to that long and demanding text, we ask a simple question: how do you read Plato well? Plato does not write treatises or lectures. He writes dialogues, and the setting, the characters, the irony, and even the moments of confusion (aporia!) are part of the teaching. The podcast takes up the questions that help a first-time reader get started on the right foot. Overall, however, we do not read Plato to “be smart” or brag we’ve read Plato. We read Plato to have a beautiful soul. We take him seriously as a teacher who can help us pursue the true, good, and beautiful. Here is a list of the major questions that are discussed on the podcast today: Why read Plato? Why is the drama important? Are the dialogues historical transcripts? What is the Socratic method? What is Socratic irony? What is the art of dialectic? What is aporia? What is eros? What is pleonexia? What are the parts of the soul?

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, we end Short Story September with “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” by Melville - a seemingly simple tale about men in a law office that becomes a puzzling, existential tale. Dcn. Garlick is joined by two excellent guests: Mr. Joey Bremer, a teacher at Holy Family Classical School and an iconographer studying at the King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts in London, and “Montana” of Montana Classical College, an anonymous scholar who runs an X account that shares incredible insights on Melville’s Moby Dick. Overall, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” is a perplexing, existential tale that tends to quietly unsettle you by revealing the realities of modern life. CHECK OUT THE NEW ASCEND BOOK CLUB This episode of Ascend takes up Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” a quiet, unsettling tale whose central figure answers nearly every request with the same spare formula: “I would prefer not to.” The conversation lingers on the contrast between that stubborn preference and the narrator’s own softness—an elderly lawyer who prizes the easiest way of life, cannot quite govern his office, and keeps mistaking indecision for charity. Names, nicknames, dull eyes, and the cramped windows that look onto other walls all become clues: who in this world still possesses a will, and who has already been reduced to a role? Listeners are invited to sit with the story’s larger questions rather than resolve them. What does the monotonous labor of copying do to a man? How does a commercial, conventional life flatten thumos and leave even well-meaning people lukewarm? Why does Bartleby’s refusal feel at once more human and more deathly than the quirks of his co-workers? Drawing on the textures of Moby-Dick and the aporetic spirit of Plato, the discussion treats the tale as a puzzle that rewards patient attention—an invitation to notice what modernity may have done to the soul, and to return to the text itself with sharper eyes. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Melville and 'Bartleby' 00:12 Introduction to the episode and main themes 02:05 Biographical context of Melville's life 03:47 Overview of 'Bartleby the Scrivener' 06:54 Themes of monotony and human will 09:59 Character analysis: the narrator and Bartleby 14:57 Philosophical and literary connections 20:05 Implications for modern life and office culture 25:00 Concluding thoughts and interpretations 44:30 Dark passages and existential reflections in 'Bartleby' 45:25 Repetition of life and the prison of modernity 46:24 The loneliness of Bartleby and the narrator's solitude 46:56 Prison as a metaphor for societal dehumanization 48:02 Bartleby's awareness of death and existential insight 50:24 The role of the dead letters office and existential suffering 51:29 Melville's possible critique of modernity and capitalism 53:06 The dehumanizing nature of copying work and modern labor 55:07 Bartleby's refusal as act of will and control 57:47 Reason, preference, and the will in Bartleby's choices 01:00:20 The significance of small acts and existential meaning 01:02:19 Melville's relationship with Plato and classical philosophy 01:09:24 The philosophical underpinnings of Melville's critique 01:12:10 The aporetic nature of the story and open-ended interpretation 01:15:15 Comparison with other literary characters and philosophical figures 01:18:36 Fate, free will, and the acceptance of mortality 01:21:55 Melville, Plato, and the modern crisis of human nature 01:24:52 Final reflections on the story's philosophical depth and relevance CHECK OUT THE NEW ASCEND BOOK CLUB