<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear Mark and the List,</div><div><br></div><div>I apologize for clogging the blog with postings, but it is you whom to blame: I get inspiration from your responses and the dialogue. So, if I ask Bob to post this one tomorrow I think I will not violate the rule of one posting per day.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I would like to return to our discussion of structure. In a nut shell, the main contribution of Stoics was their attention to the word as a reified entity and their understanding of active cause of physics as the word of god.</div>
<div><br></div><div>They (Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus) were the first to isolate word (speech, language) from what it refers to, into a self-standing thing, phenomenon in its own right. I would like to repeat my hypothesis that caused the rage of one of my colleagues few month ago. What strikes me as a substantial difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is the treatment of word. Of course, in the ancient text words (say, commandments) were given a serious role, but they were fast attached to the objects and meanings. In the New Testament, all of a sudden, en arche hen ho logos is introduced in such manner that it seems that the word becomes an independent agency. Where does this come from? </div>
<div><br></div><div>Among many possible sources I could name Greek Stoics. They introduced propositional logic (the logic of language per se, independent of references). In the quotation that we have discussed (and I would like to thank Mark for important corrections to my translation) the most important contribution, on my view, is that the whole (or everything) does not exist by itself, but is constantly affected by the agency of word. It is a well-known aspect of the physics of the Stoics. Unlike Aristotle, they did not worship the outer world of objects and did not isolate the language into secondary system. On the contrary, in stoic view, Logos permeates Kosmos, just as the semen permeates the egg. Logos spermaticos is the most fantastic interpretation of language I have ever seen. Words make (poieomai) the whole (holon) by affecting the passive things outside. Words inseminate the whole, making it pregnant with sense and order. The word, therefore, is the semen (semeion). Here comes semiotics.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As for the Universe (and I disagree with Yonge's translation here), stoics could care less for the Universe as the world outside. Their use of to Holon is similar to German der Ganze, or Ganzheit. A grave mistake would be to conflate stoic interpretations of the whole with our habitual Universe. Students may assume, then, that Zeno was a stargazer, just as Stephen Hawkins. Stoics promoted cancellation of all perception (aisthesis) and focused on the inner world of fantasy. Fantasian kataleptike--fantasies under the condition of blocked perception. Autistic fantasies. </div>
<div><br></div><div>The problem of Aristotle and all materialists is that they place our psychic activity (language included) in strict dependence from the objectal world. The things that I can see and touch have the priority over the things that I can imagine and express. </div>
<div><br></div><div>This can be the key for music theory, the way to disentangle ourselves from the net of onto-teleological tyranny. And music theory, as mentioned in the blog of Stephen Soderberg, will become more relevant.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div>Ildar Khannanov</div><div>Peabody Institute</div><div><a href="mailto:etudetableau@gmail.com">etudetableau@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2014-07-14 22:01 GMT-04:00 Ildar Khannanov <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:etudetableau@gmail.com" target="_blank">etudetableau@gmail.com</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear Mark,</div><div><br></div><div>thank you for your corrections. I quoted Zeno from memory. My teacher of Greek insisted that we read Plato's dialogues on a bus without the dictionary and memorize some important apophtegmata. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Translation is a difficult matter (my teacher Derrida insisted that it is impossible). The 1895 English translation misses the point, I think. </div><div><br></div><div>Dokei has nothing to do with thinking. It means "it is obvious". It seems. Or, it is clear that. It is derived from deiknumi. Another form that can clarify this is dike.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Poieo is a verb that has strong philosophical connotations. We have its outgrowth in an English word poetics, The process of making for Greeks was a joyful creative experience that applied both to pottery and poetry. Active is a very poor translation. In Zeno's other statements he distinguishes the things that are made and that are unmade. He insists, that Logos permeates the whole and inseminates it with thought. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Poios--I apologize, my mistake, of course. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> Ousia has been discussed thoroughly by philosophers, Essence even sounds similar. It is a philosophical term. Existence is a very rough translation. There is a chapter in Derrida that is entitled Ousia ou gramme. (Some philosophers who side with ousia are nowadays labeled essentialists). Reading it can clarify (or, God, I think I called for a storm now, Derrida and clarify may not seem to work together). To translate Logos as reason is simply bad taste. Reason, mind, these are the words of English philosophy that are untranslatable into other languages. Logos is Word. Holon is not Universe. It is simply the whole (just as it sounds in English). Hule is not matter. It is raw condition, something that has not been used or touched by anyone. Virgin forests. Logon ton theou is an indivisible figure of speech, Greek Stoics invented semiotics and introduced the category of the Word of God that has been gracefully adopted by early Christianity. Another one is pneuma ton Theou. This one is even more magnificent.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In other words, reading a number of philosophical texts could clarify many things that occur as local misunderstanding. I trust more the interpretations of Emile Brehier and use many translations of the same phrase into other languages (French, German, Russian) in order to make my own interpretive translation.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div><div><br></div><div>Ildar Khannanov</div><div>Peabody Institute</div><div><a href="mailto:etudetableau@gmail.com" target="_blank">etudetableau@gmail.com</a></div><div><br></div></div></div>
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<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2014-07-14 19:12 GMT-04:00 Mark Ansoncartwright <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Mark.Ansoncartwright@qc.cuny.edu" target="_blank">Mark.Ansoncartwright@qc.cuny.edu</a>></span>:<div>
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<p><span style="background:white"><font>Dear Ildar,<u></u><u></u></font></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><u></u><font> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><font>I was interested to read your quotation from Zeno’s fragments, which I did not know before. I took the trouble to look up the Greek online and to check another translation, that by C.D. Yonge.<u></u><u></u></font></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><u></u><font> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p><font><span style="background:white">In your quotation/transliteration of the Greek, you left out a couple of important vowels: "poiun" should be "poioun," while </span><span style="background-color:white">“apoioun” (“unmade”)
is actually “apoion” (“without quality”). Also, the accusative words</span></font></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><font>“hulen” (“clay” or “matter”) and “theon” (“god” or “God”) should be rendered in apposition to the words “ousian” ("existence") and “logon” ("reason"), respectively. At least, the rendering
by Yonge would suggest that’s how the accusative (NOT genitive, as your suggest) functions here.<u></u><u></u></font></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><u></u><font> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><font>Here is the corrected Greek (transliterated), followed by Yonge’s translation.</font></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white;font-family:"Times New Roman""><u></u><font> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font>Dokei d'autois arkhas einai ton holon duo: to poioun kai to paskhon. to men oun paskhon einai apoion ousian ten hulen, to de poioun ton en aute logon ton theon. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font>Source: Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, ed. H. von Arnim, p. 24 (available at <a href="http://archive.org" target="_blank">archive.org</a>).<u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p><span style="background:white;font-family:"Times New Roman""><u></u><font> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><font>Translation:<u></u><u></u></font></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><u></u><font> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"><font>They think that there are two general principles in the universe, the active and the passive That the passive is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality. That the active is the
reason which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. <span>
<u></u><u></u></span></font></span></p>
<p><span><span style="background:white"><u></u><font> </font><u></u></span></span></p>
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<a name="14737c0ee128664f_14737267f66f095c_Chrysippus"><span style="background:white"><font>Source: Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, trans. C.D. Yonge (London: George Bell & Sons, 1895) Public Domain.<u></u><u></u></font></span></a></p>
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<a name="14737c0ee128664f_14737267f66f095c_Chrysippus"><span style="background:white"><font><br>
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<a name="14737c0ee128664f_14737267f66f095c_Chrysippus"><span style="background:white"><font>Thanks for stimulating us with some ancient writings.</font></span></a></p>
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<a name="14737c0ee128664f_14737267f66f095c_Chrysippus"><span style="background:white"><font>Mark</font></span></a></p>
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<a name="14737c0ee128664f_14737267f66f095c_Chrysippus"><span style="background:white"><font><br>
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<a name="14737c0ee128664f_14737267f66f095c_Chrysippus"><span style="background:white"><font>Mark Anson-Cartwright</font></span></a></p>
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<a name="14737c0ee128664f_14737267f66f095c_Chrysippus"><span style="background:white"><font>Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY</font></span></a></p>
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<div style="direction:ltr"><font color="#000000" face="Tahoma"><b>From:</b> Smt-talk [<a href="mailto:smt-talk-bounces@lists.societymusictheory.org" target="_blank">smt-talk-bounces@lists.societymusictheory.org</a>] on behalf of Ildar Khannanov [<a href="mailto:etudetableau@gmail.com" target="_blank">etudetableau@gmail.com</a>]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, July 13, 2014 12:56 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Phillip Dineen<br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:Smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org" target="_blank">Smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Smt-talk] You say structure I say structuralism lets<br>
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<div>Dear Murray,</div>
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<div>agree, ah those continentals! Reminds me the phrase from the Adams Family, You're so continental ! addressed to a vampire.</div>
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<div>That structure and function should be closer related and examined--sure! Dokei d'autois arkhas einai ton holon duo: to poiun kai to paskhon. to men oun paskhon einai apoioun ousian ten hulen, to de poioun ton en aute logon ton theon. This crazy formulation
was provided by Zeno of Chitteum at the time when the Contintent to the West was populated by savages.</div>
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<div>The causes of the whole are two: the active and passive. The passive is an unmade essence of hule (clay); the active is the words of god.
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<div>I guess, the structure (something that is built) is the product of active cause (making) applied to the passive substance (clay, or, as in Latin translation, wild forest, silva).
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<div>If I read your thought correctly, the structure is not a passive material but the product of action (of function) on that passive material. Unfortunately, music theorists often take structure for granted, as if it were something given and passive by itself.
Sometimes they even try to dissociate structure from function (as in non-functional pitch centricity). All our patterns, embellishments, collections and sets are clay in Greek terms. They become structure only after function is applied.</div>
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<div>Best wishes,</div>
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<div>Ildar Khannanov</div>
<div>Peabody Institute</div>
<div><a href="mailto:etudetableau@gmail.com" target="_blank">etudetableau@gmail.com</a></div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">2014-07-12 9:05 GMT-04:00 Phillip Dineen <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:murraydineen@uottawa.ca" target="_blank">murraydineen@uottawa.ca</a>></span>:<br>
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Oh those stretch Continentals. What a hangover.
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<div>Presumably the structuralists were looking at some kind of structure. Perhaps historically the functionalists -- Radcliffe Brown, Propp? -- stopped at that point, and concerned themselves with only the function of (structural) elements within a system.
(Perhaps as theorists we're functional.) But following the insights of Saussure (or his students), some folks took that a little further, suggesting that the nature of the functional elements determined the structure (not vice versa, or maybe vice versa, or
probably both -- I'm simplifying here). </div>
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<div>I don't think most music theorists have gone that far, although it comes to mind that articles by Roland Jackson (ITO, mid 80's) and the late Chris Lewis (19thCM) might have touched upon structural thought. (I'm forgetting others, memory being a thing
of the past.)</div>
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<div>Cleaning the Derrida out of the way so I can get at the coffee.</div>
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<div>Murray (dineen)</div>
<div>University of Ottawa</div>
<div><a href="mailto:murraydineen@uottawa.ca" target="_blank">murraydineen@uottawa.ca</a></div>
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