Not everyone appreciates epic poems that are more than 2,500 years old. If that’s you, give an expert the chance to convince you. In this episode of EconTalkRuss Roberts interviews Claudia Hauer about war, education and strategic humanism. Hauer is an expert in advocating the importance of reading classical texts, often doing so as a visiting professor at the US Air Force Academy. Hauer, a faculty member at St. John’s College (Santa Fe), where students learn Ancient Greek as part of their degree, is also the author of Strategic humanism: leadership lessons from the ancient Greeksthat is the focus of this interview.
Dr. Hauer mentions teaching these two very different student populations: U.S. Air Force officers in training and students at St. John’s College, who were specifically looking for a “big books” style education. Hauer argues that both groups of students, however different in their approaches and goals, can take something away from the humanities, especially the ancient Greek epic poetry she teaches them.
Hauer’s students at the Air Force Academy often entered class convinced that a centuries-old war poem had little to offer them. At first glance, the weapons and methods of combat are depicted Homer are far removed from modern life and war. During Hauer and Roberts’ conversation, they refer to this notion of practical knowledge: τέχνη (technology) in classical Greek.
Technology is a concept that can (in most cases) be translated as craftthat is How we achieve excellence (in Greek: ἀρετή [aretê]) in a particular domain. It is professional knowledge, experiential knowledge that comes from doing something. It is, as Roberts says, the root of our word technology but it doesn’t mean exactly the same thing.
Hauer argues that the Greeks are worth reading, even for non-specialists, and describes how she successfully convinced her classes of trainee officers that they could find Homer worthwhile to read. The Greek tradition of how to best be a human being, she argues, is still worth discussing even a few thousand years later, and in the case of people trained to lead in the military, these texts of particular interest:
I think it’s important that we read it, if only to witness some of those objectifying tendencies during war. But even beyond that, it teaches us certain timeless lessons about camaraderie during war, and about those cycles as well. Jonathan Shay has this book, Achilles in Vietnam, in which he points out that the cycles, the emotional cycles that we see unleashed in Achilles over time the Iliad–betrayal by the commander, withdrawal from the fighting, the death of his close friend, and then a cycle of grief that leads to murderous, barbaric rage. Jonathan Shay points out that these cycles are timeless: they continue to play out on the battlefield.
And I think so too, as far as what happens in the Iliad is still part of the war landscape, I think it’s important that we read it. Can we go further than that? Can we actually enter territory that suggests it’s worth reading in its own right? I think the comparisons – I think the way Homer sets the backdrop of war against the natural landscape, and explores the way fighting men are like lions, or like natural forces, like torrential rain or thunderstorms – I think he really this work begins that the Greeks will continue in their literature, namely: How do we begin to locate the domain of man versus our kind of helplessness as beings in this world of strength and power?
And us not always fully understand our relationship to nature, our relationship to the animals. And that is the problem the Greeks tackled all of their literature – is that because the gods haven’t given them a human on the scale of Scripture, they have to sort of figure it out for themselves. In this sense, I would argue that the Iliadwe must read it for its own good.
Like many modern people with humanistic training, I will spend much of my adult life behind a laptop. What kind technology does that require? Did my education provide me with any form of technology? Is knowing how to best be a person, a form of technology? Is it something that can be learned or transferred? Technology as a concept is ubiquitous in Greek literature and philosophy. In Meno, Plato begins with a question: ‘Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by instruction or by practice; Or if it is not through education or practice, whether it comes to man naturally, or in what other way?” Without delving too far into the Greek text (Plato uses another word similar in meaning to technology), it is clear that readers are invited to consider the practical implications of knowing what is good and true.
Aristotle addresses similar questions in Metaphysics, where he distinguishes between the knowledge of an artisan and a master craftsman. For Aristotle, experience is a necessary but not sufficient condition for knowledge. Wisdom is what elevates experience, although he notes that simple experiences can also be very helpful to people, as “it seems that for practical purposes experience is in no way inferior to art; indeed we see that men with experience are more successful than those who have a theory without experience.”
In their philosophical discussions, poems, and plays, the Greeks had complex and sophisticated views on practical knowledge, and there are many more examples than I can list here. These conversations are accessible to us (especially given the online resources such as the Online Library of Freedom) whether we are a soldier, sailor, academic or self-taught. We still ask these human questions.
Here are some other questions to consider:
1-Dr. Hauer convinced her Air Force Academy students to take the Iliada poem about war. Is it relevant to those of us who are not involved in the development of the? technology of war or the technology of reading Greek literature? How could that be? Is it more or less relevant than the Odysseyas mentioned in the podcast episode?
2- The humanities can be considered impractical because they are often not directly related to vocational training. However, the ancient Greeks were very interested in the practical implications of ideas about knowledge. Why did the Greeks distinguish between purely contemplative knowledge and practical expertise? What can their approach to knowledge acquisition teach us about contemporary education?
3- What parallels can we draw between physically practical skills, such as carpentry, athletics, medicine or art making, and how we practice virtue?
4- Would the ancient Greeks consider the humanities as we see them today as a form of? technology? How are the humanities similar to the species? technology present in fields such as medicine, the military, etc.?
5- Which types of humanistic disciplines do you think would benefit most from ancient Greek insights into knowledge transmission, and how? What can humanities students learn from modern practical disciplines?
Related Resources
“A Leadership Class from the Ancient World,” essay by Josiah Osgood
“Sir. Truman’s Degree”, essay by GEM Anscombe (1956)
τέχνη, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon
Technē in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Nancy Vander Veer holds a BA in Classics from Samford University. She taught high school Latin across the U.S. and held program and fundraising positions at the Paideia Institute. Based in Rome, Italy, she is currently completing a master’s degree in European social and economic history at Philipps-Universität Marburg.