"The case for Xanthippe" deals with Socrates’ philosophy and its effect to his wife Xanthippe. It offers a defense of the famous wife of Socrates who is still pilloried as a shrew who could not understand her husband's spiritual greatness. It also circles the nondescript words which mark its subject rationality, reason, intuition, and instinct. Graves explores that the historical disdain for Xanthippe is the byproduct of a far reaching epistemic preference that is best understood through the opposition of two words, reason and rationality. In the essayist view, organized entertainment rests on a pseudo-science of audience-reaction.
The case for Xanthippe by Robert Graves
About the author
Robert Graves (1895-1985) was born in London,
England. His full name is Robert Von Ranke Graves. He served as a soldier in
First World War. He began to write poetry when he was in school. He wrote 140
works in his life. One of his works was an autobiography that talked about his
experience as an officer in the world was one. He had experienced the horrors
of war. He had begun writing poetry in 1914 as a typical Georgian poet. His
writings became much deeper and more painful later on due to war.
Background of the text The case for Xanthippe
In this
text, the writer talks about various topics. His focus in the text is on poem
and philosophy. The essay also talks about Xanthippe and the problem she faced
due to her husband’s behavior
Characters in The case for Xanthippe
Socrates: He was a Greek philosopher
Xanthippe: she was Socrates’s wife. She was 40
years younger than him. She regularly scolded Socrates for not fulfilling the
family's needs.
Summary of The Case for Xanthippe
The essay
begins with the writer saying he depends on his intuition to write poems and to
generally manage his life. Despite depending on his intuition he said he isn't
still separated from logic. He goes on to say that poets write from their
imagination but still their poems make complete sense.
He, then,
states the difference between reasonable and rational. He said that reasonable
sounds warm and positive whereas rational sounds cold and inhuman. He goes on
to say that reason is based on facts data and systems and not legends or
someone’s beliefs.
He said that
it is very difficult to prove reason and it might cost a lot of time and
effort. We can’t write poems or music or stories from reasoning as it doesn't
give good taste. The word reason was
very beautiful three thousand years ago. During the time, geometry was created
to distribute the lands between the Nile River. Some people opposed the
distribution so they started to put reasons in an abstract argument which
resulted in the creation of abstract reasoning. It was later on called
philosophy. It started to dominate every other aspect like Maths, poetry, etc.
Philosophy became the new talk for the free people in Greek.
The essayist
didn’t like philosophy because it didn’t value individuality and personal
differences. It also favors war and causes great destruction. Poets despise
philosophy because it didn't care about individual differences and didn't value
individuality.
The essayist said that women and poets are
great allies. Greek women didn’t like the philosophy from the beginning and
they took it as a threat. The writer said that most of the discoveries like
navigating from stars, alphabets, etc. were based on poetic myths. Philosophers
truly believed in Socrates. He was a great Greek philosopher
Socrate had
a wife Xanthippe. She was not respected as her husband. She was annoyed because
of the spiritual value her husband showed. Most of the people didn’t like her
due to her behavior towards her husband. She had a feeling that her husband’s
philosophical beliefs might destroy her family.
The writer
defended Xanthippe as her feelings were right. Due to her husband’s philosophy,
her family got a lot of hate. During
those times, women were regarded as a machine to give birth to children.
The writer
started to talk about religion and science. He said that during the fourth
century the Roman bishops took control over a territory of their religious
beliefs. They also closed most of the religious universities but they couldn’t
ban philosophy. They took over most of the branches of study which brought a
very dark age. The church still applied censorship in its realm. In 1632 Galileo
had a theory. He said that the earth rotated around the sun. Due to this, he
was arrested by the church.
Religion and
anti-religious science often fought which resulted in the French revolution.
After this, they had an unwritten rule. Religion would tolerate scientific
experiments and science would tolerate religious belief.
The writer
then compared the modern wives of philosophers with Xanthippe. He said that
rather than scolding their husbands the wives would let them do their
experiment but if something were to happen, they will blame them.
The writer
said that only women cared for poetic intuition and not men. He also said that
the word intuition must be used very carefully as it is like an instinct. He
said the current education system discouraged intuitive thoughts. According to
the essayist, the word genius wasn’t used properly. He said a genius is a
person who has proper intuition. The writer moans about the loss of intuition
in every field. Every scientist is rational but only a few have intuition.
Being rational has provided us with many great inventions but some of them also
harm us.
The writer
said the villagers are happier than those living in the cities. He said every
religion and ancient belief has been commercialized. He said the development of
technology has resulted in our minds being immature. He said that only a few
poets had the intuition. Atlas also said it is very important to have intuition
in modern poems.
Final notes about The case for Xanthippe
The story
talked about various topics like being reasonably and being rationalized. The
text also talked about the creation of philosophy. The writer wanted the
readers to understand the entire topic he talked about. He also wanted us to
know the effect of a job on someone’s life. Reasonable as the writer said
depends on facts, not beliefs. He didn’t talk too much about rational. Being
rational means analysis and getting the best result possible. Reasonable and
rational tend to give out similar meanings but are completely different.