The Cartesian Spring — Part Two
The Cartesian Spring — Part Two
As I was saying, while retorting thanks, you make me a reborn of the cards. We’re offals boys ambows. 5 For I’ve flicked up all the crambs as they crumbed from your table um, singing glory allaloserem, cog it out, here goes a sum. So read we in must book. It tells. He prophets most who bilks the best.
[Catastrophe and Anabasis. The rotart processus and its reestablishment of reciprocities].
5 All Sings and Alls Howls.
– James Joyce, ‘Finnegans Wake’, 1939
Another passage from the ‘Night Lessons’ episode of ‘Finnegans Wake’. In my article ‘A Geometry of the Absolute’ I explain how the sibling rivalry between Shem the Penman and Shaun the Post manifests itself as soon as the lesson turns to geometry and thus naturally enough from geometry to sexuality and to portions of Ann Livia Plurabelle’s anatomy being represented geometrically, a visual aid drawn by Shem and which is not immediately understood by Shaun; but once the intersecting circles have been drawn and labelled by Shem with the purpose of illuminating his point Shaun finally understands and strikes out at Shem. Subsequent upon some pedagogical bewitching flashiness it emerges that the point of the sexual/geometric demonstration is to determine that the very greatest of all things, which is to say, all of life, comes from the least of all things, a hole, a mere point, a ‘base anything’; and Shem, now usurper triumphant, berates his brother for ‘gaping up the wrong place’ while guiding him towards the point. And upon Shaun realising that he has been outwitted and that his brother has performed a hoax and thus prompting him to strike back, the Cartesian Shem in return declares ‘cog it out, here goes a sum’, and takes encouragement from the bamboozling and imposture of art.
René Descartes, (1596–1650), in the ‘Second Meditation’ of his ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’, endeavours to discover, or indeed to discover the very possibility of, some foundation of certainty against which doubt would have no power of attack. Descartes has doubted the reality of the world presented to him through his senses, the question now arises as to whether or not he shall affirm that some God, or perhaps some demon, must exist to put these ideas into his mind; but this really seems unnecessary, for perhaps he has produced such ideas himself. And yet there is now one thing that does appear to loom up in Descartes’ mind: ‘I myself, am I not something?’ Suppose that all of his ideas are hallucinations, whether self-induced or planted in him by some God or demon; there remains, at least, one thing about which he cannot be deceived: ‘I am. I exist, is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it’.
And so it is, perhaps, and for the first time in the history of philosophy, a philosopher encounters a self-validating judgment; a unique instance in which a philosopher immediately encounters the existence which is represented to him by an idea; I am, I exist, thereby I have an idea of myself. The judgement appears as ‘je pense, donc je suis’ in Descartes’ ‘Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences’. The cogito, as it has come to be known by, only appears in its Latin version in his ‘Principles of Philosophy’: ‘Ac proinde haec cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum, est omnium prima & certissima, quae cuilibet ordine philosophanti occurrat’:
‘Because we thus reject or declare to be false everything regarding which we can have any doubt at all, it is easy for us to suppose that there is no God, no heaven, no body — but we cannot therefore say that we do not exist, who think this. For it is contradictory to say that what thinks does not exist. Hence the knowledge that ‘I think, therefore I am’, is what we arrive at first of all, and it is the most certain fact that offers itself to everyone who follows after philosophy in an orderly fashion. This is the best way of becoming acquainted with the nature of spirit and its diversity from body. For if we inquire who we are who can set forth as untrue everything which is different from ourselves, we clearly see that no extension, figure, change of position, nor any such thing which can be ascribed to body, constitutes our nature, but only thought alone; which is thus known earlier and more certainly than any corporeal thing’.
Just like other ideas, this one claims to have objective reality; but unlike other ideas, this one’s claim is open to inspection, indeed, by introspection, by the meditating philosopher him or herself. Both the idea and the existence which it represents are present each time a subject thinks upon them; in a simple act of ‘mental vision’, to employ Descartes’ own expression, we can know that we exist. As John Locke, (1632–1704), will later express it, I can know my own existence intuitively.
With such certitude serving as the foundation, Descartes can now proceed to construct his edifice of Truth; we only have to explore the structure of our own inner consciousness, and we will discover the clue to universal Being. For instance, I can ask the question, ‘What am I?’ And the answer is ready to hand: ‘I am a thing that thinks’; for was it not in the act of thinking, taken most generally to incorporate all conscious activities, that I found the reality of the idea of myself? Contrast with this the traditional view that a human being is a body within which there dwells a subtle essence, a very fine grade of matter, known as spirit; such a confused conception that is. In no way is there anything certain, or even intelligible, about it; indeed, we have merely to press ahead with our methodical doubt to discover that most of the ideas which we habitually associate with matter are illusory. Consider a piece of wax; we may think of it in terms of colour, taste, odour, texture; and yet none of these properties is essential to the wax. Were it placed close to a fire, then all the qualities which preoccupy the imagination are changed; all that remains unchanged, so that we may call it essential to the wax, is ‘something extended, flexible, movable’, qualities that are knowable to the intellect and not to the senses. For in any case, whether I have a body, it is not as body that I know myself when I behold myself as existing; the domain of Being which I discover there has nothing about it of extension, plasticity, mobility; I am a thinking being, Descartes concludes, a mind, a soul, an understanding, a reason: and if the meaning of these terms was formerly unknown to him that is no longer the case.
These are such significant results of the second day’s meditation, especially when we remember that the forward progress was all made along the path of doubt, for it was the very act of doubting that gave Descartes both the certainty that he existed and that his nature was mind. But we have not yet exhausted the implications of his consciousness of doubt; for does not doubt carry with it, and actually presuppose, the idea of certainty, just as error carries with it the idea of truth? Descartes finds in his mind the idea of a perfect being by comparison with which he is aware of his imperfections, a self-sufficient being by which he knows that he is dependent; and pursuing this lead, he will proceed in his ‘Third Meditation’ to demonstrate the existence of God.
…….
As Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831), explains, in his ‘Lectures on the History of Philosophy’, Descartes in effect sought for something that is in itself certain and true, and that should neither be only true like an object of faith that is without knowledge, nor should it be the sensuous and also sceptical certainty that is without truth. Prior to this moment the whole of philosophy as it had been undertaken was impaired by a constant presupposition of something as true though not delivering the form of scientific knowledge as to its matter, but for Descartes nothing is true that does not possess an inward evidence in consciousness, or which reason does not recognize so clearly and conclusively that any doubt regarding it is absolutely impossible. The I therefore has a significance here as thought, and not as individuality of self-consciousness.
The immediate certainty of thought; well, in the Cartesian philosophy certainty is only knowledge as such in its pure form as self-relating, and this is thought; and subsequently the understanding demonstrating a certain awkwardness of management proceeds forward to the necessity of thought. Just like Jacob Gottlieb Fichte, (1762–1814), was to do later on, Descartes begins with the I as indubitably certain; I know that something is being presented in me; and by this philosophy on the instant is transplanted to quite another field and to quite another standpoint, namely to the sphere of subjectivity. Presuppositions in religion are discarded; proof alone is what is sought for, and in the process absolute content vanishes before an abstract infinite subjectivity. We can discern in Descartes a fermenting aspiration to conduct his discourse from the point of few of strong feeling, and of sensation, just as Giordano Bruno, (1548–1600), and so many others, each after their own fashion, express as individualities their particular conceptions of the world.
No wonder it is then that Bruno is one of the primary philosophers exerting his influence upon the dream narrative of ‘Finnegans Wake’:
‘From quiqui quinet to michemiche chalet and jambebatiste to a brulobrulo!’
[Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake. Brûler, (French): to burn].
‘… last public misappearance, circling the square, for the deathfête …’
[Along with many others, Bruno attempted a squaring of the circle].
‘When a part so ptee does duty for the holos we soo grow to use of an allforabit’
[Bruno held that every tiny particle embodies the entire universe within itself. Ptee, (French), petite. Holos, (Greek), whole. All for a bit, as well as suggesting alphabet it also suggests synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part].
‘… three monads in his watery grave (what vigilantes and risings then and spuitwyne pledges with aardappel frittling!)’
[Monad, the ultimately basic unit of being, a philosophical term studied by Bruno].
‘And his two little jiminies, cousins of ourn, Tristopher and Hilary, were kickaheeling their dummy on the oil cloth flure of his homerigh, castle and earthenhouse’.
[Tristopher and Hillary and their mingling exemplify Bruno’s motto: ‘In tristia hilaris hilaritate tristis’, (Latin), ‘In Sadness Cheerful, in Gaiety Sad’; appears on the title page of his play ‘Il Candelajo’].
‘Time is the father of truth’, said Bruno, ‘its mother is our mind’.
There does seem to me something not quite right behind the endeavour at grounding objective knowledge upon subjective certainty. This needs looking at more closely.
As Hegel points out, here consideration of the content in itself is not the first issue; for I can abstract from all my conceptions, but not from the I; I think this and I think that, and hence this would be to give the all too common aspiration to be wise kind of argument of those that are incapable of grasping the issue in point; rather, it is precisely that a determinate content exists that we are compelled to doubt; that is to say, there is nothing absolutely fixed. Thought is the entirely universal, but not merely because I can abstract, but because I is thereby simple self-identity. Thought in consequence comes first; and the next determination arrived at, in direct connection with thought, is the determination of Being. The I think directly involves my Being; and this, according to Descartes, is the absolute basis of all philosophy. The determination of Being is in my I; this connection is itself the primary issue. Thought as Being and Being as thought, that is my certainty, I; in the cogito, ergo sum we thereby have thought and Being inseparably bound together.
But what if we were to regard the cogito as a syllogism? Being is thereby deduced from thought. Immanuel Kant, (1724–1804), objects that Being is not contained in thinking, that it is different from thinking; and this is so, and yet they are still inseparable, or constitute an identity; their difference is by no means prejudicial to their unity. However, the maxim of pure abstract certainty, the universal totality in which everything implicitly exists, is not proven; and so to try to convert this proposition into a syllogism, it is argued, would be fallacious. Descartes himself declared as much: ‘There is no syllogism present at all. For in order that there should be such, the major premise must have been ‘all that thinks exists’, which would thus be subsumed in the minor premise that follows, ‘now I am.’ And then we would no longer have the immediacy that rests in the proposition. But that major premise is not being adduced, it is rather in the first instance derived from the original I think, therefore, I am. To arrive at a conclusion a triad of connections are required, and in this instance what we need is a third link in the chain of reasoning through which thought and Being can be mediated; but here it is not to be found.
It would appear then that the ergo that adheres the two sides together is not the ergo of a syllogism; the connection between Being and thought is simply immediately posited; and this certainty is that which is prior to all else; the other propositions come later. Myself as a thinking subject as the simple immediacy of being at home with myself is the very same thing as that which is called Being; and it is a straightforward matter to perceive this identity. Thought as universal is contained within all that is particular, and is thereby pure relation to itself, pure oneness with itself; it would be a mistake to represent Being to ourselves as a concrete content, and therefore it is the same immediate identity which thought likewise is; but immediacy is only a one-sided determination; thought does not contain it alone, but also the determination to mediate itself with itself, and thereby, the mediation being at the same time a putting aside of the mediation, it is immediacy.
In thought there is Being; but Being is an impoverished determination, being the abstraction from the concrete of thought; and further, this identity of Being and thought, which for Hegel constitutes the most interesting idea of modern times, and I tend to agree it is a most fascinating conception, was not properly worked out by Descartes; for it relied upon consciousness alone, and merely for the time being Descartes situated it in the foreground, but the necessity to develop the differences from the I think is absent; it was Fichte who first applied himself to the deduction of all determinations from this culminating point of absolute certainty.
There have been other propositions set against that of Descartes, with the intention of exposing its pretensions as a first principle. Pierre Gassendi, (1592–1655), asked if we might not just as well say Ludificor, ergo sum: I am made a fool of by my consciousness, therefore I exist, or properly speaking, therefore I am made a fool of. Descartes dismissed such an objection, given that it is the I alone and not the other content that has to be maintained; Being alone is identical with pure thought, and not with its content, be that what it may. According to Descartes:
‘By thought I, however, understand all that takes place in us within our consciousness, in as far as we are conscious of it; thus will, conception, and even feeling are identical with thought. For if I say ‘I see’, or ‘I walk out’, and ‘therefore I am,’ and understand by this the seeing and walking which is accomplished by the body, the conclusion is not absolutely certain, because, as often happens in a dream, I may imagine that I can see or walk even if I do not open my eyes nor move from my place, and I might also possibly do so supposing I had no body. But if I understand it of the subjective feeling or the consciousness of seeing or walking itself, because it is then related to the mind that alone feels or thinks that it sees or walks, this conclusion is perfectly certain’.
One may reason in an empirical manner in a dream and no other objection is forthcoming with regard to such a way of reasoning; and in willing, seeing, hearing, and so on, thought is similarly contained; for it is absurd to suppose that the mind or soul keeps its thinking in one special compartment, and its seeing, its willing, and so on, in other compartments. But if I say ‘I see’, or ‘I walk out’, there is present on the one hand my consciousness I, and consequently thought; but on the other hand there is present willing, seeing, hearing, walking, and thus a still further modification of the content; and because of this modification I cannot say ‘I walk, and therefore I am’, for I can undoubtedly abstract from the modification, since it is no longer universal Thought; and therefore it is necessary simply to look at the pure consciousness contained in the concrete I. It is only when I grant prominence to the fact that I am present there as thinking, that pure Being is implied; for only with the universal is Being united. As Descartes said:
‘In this it is implied that thought is more certain to me than body. If from the fact that I touch or see the earth I judge that it exists, I must more certainly judge from this that my thought exists. For it may very well happen that I judge the earth to exist, even if it does not exist, but it cannot be that I judge this, and that my mind which judges this does not exist’.
That is to say, everything which is for me I may assert to be non-existent; but when I assert myself to be non-existent, I myself assert, or it is my judgment; for I cannot set aside the fact that I judge, even if I can abstract from that respecting which I judge. And in this philosophy has regained its own ground that thought starts from thought as what is certain in itself, and not from something external, not from something given, not from an authority, but directly from the freedom that is contained in the I think. I may doubt everything else, of the existence of bodily things, of the existence of my body itself; or this certainty does not possess immediacy in itself. For I is just certainty itself, but in all else this certainty is only predicated; for my body is certain to me, it is not this certainty itself; and as against the certainty we feel of having a body, Descartes adduces the empirical phenomenon that we often hear of persons imagining they feel pain in a limb which they have lost some time ago. What is actual, he says is a substance, the soul is a thinking substance; it is thus for itself, separate from all external material things and independent; that it is thinking is evident from its nature; it would think and exist even if no material things were present; hence the mind or soul can know itself more easily than its body.
All else that we can hold as true rests on this certainty; for in order that anything should be held as true, evidence is needed, but nothing is true which has not this inward evidence in consciousness. ‘Now the evidence of everything rests upon our perceiving it as clearly and vividly as that certainty itself, and on its so entirely depending from, and harmonizing with this principle, that if we wished to doubt it we should also have to doubt this principle likewise’. This knowledge is indeed on its own account perfect evidence, but it is not yet the truth; or if we take that Being as truth, it is an empty content, and it is with the content that we are concerned. And further, as Hegel points out, what follows is a transition of this certainty into truth, into the determinate, a transition that once again Descartes makes in a naïve manner, but now we also have to take into consideration his metaphysics, for there arises an interest in further representations and conceptions of the abstract unity of Being and thought; and here Descartes goes about it in an externally reflective manner: ‘The consciousness which merely knows itself to be certain now however seeks to extend its knowledge, and finds that it has conceptions of many things — in which conceptions it does not deceive itself, so long as it does not assert or deny that something similar outside corresponds to them’. Deception in the conceptions has meaning only in relation to external existence: ‘Consciousness also discovers universal conceptions, and obtains from them proofs which are evident, e.g. the geometric proposition that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles is a conception which follows incontrovertibly from others. But in reflecting whether such things really exist doubts arise’. That there is such a thing as a triangle is indeed in this case by no means certain, since extension is not contained in the immediate certainty of myself; and the mind or soul may exist without the bodily element, and the bodily element without the mind or soul; they are in reality different; one is conceivable without the other; the soul thereby does not think and know the other as clearly as the certainty of itself.
This is a hugely questionable (I eschew using the word problematic, something of a trigger word for me given its contemporary usage or should I say over-usage to a vomit inducing degree and in which an assertion is made that something constitutes a problem without having to articulate what the problem is) claim at the heart of Cartesian metaphysics; I will postpone discussion of it until later in this series
………
In the meantime, concerning the cogito as an intuition, have we not learnt from Hegel that ‘everything rational is a syllogism’? Which is to say, everything intelligible, in so far as it is intelligible, is ‘a universal that through particularity is united with individuality’. And if the cogito is intelligible then it is a syllogism. The expression cogito ergo sum appears to be an inference because ergo is the mark of an argument, where sum (I am) follows from cogito (I think); but Descartes denied that it is to be interpreted as an inference but he argues that the sum follows as a direct intuition from cogito. If this was so then there is no movement from the premise to the conclusion, rather cogito and sum are immediate to each other without any movement of thought.
But to structure the cogito as a syllogism, another premise needs to be introduced:
Premise 1: I think
Premise 2: Everything that thinks exists
Conclusion: I exist
Aristotle, (384–322 BCE), held that any logical argument could be reduced to two premises and a conclusion, for premises are sometimes left unstated in which case they are called missing premises; and for the cogito to be a syllogism ‘everything that thinks exists’ is a claim that is tacitly understood. And hence Descartes denies that the cogito is a syllogism because this second premise is not beyond doubt; it can only follow from the intuition about his existence. The cogito can also not be an inference because as long as Descartes has not refuted the possibility of a deceiving demon controlling our minds, all conclusions from reason are doubtful; what the demon hypothesis, however, cannot bring into doubt is that it is me that is being deceived.
Hegel stresses the need to distinguish the level of philosophical thinking from what he terms picture-thinking; we should thereby follow his logic as a theory of principles and of what is principled. There are three general features of this theory. First, the structure of a principle and the structure of what is principled are isomorphic; the structure of an explanation and the structure of what is to be explained have to map onto each other; for once one has been specified the other is specified as well. Principle is to be taken in an ontological sense and not an epistemological one; a principle is not simply a category we employ to make what is principled intelligible to us, it also captures the intelligibility of what is principled in itself.
Second, not all principles, and not all ways of categorising what is to be principled, are on the same level; some principles are simpler than others, are capable of grasping only abstract structures; others are more complex, capable of grasping more concrete structures. Hegel’s logic captures this difference in levels through its systematic ordering of categories, proceeding from the most abstract and simple levels and moving step by step to progressively more concrete and complex stages.
Third, what is principled is always a manifold, a set of differences. A principle that grasps its intelligibility unifies that manifold in thought. The complete dialectic of principle/principled thus can be described in terms of a unity of unity in difference. To say that the dialectic is played out on different levels is to say that there are different ways the unity of unity and difference can be categorised, some more concrete and complex than others.
And where does this get us, so far as the cogito as syllogism is concerned? Well, it does concern itself with being and existence; and the category of being with which Hegel’s logic begins is the most simple and abstract of all categories; being qua what is to be principled and what simply and immediately is, while qua principle it is the simple assertion that it is; there is unity without any difference. But with the category of existence this is a way of categorising what is to be principled, and the isomorphic structure characteristic to both can be represented diagrammatically; every individual item in existence is grounded in something, which can be specified; which is to say, every individual item in existence has its own unique intelligibility; and existence thereby has a higher level more complex, ontological structure than that in which each item is seen as having being, as groundless or simply given immediacy; existence is mediated through its grounds on a higher level than mere being precisely because the former is mediated through its grounds, united with what grounds it while remaining distinct from its grounds; but on the other hand, the differences between the existences are categorised as immediate within this structure; they are simply given, that is to say, the existences are mediated with their respective grounds, but not with each other.
For existence to be mediated with each other a principle of correlation is required, a principle that mediates a number of different actualities, for instance, a causal law; the ontological structure of the principled is one in which the different actualities are not taken in their immediacy apart from each other; rather, each actuality, in this instance that which is a cause and that which is an effect, is what is precisely through its mediation with other actualities; here there is no mere unity or mere difference, rather, a unity of unity and difference. This principle of correlation is thus more complex, and more capable of capturing the intelligibility of that which is concrete, than the principle of grounding, and if we define what is to be principled as actuality rather than existence we then have a more complex way of categorising it, allowing a fuller ontological description of what the concrete is, than we get with the category of existence. Every actuality has its own set of grounds; besides that it also is correlated with other actualities; and is a more complex and concrete way of categorising that which is to be principled.
As for the principle of the syllogism, this is a principle/principled dialectic, a type of principle even more concrete and complex than the principle of correlation; and the category of object is a way of categorising what is to be principled of more complexity and concreteness than actuality. As a principle the syllogism connects three moments, universality, particularity, and individuality; and, as principled, objects are individuals mediated by particularities that are essential to them qua individuals, and these particularities are in turn mediated through a universal that is essential to the particularities; so as a principle no single syllogism is sufficient to capture the intelligibility of its object
So, to return to our syllogism:
Premise 1: I (Individual) think
Premise 2: Everything that thinks (Particular) exists
Conclusion: I exist (Universal)
A syllogism of existence thus has the structure I-P-U; and yet any endeavour to draw the conclusion that there is a connection between I and U through premisses asserting a connection between I-P and P-U will leave these latter two assertions unjustified; and likewise any attempt to connect P-U through P-I and I-U leaves the latter two premisses unmediated, and any attempt to connect I-P through I-U and U-P treats those premisses as simply given immediately; for syllogisms to operate as principles a system of all three sorts of syllogism is required: I-P-U, P-I-U, and I-U-P; it is only the system of syllogisms as a whole that serves as the principle. And further each term, I, P, and U, must in turn take the position of the middle term constituting the totality that makes the object what it is. Thinking is the middle term of this syllogism; each determination is thoroughly mediated with the other two; and each determination takes in turn the role of the middle term, whose function it is to mediate the extremes into a single totality.
However, because of the isomorphism of principle and principled, on the side of what is to be principled are the identical two features that characterise the principle; each determination of the object is thoroughly mediated with the other two; and one cannot claim any ultimate ontological priority for the individual object, (the I that thinks), or for the particularities essential to it, (the kind of thing that thinks), or for the universal essential to those particularities (existence, except that the syllogism is concerned with Being, I have just identified the difference between the two); so ontologically each is itself the totality; correlations capture a mediation that unites different actualities, but some correlations are external to the actualities correlated, whereas in this case, being = thought, or thought = being, the correlations are not external, which makes movement of thought from the cogito impossible, for the correlations go back to the essential nature of that which is correlated, being, just being, empty of content; the relation is not a mere correlation but is categorised as a particular expression of the shared and universal essential nature. The ontological structure in which individual objects (in this case me as a thinking thing) are mediated through particularity and universality is supposedly a more concrete way of categorising what is principled, but in the case of the cogito the medium remains one of abstract universality.
Or to put it another way, from a logical point of view the cogito gets us nowhere, we can do nothing with it, though Descartes, as we all know, very much thought otherwise.
To be continued …..
Notes to ‘Finnegans Wake’ Quotation:
1. retort = to reply in kind to (a jest, sarcasm, etc.); to answer with the like; and return thanks, to render thanks in return for a benefit or favour. Now chiefly used of the formal or public expression of thanks, or of grace at a meal.
2. reborn = born again (physically or spiritually).
3. of the cards = on the cards, out of the cards, within (or outside) the range of probability; and René Descartes (believed that interaction of mind and body occurred in pineal body, from which in various reptiles (e.g. lampreys) a third eye develops).
4. offal = outcast, worthless, vile; and office; and awful.
5. ambows = ambos (Latin), with; and ambo (Latin), both; and Amboss (German), anvil.
6. All Sings and Alls Howls = All Saints, the saints in heaven collectively = All-Hallows.
7. rotart = rotary, of motion: circular; and Rotary International.
8. processus = something that goes on or is carried on; a continuous action, or series of actions or events; a continuous and regular action or succession of actions, taking place or carried on in a definite manner, and leading to the accomplishment of some result.
9. reestablishment = restoration to a previous position or state.
10. reciprocity = a state or relationship in which there is mutual action, influence, giving and taking, correspondence, etc., between two parties or things.
11. flick = to strike lightly with something flexible, as a whip; and picked.
12. cramb = cram, a mass of dough or paste used for cramming fowls, etc.; any food used to fatten; and ‘Matthew’ 15:27: ‘The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table’.
13. crumb = to break down into crumbs or small fragments.
14. um = used to indicate hesitating or inarticulate utterance on the part of a speaker.
15. allaloserem = Jerusalem, the city in Palestine (Israel) so called, the Holy City; figuratively, an ideal or heavenly city; and alalos (Greek), speechless, dumb.
16. cog = to practise certain tricks in throwing dice; to wheedle (a person) out of or into a thing; to put out or utter falsely; and P.W. Joyce: ‘English as We Speak It in Ireland’: ‘Cog: to copy surreptitiously; to crib… ‘You cogged that sum’’; and cogito, ergo sum (Latin), I think, therefore I am (Descartes’ famous axiom).
17. sum = a number, company, or body (of people).
18. a must book. He tells (Joyce’s note).
19. prophet = to prophesy; and Second motto of Rotary International: ‘He Profits Most Who Serves Best’.
20. bilk = to cheat, defraud; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge: ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’: ‘He prayeth best, who loveth best’.
21. katastrophê = (Greek), down-turning.
22. anabasis = a going up, a march up, a military advance; the special title of the advance of Cyrus the Younger into Asia, as narrated by Xenophon; also transferred to other expeditions; anabasis (Greek), ascent.
