Conclusion

The Authentic Philosopher’s Voice

This volume on note-taking in education serves as an important “window” into the scholarly life taking place in ancient philosophical classrooms, examining the connections between note-taking, recording, and listening during philosophical lectures that have shaped and molded our perspectives of education in antiquity. Class annotations have provided us with a unique opportunity to examine pedagogic themes and the issues they raised. In the preceding chapters, I described significant discoveries and revelations on ancient note-taking and pedagogy that make it possible to recognize the central traits of an education in philosophy. Some questions still remain: Were these notetakers forming a cache of discourses for a personal library? Did they intend to use their notes to write commentaries? Or instead, did they discard their notes after a certain period of time? While we do not have access to extant, complete books that were compiled using notes, we do have the fabric of these texts. We also have initial evidence that students compiled notes to be used later when composing their own books and lectures, as they, in some cases became philosophers, as is the case of a student of Epictetus who left that school to start one of his own.

In the previous chapters, I have also illustrated how ancient classes were conducted, examining not only how teachers of philosophy communicated and shaped their educational messages but also how students received and reacted to them. Of great value are the words of ancient authors, such as Porphyry or Iamblichus, regarding pedagogical concerns, the makeup of classes, the curricula followed, and students’ and educators’ reactions. Their personal experiences concerning schooling complement our existing scholarly discourse. However, the notes taken down during classes of philosophy that we have studied provide direct testimonies of pedagogical aspects that were mostly unexplored before. The resulting picture is vivid, providing pivotal access to the ancient philosophy classroom and revealing the choices students made when they took notes, their conflicts with teachers, the occasional dialogues they reported, and the writing mistakes they committed.

At the beginning of this note-taking journey, we encountered the lectures Theodor Mommsen gave in Berlin at the end of the nineteenth century, which two of his students recorded with great enthusiasm. Though Mommsen never published a history of the imperial period, for which scholars had waited impatiently, historian Alexander Demandt published an account of the age of the emperors by using the two students’ notes, found serendipitously in 1980. No doubt this event and its consequences are exceptional, but can we compare in some respects those nineteenth-century notes to those that students jotted down so many centuries before? Can we interpret the past in presentist terms?¹ Although the issue of presentism has never been solved satisfactorily with common agreement of all commentators, it is clear that antiquity cannot be used as a straightforward stepping stone to the modern world. Yet past events can reveal meaningful connections to modern events, and in turn the modern world can illuminate the past, providing a more detailed picture. Using the examples throughout this volume, we have confirmed this connection through the phenomenon of students taking notes in both ancient and modern settings.

Mommsen certainly knew that his two students were taking down notes during his lectures, especially because they apparently were sitting in the front rows of the classroom. But did he find this gratifying? Teachers at every level of education were surely aware that often their words were preserved because their students recorded them faithfully. While many reasons prevented Mommsen from writing and publishing his book about the imperial age, would he have been pleased that his views about this history did not remain completely and entirely with him? Furthermore, was he inspired and encouraged that his students jotted down notes as a memory aid? Finally, how similar was note-taking in his lectures to that in the classes of Philodemus, Arrian, and the students of Didymus the Blind and Olympiodorus? The investigations in the various chapters provide a necessary first step to understanding these connections, but more could and should be done in future pedagogical research.

In antiquity, people generally employed notes in their writing endeavors in attempts to structure their work, assist their memories, and organize their lives, such as when traveling or teaching. In higher education, annotations might be copious and lengthy, but generally such notes exhibited limited length as a common characteristic. The notetaker would produce a text consisting of points to remember and his observations, with a view toward using it in a different, personal creation. The preceding material shows that notes were not limited to scholars and scholarly practice but instead had a richer function and may comprise a genre of their own.²

The longest text we have examined in this research is the Discourses of Epictetus, as taken down by his disciple Arrian, who declared that on his own initiative he had preserved the philosopher’s free voice (parrhesia). The question of whether Arrian himself had jotted down the notes can be resolved by considering factors that previous scholars overlooked. Arrian was an enthusiastic disciple who aimed to communicate the significance of Epictetus’s ideas while also rendering the atmosphere in his classes. In doing so, he also reported some traits of the philosopher’s teaching style that did not show Epictetus in the best light. A compiler of a finished account not relying on notes would have probably toned down his rendition of Epictetus’s “therapy.” Though Arrian may have made revisions or shortened accounts while taking down the philosopher’s words, he certainly did not compose the text entirely, as some have claimed. Questions by students that occur naturally during teaching are rarely represented, though we have Epictetus’s responses. Perhaps Arrian did not consider them essential, had some difficulties in keeping up with the philosopher’s pace, or omitted some details and repetitions. Regardless, the text as we have it transmits Epictetus’s authentic voice to us. We are exposed to Epictetus’s oral style, his use of unusual expressions and contemporary language, and the vocabulary of philosophical teaching. The Discourses show that Arrian’s notes transmit not only the content and the ethical message of the lectures but also the essence of Epictetus’s class, the behaviors of students, their resistance and arrogance, and the philosopher’s disappointment at his pupils’ indifference. Students’ emotions, such as envy, regret, and feelings of loneliness, are revealed too.

Notes from other texts, taken in the classes of Philodemus, Didymus the Blind, and Olympiodorus, have helped us fill in details regarding not only the mechanics of note-taking but also teaching methods, student engagement and level of ability, and school attendance in different periods. School texts written on papyrus are rather static objects, and their messages and lessons can become muffled. With some exceptions, these texts do not provide the insight desired beyond their materiality. Educational texts by authors such as Quintilian are prescriptive and descriptive—the orator himself was engaged with them, writing, and sometimes dictating in his old age in the privacy of his room, and his students emerged from his memory. Furthermore, the letters of Libanius offer more concrete information on educational environments, but everything is filtered through the rhetor’s voice, so his students recede into the background.

The texts we have looked at, however, allow us a glimpse of teaching methods in classes and illuminate the background. The notes of Olympiodorus, and to a lesser extent those of Didymus, permit us to appreciate the passage of time in a learning environment, with the teacher moving back and forth, looking back at the past and forward to the future. With Olympiodorus, the scene becomes even brighter, with students taking down notes from the philosopher, completing them, and transcribing different versions. I have shown that in the past scholars have surmised that apo phones texts were jotted down by a single notetaker who was guilty of all imperfections. These assumptions have been proven wrong. The marginal notes that emerged from Olympiodorus’s explanations allow us to understand how classes were conducted and how young men simultaneously sought accuracy in their notes while also wanting to distract themselves.

In examining these notes, we have focused on their content and powerful immediacy. Philodemus’s annotations display some striking aspects of Epicurean paideia and show the reactions of those who were immediately involved. The voice of Didymus the Blind has come alive to us through the annotations of students, allowing us a glimpse at a Christian group in Alexandria. They illuminate a religious background of the texts in which Christian teachers functioned alongside pagans. We have focused on Epictetus’s Discourses, concentrating on his teaching strategies and his ambiguous opposition to rhetoric and literature. In all these texts, we have tried to determine who spoke and who was receiving the message.

In general, ancient texts are the products of long elaboration and resist being restored to their original condition. Any attempt to return to the past and reconstitute the original, foundational version of a text ultimately makes us aware of the necessity of recognizing a multiplicity of versions, each consisting of many layers that are often unreachable. Even with the evidence of manuscripts at hand, readers have trouble reconstructing changes and alterations.

Notes, though, lie at the crossroads of the history of the book and the reception of works. Our endeavor has focused on notebooks that originated from singular sources, texts, events worthy to be recorded, and lectures delivered in class or to the public—a rich source base in which communication is central. A fundamental characteristic of these texts that are grounded in notes is the direct connection between the message source and its receiver. In our case, meaning is also created through the reactions of those who took notes; these individuals filtered through their own minds the words they received apo phones.

As we discern and examine the inner workings of how these texts were created, we become aware of the great value of annotations. Readers usually gravitate toward so-called definitive texts that offer more or less fixed written contents and pose fewer challenges of interpretation. The classical tradition chooses what is canonical, and those texts immediately become privileged, with annotations remaining in the periphery. And yet, texts consisting of notes allow us to sometimes focus on the writer’s intentionality, the teacher lecturing, and the students receiving their message, and as a result notes permit us to venture somewhat beyond speculation.

1. See what the New York Times of September 21, 2022, says about the math prodigy and logician Saul Kripke. Most of his research is unpublished and survives only in notes and private transcriptions.

2. Arnould and Poulouin 2008.