342
PARTISAN REVIEW
new century.
It
would appear that the model of Hook's life, as a philoso–
pher and public intellectual, does provide a guide for making the right
choices about greatly contested issues, so that in the final words of the
Republic,
"Both for this life and for the journey of a thousand years that
may follow, we shall fare well."
The last two words of the
Republic,
which are commonly translated
into English as "fare well," contain an ambiguity which combines the
idea of "acting well" with the connotation of an ending. Yet I am
informed (by my colleague Professor Katja Vogt) that the words which
are thus translated do not contain any reference to an ending, even
though they retain an ambiguity. That ambiguity is found in the fact
that the Greek phrase
"eu prattomen,"
that is, literally "acting well,"
combines both the idea of being well or happy and the idea of doing
good. The intellectual career of Sidney Hook represents a life in which
his well-being was related
to
the moral causes and purposes to which
each of the five steps of that career were dedicated .
Editor's Note: This is a shortened version of a lecture delivered at the Sid–
ney Hook Centenary Conference at the City University of New York.
SORROW
by Claribel Alegria
1·880684·63·2 $13.95pa
A
poem from
SORROW/ SAUDADE
h.!f
Claribel Alegria
IT CANNOT
Sadness
cannot cope with me
I lead it toward life
and it evaporates.
Translated
by
Carolyn Forche
ask for this
&
other Curbstone books at your local bookstore
CURBSTONE PRESS
...._________
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