Howard Gruber, Practical Idealist

“Of course, Plato was an authoritarian,” Howard Gruber said. As a materialist Marxist, which Gruber was in the softest and most humane form, this is a common interpretation.

I had just read Plato with German philosopher Helmut Peukert, however, reaching for an understanding of Plato as a champion of human freedom. So I respectfully disagreed.

Gruber didn’t let it go. He stopped the class. I thought I was about to be chastised or challenged, but Gruber said, “Mr. Sagarin and I will meet during office hours this week. We’ll compare passages in Plato and report to you all on our findings.”

We did this. I showed him where I though Plato was a champion of freedom, particularly, I believe, in Book VIII, where Socrates discusses democracy and freedom. I don’t remember which passages Gruber highlighted, but I believe the concept of “guardians” left him a bit cold. We saw each other’s point of view, agreed about some points, and agreed to disagree about others. In class, Gruber reported and gave me time to report.

That a professor would take such time and interest in a student’s point of view, unrelated to the topic at hand (the course was in the development of creativity, Gruber’s specialty), was a shock. I learned that his respect for ideas was profound, as was his respect for students, as was his humility. There was no divide in him between lofty ideas in the academic world and practice in the real world; he was, through and through, a practical idealist.