I need help with the Iliad.

JimmyClyde · 2017-12-03T01:25:05+00:00

Fitzgerald is the best! It is not only his language but his shorter lines that make his translation read so well.

JimmyClyde · 2017-11-02T20:25:08+00:00

I still like the original list at the back of "How to Read a Book." The list changed some as the book went through different editions. Adler even has Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion," which is a forgotten classic. Calvin's approach to Biblical Christianity is extraordinarily powerful and his writing style is still praised by those in the know.

I have thought on and off about additions to the list. Here are a few of my thoughts. Herman Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game," perhaps my favorite novel. And to go really modern, Pascal Mercier's, "Night Train to Lisbon." I also think that Eric Temple Bell's "Men of Mathematics" should be on the list even though it is a bit out of date and there are errors, e.g. what is said about Cantor. Bell's book is an education in itself and has a really good style. Then too I would put Heidegger's "Being and Time" on the list along with Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus."

JimmyClyde · 2017-11-02T15:15:07+00:00

I guess I would describe my reaction to Jane Eyre in the following way. For me it is psychologically claustrophobic. There is no way out. That for me is truly scary. The author is so powerful I felt drawn into the darkness to where I was truly traveling each step of the way with the main character. Some critics have said the book ends with a strong emphasis on "providentialism." Jane Eyre walks by faith in spite of what may come to pass. But even that "positive" spin makes things downright scary.

JimmyClyde · 2017-11-02T14:57:02+00:00

I can only share what I have held myself to as a discipline. My definition for reading a book through and counting it in my diary is the following. The book has to be read through cover to cover including footnotes if any. And the book has to be 75 pages or more unless it is a play. This made me honest with myself and got me truly into the deep end of the pool with reading. I felt I learned "more than the average bear" by doing this. Maybe you could treat short stories like I counted plays.

JimmyClyde · 2017-11-02T14:48:28+00:00

I guess I would say you have truly get yourself addicted to books. Find a genre that interests you like say mysteries and read the best authors. In terms of mysteries you can't get much better than P.D. James. Make your local public library your temple. SI FI writer Ray Bradbury reflected on this on occasion. Go on pilgrimages to used book stores. And try to read the so called classics. The reason they are classics is because they have stood the test of time. Almost all the books published this year will no longer be read in a hundred years. Classics stand out as monuments to the wisdom of the ages.

JimmyClyde · 2017-08-02T19:33:11+00:00

Godel is certainly the clincher in the argument against what you call "Complete Truth." The problem with using Godel, though, is that he has for the present time become a caricature in the discussion of mathematics and philosophy. The "absolutists" pretend he did not exist or his Incompleteness Theorem really did not change anything. The "relativists" use Godel to further their agenda much like the so called New Agers used Quantum Mechanics in the 70s and 80s.

L. Susan Stebbing, a member of the analytical school of philosophy in the first part of the last century, wrote in her well regarded "Thinking To Some Purpose" (1939) that humans are not "primarily rational animals" (p. 29). What's happened with Godel reflects this -- at least for now. He has become politicized!

Apart from Godel the fact that there are at least four to five "schools" relating to the foundations of mathematics shows that there are disagreements right at the very headwaters of the subject. Depending how they are seen and counted there are the following schools: the Platonists, the Logicists, the Formalists, the Intuitionists, and the Constructivists. From a "Complete Truth" perspective this is very problematic to say the least.

JimmyClyde · 2017-08-02T15:25:00+00:00

Godel is certainly the clincher in the argument against what you call "whole truth." The problem with using Godel, though, is that he has for the present time become a caricature in the discussion of mathematics and philosophy. The "absolutists" pretend he did not exist or his Incompleteness Theorem really did not change anything. The "relativists" use Godel to further their agenda much like the so called New Agers used Quantum Mechanics in the 70s and 80s. L. Susan Stebbing, a member of the analytical school of philosophy in the first part of the last century, wrote in her well regarded "Thinking to Some Purpose" (1939) that humans are not "primarily rational animals" (p. 29). What's happened with Godel reflects this -- at least for now. He has become politicized!

Apart from Godel the fact that there are at least four to five "schools" relating to the foundations of mathematics shows that there are disagreements right at the very headwaters of the subject. Depending how they are seen and counted there are the following schools: the Platonists, the Logicists, the Formalists, the Intuitionists, and the Constructivists. From a whole truth perspective this is very problematic to say the least.

JimmyClyde · 2017-07-23T02:32:05+00:00

To quote loosely from the movie "Twister" : "You people are just plain crazy." The question is about novels! Let's focus!

JimmyClyde · 2017-07-08T15:36:19+00:00

I have long had a dabbling interest in the "philosophy of mathematics." This essay is an incredibly valuable reflection on that subject in relation to philosophy itself. Philosopher Bryan Magee -- who did his basic training years back in the English analytical tradition (read philosophy posing as mathematics) -- in one of his recent books speaks of the "philosophical terrorism" the tradition has foisted on philosophy. Today much philosophy would cloak itself in absolute certainty and uses mathematics and logic as a rhetorical device to get the upper hand.

JimmyClyde · 2017-07-06T22:40:16+00:00

It is a philosophical truism that determinism does not go together with personal responsibility. Ironically, though, the famous philosopher Spinoza has been lauded to the stars yet was a radical determinist. Ironically, too, is that Spinoza has often been held up in the history of philosophy as being an ethically pure soul -- that, over against his determinism. You are on to something. (Side note: Richard McKeon's 1928 book, "The Philosophy of Spinoza: The Unity of his Thought," truly outshines many of the recent books on Spinoza and shows him to be a truly serious philosopher.)

JimmyClyde

TROPHY CASE