classics digests, reflections and reviews
Bertrand Russell was quoted to have said, “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.” A fitting retort was given by Electra (Sophocles), “I admire you for your prudence. For your cowardice I hate you.” In Canto II of Inferno, there is another brilliant example of a woman putting a man to shame for his cowardice. Our narrator Dante was reluctant to embark on the journey […]
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I’m finally starting to read “The Divine Comedy” (translated by Allen Mandelbaum) with my GR group. Departing from my usual practice of writing one review at the end, I’ll be jotting down my thoughts, findings and impressions as I read along, in a running series of posts, starting with this one. Mandelbaum translated both Aeneid and Divine Comedy, and received awards for both. No other translator of DC has that […]
Read moreI have read the Commedia many times, in all of the editions I could find, and I have been distracted by the different commentaries, the varied interpretations of that multifaceted work. … I have found that in the oldest editions theological commentary predominates; in the nineteenth century, historical; and currently, aesthetic, which directs us toward the accentuation of each line, one of the great virtues of Dante. –Jorge Luis Borges […]
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The subtitle of this post should perhaps be “Kierkegaard’s Conception of Time As I Understand it”, but Kierkegaard scholars might strongly disagree with me. I’ve been meaning to write this ever since I read “Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments”, as part of an overall review of the book, but that review is long overdue. A recent discussion with an atheist friend of mine on religious belief reminded me of […]
Read moreThe Emperor Has No Clothes The overall impression or feeling I had after reading Part I is perhaps the same as that of the little child in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale: bland disappointment after being seduced into high expectations, and a nauseating sense of disgust. Is this the best you could conjure up, Herr Goethe? The “representative man”, one who is supposed to be the equal of the Spirit, […]
Read moreIn this collection of treatises, Aristotle employs the scientific method (namely, observation, inference, hypothesis and empirical proof) to determine the nature and cause of the joint activities of body and soul, namely, sense perception, memory, sleep, dreams, breathing, aging and death.
Read moreOf all the books by Aristotle that I’ve read so far, this is the most fascinating in terms of the depth and scope of the concepts, spanning philosophy, epistemology, physics and neurobiology in their nascent form; “Rhetoric“, OTOH, is the most entertaining, in terms of psychological insight and perspective. Substance and Property It seems not only useful for the discovery of the causes of the derived properties of substances to […]
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