"At a time when people were generally decrying the Japanese bombardment of Shanghai, I met Karl Kraus struggling over one of his famous comma problems. He said something like: 'I know that everything is futile when the house is burning. But I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for… Continue reading Geo-politics & the placement of commas: Karl Kraus
“Fashions in philosophy and in consumer goods”
"By the time we are old we have undergone a great many murderous fashions, all those murderous fashions in art and in philosophy and in consumer goods." In a passage on Martin Heidegger - Thomas Bernhard, Old Masters: A Comedy, 1985
The Buddha appears
"Clement of Alexandria was but one major Christian author who showed a strong interest in Indian and Egyptian wisdom traditions. Clement is the first Greek author to mention the Buddha and Buddhism." - G. G. Stroumsa, The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, Mass., 2016), 104 Reijer Stolk, 1943 (Courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Descartes may have been human, after all
He may have been human, after all: "We are reliably informed ... that Descartes owned a little dog - Monsieur Grat - upon whom he lavished much affection, and who used to accompany him on his walks." - P. Harrison, "Descartes on Animals", The Philosophical Quarterly 42 (1992), 219-27, here 220
A title I envy
Petrarch has a title I envy: "On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others" (De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia).
Premodern postmodern
The first known occurrence of the lexeme "postmodern" is in a fifth-century letter by an African pope, Gelasius I: "... post modernum, quod tantorum pontificum collectione ..." - J. Moorhead, “The Word modernus”, Latomus 65, 2 (2006), 425–33, here 426
“A commerce of light”
A book I wish I had on hand during lock-down is Leibniz and China, A Commerce of Light (Cambridge, 2004).
Three indescribable things
Three indescribable things - black-green pine, foam-white cloud, cobalt sky - have never been more beautiful..... The sky over French Hill, Jerusalem, 19 April 2020
“I am changed by philosophers into all the beasts …”
"The philosophers differ about the soul ... At one time I am immortal and rejoice; at another time again I become mortal and weep. Now I am dissolved into atoms: I become water, and I become air: I become fire, and then after a little, neither air, nor fire: the philosopher makes me a beast,… Continue reading “I am changed by philosophers into all the beasts …”
New TLS essay, “A world like a Russian novel”
My new essay on Nietzsche, Socrates and Jesus - with a glance at Dostoevsky - is up at the TLS.
