"They were immoral up to a point - & probably up to much more." - C. P. Cavafy Source: L. L. Lawrence, "The Julian Poems of C. P. Cavafy", CLA Journal 10, 3 (1967), 239-51, here 242
Author: David Lloyd Dusenbury
Postdoctoral fellow at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Author of The Space of Time (2014), Platonic Legislations (2017), and The Innocence of Pontius Pilate (2020). Regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, Los Angeles Review of Books, etc.
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.
“In next week’s TLS”
3 April 2020
