[lit-ideas] Doing the Rounds

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:13:18 EDT
D. Ritchie:
 
"Of Loeb, I am entirely innocent; I know  nothing about the subject. I am a 
modern historian, straying sometimes  towards the early modern period, but not 
tempted further  back."
 
C'mon. You should allow someone to _tempt_ you  further back. Remember what 
Grice (yes, the Scots-surnamed Oxford philosopher)  said about the implicature 
of things like
 
   "I am a Modern Historian,  straying
    sometimes towards the Early Modern  Period".
 
-- Actually at Yale there are THREE research groups (in  philosophy):
 
      ANCIENT philosophy  workshop
      MODERN  philosophy workshop
      EARLY MODERN  philosophy workshop.
 
---!!
 
So, I'm going to rewrite what Grice  says:
 
"By this I do not merely mean that between different areas  of [history] 
there are cross-references, as when, for example one encounters in  [American 
history] the [issue of slavery in Ancient Greece]. I mean (or hope to  mean) 
something a good deal stronger than this, something more like the  thesis that 
it 
is not possible to reach FULL UNDERSTANDING of, or high-level  proficiency in 
any one department [of the arts and sciences] without a  corresponding 
understanding and proficiency in the others; to the extent that  when I visit 
an 
unfamiliar university [he visited Seattle a lot, and was  indeed visiting 
professor 
there, but stopping at Reed on the way] and [as  it] occasionally happens) I 
am introduced to, "Mr. Puddle, our man in [Early  Modern] Philosophy, ... I am 
immediately confident that either Mr. Puddle is  being under-described and in 
consequence maligned, or else Mr. Puddle is _not_  really good at his stuff. 
[the Study of Humanities], like virtue, is entire".  ("Reply to Richards").
 
I know he was very Oxonian and against the 'careerism' he  experienced in the 
USA, but I think he raises a good point.
 
In any case, I think tempting people is boring, so I  won't. I'll just say 
that you possibly _should_ be tempted (as "I" should be  tempted into the study 
of Jamaican pattern-designs of church  furniture).
 
_http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/Euth/Euth05-04.htm_ 
(http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/Euth/Euth05-04.htm) 
The image of the ideal person in the Renaissance Age was  an "all-round man 
of culture," whose mind and body are harmoniously developed.  Erasmus' idea of 
the return to the original human nature was inherited by Joharm  A. Comenius 
and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
 
Perhaps the idea of being 'round-up' is perhaps related to  the kyklos of the 
encyclopaedia (Note that Anglo-Saxon for kyklos and sphairos  is 'the 
round'). 
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 



************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
[lit-ideas] Doing the Rounds

Other related posts:
