From Bakhtin’s Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics:
“In the compositionally expressed dialogues of Dostoevsky’s characters, there are also no separate thoughts or positions. They never argue over separate points, but always over whole points of view, inserting themselves and their entire idea into even the briefest exchange.”
Something reading Socratic Dialogue teaches, whether Plato’s or Dostoevsky’s, is that [...]
Archive for the ‘anyone’ Category
something else from Dostoevsky
Posted in Dostoevsky, Plato, Socrates, anyone, art, books, dialogue on November 15, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Hard and Heavy Questions from Pseudonoma
Posted in Equality, Socrates, anyone, dialogue on April 25, 2009 | 11 Comments »
I’m still considering these questions that relate to the small constellation of quotations in my post below, but thought they deserved a post of their own meanwhile. I’ve been thinking towards a response along a number of potentially fruitful lines. In the mean time anyone else equal (more or less) to the challenge is welcome [...]
“and we are here because the liberal arts are taught here in a distinctive manner”
Posted in Equality, Geometry, God, Socrates, anyone, cosmos, dialogue, flowers, history, polis, tragedy, wisdom on April 19, 2009 | 11 Comments »
Reading the school’s first newsletter, it was apparent to me in a beautiful way that the TMC enterprise was meant from the beginning as a communal adventure in which teachers, administrators, students (and alumni by extension) are called to be, each in their own way, equal sharers and stewards of a common vision. To deny [...]
Another Reflection on Lucretius
Posted in Lucretius, anyone, beginnings, books, cosmos, dialogue, fate, language, latin, letters, necessity, rain, rule, spring, the grave, the impossible, translation, water on April 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Poetry of Lucretius’ Invitation to Accept “Mater Rebus Certa”
In lines 188-198 of the first book of De Rerum Natura, Lucretius describes the implications of there being a “semine certo”, a definite seed for every kind of thing, that each thing has “sua … materia.” His particular concerns in this passage are: that the developement [...]
approach to meaning restores the experience/ in a different form
Posted in John Donne, T.S. Eliot, anyone, art, books, cosmos, dialogue, fate, history, indirect discourse, language, letters, library, love?, necessity, the grave, time, translation on April 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
John Donne:
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume. When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by [...]
try and understand me …
Posted in H.W. Fowler, anyone, beginnings, books, conjunctions, dialogue, eccentric, indirect discourse, language, latin, letters, wit on April 9, 2009 | 4 Comments »
I want to praise a book—A Dictionary of Modern English Usage by H.W. Fowler—but I cannot at this moment find the right words to do justice to the object of my admiration.
Instead, I’ll give an example of what I admire (which incidentally confirms and elucidates one of my long and vehemently held beliefs):
try. The idiom [...]
and the winners are …
Posted in anyone, conjunctions, cosmos, eccentric, exceptions, mania, necessity, nooks, novel, pretentious, raffle, the grackle on April 6, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Izzy P will receive the complete (to date) three volumes of the Grub Street Grackle!
Tomas will receive a subscription!
Kateri, Melissa A, and Becca will each receive their choice of any issue of the Grackle (past, present, or future)!
I will send the Grackles to you or a friend of your choice. Skreak about it! Be a [...]
My Aim
Posted in God, Socrates, anyone, beginnings, books, conjunctions, cosmos, dialogue, greek, history, language, logic, love? on April 3, 2009 | 1 Comment »
In his beautiful reflection on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition given at Regensburg Pope Benedict affirms the “profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the Biblical understanding of faith in God.” He points to this “profound harmony” at work in the beginning of John’s Gospel. “In the beginning [...]
The Voice of the Athenian: the city begins where the city ends, part ii
Posted in Socrates, anyone, athens, beginnings, defeat, dialogue, eccentric, exceptions, fate, greek, history, love?, melos, polis, the impossible, tragedy on March 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I wanted to give my post below as an example of the scenario I was trying (and failing) to articulate last fall. In this scenario, the failure of a speaker’s effort – an effort that up to this point seems determine the meaning of a conversation relative to a certain goal of longed-for persuasion or [...]
another angle on cosmos
Posted in Equality, Geometry, God, Socrates, Sophistry, anyone, athens, beginnings, cosmos, dialogue, eccentric, greek, hubris, idiosyncrasy, love?, necessity, polis, wisdom on March 12, 2009 | 3 Comments »
At the tail end of prosecuting his interlocutor Callicles, who has scorned his offer of friendship, balked at his refutations, and threatened him with murder, Socrates withdraws for a moment from the struggle of argument, having won something like the moment of calm perception that an exhausted warrior receives beside the ongoing fray, seeing the [...]
