Setting: Aristotle (the philosopher) and Alexander (the young, one day to be ‘the great’) are walking home from a speech by Protagoras the sophist. Alexander: Are the words of Protagoras true; that the ways of men are whimsical and at the mercy of the winds? Or perhaps it is true that man is the puppet of his soul? Aristotle: What a fine question young Alexander. The Oracle of Apollo...
Sitting with Lucretius in the garden There are moments when the jungle before me implodes under the weight of its own complexity. Every stone is a mountain writ small, and the invisible air conceals a maelstrom of atoms and vacuums. The appearance of stability dissolves: reality rearranges itself into a catalogue of magnitudes. The substance of “being” comprises yardsticks and...
To you whom this concerns, I don’t know where to start. Which reminds me of how I began one of my journals. And so, to quote myself:* There’s something satisfyingly indulgent about copying words that had already been finished, but are being given a new meaning in a new context. So: Allow me to pause the proceedings – really no more than a preface, an elaborate digression into...
…you only fall from the point you allow yourself to sink. (Despite the phantom essay that had been unfolding in the back shadows of my mind, now that I’ve written that down, it seems like enough. Now I feel wrong for mocking god. Maybe it (seemed like it) was enough?) Let me add just the slightest of content, by adding some of the obvious: I’ve reason to believe this true. I...
Editorial notes: Shai documents his interpretation of Locke’s Theory of Knowledge[I] which, he explains, “is famous for being based on the principle that the mind is a blank slate” and that the mind is “gaining everything it knows by experience”. The need to acquire experience in order to gain knowledge is a principle by which Shai chose to live his life. Knowing now that this was his guiding...
A summary of intent of practicality in Bk.I[I]: (This approach is justified by the book’s opening passages; written to his son to guide him on his education, which is an achievement of life, and not merely its underlying theory). Duty, which defines what we must do with our lives, can be reduced into its essential elements: profit and honesty, and their interaction. Everything that we do...
Some essential part of stories lies in their telling. Here is a story: Kant has the idea of the sublime, whereby the aesthetic is significantly determined by its ability to transcend (and hence terrify) our senses. For instance the magnitude of a mountain or a storm – both threaten our sense of self and perception by impressing upon us fact that there is always more, forcing us to teeter...
Summary: The rediscovery of Lucretius’ text by Italian scribe (Poggio Bracciolini) and its impact on contemporary / renaissance thinking. Quote: “[With Lucretius] it became possible – never easy, but possible – in the poet Auden’s phrase to find the mortal world enough.” {Preface} “Acediosus, sometimes translated as “apathetic,” refers to an illness...
Editorial notes: In February 2013, Shai adds Evernote to his suite of repositories. This is an application designed specifically for note-taking, organising, task lists and archiving. This proves to be the ideal tool for him to better control his ever-growing research notes, stored primarily up to this point, in handwritten notebooks and documents stored in his Google drive. Between February 2013...
Plutarch was a priest, magistrate, ambassador, and essayist born in Chaeronea in Greece around 46CE (d. 120CE). The Greek states had already been part of the Roman Empire for two centuries by the time of his birth, and it is no surprise that at some point Plutarch became a citizen of Rome, changing his name to Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus. Plutarch (or Lucy, as I’m sure his friends called...
