Elizabeth Corey’s review of Gene Callahan’s Oakeshott on Rome and America.
Martha Argerich and friends: Live from Lugano 2010
At last I’ve worked my way through this 3CD set. Here are a couple of short reviews – The Financial Times – The Observer and a more in depth one by Oleg Ledeniov.
Ontological Engineering
Barry Smith, “the ontology king”, has made freely available his Fall 2013 Ontological Engineering class. There is no better resource than here.
A Confederacy of Dunces – quotes and extracts – 32
Although residing along the Mississippi River [This river is famed in atrocious song and verse; the most prevalent motif is one which attempts to make of the river an ersatz father figure. Actually, the Mississippi River is a treacherous and sinister body of water whose eddies and currents yearly claim many lives. I have never known anyone who would even venture to stick his toe in its polluted waters, which seethe with sewage, industrial waste, and deadly insecticides. Even the fish are dying. Therefore, the Mississippi as Father-God-Moses-Daddy-Phallus-Pops is an altogether false motif began, I would imagine, by that dreary fraud, Mark Twain. This failure to make contact with reality is, however, characteristic of almost all of America’s “art.” Any connection between American art and American nature is purely coincidental, but this is only because the nation as a whole has no contact with reality. That is only one of the reasons why I have always been forced to exist on the fringes of its society, consigned to the Limbo reserved for this who do know reality when they see it.] . . . The only excursion in my life outside of New Orleans took me through the vortex to the whirlpool of despair: Baton Rouge. In some future installment, a flashback, I shall perhaps recount that pilgrimage through the swamps, a journey into the desert from which I returned broken physically, mentally, and spiritually. New Orleans, is on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive (p. 103).
So All May Eat
This article from The Philanthropic Enterprise. I have come across this idea some 25 years ago in London, a Hampstead restaurant to be precise. I have no idea if they survived. Anyway, if you are looking for intelligent discussion about the role of philanthropy in our society, TPE is the go-to forum. Food and philanthropy – both dear to my heart.
Baron Corvo Centenary
To commemorate the centenary of Corvo’s death (October 25, 1913) I’m pleased to discover that Boo-Hooray Gallery will be marking the event with some style (well at least in Venice) – Corvo might well approve. It’s nice that there are others out there who appreciate the Baron. Some vulgarian referee showed up his ignorance about Corvo’s literary ability (I suspect an English don) for a review essay of mine. Here are my previous references to Corvo that includes the bit from said review.
So if you are in NYC or Venice, have exceptional taste in literature and a taste for the subversive and the decadent, then this event is well worth attending. Not only that but Boo-Hooray are publishing Frederick Rolfe – “Alpha & Omega“. Here is the invite:
To recognize the 100th anniversary of the death of Frederick Rolfe, aka Baron Corvo, Boo-Hooray will have two one-day exhibitions of first editions, rare ephemera, and other material by and about this most remarkable of all authors.
The first will take place in Venice, October 25 at La Casa di Parfait d’Amour. The exhibition will run from 3 to 5 PM. Anyone who wishes to attend should meet at the top of the Rialto Bridge promptly at 2:45 PM where they’ll be escorted to the gallery and drinks will be served.
The New York exhibition will take place on All Saints’ Day, Friday November 1. Drinks & nibbles will be served at 5 PM. To RSVP please email boo-hooray.com/rsvp
Corvo’s grave, San Michele cemetery, Venice
Frank Plumpton Ramsey
Here is David Papineau’s review of PF Ramey’s sister’s memoir. (See also David Mellor, 1998. Ramsey, Frank Plumpton. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge.)
For some geniuses, an early death accelerates the route to canonization. But for Ramsey it had the opposite effect. Ramsey’s death coincided with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s return to Cambridge after his reclusive years in the Austrian Alps. The cult surrounding Wittgenstein quickly caught fire, and for the next fifty years dominated philosophy throughout the English-speaking world. By the time it subsided, Ramsey had somehow been relegated to a minor role in history, a footnote to an archaic Cambridge of Russell, Keynes and the Bloomsbury set.
The opening paragraph to Facts and Propositions, Aristotelian Society Supplementary 1927, Volume 7, 153–170.
THE problem with which I propose to deal is the logical analysis of what may be called by any of the terms judgment, belief, or assertion. Suppose I am at this moment judging that Caesar was murdered; then it is natural to distinguish in this fact on the one side either my mind, or my present mental state, or words or images in my mind, which we will call the mental factor or factors, and on the other side either Caesar or Caesar’s murder, or Caesar and murder, or the proposition Caesar was murdered, or the fact that Caesar was murdered, which we will call the objective factor or factors, and to suppose that the fact that I am judging that Caesar was murdered consists in the holding of some relation or relations between these mental and objective factors. The questions that arise are in regard to the nature of the two sets of factors and of the relations between them, the fundamental distinction between these elements being hardly open to question.
Red Beans And Rice-ly Yours
Below is the recipe for Pops’ favourite dish. Here is a recent variation. Pops often signed off his letters with variations of Red Beans And Ricely Yours. No surprise then that there was even an album carrying that title. And after all that gastronomic activity . . . well, you leave it all behind ya.
Daniel Dennett: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers
Two of my pieces are appearing in this volume. I’m very pleased to be in such august company and John has done a terrific job of marshaling a veritable tsunami of Dennettalia. But speaking of exorbitant cover prices the listed price here really is steep, despite factoring in the chunky page count. And even if aimed at libraries, they too have ever shrinking budgets. The economics of publishing befuddles me.
Understanding the Tacit
My chum Steve Turner has a new book out. It has much Oakeshott interest and as many will know Steve has been a longstanding Oakeshott commentator. For me, one of his key articles is “Tradition and Cognitive Science: Oakeshott’s Undoing of the Kantian Mind”, a piece that I reference quite regularly. OK, so the book is ridiculously expensive – just put in a request to your library. Here is an excerpt: Tacitness in Practice Theory Practices Then and Now.
manwithoutqualities 