Karl Popper, Parmenides

I read Poppers ten essays on the World of Parmenides. I read Parmenides a long time ago, when I was sixteen, and I remember him as one of the hardest reads ever, right up there with Being and Nothingness, Sartre's dissertation, which I read the same summer. I also recall I taught myself Chopin's Nocturne in E Major then. Learning the piano was easy. Parmenides was hard.

There are some interesting comments about my great foe, Aristotle. "Aristotle breaks with the reasonable tradition that says we know very little. He thinks he knows a lot..." (p. 2 of my edition, Routledge 1998). Popper also cites Kirk and Raven, that 'gross departures from common sense must only be accepted when the evidence for them is extremely strong." (p. 20) I also thought his point about the continuation of the cosmology of the Greeks being the science of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, and that our our civilization is abased upon that science. (p. 105) And finally, kind words for my sore academic's heart: "I suggest that, as philosophers, we have a very special critical task -- the task of swimming against the tide. thus we should try, in spite of our critical attitude, to help and support any neglected idea, however unpromising, and especially any new idea; for new ideas are are; and even if there is only a little truth in some of them, they may perhaps indicate an intellectual need, or perhaps some confusion within the set of ideas that we have uncritically accepted so far." (p. 147)

And in closing, back to Aristotle. "Aristotlelian logic is the theory of demonstrable knowledge, and Dante was right when he called Aristotle 'the master of all who know'. He is the founder of the proof, the apodeixis; of the apodeitic syllogism. He is a scientist in the scientistic sense and the theoretician of scientific proof and the authoritarian claims of Science. Yet Aristotle himself became the discoverer (or rather the rediscoverer of the impossibility of knowledge: of the problem of demonstrable knowledge of of the impossibility of its solution. [Impossible within the Aristotlian epistemology, sure.] For if all knowledge, all science, has to be demonstrable, then this leads us (he discovered0 to an infinite regress. This is because any proof consists of premises and conclusions, of initial statements and of concluding statements; and if the initial statements are yet to be proved, the concluding statements are also yet to be proved." (p. 276)

Dickens, Popper

I finished reading Oliver Twist, which was a very good story, and I'm on the second volume of David Copperfield, Dickens' great Bildungroman. I also read Popper 's Unended Quest, his intellectual autobiography. Popper doesn't come off very well after the first few pages: he settles scores or pursues debates long since settled, it seems to me, and it's pompous as well. I also read his essay Poverty of Historicism -- this debate also seems settled to me.

Tea Bliss, Great Expectations, Maritain v. 3 and 4

I got a book on tea, Tea Bliss by Theresa Cheung. What I mostly learned was the vocabulary regarding the description of tea, and the idea that a tea's flavor can go flat. I immediately realized the truth of this, so much for my habit of reheating tea on occasion. Green tea goes completely flat. I also read Great Expectations, and I have to say I thought this was a masterpiece. The point of view of a young boy is marvelously rendered, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Maritain was an easy read for a philosopher. I continue to be amazed at the career of a Catholic philosopher, someone who studied Thomas Aquinas, in an academic setting. I continue to be surprised at the unabashed religious anthropocentrism, the naked feeling of Catholic superiority, that he constantly expresses. But of course this was all written in the 20's and 30's. I enjoyed Reflexions sur l'intelligence, which like many other books is really a collection of essays. It contains some interesting thoughts on analogical thinking, which is related to my research. For example, on page 120, he says that 'l'inadequation de la connaissance par analogie n'affecte que notre mode de connaitre, et non pas la verite de ce que nous connaissons..." The inadequacies of knowledge through analogy affects our mode of knowledge, but not the truth of what we know. Maritain makes in some of the later works some interesting connections between faith and science.I also thought it was interesting to see his discussions about Aristotle. On p. 227, "Pour lever le conflit qui mettait aux prises la Physique nouvelle et la philosophie d'Aristote, il aurait fallu des esprits d'une vigueur exceptionnelle, capables de discerner, derriere le nuage de confusions dont nous venons de parler, les lignes essentielles et la compatibilite fonciere des deux disciplines, au moment meme ou toutes deux, l'ancienne en pleine decadence et la nouvelle encore en formation, etaient le moins conscientes de leurs limites."

In v. 4, he has a charming biography of Thomas Aquinas. I knew nothing about him, although I had read some of the great Summa theologica, and so everything was a revelation, including the fact that he was controversial in his lifetime. Ah! The bishops of France have a great deal to answer for! The great essay, however, is Degres du savoir. It treats a wide range of questions -- Maritain's longer books, I am discovering, are often disjointed from one chapter to the next -- and provides a spiritual or religious basis for much of what we think of now as being purely scientific. On p. 315 of my edition, "...la loi scientifique ne fait jamais qu'exprimer la propriete ou l'exigence d'un certain indivisible ontologique qui par lui-meme ne tombe pas sous les sens (n'est pas observable) et reste pour les sciences de la nature un x (d'ailleurs indispensable), et qui n'est autre que ce que les philosophes designent sous le nom de nature ou essence." He also distinguishes between what exists and the representation of that object in the mind. I can't see how a philosophical system accommodating science can live with that distinction, as correct as it seems to be.

Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans

Having read a good deal of Barth, I was curious to read this, his first book, the book which established his reputation. It certainly leaps off the page even today as a mystical commentary on Saint Paul, and was way ahead of its time in terms of what he understood it to mean for society, the individual, and the churches. After reading this, I have concluded that the problems of the churches which profess Christianity but do not seem to me to be living the values they talk about were in every way predictable and foreseeable through exegesis. That certainly comes as a surprise, although I'm also relieved to hear about it. I also came to realize in reading this last book, and the first volume of Pickwick Papers, that I read in part to feel a call to become something more than I am. Funny it took me so many books to understand that. Barth also discusses how the people of Israel come to sin because of their special vocation, a variation on 'to whom much is given, much will be asked.' Since I feel very fortunate in my life, this is not an entirely comfortable conclusion to read about. On both these points, Barth suggests that we need to fashion ourselves not according to the present world, but according to its transformation.

Karl Barth's Evangelical Theology

I read this book with an eye to seeing if there was anything he said about a theologian that also applies to the life of a university professor. As it turns out, there was. "...all theological work can be undertaken and accomplished only amid great distress, which assails it on all sides. ...theological work should be boldly begun and carried forward because, hidden in the great distress in which alone it can take place, its still greater hope and impulse are present." (p. 159) Yes, I do my work in hope -- disappointed often in some ways, and romantic in others, but hope nonetheless. On p. 165, Barth says that for the theologian, the 'only possible procedure every day, in fact every hour, is to begin anew at the beginning. An in this respect theological work can be exemplary for all intellectual work. Yesterday's memories can be comforting and encouraging for such work only if they are identical with the recollection that this work, even yesterday, had to begin at the beginning and, it is to be hoped, actually began there." There was also truth and similarities when Barth says that 'theological study and the impulse which compels it are not passing stages of life." (p. 172) Later on the same page he says that 'When properly understood, an examination is a friendly conversation of older students of theology with younger ones, concerting certain themes in which they share a common interest. Th e purpose of this conversation is to give younger participants an opportunity to exhibit themselves, and to what extent they appear to give promise of doing so in the future. The real value of a doctorate, even when earned with the greatest distinction, is totally dependent on the degree to which its recipient has conducted and maintained himself as a learner." I love it! This is the spirit of the university!

Then Barth speaks of what study is about: first, the student, young or old, has to inquire directly into what his predecessors had to say to the world, to the community of the present, and to himself as a member of that community. Then the student must allow himself indirectly to be given the necessary directions and admonitions for the journey toward the answer which he seeks. These instructions are gained from the theologians of the past, the recent past, and form his immediate antecedents. No one should imagine himself so inspired or clever and wise that he can conduct the primary discussion by his own powers.

Dickens, Barth

I have read Nicholas Nickleby, which I thought was masterful. I'm going to have to read Pickwick Papers shortly, which has failed to capture my examination. I also read Protestant Theology in the 19th Century, which was full of references to theologians of whom I had never heard. I also read Knowledge of God and Service of God by Karl Barth. I read Diane Paxson's Ravens of Avalon, which was a gift. It was the story of Bodacia, the queen who defeated the Romans in England.

Protestant Theology had some quotes I'd like to share. The first is something I'll reuse, I'm sure. "The Reader is invited to reflect on the omissions. He will find all sorts of gaps that I would not leave open today, and accents which I would now place differently. ... And he will probably stumble on one or other error of interpretation or judgment, caused by the haste in which I had to work and, at a deeper level, by limits to my vision." (p. 11, London: SCM Press, 1972).

"For fundamentally the astonishing thing is not that Hegel believed his philosophy to be an unsurpassable climax and culmination. It is that he was not right in thinking that after him the development was possible of a school of positivism, of pessimism and even of materialism, of Neo-Kantianism and whatever else the other modern philosophies may be called." (p. 384)

Barth, Dickens

I have read three of Karl Barth's books: Word of God and Word of Man, a bunch of homilies; Credo, a summary of his doctrinal beliefs; Community, State, and Church, three essays. None of them made a big impression on me, but then I read the volumes of Church Dogmatics. I also read Dickens' Bleak House, which I found not remarkable, and Little Dorritt, which I enjoyed more despite its now cliche plot. I am reading Pickwick Papers right now, as a break from Maritain. I also collected about 60 articles to read for my project on counterterrorism.

Maritain, Theonas, Introduction a la philosophie

I was very interesting reading an introductory philosophy text by Maritain, after reading so many of the courses on the same subject that Heidegger wrote. Maritain is much more clear, but then I am reading him in the original language. I liked the quote from Henri Bergson, about being quiet enough to speak of the “ronron continue de la vie profonde.”

I also thought that the dialogue with Théonas was clever, although I would have preferred a direct approach to discussion such issues. But after reading so much French fiction, I am perfectly aware of how much the French like clever conceits for books.

I also found it amazing the gems supporting some of my own positions in research. Hence:

“Au XVIIe siècle, la réforme philosophique de Descartes eut pour résultat de séparer la Philosophie de la Théologie. » (Introduction générale à la philosophie, p. 125, in Oeuvres Complètes, v. 2

« Si l’on considère dans le sens commun l’intelligence immédiate des premier principes évidents par eux-mêmes qui est l’un des éléments du sens commun, alors on peut dire que celui-ci est la source dont dérive toute la philosophie. » (Idem, p. 133)

And here’s another elegant solution to a common scholarly problem, that of fearing mistakes: saying so in so many words! I’m going to use this quote! « Nous ne nous dissimulons point les imperfections que comporte presque inévitablement un exposé général et didactique comme celui-ci. Si, malgré le soin avec lequel il a été rédigé, certaines erreurs s’y sont glissées, nous serons reconnaissant à ceux de nos lecteurs qui voudront bien nous les signaler. » (Ibidem, p. 282) .

Karl Barth's Dogmatics in Outline and Christian Life

In the case of both these books, I was quite taken by the sincerity and simplicity of the forewords. For Dogmatics in Outline, it was the revealing that the book was born from lectures given in 1946 Germany, in the semi-ruins of a formerly glorious Schloss where the University of Bonn had relocated, to the sounds of bulldozers, and after singing a hymn or psalm "to cheer ourselves up." I can only imagine the challenges of lecturing in such a setting, and at such a time. In the case of Christian Life, it was the student-published notes from public lectures given by Barth, who evidently gave in to over-enthusiastic and persistent audience members, and implored the reader not to expect the rigor of theology, but to accept as such 'merely what was offered.' Having read the multi-volume Church Dogmatics previously, I did not find any material that was new in these charmingly-introduced little books.

Jacques Maritain, Philosophie bergonienne, Arts et scholastiques

The book on Bergson starts with an extraordinary 40 page second preface to the edition, written by Maritain 15 years after publication. This second preface is full of gems.

• “C’est pour un auteur une épreuve pénible et un exercice de mélancolie que de relire et de remettre au point le moins mal possible un livre dont un long intervalle de durée le sépare.” (p. 12)
• Charles Dubos’ point in Le Dialogue avec André Gide (Paris : Au sans Pareil, 1929), about ‘cette sorte d’insistance et d’euphorie qui menace…une intelligence trop heureuse d’avoir raison. »
• The Descartes idea about intelligence being like ‘tableau mental interpose entre le réel et l’esprit.” (p. 30)

Beyond that, there are many interesting statements related to the questions and research in which I am interested.

• ‘Notre premier mouvement, quand nous voulons philosopher, est d’appliquer à la spéculation les procédé de connaissance qui nous sont naturels, c’est-à-dire qui sont créés par notre pratique et pour elle. » (p. 106)
• « Pour la philosophie bergsonienne tout le mal vient d’Aristote et de Platon, qui ont fondé la science de la réalité sur l’intelligence et sur les idées, et qui n’on pu, par site, que négliger le devenir et le mouvement, reconstitués à grand peine à l’aide du kaléidoscope et du cinématographe. » (p. 205)
• « …la connaissance vécue, - la connaissance par sympathie ou connaturalité, -- a été négligée par les docteurs scholastiques, qui en faisaient la sagesse par excellence, et a été découverte il y a quelque vint ans par les philosophes de l’intuition et les philosophes de l’action. » p. 271

He has an elegant way of saying that he is criticizing Bergson without withdrawing any good opinion of Bergson’s work: on p. 528, “La discussion critique que j’ai tenté d’en faire dans ce chapitre est un hommage à sa grandeur. Car les erreurs qu’on est en droit de lui reprocher n’ont pu elles-mêmes prendre forme que comme les extrêmes conséquences logiques de la projection, dans un champ de conceptualisation malheureusement tout empiriste (et nominaliste), d’intuitions et de vérités qui touchent aux racines des choses. »

In Art et scholastique, Maritain speaks of habitus (estabished ways of thinking) as virtue, because it triumphs over the original indeterminacy of the intellectual faclties. To which I say, “Well, at least at the start.” But then on p. 642 of this edition, here is the great quote on esthetics: “Si la beauté délecte l’intelligence, c’est qu’elle est essentiellement une certain excellence ou perfection dans la proportion des choses à l’intelligence. De là trois conditions que lui assignait saint Thomas : intégrité, parce que l’intelligence aime l’être, proportion, parce que l’intelligence aime l’ordre et aime l’unité, enfin et surtout éclat ou clarté, parce que l’intelligence aime la lumière et l’intelligibilité. »

All this is from Oeuvres completes v.1, Paris: Editions Saint-Paul, 1986.

Wilmot's Struggle for Europe, Irving's Hitler's War

These two books were the tail end of my reading about war arising from the works of John Keegan. They are both excellent books, and I found very revealing the discussion of various mistakes: the unconditional surrender requirement of the Allies that prolonged the war by several months; the lack of protest of the taken-aback German high command at some of Hitler's more fanciful decisions. I admired the inclusion of all troops in Struggle for Europe. The opening gambit of Hitler's war about the lack of direct responsibility of Hitler for the Holocaust strikes me in retrospect to have been either a career move to attract attention or the start of a revisionist's career.

I also found at the bottom of my book pile a forgotten novel from the Goncourt list, Croix de bois, which I will now read before moving on to a review of intro textbooks in preparation for a proposal for a scholarly press.

Marbo, Francis, Monnet, Privat, Bellocq, Pinguet, Dniaye, Sembrun

Well, I'm done my list, and what I've learned is primarily what sort of thing the juries are looking for. Most of these novels had great starts, unusual, gripping, right in the middle of the action. They are also usually more clever than good to read. I read Marbo's La Statue voilee, Francis' Bateau-refuge, Monnet's Chemin du soleil, a pastoral in patois, Privat's Au pied du mur, a war-prisoner novel told in flashback, Bellocq's La porte retombee, a good conceit but a bad novel, about closing up a house after the death of a family. I also read Pinguet's Quelqu'un, Dniaye's Rosie Carpe, a novel about a Caribbean woman. Sembrun's La deuxieme mort de Ramon Mercarder was a spy novel. Since Monesi, nothing gripped me.

Morel, Derennes, Monesi

Jacques Morel's Feuilles mortes made no impression on me, and I also read Derennes' Chauve-souris. The latter is supposed to be a charming childhood tale of a boy's fascination with a particular bat, but it failed to charm as such reading should. So now I'm reading an excellent novel about an au pair's sharp observation of her employer family, aptly titled Nature morte (Still life) bu Irene Monesi. It's an intriguing choice for an author herself at one time new to France and to French.

Megret, Mallet-Joris, Vialar, Vrigny

Megret's Carrefour des Solitudes is an interesting two-track novel, where the flotsam of war meet up in the persons of a Russian Valkyrie and a black American, and conceive a stillborn child during the only few days of happiness either knows. Not depressing, though. Mallet-Joris' Empire Celeste is a cliche novel about a strip club, with the unhappy former dancer, the immigrant restaurateur with the misspelled sign, the rich unhappy man, the rich unhappy wife, etc. Vrigny's Mougins de la nuit recounts the death of the narrator's father. I'm in the middle of Vialar's La rose de la mer.

curriculum review of university courses or programs

Since my department passed a resolution creating a curriculum review committee with student participation possible, this got me thinking about a number of issues, and as a result I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject. I will be posting in the research section of this blog my discussion of various aspects of that decision, including proposals for its work. Meanwhile, included in the reading list were

1. Lunde et al's Reshaping Curricula: Revitalization Programs at Three Land Grant Universities. This looked at more technical programs than our own, but the list of possible values that the department could embrace was interesting.
2. Peter Elbow's Embracing Contraries, a collection of essays that was quite illuminating on a number of points. It was interesting to read the correspondence between peers about visits to class.
3. A number of books by Graham Gibbs: Assessing More Students, Independent Learning with More Students, Problems and Course Design Strategies. These were all good, and all interesting.
4. Gaff's monumental Handbook of Undergraduate Curriculum Review, which had articles on every topic imaginable and discipline-specific proposals across any comprehensive university's degree programs.
5. Ronald Barnett's Learning to Effect, an edited collection from which I drew a number of ideas.
6. L.W. Andersen's Lecturing to Large Groups.

Etcherelli, Dhotel, Veraldi, Robles, Estaunie

I have read Etcherelli's Elise ou la vraie vie, a well-written novel about a young woman getting out from under a brother's tutelage and working; Andre Dhotel, who wrote the picaresque Pays ou l'on n'arrive jamais; Gabriel Veraldi's Machine humaine; Emmanuel Robles' Les Hauteurs de la ville; and Cantegril, a pastoral written in part in patois. I also skimmed Gene Sharp's second and more nuanced book on non-violence.

Genevieve Fauconnier's Claude

This is a graceful, unusual novel, written in the voice of a housewife and her journal. She speaks very simply of the life she leads, between tending her children and the dinner she just made (we can not only smell it, but we can hear the gurgles of the kitchen). I liked it very much. It closes on a nice thought, that she and her husband, even when not speaking, are plowing the same plot of land -- sound better in French.

Estaunie's Vie secrete, Blanzat's Faussaire

Estaunie's Vie secrete is a soap opera about obsession, set in a town with secrets and builds its intrigue around a strike and arson of a factory. Blanzat's Faussaire is a most unusual and effective novel, whose pages were so tragic I almost didn't want to turn. It has the plot of the play Our Town, i.e. dead people are granted a wish by the devil to return to life: a little girl to find she's not wanted, an old man to find he died in an insane asylum and is feared by his grandson, a sexually obsessed man to find he is hunted once again for murdering a woman, a grandmother who finds her son drinks secretly, as she did. Very quick read, simple vocabulary, style and structure, but with a slight pretension. Without the pretension, the novel would have been greater.

misbegotten love in French novels

I read Le Pari, a novel about a sexual awakening and betrayal. What was striking about this novel is the accuracy with which the author describes desire, and the self-doubt and the worry that accompany it for so many women. It reminded me of Indian movies -- they show desire without being able to actually show sex, because of the censorship. In the case of this and the other two novels, it is not possible to actually describe the sex, but the writing is actually more erotic than so many other more explicit novels I have read. I also read Sangs by Louise Hervieu, about the overwhelming desire for a child in a country couple. Said child winds up being brought up by nuns, as the machinations to actually get a conception held, you guessed it, the seeds of the family's destruction. This novel was interesting because of the French patois, sometimes similar to the French I speak. I also read Caroline, by Felix de Chazournes, about a woman who loves one man and marries another, conceives a child by her lover, and must then face life when he marries another. It's not really more than a cliche, and it gave me the impression it ought to have been written in English, set in the Islands as it is, rather than French.

Silvestre, Silve, Robida, Vincent, Berger, Bachelin, Galzy, Chadourne, Veraldi

I read a long series of novels that made next to no impression on me: Charles Silvestre's Prodige du coeur; Claude Silve's Benediction; Michel Robida's Le temps de la longue patience; Raymonde Vincent's Campagne; and Yves Berger's Le Sud. Le serviteur, by Henri Bachelin, is the memoir of a father by his son. Les Allonges by Jeanne Galzy is a novel about rehabilitation patients in 1920s France. It doesn't have the impact of Roman du malade, but it is luminous, and it's not nearly as philosophical as the Magic Mountain. Marc Chadourne's Cecile de la Folie is the story of a man's obsession with a woman. He wants to possess her, psychically as well as physically, and never does, and it was in reading this novel that I realized that men do not require perfection of women. This novel, written in the 20s, talks about how the object of obsession misapplies her face powder, for example, and this matters not a whit to the obsessed. Finally, there is Gabriel Veraldi's Machine Humaine, a novel which astonished me with its modernity, despite its dating from the 1950s.