433 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2015
  2. teaching.lfhanley.net teaching.lfhanley.net
    1. river’s tent

      Interesting imagery here. Under what kind of tent did the river exist/dwell?

    2. Above the antique mantel was displayed As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene

      Rather than a real, natural sylvan scene seen through a window, an image of a natural scene unnaturally depicted in a painting hanging in a wholly unnatural, sumptuously decorated room - material objects/displays of wealth used as a substitute for nature here.

    3. violet light

      Makes me think of UV-rays

    4. gardens
    5. human engine
    6. vegetation
    7. What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers
    8. Trams and dusty trees.
    9. cicada
    10. spoke the thunder
    11. ungle crouched
    12. the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

      the power of nature to take lives.

    13. automatic

      this description reminds me of a roboter hand.

    14. Metropole
    15. wind under the door.

      nature invading non-nature, or maybe the door keeps the wind (nature) outside.

    16. nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
    17. synthetic

      synthetic is unnatural

    18. The river sweats                Oil and tar
    19. the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank

      Is it autumn when leaves fall off trees?

  3. Sep 2015
  4. May 2015
  5. Apr 2015
    1. Name /yal05/27282_u00 01/27/06 10:25AM Plate # 0-Composite pg 6 # 6  1 0  1 “Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.” “Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of plea- sure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of differ- ent physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a corresponding di- versity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable.” JohnStuartMill, On Liberty (1859
  6. Feb 2014
  7. Nov 2013
    1. But at the same time, from boredom and necessity, man wishes to exist socially and with the herd; therefore, he needs to make peace and strives accordingly to banish from his world at least the most flagrant bellum omni contra omnes

      This isn't a wish, it's a property of our evolution. We evolved in a social world as well as a physical world. As a social primate, it's something we do naturally. OH SHIT, NATURE!

    2. . And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.

      This is so darkly true. We tend to praise our impact on the world, but it's very much something we believe to be true, but is not. If human kind disappeared tomorrow, the Earth would be back to awesome in about 500 years (I think, there is a whole book about this. Correct this if you have read the book and recall better than I).

  8. Oct 2013
    1. As birds are born to fly, horses to run, and wild beasts to show fierceness, so to us peculiarly belong activity and sagacity of understanding; hence the origin of the mind is thought to be from heaven.

      Although are all birds as good as flying as the others and horses at running? There has to be some variance, and not from lack of repetition. In the same line of reasoning, even if all men were born to "activity and sagacity of understanding," some must have more innate gifts with it. The rest of this paragraph seems to credit persistence with progress, but nature does play at least some sort of role. After all, we can't all be basketball players, no matter how hard we try.

    2. if he is unwilling to learn, let another be taught before him, of whom he may be envious.

      This aligns with Confucius thinker Xunzi's attitude on properly cultivating morality in others. We are guided by our desires: whatever we feel a sense of lack in, we desire that object. It is the role of those with cultivated morality (gentlemen, sages) to act as an exemplar of moral goods, so that others who have yet to be cultivated desire what they have.

    1. I AM aware that it is also a question whether nature or learning contributes most to oratory. This inquiry, however, has no concern with the subject of my work, for a perfect orator can be formed only with the aid of bot

      need both

  9. Sep 2013
    1. I find this quote to fascinating. Isocrates isn't necessarily a cynic, but he certainly is not the happiest of philosophers.

    1. Nay, but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young lions,—charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honourable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth

      Men who act according to nature would be free of socially imposed restrictions and true justice would be present. The "best and strongest" are pacified by society with the promise of honor through equality and justice.

    2. Convention and natur

      convention vs. nature

    3. what was the nature, of the art, and by what name we were to describe Gorgias

      Socrates is searching for the definition/nature of rhetoric, to pin it down and understand purposes