59 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. Aristotle opened hisMetaphysics with the simple statement: “All men by nature desire toknow.”

      Bill Joy quoting Aristotle.

      see original: https://hypothes.is/a/2LPjSMGkEe6K-4Oi8iIRmg

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    1. All men by nature desire to know.

      The famous, and oft-quoted first line of Aristotle's Metaphysics.

    2. METAPHYSICS

      Aristotle. Hutchins, Robert M., and Mortimer J. Adler, eds. “Metaphysics (Metaphysica).” In The Works of Aristotle, Volume I, 1st ed., 8:495–626. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.

    3. Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle, Volume I. Edited by Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler. 1st ed. Vol. 8. 54 vols. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.

      (Annotations in 1984, 27th Printing, though notes made on 1952 first edition)

  2. Oct 2023
  3. Sep 2023
    1. "Poetry is more philosophical than history," wrote Aristotle.By this he meant that poetry is more general, more universal.
    1. Periermenias Aristotelis

      Notes from event on 2023-09-07

      Used as part of the Carolingian educational program (rhetoric)

      As of 2023, it's the oldest codex manuscript in Philadelphia

      Formerly part of the (Thomas) Phillipps Collection (MSS Phillips appears on p1); see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Phillipps

      There is some green highlighting on portions of the text

      contains some marginalia and interlineal notations

      Periermenias is the Greek title

      Underdotting of some of the letters is used to indicate deletion of the text (used like striking out text today)

      There are two sets of Carolingian script in the book, likely by different hands/times.

      Shows prick marks in parchment for drawing lines to write evenly.

      Has a few diagrams: squares of opposites (philosophy); color was added in XI C or possibly later

      folio 45 switch to newer MS copy to continue text

      Poem in last few lines with another text following it

      parchment is smaller in one section at the end.

      Another poem and then a letter to an abbott with a few pages in between (likely misbound) - quire of 12

      Book starts with grammar, then Boethius translation of Aristotle, and then a letter. This could be an example of the trivium put together purposely for pedagogy sake, though we're missing all of their intended purpose (it wasn't written down).

    2. https://libcal.library.upenn.edu/event/11148297

      9th-century copy of Boethius's Latin translation of Aristotle's De interpretatione, referred to in the manuscript as Periermenias, with the shorter of two commentaries that Boethius wrote on that work. Replacement leaves added in the 11th century to the beginning (f. 1-4) and end (f. 45-64) of the manuscript, in addition to providing the beginning and end of the Boethius (which is probably lacking 2 gatherings between extant gatherings 6 and 7), include the Periermeniae attributed to Apuleius in the medieval period, a poem by Decimus Magnus Ausonius on the seven days of Creation, a sample letter of a monk to an abbot with interlinear and marginal glosses, and other miscellaneous verses, definitions, and excerpts. Dot Porter, University of Pennsylvania, has determined that two groups of leaves are misbound; leaves 5-12 (the original order appears to have been 5, 9, 10, 6, 7, 11, 12, 8) and leaves 53-64 (the original order of the leaves appears to have been 61, 62, 53-60, 63, 64).

  4. Apr 2023
    1. A writer collective is a set of editorial and financial structures designed to give writers the autonomy and upside that they get from writing alone, and the support and security they get from working for a media company. 

      If the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" who benefits from the excess value and how is that economically broken up in a fair manner?

    1. The Incoherence also marked a turning point in Islamic philosophy in its vehement rejections of Aristotle and Plato.

      The Incoherence of the Philosophers by al-Ghazali marks a dramatic turn in Islamic philosophy away from Aristotle and Plato which had been followed by previous Arab philosophers like Avicenna and al-Farabi.

    1. Aristotle, who had said, many centuries before in Politics (BookVIII): ‘No one would dispute the fact that it is a lawgiver’s prime duty to arrangefor the education of the young. In states where this is not done the quality of theconstitution suffers.’

      Current American climate indicates that Republicans take this quote of Aristotle's to heart, but they're not closely thinking about how they define "education". They're definitely not defining it with respect to John Locke's views in Some Thoughts Concerning Education which encourages political systems that move away from an electorate that is subservient to authority.

      see: https://hypothes.is/a/upfxCtSiEe2wrdd3cOo-Lg for John Locke

  5. Jan 2023
    1. Generosity is the middle way between stinginess (deficiency) and profligacy (excess).

      Щедрость — это средний путь между скупостью (недостатком) и расточительством (избытком).

    2. Confidence is the middle way between self-deprecation (deficiency) and arrogance (excess).

      Уверенность — это средний путь между самоуничижением (недостаток) и высокомерием (избыток).

    3. Courage is the middle way between cowardice (deficiency) and recklessness (excess).

      Мужество — это средний путь между трусостью (недостатком) и безрассудством (избытком).

  6. Aug 2022
    1. through the air” to which Descartes referred with derision. With the exorcismof these occult qualities,

      Perhaps the most far-reaching contribution of Cartesian philosophy to modern thought was its rejection of the scholastic notion of substantial forms and real qualities, of all those “little images fluttering

      Aristotle reference? <br /> mnemonics?<br /> What is the context here?

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  7. Jul 2022
  8. Jun 2022
    1. Aristotle argues that virtue is achieved by maintaining the Mean, which is the balance between the two excesses. Aristotle’s doctrine of the Mean is reminiscent of Buddha’s Middle Path. Aristotle’s doctrine of virtue is “golden mean”. Courage, for example, is a mean regarding the feeling of fear, between the deficiency of rashness (too little fear) and the excess of cowardice (too much fear). Justice is a mean between getting or giving too much and getting or giving too little. Benevolence is a mean between giving to people who don’t deserve it and not giving to anyone at all. Similarly Buddhism aims not to eradicate all feelings but to liberate it from its attachment to false values. He gave the concept of the Middle Way, a path between the extremes of religious asceticism and worldly self-indulgence to move away from false values. Aristotle and the Buddha reached very similar conclusions as to how we should conduct our lives, if we wish to find happiness and fulfillment as human beings. However, for Aristotle the mean was a method of achieving virtue, but for Buddha the Middle Path referred to a peaceful way of life which negotiated the extremes of harsh asceticism and sensual pleasure seeking.

      Aristotle's theory of the golden mean is similar to Buddha's middle path

  9. May 2022
    1. The last element in his file system was an index, from which hewould refer to one or two notes that would serve as a kind of entrypoint into a line of thought or topic.

      Indices are certainly an old construct. One of the oldest structured examples in the note taking space is that of John Locke who detailed it in Méthode nouvelle de dresser des recueils (1685), later translated into English as A New Method of Organizing Common Place Books (1706).

      Previously commonplace books had been structured with headwords done alphabetically. This meant starting with a preconceived structure and leaving blank or empty space ahead of time without prior knowledge of what would fill it or how long that might take. By turning that system on its head, one could fill a notebook from front to back with a specific index of the headwords at the end. Then one didn't need to do the same amount of pre-planning or gymnastics over time with respect to where to put their notes.

      This idea combined with that of Konrad Gessner's design for being able to re-arrange slips of paper (which later became index cards based on an idea by Carl Linnaeus), gives us an awful lot of freedom and flexibility in almost any note taking system.


      Building blocks of the note taking system

      • atomic ideas
      • written on (re-arrangeable) slips, cards, or hypertext spaces
      • cross linked with each other
      • cross linked with an index
      • cross linked with references

      are there others? should they be broken up differently?


      Godfathers of Notetaking

      • Aristotle, Cicero (commonplaces)
      • Seneca the Younger (collecting and reusing)
      • Raymond Llull (combinatorial rearrangements)
      • Konrad Gessner (storage for re-arrangeable slips)
      • John Locke (indices)
      • Carl Linnaeus (index cards)
    1. . That memory is based on order, and that order is a synonym for memory, were not novel ideas. According to Aristotle (De mem. et rem. ii, 452a 15), memory would be impossible without two requisites: the availability of a starting point and order.

      I'll have to read Aristotle's De mem. et rem., but this looks like it's heavily influenced by the the method of loci which encodes things based on location which forces order.

      Raymond Llull's ideas about combinations precluded order however. What could be done by removing order from the equation? Particularly for the idea of inventio?

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  10. Apr 2022
    1. Alexander possessed an additional weapon: Homer’s Iliad. He had learned to read and write by studying this text as a young man, and thanks to his teacher, the philosopher Aristotle

      Significance of Homer's Iliad and his teacher, Aristotle, in Alexanders formative years.

    1. In rapid succession there followed alpha-betized subject indexes to major authors like Aristotle (indexed anonymously by 1250 in Paris), Augustine (by the Dominican Kilwardby at Oxford, 1256–61), or Aquinas (owner- indexed by Godfrey of Fontaines, then circulated more broadly). These indexes used a clear ordering system (the alphabet) and subject terms that were standard in scholastic circles, with the result that they could serve as a col-lective resource for students and scholars throughout Europe who had access to a copy, and they circulated separately from the works they indexed.127
    2. Arabic numerals, which became common in the thirteenth century)

      The use of Arabic numerals became more common in the thirteenth century which also saw the incoming re-introduction of Aristotle in Latin in translation from Arabic (ca. 1130–1230).

  11. Feb 2022
    1. Be extra selective withquotes – don’t copy them to skip the step of really understanding

      what they mean.

      When quoting material it should have great phrasing and reasonable stand-alone meaning. Preferably the source or person being quoted should have stature or gravitas with respect to the idea at hand. Quotes should recall the classical idea of sententiae as imagined by Aristotle and Quintilian and seen throughout the commonplace book tradition.

  12. Nov 2021
    1. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that art historians determined that the figure was Aristotle

      What evidence was given for this identification of Homer and Aristotle?

    2. he Western tradition has never been more appealingly portrayed than in Rembrandt’s 1653 painting “Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.” Whether you stand in front of it at the Metropolitan Museum or look at it online, the painting turns you into a link in a chain that goes back three thousand years.

      Not sure how they manage not to link Rembrandt's 1653 painting "Aristotle with a Bust of Homer" here.

      Rembrandt - Aristotle with a Bust of Homer - WGA19232.jpg<br>By <span title="Dutch painter and etcher (1606-1669)">Rembrandt</span> - Unknown source, Public Domain, Link

      It might also be more interesting to use the metaphor of a ladder here than a chain to give a tangential nod to Western culture's scala naturae.

  13. Jul 2021
    1. Aristotle already thought the argument to be deceiving. He ridicules it by saying that according to the same kind of argument a hair, which was subject to an even pulling power from opposing sides, would not break, and that a man, being just as hungry as thirsty, placed in between food and drink, must necessarily remain where he is and starve. To him it was the wrong argument for the right proposition. Absolute propositions concerning the non-existence of things are always in danger of becoming falsified on closer investigation. They contain a kind of subjective aspect: “as far as I know.”

      Aristotle came up with some solid counter examples against using the principle of sufficient reason and showed how they could be falsified.

      What is the flaw in logic that would cause it to fail? Are there situations in which it could be used reliably? Ones in which it can't?

  14. May 2021
    1. scholars are annotators

      The practice of scholarship is the practice of engaging in written dialogue with those who came before. Aristotle’s regular engagement with the things said by his predecessors is an important part of his legomenology.

  15. Oct 2020
    1. As understood by the early scho-lastic philosophers, Aristotle taught also thatevery memory is composed of twoaspects: a ‘‘likeness’’ or ‘‘image,’’ which is visual in nature (simulacrum), and anemotional resonance or coloring (intentio), which serves to ‘‘hook’’ a particu-lar memory into one (or perhaps more) of a person’s existing networks of ex-perience.Memory works by association.
  16. Feb 2020
    1. Image Credit: Detail from "The School of Athens" by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (c. 1509–1511).

      Euclid's common notions appear to be grounds for many of Marx's arguments in Ch. 1, but also throughout the book.

      Near the beginning of Ch. 1 of the Elements Euclid lists them [PDF]:

      • Things that are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another (the Transitive property of a Euclidean relation).
      • If equals are added to equals, then the wholes are equal (Addition property of equality).
      • If equals are subtracted from equals, then the differences are equal (Subtraction property of equality).
      • Things that coincide with one another are equal to one another (Reflexive property).
      • The whole is greater than the part.

      Regarding the fifth, also see Aristotle, Metaphysics 8.6 [=1045a]; Topics 6.13 (=150a15-16);

      On the concept of the "whole-before-the-parts" (along with the "whole of the parts" and the "whole in the part"), also see Proclus, El. Theol., prop. 67.

  17. Oct 2019
    1. …it is not only necessary to consider how to make the speech itself demonstrative and convincing, but also that the speaker should show himself to be of a certain character…and that his hearers should think that he is disposed in a certain way toward them; and further, that they themselves should be disposed in a certain way towards him.[1]

      Credibility or "ethos," per Aristotle.

  18. Feb 2019
    1. syllogisms

      More info

      The classic example:

      All whales are animals that breathe by means of lungs.<br> All whales are mammals.<br> All whales are animals that breath by means of lungs.<br>

      In the Prior Analytics, Aristotle presents the first system of logic, the theory of the syllogism (see the entry on Aristotle's logic and ch. 1 of Lagerlund 2000 for further details). A syllogism is a deduction consisting of three sentences: two premises and a conclusion. Syllogistic sentences are categorical sentences involving a subject and a predicate connected by a copula (verb). These are in turn divided into four different classes: universal affirmative (A), particular affirmative (I), universal negative (E) and particular negative (O), written by Aristotle as follows:

      A – A belongs to all B (AaB) I – A belongs to some B (AiB) E – A does not belong to any B (AeB) O – A does not belong to some B (AoB)

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    1. and the whole is really the flower of wisdom)

      Vico seems to be opposed, then, to highly specialized education and in favor of breadth of knowledge. This has echoes of Aristotle and Cicero.

    2. Vico recommends balance

      I knew Aristotle was hanging around here somewhere.

      The Golden Mean)

  19. Jan 2019
    1. defy the logic of theexcluded middle

      this is an important point to just slip in like this. The Law of Excluded Middle is one of the three fundamental laws of Aristotelian logic, that is, Western thought.

    1. then it becomes plain that rhetoricity, in whatsoever forms it takes, will recruitfrom whatever is available to it.

      To add to Dr. Rivers's note on Aristotle, the philosopher famously defined rhetoric as the "ability to see the available means of persuasion" (I'm not quoting this exactly from a source in front of me, but it's pretty close to something like this)

    1. so "being " is used in various senses, but always with reference to one principle. For some things are said to "be" because they are substances; others because they are modifications of substance; others because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance or of terms relating to substance, or negations of certain of these terms or of substance. (Hence we even say that not-being is not-being.)

      Being is always one. Multiplicity is always to be reduced to unity.

  20. Oct 2018
    1. Aristotle says: ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστιν.vi “Man’s soul is, in a certain way, entities.”

      Heidegger > Aristotle: "Aristotle says: ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστιν.vi “Man’s soul is, in a certain way, entities.”" ||

    2. When considered philosophically, the λόγος itself is an entity, and, according to the orientation of ancient ontology, it is something present-at-hand. Words are proximally present-at-hand; that is to say, we come across them just as we come across Things; and this holds for any sequence of words, as that in which the λόγος expresses itself. In this first search for the structure of the λόγος as thus present-at-hand, what was found was the Being-present-at-hand-together of several words. What establishes the unity of this “together”? As Plato knew, this unity lies in the fact that the λόγος is always λόγος τινός. In the λόγος an entity is manifest, and with a view to this entity, the words are put together in one verbal whole. Aristotle saw this more radically: every λόγος is both σύνθεσις and διαίρεσις, not just the one (call it ‘affirmative judgment’) or the other (call it ‘negative judgment’). Rather, every assertion, whether it affirms or denies, whether it is true or false, is σύνθεσις and διαίρεσις equiprimordially. To exhibit anything is to take it together and take it apart. It is true, of course, that Aristotle did not pursue the analytical question as far as the problem of which phenomenon within the structure of the λόγος is the one that permits and indeed obliges us to characterize every statement as synthesis and diaeresis.

      Heidegger > Aristotle: "every λόγος is both σύνθεσις and διαίρεσις" ||

    3. Instead we shall give an interpretation of Aristotle’s essay on time,ii which may be chosen as providing a way of discriminating the basis and the limitations of the ancient science of Being.

      Heidegger > Aristotle: "interpretation of Aristotle's essay on time," (incomplete) ||

    1. f Plato’s call for fitting the speechto the souls of the audience (1.2.3). These become Aristotle’s Bthos,or the projection of the character of the speaker as trustworthy;pathos, or consideration of the emotions of people in the audience;andlogos, inductive and deductive logical argument

      This is the origin of the fundamentals of all rhetoric.

    2. Thus in 347 b.c.e., inanticipation of or soon after the death of Plato, Aristotle left Athensand went first to Assos in Asia Minor and then to the island of Lesbos,where he did much of his biological research

      It is fascinating that he had an interest in biology despite being the master rhetorician.

  21. Sep 2018
    1. e. Rhetoric is the counterpart of cookery, Socrates says, for just as cookery provides pleasure for the body with no regard for what truly benefits it, rhetoric gratifies the soul without considering its good. Consequently, rhetoric is ignoble flattery rather than art, both because it aims at the pleasant and also because it cannot give a rational account of its own activity.

      Rhetoric as bad.

    2. He wants to learn, in other words, how to "make the weaker argument the stronger" (Clouds, 112-115

      Rhetoric as slick

  22. Jul 2018
  23. Mar 2017
    1. It was Aristotle who said that there can be no natural connection between the sound of any language and the things signi-fied, and, if we set the problem right side up and remember the other words before examining it, we shall have to agree with him.
  24. Feb 2017
    1. Among the ancients, Aristotle, the earliest whose works arc extant, may safely be pronounced to be also the best of the systematic writers on Rhc• toric.

      This is the shortest gloss of Aristotle I have ever seen, especially by one claiming him to be "the best."

  25. Aug 2016
  26. May 2016
    1. Headrick, Daniel R. 2000. When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850. Oxford University Press.

      Notes (American spelling).

    2. p. v. Has an interesting idea that the real contribution of the long eighteenth century to information was the ordering and typology systems.

  27. Apr 2016
  28. Feb 2014
    1. Meanwhile, in his Rhetoric (1367a) he defines a free man (eleutheros) as a masterless person who needs obey no one because he does not depend on having to produce or sell anything.

      interesting definition

  29. Nov 2013
    1. Therefore let us allow Aristotle as sharp an intelligence in various subjects and branches of knowledge as any Aristotelian could imagine, for I admit that that philosopher had an amazing fecundity of talent.

      agreed. I love some of Aristotle's other works, but did not so much appreciate his lengthy assertions on rhetoric.

  30. Sep 2013
    1. The modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art
    2. Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use, more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible, the subject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to inquire the reason why some speakers succeed through practice and others spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art.

      Rhetoric (and Dialectic) as both an art and commonplace function of all.

    1. Therefore things both are and are not.

      This comment would make Aristotle roll over in his grave! For Aristotle, the firmest axiom of metaphysics (of everything, really) in the Principle of Non-Contradiction (PNC).