30 Matching Annotations
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  2. Jul 2024
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  8. 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)
  9. Apr 2022
    1. On one hand, florilegia diffused selections from and helped to reinforce a canon of authors who were otherwise well known in the Middle Ages, starting with the Bible and church fathers and emphasizing ancients like Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Juvenal, Lucan, and Seneca (in descending order of citations).105

      In descending order of citations following the traditional Bible and church fathers florilegia included sententiae from classical writers including Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Juvenal, Lucan, and Seneca.

      cross reference: 105. Munk Olsen (1980), 153–54.

      What time period and corpus of work does this accounting include?

  10. Feb 2022
    1. Make fleeting notes. Always have something at hand to write withto capture every idea that pops into your mind.

      Fleeting notes are similar to the sorts of things one would have traditionally kept in a waste book.


      Francesco Sacchini recommended the use of two notebooks:

      “Not unlike attentive merchants... [who] keep two books, one small, the other large: the first you would call adversaria or a daybook (ephemerides), the second an account book (calendarium) and ledger (codex).” —Francesco Sacchini "Chapter 13". De ratione libros cum profectu legendi libellus. Wurzburg. p. 91. (1614).

      (See also Blair, Ann M. (2004). "Note taking as an art of transmission". Critical Inquiry. 31 (1): 91. doi:10.1086/427303.)

      The root word ephemeral in this context is highly suggestive of the use and function of fleeting notes.


      The Latin word "ephemerides" can also be translated as "newspaper", useful for only a short period of time.


      Recall also that in a general sense Cicero contrasted the short-lived memoranda of the merchant with the more carefully kept account book designed as a permanent record.

      Reference: Cicero (1930). Pro Quinto Roscio comoedo oratio,"The Speeches". Translated by Freese, John Henry. Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 278–81.

    1. In a general sense Cicero contrasted the short-lived memoranda of the merchant with the more carefully kept account book designed as a permanent record.[7]

      Cicero (1930). Pro Quinto Roscio comoedo oratio,"The Speeches". Translated by Freese, John Henry. Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 278–81.

      (Not sure if I had this in my notes already from other reading, but adding again just in case.)

  11. Jan 2022
    1. When Simonides offered to teach the Athenian statesman Themistocles the art of Memory, Cicero reports that he refused. "Teach me not the art of remem- bering," he said, "but the art of forgetting, for I remember things I do not wish to remember, but I cannot forget things I wish to forget."
    2. "Memory," agreed Cicero, "is the treasury and guardian of all things."
  12. Nov 2021
    1. Ciceroalready contrasted the short-lived memoranda of the merchant with the more carefully kept accountbook designed as a permanent record; see Cicero, “Pro Quinto Roscio comoedo oratio,”TheSpeeches,trans. John Henry Freese (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), 2.7, pp. 278–81.
  13. Jun 2021
    1. Butler then moves on toquote—not Cicero, as Wilson does—but Quintilian, who among classical authorities is the mostskeptical about the art of memory’s efficacy (see endnote 4). Echoing Quintilian’s complaint, Butlersays that it is probably more difficult to construct a memory palace than simply to remember thingsby rote (54–55).

      Construction is definitely work. The question about how much it may be should be addressed on a continuum of knowing or understanding particular concepts as well.

      Creating palaces for raw data de-novo, as in a memory championship, takes a lot of practice for speed and the lack of relationships. However in a learning setting, it may be better to read, grasp, and understand material and then create a palace to contain the simple raw facts which might then also bring back other bits of the knowledge and understanding.

      This might be a useful idea to explore further, gather some data, and experiment with.

  14. Oct 2019
  15. Feb 2019
    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.

    1. genius or observation

      Not, though, through book learning (unless that counts as observation?).

      Calls again to Cicero's discussion of art, where the 'rules' come from observed and practiced successes (not handbooks)

  16. Jan 2019
    1. recede the media concepts they generate

      This brings to mind Cicero's De Oratore, where Crassus discusses art (in the sense of a skill, systematic knowledge of a particular field) and eloquence. Instead of a theory of rhetoric/oratory leading to eloquence, "certain people have observed and collected the practices that eloquent men have followed of their own accord. Thus, eloquence is not the offspring of art, but art [is the offspring] of eloquence." The skill itself always precedes the systematization of the skill.

    1. Seneca

      Cicero also identifies writing as essential in De Oratore. It crops up a few times, but one of them is in Book I, section 150 or so.

  17. Aug 2018
    1. Cicero, always intensively studied for thelight his work sheds on the chaotic political developments of the 60sthrough the 40s BCEand on Hellenistic philosophy, has recently foundmore readers for his rhetorical and political theory.

      New emphasis on "rhetorical and political theory" in Cicero.

    2. Cicero is not principally concerned inhis rhetorical writings with the ethical formation of the privateindividualbut with a civic ideal

      Public > Private

    3. If philosophy maybe “divided into three branches, natural philosophy, dialectic, andethics,” Cicero declares in his dialogue de Oratore (On the Orator), “letus relinquish the first two,” but, he continues, rhetoric must lay claim toethics, “which has always been the property of the orator; . . . this area,concerning human life and customs, he must master” (1.68).

      Ethics.

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  18. Mar 2017
    1. turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors.

      I'm guessing that the character of Cicero might have some reflection to play in these parts. I'd have to research further to draw up a conclusion.

  19. Jun 2015
    1. effeminate Roman noblemen in Ciceronian invective

      Just a note that Cicero uses smell a LOT in De Oratore. He describes the orator, in fact, as a hunting-dog tracking down the scent of an audience in DO 1.223. It makes more sense to me now how that particular sensation might be relevant to audience identification, particularly in the context of porphura.

  20. Nov 2013
    1. Cicero seems to have spoken in an age of gold, Quin-tilian in an age of iron. But nevertheless, com-pared to the eloquent men of that time, he was without doubt counted among the eloquent.

      Cicero mastered eloquence but Quintilian was also eloquent.

    2. In fact I shall not only gladly but also perhaps truly admit that of all the men who are, have been, and will in the future be, he was the most eloquent.

      regarding Cicero: Yep, me too.

  21. Oct 2013
    1. I might reply to this in the words of Cicero, in whom I find this passage: "In my opinion, no man can become a thoroughly accomplished orator unless he shall have attained a knowledge of every subject of importance and of all the liberal arts," but for my argument, it is sufficient that an orator be acquainted with the subject on which he has to speak

      knowledge with all things, knowledge with which one speaks

    2. Cicero, too, in one passage, calls the material of oratory the topics which are submitted to it for discussion, but supposes that particular topics only are submitted to it.

      reference to Cicero