10,000 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2023
    1. Homer introduces him with the adjective polytropos—literally, “of many turns.” Previous translators have called him “shifty,” “cunning,” and a hundred other things. After grappling with the alternatives, Wilson chose “complicated,” hoping also to convey the sense of “problematic.” Her first sentence—“Tell me about a complicated man”—instantly makes him our familiar: that charismatic prince who’s too impossible to live with and too desirable to live without.
    1. I'm not so much saying Adler and Van Doren were trying to prevent readers from coming to grips with the unresolved issues of American history illustrated in this example. But I am suggesting that the idea that there's a "message" in these foundational texts and they know what it is and our job is to find out, is flawed. Too deterministic, too hierarchical, too supportive of a master narrative that needs to be challenged so truth can be appreciated in its complexity.

      Amen!

    1. They then spent a couple of pages on the history of elementary education, followed by a discussion of the stages of instruction, beginning with "reading readiness" and continuing through "sight words" and "context clues", to mature skills that allow the reader to compare the views of different writers.

      The broad idea of "reading readiness" stemmed from Jean Piaget's work, much of which was debunked by Peter Bryant during the 1970s. Yet we're still apparently discussing it and attempting to figure out how to do all this better: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/us/reading-teaching-curriculum-phonics.html

      They didn't tackle the lowest level very thoroughly, but I was a bit surprised that with their discussion of speed reading they didn't give at least a passing mention to phonics which had a big rise in the 1960s before declining in the 70s and 80s only to see another big uptick in the 90s.

    1. You have not graspeda complex unity if all you know about it is how it is one. Youmust also know how it is many, not a many that consists of alot of separate things, but an organized many. If the partswere not organically related, the whole that they composedwould not be one. Strictly speaking, there would be no wholeat all but merely a collection.

      This is also an art of putting notes together to make an article or book.

    2. If it requires too many words, you have not seen theunity but a multiplicity.

      How are they defining "multiplicity" here? There seems to be a tacit definition with respect to being in opposition to "unity" (of a work), but not an explicit one. It also seems to be a shaded meaning with respect to the more common one.

      unity: essence, core, coherence, oneness

      They use the word "multiplicity" in the usual sense of large number or multitude on p55: "The multiplicity of the rules indicates the complexity of the one habit to be formed, not a plurality of distinct habits."

      They also revisit it in the upcoming section: "Mastering the Multiplicity: The Art of Outlining a Book" on p88

      Perhaps its just me but there's a linguistic "softness" of the uses of unity and multiplicity here with respect to 2023. Though these two opposites fit the dictionary definitions of their words, is it possible that this softness is the result of a sort of historical linguistic shift I'm feeling in these words? I can't quite put my finger on it, but perhaps it's the relationship of unity to religion? Neither seem to be frequently used these days.

      The Ngram Viewer shows peaks for the use of unity in 1660 and 1960 of almost 75% higher usage compared to a broader historical average. It is generally waning since. Multiplicity has about 1/4 the use of unity and has remained flat over time. What caused the peaks in the use of "unity" during these periods? This 1972 use was on the downslope of the 1960s peak. Was it used in the 1940 version?

      The 20th century increase in the use of unity begins around 1914 and may have been related to political shades of meaning going into WWI with another marked rise in the lead up to WW2.

    3. Youmust apprehend the unity with definiteness. There is only oneway to know that you have succeeded. You must be able totell yourself or anybody else what the unity is, and in a fewwords. ( If it requires too many words, you have not seen theunity but a multiplicity. ) Do not be satisfied with "feeling theunity" that you cannot express. The reader who says, "I knowwhat it is, but I just can't say it," probably does not even foolhimself.

      Adler/Van Doren use the statement of unity of a work as an example of testing one's understanding of a work and its contents.

      (Again, did this exist in the 1940 edition?)

      Who do McDaniel and Donnelly 1996 cite in their work as predecessors of their idea as certainly it existed?


      Examples in the literature of this same idea/method after this: - https://hypothes.is/a/TclhyMfqEeyTkQdZl43ZyA (Feynman Technique in ZK; relationship to Ahrens) - explain it to me like I'm a 5th grader - https://hypothes.is/a/BKhfvuIyEeyZj_v7eMiYcg ("People talk" in Algebra Project) - https://hypothes.is/a/m0KQSDlZEeyYFLulG9z0vw (Intellectual Life version) - https://hypothes.is/a/OyAAflm5Ee6GStMjUMCKbw (earlier version of statement in this same work) - https://hypothes.is/a/iV5MwjivEe23zyebtBagfw (Ahrens' version of elaboration citing McDaniel and Donnelly 1996, this uses both restatement and application to a situation as a means of testing understanding) - https://hypothes.is/a/B3sDhlm5Ee6wF0fRYO0OQg (Adler's version for testing understanding from his video) - https://hypothes.is/a/rh1M5vdEEeut4pOOF7OYNA (Manfred Kuenh and Luhmann's reformulating writing)

    4. The rules of such learningconstitute the art of unaided discovery.

      There always seems to be a duality of "rules" and "art" I see in almost every representation of the idea of art.

      Thesis: To practice an art, there are always rules which one is following. Often the rules may be unwritten or hidden, but they are being followed on some level.

      Is there art which doesn't have any rules?

    5. The unity of a novel is not the sameas the unity of a treatise on politics; nor are the parts of thesame sort, or ordered in the same way. But every book without exception that is worth reading at all has a unity and anorganization of parts.

      first appearance of "unity" in the book (outside of community and opportunity).

    6. Since titles and subject-matter names are not likely to helpus determine whether a book is philosophical or scientific, howcan we tell? There is one criterion that we think always works,although you may have to read a certain amount of the bookbefore you can apply it. If a theoretical book emphasizesthings that lie outside the scope of your normal, routine, dailyexperience, it is a scientific work. If not, it is philosophical.
    7. books of normative philosophy concern themselvesprimarily with the goals all men ought to seek-goals such asleading a good life or instituting a good society-and, unlikecookbooks and driving manuals, they go no further than prescribing in the most universal terms the means that ought tobe employed in order to achieve these goals.
    8. This book is practical, not theoretical. Any guidebook isa practical book. Any book that tells you either what youshould do or how to do it is practical. Thus you see that theclass of practical books includes all expositions of arts to belearned, all manuals of practice in any field, such as engineering or medicine or cooking, and all treatises that are conveniently classified as moral, such as books on economic,ethical, or political problems. We will later explain why thislast group of books, properly called "normative," constitutes avery special category of practical books.
    9. To make knowledge practical we must convert it intorules of operation. We must pass from knowing what is thecase to knowing what to do about it if we wish to get somewhere. This can be summarized in the distinction betweenknowing that and knowing how. Theoretical books teach youthat something is the case. Practical books teach you how todo something you want to do or think you should do.
    1. There is an interesting theme of staying true to a center or core of a story which is broadly similar to David Lynch's staying true to the original idea. The difference may be that Lynch is staying true to his own original idea which started the process whereas Coppola is distilling out a core from an original source and then focusing on that rather than having Puzo's own original core.

      Which core is the "true" one?

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/166354962733

      Library Bureau library card catalog with what looks like two 5x5, and two 5x6 sections, one section of five pull out writing desks, and a top making up 110 drawers.

      In rough but serviceable shape, has a few fittings issues and some of the finish is in tough shape along with some wood pieces gouged out. Looks to be all oak (including internals of drawers aside from usual drawer pulls and rods, almost all of which are present.

      Listed on 2023-09-30 for $3,000 for free local pick up from Merced, CA.

      Cost per drawer: $27.27

      2023-10-03: Seller made me an offer to purchase for $2,500.

    1. The idea is the whole thing. If you stay true to the idea, it tells youeverything you need to know, really. You just keep working to make itlook like that idea looked, feel like it felt, sound like it sounded, andbe the way it was. And it’s weird, because when you veer off, yousort of know it. You know when you’re doing something that is notcorrect because it feels incorrect. It says, “No, no; this isn’t like theidea said it was.” And when you’re getting into it the correct way, itfeels correct. It’s an intuition: You feel-think your way through. Youstart one place, and as you go, it gets more and more finely tuned.But all along it’s the idea talking. At some point, it feels correct toyou. And you hope that it feels somewhat correct to others.
    2. When we were shooting the pilot for Twin Peaks, we had a setdresser named Frank Silva. Frank was never destined to be in TwinPeaks, never in a million years.

      Because Frank Silva was a proverbial slip in David Lynch's living zettelkasten process, he ended up appearing in Twin Peaks by way of the serendipity of Lynch's method of combinatorial creativity.

    3. But I’m always trying to gather what I call“firewood.” So I have piles of things I can go to and see if they’llwork.

      Similar to Eminem's "stacking ammo" or Gerald Weinberg's "fieldstone method", David Lynch gathers piles of "firewood" from which he can draw to fire his creativity.

      In various places in the book, Lynch uses the idea of drawing on piles of ideas and using his feedback to draw out creativity: his collaboration on music with Angelo Badalamenti in which he draws out ideas through conversation and having the prop man bring in various props with similar feedback. The music and props here are both forms of creative "firewood".

    4. But it wasn’t always that way. When I made Dune, I didn’t havefinal cut. It was a huge, huge sadness, because I felt I had sold out,and on top of that, the film was a failure at the box office. If you dowhat you believe in and have a failure, that’s one thing: you can stilllive with yourself. But if you don’t, it’s like dying twice. It’s very, verypainful.

      Being an author is having the final cut on a string of ideas placed in a particular order.

    5. The entirety of David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish (2006) is a series of topically arranged chapters each with just a handful of either simple sentences or very short paragraphs very loosely strung together.

      It's almost as if Lynch has taken his zettelkasten of ideas, potentially written on napkins from Bob's Big Boy, and dumped them out into the loose form of a book.

    6. Desire for an idea is like bait.When you’re fishing, you have to havepatience. You bait your hook, and then you wait.The desire is thebait that pulls those fish in—those ideas.The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love,even if it’s a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw inother fish, and they’ll hook onto it.Then you’re on your way. Soonthere are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thingemerges. But it starts with desire.
    7. An idea is a thought. It’s a thought that holds more than you think itdoes when you receive it. But in that first moment there is a spark. Ina comic strip, if someone gets an idea, a lightbulb goes on. Ithappens in an instant, just as in life.It would be great if the entire film came all at once. But it comes,for me, in fragments. That first fragment is like the Rosetta Stone. It’sthe piece of the puzzle that indicates the rest. It’s a hopeful puzzlepiece.
    8. Ideas are like fish.If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water.But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure.They’rehuge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.I look for a certain kind of fish that is important to me, one that cantranslate to cinema. But there are all kinds of fish swimming downthere. There are fish for business, fish for sports.There are fish foreverything.
    1. I'll write more in depth about it later, but I just read David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity https://bookshop.org/a/17195/9781585425402. He definitely has a zettelkasten-like creative process which revolves around "catching ideas". He talks about the philosophy and shape of his practice, but doesn't get into the direct physical form or substrate. He doesn't mention it in the book, but in the late 70s and early 80s his process definitely involved using napkins from Bob's Big Boy restaurant. He was influenced by his teacher Frank Daniel who had a practice of using 3x5 inch index cards for his screenwriting process. The book itself has a very zettelkasten-like flavor, almost as if he wrote ideas on index cards (or napkins), gave them some light arrangement by topic and then tipped the whole into book form without heavy editing. (It would be incredibly easy to cut it back up into individual index cards.) If you're into using zettelkasten for creativity (writing/creating), you'll appreciate some of his philosophy which he also wraps in a very light meditation wrapper.

      This short video encapsulates some of the ideas and flavor of his book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2RFMCmfRmc.

      Syndication link: https://discord.com/channels/992400632390615070/992428117467615333/1158852901192605828

    1. LYNCH: No. The whole thing has to make sense toyou, and it has to feel correct. And—but again, it’sbased on these ideas that have been forming andarranging and finally showing you what it is. Andit’s just focusing on those through the process.And if it makes sense, no matter how abstract asense, again it goes back to intuition rather thanjust pure intellect, and something that can be soeasily translated into words by, you know,everyone. Those are beautiful things to me,abstractions. And life is filled with them, andcinema can do abstractions.
    2. LYNCH: No. I think a film is digested ideas andprocesses. If you take from things that have gonethrough that process, you’re further away from thesource. Ideas are the most important things. Andthey seem to be lying there in an ocean andavailable. So if you could go in and get your ownidea—now, it may have similarities to many thingsthat have gone before, but you feel it’s yours, andyou fall in love with it. And that’s a very goodfeeling.
    3. LYNCH: I know we were doing that, but lookingback, it’s a magical process because you can’t tellwhere ideas come from, and it seems like it’s justboth of us focusing on something. And it was acouple of ideas that were fragments, and thosefragments focus you. And it seems that theyrelease a little lock on a door and the door opensand more fragments start coming in—drawn by thefirst fragments. It’s strange, because if any of youhave ever written anything, you know that one dayit’s not there and then a month later or two monthslater it’s there. And it’s two people tuning into thesame place, I think.
    1. frank danielle at the 1:29 american film institute 1:30 who was dean of the school uh center for 1:33 advanced film studies 1:34 and he taught a way to do it 1:39 um you get yourself a pack of three by 1:42 five cards 1:44 and you write a scene 1:47 on each card and when you have 70 scenes 1:52 you have uh a feature film 1:56 so on each card you write the heading of 1:58 the scene 1:59 and then the next card the second scene 2:00 the third scene four scenes so you have 2:03 70 cards 2:04 each with the name of the scene then you 2:07 flesh out each of the cards 2:09 and walk away you got a script

      David Lynch described the method from Frank Daniel (1926-1996) of the American Film Institute and Dean of advanced film studies who taught students to plot out their screenplays using 3 x 5" index cards. One would write out a total of 70 cards each with scene headings. Once fleshed out, one would have a complete screenplay.

      via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yngWNmouhP0

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/126117193513

      Library card catalog section listed for $329.00. Single section of 5x1 with 10 drawers. It's had pieces of material stapled on the top/bottom to cover up the stacking holes. Missing card rods. Drawer internals appear to be plastic (70s or later), rods removed and replaced with carpet/material to cover up holes. For free local pick up in Sacramento, CA.

      Most likely a Gaylord Bros., but not labeled.

      cost per drawer: $32.90

    1. 3D scans of runestones enable researchers to gain a close-up view of traces of the carving process. This means they can tell the carving technique of the different rune stones apart. Every experienced stonemason holds his chisel at a certain angle and strikes the hammer with a specific force: this is visible in the angle of the traces of the carving and the distance between them. The motor function developed in such work is individual.

      Just as the idea of "hand" in morse code or handwriting or typewriting analysis differentiates operators, the same sort of identification process can be done for stonemasons, carvers, and inscribers.

    1. @chrisaldrich thank you for this detailed response about your use of Obsidian and organization for digital Zettelkasten. I am not sure if this is the current forum or discussion to ask this but I would be curious to see how you have integrated or coordinated your analog Zettelkasten and notetaking with what you describe here. I've followed your posts about the use of index cards for a long time. I'd love to see how you use the very different affordances of these environments together.

      reply to u/wtagg at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/16wgq4l/comment/k356507/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

      Perhaps the easiest way to frame things is that I use my digital note taking as scaffolding in the learning and research process and the zettels in the digital space are the best filtered outcomes from some of that. If you compare my practice to that of Luhmann's one might consider most of my digital practice to be equivalent to his ZKI. Most of my analog practice is more highly focused and deliberate and is more closely limited to a small handful of topics related to my specific areas of research on memory, orality, intellectual history, Indigenous studies, education, anthropology, and mathematics (and is potentially more like Luhmann's ZK II). As a result, in hindsight—thanks for asking—, I'm simultaneously building my ZK I and ZK II instead of switching mid-career the way Luhmann did. But to be clear, a lot of my ZKII material filters (or digests, if you prefer that analogy) its way through the ZKI process along the way.

    2. How to get started with ZK and Obsidian .t3_16wgq4l._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; }

      reply to u/Rampage_user at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/16wgq4l/how_to_get_started_with_zk_and_obsidian/

      Perhaps what I've done in Obsidian may help: I've created several folders for individual pieces:

      • Zettels folder - contains permanent/atomic/evergreen notes which broadly stand on their own; I give them decimal numbers so that alphabetical sorting within the folder provides me with neighborhoods of ideas without needing to provide direct links from one idea to another on each and every note.
      • Bibliography folder - contains individual notes for details about sources (books, articles, videos, etc.) which also contains the fleeting notes related to them (each can have from one to sometimes hundreds of short, not fully formed notes and excerpts);
      • Index folder - contains 26 notes, one for each letter of the alphabet each of which has index entries that lead to notes in the zettels folder; Like Luhmann's my index is sparse and I rely on the neighborhoods around the notes that link from the index.

      While I do have a few tags, I broadly eschew them as they don't scale well with time in my experience.

      Some literature is unspecific about it, but you should know that NOT EVERY FLEETING NOTE NEEDS TO BECOME A PERMANENT NOTE. Only split out the most interesting and potentially future useful ones. Some of my book notes have hundreds of fleeting notes, highlights, etc. and I've only pulled out 3 or 4 permanent notes from them. (The side benefit is that if you need them, you've got links to those fleeting notes for later if you need to review over, use, or convert them.)

      Really the best advice is to practice. A Lot. Experience will help you know when your fleeting notes should become permanent ones and how much work they need to become permanent notes. You can always adjust things in the future if your experience helps you simplify things further for you. If you make three permanent notes a week, you're doing better than most. I add 1-5 bibliographic sources a day and average about 50 fleeting notes with only one, or maybe two permanent notes on a good day.

      Good luck. Now go practice...

    1. The author made visible efforts to put everything down on one page,leaving a generous left- hand margin, presumably to facilitate surveyingand expanding the content. He equipped the page with a circledheading in the upper left corner and hence in an easily identifiable spotthat allowed for efficient retrieval. In this way, he turned his notes intomobile textual units—an excerpt from a historical source, a newspaperclipping, the sketch of a literary character, a part of a dialogue, etc.—that could then be pulled out like slips from a slip box.The archival evidence suggests that Fontane’s most important methodsfor storing his massive amounts of material were the paper sleeves, boxes,and folders, with their slip-box effect
    2. These storage media further increasedthe flexible use of Fontane’s archival items, because they allowed allkinds of differently sized material to be kept on loose sheets in unboundform. Receptacles filled with discrete textual objects, such as note closets( Zettelschrä nke ) and slip boxes (Zettelkasten), are advantageous storagemedia for compilers, for they invite the generative process of reshufflingsources and creating textual patchwork from new combinations. 56 Infact, Fontane used his paper sleeves like a large- format slip box. Inthem, he stored material for the Wanderungen, but also for novels,novellas, and autobiographical writings on individual sheets. 57 Theexample “Figur in einer Berliner Novelle” (“Character in a BerlinNovella”), a folio sheet from Fontane’s Nachlass, provides a glimpse ofhow he formatted his material and indicates how important he found itto keep it in slip-like form (Figure 3.2).
    3. In these instances, he could outsource partsof the work process to his personal amanuenses, his youngest children,Martha and Friedrich, who acted as scribes and copied book passagesthat he had marked.

      Many writers and excerpters had amanuenses as helpers to copy out passages or to copy material over for them. Theodor Fontane would mark passages in books for his children to excerpt and copy over for him.

      Compare this manual labor to that of more modern tools like Hypothes.is which allow one to digitally highlight and then excerpt almost automatically.

    4. Fontane’s most basic modes of literary production have much incommon with this textual practice. Whether he was working on a travelreport, a historical essay, a book review, or a new novel, he followed aroutine of scouring, excerpting, and rearranging. He amassed largequantities of source material—culled mostly from circulatingnewspapers and journals, but also from letters, images, historicaldocuments, and monographs—in disconnected notebook entries andon loose folio sheets. He then surveyed these textual building blocks,outlined rearrangements with the help of lists, and combined them intoa new text. This pattern of production could be surprisingly mechanical.
    5. other “paper tools,” 3 such as cardboard boxes, file folders, andenvelopes—the book demonstrates that Fontane produced his prosefi ction, feuilleton essays, and other contributions to the press in acreative process that was the exact opposite of his self- staging as theinspired mouthpiece of the muses. Deliberate at every step, heassembled his texts from pre- mediated sources with scissors and glue,in an extraordinarily inorganic, radically intertextual, and completelyconscious manner.
    1. nobody ever said that reading was easy reading is is 02:25:41 very hard if it weren't hard it wouldn't be worth doing correct and the better the work that you're reading the harder the work is and therefore the more satisfying

      Nobody ever said that reading was easy. Reading is very hard. If it weren't hard, it wouldn't be worth doing. And the better the work that you're reading, the harder the work is and therefore the more satisfying. —Charles Van Doren, Part 11: Activating Poetry and Plays

    2. this little discussion we're having reminds me of a lecture I once gave many years ago shortly after how to read a book was first published which which I said that I thought that solitary 02:17:34 reading was almost as much advice as solitary drinking

      Solitary reading [is] was almost as much a vice as solitary drinking. —Mortimer J. Adler, in Part 11: Activating Poetry and Plays

    1. He used the chance to declare “cultural war” for the “soul of America,” against an enemy of radicals “cross-dressing” as moderate Democrats, who were preaching “abortion on demand” and “radical feminism” while working-class Americans watched their jobs disappear and a “mob”—the Rodney King riots—looted and burned Los Angeles. The liberal columnist Molly Ivins memorably wrote that the speech “probably sounded better in the original German,” but its themes would form the founding document of today’s Republican Party. Indeed, when I mentioned the speech to a former Trump Administration official, he immediately recited several lines by heart.

      Pat Buchanan ran for the Republican nomination in 1992 and in a prime-time speech at the Republican convention that summer he declared a "cultural war" for the "soul of America".

    2. West is by far the most unequivocal in his denunciation of the Democratic and Republican parties as dominated by big money and corporate wealth. He is no less emphatic in his condemnation of Israeli occupation and domination of Palestinians, and in his condemnation of the militarization of American foreign policy. Democratic leaders seem to fear that he might siphon off just enough black and leftist votes from Biden to give Trump a winning margin.
    3. Mehlhorn is determinedly of the view that people can only be motivated by fear: “You cannot get people to vote by getting them to believe that voting and participating will materially improve their lives,” he told Ryan Grim of The Intercept. “What you can get people to get really excited about is: ‘If you participate in politics, you might be able to prevent something really bad from happening to you.’ ”
    4. The belief that insurgent candidates, and the movements they generate, are never more than dangerous impediments to Democratic electoral prospects is deeply rooted in party orthodoxy, nurtured by the belief that previous outside challengers have sabotaged the party’s chances.

      examples: - Ralph Nader (2000) Green Party - Bernie Sanders (2016) (less evidence of this)

    1. Watson, L.R., Fraser, M., & Ballas, P. (2019). Journaling for mental health. Retrieved from https://www.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=4552&ContentTypeID=1 Literacy Research and Instruction, 49(2), 194-208. doi:10.1080/19388070902947360

      dead reference? couldn't find; url gone and not archived; DOI was for the Wolsey article and not this

  2. Sep 2023
    1. https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/2.1/features/brent/index.htm

      An interesting commonplace book-like old school website with an actual "index" and fascinatingly about "Rhetorics of the Web"!

      Example of a collected quote: https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/2.1/features/brent/burke.htm

      Note also the linked ideas at the bottom of this example.

      It also has a references section: https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/2.1/features/brent/referenc.htm

      The separations of the pieces and their form is very reminiscent of a zettelkasten and the building up of pieces in places almost admits to a hand-built wiki.

    1. Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance.

      —Kenneth Burke. The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941.

      via Doug Brent at https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/2.1/features/brent/burke.htm

    1. syntopicalreading

      relationship of synoptical and syntopical

      Did the idea of syntopicality exist prior to Adler? Did it spring from the work of German religious scholars of XIX C who began doing synoptical readings and comparisons of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke in the Bible?

      link to the "great conversation" quote of Whitehead about Plato: https://hypothes.is/a/qb2T7l9nEe6uVVOdez8mKw

    2. But the last question, What of it?, requires considerable restraint on the part of the reader. It is here that the situationwe described earlier may occur-namely, the situation in whichthe reader says, "I cannot fault the author's conclusions, butI nevertheless disagree with them." This comes about, of course,because of the prejudgments that the reader is likely to haveconcerning the author's approach and his conclusions.

      How to protect against these sorts of outcomes? Relation to identity and cognitive biases?

    3. e hard scientist doesis to say that he "stipulates his usage"-that is, he informs youwhat terms are essential to his argument and how he is goingto use them. Such stipulations usually occur at the beginningof the book, in the form of definitions, postulates, axioms, andso forth. Since stipulation of usage is characteristic of thesefields, it has been said that they are like games or have a"game structure."

      Depending on what level a writer stipulates their usage, they may come to some drastically bad conclusions. One should watch out for these sorts of biases.

      Compare with the results of accepting certain axioms within mathematics and how that changes/shifts one's framework of truth.

    4. If you are not of the faith, if you do not belong to thechurch, you can nevertheless read such a theological bookweU by treating its dogmas with the same respect you treatthe assumptions of a mathematician. But you must always keepin mind that an article of faith is not something that the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certainform of knowledge, not a tentative opinion.

      What comes out of alternately reading theological books with understanding and compassion and then switching to raw logic?

    5. We use the term"canonical" to refer to such books; in an older tradition wemight have called them "sacred" or "holy," but those wordsno longer apply to all such works, though they still apply tosome of them.

      they provide a broader definition of sacred/holy texts that extend to books which form the basis of a groups' identity and often involve orthodoxy.

      relation to politics, gender identity, cults, etc.

    6. Barry Commoner's The Closing Circle,something more is required. This is particularly true of a booklike Commoner's, on a subject-the environmental crisis-ofspecial interest and importance to all of us today. The writingis compact and requires constant attention. But the book as awhole has implications that the careful reader will not miss.Although it is not a practical work, in the sense describedabove in Chapter 13, its theoretical conclusions have importantconsequences. The mere mention of the book's subject matter-the environmental crisis-suggests this. The environment inquestion is our own; if it is undergoing a crisis of some sort,then it inevitably follows, even if the author had not said sothough in fact he has-that we are also involved in the crisis.The thing to do in a crisis is ( usually ) to act in a certain way,or to stop acting in a certain way. Thus Commoner's book,though essentially theoretical, has a significance that goes beyond the theoretical and into the realm of the practical

      Interesting to see this take up some space as an example from 1972.

    1. The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato . I do not mean thesystematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extractedfrom his writings . I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered throughthem . His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience ata great period of civilization, h is inheritance of an intellectual traditionnot yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made h is writings t aninexhaustible mine of suggestion
    1. This Be The Verse<br /> by Philip Larkin

      They fuck you up, your mum and dad. <br /> They may not mean to, but they do. <br /> They fill you with the faults they had<br /> And add some extra, just for you.

      But they were fucked up in their turn<br /> By fools in old-style hats and coats, <br /> Who half the time were soppy-stern<br /> And half at one another’s throats.

      Man hands on misery to man.<br /> It deepens like a coastal shelf.<br /> Get out as early as you can,<br /> And don’t have any kids yourself.


      Philip Larkin, "This Be the Verse" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd. Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001)

      Reference: Larkin, Philip. Collected Poems. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1989.


      Compare with The Kids Are Alright.

      Recited in Ted Lasso, S3 https://www.looper.com/1294687/ted-lasso-season-3-episode-11-maes-poem-sounds-familiar/#:~:text=To%20jog%20your%20memory%2C%20the,extra%2C%20just%20for%20you.%22

      See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Be_The_Verse

    1. Starting a blog .t3_16v8tfq._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; } Hey everyone- I’m still trying to wrap my head on how to organize this.I have my antinet growing and I want to start a blog with the use of one of my notes as a springboard.Do I9 votesWork on the blog and store the index cards after the note that I’m drawing inspiration fromCreate a new blog section in my antinet and place them thereStore them in wherever and create an hub note that points to them

      reply to u/RobThomasBouchard at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/16v8tfq/starting_a_blog/

      The answer is:<br /> D: Start a "blog" where you post your notes as status updates and interlink them a bit. When you've got enough, you organize them into a mini thesis and write a longer article/blog post about it.

      Examples: - https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%22thought%20spaces%22 and - https://indieweb.org/commonplace_book#The_IndieWeb_site_as_a_Commonplace_book

      tl;dr: Use your website like a public, online zettelkasten. 🕸️🗃️

  3. inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net
    1. found via:

      Niklas Luhmann rejected out of town teaching positions for fear that his hard copy / analog zettelkasten might get destroyed in the moving process 🧵

      — Bob Doto (@thehighpony) August 19, 2022
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

      "He rejected a number of other universities' interests in hiring him...at an early stage, arguing that he couldn't risk taking his Zettelkasten with him in the event of an accident to lose by car, ship, train or plane." https://t.co/SmK2gLJpQ0

      — Bob Doto (@thehighpony) August 19, 2022
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

      reference ostensibly in this text, but may need to hunt it down.

      Bob confirmed that it was Luhmann Handbuch: Leben, Werk, Wirkung, 2012

    1. As someone who lost multiple notebooks to water (I love typhoon season), I will actively refute the claim that an analog zettelkasten is more secure than a digital one1[3:05 AM] Both have weaknesses, both die to water[3:05 AM] The distinction comes from how much water is necessary for them to die

      —Halleyscomet08 on 2023-07-07 3:05 AM at https://discord.com/channels/686053708261228577/979886299785863178/1126816131659878491

    1. ID's or Common names for Notes? .t3_16vgxy7._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; }

      reply to u/pakizh at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/16vgxy7/ids_or_common_names_for_notes/

      Keyword search was definitely available in Luhmann's lifetime. Here's the link to the digitized version of Luhmann's keyword index: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_SW1_001_V. Versions of this sort of indexing go back at least to John Locke's method for indexing commonplace books in 1685 (in French) and 1706 (in English). See: https://archive.org/details/13925922180LockeCommonplaceBook/mode/2up for the 1706 version. In a zettelkasten context, instead of indexing page numbers, one simply numbers their index cards and the method works exactly the same. (One could also think of it as creating a library card catalog for one's ideas instead of their books—again, using a personalized numbering system instead of the standardized Dewey Decimal System which is used for books.)

      In paper versions, the numbers serve two purposes:

      • Allowing the ideas to be indexed and searched for and found again. Full text search in digital contexts may be easier in some instances, but these sorts of searches may not scale well over thousands of notes and may return hundreds of results which need to be looked through to find the correct one. As a result, even good indexing in digital can pay off well in the long run.
      • Placing similar ideas next to each other (when filed using numbers) allows areas of interest to build up in one's note collection. This also creates what one might call "soft links" between ideas (versus more direct, hard links using [[WikiLinks]] or explicit links to specific numbered cards). These neighborhoods of ideas eventually build up to something interesting in aggregation. Without these sorts of (decimal or alpha-numeric) numbers, it's more difficult to create this affordance in digital applications (and one has to be more vigilant for orphaned notes). One can use tags or category names in Obsidian along with the graph view to approximate some of this affordance, but it requires more work on the part of the user. Prepending sortable numbers onto the titles of notes can allow these neighborhoods to be more visible in the sidebar folder view found in many digital tools.

      Some will suggest or use some sort of date/timestamp number as a unique identifier, but doing this generally has little or no value and most digital systems will automatically add date/time creation and modification timestamps to notes anyway if those are of interest or value.

      More details: https://boffosocko.com/2022/10/27/thoughts-on-zettelkasten-numbering-systems/

      Knowing these potential affordances, try things out for a while to see how they work for you and then decide to continue or change your practice to suit your own needs.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/235228904441

      2023-09-29 $275.00 starting bid auction Listing of Remington Rand 12 tray section (in 6 drawers) card catalog (possibly 3 x 5" cards, but ad indicates a smaller internal dimension). Meant to be modular with other cabinets and doesn't have the side panels. Drawers pull out on metal sliders.

      Free local pick up from Haymarket, VA

      This cabinet was designed to fit side by side with similar cabinets. It is in excellent condition as shown. Large deep drawers operate smoothly. Original bakelite hardware suggests it may have been made during WW11. Clearly marked USVA . And “Library Bureau.”Cabinet measures 36" tall, 14 1/2" wide, 27" deep. Inside drawers measure 10 1/2" wide, 3 1/2" tall & 24" deep. Very nice old piece with a few scratches and very few dents. Got some nice items in other listings. Pick up in Northern VA or possible delivery.

      cost per drawer: $22.91

    1. a useful way to answer such questions is to look at when it has been used on Fox News. Analysis of closed-captioning collected by the Internet Archive shows that use of “Chinese Communist Party” or “CCP” has been far more common on Fox News and Fox Business than on CNN and MSNBC.

      One can query the text in closed-captioning from the Internet Archive to track trends, and particularly politics, on television news.

    2. This is one of the challenges of being reactive to the public mood, rather than shaping it. Donald Trump, too, launched his first presidential campaign by elevating arguments and rhetoric from right-wing media, but he also shaped what the media was talking about. DeSantis has largely followed the trends, and the trends shift.

      While Donald J. Trump seemed to hold say over what was trending and the media was discussing, Philip Bump notices that Ron DeSantis seems to be trailing or perhaps riding the trends rather than leading them.

      Is this because he's only tubthumping one or two at a time while Trump floats trial balloons regularly and is pushing half a dozen or more at time?

    1. I'm a huge fan of digital over paper but what would you want on the custom stationary. A typical paper Zettle has:A unique identifier line or boxA content section (I'd assume that can be most of the front and all the backA related notes section.I'd think a typical 5x7 index card with (3) in the top area, (1) in the lower left and (2) on all the rest does the trick.The main place I could see stationary helping is if you want the identifier to have distinguished sections. For example lots of people are using the Dewey Decimal System or Britanica Propedia classification for simplicity ... while I think Library of Congress classification makes more sense since it is available and agreed by the publisher. You could potentially use both in the ID section.

      reply to u/JeffB1517 at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/16ulsye/comment/k2mb8s2/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

      I've only seen some modest discussion of DDC and outside of Joseph Voros, vanishingly little discussion (much less usage) of Propædia as classification systems for zettelkasten id numbering. I'm wholly unaware of anyone actively using the Universal Decimal Classification, but would love to see examples of it in action if they exist. From where are you drawing your sampling of "lots of people"? Do you use Library of Congress classification for your own, and if so, can you provide an example of numbers and titles of half a dozen cards to demonstrate your specific method? Given the prevalence of its use in filing/ordering, I'd more likely place the ID at the top of the card over the bottom and put other links at the bottom. Is there a particular affordance that would encourage you to do it the opposite?

      Perhaps you're including it in the idea of "related notes", but I also keep a separate reference section on each card for the source or related context of the main idea or excerpted quotation.

    2. Custom Zettelkasten Stationery?

      For those who have a significant paper-based practice, have you considered commissioning custom made cards? There are a variety of stationers who do custom work and one could also purchase directly from Chinese manufacturers to get costs down by buying in bulk.

      Ryan Holliday is one of the few I've seen in the wild who has mentioned custom making cards, usually done on a per-project (book) basis where he'll put a header title at the top of his note cards. Example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CeWV6xBuZUN/?hl=en

      Other options could include doing custom/personalized stamps. (I have a date stamp handy for quickly stamping the dates of creation/updating in the corner of cards.)

      I'm curious what suppliers/manufacturers folks have researched/used? What were your experiences? What sort of templates or printing did you use on them? Paper weight? Did you go Grid, blank, dot, lined, or all of the above? If you were looking to purchase something for yourself, what would you want?

    1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/10jx7gg/wooden_antinet_zettelkasten/

      Scott Scheper commissioned a two drawer solid wood (cedar) zettelkasten box similar to those from the early 20th century. He had it listed on his website initially for $995 and then later for a reduced $495.

      He created a waitlist sign up for it, ostensibly to test the interest in manufacturing/selling them as a product. To my knowledge he never made any beyond the initial prototype.

      The high cost likely dampened interest compared to the much cheaper primary and secondary markets for these sorts of storage containers.

      See also:<br /> - $995 https://web.archive.org/web/20230124062200/https://www.antinet.org/wooden-antinet-waitlist - $495 reduction https://web.archive.org/web/20230306195625/https://www.antinet.org/wooden-antinet-waitlist

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/266424945249

      2023-09-25 offered for $1,350 + $200 shipping from Lawrenceburg, IN to Los Angeles.

      12 drawer 2x6 configuration card index in filing cabinet configuration made of 6 modular/stackable 2x1 units with a small table stand.

      Seller indicates it may have been a Macey, but the label has worn off. Red could potentially have been a Weiss or Macey-Wernicke label? Would need to cross check others. Very early 1900s in oak, all wood with thin metal card stops on rails, but otherwise no other card index rods.

      13.5 x15x42 as measured, so like a 4 x 6" card index, but should double check.

      Cost per drawer: $112.50

      2023-09-27: Seller made a purchase price offer of $1000.