I believe there exists, and I feel within me, an instinct for truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, and that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them.
Charles Darwin, More letters (1908), quoted in Gamaliel Bradford Journal, 1883–1932 (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1933) 228

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  • Marcel Bénabou: Comment je n’ai écrit aucun de mes livres.
    See Friday Nights at the Library, 2 Dec 2005.
  • Naudin, Pierre: L’expérience et le sentiment de la solitude dans la littérature française de l’aube des Lumières à la Révolution.
    Une modèle de vie à l’épreuve de l’histoire. Paris: Klincksieck, 1995 (Bibliothèque de l’Âge classique, Séries «Morales»). —Anchorites, hermits, vagabonds, voyagers, promeneurs: the discourse of solitude in the “siècle de sociabilité” is surprisingly rich. A well-documented study of attitudes and practices of solitude from the mid-seventeenth century (Port-Royal, La Trappe) to the time of Rousseau and Senancour. “Gardiens vigilants des vertus, ils s’offraient à l’édification de leurs contemporaines, en les instruisant de leur exemple, et tandis que le temps s’acharnait à détruire les certitudes les mieux établies, ils affirmaient, contre vents et marées, la pérennité des traditions et des valeurs ancestrales”.
  • Darmon, Jean-Charles: Philosophie épicurienne et littérature au xviie siècle.
    Paris: PUF, 1998 (Perspectives littéraires). —A study of Gassendi on appearance, imagination, knowledge, followed by chapters on Cyrano de Bergerac, La Fontaine, and Saint-Évremond. Like the work of Lynn Joy, Emily and Fred Michael, Margaret Osler, and (more recently) Antonia LoLordo, Darmon’s work argues the importance of Gassendi’s philosophy in its own right and as an alternative to Cartesianism. For a sample of Darmon’s work, see “L’imagination de l’espace entre argumentation philosophique et fiction de Gassendi à Cyrano” in Études littéraires 34.1–2 (numéro spécial sur les “Espaces classiques”) (Winter 2002).
  • Augustine: Confessions.
    The 1992 Oxford edition, ed. and comm. by James J. O’Donnell (0-19-814378-8) at Stoa.org. Courtesy of Language Hat.
  • Philippe Lejeune: Les Brouillons de soi.
    Paris: Seuil, 1998. —L’auteur a fait sien la théorie de l’autobiographie, comme aussi du journal intime or personnel (dont certain blogues fourniraient des instances marquantes).
  • Gaston Bachelard: Études
    Paris: J. Vrin, 1970. Présentation de Georges Canguilhem. —Early essays, from the period between his first publications (on relativity and chemistry) and his first well-known work, La formation de l’esprit scientifique (1938). That work, together with La psychanalyse du feu, published in the same year, established the pattern of the remainder of Bachelard’s long career: parallel researches in épistémologie and in his version of poetics, the study of imagery, imagination, and reverie.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Notebooks
    Ed. Kathleen Coburn. Pantheon/Routledge & Kegan Paul, Princeton, 1957–2002.

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Parting Shot

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See all of May 2008 · The Archives · Main

Sound of the week

A brief interlude: Echoburble.

LinkMay 10, 2008 in Music

Sunday cat pix

Josie from the ground up.
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Josie, 25 Apr 2008

LinkMay 10, 2008 in Cats

Wednesday garden pix

A variety of hyacinth makes its brief appearance.
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24 Apr 2008

LinkApril 30, 2008 in Garden

Sunday cat pix

Josie in her spot on the sofa (see last week’s pic for another view of the spot).
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Josie, 11 Apr 2008

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LinkApril 27, 2008 in Cats

Wednesday garden pix

Last week’s flower was delicate, tiny, subtle. This week’s is flamboyant. Since the picture was taken, the magnolia’s blossoms have all dropped off. After a few days on the ground, the petals turn chocolate, shrivel, and are swept away by the next storm.
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18 Apr 2008

LinkApril 26, 2008 in Garden

Sunday cat pix

Social napping.
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HS & Josie, 8 Apr 2008

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LinkApril 19, 2008 in Cats

Wednesday garden pix

Delicate blue flowers, about an inch or so across.
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8 Apr 2008

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LinkApril 16, 2008 in Garden

Sunday Cat Pix redivivus

Sunday Cat Pix has dumped its old broadband service and acquired a shiny new one, twice as fast. SCP & Philosophical Fortnights will return to a more regular schedule.
In the picture below Josie takes the air on the front porch roof.

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LinkApril 6, 2008 in Cats

Sunday Cat Pix

Crossings.
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Musa, 1 Mar 2008

LinkMarch 26, 2008 in Cats

Sunday Cat Pix

Slim pickings in the lemongrass.

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LinkMarch 17, 2008 in Cats

Sunday cat pix

Sunday Cat Pix likes to think of itself as undauntable. But this week we were thoroughly daunted by the incompetence of Earthlink’s support staff, all of whom have pleasant middle-American names like John and Kevin. There must be lots of Johns and Kevins in Bombay.
One of these days Sunday Cat Pix will excurse on the perverse incentives of outsourced support. In the meantime, here are the Missing Pix. First up is Musa with forepaw athwart backpaw.

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LinkMarch 12, 2008 in Cats

Sunday cat pix

A bit of sun in the afternoon.
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Musa, 22 Feb 2008

LinkFebruary 24, 2008 in Cats

Sunday cat pix

LG will be fourteen years old in June.

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LinkFebruary 17, 2008 in Cats

Sunday cat pix

Incognita.

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LinkFebruary 9, 2008 in Cats

If Hillary wins…

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In 1971, when this book was published, 1992—the year Bill Clinton was elected—was still part of the hazy future. On another branch of time, Big Brother would have been in power for at least eight years.
Concerning Parley J. Cooper, I find nothing online except titles of books, mostly from the 1970s, all of them genre fiction (romance, horror, sci-fi).
John Grant at Infinity Plus has reviewed The Feminists. He finds the writing “drab and uninspiring”. What I’ve skimmed is like the blurbs, but less punchy. Grant adds that “one cannot imagine any front-line commercial publisher being willing to take such a thing on” now. That is too optimistic. All that a present-day Parley Cooper need do is to wrap the tale in sociological jargon, and call it a “projection”. Regnery would publish it as non-fiction, and Mr. Cooper would soon be a commentator on Fox.
For background, see Laura Quilter, “A short history of the backlash against feminism in SF/F”, Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Utopia. Find The Feminists at Bookfinder.

LinkFebruary 9, 2008 in Books · Society

See all of February 2008