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I can't believe you don't shut up, sir!
Nov. 21st, 2007 11:59 pm
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 1. High today: 5.
Environment Canada is still calling for in the neighbourhood of 10-15 cm of snow between tonight and tomorrow; Michael Kuss is saying 3-8--at this point, I remain skeptical that there will be any to speak of. Right now, the ice pellets have just started crowding out the rain. This has been one of the rainiest days of 2007, not that that's saying much. I crossed St. Clair three times before I decided that I'd put up with my too-small and leaky umbrella (which was, in addition, broken by the end of the day) and see what the ravine was like in the rain. I was glad I did; I enjoyed seeing where all the water was going that would be Castle Frank Brook. And also the glowing yellow leaves on the ground. Norway maples may be a plague on the landscape--I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I read somewhere that the sides of these ravines are eroding away, leading to the striking number of toppled-over trees, because the invasive Norway maples have denser leaves than the indigenous trees, so that they shade the ground and keep it bare--but their leaves do glow amazingly on the ground. It's even more impressive on a dull day like today.
Another wildlife sighting on the way home tonight: rats! The first one was a blur at my feet near the ice cream store down toward St. Clair; my first thought was, "rabbit?", then, "too small ... rat!" And then I turned around and another one went sauntering across the sidewalk.
My Incredible Waste of Time is now up to 1997. As it turns out, 1996 is the year that PhD production kicks back into gear--it goes from 280 in 1995 to 343 to 1996 to 406 in 1997. And U of Toronto's grad enrolment is up to 160 (!!) in 1997.
One of the most striking things, going through the '90s, is the rise and fall of the women. I'd been wondering all along when the rise of women would start; there's pretty much one or two a year on my "familiar" lists all the way from 1960 through to 1986. Then, in 1987, five out of eight are women. Back down to 2/7 in 1988, 0/5 in 1989, 4/8 in 1990, 1/5 in 1991--and then the spike starts: between 1992, 1993, and 1994, 13 out of 19 names on my familiar lists are women, including 7/9 in 1994. (1993 is an oddball year: only two familiar names, neither of which is a woman.) But then it goes right back down again: 2/6 in 1995, 2/12 in 1996, and 2/8 in 1997. (One hypothesis to account for the decline: the rise of women's studies programs. Could just be random fluctuation, though.)
I have also discovered that there are an amazing number of philosophers named David Johnson (in addition to the several I already knew about named Michael Kell(e)y), that someone with the given name "St. Elmo" once got a PhD in philosophy, and that, more recently, so did someone with the given name "Purification".
I wish I had time to say something about Hyland's book. I'll just say that the suspicion I was developing that the reason Hyland doesn't cite Rosen's paper is that the whole book is an implicit rebuttal to Rosen was much strengthened by the end of the book, where he contrasts what he takes to be the respective philosophical ethoses? ethoi? of Plato and Hegel.
After finishing Hyland's book, I went quickly through T.G. Tuckey's 1951, and posthumous, Plato's Charmides, which apparently was the first book on the Charmides in English. It has a forward by the chaplain of Magdalene College, Cambridge, saying what a great guy and a great Christian Tuckey was, and concluding: "He was killed at Cassino on 23 May 1944." (There are plaques around these old buildings at U of T listing the constituents of various constituencies who were killed in one or another of the wars. For some reason I look at them to see if I recognize anyone. But of course these are just the names no one recognizes. That's the point. I see these dead soldiers' pictures in the paper, and I think how strange it is that I am seeing them because they are dead.) It's a very straight commentary--pious, you might say--but provides some interesting historical context at the beginning. My favourite bit (which, like a lot of the best bits of this book, is quoted from elsewhere) is this: "Nägelsbach sums up his discussion of sophrosune with the words:
We must indicate as the basis of all morality the sense which makes man keep due measure, in holy dread of transgressing the bounds which confine him, mortal that he is, on every side. Accordingly sophrosune although on the one hand it appears to be so dependent on eusebeia [i.e., "piety"], as the recognition of divine majesty, is on the other hand the presupposition of eusebia as of every other virtue. For man cannot possibly pay homage to the gods with true submission unless he recognizes and keeps to the limits of his own nature. In general eusebia and sophrosune are so mutually interconnected that the eusebon [i.e., the pious person] is a sophron peri tous theous [a "moderate" person regarding gods], the sophron a eusebon peri tous anthropous [a pious person regarding human beings].
Environment Canada is still calling for in the neighbourhood of 10-15 cm of snow between tonight and tomorrow; Michael Kuss is saying 3-8--at this point, I remain skeptical that there will be any to speak of. Right now, the ice pellets have just started crowding out the rain. This has been one of the rainiest days of 2007, not that that's saying much. I crossed St. Clair three times before I decided that I'd put up with my too-small and leaky umbrella (which was, in addition, broken by the end of the day) and see what the ravine was like in the rain. I was glad I did; I enjoyed seeing where all the water was going that would be Castle Frank Brook. And also the glowing yellow leaves on the ground. Norway maples may be a plague on the landscape--I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I read somewhere that the sides of these ravines are eroding away, leading to the striking number of toppled-over trees, because the invasive Norway maples have denser leaves than the indigenous trees, so that they shade the ground and keep it bare--but their leaves do glow amazingly on the ground. It's even more impressive on a dull day like today.
Another wildlife sighting on the way home tonight: rats! The first one was a blur at my feet near the ice cream store down toward St. Clair; my first thought was, "rabbit?", then, "too small ... rat!" And then I turned around and another one went sauntering across the sidewalk.
My Incredible Waste of Time is now up to 1997. As it turns out, 1996 is the year that PhD production kicks back into gear--it goes from 280 in 1995 to 343 to 1996 to 406 in 1997. And U of Toronto's grad enrolment is up to 160 (!!) in 1997.
One of the most striking things, going through the '90s, is the rise and fall of the women. I'd been wondering all along when the rise of women would start; there's pretty much one or two a year on my "familiar" lists all the way from 1960 through to 1986. Then, in 1987, five out of eight are women. Back down to 2/7 in 1988, 0/5 in 1989, 4/8 in 1990, 1/5 in 1991--and then the spike starts: between 1992, 1993, and 1994, 13 out of 19 names on my familiar lists are women, including 7/9 in 1994. (1993 is an oddball year: only two familiar names, neither of which is a woman.) But then it goes right back down again: 2/6 in 1995, 2/12 in 1996, and 2/8 in 1997. (One hypothesis to account for the decline: the rise of women's studies programs. Could just be random fluctuation, though.)
I have also discovered that there are an amazing number of philosophers named David Johnson (in addition to the several I already knew about named Michael Kell(e)y), that someone with the given name "St. Elmo" once got a PhD in philosophy, and that, more recently, so did someone with the given name "Purification".
I wish I had time to say something about Hyland's book. I'll just say that the suspicion I was developing that the reason Hyland doesn't cite Rosen's paper is that the whole book is an implicit rebuttal to Rosen was much strengthened by the end of the book, where he contrasts what he takes to be the respective philosophical ethoses? ethoi? of Plato and Hegel.
After finishing Hyland's book, I went quickly through T.G. Tuckey's 1951, and posthumous, Plato's Charmides, which apparently was the first book on the Charmides in English. It has a forward by the chaplain of Magdalene College, Cambridge, saying what a great guy and a great Christian Tuckey was, and concluding: "He was killed at Cassino on 23 May 1944." (There are plaques around these old buildings at U of T listing the constituents of various constituencies who were killed in one or another of the wars. For some reason I look at them to see if I recognize anyone. But of course these are just the names no one recognizes. That's the point. I see these dead soldiers' pictures in the paper, and I think how strange it is that I am seeing them because they are dead.) It's a very straight commentary--pious, you might say--but provides some interesting historical context at the beginning. My favourite bit (which, like a lot of the best bits of this book, is quoted from elsewhere) is this: "Nägelsbach sums up his discussion of sophrosune with the words:
We must indicate as the basis of all morality the sense which makes man keep due measure, in holy dread of transgressing the bounds which confine him, mortal that he is, on every side. Accordingly sophrosune although on the one hand it appears to be so dependent on eusebeia [i.e., "piety"], as the recognition of divine majesty, is on the other hand the presupposition of eusebia as of every other virtue. For man cannot possibly pay homage to the gods with true submission unless he recognizes and keeps to the limits of his own nature. In general eusebia and sophrosune are so mutually interconnected that the eusebon [i.e., the pious person] is a sophron peri tous theous [a "moderate" person regarding gods], the sophron a eusebon peri tous anthropous [a pious person regarding human beings].
