May 2008
8 posts
On the ambiguity of words
“For men believe that their reason governs words, but it is also true that words react on the understanding, and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those lines of divsion which are most obvious to the vulgar understanding. And whenever an...
“And generally let every student of nature take this as a rule, that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion, and that so much the more care is to be taken in dealing with such questions to keep the understanding even and clear.” Frances Bacon, Novum Organum, LVIII
“The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond.” Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, XLVIII
On self-knowledge
“I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics; that is my physics” (1217) “To learn that we have said or done a stupid thing is nothing: we must learn a more ample and important lesson: that we are but blockheads” (1219) Michel de Montaigne “On experience”
On interpretation
“Do we ever agree among ourselves that ‘this book already has enough glosses: from now on there is no more to be said on it?’” “Do we ever find an end to our need to interpret?” (Let’s hope not!: “When the mind is satisfied, that is a sign of diminished faculties or weariness” 1211.) Montaigne, “On Experience,” 1210
“What enriches a language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds—not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently...
“Oh, what a mad advantage lies in the opportune moment! If anyone were to ask me what is the first quality needed in love I would reply: knowing how to seize an opportunity. It is the second and the third as well.” Montaigne, “On some lines of Virgil” 978
“Our power of judgement is a tool to be used on all subjects; it can be applied...”
– Michel de Montaigne, “On Democritus and Heraclitus,” 337
April 2008
22 posts
Concerning ethical perspective
“…every man calls barbarous anything he is not accustomed to; it is indeed the case that we have no other criterion of truth or right-reason than the example and form of the opinions and customs of our own country. There we always find the perfect religion, the perfect polity, the most developed and perfect way of doing anything!” (231) “It does not sadden me that we...
“A man’s worth and reputation lie in the mind and in the will: his true...”
– Michel de Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 238
The portrait of a scholar (uh-oh...)
“Imagine that you oppose to him [the carefree fool] some paragon of wisdom, a man who has devoted his entire youth and early manhood to acquiring the arts and sciences, who has lost the best part of his existence in perpetual study, pain, and anxiety, who has not enjoyed in all the rest of his life so much as a scintilla of pleasure, always sparing, saving, sad, solemn, severe, and strict on...
On the benefits of folly
Thus it appears those arts are most blessed which have the closest affinity with stupidity, and those people are happiest who have been able to avoid contanct with the arts and sciences altogether, simply following nature which never fails them except when they try to reach beyond the proper bounds of their human nature. False faces are odious to nature, and a man gets ahead much faster if he...
On the importance of folly in worldly affairs
“Briefly, no society, no association of people in this world can be happy or last long without my help; no people would put up with their prince, no master endure his servant, no maid stand her mistress, no teacher his pupil, no friend his friend, no wife her husband, no landlord his tenant, no soldier his drinking buddy, no lodger his fellow-lodger—unless they were mistaken, both at...
On the folly of women
“Since the male was born to be in charge of things, he has been given a tiny scruple more of reason, which he consults as best he can; and when, as has happened before, Jupiter came to me, I gave him some advice worthy of myself. I told him, that is, to join man with woman—a stupid animal and a clumsy one, but funny and endearing—so that through constant association her...
“Every other profession is entitled to a bit of leisure—what’s so...”
– Erasmus, Preface to The Praise of Folly, 4
“Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man’s wit with the efficacy of nature, but rather give right honor to the heavenly Maker of the maker, who having made man to His own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature, which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry, when with the force of a divine breath he bringeth...
“Now for the poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth.”
– Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry, 348
Concerning "right poets"
“For these third [the right poets] be they which most properly do imitate to teach and delight, and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be, but range only reined with learned discretion into the divine consideration of what may be and should be” (Sidney, An Apology for Poetry, 332).
A curse for poetry's detractors
“But if (fie of such a but) you be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry, if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a mome as to be a Momus of poetry; then, though I will not wish unto you the ass’s ears of...
“For men’s tastes are so various, the tempers of some are so severe, their minds so ungrateful, their tempers so cross, that there seems no point in publishing something, even if it’s intended for their advantages, that they will receive only with contempt and ingratitude. Better simply to follow one’s own natural inclinations, lead a merry, peaceful life, and ignore the...
“Truth in fact is the only quality at which I should have aimed, or did aim, in writing this book” (109) “For, as I’ve taken particular pains to avoid untruths in the book, so I’d rather make an honest mistake than say what I don’t believe. In short, I’d rather be truthful than correct” (110) from Thomas More’s letter to Peter Giles in...
“There is no chance to loaf or kill time, no pretext for evading work; no taverns, or alehouses, or brothels; no chances for corruption; no hiding places, no spots for secret meetings. Because they live in the full view of all, they are bound to be either working at their usual trades, of enjoying their leisure in a respectable way” (45) Utopia doesn’t sound like much fun.
Concerning advice
“‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think you should offer advice or thrust on people ideas of this sort that you know will not be listened to. What good will it do? When your listeners are already prepossessed against you and firmly convinced of opposite opinions, what good can you do with your rhapsody of new-fangled ideas? This academic philosophy is quite agreeable in the...
Concerning justice
“‘If you do not find a cure for these evils, it is futile to boast of your severity in punishing theft. Your policy may look superficially like justice, but in reality it is neither just nor practical. If you allow young folk to be abominably brought up and their characters corrupted, little by little, from childhood; and if then you punish them as grownups for committing crime to...
“History is the concrete body of a development, with its moments of intensity, its lapses, its extended periods of feverish agitation, its fainting spells; and only a metaphysician would seek its soul in the distant ideality of the origin.” Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”
March 2008
15 posts
“Squandering other people’s money does not do your reputation any harm,...”
– Machiavelli 50
On imitation
We have seen study and imitation be a virtue in painting, poetry, rhetoric, and courtiership. Here it is applied to politics: “Every ruler should read history books, and in them he should study the actions of admirable men. He should see how they conducted themselves when at war, study why they won some battles and lost others, so he will know what to imitate and what to acoid. Above all...
On the duties of a prince
“A ruler, then, should have no other concern, no other thought, should pay attention to nothing aside from war, military institutions, and the training of his soldiers. FOr this is the only field in which a ruler has to excel” (Machiavelli 45). “A ruler, in particular, needs to know how to be both an animal and a man” (54).
“The principal foundation on which the power of all governments is based are good...”
– Machiavelli, 38
On the necessary cruelty of princes
“I think we have to distinguish between cruelty well used and cruelty abused” (30). “So the conclusion is: If you take control of a state, you should make a list of all the crimes you have to commit and do them all at once. That way you will not have to commit new atrocities every day, and you will be able, by not repeating your evil deeds, to reassure your subjects and to win...
On human nature
“People are by nature inconstant. It is easy to persuade them of something, but it is difficult to stop them from changing their minds. So you have to be prepared for the moment when they no longer believe: Then you have to force them to believe.” Machiavelli, The Prince, 20 “the gap between how people actually behave and how they ought to behave is so great that anyone who...
“There is a general rule to be noted here: People should either be caressed or...”
– Machiavelli, The Prince, 9-10
It’s now almost a commonplace that people compare the way the internet has changed how we gather, use, and disseminate information to the way printing revolutionized the same in the 15th century. Hornschuch’s comments about Guttenburg are as applicable today as they were then: “However, since Johann Gutenberg of Strasbourg devised the art of typography at Mainz about the year...
Ovid (who could Read As well as write his poems) said indeed: Too often, when I should amend a word I let both word and judgement go. Absurd To own it, but the long-drawn, tedious work Of emendation’s one I often shirk. Creation’s easy—writing’s not a chore— But mending what you’ve written, that’s the bore. The greater work’s in...
Concerning the role of ladies at court
“You are greatly mistaken,” replied messer Cesare Gonzaga, “because just as no court, however great, can have adornment of splendor or gaiety in it without ladies, neither can any Courtier be graceful or pleasing or brave, or do any gallant deed of chivalry, unless he is moved by the society and by the love and charm of ladies; even discussion about the Couriter is always...
“I think that even as music, festivals, games, and the other pleasant accomplishments are, as it were the flower; so to bring of help one’s prince toward what is right and to frighten him away from what is wrong are the true fruit of Courtiership” (Castiglione 210)
“Let it suffice that just as a good soldier knows how to tell the smith what shape, style, and quality his armor must have, and yet it not able to teach him to make it, nor how to hammer or temper it; just so I, perhaps, shall be able to tell you what a perfect Courtier should be, but not to teach you what you must do to become one.” (Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, Norton Critical Edition...
Arms vs. Letters
The Count finds the practice of ARMS to be the chief profession and aim of the ideal Courtier. When Bembo objects the Count rejoins: “…wait until you can hear of a contest wherein the one who defends the cause of arms is permitted to use arms, just as those who defend letters make use of letters in defending their own cause; for if everyone avails himself of his own weapons, you will...
February 2008
26 posts
“The Renaissance invented the Middle Ages in order to define itself: the Enlightenment perpetuated them in order to admire itself; and the Romantics revived them in order to escape from themselves. In their widest ramifications ‘the Middle Ages’ thus constitute one of the most prevalent cultural myths of the modern world.” Brian Stock, Listening for the Text, 68 (as quoted...
“Always to be running after the strictly useful is not becoming to free and...”
– Aristotle, Politics 1338 (as quoted by Michael Baxandall, “Alberti and the Humanists: Composition,” Gioto and the Orators 124)
On the Power of Painting
“Painting possess a truly divine power in that not only does it make the absent present (as they say of friendship), but it also represents the dead to the living many centuries later, so that they are recognized by spectators with pleasure and deep admiration for the artist…. Through painting, the faces of the dead go on living for a very long time.” “How much painting...
Concerning diligence in art
“I then realized that the ability to achieve the highest distinction in any meritorious activity lies in our own industry and diligence no less than in the favours of Nature and of the times. I admit that for the ancients, who had many precedents to learn from and to imitate, it was less difficult to master those noble arts which for us today prove arduous; but it follows that our fame...