05 November 2008

Mystery Passage

Needless to say, no one could pick out a type of bookstore in this way today. 


No googling allowed!
I seemed to be standing in a busy queue by the side of a long, mean street.   Evening was just closing in and it was raining.  I had been wandering for hours in similar mean streets, always in the rain and always in evening twilight.  Time seemed to have paused on that dismal moment when only a few shops have lit up and it is not yet dark enough for their windows to look cheering.  And just as the evening never advanced to night, so my walking had never brought me to the better parts of the town.  However far I went I found only dingy lodging houses, small tobacconists, hoardings from which posters hung in rags, windowless warehouses, goods stations without trains, and bookshops of the sort that sell The Works of Aristotle.  I never met anyone.  But for the little crowd at the bus stop, the whole town seemed to be empty.  I think that was why I attached myself to the queue.

Ancient Philosophy from Brazil, Online

Issue II, Volume II, of the Journal of Ancient Philosophy, published jointly by the University of São Paulo and the University of Campinas, is now available online.  


Contents:

 


I notice that the first issue has an essay by Carlo Natali, which will test my very minimal Portugese: "O Logos peri philias. Notas sobre a natureza e os propósitos dos livros VIII – IX da Ética Nicomaquéia".

Btw, the webpage has one of the clearest images I've seen of the Aristotle bust from the KHM in Vienna:

 

03 November 2008

"a wonderful thing happens"

Some day in the study of virtue it might actually be useful to study what those who clearly have a virtue say about it.   Consider for instance these remarks of Col. John Ripley, who died today, an American Marine who led 600 men in battle against 20,000 Vietnamese soldiers: "When you know you're not going to make it, a wonderful thing happens.  You stop being cluttered by the feeling that you're going to save your butt."


Here's a serious warrior reflecting on how something 'wonderful' happens in battle when you cease caring about your own ...  (it's essential to the sentiment that one say) butt.