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edited Jun 16 2010 at 15:00 |
Aristotle, “The Categories”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “On Interpretation”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 111–179 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Animadversion 1
One of the reasons to “Read the Masters!” is that you almost always learn how different their actual intellectual contexts, motivations, and reasoning were from what you tend to find in the reports of $2$nd, $3$rd, and $n$th hand sources.
In the case of Aristotle, one of the first shocks — that I still distinctly remember — was discovering that he was a far less binary, dichotomous, or dualistic thinker than all my previous readings and teachers had told me. This has a bearing that goes far beyond the purely historical interest to the substantive issue of how deductive reasoning proper relates to what was later described as "inductive" and "abductive" inference.
Animadversion 2
I call it “mathematics” when I see hints of form that inform and rule the appearances in view. The test of a “practically essential” source, ancient or modern, is much like the test of a chemical catalyst — it is not that we'd never get the desired product by any other reaction pathway, but that we'd be highly unlikely to get it anywhere near as easily in our lifetime. It is very often the forms that permeate our current airs of knowledge that we, like the proverbial fish in water, can hardly see for all their pervasion.
Animadversion 3
Another reason to study our mathematical organon in embryo is that it makes it easier to see the early integuments and initial embeddings of topics that grow detached and remote from each other as they develop. By way of example, here's a draft of an essay I started on the precursors of category theory.
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edited Jun 16 2010 at 13:44 |
Aristotle, “The Categories”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “On Interpretation”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 111–179 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Animadversion 1
One of the reasons to “Read the Masters!” is that you almost always learn how different their actual intellectual contexts, motivations, and reasoning were from what you tend to find in the reports of $2$nd, $3$rd, and $n$th hand sources.
In the case of Aristotle, one of the first shocks — that I still distinctly remember — was discovering that he was a far less binary, dichotomous, or dualistic thinker than all my previous readings and teachers had told me. This has a bearing that goes far beyond the purely historical interest to the substantive issue of how deductive reasoning proper relates to what was later described as "inductive" and "abductive" inference.
Animadversion 2
According to my lights
I call it “mathematics” when I see hints of form that inform and rule the appearances in view. The test of a “practically essential" ” source, ancient or modern, is much like the test of a chemical catalyst — it is not that we'd never get the desired product by any other reaction pathway, but that we'd be highly unlikely to get it anywhere near as easily in our lifetime. It is very often the forms that permeate our current airs of knowledge that we, like the proverbial fish in water, can hardly see for all their pervasion.
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edited Jun 16 2010 at 13:22 |
Aristotle, “The Categories”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “On Interpretation”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 111–179 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Addendum
Animadversion 1
One of the reasons to “Read the Masters!” is that you almost always learn how different their actual intellectual contexts, motivations, and reasoning were from what you tend to find in the reports of $2$nd, $3$rd, and $n$th hand sources.
In the case of Aristotle, one of the first shocks — that I still distinctly remember — was discovering that he was a far less binary, dichotomous, or dualistic thinker than all my previous readings and teachers had told me. This has a bearing that goes far beyond the purely historical interest to the substantive issue of how deductive reasoning proper relates to what was later described as "inductive" and "abductive" inference.
Animadversion 2
According to my lights I call it “mathematics” when I see hints of form that inform and rule the appearances in view. The test of a “practically essential" source, ancient or modern, is much like the test of a chemical catalyst — it is not that we'd never get the desired product by any other reaction pathway, but that we'd be highly unlikely to get it anywhere near as easily in our lifetime. It is very often the forms that permeate our current airs of knowledge that we, like the proverbial fish in water, can hardly see for all their pervasion.
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edited Jun 15 2010 at 17:20 |
Aristotle, “The Categories”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “On Interpretation”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 111–179 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
Addendum
One of the reasons to “Read the Masters!” is that you almost always learn how different their actual intellectual contexts, motivations, and reasoning were from what you tend to find in the reports of $2$nd, $3$rd, and $n$th hand sources.
In the case of Aristotle, one of the first shocks — that I still distinctly remember — was discovering that he was a far less binary, dichotomous, or dualistic thinker than all my previous readings and teachers had told me. This has a bearing that goes far beyond the purely historical interest to the substantive issue of how deductive reasoning proper relates to what was later described as "inductive" and "abductive" inference.
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answered Jun 15 2010 at 16:42 |
Aristotle, “The Categories”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “On Interpretation”, Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 111–179 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938. Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
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