tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post2473979072720768240..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: PLAYING HOOKEYRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-14378973255353235412010-08-30T18:25:24.585-04:002010-08-30T18:25:24.585-04:00Rats. It is a great story. I hate it when the fa...Rats. It is a great story. I hate it when the facts get in the way of a great story. Oh well, I'll always have Paris.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-14283089687238330202010-08-30T18:16:01.272-04:002010-08-30T18:16:01.272-04:00Actually, the story about Marx wanting to dedicate...Actually, the story about Marx wanting to dedicate Capital to Darwin is likely apocryphal - its textual basis was a letter of Darwin's, but it was not to Marx but rather to Edward Aveling (companion of Marx's daughter Eleanor and English translator w/ Moore of Marx's Capital), and in relation not to Marx's Capital but Aveling's _The Student's Darwin_.<br /><br />See Margaret Fay, "Did Marx Offer to Dedicate Capital to Darwin?: A Reassessment of the Evidence," Journal of the History of Ideas vol. 39, p. 133 (1978)<br /><br />Or a brief, accessible net version: http://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/2000/marx/Nelson Goodmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01587705891298456932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-15653959713404420802010-08-30T17:39:18.431-04:002010-08-30T17:39:18.431-04:00I liked the Ogawa book. It is very precise, minim...I liked the Ogawa book. It is very precise, minimalist, a fascinating exploration of the peculiar premise [a brilliant mathematician who, because of a head wound, has a short term memory of precisely eighty minutes.] Not, I thought, a deep or terribly moving book, bjut elegant.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-61103066429324899392010-08-30T17:26:32.749-04:002010-08-30T17:26:32.749-04:00Professor Wolff --
I am curious -- what is your a...Professor Wolff --<br /><br />I am curious -- what is your assessment of the Ogawa book?Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00826600172627425879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-17326194701103169442010-08-30T17:23:22.616-04:002010-08-30T17:23:22.616-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.NotHobbeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09443644930695303411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88921206546591232292010-08-30T13:12:48.204-04:002010-08-30T13:12:48.204-04:00Neither Hemingway nor Dostoyevsky did anything. N...Neither Hemingway nor Dostoyevsky did anything. No, I am wrong, I take everything back. Hemingway was an ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War. OK. Scratch all of that. I must rethink.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-47925127155399726282010-08-30T12:55:29.025-04:002010-08-30T12:55:29.025-04:00Woah, now that's a tad confusing; how is he a ...Woah, now that's a tad confusing; how is he a stand up guy when juxtaposed to Hemingway and Dostoevsky? I only know a little bit about each of those two authors biographical history, but I don't know anything that indicates they also were not decent, humane people? Am I missing something? Was Dostoevsky not the good Christian soul he wrote about? And was Hemingway not the way quasi anarcho-communist he wrote about?<br /><br />Thank you for the information.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-42110397406659149492010-08-30T12:43:36.700-04:002010-08-30T12:43:36.700-04:00Dickens' politics were interesting. He was a ...Dickens' politics were interesting. He was a passionate supporter of factory legislation, child labor laws, etc., fiercely opposed to the Tories, whom he lampooned endlessly [his comic name for the government was The Circumlocution Department], but he riduled Harriet Martineau's suffragist views in the character Mrs. Jellyby. Howwever, he devoted endless time to the most detailed management of a home or prostitutes who had been jailed, and did all manner of other good works. BUT: he was opposed to strikes, insisting that what was needed was more understanding between employers and workers. Taking all in all, by the standards of his time, he was on the right [which is to say, the left] side of things, and he wrote in a deeply moving fashion about the miseries of orphanages and workhouses and solitary confinement prisons and other creations of nineteenth century supposed reformers. I mean, if you compare him with Dostoyevsky or Hemingway or Trolloppe or Richardson or even Austen, he was a stand-up guy.<br /><br />By the way, many years ago, while working hard on Marx's thought, I read a brilliant biography of him {Marx's Fate, by Jerrold Siegel] that convinced me that Marx also was a pig. It was an enormous let-down. Marx, the immortal theorist of capitalist exploitation, exploited everyone around him -- financially, emotionally, sexually, and otherwise. I guess it is a mistake to look for heroes.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-8022984492366689262010-08-30T12:06:45.715-04:002010-08-30T12:06:45.715-04:00Professor,
I only read Dickens in grade-school, wh...Professor,<br />I only read Dickens in grade-school, when the beauty was lost on me. Although I did read Tale of Two Cities. Otherwise, what were the mans politics so to speak? How did he lean?<br /><br />Secondly, I must say I share your sentiment of feeling immoral for not completing a book. I'm presently, slowly, working my way through Dostoevskys Demons...Meanwhile so many shorter, more captivating books, stare me down.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-27888879149850196452010-08-30T09:42:29.673-04:002010-08-30T09:42:29.673-04:00He did not, alas, though Marx was a very great adm...He did not, alas, though Marx was a very great admirer of Dickens. They inhabited two totally different Londons at the same time. As you may know, Marx actually asked Charles Darwin whether he could dedicate Das Kapital to him, but Darwin declined. In his graveside eulogy, Engels compared Marx to Darwin. Had Dickens and Marx met, by some bizarre confluence of events, Dickens would have had no idea what to make of Marx, I am afraid.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-45361817468607019012010-08-30T09:19:55.213-04:002010-08-30T09:19:55.213-04:00Since you have started this book Professor I have ...Since you have started this book Professor I have been wondering, did Marx ever meet Dickens?<br />And if so, are there any records of the conversation that took placeNotHobbeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09443644930695303411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-25574624238939011532010-08-30T07:56:51.282-04:002010-08-30T07:56:51.282-04:00I am constitutionally incapable of just dropping t...I am constitutionally incapable of just dropping this book and starting another one [save for that little one day vacation to read the Ogawa.] So I shall have to soldier on.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-27189692851900734852010-08-30T07:20:16.580-04:002010-08-30T07:20:16.580-04:00My recommendation: switch to Ray Monk's "...My recommendation: switch to Ray Monk's "Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius" if you haven't read it yet -- it looks big and scary but it is quite intertaining and instructing [at least it was so for me]..David Pilavinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05936888349199350870noreply@blogger.com