tomreading

Category: Uncategorized

  • David Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays” (TRM’s notes)

    Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays      by David Hume Introduction –         As a philosophical critic, Hume has few peers. No one has challenged more sharply rationalism’s central thesis that matters of fact can be known without recourse to experience; nor has anyone revealed more clearly the severe problems raised by insisting that…

  • notes for Bertrand Russell’s “Our Knowledge of the External World” (TRM’s notes)

    ‘Our Knowledge of the External World — –          Bertrand Russell     (1914) Introduction           by Amit Hagar –          A thoughtful exposition of his logically motivated epistemology –          Bertrand Russell (1872 -1970) –          born the grandson of Lord John Russell…

  • “Art as Experience” John Dewey’s 1931 Harvard lectures (TRM’s notes)

    Art as Experience                by John Dewey Preface: –          1931 Harvard –          Dr. Meyer Schapiro –          Dr. Joseph Ratner –          Dr. A.C. Barnes “The Live Creature”       chpt.1 –          Ironic perversities –          Opaque –          geographers and geologists –          Appreciation –          Parthenon –          Understand –          Coleridge –          Pleasurable activity of the journey…

  • notes for Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (TRM’s notes)

    ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’           by Oscar Wilde –          Schumann’s Forest Scene –          Les court Nouvelles –          Manon Lescaut –          Mercutio –          Melbourne –          Achilles statue –          Marble Arch –          ‘What do you mean by good, Harry?’ –          Caliban –          Doges –          Louis Quinze –          Ophelia –         …

  • ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ by Albert Camus (TRM’s notes)

    Myth of Sisyphus by  Albert Camus An Abstract Reasoning –          An intellectual malady Absurdity and Suicide –          There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide –          Nietzsche –          Galileo –          the method of the Palisse and the method of Don Quixote –          The relationship between individual thought and suicide –          ‘undermined’…

  • ‘Illuminations’ by Walter Benjamin [TRM’s notes]

    Illuminations    by Walter Benjamin Introduction by Hannah Arendt Introduction: –          Marxist –          Jewish –          What seems paradoxical about everything that is justly called beautiful is the fact that it appears. –          The flaneur –          Angel of history has his face turned towards the past –          Klee’s ‘Angela Novus’ –          The allegorical representation of death by…

  • Adorno’s ‘Theory of Aesthetics’

    Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory Intro – translator’s intro – Hegel – Kierkegaard – Benjamin’s ‘Artwork in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ – Proust’s ‘Swann’s Way’ – Figaro – Stefan George – Para tactical capacity – ‘Situation’ chpt 2 – Aesthetic – The impulse to pick up the sacred threads of what was just fascist in Germany’s…

  • ‘Analysis of Mind’ by Bertrand Russell [TRM’s notes]

    ‘Analysis of Mind’       by Bertrand Russell Preface –          Professor Eddington’s ‘ Space, Time and Gravitation’ –          William James Lecture 1 ‘Recent Criticisms of Consciousness’ –          ‘mental’ –          believing and desiring –          Russell, ‘Our Knowledge of the  External World’ –          perception –          memory –          ideas –          Locke, Berkeley and Hume –          Belief –          Cognitive –          Knowledge…

  • The World as Will and Representation Part II (TRM’s notes)

    The World as Will and Representation Part II a supplement to the first book “Why wilt thou withdraw from us all and from our way of thinking?”- ‘I do not write for your pleasure you shall learn something”. Goethe in endless space phenomenon of the brain subjective conditions the world is my representation ideality cogito…

  • “Knowledge: ‘Its Scope and Limits’” Bertrand Russell (TRM’s notes)

    Knowledge: ‘Its Scope and Limits’  Bertrand Russell –    In describing the world, “subjectivity” is a vice. –    Kant spoke of himself as having affected a “Copernican Revolution”, but he would have been more accurate if he had spoken of a “Ptolemaic counter-revolution”, since he put man back at the center from which Copernicus had dethroned…