Monday, November 10, 2008

Notables and Linkables

* I have twice managed to find a good natural use of the word churrigueresque in the past week. It's one of those odd words that are much more useful than you think; regardless of the architectural technicalities, in colloquial usage what's churrigueresque is baroque beyond baroque, extravagantly exuberant, with an almost insane attention to detail: baroque raised to rococo raised to a whole new level.

* A very lovely site: Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory.

* There's some good discussion of HoP at "Just Thomism".

* Also relevant to HoP -- I've linked to it before, but if you're interested in the subject, you should read Knud Haakonssen's The Idea of Early Modern Philosophy (PDF). Haakonssen's essay is a must-read for anyone interested in the subject of early modern philosophy, and salutary for anyone interested in history of philosophy generally.

* Aristotle Writes to Gordon Brown at "Thinking Faith," the online journal of the British Jesuits. (ht)

* Terry Eagleton reviews Waugh's House of Wittgenstein. (ht)

* The Philosopher's Zone, ABC Radio National's excellent philosophy-themed talk radio show, has been on an economy streak recently. The most recent is on a topic that used to be a quite common philosophical topic but isn't so common anymore, namely, money.

* Wondering Aloud is a blog on teaching philosophy at the K-12 level. (ht)

* A page giving links to online notes, lectures, courses, tutorials, etc. devoted to logic. (ht)

* Life at the White House.

* I have recently been going through my LP collection -- all inherited -- because my sister gave me a USB turntable for my birthday in August, and what with moving and the like I have just now been able to set it up. It has been quite odd; I had an extraordinarily difficult time setting up the turntable, because I have never myself used a turntable in my life, and phrases like "zero grams of stylus pressure" convey nothing to my mind. And it turns out, again because they are all inherited, that I have a Barry Manilow collection that is considerably more extensive than I know what to do with. I've been slowly going through the ones I have, but, honestly, who can listen to that much Barry Manilow? Also, I seem to have four or five different versions of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." But it's a good way to hear good songs you don't often hear and therefore forget, like Simon & Garfunkel's Patterns.