Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Links for Thinking

* Michael Gilleland looks into the questions of what texts support the anecdote about Fustel de Coulanges's question, "Do you have a text to prove it?"

* Jonah Lehrer has a nice little article on reductionism.

* I think Steven Pinker usually bungles things when he's trying to write for a popular audience, but this essay criticizing some of the complaints that new technologies are making us stupid makes some good points.

* D. G. D. Davidson discusses Villiers's Tomorrow's Eve, which is a classic I haven't read yet, and apparently should. He also mentions the short story, "The Sandman," by E. T. A. Hoffman, which is available in translation online.

* An Anglican vicar has a little fun with a medieval law, still on the books, that gives her the authority to summon the men of her village to archery practice. (ht)

* Brendan noted, in response to my link to Guedelon, that there's a medieval fortress being built in the Ozarks.

* Science fiction detective novels.

* Pierre Wagner clears up confusions about analytic philosophy. (ht)

* James V. Schall, On Re-Reading the Apology

* Jonathan Spence on China and the West in the seventeenth century.

* Leon Botstein discusses Bard College's summer reading program.

* Jesus was struck by lightning in Ohio last night and went up in flames. Styrofoam, wood, and resin burns well. In any case, the comedian Heywood Banks wrote a fairly well-known comedy song about the statue.

ADDED LATER

* Home library design. (ht)

* An exchange about Flannery O'Connor.