Barry Robbins's Page
Latest Activity
Hi, All,
I'm not sure that my last post got through, so I am re-posting it here. Forgive the redundancy if it did.
Chapter 7B
In this chapter Klein attempts to clarify the relationship (as understood by Plato) between “logistike” and “dianoia.”...
Chapter 7B
In this chapter Klein attempts to clarify the relationship (as understood by Plato) between “logistike” and “dianoia.”
The single word that jumps out at me in this chapter is the word “incidentally” as it is used on page 78: “thus INC...
Obviously I've got my chapters mixed up. (I don't have Klein's text handy). Where I wrote "chapter 7" read "chapter 6" and where I wrote "chapter 8" read "chapter 7." i should have posted my last comments in the chapter 6 blog, but I started out b...
Klein's comments about dialectic are taken directly from Book VII of the Republic (cf., 531d6 and following), where Socrates, in response to Glaucon's comment that the education described so far requires an “enormous amount of work," says that it'...
Just a quick response, Laura, since I have to catch a flight back to the states early tomorrow morning and I haven't packed yet.
My text on page 72 reads "...but these reflections...are aimed not at these particular objects but at the 'pure' numb...
As I hope you know by now, Laura, I am in awe of your intellectual capacity and your "philosophia." And, no, I don't think that we are getting nowhere. However, I do sense an extreme reluctance on our parts to turn toward those very things that Kl...
Laura, right now you have in your possession many different numbers. These numbers allow you to identify all sorts of countable collections that you come in contact with as being just so many candles, pencils, cupcakes, friends, etc.; these number...
I wanted to try to summarize the chapter, but right now I only have time to try to say a few things about the beginning.
Klein first spends time making the point that every number is always a definite number of “definite things.” Now, if we can s...
Thanks, Ian, for calling our attention to Raphael's wonderful painting. As I recall, Plato and Aristotle are the only members of the School of Athens who are depicted as engaged in dialogue and as looking directly at each other? As I also recall, ...
I just read your post, Laura. I didn't get a chance to read it sooner since I was in transit to St. Petersburg, Russia, where I recently arrived and will vacation for the next week. And while I'm pretty exhausted, I do want to try to say a few thi...
You are very welcome, Laura. Klein will talk more about "noeta" in the upcoming chapters, especially 7, but, quite simply, things that can be perceived can be referred to as "aestheta," while those that can be grasped by thought may be referred to...
This chapter strikes me as pretty straight forward. So I thought I’d try to summarize it before moving on to the next chapter, which, I think, is far more interesting.
So here goes.
Klein’s main purpose in this chapter is to answer the question ...
Hi, Laura,
No, you are not way off at all; as usual, you are right on. After all, it's "the numbers themselves" and not their written representations that are the object of "arithmetice." Also, our tendency (which you described very clearly) to b...
Hi, Bill,
Welcome aboard! Yes, I think that Klein is intent on clarifying the relationship between what you are calling the "pure" version and the practical application. He will have a lot more to say in the upcoming chapters.
We are certainly i...
Profile Information
- Tell about your involvement in education, and your ideals for collegial sharing
- I first read through Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origins of Algebra in my early twenties and have read through it several times since then. While I've studied it with some friends, it never even occurred to me to attempt to study it in this way. However, since meeting up with Laura, I'm persuaded that this may work out very well. I am in awe of Laura's intellectual energy and acuity and am very eager to begin this journey. The book itself is one of the most challenging I have read (and most of my leisure time is spent studying works of Plato with a group of friends) but also one of the most important, since in it Klein directs his attention to what he sees as a fundamental change that has taken place in the way in which we form concepts.
- About Me:
- I have been studying Plato for all of my adult life. I did undergraduate and graduate work in Classics at the U. of Rochester, and more graduate work at SUNY at Buffalo. I currently teach Latin and Ancient Greek at Brentwood Academy, a private school in Brentwood, TN.
Comment Wall (13 comments)
- At 4:13pm on June 7, 2009,
Laura Gibbs said… - SMALL WORLD! I learned about that dialogue from a very nice prof. of semiotics whom I met in Italy - author of a VERY interesting book which I am sure you would like:
Theories of the sign in classical antiquity
by Giovanni Manetti
http://books.google.com/books?id=1cTZZ0453GgC
:-)
- At 2:03pm on June 7, 2009,
Laura Gibbs said…
- The speech and writing materials are things I am more familiar with than the math... although I should have known that some of the same questions would emerge here for math and its written form, which is really fascinating to me! I could definitely see doing Plato next summer... I'm part of a regular Greek Bible reading group, but that's about the only Greek in my life, which is a shame. It is so thought-provoking, esp. when I've got a head full of Latin, as I do these days!
On the Latin side, do you know Augustine's De Magistro? It is a marvelous meditation on language also!
http://tinyurl.com/luqll5
I mean, who can resist a dialogue that begins:
Augustinus: Quid tibi videmur efficere velle, cum loquimur?
Adeodatus: Quantum quidem mihi nunc occurrit, aut docere aut discere.
- At 1:59pm on June 7, 2009,
Laura Gibbs said…
- PERFECT! That is exactly the way the Latin works also. I had never really pondered distributive numerals before this, but they seem to fit in very nicely to the mathematical world that Klein is going to describe for us. I was going to look at that passage anyway (Klein seems to assume some familiarity with it, if I am remembering correctly).
This is what I really enjoy about taking on a new topic (as this is for me) - it turns out to have all kinds of unexpected resonance.
- At 9:39am on June 7, 2009,
Laura Gibbs said…
- Hi Barry! I have a question about Greek math vocabulary - and I don't even know where to look. In Latin, the distributives are used for multiplication (ter quina means "three times five") - not quinque, the number five, but the group of five: quina! Very intriguing; it's not something I would have noticed before reading about the Greek arithmos. Do you know how they said multiplication statements out loud in Greek...?
This question came up in regard to the multiplication readers Evan has posted at Tar Heel which he is getting from the educational textbooks of Comenius:
http://tinyurl.com/qxawrt
- At 1:03am on June 7, 2009,
Laura Gibbs said…
- Hi Barry, I'm fine with just reading Klein - but Diane's comment was sounded a bit distraught, so I was just trying to help her out.
Also, I do think it's helpful to understand where the words fit into the larger Greek vocabulary - obviously not an interest of Klein's, understandably, but for those of us whose interests are not really philosophical (which would include me), trying to understand how philosophical discourse fits into other kinds of discourse in Greek is very helpful.
- At 6:24pm on June 6, 2009,
Ian Carmichael said…
- Don't believe Laura, Barry - I'm not deeply connected to classical philosophy. (A little of ethics and natural law, hence Aristotle - but in translation! Epistemology, so something of forms and essence.) But mostly my Greek skills are from my New Testament studies - so logos gets even more clouded, and when stirred in with Hebrew dbr which extends its semantic field to thing, object, matter the waterfront is multiply covered!
- At 2:55pm on June 6, 2009,
Laura Gibbs said…
- Thanks so much for your comments about eidos and arithmos, Barry! I'm guessing that except for Ian, there's really nobody else here at Fireside who is deeply into the philosophical world... and the arcane language of philosophy, while essential to its success, can definitely be off-putting to some people. Diane's request prompted me to add some areas to focus in on some of the key terms - like eidos and hyle, plus arithmos and logos - and any comments you want to share there would be super. Are there other key terms I should anticipate now? From the chapter titles, I am guessing dianoia is going to be crucial (that's also a word of great interest to me; metanoia is one of the key terms in the world of Aesop's fables, as you can imagine!) - anyway, if you have suggestions about key terms we could anticipate, that would be great. I'm guessing other people will be somewhat intimidated by the terminology at first acquaintance. :-)
- At 9:55pm on May 27, 2009,
Barry Robbins said…
- Hi, Ian,
Glad to meet you as well and I look forward to our common journey.
Barry
- At 8:37pm on May 27, 2009,
- G'day Barry,
Glad to make your acquaintance. (If Laura's got an idea, it'll come to fruition from my experience here at the fireside!) I'll be looking forward to our journey into the Klein bottle. By the way, some while ago I came across The Measure of Reality which is an exploration of the place of quantification in Renaissance life - from astronomy to art, from music to accounting and geography. Very interesting reading.
Hope you enjoy the Fireside in general.
- At 6:17pm on May 27, 2009,
Laura Gibbs said…
- Lucky students!!! I keep thinking I need to do more with Greek proverbs and build some more Greek proverb widgets - right now I just have materials taken from Apostolius because he was handy... but it would be a lot of fun to put together a broader, better collection of sayings! :-)
About
Fireside Council
Questions, problems, comments? Here is the "Fireside Council" of folks who help Connie with the administration of this site: Anna, Ian, Mike, and Or-Tal. Click on their names to visit their Profile Pages and leave comments for them with your inquiries and ideas! Meanwhile, if you have technical questions or suggestions, Laura will be glad to help.
Roll The Dice
Roll the dice... and visit a random Fireside member production online!
Roll The Dice
Roll the dice... and visit a random Fireside member production online!
(It's easy to make your own Delicious dice if you want!)
Delicious Firesidelearning
© 2009 Created by Connie Weber on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
