Category Archives: History

Joan Baez in Istanbul

July 2, 2015 – 2:07 pm

While living in a group house in Washington in the 1990s, commuting by bicycle to the University of Maryland for my graduate studies in mathematics, I joined a discussion group of readers of the Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine. I suppose the group met as frequently as the magazine was published, though it could have been twice a month: I do not clearly recall. Neither do I recall just how I became involved with the group, though it must have been through a professor in my department who was a member.

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Istanbul, Music, Tourism | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)

Teos

May 19, 2015 – 10:41 am

This is about a visit to the ruins of the ancient Ionian city of Teos. These ruins are in what is now the district of Seferihisar, in the province of İzmir, on the Aegean coast of Turkey. On the web there is a lot of information about the site. There is a 28-page illustrated guidebook in Turkish and English (pdf file). However, Ayşe and I did not consult any of this information before visiting. What we had was George Bean, Aegean Turkey (London: Ernest Benn, 2d edition, 1979). Bean himself died in 1977. Once we were at the site of Teos, we learned something of its layout from the posted map.

I am going to describe our visit to the site; and yet one great pleasure of our visit was its unexpectedness. We had come to the area for a short beach holiday before Antalya Algebra Days XVII, which would be held not in Antalya, but at the Nesin Mathematics Village, further down the coast from Teos in the hills above Ephesus. In Istanbul, packing my things for our trip, I finally remembered to check Bean’s book to see what was in the area we would visit. Bean had a number of pages about Teos, along with some enthusiastic words; so I found room for the book in my backpack.

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Archeology, Nesin Mathematics Village, Tourism, Turkey | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

Art on the Bosphorus

March 9, 2015 – 4:28 pm

Here are photos from a Saturday (March 7, 2015) on the European side of the lower Bosphorus. I often go there, without a particular plan. Saturday was another cloudy day; but in Istanbul, in winter, one might wait weeks for a sunny day. No rain was forecast: that was enough reason to go out.

I first got the camera out at the Bezm-i Âlem Valide Sultan Camii, a.k.a. Dolmabahçe Mosque. The date at the door is 1851. Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Bosphorus, Istanbul, Tophane, Tourism, Visual Art | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)

Liberation

February 5, 2015 – 3:45 pm

This article is based on quotations from three writers, of three different nationalities, who share a spirit with which I am in sympathy:

Fukuoka
“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
Pirsig
“The real cycle you’re working on is the cycle called ‘yourself.’ ”
Collingwood
“I thought that the democratic system was not only a form of government but a school of political experience coextensive with the nation.”

The books quoted here: The One-Straw Revolution, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and An Autobiography. They all have on their covers a similar forest green, along with black

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, Education, Freedom, Nature, Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Pirsig, Turkey | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

The Writer and the Persona

January 27, 2015 – 3:37 pm

One may like a writer’s books without liking the writer. I have not had opportunity to test this maxim directly; but the experience of reading The First Mate’s Log may come close to what is needed. I like the book, as I like all of Collingwood’s books. But the Log is what it says, an account of Mediterranean Sea voyage taken by the author with a bunch of young men (Oxford students) half his age. The Log perhaps reveals more of Collingwood’s personality than his philosophy books do. Or maybe Collingwood just adopts a somewhat different persona for the Log.

Three pages of text, side by side

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, Philosophy | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Body and Mind

January 20, 2015 – 1:33 pm

Does consciousness have a “physical basis” or “material basis”? I am provoked by the suggestion that it does; for the question itself is misleading, if not simply meaningless.

In the September, 2014, issue of Harper’s magazine, Edward O. Wilson begins an essay called “On Free Will” with the following paragraph.

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Freedom, Harper’s, Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Pirsig, Plato, Science | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

Inurement

January 15, 2015 – 8:00 am

This is about getting used to things, and things one should not get used to.

There is a free-speech crisis in Turkey now, brought on in part, but not exclusively, by the murders at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. See an editorial of the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) for a list of issues.

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Freedom, Philosophy of History, Psychology, Turkey | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

The Peace of Liberal Education

January 13, 2015 – 1:33 pm
The wall of Dolmabahçe Sarayı, January 11, 2015

The wall of Dolmabahçe Sarayı, January 11, 2015

The occasion of this article is my discovery of a published Turkish translation of Collingwood’s Speculum Mentis or The Map of Knowledge (Oxford, 1924). Published as Speculum Mentis ya da Bilginin Haritası (Ankara: Doğu Batı, 2014), the translation is by Kubilay Aysevenler and Zerrin Eren. Near the end of the book, Collingwood writes the following paragraph about education, or what I would call more precisely liberal education. The main purpose of this article then is to offer the paragraph to any reader who happens to stop by.

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, Education, Euclid, Homer, Istanbul, Language, Mathematics, Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Principles of Art, Turkish | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Interview with Mustafa Kemal

December 26, 2014 – 3:23 pm

Below are transcribed the words in the image above by the founder of the Turkish Republic.

When I first visited Istanbul, in 1998, I was too late to see old American cars used as dolmuşlar. Perhaps there were still a few around, but I did not see them. They had been described in a book published the previous year:

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Istanbul, Tourism, Turkey | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

Bosphorus Sky

December 19, 2014 – 4:14 pm

This is about the morning of Thursday, December 18, 2014, a morning I spent by the Bosphorus, thinking mostly about poetry, and photographing the sky.

Seagulls against clouds and a brighter sea

Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Archimedes, Bosphorus, Collingwood, Descartes, Education, Istanbul, Language, Mathematics, Nature, Nesin Mathematics Village, Philosophy, Poetry, Principles of Art, Psychology, Tourism, Turkey, Turkish | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (7)