Category Archives: Plato

35th Istanbul Film Festival, 2016, part 2

April 22, 2016 – 3:48 pm

Part 1 | Part 3

Book cover: Deer Hunting With Jesus

The Demons

Philippe Lesage. Canada. French. Fitaş, Monday, April 11, 2016, 16:00

Ayşe was teaching, but I was free to see a movie. The İstiklâl cinemas were twenty minutes by foot from our urban campus, or one subway stop, if you preferred. Our flat was one stop in the other direction. There was a festival cinema in Ortaköy, and another over on the Asian side; but without even considering these (which I have never visited), I had a Canadian, a Mexican, a Polish, and a Turkish film to choose from. I studied them on the festival website, though not too intently. You are not likely to go wrong with any festival film. Moreover, the catalogue synopses do not always provide an accurate sense. I chose the Canadian movie out of interest in this country as being both American and not. It is also where Ayşe and I met. Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Film, Istanbul, Music, Turkey | Tagged | Comments (1)

Nicole at the Golden Horn

October 7, 2015 – 3:47 pm

The setting was gorgeous. We were atop a hotel (and former convent) opposite the compound of the Italian Consulate—the Italian Embassy, in Ottoman times, before Mustafa Kemal founded the Turkish Republic and moved the capital to Ankara. We looked out over old trees. The street just below us was closed to cars; off to the right it became a stairway and a narrow passage up to İstiklâl Caddesi. Beyond the trees of the Consulate were the Golden Horn and Seraglio Point, with the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara beyond. As night fell, electric lights illuminated the Seraglio itself—Topkapı Palace—along with the Hagia Sophia.
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By David Pierce | Also posted in Bosphorus, Collingwood, Istanbul, Principles of Art, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

The Facebook Algorithm

March 17, 2015 – 3:36 pm

I thank all of the friends who sent me birthday greetings on Facebook this year. [But see note at end.] One friend noted that I was not likely to see his birthday greeting, since I do not pay attention to Facebook these days. I usually do not pay attention; but since so many friends apparently continue to use that medium, I have not closed my account. I recently posted on Facebook a couple of photographs showing a friend from Washington who was visiting Istanbul. These photographs were “liked” by friends of that person or of me. Thus I suppose I used Facebook for its best purpose. Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Facebook, Mathematics, Philosophy, Psychology | Tagged | Comments (5)

Equality Is Not Identity

January 26, 2015 – 3:20 pm

I want to record here an account by Collingwood of Aristotle’s theory of knowledge. The passages quoted below are relevant, both to something I have learned from reading Euclid with students, and to the considerations of consciousness that led to my recent article “Body and Mind.”

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Aristotle, Collingwood, Euclid, Mathematics, Nature, Philosophy, Science | Tagged , | Comments (2)

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.

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

Freedom

August 4, 2014 – 12:31 pm

How do our thoughts age?

Having written recently that natural science was not history of nature, I looked back at Collingwood’s posthumous Principles of History for his arguments about this. I read his discussion of freedom as what distinguishes history from natural science. I recalled that his earlier writing was more concerned with removing distinctions than drawing them.

This is something that I investigate here. I occasionally encounter denials that we have “free will.” I find such denials bizarre; but evidently some people believe them, or at least believe they are worthy of consideration. I find Collingwood’s own account of freedom to be worthy of consideration. But then, considering this along with the rest of his œuvre, I have to conclude that everything is free. This conclusion is not really new to me; I drew such a conclusion as an adolescent. It may be a common thought. Wordsworth seems to have had such a thought, according to his Ode:

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, Education, Facebook, Freedom, History, Nature, New Leviathan, overlap of classes, Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Pirsig, Principles of Art, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (13)

Facts (NL IX, ‘Retrospect,’ first 6 paragraphs)

August 1, 2014 – 9:43 am

Index to this series

A certain person says,

I am not better than you or more virtuous than you. If you see me on the right path, help me. If you see me on the wrong path, advise me and halt me. And obey me as far as I obey God.

How should one hear these words: as an eminently reasonable expression of benevolent humility such as any of us might honorably make? Well, no matter how qualified, the command obey me might be a warning sign. The words are in fact from a recently published video, as quoted in the Guardian Weekly (Vol 190 No 5, 11–17 July 2014, p. 4). The speaker is the man whose nom de guerre is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on whose head the Department of State of the United States of America placed a ten-million-dollar bounty in 2011. He now styles himself Ibrahim, Caliph of the Islamic State, a new entity that is supposed to restore the lost Muslim glory of past centuries. This restoration is to be achieved through war. War requires military discipline, with punishments meted out for infractions like insubordination, not to mention the slaughter of those perceived as enemies. So al-Baghdadi’s request to be advised and halted if seen to be in the wrong must be interpreted rather carefully.

It is difficult to know how to interpret somebody’s words. With that I pass to the transitional chapter in the first part, “Man,” of Collingwood’s New Leviathan.

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Aristotle, Categorical Thinking, Collingwood, Grammar, Mathematics, New Leviathan, Philosophy, Turkish, Visual Art | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (4)

NL VIII: “Hunger and Love”

June 30, 2014 – 11:57 am

Index to this series

§1

Collingwood recognizes the two kinds of appetites named in the title of the chapter.
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By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, New Leviathan, Philosophy, Psychology | Tagged , , , , | Comments (8)

An afterbirthday message

March 31, 2014 – 3:24 pm

I originally posted the following on Facebook on March 17, 2014. I post it here too so that it is not lost in the bowels of that other medium.

Sevgili arkadaşlar // dear friends,

Doğum günümü kutladığınız için hepinize teşekkürler, ve aşağıdaki sözleri okuyanlara teşekkürler. // Thanks to all of you for the birthday greetings, and thanks to those who read the following.

(1) Yaşayın, (2) Diaspora*’ya katılın, (3) özgür olun! //

(1) Live, (2) join Diaspora*, (3) be free!

İngilizce’de devam ediyorum // I continue in English. Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Facebook, Freedom, Philosophy | Tagged , | Comments (3)

NL VI: “Language”

February 27, 2014 – 3:37 pm

Index to this series

This is about the first section of Chapter VI, “Language,” of The New Leviathan. The whole chapter can be ana­lyzed into five sections, with §N consisting of those paragraphs numbered 6. N or 6. NX. I summarize the sections as follows:

  1. Language is an abstraction from discourse. Discourse is an activity together with what is meant by it. (¶¶6. 1–19)
  2. Through language, we become conscious of our feelings. Becoming conscious of our language is another step, which is taken by artists. (¶¶6. 2–29)
  3. A feeling is not “mediated” by the language we use for it. (¶¶6. 3–36)
  4. Hobbes discovered that language is prior to knowledge. (¶¶6. 4–47)
  5. Those who dispute this finding over­look that not all language is rational. (¶¶6. 5–59)

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, Education, Istanbul, Language, New Leviathan, Philosophy, Principles of Art, question and answer | Tagged , | Comments (4)