Tag Archives: 2026

Ars Longa

April 7, 2026 – 7:44 am

The extant works of Hippocrates take up ten volumes of the Loeb Classical Library. I’ve got the fourth of those volumes, because it contains also the extant fragments of Heraclitus, collected under the title ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΝΤΟΣ, On the Universe. [See the footnote on this title.]

I am going to look here at some aphorisms of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Turkish folklore, Zen, and Erich Segal – also of Hippocrates, who seems to be the source of our word “aphorism.” He wrote ΑΦΟΡΙΣΜΟΙ, and they turn out be in the same Loeb volume with Heraclitus.

Book and paraphernalia lie on one picnic table among several. Two people sit at a table in the distance. The tables are partially shaded by trees, and a bit of sea is visible through other trees

I was reading Parmenides
in Kireçburnu Çamlık Parkı
Erguvantepe, Sarıyer, Istanbul
July 6, 2025

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By David Pierce | Posted in Collingwood, Turkish | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Contradiction in Terms

March 31, 2026 – 9:26 pm

Somebody else can amuse us or frighten us. They might put us to sleep with an injection, or perhaps keep us awake. They cannot make us rational. They cannot make us think. Thinking is up to us.

View down a shallow valley of trees and apartment buildings towards water and hills beyond; clear sky above
Our Bosphorus view
from a local mosque, Ecdat Cami
Tarabya, Sarıyer, Istanbul
Monday, February 16, 2026

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By David Pierce | Posted in Collingwood | Also tagged | Comments (1)

Organ Recital

February 14, 2026 – 7:59 am

Trigger warnings for this post:

  1. Suffering and pain.
  2. Cessation of life.
  3. Mathematics.

After the post of December 9, for some reason I wanted to record here a surgical operation in 2019. Then I became preoccupied with mathematics.

Against a concave white wall, a line of rough masks, two eye-holes each, made of tree bark
Hera Büyüktaşcıyan, “Dendrologia,” 2023; part of an exhibit called Phantom Quartet at Arter Istanbul, visited Wednesday, February 4, 2026. The bark of the masks is said to be taken from dead trees on the Isle of Vassivière in the artificial Lac de Vassivière, Limousin, France

On the subject of mathematics, let me take the opportunity to recommend “The Tool/Weapon Duality of Mathematics,” by Alexandre Borovik, recently published in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (volume 16, number 1, January 2026; pages 365–392). Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Posted in Istanbul, Plato, Principles of Art, Turkey | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)