Tag Archives: Debbie Cameron

Biological History

January 9, 2023 – 9:39 am

Sailboats and sun, seen through a mist and reflected in calm water
Tarabya Marina, Sarıyer, Istanbul
January 1, 2023

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By David Pierce | Posted in Collingwood, Homer, Maugham | Also tagged , , , | Comments (16)

The Asıl of the Iliad

December 20, 2020 – 7:02 pm

Etymologically speaking, the asıl of a thing is its root. The Arabic root of the Turkish word means bitki kökü, “vegetable root,” according to Sevan Nişanyan’s Turkish etymological dictionary.

In the Iliad, why is Achilles so affronted by Agamemnon as to refuse to help the Greeks, even as their attack on Troy is becoming a defensive war, at the wall that they have erected about their own ships? If the answer is to be found through study, then Book IX of the Iliad is what to study.

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By David Pierce | Posted in Homer | Also tagged , | Comments (3)

Sex and Gender

December 30, 2019 – 8:01 am

A certain thesis is reasonable to me, and yet it would seem to anger persons whom I wish to respect. I am trying to understand why it does.

Drawing of human baby, knees clasped to chest, large head tilted forward to show the anterior fontanelle. The figure fits inside an inverted teardrop with a long tail like a lollipop stick. Next to this are a thin human figure and a fat, each standing, or hanging from a thread on the head, hands brought together across the groin

The hypothesis of the homunculus in the sperm
by Nicolaas Hartsoeker, 1695

Perhaps the manner of expression of the thesis is the problem. Thus one person tweets:

JK Rowling is an illustrative example transphobic feminism bc she writes determinedly from the standpoint of “kindness.” She would allow us to wear “whatever we like” and “sleep with whatever consenting adult will have us” so long as we don’t ask for equality w cis women

– Kai Cheng, Priestess of the Old Religion (@razorfemme) December 20, 2019

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By David Pierce | Posted in Philosophy, Sex and Gender | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (11)

On Chapman’s Homer’s Iliad, Book XVIII

September 20, 2019 – 9:02 am

I analyze Book XVIII of the Iliad into seven scenes.

Branches against sky

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By David Pierce | Posted in Grammar, Homer, Mathematics, Principles of Art | Also tagged , | Comments (8)