Off the shelf

Off the shelf - Times 2 - Times Online:
"Some plump for self-pity: "Monocled, plaid-festooned gadabout, out of place in any relationship, or century. Please help me . . .", writes a man who is "possibly your embarrassing uncle, 51." Some choose whimsy: "Unemployable choreographer and amateur harpist (M, 62) seeks recovering alcoholic with feeble mind. Own tap shoes an advantage."

Albert Einstein as a Philosopher of Science - Physics Today December 2005

Albert Einstein as a Philosopher of Science - Physics Today December 2005:
"It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing to do at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are so well established that waves of doubt can't reach them; but it cannot be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of theoretical foundations; for he himself knows best and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for a new foundation, he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities."

Esoteric Religion

Vertical readings of Herbert's The Temple - TLS Highlights - Times Online:
"If these readings appear strange and unfamiliar, they derive from reading Herbert in a strange and unfamiliar way: vertically. Herbert's much-admired collection of religious verse, The Temple, published in 1633, contains innumerable acrostics and anagrams, discoverable by reading the first letter of each line down the left-hand column of text. These acrostics, virtually unnoticed in writing about Herbert for 375 years, give insight into poems that aregenerally considered to be among the finest and most famous religious lyrics in English."

Dr. Shakespeare

A contemporary medical man can learn something from Shakespeare; he can learn nothing from Hall. As Orwell pointed out, it takes effort and determination to see what is in front of one’s face. Among the efforts required is the discarding of the lenses of excessive or bogus theorizing.

God isn't big enough for some people

Telegraph | Opinion

Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion. You can see this in the positivist scientists of the 19th century.

Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary Supplement

Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary Supplement
"I'm waging war against myself”, declared Jacques Derrida in an interview with Le Monde last year, published less than two months before he succumbed to the after-effects of pancreatic cancer in a Paris hospital.

When a Pineapple isn't a Pineapple

Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary Supplement: "In his %u201CEssay Concerning Human Understanding%u201D, John Locke asserts the impossibility of knowing the taste of pineapple before you have actually tasted it. This is not just a throwaway remark; he returns to the point in several drafts and in several places. In 1671, Locke wrote that the man who has never had pineapple, that %u201Cdelicate%u201D fruit, %u201Cin his mouth%u201D cannot have a true or %u201Cnew%u201D idea of it. He can only have an amalgam of %u201Cold%u201D ideas based on the descriptions of travellers. Later, he wrote that %u201Cwe see nobody gets the relish of a pineapple, till he goes to the Indies, where it is, and tastes it%u201D. To think that you could relish a pineapple without really experiencing it was like imagining you could see colours in the dark. The person who %u201Cfrom his childhood, never tasted an oyster, or a pineapple%u201D does not know the particular taste of these things. And again: %u201Clet him try if any words can give him the taste of the Pine-Apple, and make him have the true idea of the Relish of that celebrated delicious Fruit%u201D. For Locke, who had never tasted a pineapple himself, this was impossible. Only first-hand sensory experience could give knowledge of the taste %u2013 the quiddity %u2013 of pineapple. "