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Re: Soliloquies, American writers, Greek Gods
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On 14/12/06 16:16, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> quoted VN (Bend Sinister):
> All those who are because they do not think, thus refuting Cartesianism.
Not so fast! Lest we put Des Cartes before De Horse! If you take C (cogito)
ergo S (sum)¹ as simple IMPLICATION (³thinking¹ implies being¹²) written
as C -> S, we can rephrase VN¹s proposition as ³being¹ because
not-thinking,¹² written as S <- ~C or ~C -> S. [read ~¹ as logical
negation.] Alas, ~C -> S does NOT refute C -> S!! There¹s no LOGICAL
contradiction. Both thinking¹ and non-thinking¹ can imply being.¹
I¹ve just checked by kicking a nearby BRICK (but I¹m mixing my
philosophers!)
Re-Anglo-Saxon: Charles protests far too much and without due process,
methinks, against the use of the old term OLD ENGLISH to describe the
vernacular Germanic language[s] prevalent in Anglo-Saxon England between
about 600 --1100 CE. OLD ENGLISH is a useful description, used [usually OE
suffices!] by the very scholars devoted to its study. Its chief merit is to
offer the rough taxonomy: Old, Middle, and Modern manifestations of our
noble tongue (to which one can add ad lib subdivisions such as Late-Middle
and Early-Modern). A cute in-house variant is the OE adjective* ENGLISC
(pronounced ENglish not INglish). All languages are bundles of dialects¹ so
naming them is far from trivial. Many tribes just don¹t understand the
question ³What language are you speaking?² (rendered in their own language,
of course!)
* We can be grateful that modern English has shed considerable OE
grammatical baggage. OE adjectives decline with singular/plural, 3 genders,
4 or 5 cases (Nom, Acc, Gen, Dat, possibly Instr) each with weak and strong
variants a total of 43 inflections to learn! Now down to one! Russian and
Lithuanian, e.g., have not been so lucky!
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
> All those who are because they do not think, thus refuting Cartesianism.
Not so fast! Lest we put Des Cartes before De Horse! If you take C (cogito)
ergo S (sum)¹ as simple IMPLICATION (³thinking¹ implies being¹²) written
as C -> S, we can rephrase VN¹s proposition as ³being¹ because
not-thinking,¹² written as S <- ~C or ~C -> S. [read ~¹ as logical
negation.] Alas, ~C -> S does NOT refute C -> S!! There¹s no LOGICAL
contradiction. Both thinking¹ and non-thinking¹ can imply being.¹
I¹ve just checked by kicking a nearby BRICK (but I¹m mixing my
philosophers!)
Re-Anglo-Saxon: Charles protests far too much and without due process,
methinks, against the use of the old term OLD ENGLISH to describe the
vernacular Germanic language[s] prevalent in Anglo-Saxon England between
about 600 --1100 CE. OLD ENGLISH is a useful description, used [usually OE
suffices!] by the very scholars devoted to its study. Its chief merit is to
offer the rough taxonomy: Old, Middle, and Modern manifestations of our
noble tongue (to which one can add ad lib subdivisions such as Late-Middle
and Early-Modern). A cute in-house variant is the OE adjective* ENGLISC
(pronounced ENglish not INglish). All languages are bundles of dialects¹ so
naming them is far from trivial. Many tribes just don¹t understand the
question ³What language are you speaking?² (rendered in their own language,
of course!)
* We can be grateful that modern English has shed considerable OE
grammatical baggage. OE adjectives decline with singular/plural, 3 genders,
4 or 5 cases (Nom, Acc, Gen, Dat, possibly Instr) each with weak and strong
variants a total of 43 inflections to learn! Now down to one! Russian and
Lithuanian, e.g., have not been so lucky!
Stan Kelly-Bootle.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm