-
My Thoughts on Aristotle’s On the Soul
Title: On the Soul (De Anima) Author: Aristotle translated by J. A. Smith Published:. Preamble It was the summer of 1983 that I walked over to the Ohio State Fair from the trailer park where I lived. The newest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica had just released, and they had a booth. With my love of books, living on my own, and just a few days into the ripe wise age of twenty, I was easily convinced to take a loan and purchase a library. This collection consisted of a thirty-volume encyclopedia, a fifty-four-volume set of Great Books of the Western World, a three-volume Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, and a twenty-one-volume collection of the Annals of America. Since then, I have lugged these 108 books from one end of the country to the other. I have never regretted this purchase. This collection was my Wikipedia. It gave me incite into the world around me. The Great Books, encyclopedia, and the dictionary I have used consistently over the years. The Annals, for some reason, have been referenced or read very rarely, some volumes not at all. But, to get back to my topic, Aristotle. Two books, in this collection, are dedicated to his…
-
Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity
By: David Sedley 2007 So how did this book end up on my reading list? In my journey to find other adults to discuss the classics and how they pertain to modern issues I discovered this book and other resources. I started my quest by asking friends and family, this then expanded to social groups, and business acquaintances. One of the librarians was wondering why anybody would want to read that old stuff for fun, it was bad enough she had to read it in college. One day I was talking to one of my customers, (I own a board game store), he is a professor at University of Cincinnati and he informed me that they have a really good classics department and often host classics presentations that are open to the public. After checking the schedule online I found when the next presentation was. I made it a point to be there. The guest speaker was Dr. Athena Kirk on “The Semantics of Showcase in Herodotus’ Histories”. In preparation to meet this presenter, I looked up the professor online to see if she had any books that I could read beforehand. I did not find any, but I found…
-
Hesiod: Theogony and Works & Days
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by M. L. West, 1991 Hesiod was said to have lived in the 8th Century B.C., roughly around the same time as Homer. Unlike Homer, Hesiod gets personal. He talks about where he came from, what he did, who his brother was and other details. He is known for two major works that are foundational to Ancient Greek studies, Theogony and Works and Days. In the Theogony, Hesiod gives us the genealogy of the gods. In doing so, he also gives us a basic philosophy of how and why things are the way they are, what forces act in the world, and how they are related. In the Works and Days we get a cross between a book of proverbs and a guide to husbandry, sort of a farmers almanac. We hear the famous story of Pandora and her infamous box. The five ages of man: gold, silver, bronze, heroic, and lastly iron. When I first read the Theogony I was excited about the genealogy of the Greek gods. But, as I go over it again and again, I start to see a whole philosophy embedded within the story. This is the only translation…
