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Letters

Twelve of the letters from Dr. Francisco Hernandez to King Philip II, and a petition: May 15, 1571. OK, I’m here in Mexico. Things are going well so far. May 15, 1571. Like my last letter said, the geographers and painters are doing well by me, but can I ask that you remove some of the legal limitations placed on me in this land, as they will impede my progress. Thanks. November/December 1571. So far over 800 completely new plants have been catalogued. You will be famous, like Alexander (and like Aristotle). I stay up each night thinking of new ways to serve you. By the way, could you extend my stay here, and pay me more? April 30, 1572. There is so much medicine here. I’m almost done with my third book (I’m writing in both Latin and Spanish). I’m having problems with the viceroy; if you can talk to him I might be able to finish in 2 years, otherwise it will be 20. I’m planning to travel further now (oh, could you send more money for that?). Also, I haven’t really been practicing
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Robert Johnson's mysterious death at 27

Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, near Greenwood, Mississippi, of unknown causes. Several differing accounts have described the events preceding his death. Johnson had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about 15 miles (24 km) from Greenwood. According to one theory, Johnson was murdered by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he had flirted. In an account by the blues musician Sonny Boy Williamson, Johnson had been flirting with a married woman at a dance, who gave him a bottle of whiskey poisoned by her husband. When Johnson took the bottle, Williamson knocked it out of his hand, admonishing him to never drink from a bottle that he had not personally seen opened. Johnson replied, "Don't ever knock a bottle out of my hand." Soon after, he was offered another (poisoned) bottle and accepted it. Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the
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Summary of two articles

Writing Assignment for 28 September, 2016 Summary of two articles September 28, 2016 The reading for this week consisted of two articles: Pamela Long’s “Power, Patronage, and the Authorship of Ars ” [ 2 ] and Jim Bennett’s “Presidential Address: Knowing and doing in the sixteenth century” [ 1 ] . Long’s article is both well written and well organized. Her thesis is that political and military pressures of fifteenth century Italy and southern Germany led to increased patronage and authorship of the mechanical arts, in what she sees as an alliance between techne and praxis . Practitioners of military engineering, architecture, and sculpture wrote about their art and linked it back to ancient traditions, which subsequently gave these texts and their practitioners an elevated status. There are two related points to her thesis: one which she implies, and one which she clearly states herself. The first is that the kind of alliance she depicts did not
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On Medical Analogies in Book 2 of Aristotle's Physics

Writing Assignment for 21 September, 2016 On Medical Analogies in Book 2 of Aristotle's Physics September 21, 2016 In this brief paper, I will examine a set of medical analogies made by Aristotle in Book 2 of his Physics . Taken together, these analogies help to define Aristotle’s concept of nature, and connect it to his other concepts about the workings of the world. An important statement is from the eighth chapter, in which he defends his claim that there are purposes, or final causes, in nature: It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating. Art ( techn e ) does not deliberate. If the ship-building art were in the wood, it would produce the same results by nature. If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature. The best illustration is a doctor doctoring himself: nature is like that. (Aristotle, Physics 199b26-30) This is just
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On Galileo's Method in the Dialogue

Writing Assignment for 12 October, 2016 On Galileo's Method in the Dialogue Galileo’s goal in the Fourth Day of the Dialogo [1], through the voice of Salviati, is to show how the earth’s mobility is required to adequately explain the phenomenon of tidal variation. One of his interlocutors, Simplicio, both denies the motion of the Earth and feels that the tides are already adequately explained. By the Fourth Day, Galileo feels he has already given ample evidence that the Earth moves, so much so that he makes it his chief assumption in explaining the tides. The Earth’s motion, however, is not all that Galileo requires. His account of what he calls the “primary and universal cause” of the tides depends upon an analogy with a moving barge, and from this analogy enters the requirement that the Earth’s motion causes an “uneven motion” on its surface that can explain the tides [1, pp. 444, 461]. Galileo’s arguments are complicated, and he does not foll
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Cato the Elder, on Cabbage

It is the cabbage which surpasses all other vegetables. It may be eaten either cooked or raw; if you eat it raw, dip it into vinegar. It promotes digestion marvelously and is an excellent laxative, and the urine is wholesome for everything. If you wish to drink deep at a banquet and to enjoy your dinner, eat as much raw cabbage as you wish, seasoned with vinegar, before dinner, and likewise after dinner eat some half a dozen leaves; it will make you feel as if you had not dined, and you can drink as much as you please. De Agricultura, 156
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Weinstein on Literature

The great virtue of literature (of art in general) is that it does not truck with abstract data, such as the dates of battles or elections, the numbers of this or that, or the rules or laws of this or that. One could argue that such “data” are rarely real for us, in any experiential sense, and that the business of art is precisely to translate data and information into living circumstance, to turn fact into fiction. It may seem that such a procedure moves away from reality, but the opposite is true. Facts start to live when we see them as part of experience, even fictive experience. - Arnold Weinstein, in his guidebook to Classics of American Literature
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