jenright

Off on a tangent, I was thinking about these translations today and fondly remembered a peculiar but moving book that goes into poetry translation at philosophical depth. It's Le Ton beau de Marot, by Douglas Hoftstadter. It also contains about 50 translations of one old French poem, many of them by Hofstadter's wife, Carol. She died before the book was finished, and the book also meditates upon love and loss.

I think it was after both of those events. I think it was 1997. That's what Peikoff's site says: http://www.peikoff.com/opar/oti.htm But ARI mistakenly has 1987 here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...demic_undergrad

The meaning can be expounded. Lost is the way it sounded. I like to look at different Englishings of the same poem. I imagine I can interpolate back to the original. Folly, of course. I want to mention these are very early poems from Blok. The meadow poem is from when he was 18, I believe. I came across a translation of the first stanza of that one: I aspire to luxurious freedom, Rush to the beautiful land, Where in the broad clear field It is good, as in a marvelous dream. Doris V. Johnson translated it incidentally as part of her translation of a biography of Blok. She said her poetry translations were very literal. I also came across yet another translation of the singing girl poem. A girl was singing in the choir with fervour of all who have known exile and distress, of all the vessels that have left the harbour, of all who have forgotten happiness. Her voice soared up to the dome. Glistening, a sunbeam brushed her shoulder in its flight, and from the darkness all were listening to the white dress singing in the beam of light. It seemed to everyone that happiness would come back, that the vessels all were safe, that those who had known exile and distress had rediscovered a radiant life. The voice was beautiful, the sunbeam slender, but up by the holy gates, under the dome, a boy at communion wept to remember that none of them would ever come home. This is by a duo, Jon Stallworthy and Peter France, from their book of Blok translations: The Twelve and Other Poems. One of them was fluent in Russian, the other a verse maker, and they worked together to try to get it right. John

Another translation... Translated from the Russian by Alec Vagapov The girl was singing in a church choir, About the weary abroad, far away, About the ships in the sea, so dire, And those who'd forgotten their happy day. So sweet was her voice flying up into highness With shimmering beam on her shoulder of white, And every one listened watching from darkness The way the white garment was singing in light. And every one thought that the joy was there, That the ships were all in a quiet bay, And the weary people abroad, full of care, Were now all blessed with a happy day. The voice was sweet, and the beam was shining, And only up there at the royal rack A child, conversant with secret, was crying That nobody, really, would ever come back. August, 1905 Original of the choir poem: Девушка пела в церковном хоре О всех усталых в чужом краю, О всех кораблях, ушедших в море, О всех, забывших радость свою. Так пел ее голос, летящий в купол, И луч сиял на белом плече, И каждый из мрака смотрел и слушал, Как белое платье пело в луче. И всем казалось, что радость будет, Что в тихой заводи все корабли, Что на чужбине усталые люди Светлую жизнь себе обрели И голос был сладок, и луч был тонок, И только высоко, у царских врат, Причастный тайнам,- плакал ребенок О том, что никто не придет назад. Август 1905 Original of the running in the meadow poem: Там один и был цветок, Ароматный, несравненный... Жуковский1 Я стремлюсь к роскошной воле, Мчусь к прекрасной стороне, Где в широком чистом поле Хорошо, как в чудном сне. Там цветут и клевер пышный, И невинный василек, Вечно шелест легкий слышно: Колос клонит... Путь далек! Есть одно лишь в океане, Клонит лишь одно траву... Ты не видишь там, в тумане, Я увидел - и сорву! Both found: http://www.litera.ru/stixiya/authors/blok.html

The Colts are favored, but I'm hoping the Bears show up and make a game of it. Superbowl blow-outs are such a let-down.

Never fear. I have risen above my Chicago tribal impulses, and accepted your ketchup-dousing ways!

Ketchup... the red menace!

Chris, I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sure that was scary. Glad you're out of the hospital. I hope all goes well with recovering arm function and keeping yourself as healthy as possible. John

Good point, Judith. I never hear anyone talk about animals having "casual sex". I do wonder if "casual sex" is actually a vast misnomer. John

Elizabeth, you raise a host of issues. I just want to mention that Rand did change her mind somewhat on this topic. In a chapter of The Romantic Manifesto, Rand complained about Rembrandt's painting of a side of beef. She said it was a bad choice of subject, a waste of his skill, and esthetically unjustifiable. In a later essay, not included in The Romantic Manifesto, she wrote about Capuletti's painting of a wall with peeling paint and cracked plaster. She said the subject would be perfect for the life-is-decay kind of art, but that Capuletti had transformed the subject into an object of beauty. She said she would not have believed it was possible. But this revised view did not make it into the book. John

Robert, sorry, we were posting at the same time, so I didn't see this reply yet when I last posted. In your latest post, my only question concerns whether repercussions are being visited yet for criticizing the DIM hypothesis. I don't think they've gotten there yet. I agree that Yaron B. is not a technical philosophy adept. I saw him dealing with U. of Chicago students in a debate, and they kept bringing versions of the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and he didn't handle those arguments with anything like the detail that a philosopher would have done. On the current board, Binswanger is the only one who might be able to stand up to Peikoff in a disagreement, but the odds would be against Binswanger. So much energy has been invested in treating Peikoff as her "intellectual heir" that it's very hard for anyone at ARI to disagree with him on questions of what Objectivism is or directly implies. I do think you have a case for the re-naming, and I don't think they will defy LP, but if he's out of the daily loop then many of their activities can proceed without his scrutiny. John

I didn't mean to step on Robert C.'s jest, but I thought it might be interesting to talk about what the actual relationship is. I carry no brief for LP or ARI, but I don't think voting Republican is grounds for being disassociated from ARI yet. That day may come. Tracinski is being attacked for something a bit different - namely, criticizing a theory of the role of philosophy in social development that Peikoff has put forth, and that many see as an integral part of the Objectivist philosophy. This is from the "about us" page of the ARI site: "Ayn Rand's philosophy—known as Objectivism—holds that historical trends are the inescapable product of philosophy." Note that technically ARI itself has merely disassociated itself from him. But various ARI-loyal folks said more pointed things against him. A few ARI-loyal online folks are still sticking up for him, while conceding that he may be wandering from Objectivism. As for LP and ARI, I wonder how much affection there is between them. Each provides value to the other. LP controls the books, including the ads he lets ARI run in the books. ARI provides him with a good marketplace and audience. The charter of ARI may give LP special control even though he's not on the board. Even at this point I can't imagine ARI getting in a philosophical dispute with LP. If LP were to say "Objectivism holds X," and his claim is at all plausible, ARI would have to proceed carefully before declining to agree with him. I had an acquaintance with Tracinski many years ago, when he was an undergrad at the U. of Chicago. He was an intelligent guy who was working hard at understanding Rand's philosophy. He has developed into a writer of real power. I believe this split will prove to be beneficial for him, and that we will see a lot more of him in the public debate.

L.P. doesn't seem very involved in the institute lately.

Chris, it's the 2nd-to-last paragraph of "Philosophical Detection," which appears as the 2nd chapter of her collection: Philosophy: Who Needs It. You may very well be right that someone had pointed out the omission.

There is a neglected later summary, different from the first, that includes esthetics: "The essentials are: in metaphysics, the Law of Identity - in epistemology, the supremacy of reason - in ethics, rational egoism - in politics, individual rights (i.e. capitalism) - in esthetics, metaphysical values."

Now I see where you're coming from. It's a fair question. After all, how can Tracinski be disagreeing with the philosophy if he is just disagreeing with the history? I think the answer will be that metaphysics and epistemology include a view of man and his nature and an account of how he comes to act in the world. Just my guess. Tracinski humorously referred to his own approach as "Pajamas Epistemology," which suggests that he, too, sees his own approach as possibly revising a central subdiscipline of philosophy.

I do think that's the best single source. For more detail, look at Peikoff's first book, The Ominous Parallels. Also, he gave a talk (later published) on "The Role of Philosophy and Psychology in History". But I want I really want to ask about is: "(1) Paranoia over moral inconsistency". I'm figuring this is meant in a colloquial sense of "paranoia", rather than a technical sense. So it's something like: "Excessive concern over moral inconsistency." Would that be what was meant?

Stephen, thanks for all the excellent facts, questions, and suggestions. I hadn't remembered that Rand had so directly, in Galt's speech, attributed "A is A" to Aristotle. Your reference to the Kneale & Kneale book was enlightening. In my mind it has pushed the genesis of the "a is a" formula back several centuries! It's also interesting that such usage was a minority approach and that Albert the Great disdained using the identity principle. This foreshadows the predominant scholastic rejection of Antonius Andreas' claim that identity logically had priority over non-contradiction. Antonius came a bit after Albert, of course. Why was identity rejected as prior? Partly because Aristotle had said that nothing was more certain than the principle of contradiction. That meant nothing was prior - including identity. Also, "A is A" could be dismissed as trivial, or, as Locke put it centuries later, as a "trifling proposition". Aristotle only touches on the premise that "a thing is itself" as a way of answering a question he seems to regard as clueless. You mention Leibniz's letter to Conring. That's the first place, so far, that I've seen "A is A" show up in Leibniz, who seems to the first great modern trumpeter of the formula. The next year, in 1679, in the second of the Two Studies in Logical Calculus, he is presenting ideas on the logic of terms, which includes: "Propositions true in themselves: (1) a is a. Animal is animal. (2) ab is a. Rational animal is animal. (3) a is not non-a. Animal is not nonanimal. (4) Non-a is not a. Nonanimal is not animal. (5) What is not a is non-a is non-a. What is not an animal is nonanimal. (6) What is not non-a is a. What is not a nonanimal is an animal. From these many others may be derived." You can see his notation doesn't make use of the some/all quantifier from the subject of the proposition. So instead of "All A is A" he uses "A is A". This would be an interesting project. Another good research project. I'll just venture a guess: I *think* she believes she is stepping away from the metaphysical essence vs. accident doctrine here. Thomists, to whom I think she is reacting, sometimes talk as if a thing's identity is just its essence, and that its accidents really don't count as part of its (ahem) essential nature. I think this strikes her as kind of a soul/body dichotomy within external things in the Thomist worldview. In ITOE she is a pains to paint essences as not metaphysical, even though based on the metaphysical. She may also be trying to step away from the primary/secondary quality distinction which appears in Locke. Another guess ventured: Above all, it goes against dialectical materialism, which maintains that contradictions were at work through-out reality. More guessing: The emphasis on identification as the key process, I think, is largely congruent with Aristotle - but it is not his emphasis. I think it steps away from the "imprint" model he spoke of for ordinary awareness, and leans more into the active intellect querying as a general model for consciousness.

Peter, thank you - and your source - very much. That does help! Yes, A.A. seems to have been an associate or follower of Duns Scotus. It turns out that Peikoff mentioned A.A. in his dissertation: “Of the three ‘laws of thought’ which one commonly associates with the traditional logic, the Law of Identity, as far as I can tell, was not specifically formulated as such until the medieval era. Sir William Hamilton, who is ordinarily encyclopedic in such matters, was unable to find such a formulation of it until Antonius Andreas, at the end of the thirteenth century. (Cf. his Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, ed. Henry Mansel & J. Veitch [2 vols., Boston, Gould & Lincoln, 1859], II, 65.)” Bill Bucko quotes from P.'s dissertation here: http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/lofiversion...x.php/t881.html

It's noteworthy that Plato has Socrates state the law pretty clearly: "It is obvious that the same thing will never do or suffer opposites in the same respect in relation to the same thing and at the same time." -Republic (4:436b) I hope Fred Seddon isn't reading this, or he'll remind me about his theory that Plato is a lot closer to Aristotle than most people think. John

Quite right. Aristotle is no stranger to the idea that a thing is itself. I suspect that within the context of Greek philosophy up to that time, it wasn't something that needed to be emphasized, partly because it wasn't much in dispute. After Hegel and Marx, I think it became really important to positively insist on it. I suspect Leibniz's path may have involved his mathematical studies, where the positive form of an equation is usually regarded as more simplified than a double negative form. "The great foundation of mathematics is the principle of contradiction or of identity, that is to say, that a statement cannot be true and false at the same time, and that thus A is A and cannot be not-A. And this single principle is enough to prove the whole of arithmetic and the whole of geometry, that is to say all mathematic principles." Leibniz, Second Paper. "Primary truths are those which either state a term of itself, or deny an opposite of its opposite. For example, 'A is A', or 'A is not not-A'; 'If it is true that A is B, then it is false that A is not B, or that A is not-B; again, 'Each thing is what it is', 'Each thing is like itself or is equal to itself', 'Nothing is greater or less than itself' - and others of this sort which, thought they may have their own grades of priority, can all be included under the one name of 'identities'." - Leibniz, Primary Truths.

Since you lived so long in Latin America, I thought you might try the Latin! John

In the "About the Author" afterword to Atlas Shrugged, Rand indicated that the titles of the book's three parts were a tribute to Aristotle. One of those section titles was: A is A, and that formulation figured prominently in the novel, and in Objectivist discussions ever since. Many have assumed that the formulation must be from Aristotle. But it's not - not directly. "A is A" does occur in Leibniz, who, among his many endeavors, worked on fashioning a symbolic form of Aristotelian logic. I haven't found "A is A" in anyone earlier, so I have suspected Leibniz for a while. But neither had I found anything scholarly that asserted his authorship of the formula. Some years ago, Thomas Stone had sent me a note saying that Leonard Peikoff, in his lecture series on the History of Philosophy, had credited Antonius Andreas, a 12th century philosopher, with the formulation of the law of identity - of which "A is A" is a symbolic statement. Today I found a document in French which states that Wilhelm Wundt, the famous German psychologist, specifically credited Leibniz with "A is A". This same French document mentions Antonius Andreas, but ascribes to him only a verbal form of the law of identity. I have only a smattering of French - so I relied on the Google Translation, and fixed a few small things that even I was able to correct: “The identity principle: Wundt says that “the law of identity was expressed for the first time in a pure logical form by Leibniz (Logik, T. II, p. 562)”. In fact, this one in proposed a great number of formulas, among which: “Each thing is what it is”, “A is A, B is B” (New Essays on Human Understanding, IV, 2, ed. Gehrardt, p. 343, sq.)… However Suarez already allotted to Antonius Andreas the following formula: Omne ens est ens, that it rejects besides like useless (Metaph., Disp., sect. III, n° 4)." If this is correct, Leibniz gets credit for "A is A" - since it shows up in his New Essays on Human Understanding. Antonius Andreas gets credit for "Omne ens est ens." (Which I've seen translated as "Every being is a being." ) Aristotle, it is true, had already touched on the issue that a thing is itself. (Metaphysics Book VII, Part 17) The French source is here, which seems to be a site for Thomist philosophy: http://perso.orange.fr/thomiste/eternelb.htm The Suarez referred to is Francisco Suarez, and his book in which he discusses Antonius Andreas is his Metaphysical Disputations. My next step is to track down the work of Wundt that was cited, his Logik. There's a copy of it in a library in Chicago, but it's in German, another language I don't know! If anyone can further correct the French translation, I will thank you. I also have this snippet of Latin in which Suarez speaks of Antonius' contribution: "Prima sententia est non esse primum illud quod ex Aristotele retulimus, sed hoc, omne ens est ens. Ita tenet Antonius Andreas, IV Metaph., q. 5. Et ad Aristotelem respondet vocasse illud aliud primum principium inter ea quae circumferuntur ut generalia, ut sunt illa: Omne totum est maius sua parte, etc. Sed hic auctor etiam in suis principiis non recte loquitur, quia illa propositio est identica et nugatoria; et ideo in nulla scientia sumitur ut principium demonstrationis, sed est extra omnem artem." If anyone feels up to translating that, I will be ecstatic. Corrections or pointers of any kind are welcome. I'm putting this in Epistemology because, outside of Objectivism, "A is A" usually comes up in logic discussions. Really this is more of a History of Philosophy question, but there doesn't seem to be a category for that. Thanks, John Enright

The new Journal of Ayn Rand Studies issue came in the mail yesterday, and it has a favorable review of Erika Holzer's book by Kirsti Minsaas. I liked it too. The core of the book, her discussion of what Rand taught her and how she applied it, is a good complement to the Romantic Manifesto and the published version of the fiction-writing course. John Enright

Marsha's at a Liberty Fund conference, so she didn't know about this until I told her she'd made it in. She was quite pleased! Thanks for your comments. John Enright