Here are a few passages that I've been thinking about as of late, and I thought I would share them just in case they are also interesting to some of you. Phaedo, 62b, trans. Brann, Kalkavage, & Salem: “For it would seem,” said Socrates, “to be unaccountable if put this way. And yet just maybe … Continue reading A Few Passages for August
Tag: damascius
The Body and the Beehives
Yesterday, I finished reading a translation of Akka Mahadevi's vacanas for Shiva. Vacana seems to be a specific term for a free-verse form. I had never encountered writings from the Lingayat Shiva tradition, and it was very educational for me. It turns out that, for at least over a millennium, there has been resistance to … Continue reading The Body and the Beehives
Some Passages from Damascius’ Philosophical History
At the beginning of the month, I devoured the fragments of Damascius' Philosophical History, an out-of-print translation filled with interesting anecdotes about people in the polytheistic intellectual scene of Late Antiquity. The translator, Polymnia Athanassiadi, identifies many continuities between the world of Damascius and Mediterranean cultures today even while emphasizing the extreme cultural loss and … Continue reading Some Passages from Damascius’ Philosophical History
I made a few more quotation images from Platonic passages
Two passages in particular had been on my mind recently like the prose version of music earworms, so I made images of them using a tool called Canva. And … then I made more. Canva is the cave wall, and I am the dancing flame that makes the images. The first one is a passage … Continue reading I made a few more quotation images from Platonic passages
Some Passages from Damascius’ Commentary on the PHAEDO
I just finished reading Damascius' discussion of the Phaedo, and I have a few quotations that I would like to share with you all. It's sometimes an unwieldy challenge to pull quotations that are striking from a commentary because the passages are very contextual. Here, the discussion of the Phaedo focuses on the various arguments … Continue reading Some Passages from Damascius’ Commentary on the PHAEDO