Ho studiato, per un anno accademico, presso la Scuola Alti Studi della Fondazione Collegio San Carlo di Modena, la stessa che organizza il Festival Filosofia. E' stata per me una splendida esperienza, sia dal punto di vista intellettuale che umano.
In questi giorni la direttrice scientifica della Fondazione, Michelina Borsari, ha lasciato il suo incarico in polemica con il Consiglio d'Amministrazione. Successivamente l'intero Consiglio Scientifico si e' dimesso in segno di solidarieta' con la dott.ssa Borsari.
La vicenza mi ha ovviamente colpito e rattristato. Oggi e nei prossimi giorni mettero' sul blog dei articoli a riguardo.
giovedì, gennaio 29, 2009
mercoledì, gennaio 28, 2009
Giornata della memoria
Thomas was a huge heavy bull of a man, fat and slow and quiet; very mild and magnanimous but not very sociable; shy, even apart from the humility of holiness; and abstracted, even apart from his occasional and carefully concealed experiences of trance or ecstasy.
St. Francis was so fiery and even fidgety that the ecclesiastics, before whom he appeared quite suddenly, thought he was a madman. St. Thomas was so stolid that the scholars, in the schools which he attended regularly, thought he was a dunce. Indeed, he was the sort of schoolboy, not unknown, who would much rather be thought a dunce than have his own dreams invaded, by more active or animated dunces. This external contrast extends to almost every point in the two personalities.
It was the paradox of St. Francis that while he was passionately fond of poems, he was rather distrustful of books. It was the outstanding fact about St. Thomas that he loved books and lived on books; that he lived the very life of the clerk or scholar in The Canterbury Tales, who would rather have a hundred books of Aristotle and his philosophy than any wealth the world could give him. When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, "I have understood every page I ever read." St. Francis was very vivid in his poems and rather vague in his documents; St. Thomas devoted his whole life to documenting whole systems of Pagan and Christian literature; and occasionally wrote a hymn like a man taking a holiday.
They saw the same problem from different angles, of simplicity and subtlety; St. Francis thought it would be enough to pour out his heart to the Mohammedans, to persuade them not to worship Mahound. St. Thomas bothered his head with every hair-splitting distinction and deduction, about the Absolute or the Accident, merely to prevent them from misunderstanding Aristotle. St. Francis was the son of a shopkeeper, or middle class trader; and while his whole life was a revolt against the mercantile life of his father, he retained none the less, something of the quickness and social adaptability which makes the market hum like a hive. In the common phrase, fond as he was of green fields, he did not let the grass grow under his feet. He was what American millionaires and gangsters call a live wire. It is typical of the mechanistic moderns that, even when they try to imagine a live thing, they can only think of a mechanical metaphor from a dead thing. There is such a thing as a live worm; but there is no such thing as a live wire. St. Francis would have heartily agreed that he was a worm; but he was a very live worm. Greatest of all foes to the go-getting ideal, he had certainly abandoned getting, but he was still going.
St. Thomas, on the other hand, came out of a world where he might have enjoyed leisure, and he remained one of those men whose labour has something of the placidity of leisure. He was a hard worker, but nobody could possibly mistake him for a hustler. He had something indefinable about him, which marks those who work when they need not work. For he was by birth a gentleman of a great house, and such repose can remain as a habit, when it is no longer a motive. But in him it was expressed only in its most amiable elements; for instance, there was possibly something of it in his effortless courtesy and patience.
Every saint is a man before he is a saint; and a saint may be made of every sort or kind of man; and most of us will choose between these different types according to our different tastes. But I will confess that, while the romantic glory of St. Francis has lost nothing of its glamour for me, I have in later years grown to feel almost as much affection, or in some aspects even more, for this man who unconsciously inhabited a large heart and a large head, like one inheriting a large house, and exercised there an equally generous if rather more absent-minded hospitality. There are moments when St. Francis, the most unworldly man who ever walked the world, is almost too efficient for me.
Saint Thomas Aquinas: "The Dumb Ox" by G. K. Chesterton
St. Francis was so fiery and even fidgety that the ecclesiastics, before whom he appeared quite suddenly, thought he was a madman. St. Thomas was so stolid that the scholars, in the schools which he attended regularly, thought he was a dunce. Indeed, he was the sort of schoolboy, not unknown, who would much rather be thought a dunce than have his own dreams invaded, by more active or animated dunces. This external contrast extends to almost every point in the two personalities.
It was the paradox of St. Francis that while he was passionately fond of poems, he was rather distrustful of books. It was the outstanding fact about St. Thomas that he loved books and lived on books; that he lived the very life of the clerk or scholar in The Canterbury Tales, who would rather have a hundred books of Aristotle and his philosophy than any wealth the world could give him. When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, "I have understood every page I ever read." St. Francis was very vivid in his poems and rather vague in his documents; St. Thomas devoted his whole life to documenting whole systems of Pagan and Christian literature; and occasionally wrote a hymn like a man taking a holiday.
They saw the same problem from different angles, of simplicity and subtlety; St. Francis thought it would be enough to pour out his heart to the Mohammedans, to persuade them not to worship Mahound. St. Thomas bothered his head with every hair-splitting distinction and deduction, about the Absolute or the Accident, merely to prevent them from misunderstanding Aristotle. St. Francis was the son of a shopkeeper, or middle class trader; and while his whole life was a revolt against the mercantile life of his father, he retained none the less, something of the quickness and social adaptability which makes the market hum like a hive. In the common phrase, fond as he was of green fields, he did not let the grass grow under his feet. He was what American millionaires and gangsters call a live wire. It is typical of the mechanistic moderns that, even when they try to imagine a live thing, they can only think of a mechanical metaphor from a dead thing. There is such a thing as a live worm; but there is no such thing as a live wire. St. Francis would have heartily agreed that he was a worm; but he was a very live worm. Greatest of all foes to the go-getting ideal, he had certainly abandoned getting, but he was still going.
St. Thomas, on the other hand, came out of a world where he might have enjoyed leisure, and he remained one of those men whose labour has something of the placidity of leisure. He was a hard worker, but nobody could possibly mistake him for a hustler. He had something indefinable about him, which marks those who work when they need not work. For he was by birth a gentleman of a great house, and such repose can remain as a habit, when it is no longer a motive. But in him it was expressed only in its most amiable elements; for instance, there was possibly something of it in his effortless courtesy and patience.
Every saint is a man before he is a saint; and a saint may be made of every sort or kind of man; and most of us will choose between these different types according to our different tastes. But I will confess that, while the romantic glory of St. Francis has lost nothing of its glamour for me, I have in later years grown to feel almost as much affection, or in some aspects even more, for this man who unconsciously inhabited a large heart and a large head, like one inheriting a large house, and exercised there an equally generous if rather more absent-minded hospitality. There are moments when St. Francis, the most unworldly man who ever walked the world, is almost too efficient for me.
Saint Thomas Aquinas: "The Dumb Ox" by G. K. Chesterton
martedì, gennaio 27, 2009
MacIntyre conference update
Come giò accennato su queste pagine, a marzo UCD celebrerà gli 80 anni di Alasdair MacIntyre con una conferenza alla quale parteciparà MacIntyre stesso ed i suoi maggiori studiosi.
Questo il programma aggiornato:
Alasdair MacIntyre: “On having survived the moral philosophy of the twentieth century”
Kelvin Knight, “MacIntyre’s Revisionary Aristotelianism”
Owen Flanagan: “What do the Human Sciences have to do with Ethics?”
Raymond Geuss: “Marxism and the Ethos of the Twentieth Century”
Richard Kearney: “Forgiveness: Possible or Impossible? - Arendt, Derrida, Ricoeur, Jankelevitch”
Stephen Mulhall, “Naturalism, Nihilism and Perfectionism: Stevenson, Williams and Nietzche in 20th Century Moral Philosophy”
Jonathan Rée: “The Fetishism of Morality”
James McEvoy: “Parallel projects: Alasdair MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics, Thomistic Moral Theology (Servais Pinckaers OP) and thirteenth-century Pastoral Theology (Leonard Boyle OP)”
Adam Chmielewski: TBA
Arthur Madigan, “Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomistic Aristotelianism, and Revolutionary Aristotelianism.”
David Solomon: “MacIntyre and the Applied Ethics Revolution”
Joseph Dunne: "Strong Demands: What Sources?"
Michael Sherwin: “Rediscovering Aquinas’ Augustianism: An interpretation of Some twentieth century Dominican Theologians.”
Steven Long: “The Perfect Storm: On the Loss of Natural Teleology as a Normative Theonomic Principle in 20th Century Moral Philosophy”
Elijah Milgram, “Relativism, Coherence, and the Problems of Philosophy”
Hans Fink: “Against the Self Images of the Age. MacIntyre and Løgstrup”
A margine, si terrà anche la conferenza annuale della International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry, durante la quale presenterò un intervento riguardo l'influenza di Aristotele su Newman.
Questo il programma aggiornato:
Alasdair MacIntyre: “On having survived the moral philosophy of the twentieth century”
Kelvin Knight, “MacIntyre’s Revisionary Aristotelianism”
Owen Flanagan: “What do the Human Sciences have to do with Ethics?”
Raymond Geuss: “Marxism and the Ethos of the Twentieth Century”
Richard Kearney: “Forgiveness: Possible or Impossible? - Arendt, Derrida, Ricoeur, Jankelevitch”
Stephen Mulhall, “Naturalism, Nihilism and Perfectionism: Stevenson, Williams and Nietzche in 20th Century Moral Philosophy”
Jonathan Rée: “The Fetishism of Morality”
James McEvoy: “Parallel projects: Alasdair MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics, Thomistic Moral Theology (Servais Pinckaers OP) and thirteenth-century Pastoral Theology (Leonard Boyle OP)”
Adam Chmielewski: TBA
Arthur Madigan, “Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomistic Aristotelianism, and Revolutionary Aristotelianism.”
David Solomon: “MacIntyre and the Applied Ethics Revolution”
Joseph Dunne: "Strong Demands: What Sources?"
Michael Sherwin: “Rediscovering Aquinas’ Augustianism: An interpretation of Some twentieth century Dominican Theologians.”
Steven Long: “The Perfect Storm: On the Loss of Natural Teleology as a Normative Theonomic Principle in 20th Century Moral Philosophy”
Elijah Milgram, “Relativism, Coherence, and the Problems of Philosophy”
Hans Fink: “Against the Self Images of the Age. MacIntyre and Løgstrup”
A margine, si terrà anche la conferenza annuale della International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry, durante la quale presenterò un intervento riguardo l'influenza di Aristotele su Newman.
sabato, gennaio 24, 2009
giovedì, gennaio 22, 2009
Variazioni su un tema (perche' a volte il sottoscritto non ha proprio niente di meglio da fare)
Meglio accendere una candela che maledire l'oscurita'.
Meglio spegnere una candela che benedire l'oscurita'.
Meglio spegnere le candeline che accendere i lumini.
Meglio benedire una candela che accendere un candelotto.
Meglio oscurare una candela che maledire una accesa.
Meglio soli con una candela che male accompagnati dall'oscurita'.
Meglio cambiare le candele che maledire l'accensione.
Meglio spegnere una candela che benedire l'oscurita'.
Meglio spegnere le candeline che accendere i lumini.
Meglio benedire una candela che accendere un candelotto.
Meglio oscurare una candela che maledire una accesa.
Meglio soli con una candela che male accompagnati dall'oscurita'.
Meglio cambiare le candele che maledire l'accensione.
martedì, gennaio 20, 2009
Antologia (Dizionario dell'Omo Salvatico)
Antologia
Quando un uomo, preferibilmente un professore, si persuade, dopo molte pinzature, di non esser capace di defecare un libro proprio, prende un certo numero di volumi celebri, un paio di forbici e un tegame di pasta e mette insieme un’Antologia, la quale viene adottata nelle regie scuole e procura al padrone delle forbici una buona raccolta annua di percentuali.
Per quelli che volessero darsi a questa florida industria si avverte di non scordarsi in tutte le maniere di mettere: “Ei fu …”; “S’ode a destra uno squillo di tromba …”; “Era già l’ora che volge il disio …”; “Rondinella pellegrina …”; e soprattutto il sonetto “T’amo pio bove …” ch’è un delicato omaggio a sè stesso del modesto compilatore.
Quando un uomo, preferibilmente un professore, si persuade, dopo molte pinzature, di non esser capace di defecare un libro proprio, prende un certo numero di volumi celebri, un paio di forbici e un tegame di pasta e mette insieme un’Antologia, la quale viene adottata nelle regie scuole e procura al padrone delle forbici una buona raccolta annua di percentuali.
Per quelli che volessero darsi a questa florida industria si avverte di non scordarsi in tutte le maniere di mettere: “Ei fu …”; “S’ode a destra uno squillo di tromba …”; “Era già l’ora che volge il disio …”; “Rondinella pellegrina …”; e soprattutto il sonetto “T’amo pio bove …” ch’è un delicato omaggio a sè stesso del modesto compilatore.
sabato, gennaio 17, 2009
Progresso
Enver Hoxha's 1968 message to the Albanian people: "Things will be worse this year than last, but they will be better this year than next year".
mercoledì, gennaio 14, 2009
martedì, gennaio 13, 2009
sabato, gennaio 10, 2009
WeblogAwards2008
Wind Rose Hotel e' un ottimo blog e non a caso lo trovate tra i miei preferiti.
In questi giorni e' stato selezionato tra i finalisti del premio 2008 Weblog Awards per la categoria migliore blog europeo.
Vi consiglio caldamente di visitare e di votare per Wind Rose Hotel.
In questi giorni e' stato selezionato tra i finalisti del premio 2008 Weblog Awards per la categoria migliore blog europeo.
Vi consiglio caldamente di visitare e di votare per Wind Rose Hotel.
Iscriviti a:
Post (Atom)