Sunday, April 30, 2023

Reading Rat - April 2023

Events

Philosophy & Theology In Medieval Europe: Events, at Richard C. Taylor

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Al Jaffee, iconoclastic cartooning legend of Mad Magazine fame, dies at 102, by Jessica Gelt, Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times

Saturday, April 1, 2023

The Influence of Immanuel Kant on Evidentiary Approaches in Eighteenth Century Bulgaria

Orin S. Kerr, 18 The Green Bag 2d 251 (2015), at SSRN.

"In 2011, Chief Justice Roberts commented that if you 'pick up a copy of any law review that you see,' 'the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria, or something, which I'm sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn't of much help to the bar.' No such article exists, of course -- until now. This short essay explains why, in all likelihood, Kant’s influence on evidentiary approaches in 18th-century Bulgaria was none."

See Kant, Perpetual Peace, in Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 7; The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of Judgement, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 42, and (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 39.

Friday, March 31, 2023

Reading Rat - March 2023

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Philosophy & Theology In Medieval Europe: Events, at Richard C. Taylor

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Are science and religion fated to be adversaries? No, says Nicholas Spencer in Magisteria, an arresting history of their relationship, review at The Economist

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Aristotle: Politics
15. References and Further Reading
Secondary literature – general works on Aristotle
Adler, Mortimer. Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1978.

"This is probably the easiest-to-read exposition of Aristotle available; Adler says that it is aimed at “everybody – of any age, from twelve or fourteen years upward.” Obviously the author has had to make some sacrifices in the areas of detail and complexity to accomplish this, and anyone who has spent any time at all with Aristotle will probably wish to start elsewhere. Nevertheless, the author succeeds to a very great degree in delivering on the promise of the subtitle, expressing the basics of Aristotle’s thought in simple language using common examples and straightforward descriptions."

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Reading Rat - February 2023

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Archimedes’ Stomachion, Geometric Dissections, by Mircea Pitici

The 5 breweries that made Milwaukee famous: Miller, Schlitz, Pabst, Gettelman and Blatz, by Chris Foran, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


Berres Tree Removal Service, another branch of the family at work.



Screen shot from a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode's closing credits including my name as a contributor to the Season 13 Kickstarter campaign.

Sunday, February 12, 2023

Abraham Lincoln: A Lawyer for the Ages

'From the Prairie to the Presidency-And Beyond'

The Thomas E. Fairchild Lecture, by John S. Skilton, University of Wisconsin Law School, Wisconsin Law Review.

"But how was this rather crude, physically awkward 'prairie lawyer' with no formal education to speak of, able to formulate such thoughts, assume such awesome responsibilities, and lead this Nation in its time of utmost peril? It is on these questions that I hope to shed some additional light."

See Lincoln, "The Gettysburg Address", Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 6;
We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution, by Mortimer J. Adler, p. 194.

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Reading Rat - January 2023

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion, by Tyler Giles, Daniel M. Hungerman, and Tamar Oostrom, NBER Working Paper Series, Working Paper 30840, (via The Economist)

Monday, January 9, 2023

Peace in the Middle East?

'If I have another 10 years to live, I am sure that I will have the privilege of seeing peace come even to this dismal and wonderful and amazing part of the world.' --Shimon Peres, interview by Ronen Bergman, The New York Times, January 9, 2013

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Socrates

Composed and sung by Graeme Connors, at Spreaker.

(via the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas, founded on this date, Mortimer Adler's birthday, in 1990, by Adler and Max Weismann.)

Monday, December 26, 2022

James Joyce and the Yuletide Epiphany

Essay by Christian Kriticos at The Millions.

"It is this specificity of setting and precision of detail that Joyce contended was a crucial cornerstone of his work, arguing that 'In the particular is contained the universal.'

"This point may be made most accessible in 'The Dead,' the final short story in his collection Dubliners. Although, like all of his fiction, it is rooted firmly in specifics of Irish culture, it is structured around the universally familiar time of Christmas, and its very meaning hinges upon this seasonal setting."

See James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 59.

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Reading Rat - November 2022

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Why Wisconsin Supper Clubs Just Keep Getting Better With Age, by Ron Faiola and Julia Sayers Gokhale, Midwest Living

Monday, October 31, 2022

Reading Rat - October 2022

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Signs of Meaning: The Need for Semiotics, by Brian Kemple, Lyceum Institute

Bloody Marys, pancakes and Cheeseheads: Packers fans rise early for London game, by Olivia Herken, Madison.com

Friday, September 30, 2022

Reading Rat - September 2022

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Fall Literary Luncheon, Franklin Public Library Foundation, featuring Lauren Fox, author of Send for Me, October 13

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of the Manuscript, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, September 23-25, October 8, September 30 & October 11, November 5

Articles, Essays, Reviews

10 Best Web Hosting Services (October 2022), by Kathy Haan, Kelly Main, Cassie Bottorff, Forbes Advisor

The People of the Bookstore , by Jeff Deutsch, First Things

Is Equality an Absolute Good? by Eva Brann, Paul Dry Books

The dreary chore of having to ask the spouse to do chores, column by Carolyn Hax, The Washington Post [with anonymous response regarding executive function disorder. -Ed.]

Long-term Trends in Long-maturity Real Rates 1311-2021, by Kenneth S. Rogoff, Barbara Rossi, and Paul Schmelzing, National Bureau of Economic Research

A German Tocqueville? The Unrecognized Importance of Francis Lieber’s Letters to a Gentleman in Germany, or The Stranger in America, by Joshua Waechter, Humanitas Journal

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Reading Rat - August 2022

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Fall Literary Luncheon, Franklin Public Library Foundation, featuring Lauren Fox, author of Send for Me, October 13

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of the Manuscript, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, September 23-25, October 8, September 30 & October 11, November 5

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Where Do the Democrats Find These Guys? A personal history of electoral losses, by Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic

How the Claremont Institute Became a Nerve Center of the American Right, by Elisabeth Zerofsky, The New York Times

Why Is Everyone Talking About the Claremont Institute? by Josh Hammer, Newsweek

Where Did Wokeness Come From? Evaluating the theories, by Theodore Kupfer, City Journal

Bob Newhart Reveals the Greatest Moment in His Comedy Career, by Amy Spencer, Parade

Teaching Freedom - To Restore Liberty, We Need Colleges that Actually Teach Liberal Arts, guest Marsha Enright, The Brian Nichols Show

Rembert Weakland, Proud Vandal, by John Byron Kuhner, First Things

Do the math: Was Archbishop Rembert Weakland a flawed hero or an erudite heretic? by Terry Mattingly, Get Religion

Mikhail Gorbachev has died: The last leader of the Soviet Union was also the architect of its dissolution; Obituary, The Economist;
and
Mikhail Gorbachev's Pizza Hut commercial — now used in memes and history lessons — cost millions to make and paid the former Soviet leader much-needed cash, by Azmi Haroun, Insider

Will a Long-Dead Milwaukee Socialist’s Case Help Block Trump’s Return to Power? The ouster of Congressman Victor Berger has become a pivotal but troubling precedent in litigation against accused insurrectionists, by Larry Sandler, Milwaukee Magazine

The Failed Dream of Mikhail Gorbachev: The late Soviet premier is popularly regarded as a leader who ushered in a new era. The more complicated truth is that he failed to fully extricate himself from the old one. By Casey Michel, The New Republic

Hear us Roar: Interviews with Women's fiction writers, Hosted by Maggie Smith, Apple Podcasts

The Ordinary Lawyer Corpus: The Federalist Papers Approach, by Sandra Thorne, J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School Class of 2023, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 45, No. 2, Spring 2022

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Apostle of absurdity

On Sartre, from the Pillars of Unbelief series, by Peter Kreeft, Boston College.

"He called his philosophy 'existentialism' because of the thesis that 'existence precedes essence.' What this means concretely is that 'man is nothing else than what he makes of himself.' Since there is no God to design man, man has no blueprint, no essence. His essence or nature comes not from God as Creator but from his own free choice."

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Tocqueville in Green Bay

At C-SPAN

"Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont visited Green Bay on their way through the Great Lakes region in August 1831. Wisconsin Deputy Attorney General Berneatta Bridge and Wisconsin State Public Defender Henry Schultz discussed Tocqueville’s impressions of the legal profession and how U.S. impressions of attorneys [has changed]."

See Tocqueville, "Observations on American Life and Government" from Democracy in America, in Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 6, and Democracy in America, in Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 44.

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Reading Rat - July 2022

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

How Alito Blew It: ... after coming so close to solving his biggest problem. Kausfiles, by Mickey Kaus

Inventory of the Ken Knabb Papers at Yale, by Ken Knabb, July 2022

Where did the details about owned books go? Goodreads

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

False Moses for the masses

On Marx, from the Pillars of Unbelief series, by Peter Kreeft, Boston College.

"The 'Manifesto' was one of the key moments in history. Published in 1848, 'the year of revolutions' throughout Europe, it is, like the Bible, essentially a philosophy of history, past and future. All past history is reduced to class struggle between oppressor and oppressed, master and slave, whether king vs. people, priest vs. parishioner, guild-master vs. apprentice, or even husband vs. wife and parent vs. child."

See Marx, Capital, and Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 50, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 50.

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Reading Rat - June 2022

Aquinas Leadership International

Announcements

Events

Selections at the blog Conference Calendar page

Calendar for selected Book discussions groups

Articles, Essays, Reviews

Beauty, by Roger Scruton (2009), reviewed by Donald W. Crawford, University of California, Santa Barbara, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

What Are Bookstores For? by John-Paul Heil, review of In Praise of Good Bookstores, by Jeff Deutsch, First Things

"How do I watch new episodes and livestreams with a Gizmoplex Pass?" Mystery Science Theater 3000

Off the shelf: Selling books is unlike selling anything else. The Seminary Co-op director counts the ways. By Jeff Deutsch, University of Chicago Magazine

Friday, June 24, 2022

Fourier and the theory of heat

Diane Greco, M. A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at The Victorian Web.

"Between 1807 and 1811, Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) developed a mathematical theory of heat conduction that was entirely independent of the caloric hypothesis, but the theory was not published until 1822, when it appeared as Théorie analytique de la chaleur (The Analytical Theory of Heat)."
Full text: The Analytical Theory of Heat (1822) by Joseph Fourier, translated by Alexander Freeman (1878), at J. M. Powers, AME 20231–Thermodynamics, Spring 2013, University of Notre Dame.

See Fourier, The Analytical Theory of Heat, translated by Alexander Freeman, Preliminary Discourse and Ch. I and II, Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 54 volumes, 1952) volume 45.

Monday, June 20, 2022

Columbus of the psyche

From the Pillars of Unbelief series, by Peter Kreeft, Boston College.

"Freud was a scientist, and in some ways a great one. But he succumbed to an occupational hazard: the desire to reduce the complex to the controllable. He wanted to make psychology into a science, even an exact science. But this it can never be because its object, man, is not only an object but also a subject, an 'I.'"

See Freud, selected works, Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 54, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 54.