Tag Archives: philosophy/religion

Quintilian

Posted on July 13, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Quintilian Latin Marcus Fabius Quintilianus: (AD35?-after 96) Latin teacher and writer. Born in Spain, Quintilian was probably educated and trained in oratory in Rome. From about 68 to 88 he taught rhetoric, becoming Rome’s leading teacher and was an eminent advocate in the law courts. His Institutio oratoria is a practical survey of rhetoric in 12 books and a major contribution to educational theory and literary criticism, His dual emphasis on intellectual and moral training appealed to humanists of the 15th-16th centuries and through them influenced the modern view of education as all around character training to equip a student for life.”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Bell, Book, and Candle

Posted on July 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

“bell, book, and candle: A reference to features of the solemn ritual of major excommunication, as performed in the medieval Church of Rome. The decree of anathema, the official curse of excommunication, was read from the book of church ritual; the attendant priests held candles, which were dashed to the ground, symbolizing the extinction of grace and joy in the soul of the accused; and a bell was tolled, perhaps to simulate the tolling for the dead.

The phrase bell, book, and candle appears in Shakespeare’s King John (III, 3): ‘Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back/ When gold and silver becks me to come on.’ Here, as in general usage, it represents the power and authority of Christianity.

Bell, Book, and Candle (1950) is also the title of a play by John Van Druten (1901-57), about a beautiful present-day witch who falls in love with a man and loses her powers as a sorceress.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Elizabeth Hardwick on Reading

Posted on July 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

I recently found myself in receipt of The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick, published by The New York Review of Books for its fine series of “Classics.” I couldn’t help but notice, and feel a need to transcribe for future use, this essay on reading, titled, simply, “Reading.” There is a great deal in these 2,158 words to provoke thought–especially for teachers.

But what do you think?

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Realism (In Literature)

Posted on July 11, 2022 | Leave a comment

“realism: In literature, the theory or practice of fidelity to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization. The 18th-century works of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett are among the earliest examples of realism in English literature. It was consciously adopted as an aesthetic program in the mid-19th century in France, when interest arose in recording previously ignored aspects of contemporary life and society; Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857) established the movement in European literature. The realist emphasis on detachment and objectivity, along with lucid but restrained social criticism, became integral to the novel in the late 19th century. The word has also been used critically to denote excessive minuteness of detail or preoccupation with trivial, sordid, or squalid objects. See also naturalism.

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: Avatar

Posted on July 11, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy on the concept of the avatar. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three short sentences and three comprehension questions. Interestingly, the reading in this worksheet deals with the concept of the avatar in Hinduism, but not the avatar as a graphical representation of a computer user that is usually reflective of a person’s character or persona.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Realism (In Philosophy)

Posted on July 11, 2022 | Leave a comment

“realism: In philosophy, any viewpoint that accords to the objects of human’s knowledge an existence that is independent of whether they are perceiving or thinking about them. Against nominalism, which denies that universals have any reality at all (except as words), and conceptualism, which grants universals reality only as concepts within the mind, realism asserts that universals exist independently of their being expressed in language and conceived by human minds. Against idealism and phenomenalism, it asserts that the existence of material objects and their qualities is independent of their being perceived. Similarly, moral realism asserts that moral qualities of actions (such as being morally good, bad, or indifferent, or being ethically right, wrong, or obligatory) belong to the actions themselves and are not to be explained as mere products of a mind that perceives and feels attracted to or repelled by the actions. In opposition to conventionalism, realism holds that scientific theories are objectively true (or false) based on their correspondence (or lack or it) to an independently existing reality.

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Unified Science or Unity-of-Science View

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Unified science or unity-of-science view: In the philosophy of logical positivism, the doctrine holding that all science share the same language, laws, and method. The unity of language has been taken to mean that either that all scientific statements could be restated as a set of protocol sentences describing sense-data or that all scientific terms could be defined using physics terms. The unity of law means that the laws of the various sciences must be deduced from some set of fundamental laws (e.g. those of physics). The unity of method means that the procedures for supporting statements in the various sciences are basically the same. The unity-of-science movement that arose in the Vienna Circle held to those three unities, and Rudolf Carnap’s ‘physicalism’ supported the notion that all the terms and statements of empirical science could be reduced to terms and statements in the language of physics.”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Doubter’s Companion: Zeno

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Zeno: Father of the paradox. Philosopher of the fifth century BC, A source of Socrates’ technique and of humor as a weapon against power and pedantry. The other Zeno, also a philosopher and father of the Stoic movement, committed suicide.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

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H.G. Wells on Moral Indignation

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”

H.G. Wells

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Isaac Asimov on Problems, Knowledge, and Ignorance

Posted on July 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

Isaac Asimov (1920-1922)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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