More or less what I was getting t, Tad, but you put it so much more
neatly...
Yeah.
Doug
On 14-Jul-08, at 11:47 PM, TheOldMole wrote:
> Might this not be a field in which being a dilettante could be a
> good thing? The alternative, I think, would not to read one textbook
> but to read all of them. I'd suggest Empson as a good place to
> start, but then I think you'd have to follow him up with someone
> whose ideas run as counter to his as you possibly can. I think
> Aristotle and Coleridge are a couple other good places to start. But
> I'd suggest that dilettantism, coupled with humility, is a wonderful
> thing -- "I've just read a book that excited me and gave me new
> insights," rather than "I've just read THE book and now I understand
> it all."
Douglas Barbour
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