A short while later, along came Derrida!
Doug
On 24-Mar-08, at 4:29 PM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> Mind you, Nathan, there's a long tradition, in writing, of writers
> questioning the worth of writing (and reading!) It goes back far,
> recall the
> Phaedrus, where Plato has Socrates tell:
>
> "But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the
> Egyptians
> wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the
> memory
> and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent
> or
> inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or
> inutility
> of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance,
> you who
> are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children
> have
> been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for
> this
> discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls,
> because
> they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external
> written
> characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have
> discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you
> give your
> disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be
> hearers
> of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be
> omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome
> company,
> having the show of wisdom without the reality."
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
to rid me of
the ugh in
thought
i spell anew
weave the world
out of the or
binary
bpNichol
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