5.0461 Rs: E-Rasselas; Metaphors; Fonts; Prophecies (6/115)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 20 Nov 1991 17:53:26 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0461. Wednesday, 20 Nov 1991.


(1) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 11:40:47 GMT-0800 (20 lines)
From: abosse@reed.edu
Subject: Re: Johnson E-Texts?

(2) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 17:13:22 EST (14 lines)
From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet
Subject: origins of method as metaphor

(3) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 13:02 CDT (20 lines)
From: "HOKE ROBINSON, MSU" <ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1.BITNET>
Subject: Tree Metaphor

(4) Date: 20 Nov 91 09:05:55 EST (17 lines)
From: Nancy.M.Davies@Dartmouth.EDU
Subject: Re: 5.0459 Qs: OE Fonts

(5) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1991 15:52 MST (20 lines)
From: OCRAMER@CCNODE.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: 5.0457 Qs: Self-Actualizing Prophecies

(6) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1991 9:54:46 +0200 (EET) (24 lines)
From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL
Subject: self-fulfilling prophecies

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 11:40:47 GMT-0800
From: abosse@reed.edu
Subject: Re: Johnson E-Texts?

The text is available from the Oxford archive:

U-77-A | Rasselas Prince of Abissinia. [On RLIN]

For a further explanation of these codes and of how to access the
Text Archive, contact ARCHIVE@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX.

(Incidently, I have put a number of references to etexts on the
public ftp folder of our machine here at Reed. You may want to take a
look. Anonymous ftp to reed.edu, /pub/etexts).

regards,

Arno Bosse
Reed College, Portland, OR 97202
abosse@reed.edu
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------18----
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 17:13:22 EST
From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet
Subject: origins of method as metaphor




A footnote to Owen Cramer's surmise that the notion of metaphor began with
Plato: in fact, the notion of moving along a road (met'hodos) goes back to
Plato's great predecessor Parmenides. This founder of rigorous metaphysics,
the version known as Eleaticism, explicitly lays out the "road of inquiry"
that has to be followed if the inquirer is to arrive at the truth. He also
specifies the way of inquiry that must be eschewed since it will produce
only falsehood. Dirk t.D.Held, Connecticut College
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------24----
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 13:02 CDT
From: "HOKE ROBINSON, MSU" <ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1.BITNET>
Subject: Tree Metaphor

On Trees:
The tree metaphor goes far back beyond Darwin. The logical tradition
speaks of the Porphyrean Tree in the _Isagoge_ of Porphyry the Phoenician,
around 300 AD, which was a commentary on Aristotle's _Categories_ (c. 340 BC).
Porphyry does not (I think) himself use the word "tree", but his discussion
of the genus-species relationship is in terms of branching, as noted by
Boethius in his first commentary on the _Isagoge_ (c. 510 AD). Since
Porphyry's Tree was long a staple of biology, one suspects that Darwin
was familiar with this tradition and did not consider his use of the tree
metaphor particularly original.

Hoke Robinson
Philosophy
Memphis State University
Memphis TN 38152 USA
ROBINSONH@MEMSTVX1.BITNET
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------27----
Date: 20 Nov 91 09:05:55 EST
From: Nancy.M.Davies@Dartmouth.EDU
Subject: Re: 5.0459 Qs: E-Texts; OE Fonts; Keyboarding; Arabic (5/68)

Regarding OE fonts, this info received fromFZINN@OBERLIN.BITNET last March:

An Apple Macintosh font that has Old English characters is one available
on the Ansax-L listserv. It is the NY_OE font produced by Brian
Whitaker, Atkinson College, York University. The font is excellent and
is freeware. You can obtain it from the listserv at WVNVM as NY_OE
SOFTMAC.

-I obtained this font, and the professor who had requested it seems to
like it.

Nancy Millichap Davies
Humanities Computing, Dartmouth College
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1991 15:52 MST
From: OCRAMER@CCNODE.Colorado.EDU
Subject: Re: 5.0457 Qs: E-Publishing; Self-Actualizing Prophecies (2/42)

Eric Rabkin has the Oedipus story mostly right with Sophocles; the further
details are that O's father Laius got the self-actualizing prophecy that
his son would kill him (leading him to try to kill his son more than once,
knowing and unknowingly), and that the oracle came to O. himself at Delphi,
so that he was trying to avoid _returning_ to Corinth when he killed Laius.
It has been pointed out that the third road at the juncture where the killing
happened went to Daulis, where no known father or mother would have been found.
Is it possible that prophecy (in the sense of fore-telling rather than of
speaking-for fate or a god) is always of the self-fulfilling type? or always
when memorable and succesful? The witches in Macbeth, all sorts of other
Delphic oracles, the Sibylline Books at Rome. The Book of Daniel is an
example of prophecy in both senses: Daniel is some kind of prophet but what
the book says looks like foretelling--until you realize that it was written
after the events it mostly foretells, pushing narrative about Hellenistic
times back into the Chaldaean and Achaemenid period.
Owen Cramer
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------34----
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1991 9:54:46 +0200 (EET)
From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL
Subject: self-fulfilling prophecies

Re. Eric Rabkin's request for examples. This isn't exactly literature (!)
but there's an old story or joke from these parts which goes something
like this (from memory of something heard 20 years ago...)

A man was hurrying through the market of his home town of Aleppo when
he saw Death coming to meet him. Frightened out of his wits, he dashed
down a side alley and escaped. "If Death is looking for me here," he
thought, "I must get out! I'll go to Hims."

He went to Hims and was strolling through the market there, at his ease,
when Death came up and tapped him on the shoulder. "I've been sent for
you," Death said.

"That can't be!" The man replied. "Only yesterday you were looking
for me at Aleppo."

"I don't know where you got that idea from," Death replied. "I was
at Aleppo yesterday, but I was told to look for *you* today at Hims."

Judy Koren, Haifa.