Quintilian on False Definitions
In his Institutes of oratory: or, Education of an orator. In twelve books Quintilian argues that a definition can be overthrown in two ways. As an example, his uses the definition of a horse as a rational or irrational animal. The English translator make the note that, at this very point, something must been “dropped [...]
Mass Murder : Assumptions and Speculations
Regarding the recent Cumbria shootings (involving taxi driver Derrick Bird): The study of those who murder more than once is replete with assumptions and speculations about causality. Two views frequently encountered are that the multiple murderer’s behavior is a mystery or that every multiple murderer is suffering from some type of psychiatric disorder. A common [...]
Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides (Derrida, 2001)
This is the first, indisputable effect of what occured (whether it was calculated, well calculated, or not), precisely on September 11, not far from here: we repeat this, we must repeat it, and it is all the more necessary to repeat it insofar as we do not really know what is being named in this [...]
Fear of Death / Peur de la mort
For we indeed do not at all essentially partake of being; but every mortal nature, being in the midst between generation and corruption, exhibits an appearance, and an obscure and weak opinion of itself. And if you fix your thought, desiring to comprehend it, — as the hard grasping of water, by the pressing and [...]
Gabriel Matzneff – De la rupture
Que vous rompiez avec votre maîtresse ou qu’elle vous quitte; que vous demandiez le divorce ou que votre femme se sépare de vous; que vous vous fâchiez avec un ami; qu’un objet auquel vous tenez comme à la prunelle de vos yeux vous soit volé; qu’athée vous rencontriez Dieu; que, croyant, vous perdiez la foi; [...]
