240721: comfortable book for architects and architecture-interested. coffee table. big. heavy. extensive. many new buildings, many familiar- but then 240721: comfortable book for architects and architecture-interested. coffee table. big. heavy. extensive. many new buildings, many familiar- but then I look at art-architecture books (49). just photos, no plans, little capsule commentary. only in person seen ones in Canada (Vancouver, Montreal) and Hawai'i......more
240522: this is analytic philosophy. not my usual interest. begins by dismissing pesky 'metaphysics', goes on to extensive language logic, iff, probab240522: this is analytic philosophy. not my usual interest. begins by dismissing pesky 'metaphysics', goes on to extensive language logic, iff, probabilities, necessities, coherence etc. chapters cover: 1 useful untruths as asserted by Hans Vaihinger, 2 measure of belief by Frank Ramsey, 3 political ideals by John Rawls...
'idealization' is useful in all domains of human thought, theory, experience, society, best phrased 'as if'. this means science or everyday determinations can be useful if we ignore aspects corrupting ideal state of affairs. 'as if' makes sense to me only when he comes to suggest work or art such as play does not stimulate 'suspension' of disbelief, but 'suspension' of responding 'as if' this is only play and not only real. plays are make believe as children play...
the rest of the book are strenuous arguments about force, validity, essential nature of 'as if' for any human projects, but the suggestions of art are enough for me. 'polymath' seems so much over and over le meme chose...
question: as this is analytic Phil why did I give it 4? answer: easy to read in one day. clear, concise, compete. does not extend into reals of little significance for project, eg. pesky metaphysics. curiosity....more
240517: excellent resource of texts on and by and about modern literature. but. thiif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
240517: excellent resource of texts on and by and about modern literature. but. this is resource read without guidance, skipping around according to interests, perhaps best as assigned text at u. there is everything from Oscar Wilde to Ernest Hemingway. but. most of the authors re canonical English eg. Virginia or Ruskin or Conrad, very few not Eurocentric, few critical, more appreciation, gives sense of the times...
and great excerpt from Henri Bergson in Creative Evolution that encapsulates in beautiful writing exactly his mature thought... think will go read it again......more
220914: more autobiographies of married buddhists who were monk and nun, now run rif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
220914: more autobiographies of married buddhists who were monk and nun, now run retreat in south africa, teach everywhere... than actual buddhist philosophy, but it is interesting to see it in religious practice......more
230726: this is the grand narrative. this is about 5 000 years of global history inif you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
230726: this is the grand narrative. this is about 5 000 years of global history in 500 pages (plus footnotes, bibliography). perhaps this works best if you remember received wisdom of anthropology, archaeology, history, from 20 years ago. i do. i am part of history, now...
when studying anthropology i recall some dissatisfaction that only by now can be accounted for after some other reading: it is entirely eurocentric, at least on first or second year level, and there was little reference to how people within such cultures saw themselves. and later europeans whom they contacted. this is the 'indigenous critique' that the authors recount, deploy, argue for, in clearing 'civilised' prejudices against 'primitive' cultures. which of course were and are not so primitive...
beginning in the eastern woodlands of North America, there is convincing argument that the flow of cultural interchange, particularly politics, is more from the 'new world' to Europe. there are facts that 'freedom' as political concept, as in the Algonkin, the Haudenosaunee, is unknown in Europe of monarchies. there are the conceptual disconnects between ideas of 'ownership' and how 'money' can mutate into 'power'. there is contention humans have lived through various political forms but somehow in the past 500 years have become 'stuck' in this one that is not working, with huge disparity in freedoms as defined by monetary regimes, this one that is not originated by private property but which is manifest in that form as side-effect...
really really love this book: so impressed, so convinced, that questions rise despite my enthusiasm- as this is survey text created in some ways against popular mischaracterisation of past cultures, peoples, am i missing some essential knowledge? are the authors lonely voices in the wilderness and we should believe those portrayals of human history more ideologically, politically, philosophically, familiar? is this only meaningless speculation because by definition history only happens once, so alternate histories are intellectual games with no 'cash-value'? well, as one of my bookshelves is althistory and on the other i am writer of fictions, which are by definition more or less exactly what they might be accused of (is this only elaborate game, that is how it started), is this ultimately simply fiction...?
220622: sometimes friends ask me how I decide on books to read, authors, philosophif you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
220622: sometimes friends ask me how I decide on books to read, authors, philosophy. this book is one very recent resource. there are twenty women mentioned here, eleven of whom are read of, four of whom are read, as follows:
diotima (ro), ban Zhao (ro), Hypatia (ro), lalla, mary astell, mary Wollstonecraft (ro), harriet taylor mill, George Eliot (ro), Edith stein (ro), Hannah Arendt (ro, r), simone de beauvoir (ro, r), iris Murdoch (ro, r), mary midgley (ro, r), Elizabeth anscombe, mary Warnock (ro), sophie boede oluwole, Angela davis (ro), iris Marion young, anita l allen, azizah y al-hibri... want to particularly read these chinese, african, arabic thinkers...
have now read 661 books of philosophy of all sorts but, including this one, only 70 have been feminist, this is a deficit I wish to improve. some of these women are very familiar (de Beauvoir), whose brief article makes me reassess her thought, her empathic existentialism, vs Sartre's more conflictual version. some I have really enjoyed reading, particularly Science and Poetry by Mary Midgley, which I read in a run of her accessible, entertaining work. as these are individual authors, some concentrate on bio, some on ideas- I like ideas best but some cannot be separated from bio (Angela Davis, iris Marion young), some such as iris Murdoch has written both fiction and philosophy The Unicorn and Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, as has de Beauvoir Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, The Ethics of Ambiguity. there is also list of more names at the back, there are some read who are not here (Julia kristeva, Luce irigiray)... generally, this is how to read, though the u library might not have many of these authors......more
210606: this is family epic set through modern history of uganda, seen from feminist poinif you like this, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
210606: this is family epic set through modern history of uganda, seen from feminist point of view. that is, confronting patriarchal power structures, examining those aspects of life that tend to absorb women more than men, eg. family, love, romance, dysfunction, betrayal. starting in the 1980s, returning to the 1930s, then to 1980s again, readers are privileged to see ironies, truths, played out to surprising ends...
there is mythic interpretation of exactly how the errors of patriarchal power came to be, and the essential idea that land can be divided, therefore is for men, but water is indivisible, therefore for women, is animating contention for the title. our protagonist as a little girl has the ability to 'fly', and learns of the 'original state' of women, their freedom, only to see how society is dedicated to ending it. it is perhaps too long but that is the only fault......more
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