3.23 revolutions; angels (126)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Thu, 11 May 89 23:29:22 EDT


Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 23. Thursday, 11 May 1989.


(1) Date: Thu, 11 May 89 17:42:35 EDT (9 lines)
From: Don D. Roberts (Philosophy) <ddrob@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca>
Subject: 3.19 revolutions, cont. (76)

(2) Date: Thu, 11 May 89 18:20:25 EDT (26 lines)
From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@YORKVM2>
Subject: Re: 3.19 revolutions, cont. (76)

(3) Date: Thu, 11 May 89 07:54:45 EDT (29 lines)
From: Dr Abigail Ann Young <YOUNG@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 3.18 angels dancing on pins? (18)

(4) Date: Thu, 11 May 89 16:03-0400 (10 lines)
From: WIEBEM@QUCDN
Subject: 3.18 angels dancing on pins? (18)

(5) Date: Thu, 11 May 89 17:34:29 EDT (16 lines)
From: Don D. Roberts (Philosophy) <ddrob@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca>
Subject: 3.18 angels dancing on pins? (18)

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 17:42:35 EDT
From: Don D. Roberts (Philosophy) <ddrob@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca>
Subject: 3.19 revolutions, cont. (76)

Martin Ryle's idea that in the cold fusion fuss and in one or two other
topics we may have examples of Kuhn's paradigm shift is certainly
suggestive. I wonder if he could elaborate what two (or more) paradigms
might be at issue in the fusion instance and in the others.

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------33----
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 18:20:25 EDT
From: Brian Whittaker <BRIANW@YORKVM2>
Subject: Re: 3.19 revolutions, cont. (76)

The American Revolution might well be seen as a civil war between the Tories
and the Whigs, with the victorious Whigs sending the Tories into exile in
Canada. One consequence of this is that the American political spectrum
tends to range from generous liberalism (the Kennedy brothers, for example)
to stingy liberalism (Ronald Reagan, for example), with both extremes
concerned above all with protecting the rights of the individual from the
depredations of society and its institutions. In Canada, until the present
decade, there was a dominant conservative tradition in the three major parties,
focussing on protecting society from the depredations of the individual; the
nationalization of key industries to protect the interests of society
characterized federal politics in Canada from the creation of the Canadian
National Railways by Borden's conservative government just after the First
World War to the creation of Petro Canada by Trudeau's liberal government.

As for the possibility of a conservative revolution, Lord Durham, the radical
liberal who was sent over by the British government to investigate the
rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada saw in the Papineau rebellion in Lower
Canada a conservative uprising against the Whig merchants of Montreal and
Quebec cities.

Brian Whittaker
Atkinson College, York University
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------34----
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 07:54:45 EDT
From: Dr Abigail Ann Young <YOUNG@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 3.18 angels dancing on pins? (18)


According to the learned father who taught the introduction to
mediaeval philosophy at the Pontifical Institute in the mid-
seventies, he and his colleagues had tried in vain to find
such a text. He privately believed it to be a piece of
hyperbole used to disparage late scholasticism by an humanistic
scholar or one of the reformers, but had no proof. He used to
offer a reward to any of his students who could find the text,
but no one ever did! I'd be interested to know where the
idea comes from myself, though I think it's too late for the
reward!


Yours faithfully,

Abigail

********************************************************************
**Abigail Ann Young (Dr) **
**Research Associate, Records of Early English Drama **
**150 Charles Street W./ Victoria College / University of Toronto **
**Toronto, Ontario / M5S 1K9 / Canada **
**1-416-585-4504 **
**YOUNG@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA or REED@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA **
********************************************************************
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------20----
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 16:03-0400
From: WIEBEM@QUCDN
Subject: 3.18 angels dancing on pins? (18)

*** Reply to note of 05/10/89 22:45
Subject: 3.18 angels dancing on pins? (18)
I seem to recall, not having the text at hand, that it occurs in
Martinus Scriblerus Ch 7, spoofing Aquinas's angels.
Mel Wiebe, Queen's Univ.

(5) --------------------------------------------------------------23----
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 17:34:29 EDT
From: Don D. Roberts (Philosophy) <ddrob@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca>
Subject: 3.18 angels dancing on pins? (18)

Re: angels dancing on head of pin:

Bergen Evans in _Dictionary of Quotations_ (Avenal, 1978) 23-24 quotes
Ralph Cudworth's _The True Intellectual System of the Universe III_
(1678): "Some who are far from atheists, may make themselves merry
with that conceit of thousands of spirits dancing at once upon a
needle's point." Evans adds these remarks (among others): "Cudworth
is plainly alluding to some assertion or passage in literature which
he assumes is fairly well known. But no one has ever been able to
find, in theological discussions, the question of how many angels can
'dance on the point of a pin' (the modern form)."
--Don D. Roberts, UWaterloo.