Competénțe

".. il ne faisait aucun cadeau à ses personnages. Il dressait sans fin son autoportrait comme Goya peignait ses modèles : avec un stylo ou des pinceaux tranchants comme des rasoirs. A le lire, on n’avait pas envie de le rencontrer. En revanche, on ne pouvait pas s’empêcher de le relire car son écriture était le parfait négatif de ses héros : un enchantement. Nourissier avait le génie du mot exact et de la ­formule parfaite. Rien à voir avec l’autofiction habituelle qui, dans son sillage, a envahi la littérature française. Ce n’est pas son nombril qu’il observait, c’était beaucoup plus profond, il soulevait les voiles souillées de son âme avec les instruments les plus précis, les plus soigneux d’un chirurgien des lettres. Soudain les états d’âme d’un grand bourgeois parisien et les confessions truquées d’un mandarin intellectuel se transformaient en démonstration virtuose du génie de la langue française. Son cœur se disait dur comme la pierre mais son style coulait comme l’eau de source."

uttermost reach

"Somewhere, during the time of our first readings, there is a moment in which we discover that, from the ink-stains on a page, a world emerges fully-fledged and magically real. This is a transformative experience, after which our relationship to the tangible, quotidian world is no longer the same. After having witnessed the creative capabilities of language that allow words not merely to communicate or label but to bring to life what they label and communicate—that is to say, after we have become readers—there can no longer be for us an innocent perception of the world. Once named, a thing is no longer itself, in the Platonic sense that Borges would later delight in elaborating: the thing is assumed by the word that names it, contaminated or enriched by all the ancestry and connotations and prejudices that the word drags along in its wake."

Mimer le titre

Tăcérii

identity of denotation

"If, then, we are asserting identity of denotation, we must not mean by denotation the mere relation of a name to the thing named. In fact, it would be nearer to the truth to say that the meaning of “Scott” is the denotation of “the author of Waverley.” The relation of “Scott” to Scott is that “Scott” means Scott, just as the relation of “author” to the concept which is so called is that “author” means this concept. Thus if we distinguish meaning and denotation in “the author of Waverley,” we shall have to say that “Scott” has meaning but not denotation. Also when we say “Scott is the author of Waverley,” the meaning of “the author of Waverley” is relevant to our assertion. For if the denotation alone were relevant, any other phrase with the same denotation would give the same proposition. Thus “Scott is the author of Marmion” would be the same proposition as “Scott is the author of Waverley.” But this is plainly not the case, since from the first we learn that Scott wrote Marmion and from the second we learn that he wrote Waverley, but the first tells us nothing about Waverley and the second nothing about Marmion. Hence the meaning of “the author of Waverley,” as opposed to the denotation, is certainly relevant to “Scott is the author of Waverley.” "

altminteri

the ghost exists

As Canterville Chase is seven miles from Ascot, the nearest railway station, Mr. Otis had telegraphed for a waggonette to meet them, and they started on their drive in high spirits. It was a lovely July evening, and the air was delicate with the scent of the pinewoods. Now and then they heard a wood-pigeon brooding over its own sweet voice, or saw, deep in the rustling fern, the burnished breast of the pheasant. Little squirrels peered at them from the beech-trees as they went by, and the rabbits scudded away through the brushwood and over the mossy knolls, with their white tails in the air. As they entered the avenue of Canterville Chase, however, the sky became suddenly overcast with clouds, a curious stillness seemed to hold the atmosphere, a great flight of rooks passed silently over their heads, and, before they reached the house, some big drops of rain had fallen.

kernel of truth

And that's the danger of stereotypes, is, the danger of stereotypes is that we use them and then we stick too closely to them, and we're unwilling to revise our impressions afterwards, on the basis of new information. And the other danger is that we think those stereotypes may exist for some good reason, whereas it may not be a good reason for their existence.

unaware

And though it is far from clear what role the Brotherhood would have should Mubarak step down, the Egyptian president has been claiming it will take over. In any case, the movement is likely to be a major player in any transitional government. Journalists and pundits are already weighing in with advice on the strengths and dangers of this 83-year-old Islamist movement, whose various national branches are the most potent opposition force in virtually all of these countries. Some wonder how the Brotherhood will treat Israel, or if it really has renounced violence.

remarque

Dignity is a term used in moral, ethical, and political discussions to signify that a being has an innate right to respect and ethical treatment. It is an extension of Enlightenment-era beliefs that individuals have inherent, inviolable rights, and it is thus closely related to concepts like virtue, respect, self-respect, autonomy, human rights, and enlightened reason. Dignity is a precondition of freedom.

argumentative by training

It would be tempting at this point to go beyond the purist response that, one way or another, even the most apparently abstruse philosophical reflections may eventually enter and affect public consciousness (and in the past often have done so). We could play the bureaucratic game and start talking about the more direct contribution philosophers have made and continue to make as ‘public intellectuals’, both in Britain and abroad, affecting public policy and the climate of public debate generally. Historically, however, the record of philosophers as ‘public intellectuals’ has not been a happy one, as a quick survey of the history of philosophy might show, from the days of Plato and Aristotle in antiquity to at least some of the public interventions of the likes of Heidegger, Sartre and Russell nearer to our own time. For whatever reason, historically there seems to have been no clear correlation between philosophic wisdom and practical wisdom, nor does philosophy in itself afford any reliable credentials for entry into public debate.