Member: mfd101

CollectionsYour library (11,799)

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Tagsreview article (1,441), article (919), CD classical (637), eBook (583), Plato 428/7-348/7 BCE (411), Aristotle 384-322 BCE (393), Martin Heidegger 1889-1976 (387), natural language (379), Immanuel Kant 1724-1804 (311), Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900 (292) — see all tags

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About meRetired civil servant

About my libraryLargest sections are: (1) history - mostly Europe from Ancient Greece to C20th, Americas C15th-18th, Pacific C18th-19th contact, & WW2; wars & warfare are big; (2) philosophy - mostly Greeks, C17th-18th Anglos, Kierkegaard & C20th (with Popper, Heidegger, Foucault & Derrida taking up rather more space than posterity is likely to think they deserve); (3) literary theory & literatures - mostly Eng-, Fr- & Ger-language, others in translation except for some It, Sp & Lat; (4) linguistics - mostly text linguistics, semantics & Paris School narrative semiotics; (5) anthropology & comparative mythology - lots of French structuralism, looking now just a tad dated; (6) religions & theologies - mostly Christian & Jewish - considered both from a secular historical point of view & as discourse (mythology, historiography, oral literature, narrative structures).

What's growing? 'History' has been out of control for years, and 'Philosophy' is expanding at a great rate. I blame Amazon. Very bad effect on my budget. And just this month (March 2013) I've discovered the Delphi Classics eBooks: generally very good quality 'complete works' (unlike most eBook series by other publishers) and at US2 or 3 how could any reasonable person resist? Another evil influence. (And now - October 2013 - I've discovered that Arvensa Editions supply high-quality eBooks of French literary classics, the first really good French eBooks I've come across.)

Intellectual curiosity: a manifestation of the sin of Greed.

Library: velleities of knowledge; v. under 'Control: freaks'. Combining in the present century the classical with the post-modern pleasures, blindness with obesity. Like Montaigne I speak as one who inquires and is ignorant. The unread books of my library are the horizon of my ignorance, an ignorance that expands, like the cosmos, ever faster. But they were, these unread books, like those I have read, chosen for my library on the basis of their content and my interests, so they have a useful function organising my ignorance through demarcation, turning mysteries into problems.

Motto: Et in veritate vinum

GroupsAmerican Revolution & Founding Fathers History, Ancient History, Australian LibraryThingers, Biblical History, Classical Music, Combiners!, French Connection, Gay Men, German Library Thingers, HMS Surprise —show all groups, Homer, the Trojan war, and pre-classical Greece, Japanese Literature, Language, LibraryThing en français, Lingua Latina, Literatura en Espanol, Medieval Europe, Military History, Naval History and Fiction, Philosophy and Theory, Philosophy of Science, Political Philosophy, Second World War History

LocationCanberra, Australia

Favorite authorsNot set

Account typepublic, lifetime

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/mfd101 (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mfd101 (library)

Member sinceJan 15, 2008