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2nd reading, so far my notes taking has been quite different from the first reading, I am far too influenced by Fichte.
This will require another reading soon.

So I am reading this for the 2nd time, but this itself is the reworking of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. And apart from Fichte popular writing nearly all his work is reframing and repeating Wissenschaftslehre in different words.

By now, I should have spent over 500 hours with Fichte, I am sorta going back on my plan and re-reading stuff way earlier, but this is all i have been thinking about these last few months!

This is Fichte's 2nd presentation of Wissenschaftslehre, and alongwith it two personal challenges -

1. I have been thinking about Wissenschaftslehre ever since i read it during the start of the year. So there's shouldn't be any fundamental surprises for me here.
2. I have a long weekend ahead of me, and I want to challenge myself to see if i can read this over 3 days. Shouldn't be difficult as long as 1 holds.

Brought Pausanias travel book from a used bookstore years ago, and though i have never read it, i have been shifting through it. Durant keeps bringing him up every once in a while, it's a nice feeling!

Much of this is still vivid in memory, but then it's only been 6 years and this book made a strong impression on me when i first read it. The fact that I recalled Ippolit conversation nearly word for word was a pleasant surprise.

Dostoyevsksy can surely get me back to reading for extended periods of time. And amongst all the books, The Idiot has had a special place, so time for a rare occurrence. The re-read. :)

In some ways, I have been reading Fichte ethical systems even slower than Kant's CpR. However while that was a choice, and reading a few pages worked. I have been trying to read Fichte as much as possible, and for some reason or other have to drop it after like 5 pages, just when things get interesting!

I have to take a break from Fichte and first get my reading time on track, then back at this.

Apart from my usual pursuit of building metaphoric brain muscles, I have also been working heavily on the actual muscles lately.

Based on the ridiculously slow progress here, I need to find a balance.

On pause till i read Wissenschaftslehre v1.

In Sanskrit language we find words, forms, declensions, conjugations, etc., that are very similar or exactly the same as corresponding Latin words... Great number of these nouns and verb are of primary necessity (to be, man, father, mother, etc.) or represent very primitive ideas in the languages. And many of those Sanskrit words also correspond to analogous Greek words, but in effect less than to Latin.

-Z2352

"One can say that fear is the height and purest quintessence of egoism, because it causes man not only to care solely for his own things but also to detach himself from those in order to care only for the pure and bare self, or rather the barest existence of his own individual self separated from any possible existence. "

-Z2207

Weishaupt was on my radar because i have been hearing about Illuminati ever since I am on the internet, However his criticism of Kant's 1st critique has piqued my interest.

"Kant's philosophy ends in a complete subjectivism."

While I was reading Kant,I recall defending Subjectivism, and denying any possibility of objective knowledge in one of those lively discussion resulting from modified state of consciousness.

"Once the idea of absolute perfection, along with innate ideas has been destroyed, and the relative perfection has been substituted for it, we start to give up on the demented ideas of an increment in perfection, of the acquisition of additional good qualities, of a perfection modeled on the false ideas of absolute and of absolutely greater or lesser good and evil."

- Z1619

Could one not ascribe (at any rate in large part) the limited memory of infants and children, which is also evident from the way in which we all tend to forget the first events of our lives, and the more so further back we go, to the lack of language in infants and its imperfection and paucity in children? It's certain that man's memory is utterly powerless (as are thought and intellect) without aid of signs. -Z1103

Warren Hasting name had to pop-up during discussing east India company. Reading Burke's speech on Impeachment of Warren Hasting on this particular day had quite the national feel to it. :)

Next up : Reflections on the revolutions in France.

This has number of speeches, letters, lesser known shorter works, abridgement of some longer ones, apart from the Reflections on the Revolution in France. All arranged chronologically :)

So i have quite a bit of reading to do before i get to "Reflections on the Revolution in France".

Up next - An abridgement of "An essay towards an abridgement of English history." :D

"Writing must be writing and not algebra; it must represent words with agreed signs.

What is this mishmash of dashes, dots, spaces, double and triple exclamation marks and what have you? I am waiting for see hieroglyphic writing come back into fashion with people no longer wanting to write feelings and ideas but represent them." - Z976

Leopardi foretold the rise of emoticons :D

Locke would be proud of this experiment :)

“An account of some observations made by a young gentleman, who was born blind, or lost his sight so early, that he had no remembrance of ever having seen, and was couch’d between 13 and 14 years of age"

https://archive.org/details/philtrans...
(A quick read 4 pages.)

Need to look up the internet for more. This one is by William Cheselden from 1728.

The beautiful and the sublime was a hot topic for this time period. Read Leopardi's poetic version, Kant's transcendental version and i have Burke on my shelf, which Kant claims is the psychological version.

Rather than extinguish passion with reason, it would be better to turn reason into passion: to make duty, virtue, heroism, etc., become passions.

-Z294.

It is a mistake to talk about desires being satisfied. Desires are not satisfied when we have reached their goal, but extinguished, that is, they are lost or abandoned in the certain knowledge that they can never be satisfied. And all that is gained from reaching the desired goal is to know this wholly.

- Z210

Getting there ...

I am struggling with this book. Leopardi and Milton seem to be saying the same stuff, but i find one enchanting and the other tedious.
Miton shares Leopardi view about how the poems and epics have to be natural, but they are doomed with classical influences and influences from other poets. Leopardi expresses with fervourous passages and milton by introducing Medussa in his otherwise christian epic.
-more in comment

"Now, thanks to witticisms, even the comic has become spiritual, so refined that it is not pure liquor anymore but an ether, a vapor, and this alone is deemed comedy worthy of persons of wit and good taste and good manners, and worthy of refined society and civilized conversation." (Z42)

Can Kant's critique be read amidst the world of distraction? Aira's novella worked, this will be an experiment, an hurdle, a challenge... so yeah in a word Fun.

Try to breathe artificially or carry out consciously one of those many actions that are done naturally -- you will not succeed, or only with difficulty and not so well. In the same way too much art harms us, and what Homer naturally said so well, we are able consciously and with infinite artifice to say only moderately well, and in such a way that effort if almost always more or less apparent. (Z8)

This has been on my TBR and soon actual shelf every since i first learnt about it. Plan to read this through few months.

So, G. Leopardi was an scholar, poet, essayist and philosopher.

That after my rant about frustration with poetry, He comes recommended by N, though :)

I have a habit of saving certain books to read during certain times. While reading this one a year and half ago, i got the presumption that i should have been reading it bout now. And so some 20 pages in, i inadvertently lost the book!

Here it is again, on schedule!

Compared to the sections till Transcendental analytics, Kant has been lot verbose in Transcendental dialectic. To make it fun, i try to anticipate what Kant is going to come up with in the next page or the section, or from the headings. There are still surprises (good ones, pointing out what i missed. And then sharp ones pointing out my impatience of rushing to conclusions!).