Jul 10, 2015
“Today,” I.A. Richards begins his 1936 lectures, rhetoric “is the dreariest and least profitable part of the waste that the unfortunate travel through in Freshman English! So low has Rhetoric sunk that we would do better just to dismiss it to Limbo than to trouble ourselves with it--unless we can find reason...
Jul 2, 2015
When I was a kid, I bickered a lot with my brother Dave. Dave is three years older than me, which meant he was farther along in school and knew more things. This bothered me, so if he said something, I said the opposite. If he said that hippos were more dangerous than lions, then I had to prove that lions were more...
Jun 15, 2015
Henry Hume, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Henry Hume, Lord Kames was a distant relative as well as friend to David Hume, although they spell their names differently. David Hume changed the spelling so that his English readers would pronounce it properly. Henry Hume kept the original spelling H-O-M-E.
May 23, 2015
Today we’re doing a podcast on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, not least because it’s so fun to say his name. Some people just have the kind of name that makes you want to say it all out, in full. Say it with me: Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It’s lovely. Fortunately, we’ll lget to say Dionysius of Halicarnassus...
May 18, 2015
Remember when you were a freshman and you took first year critical reasoning? Or in high school, when you took the AP thinking exam?
Of course not, because we don’t really teach philosophy or critical thinking. What we do teach is writing.
[intro]
Welcome to MR the podcast for beginners and insiders...