[lbo-talk] Open letters from Stefano Kourkoulakos andLeo Panitch

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Nov 4 09:52:22 PDT 2010


I've worn out several copies of the Dunciad, including the Twiickenham edition of it, so I ought to remember quite a bit from it. But in all of these readings I never focused on one line here, " Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare." That is of some historical interest: In 1740 Newton's positing of abstract space still wasn't "common sense." That is, apparently it was still common to 'measure' space by its contents, rather than the contents by space.

Carrol

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Dennis Claxton Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 11:13 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Open letters from Stefano Kourkoulakos andLeo Panitch

At 08:52 AM 11/4/2010, Carrol Cox wrote:


>There are some lines in the Dunciad which unfortunately I can't remember
>correctly, but something about "running around the circle, call it square,"
>that perhaps apply to efforts to 'solve' the transformation problem.

Good memory. Here it is:

Mad Mathesis alone was unconfin'd, Too mad for mere material chains to bind, Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare, Now running round the circle finds it square.

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