Borges – Bas van Fraassen's Commonplace Book

Force

No plan survives first contact with the enemy, Field Marshal von Moltke wrote, and the same may be true of first contact with the class you are going to teach. One year, designing a course on philosophy and literature and meaning to favor my own tastes, I chose tales from Borges, William Golding, Eco, Calvino,Continue reading “Force”

The last eyes to see

In Borges’ “The Witness” a dying man is briefly awakened by bells that toll the Angelus, by then a common evening sound. But as a child this man had seen the face of Woden, the wooden idol hung with Roman coins, the sacrifice of horses. “Before dawn he will die and with him will die,Continue reading “The last eyes to see”