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so much for that idea
The plan for today was to head out to the office, make some photocopies, run to the close library to return a few books and pick up some that are on hold, do a few more things, and then eventually head up to the Singel library to spend the day there finishing up my Anselm paper and immersing myself in the names of VOC ships from the early 17th century. Well, the fact that we didn't get the usual Monday morning email announcing tea and cookies at 11am should've tipped me off, but it wasn't until I got out to the office and found it completely closed that I had a vague recollection of hearing something about today...
Yup, we've got another religious holiday on our hands here. Happy Whitmonday, everyone! I thought celebration of this holiday had gone out with the Middle Ages. (I also thought of it as something peculiarly Catholic, but it's not one Joel was familiar with.)
So I guess I'll have to stick around at home and finish up my Anselm paper and immerse myself in the names of aliens in the 1593 return of strangers in London.
Yup, we've got another religious holiday on our hands here. Happy Whitmonday, everyone! I thought celebration of this holiday had gone out with the Middle Ages. (I also thought of it as something peculiarly Catholic, but it's not one Joel was familiar with.)
So I guess I'll have to stick around at home and finish up my Anselm paper and immerse myself in the names of aliens in the 1593 return of strangers in London.
no subject
Whitsunday
I remember when we were in Italy and both St. Nicholas Day and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception were only two days apart (Dec 6th & 8th, IIRC) and they were both holidays. My Dad told me that in Holland, Dec 7th was a holiday, too, because the Dutch just love taking holidays (that it just wouldn't be efficient to open for one day between two holidays).
Re: Whitsunday
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost
In the UK the second bank holiday in May is the vestigal remains of this. The Whitsunday name apparently comes from the white robes worn by those baptised the previous easter.
By the way the Italians call it Pascha rossa from the colour of the robes worn by the Priests on that Sunday but they don't take a holiday for it unlike most of Europe used to.
Hope this helps......
Re: Whitsunday
Interesting
Whitsunday comes from the Saxon "Hwita Sunnandæg" (White Sunday) and is the feast of Pentecost - seven weeks (50 days) after Easter (also Shavuot, the Jewish Feast of Weeks). The name is from the white robes traditionally worn by those who had been baptized the previous Easter.
The following Monday is a holiday in much of Europe. The day is known as Whit Monday in England, Wales, and Ireland, and is also celebrated in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, parts of Switzerland, Germany and Hungary. Since 1967, however, Whit Monday has not been a public holiday in the United Kingdom. Whit Monday also ceased to be a statutory holiday in France in 2005, where the abolishment led to strong protests. Also in Sweden Whit Monday is no longer a holiday and June 6 (Swedish National Day) has become a day off.
Whitsunday remains one of the Scottish term days, at which debts are paid and leases traditionally expire, but this Scottish Whitsunday is now always considered to fall on May 15.
no subject
Anyway -- what's your Anselm paper on? (Feel free to ramble! :) I'm interested in Anselm, although I haven't read him for a few years.)
no subject
It started when I was reading Belnap, Perloff, Xu, Facing the Future for a class last semester, which is a formalization of agency in Belnap's framework of branching space-time. (I won't go in to this, 'cause it's not relevant to the Anselm side of things.) They had a chapter where they traced the history of treating agency as a modal concept, and their first stop was Anselm, where they gave a tantalizing hint about him giving a modal square of opposition for agency. During the project period (semesters here are divided into three parts, two which are about two months long, and where classes actually run, and the third, which is a month where projects on specialized topics are organized.), I and my advisor were running a project on topics in ancient & medieval logic, so my thought was "Hey, this sounds like a great project! Investigate modern discussions of the logic of Anselmian agency, and find out what that square of opposition is." I ended decided to take this topic on myself, and so basically wrote this paper over last January. I almost finished it, and then classes started, and I put it off, and then I couldn't summon the desire to work on it again, so it languished until a week or so ago when I dredged it up and saw that it really needed very little to complete it.
First I discuss the textual evidence and some of the non-logical (primarily methodological and theological) concerns which drive his development of his analysis of facere. Then we look at the square of opposition, and his main thesis that any ascription of agency will be one of 24 different types. Then, in preparation for looking at an axiomatization that was proposed in the 70's, I introduce a type of semantics for non-normal modal logics, and then use those semantics to clear up some of the questions that were left in the proposed axiomatization.
If you're interest in more detail, send me an email and I can send you the paper. All but the final two sections are pretty accessible to the non-logician.