DDC 110-119: Let’s get metaphysical

A Teach Me How To Dewey production

The Rundown:

• 110 Metaphysics
• 111 Ontology
• 112 No longer used—formerly Methodology
• 113 Cosmology (Philosophy of nature)
• 114 Space
• 115 Time
• 116 Change
• 117 Structure
• 118 Force and energy
• 119 Number and quantity

Time to get college-dorm-at-2am up in here. I mean, just look at the subtopics in this 10-spot: change, space, time (though unfortunately nothing on the space-time continuum), energy… Each of these concepts are their own unfathomable galaxies within the blown-mind universe. Sometimes it seems these kinds of heady topics can only be discussed after a few pints at the pub. Does anyone outside of academia actually sit down and read books about this stuff? For a non-STEM person like me, books like The Infinite Book below are great because they are meant to make the dense quandaries of high-level science more accessible for English majors like me. But perhaps I need to challenge myself.

Or I’ll just read another novel.

The Dew3:

The Phenomenon of Man
By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Dewey: 113
Random Sentence: “The paradox of man resolves itself by passing beyond measure.”

The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless
By John D. Barrow
Dewey: 111.6
Random Sentence: “Pythagoras believed infinity was the destroyer in the Universe, the malevolent annihilator of worlds.”

Grammars of Creation
By George Steiner
Dewey: 116
Random Sentence: “It can be cancelled and reduced to trackless silence.”