Tag: metaphysics

  • 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.”