Author: Larry Kooper

Original language: Latin. [First entry here in Latin.] I read On Friendship, On Old Age, and The Orations Against Catiline. Many people call On Old Age a work of philosophy. But to me it is more like an op-ed, or a magazine piece. I’m not taking anything away from its merits, but no one today…

Original language: Greek. On Conic Sections It’s a book of geometry. I don’t have much to say about it.

Original language: Greek. I read The Sand-Reckoner and skimmed On the Equilibrium of Planes and On Floating Bodies. The Sand-Reckoner Archimedes set out to find an upper bound for the number of grains of sand that would fit into the “universe” (which, to the ancients, was a finite area bounded by the stars seen from…

Original language: Pali. A Buddhist scripture. A collection of the sayings of the Buddha in verse form. The edition I read was translated and edited by Valerie J. Roebuck, published 2010 by Penguin. In some ways The Dhammapada is like an early self-help book. I liked the emphasis on meditation, self-control, and control of anger.…

Original language: Greek. I skimmed Elements. It’s amazing that the geometry I studied in high school, and is still studied today, is basically this book by Euclid. Though slightly different terminology is used today. A general thought It’s really interesting, now that I have gone from 1400 BC to 300 BC, how I’ve gone from…

Original language: Greek. I read “Letter to Herodotus” (not a letter to the historian Herodotus) and “Letter to Menoeceus,” both online. Letter to Herodotus The main surprising thing is that Epicurus thought (correctly) that matter is made of atoms. He got a few things wrong, and he believed in the existence of the soul, but…

Original language: Greek. I used The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon, published in 1941 by Random House. I read Nicomachean Ethics, translated by W.D. Ross, and Poetics, translated by Ingram Bywater. McKeon used the Oxford translation of Aristotle, which he says in the Preface was completed in 1931. Nicomachean Ethics We don’t…

Original language: Greek. I read The Last Days of Socrates, which includes the dialogues Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. Translated by Hugh Tredennick and Harold Tarrant, published 1954 and last revised 1993, by Penguin. I also read The Republic, translated by Francis M. Cornford (1874-1943), first published in 1941 by Oxford University Press. The Last…

Original language: Greek. I read a cheapo Delphi Classics Kindle edition, what the book says is an “anonymous translation for the Athenian Society, London, 1912.” I read The Clouds, The Acharnians, and The Birds. The Clouds is a send-up of Socrates (who is portrayed as having his head in them). I’m surprised that the characters…

I didn’t spend that much time on him. The Hippocratic Oath is significant because it’s an early rule of medical ethics.