- Jul 2023
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But I would do less than justice to Mr. Adler's achieve-ment if I left the matter there. The Syntopicon is, in additionto all this, and in addition to being a monument to the indus-try, devotion, and intelligence of Mr. Adler and his staff, astep forward in the thought of the West. It indicates wherewe are: where the agreements and disagreements lie; wherethe problems are; where the work has to be done. It thushelps to keep us from wasting our time through misunder-standing and points to the issues that must be attacked.When the history of the intellectual life of this century iswritten, the Syntopicon will be regarded as one of the land-marks in it.
p xxvi
Hutchins closes his preface to his grand project with Mortimer J. Adler by giving pride of place to Adler's Syntopicon.
Adler's Syntopicon isn't just an index compiled into two books which were volumes 2 and 3 of The Great Books of the Western World, it's physically a topically indexed card index of data (a grand zettelkasten surveying Western culture if you will). It's value to readers and users is immeasurable and it stands as a fascinating example of what a well-constructed card index might allow one to do even when they don't have their own yet.
Adler spoke of practicing syntopical reading, but anyone who compiles their own card index (in either analog or digital form) will realize the ultimate value in creating their own syntopical writing or what Robert Hutchins calls participating in "The Great Conversation" across twenty-five centuries of documented human communication.
See also: https://hypothes.is/a/WF4THtUNEe2dZTdlQCbmXw
The way Hutchins presents the idea of "Adler's achievement" here seems to indicate that Hutchins didn't have a direct hand in compiling or working on it directly.
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- May 2023
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www.amazon.com www.amazon.com
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I am wholly unsurprised that Harold Innis maintained a card index (zettelkasten) through his research life, but I am pleased to have found that his literary estate has done some work on it and published it. The introduction seems to have some fascinating material on the form and structure as well as decisions on how they decided to present and publish it.
https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Harold-Adams-Innis-Heritage/dp/0802063829/
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jillianhess.substack.com jillianhess.substack.com
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en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory.
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, writer, politician, and linguist, was imprisoned from 1926 until his death in 1937 as a vocal critic of Benito Mussolini. While in prison he wrote more than 3,000 pages in more than 30 notebooks. His Prison Notebooks comprise a fascinating contribution to political theory.
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- Mar 2023
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Local file Local fileZettel1
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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Zettel. Edited by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright,. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Second California Paperback Printing. 1967. Reprint, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2007.
annotation target: urn:x-pdf:15f4a1e48274f28b55eb6f8411c1ff1c
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- Feb 2023
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www.amazon.com www.amazon.com
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https://www.amazon.com/Private-Notebooks-1914-1916-Ludwig-Wittgenstein/dp/1324090804
Notes or diaries or a mixture of both?
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- Jan 2023
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Local file Local file
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Before they were sent, however, the contents of itstwenty-six drawers were photographed in Princeton, resulting in thirty mi-crofilm rolls. Recently, digital pdf copies of these microfilm rolls have been
circulating among scholars of the documentary Geniza.
Prior to being shipped to the National Library of Israel, Goitein's index card collection was photographed in Princeton and transferred to thirty microfilm rolls from which digital copies in .pdf format have been circulating among scholars of the documentary Geniza.
Link to other examples of digitized note collections: - Niklas Luhmann - W. Ross Ashby - Jonathan Edwards
Are there collections by Charles Darwin and Linnaeus as well?
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Recently, images ofGoitein’s index cards and transcriptions have been attached to existing tran-scriptions or to shelf marks without transcription, thus increasing the numberof records to over eighty-three hundred (as of May 2018).
S.D. Goitein's index cards have been imaged and transcribed and added to the Princeton Geniza Lab as of May 2018. Digital search and an index are also available.
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- Oct 2022
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I feel sympathy for Robert Southey, whose excerpts from his voracious reading were posthumously published in four volumes as Southey’s Common-Place Book. He confessed in 1822 that,Like those persons who frequent sales, and fill their houses with useless purchases, because they may want them some time or other; so am I for ever making collections, and storing up materials which may not come into use till the Greek Calends. And this I have been doing for five-and-twenty years! It is true that I draw daily upon my hoards, and should be poor without them; but in prudence I ought now to be working up these materials rather than adding to so much dead stock.
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