Tonight I finished reading Eva Brann’s book Homeric Moments, which I’d been inching through in spare moments for the past couple of weeks in between more obligatory books. It was good. Having put it down, though, I immediately began Peter Pesic’s book Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature, which I am quite excited about. (I also bought Joe Sach’s new Republic translation at Croquet and am hoping to start it soon; I’ve already read the Introduction. Apparently I’m on a Johnnie book kick. Maybe I’ll finally get around to Jacob Klein’s Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, which I’ve been meaning to read for years, and which I bought last Autumn.)

Although I met and spoke with Mr Pesic several times, I doubt he would have any cause to remember me. Nevertheless, I recall his excellent lectures and piano recitals in Santa Fe with great pleasure. I remember being particularly impressed with his erudite and entertaining lecture on “Darkness at Night”, delivered eloquently and without notes. He embodies what’s great about the St John’s way, bringing more interests and skills to bear on his work and writing than would be possible at any other school.

In the notes to this book I just started, the first major source referenced is a book on the concept of individuality by Jorge Gracia (whose works pop up all over the notes and who is one of the few people thanked in the acknowledgments). I had the pleasure of conversing with Dr Gracia over dinner with a couple other graduate students a few years ago; he was pleasant, intelligent, and encouraging to us youngsters, with some useful advice. Dr Gracia wrote one of only two articles existing in English dealing at any significant length with the central figure of my doctoral dissertation-in-progress, Gonsalvus Hispanus (the author of the other article, John Wippel, is on my dissertation committee), although I had no idea what my dissertation would be on at the time; in fact Dr Gracia suggested a quite different field of study on that occasion. Dr Gracia edited and produced the Blackwell Companion to Medieval Philosophy along with Dr Timothy Noone, his onetime student and present close colleague. Dr Noone is one of the world’s foremost experts on the works of John Duns Scotus, and is the head of the Scotus Commission, which in the last decade or two has produced new critical editions of all of Scotus’s philosophical works. Back in the 1290’s Duns Scotus was the student of Gonsalvus of Spain at the University of Paris. Dr Noone was the “second reader” for my master’s thesis, which was on Scotus and whose first chapter dealt with the theory of individuation—which is Dr Gracia’s professional speciality (he’s published more books on the subject than anyone else) and the major theme of Mr Pesic’s book; and Dr Noone is my dissertation advisor.

What a web of connections! It’s a small world after all.