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Speaker: Shane Butler (I Tatti / Johns Hopkins University)
What kind of a thing is the wind? Or is it, as some recent philosophers have suggested, better understood as a “half-thing”? Guided by this question, this seminar offers an eclectic exploration of the relationship between thinking and being. Authors and artists to be considered include Seneca, Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, John Addington Symonds, and Haruki Murakami. Some thoughts will also be offered about the “thingness” (or not) of the Renaissance.
Shane Butler is the Hall Professor in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University, where he has taught since 2015. He is currently the Francesco De Dombrowski Visiting Professor at I Tatti, where he was a Fellow in 2003–4. He is also the new General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library. Professor Butler writes on literature, philosophy, and art across a wide variety of periods. His most recent book is The Passions of John Addington Symonds (Oxford, 2022). He lives in New York City.
Image: Leonardo da Vinci, A Deluge, ca. 1517–18, Royal Collection, UK
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