Subject: Re: [HM] regula Lesbia
From: Julio Gonzalez Cabillon (jgc@adinet.com.uy)
Date: Sat Mar 25 2000 - 12:43:31 EST
At 06:23 p.m. 21/03/00 +0100, Christian Marinus Taisbak typed:
|
| Dear wise people,
| In a letter from the Danish astronomer Olavus Roemer to Reyher
| and Tiede he mentions (perhaps as a joke) a Lesbian Rule (regula
| Lesbia), which seems to be able to prove any thing, e.g. make
| ancient observations suit any opinion as to the lenght of the year.
|
| I have not been able to find any reference to such a rule or its
| name. Would anyone happen to know a bit about it?
| Marinus
|
| Christian Marinus Taisbak <marinus@private.dk>
| Mathematical Sciences in Antiquity
| Copenhagen University, Institute for Greek & Latin
| home:
| 51 Troeroedvej, DK 2950 Vedbaek, Denmark
| Phone: (+45) 45 89 16 02
| Fax: (+45) 45 89 01 32
Dear Marinus,
The lesbian rule is just a _post facto_ law, and an *astonishingly* in vogue
rule, here and everywhere. Just make a fact (an act) the precedent for a rule
(of conduct, of thumb ...), instead of squaring (sticking) conduct (fact) ...
according to law. Ad hoc provisos according to _pompa & circunstancia_.
The lesbian rules have been the regulations of NEW ORDERS thru'out history.
According to these NEW WAITERS, for instance, _IF_ a TV station (say) bothers
me, then, the lesbian rule, allows (encourages?) me to include the TV station
on the target list. (-- But the folks inside?) ... -- So what? ...
Very sad. Outrageous, Marinus!
"These, then, are pretty much the considerations that give rise to the
problem about the equitable; they are all in a sense correct and not
opposed to one another; for the equitable, though it is better than
one kind of justice, yet is just, and it is not as being a different
class of thing that it is better than the just. The same thing, then,
is just and equitable, and while both are good the equitable is
superior. What creates the problem is that the equitable is just, but
not the legally just but a correction of legal justice. The reason is
that all law is universal but about some things it is not possible to
make a universal statement which shall be correct. In those cases,
then, in which it is necessary to speak universally, but not possible
to do so correctly, the law takes the usual case, though it is not
ignorant of the possibility of error. And it is none the less correct;
for the error is in the law nor in the legislator but in the nature of
the thing, since the matter of practical affairs is of this kind from
the start. When the law speaks universally, then, and a case arises on
it which is not covered by the universal statement, then it is right,
where the legislator fails us and has erred by oversimplicity, to
correct the omission-to say what the legislator himself would have said
had he been present, and would have put into his law if he had known.
Hence the equitable is just, and better than one kind of justice - not
better than absolute justice but better than the error that arises
from the absoluteness of the statement. And this is the nature of the
equitable, a correction of law where it is defective owing to its
universality. In fact this is the reason why all things are not
determined by law, that about some things it is impossible to lay down
a law, so that a decree is needed. For when the thing is indefinite the
rule also is indefinite, like the leaden rule used in making the Lesbian
moulding; the rule adapts itself to the shape of the stone and is not
rigid, and so too the decree is adapted to the facts." [Aristotle]
In antiquity the lesbian rule referred to a flexible ruler used by the
builders of Lesbos, a flexible strip of metal which as Aristotle remarks
above, is the ruler which "adapts itself to the shape of the stone and
is not rigid".
Kind regards,
Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
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