Within a Budding Grove (vol II p 107 ff) Notes September 2010

p 107 | Joseph- Ernest Renan (born Feb. 28, 1823, Tréguier, France — died Oct. 2, 1892, Paris) French philosopher, historian, and scholar of religion. He trained for the priesthood but left the Catholic church in 1845, feeling that its teachings were incompatible with the findings of historical criticism, though he retained a quasi-Christian faith in God. His five-volume History of the Origins of Christianity (1863 – 80) includes his Life of Jesus  (1863); an attempt to reconstruct the mind of Jesus as a wholly human person, it was virulently denounced by the church but widely read by the general public. His later works include the series History of the People of Israel (1888 – 96).

Emmanuel Kant

Thus, for Kant, space and time are "transcendentally ideal" and "empirically real" as subjective conditions and objective, constitutive principles of intuition. In brief, this is Kant's resolution of the scientific debate between the adherents of Newton's concept of absolute space and time and Leibniz's relational view. Kant is saying that space and time are absolute conditions for human experience even though there may be nonspatial and nontemporal entities that are unknown.

This argument provides an answer to how synthetic a priori judgments in mathematics are possible. These judgments are universal and necessary, and yet they apply to and yield new knowledge about experience. The principle of Kant's explanation may be expressed as follows: whatever is true of a condition is a priori true of the conditioned. Space and time are the conditions for all possible perceptions. And Euclidean geometry and arithmetic are true of space and time. Therefore, arithmetic and geometry are a priori valid for all possible appearances.

The Palace of Darius at Perspolis (Persia)

is thought to have looked like this => 

Destroyed by Alexander the Great, only ruins remain.

Mme. Bontemps (Albertine’s aunt): at Odette's "at home" :: Wife of the Chief Secretary to the Minister of Public Works

Paul Helleu studied in Gerome's studio and later became Proust's friend.

• We will make you ‘toast’ every bit as good as you get at Colombin’s.
• "You're speaking of the Swann of Colombin's?" [Swann had an affair with a woman who served tea there.]
• Un autre décor du roman, mais qui n’existe plus aujourd’hui : le salon de thé Colombin, à l’angle de la rue Cambon et de la rue du Mont-Thabor.{http://www.terresdecrivains.com/Balades-avec-Proust-a-Paris-3}

p 110 | BLATIN, Mme. (friend of Odette). Reads Journal des Débats: I 565-56. Her affectation: 576-77. Marcel’s mother’s poor opinion: 587-88. Mme Swann dreads her visits: II 110. Resembles a portrait of Savonarola: 147.

Pages for September

9/3:  A letter from Gilberte (98). Love’s miracles, happy and unhappy (99). Change of attitude towards me of Gilberte’s par­ents, unwittingly brought about by Bloch and Cottard (102). The Swann apartment; the concierge; the windows (103; cf. I 500). Gilberte’s writing-paper (104). The Henri II staircase (106). The chocolate cake (107).

9/10:  Mme Swann’s praise of Françoise: “your old nurse” (110). The heart of the Sanctuary: Swann’s library (111); his wife’s bedroom (113). Odette’s “at home” (114). The “famous Albertine,” niece of Mme Bontemps (116).