Dear All,
Allow me to inform you that I have put on my website www.juliustomin.org the 13th
Book of Homer’s Iliad, read in the
original. As I informed you in my ‘Celebrating with Homer – an invitation’ on
April 15, I decided to put online my reading of Homer to celebrate the thirty
fifth anniversary of the Master of Balliol’s visit in my philosophy seminar in
Prague; on April 12, 1980 Dr Anthony Kenny was giving a lecture in my seminar
on Aristotle’s Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics; his lecture was
interrupted by the police.
Allow me to address you with a request. An integral part of
my recording Homer is my listening to the recordings. I am approaching my 77th
birthday, my hearing is deteriorating and I need a hearing aid. I looked on
Google, the prices on Hearing Direct vary from £169 - £599. My only income is a
State Pension of £26.95 a week (see ‘It is all wrong- a letter to the Pension
Service’ and ‘It has nothing to do with Oxford University’ posted on my blog http://juliustominquestions.blogspot.co.uk/
on June 15 and 19 respectively). I asked OXFAM for help, but they can’t assist
me, for their policy does not allow for loans or grants to individuals. Would
you suggest to me a charitable foundation to which I could apply with some hope
of success? If you know of any such foundation, would you support my request?
Why am I addressing this request to Balliol academics? I
came to Balliol in 1980 at the invitation of the Master of Balliol. On 18
November 1989, just as the Velvet Revolution began to unfold in Prague, Nick
Cohen wrote in ‘The Pub philosopher’ (published in The Independent Magazine): ‘Jonathan Barnes, Professor of Ancient
Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford, impatiently brushed aside the suggestion
that the Conservative’s reduction in funding for British philosophy since 1980
might explain why there was never an academic post for Tomin at Oxford. “That’s
not the point at all,” he said. “He would not be accepted as a graduate here,
let alone be given a teaching job.” Ten years later, Barbara Day wrote in The Velvet Philosophers (published in
1999 by The Claridge Press, p. 45): ‘his [i.e. Tomin’s] limited acquaintance
with the breadth of western philosophy would have been unacceptable in any of
the posts for which he diligently applied.’
This summer I held ‘Three days in Prague devoted to
philosophy’. The first day was devoted to the relevance of neurophysiology to
self-knowledge, the second day to Kant, the third to Plato and Aristotle. The preparatory
entries devoted to Kant, Lock, and Berkeley on my blog amply demonstrate that
my study of western philosophy has been extensive. Whenever I think of Barbara
Day’s allegation, I can’t help thinking of my talk on Kant for the students of
philosophy at the University of Leeds. I began with a request: ‘Kant’s turning
to critical philosophy was profoundly influenced by David Hume. Could one of
you give us a short outline of Hume’s scepticism?’ The group consisted of third
year students; they told me: ‘We don’t know anything about Hume. Hume was not on
the curriculum.’
You might wonder why I don’t try to find a lawyer and sue Balliol
for blacklisting. For Barnes’ ‘Tomin would not be accepted as a graduate here,
let alone be given a teaching job’, published in a respectable magazine and
never publicly contradicted by any British academic, could be viewed as a
reason why Tomin has been found unacceptable in any of the posts ‘for which he
diligently applied’. Blacklisting ought to be as unacceptable in philosophy, as
it has been found unacceptable in other areas of human activity.
The problem is that I did not diligently apply for academic
posts, for my aims and ambitions were different, as I explained in my open
letter to the 18th World Congress of Philosophy that took place in
1988 in Brighton. (See my recent ‘Appeal to the Master of Balliol’ posted on my
blog on October 11 and again on October 25.)
Allow me to end by repeating my original request: Would you
suggest to me a charitable foundation that might help me obtain a decent
hearing aid? If you know of any such foundation, would you consider supporting
my request?
I hope to be hearing from you soon.
Regards,
Julius Tomin
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