From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/5941 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: John Baez Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: The humility topos Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:33:49 -0700 Message-ID: Reply-To: John Baez NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1277907466 23129 80.91.229.12 (30 Jun 2010 14:17:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:17:46 +0000 (UTC) To: categories Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Wed Jun 30 16:17:42 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OTy6g-00022u-3d for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:17:42 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1OTxYS-0007Ms-G9 for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:42:20 -0300 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:5941 Archived-At: In literary criticism a "topos" is a standard method of constructing an argument, or more generally, a commonplace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_topos So, from what you wrote, I guessed that the medieval "humility topos" was the commonplace that religious figures were humble. But why guess? These days one can use Google! There are lots of discussions of the humility topos: http://www.google.com/search?q=humility+topos and I see that my guess was not quite right: http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_h.html Best, jb [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]