In an 1849 letter to a friend, five years before she began to translate the Ethics, Eliot wrote, “For those who read the very words Spinoza wrote there is the same sort of interest in his style as in the conversation of a person of great capacity who has led a solitary life, and who [...]
Tag: Thoughts
NEW : Geopolitics Podcast
Geopolitics Podcast: the Age of Paradox Episode 1 When future historians look back at our age they might think of it as the Age of Paradox. On the one hand we have the pandemic which has slowed down the pace of individual life. On the other we are seeing massive accelerations in politics, economics and [...]
China loses its lustre among Europeans but doors remain open: survey | South China Morning Post
Negative views are on the rise because of coronavirus and aggressive diplomacy but cooperation on trade and climate change still desirable. — Read on http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3110516/china-loses-its-lustre-among-europeans-doors-remain-open
Edith Wharton’s Moroccan Clichés | History Today
Some reviewers disagreed with her and In Morocco prompted political debate. ‘All the properties of an Arabian Nights tale are here’, wrote Irita Van Doren in the Nation, noting ‘camels and donkeys, white-draped riders, palmetto deserts, camel’s hair tents, and veiled women’. However, she cautioned, Wharton ‘accepts without question the general theory of imperialism’. Wharton [...]
Brain Cell DNA Refolds Itself to Aid Memory Recall | Quanta Magazine
More than a century ago, the zoologist Richard Semon coined the term “engram” to designate the physical trace a memory must leave in the brain, like a footprint. Since then, neuroscientists have made progress in their hunt for exactly how our brains form memories. They have learned that specific brain cells activate as we form [...]
How Sultan Selim’s Ottoman Empire Shaped the Modern World | Literary Hub
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequences of the pandemic. It’s our new daily podcast trying to make longterm sense out of the chaos of today’s global [...]
What comes first: ideas or words? The paradox of articulation | Aeon Essays
... (a) seemingly contradictory observation is that articulating our thoughts, in the hard cases, is a purposive activity that doesn’t simply consist in producing words mechanically, in a kneejerk way. The words that immediately come out of us when we are struck by our thoughts (eg, ‘How outrageous!’, ‘What a mess!’) might hardly reflect what [...]
The Philosopher and the Detectives: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Enduring Passion for Hardboiled Fiction | CrimeReads
The scene is London; the year, 1941. Ludwig Wittgenstein, likely the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century, has taken a hiatus from his Cambridge professorship to do “war work” in a menial position at Guy’s Hospital. By the time he arrives there, in September, the worst of the Blitz is over, but there’s no way [...]
Immersion in fictional worlds allows us to own our dark side | Psyche Ideas
Our liking for fictional villains such as Voldemort tells us something about the dark side of our own personalities — Read on psyche.co/ideas/immersion-in-fictional-worlds-allows-us-to-own-our-dark-side
Christiane-Marie Abu Sarah: How do daily habits lead to political violence? | TED Talk
What drives someone to commit politically motivated violence? The unsettling answer lies in daily habits. Behavioral historian Christiane-Marie Abu Sarah shares startling insights into how seemingly mundane choices can breed polarization that lead to extreme, even deadly, actions -- and explains how to identify and bypass these behaviors in order to rediscover common ground. — [...]
