1.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city
2.
Harvard University
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Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
3.
University of Pittsburgh
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The University of Pittsburgh is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1787 after the American Revolutionary War, it was founded on the edge of the American frontier as the Pittsburgh Academy and it developed and was renamed as Western University of Pennsylvania by a change to its charter in 1819. For most of its history, Pitt was a private institution, the university also includes four undergraduate schools located at campuses within Western Pennsylvania, Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown, and Titusville. The 132-acre Pittsburgh campus has multiple contributing historic buildings of the Schenley Farms Historic District, most notably its 42-story Gothic revival centerpiece, the university has an annual operating budget of approximately $2 billion, which includes nearly $900 million in research and development expenditures. It is the second-largest non-government employer in the Pittsburgh region behind UPMC, Pitt is ranked among the top public universities in the United States in both domestic and international rankings, and has been listed as a best value in higher education by several publications. Pitt students have access to arts programs throughout the campus and city. Pitts varsity athletic teams, collectively known as the Pittsburgh Panthers, compete in Division I of the NCAA, primarily as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Founded by Hugh Henry Brackenridge as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787, the University of Pittsburgh is one of the few universities and colleges established in the 18th century in the United States. It is the oldest continuously chartered institution of learning in the U. S. west of the Allegheny Mountains, the school began as a preparatory school, presumably in a log cabin, possibly as early as 1770 in Western Pennsylvania, then a frontier. A brick building was erected in 1790 on the side of Third Street. The small two-story brick building, with a gable facing the alley, within a short period, more advanced education in the area was needed, so in 1819 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania amended the schools 1787 charter to confer university status. The school took the name the Western University of Pennsylvania, or WUP, by the 1830s, the university faced severe financial pressure to abandon its traditional liberal education in favor of the state legislatures desire for it to provide more vocational training. The decision to remain committed to liberal education nearly killed the university and it was also during this era that the founder of Mellon Bank, Thomas Mellon, graduated and later taught at WUP. The universitys buildings, along with most of its records and files, were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1845 that wiped out 20 square blocks of Pittsburgh, classes were temporarily held in Trinity Church until a new building was constructed on Duquesne Way. Only four years later, in 1849, this also was destroyed by fire. Due to the nature of these fires, operations were suspended for a few years to allow the university time to regroup. By 1854, WUP had erected a new building on the corner of Ross and Diamond streets, langley was professor of astronomy and physics and remained at WUP until 1891, when he was succeeded by another prominent astronomer, James Keeler. Growing quickly during this period, WUP outgrew its downtown facilities, the university eventually found itself on a 10-acre site on the North Sides Observatory Hill at the location of its Allegheny Observatory
4.
Western philosophy
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Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. The word philosophy itself originated from the Hellenic, philosophia, literally, the scope of philosophy in the ancient understanding, and the writings of the ancient philosophers, were all intellectual endeavors. Western Philosophy is generally said to begin in the Greek cities of western Asia Minor with Thales of Miletus and his most noted students were respectively Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus. Pythagoras, from the island of Samos off the coast of Ionia, pythagoreans hold that all is number, giving formal accounts in contrast to the previous material of the Ionians. They also believe in metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls, or reincarnation, Socrates The key figure in Greek philosophy is Socrates. Socrates studied under several Sophists but transformed Greek philosophy into a unified, Socrates used a critical approach called the elenchus or Socratic method to examine peoples views. He aimed to study human things, the life, justice, beauty. Although Socrates wrote nothing himself, some of his many disciples wrote down his conversations and he was tried for corrupting the youth and impiety by the Greek democracy. He was found guilty and sentenced to death, although his friends offered to help him escape from prison, he chose to remain in Athens and abide by his principles. His execution consisting in drinking the poison hemlock and he died in 399 B. C, Plato Socrates most important student was Plato. Plato founded the Academy of Athens and wrote a number of dialogues, some central ideas of Platos dialogues are the immortality of the soul, the benefits of being just, that evil is ignorance, and the Theory of Forms. Forms are universal properties that constitute reality and contrast with the changeable material things he called becoming. Aristotle Platos most outstanding student was Aristotle, Aristotle was perhaps the first truly systematic philosopher and scientist. He wrote books on physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, politics, Aristotelian logic was the first type of logic to attempt to categorize every valid syllogism. Aristotelian philosophy exercised considerable influence on almost all western philosophers, including Greek, Roman, Christian, Jewish, the Neoplatonic and Christian philosophers of Late Antiquity. Early medieval philosophy was influenced by the likes of Stoicism, neo-Platonism, but, above all, the prominent figure of this period was St. Augustinianism was the preferred starting point for most philosophers up until the 13th century. The foundations of many northern European universities were built in the Middle Ages by waves of Irish, Scottish & English monks from the Celtic Church begun by Columba, see Celtic Christianity. Erigena is said to have been stabbed to death by his students with their pens and his theology would today be called pantheistic, in keeping with Celtic resolutions of pagan and Christian philosophy
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Ethics
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Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from the Ancient Greek word ἠθικός ethikos, the branch of philosophy axiology comprises the sub-branches of ethics and aesthetics, each concerned with values. As a branch of philosophy, ethics investigates the questions What is the best way for people to live, and What actions are right or wrong in particular circumstances. In practice, ethics seeks to resolve questions of morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice. As a field of enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics. Richard William Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as a set of concepts, the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word ethics is commonly used interchangeably with morality. And sometimes it is used narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition. Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, the word ethics in English refers to several things. It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral philosophy—a project that attempts to use reason in order to various kinds of ethical questions. As bioethicist Larry Churchill has written, Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically about moral values, Ethics can also be used to describe a particular persons own idiosyncratic principles or habits. For example, Joe has strange ethics, the English word ethics is derived from an Ancient Greek word êthikos, which means relating to ones character. The Ancient Greek adjective êthikos is itself derived from another Greek word, meta-ethics asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong. An ethical question fixed on some particular practical question—such as, Should I eat this particular piece of chocolate cake. —cannot be a meta-ethical question, a meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example, Is it ever possible to have knowledge of what is right. Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics, meta-ethics is also important in G. E. In it he first wrote about what he called the naturalistic fallacy, moore was seen to reject naturalism in ethics, in his Open Question Argument. This made thinkers look again at second order questions about ethics, earlier, the Scottish philosopher David Hume had put forward a similar view on the difference between facts and values. Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism, non-cognitivism is the claim that when we judge something as right or wrong, this is neither true nor false
6.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge, during his lifetime he published just one slim book, the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one article, one book review and a childrens dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously, Philosophical Investigations appeared as a book in 1953, and has since come to be recognised as one of the most important works of philosophy in the twentieth century. His teacher Bertrand Russell described Wittgenstein as the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, born in Vienna into one of Europes richest families, he inherited a large fortune from his father in 1913. Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Wittgenstein contemplating it too and he described philosophy as the only work that gives me real satisfaction. His philosophy is divided into an early period, exemplified by the Tractatus. The later Wittgenstein rejected many of the assumptions of the Tractatus, ludwigs grandmother Fanny was a first cousin of the famous violinist Joseph Joachim. They had 11 children—among them Wittgensteins father, Karl Otto Clemens Wittgenstein became an industrial tycoon, and by the late 1880s was one of the richest men in Europe, with an effective monopoly on Austrias steel cartel. Thanks to Karl, the Wittgensteins became the second wealthiest family in Austria-Hungary, however, their wealth diminished due to post-1918 hyperinflation and subsequently during the Great Depression, although even as late as 1938 they owned 13 mansions in Vienna alone. Wittgensteins mother was Leopoldine Maria Josefa Kalmus, known among friends as Poldi and her father was a Bohemian Jew and her mother was Austrian-Slovene Catholic—she was Wittgensteins only non-Jewish grandparent. She was an aunt of the Nobel Prize laureate Friedrich Hayek on her maternal side, Wittgenstein was born at 8,30 pm on 26 April 1889 in the so-called Wittgenstein Palace at Alleegasse 16, now the Argentinierstrasse, near the Karlskirche. Karl and Poldi had nine children in all, the children were baptized as Catholics, received formal Catholic instruction, and raised in an exceptionally intense environment. The family was at the center of Viennas cultural life, Bruno Walter described the life at the Wittgensteins palace as an atmosphere of humanity. Karl was a patron of the arts, commissioning works by Auguste Rodin and financing the citys exhibition hall and art gallery. Gustav Klimt painted Wittgensteins sister for her portrait, and Johannes Brahms. For Wittgenstein, who highly valued precision and discipline, contemporary music was never considered acceptable at all, music, he said to his friend Drury in 1930, came to a full stop with Brahms, and even in Brahms I can begin to hear the noise of machinery. He also learnt to play the clarinet in his thirties, a fragment of music, composed by Wittgenstein, was discovered in one of his 1931 notebooks, by Michael Nedo, Director of the Wittgenstein Institute in Cambridge. Three of the five brothers would commit suicide
7.
University of Oxford
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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris, after disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two ancient universities are frequently referred to as Oxbridge. The university is made up of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges, All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Being a city university, it not have a main campus, instead, its buildings. Oxford is the home of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the worlds oldest and most prestigious scholarships, the university operates the worlds oldest university museum, as well as the largest university press in the world and the largest academic library system in Britain. Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 28 Nobel laureates,27 Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in form as early as 1096. It grew quickly in 1167 when English students returned from the University of Paris, the historian Gerald of Wales lectured to such scholars in 1188 and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland, arrived in 1190. The head of the university had the title of chancellor from at least 1201, the university was granted a royal charter in 1248 during the reign of King Henry III. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled from the violence to Cambridge, the students associated together on the basis of geographical origins, into two nations, representing the North and the South. In later centuries, geographical origins continued to many students affiliations when membership of a college or hall became customary in Oxford. At about the time, private benefactors established colleges as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest such founders were William of Durham, who in 1249 endowed University College, thereafter, an increasing number of students lived in colleges rather than in halls and religious houses. In 1333–34, an attempt by some dissatisfied Oxford scholars to found a new university at Stamford, Lincolnshire was blocked by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioning King Edward III. Thereafter, until the 1820s, no new universities were allowed to be founded in England, even in London, thus, Oxford and Cambridge had a duopoly, the new learning of the Renaissance greatly influenced Oxford from the late 15th century onwards. Among university scholars of the period were William Grocyn, who contributed to the revival of Greek language studies, and John Colet, the noted biblical scholar. With the English Reformation and the breaking of communion with the Roman Catholic Church, recusant scholars from Oxford fled to continental Europe, as a centre of learning and scholarship, Oxfords reputation declined in the Age of Enlightenment, enrolments fell and teaching was neglected
8.
Institute for Advanced Study
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The IAS is perhaps best known as the academic home of Albert Einstein, John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel, after their immigration to the United States. Although it is close to and collaborates with Princeton University, Rutgers University, Flexners guiding principle in founding the Institute was the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. There are no programs or experimental facilities at the Institute. Research is never contracted or directed, it is left to each individual researcher to pursue their own goals and it is supported entirely by endowments, grants, and gifts, and is one of the eight American mathematics institutes funded by the National Science Foundation. It is the model for the eight members of the consortium Some Institutes for Advanced Study. The institute consists of four schools–Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, in 2016, the Institute has been in the news for a faculty housing project proposal. While the Institute owns the property on which it wants to build these houses, historians and archaeological evidence confirm the site witnessed Gen. George Washingtons arrival and charge on horseback across the battlefield during the January 3,1777 Battle of Princeton. The Institute was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner, together with philanthropists Louis Bamberger, Flexner is generally regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of American medicine and played a major role in the reform of medical education. This led to an interest in education generally and as early as 1890 he had founded a school which had no formal curriculum, exams. It was a success at preparing students for prestigious colleges. The Bamberger siblings wanted to use the proceeds from the sale of their department store in Newark, New Jersey, Flexner convinced them to put their money in the service of more abstract research. In 1932 Veblen resigned from Princeton and became the first professor in the new Institute for Advanced Study and he selected most of the original faculty and also helped the Institute acquire land in Princeton for both the original facility and future expansion. Flexner and Veblen set out to recruit the best mathematicians and physicists they could find, the rise of fascism and the associated anti-semitism forced many prominent mathematicians to flee Europe and some, such as Einstein and Hermann Weyl, found a home at the new institute. Weyl as a condition of accepting insisted that the Institute also appoint the thirty year old Austrian-Hungarian polymath John von Neumann, indeed, the IAS became the key lifeline for scholars fleeing Europe. Einstein was Flexners first coup and shortly after that he was followed by Veblens brilliant student James Alexander, Flexner was fortunate in the luminaries he directly recruited but also in the people that they brought along with them. Thus, by 1934 the fledgeling institute was led by six of the most prominent mathematicians in the world, in 1935 quantum physics pioneer Wolfgang Pauli became a faculty member. With the opening of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton replaced Göttingen as the center for mathematics in the twentieth century. Princeton Universitys science departments are less than two miles away and informal ties and collaboration between the two institutions occurred from the beginning and this helped start an incorrect impression that it was part of the University, one that has never been completely eradicated
9.
University of Innsbruck
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The University of Innsbruck is a public university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded in 1669. Significant contributions have made in many branches, most of all in the physics department. Further, regarding the number of Web of Science-listed publications, it occupies the third worldwide in the area of mountain research. In 1562 a Jesuit grammar school was established in Innsbruck by Peter Canisius and it was financed by the salt mines in Hall in Tirol, and was refounded as a university in 1669 by Leopold I with four faculties. In 1782 this was reduced to a lyceum, but it was reestablished as the University of Innsbruck in 1826 by Emperor Franz I. The university is named after both of its founding fathers with the official title Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck. In 1991 Lauda Air Flight 004 crashed in Thailand, killing all aboard, the passengers included professor and economist Clemens August Andreae, another professor, six assistants, and 13 students. Andreae had often led field visits to Hong Kong, in 2005, copies of letters written by the emperors Frederick II and Conrad IV were found in the universitys library. They arrived in Innsbruck in the 18th century, having left the charterhouse Allerengelberg in Schnals due to its abolishment. In the 1850s, the Habsburgs gradually closed the University of Olomouc as a consequence of the Olomouc students and professors participation in the 1848 revolutions, the ceremonial equipment of the University of Olomouc was then transferred to the University of Innsbruck. The original Olomouc ceremonial maces from the 1580s are now used as the maces of Innsbruck University, since the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Czechs have been unsuccessfully requesting the return of the University of Olomoucs original ceremonial equipment. As of 1 January 2004, the Faculty of Medicine was sectioned off from the university to become a university in its own right. This is now called the Innsbruck Medical University, the university buildings are spread across the city and there is no university campus as such. The most important locations are, Theology faculty was opened 1562 as a Jesuit School in 1766, in 1924, main building and the university library opened. 1969 the scientific faculty and the faculty in Hotting west was opened. 1976 construction began on Geiwi tower for the former Philosophy faculty,1997 The Social Science faculty was opened. 2012 Center of Chemistry and Biomedicine was opened, several university clinics of the medical university in the area became Tyrolian national hospitals. He also succeeded in explaining the constitution of chlorophyll, fischer held chairs in Innsbruck, Vienna and Munich
10.
Leo Tolstoy
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Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth. Tolstoys fiction includes dozens of stories and several novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness. He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays, in the 1870s Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by what he regarded as an equally profound spiritual awakening, as outlined in his non-fiction work A Confession. His literal interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. Tolstoy also became an advocate of Georgism, the economic philosophy of Henry George. Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate 12 kilometres southwest of Tula, the Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility, tracing their ancestry to a mythical Lithuanian noble Indris. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, Tolstoys parents died when he was young, so he and his siblings were brought up by relatives. In 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University and his teachers described him as both unable and unwilling to learn. Tolstoy left the university in the middle of his studies, returned to Yasnaya Polyana and then spent much of his time in Moscow, in 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. It was about time that he started writing. Others who followed the path were Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin. During his 1857 visit, Tolstoy witnessed an execution in Paris. Writing in a letter to his friend Vasily Botkin, The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere. Tolstoys concept of non-violence or Ahimsa was bolstered when he read a German version of the Tirukkural and he later instilled the concept in Mahatma Gandhi through his A Letter to a Hindu when young Gandhi corresponded with him seeking his advice. His European trip in 1860–61 shaped both his political and literary development when he met Victor Hugo, whose literary talents Tolstoy praised after reading Hugos newly finished Les Misérables, the similar evocation of battle scenes in Hugos novel and Tolstoys War and Peace indicates this influence. Tolstoys political philosophy was influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
11.
Animal rights
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They maintain that animals should no longer be viewed as property or used as food, clothing, research subjects, entertainment, or beasts of burden. Advocates approach the issue from a variety of perspectives, the abolitionist view is that animals have moral rights, which the pursuit of incremental reform may undermine by encouraging human beings to feel comfortable with using them. Gary Franciones abolitionist position promotes ethical veganism and he argues that animal rights groups that pursue welfare concerns, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, risk making the public feel comfortable about its use of animals. He calls such groups the new welfarists, PETA argues that Franciones criticism does little to help alleviate the suffering of individual animals and also trivializes the efforts of workers in the field who handle cruelty cases. It also creates divisiveness within the animal liberation movement instead of focusing on shared goals, sentiocentrism is the theory that sentient individuals are the subject of moral concern and therefore are deserving of rights. Protectionists seek incremental reform in how animals are treated, with a view to ending animal use entirely and this position is represented by the philosopher Peter Singer. Multiple cultural traditions around the world—such as Animism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the animals most often considered in arguments for personhood are bonobos and chimpanzees. S. Congress with the enactment of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, Aristotle argued that animals lacked reason, and placed humans at the top of the natural world, yet the respect for animals in ancient Greece was very high. Some animals were considered divine e. g. dolphins, the 21st-century debates about animals can be traced back to the ancient world, and the idea of a divine hierarchy. Dominion need not entail property rights, but it has been interpreted, by some, contemporary philosopher Bernard Rollin writes that dominion does not entail or allow abuse any more than does dominion a parent enjoys over a child. Rollin further states that the Biblical Sabbath requirement promulgated in the Ten Commandments required that animals be granted a day of rest along with humans, correlatively, the Bible forbids plowing with an ox and an ass together. According to the tradition, this prohibition stems from the hardship that an ass would suffer by being compelled to keep up with an ox. Similarly, one finds the prohibition against muzzling an ox when it treads out the grain and these ancient regulations, virtually forgotten, bespeak of an eloquent awareness of the status of animals as ends in themselves, a point also corroborated by Norm Phelps. The philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras, urged respect for animals, believing that human and nonhuman souls were reincarnated from human to animal, and vice versa. Against this, Aristotle, student to the philosopher Plato, argued that animals had no interests of their own. Theophrastus, one of Aristotles pupils, argued that also had reasoning. Plutarch in his Life of Cato the Elder comments that while law and justice are strictly to men only, beneficence. This is intended as a correction and advance over the merely utilitarian treatment of animals, according to Richard D. Ryder, the first known animal protection legislation in Europe was passed in Ireland in 1635
12.
Political philosophy
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In a vernacular sense, the term political philosophy often refers to a general view, or specific ethic, political belief or attitude, about politics, synonymous to the term political ideology. Chinese political philosophy dates back to the Spring and Autumn period, Chinese political philosophy was developed as a response to the social and political breakdown of the country characteristic of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. The major philosophies during the period, Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, Agrarianism and Taoism, philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius, and Mozi, focused on political unity and political stability as the basis of their political philosophies. Confucianism advocated a hierarchical, meritocratic government based on empathy, loyalty, Legalism advocated a highly authoritarian government based on draconian punishments and laws. Mohism advocated a communal, decentralized government centered on frugality and ascetism, the Agrarians advocated a peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism. Legalism was the dominant political philosophy of the Qin Dynasty, but was replaced by State Confucianism in the Han Dynasty, prior to Chinas adoption of communism, State Confucianism remained the dominant political philosophy of China up to the 20th century. Western political philosophy originates in the philosophy of ancient Greece, where political philosophy dates back to at least Plato, ancient Greece was dominated by city-states, which experimented with various forms of political organization, grouped by Plato into four categories, timocracy, tyranny, democracy and oligarchy. One of the first, extremely important classical works of philosophy is Platos Republic. Roman political philosophy was influenced by the Stoics and the Roman statesman Cicero, Indian political philosophy evolved in ancient times and demarcated a clear distinction between nation and state religion and state. The constitutions of Hindu states evolved over time and were based on political and legal treatises, the institutions of state were broadly divided into governance, administration, defense, law and order. Mantranga, the governing body of these states, consisted of the King, Prime Minister, Commander in chief of army. The Prime Minister headed the committee of ministers along with head of executive, chanakya, 4th century BC Indian political philosopher. Another influential extant Indian treatise on philosophy is the Sukra Neeti. An example of a code of law in ancient India is the Manusmṛti or Laws of Manu, the early Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was heavily influenced by Plato. Augustine also preached that one was not a member of his or her city, augustines City of God is an influential work of this period that attacked the thesis, held by many Christian Romans, that the Christian view could be realized on Earth. Thomas Aquinas meticulously dealt with the varieties of law, according to Aquinas, there are four kinds of law, Eternal law Divine positive law Natural law Human law Aquinas never discusses the nature or categorization of canon law. There is scholarly debate surrounding the place of law within the Thomistic jurisprudential framework. Aquinas was an influential thinker in the Natural Law tradition
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