1.
The Misanthrope
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The Misanthrope, or the Cantankerous Lover is a 17th-century comedy of manners in verse written by Molière. It was first performed on 4 June 1666 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, the play satirizes the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but it also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the flaws which all humans possess. It also differs from most of Molières other works by focusing more on character development, the play, though not a commercial success in its time, survives as Molières best known work today. Molière has received criticism for The Misanthrope. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, claimed in his Letter to M. DAlembert on Spectacles that it was Molières best work and he believed that the audience should be supporting Alceste and his views about society rather than disregarding his idealistic notions and belittling him as a character. Alceste The protagonist and misanthrope of the title and he is quick to criticize the flaws of everyone around him, including himself. He cannot help but love Célimène though he loathes her behaviour, Célimène A young woman who is courted by Alceste, Oronte, Acaste, and Clitandre. She is playful and flirtatious, and likes to point out the flaws of everyone she meets behind their backs, Célimène pays much attention to social appearances. Philinte A polite man who cares for Alceste, and recognizes the importance of occasionally veiling ones true opinions in a social context. He is mainly thought of as Alcestes foil, Acaste A young, pompous marquis who believes he is deserving of Célimènes love. Oronte An outgoing, seemingly confident man who also loves Célimène for a time and his insecurity is revealed when he is unable to handle Alcestes criticism of his love sonnet. Arsinoé A highly moralistic older woman who is jealous of the attentions which Alceste pours onto Célimène, Éliante Love interest to Philinte and cousin to Célimène, who initially pines for Alceste. She possesses a good balance between societal conformity and individual expression, Clitandre Another marquis who attempts to woo Célimène and win her love, and enjoys gossiping with her about notable social figures. Du Bois Alcestes farcically blundering manservant, guard A messenger of the Marshals of France who asks Alceste to answer for his criticism of Orontes poetry. Much to the horror of his friends and companions, Alceste rejects la politesse and his refusal to make nice makes him tremendously unpopular and he laments his isolation in a world he sees as superficial and base, saying early in Act I. Mankind has grown so base, / I mean to break with the human race. Despite his convictions, however, Alceste cannot help but love the flighty and vivacious Célimène, though he constantly reprimands her, Célimène refuses to change, charging Alceste with being unfit for society. Despite his sour reputation as the misanthrope, Alceste does have women pining for him, particularly the moralistic Arsinoé, though he acknowledges their superior virtues, his heart still lies with Célimène
2.
Hatred
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Hatred or hate is a deep and extreme emotional dislike. It can be directed against individuals, groups, entities, objects, behaviors, hatred is often associated with feelings of anger, disgust and a disposition towards hostility. James W. Underhill, in his Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts, truth, love, hate & war, discusses the origin and he stresses that love and hate are social, and culturally constructed. For this reason, hate is historically situated, although it is fair to say that one single emotion exists in English, French, and German, hate varies in the forms in which it is manifested. A certain relationless hatred is expressed in the French expression Jai la haine and this is a form of frustration, apathy and animosity which churns within the subject but establishes no relationship with the world, other than an aimless desire for destruction. Underhill also considers French forms of anti-Americanism as a form of cultural resentment. In psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness. More recently, the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology defines hate as a deep, enduring, intense emotion expressing animosity, anger, because hatred is believed to be long-lasting, many psychologists consider it to be more of an attitude or disposition than a temporary emotional state. The neural correlates of hate have been investigated with an fMRI procedure, in this experiment, people had their brains scanned while viewing pictures of people they hated. In the English language, a hate crime generally refers to acts which are seen to have been motivated by hate. Incidents may involve physical assault, destruction of property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, the term covers written as well as oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting. It is also sometimes called antilocution and is the first point on Allports scale which measures prejudice in a society, in many countries, deliberate use of hate speech is a criminal offence prohibited under incitement to hatred legislation. It is often alleged that the criminalization of speech is sometimes used to discourage legitimate discussion of negative aspects of voluntary behavior. There is also some question as to whether or not hate speech falls under the protection of freedom of speech in some countries, both the Old and the New Testaments deal with hatred. Ecclesiastes 3,8 teaches that there is a time to love, however, the Old Testament also contains condemnations of hatred. For example, thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, the New Testament emphasizes that evil intentions can be as serious as evil actions. Thus John counted hatred as serious as murder, whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and it is popularly assumed that one can’t hate and love the same person at the same time. But Psalm 139 says there is a kind of perfect hatred which is consistent with love, the Hebrew word describing David’s perfect hatred means that it brings a process to completion
3.
Contempt
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Contempt, not classified among Paul Ekmans six basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, is a mixture of disgust and anger. The word originated in 1393, from the Latin word contemptus meaning scorn and it is the past participle of contemnere and from com- intensive prefix + temnere to slight, scorn. Ekman and Friesen identified a specific facial expression that observers in ten different cultures, in this study, citizens of West Sumatra, Indonesia, were given photos of American, Japanese, and Indonesian peoples. “An expression in which the corner of the lip is tightened and raised slightly on one side of the face signaled contempt. ”This study showed that contempt, as well as the expression of contempt. Paul Ekman, a widely recognized psychologist, found six emotions that were recognized, anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness. Findings on contempt are less clear, though there is at least some evidence that this emotion. In the 1990s Ekman proposed an expanded list of emotions, this time including contempt, contempt requires a judgment concerning the appearance or standing of the object of contempt. This may have not been done deliberately but by a lack of status and this lack of status may cause the contemptuous to classify the object of contempt as utterly worthless, or as not fully meeting a particular interpersonal standard. Therefore, contempt is a response to a failure to meet an interpersonal standard. Contempt is also a way of regarding or attending to the object of contempt. However, contempt may be experienced as a highly visceral emotion similar to disgust, contempt has a certain comparative element. Because of this element, contempt also involves what we might term a “positive self-feeling” of the contemptuous. A characteristic of contempt is the withdrawal or distance one typically feels regarding the object of one’s contempt. This psychological distancing is a way of expressing one’s nonidentification with the object of one’s contempt. This form of regard constitutes a psychological withdrawal from the object of contempt, contempt can be useful to being a functioning member of the moral community. An ethics of contempt provides a much larger breadth of answers than other competing systems of ethics, whether they be based on ethics of actions or ethics of feelings. By feeling contempt for those things which are found to be unethical, immoral, or morally unsavory, the main response of contempt lies within “publicized expression of low regard for the objects held in contempt”. So while one would make their feelings known to others, the person with contempt would not necessarily want to deal with the situation at hand
4.
Human
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Modern humans are the only extant members of Hominina tribe, a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes. Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia and they began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago. In several waves of migration, anatomically modern humans ventured out of Africa, the spread of humans and their large and increasing population has had a profound impact on large areas of the environment and millions of native species worldwide. Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression and the exchange of ideas. Humans create complex structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals. These human societies subsequently expanded in size, establishing various forms of government, religion, today the global human population is estimated by the United Nations to be near 7.5 billion. In common usage, the word generally refers to the only extant species of the genus Homo—anatomically and behaviorally modern Homo sapiens. In scientific terms, the meanings of hominid and hominin have changed during the recent decades with advances in the discovery, there is also a distinction between anatomically modern humans and Archaic Homo sapiens, the earliest fossil members of the species. The English adjective human is a Middle English loanword from Old French humain, ultimately from Latin hūmānus, the words use as a noun dates to the 16th century. The native English term man can refer to the species generally, the species binomial Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. The generic name Homo is a learned 18th century derivation from Latin homō man, the species-name sapiens means wise or sapient. Note that the Latin word homo refers to humans of either gender, the genus Homo evolved and diverged from other hominins in Africa, after the human clade split from the chimpanzee lineage of the hominids branch of the primates. The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees and gorillas, with the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA sequences range between 95% and 99%. The gibbons and orangutans were the first groups to split from the leading to the humans. The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4–8 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch, during this split, chromosome 2 was formed from two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. There is little evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee. Each of these species has been argued to be an ancestor of later hominins
5.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
6.
Gustave Flaubert
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Gustave Flaubert was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary, his Correspondence, the celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert. Flaubert was born on 12 December 1821, in Rouen, in the Seine-Maritime department of Upper Normandy and he was the second son of Anne Justine Caroline and Achille-Cléophas Flaubert, director and senior surgeon of the major hospital in Rouen. He began writing at an age, as early as eight according to some sources. He was educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, and did not leave until 1840, in Paris, he was an indifferent student and found the city distasteful. He made a few acquaintances, including Victor Hugo, toward the end of 1840, he traveled in the Pyrenees and Corsica. In 1846, after an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris, from 1846 to 1854, Flaubert had a relationship with the poet Louise Colet, his letters to her have survived. After leaving Paris, he returned to Croisset, near the Seine, close to Rouen and he made occasional visits to Paris and England, where he apparently had a mistress. According to his biographer Émile Faguet, his affair with Louise Colet was his only serious romantic relationship, with his lifelong friend Maxime Du Camp, he traveled in Brittany in 1846. In 1849–50 he went on a journey to the Middle East, visiting Greece. He spent five weeks in Istanbul in 1850 and he visited Carthage in 1858 to conduct research for his novel Salammbô. Flaubert was very open about his activities with prostitutes in his writings on his travels. He suspected that a chancre on his penis was from a Maronite or a Turkish girl and he also engaged in intercourse with male prostitutes in Beirut and Egypt, in one of his letters, he describes a pockmarked young rascal wearing a white turban. Flaubert was a worker and often complained in his letters to friends about the strenuous nature of his work. He was close to his niece, Caroline Commanville, and had a close friendship and he occasionally visited Parisian acquaintances, including Émile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Ivan Turgenev, and Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. The 1870s were a time for Flaubert. Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the War of 1870, after her death, he fell into financial difficulty due to business failures on the part of his nieces husband
7.
W. S. Gilbert
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Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these include H. M. S, Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that they founded. Eleven of the Savoy operas continue to be performed in the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies, repertory companies, schools. Lines from these works have become part of the English language, such as short, sharp shock, What, and Let the punishment fit the crime. Gilberts creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, and numerous stories, poems and lyrics. He also began to write burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist and he also developed a realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theatre director. M. S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, in the 1880s, Gilbert focused on the Savoy operas, including Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers. Gilbert won the lawsuit, but the argument caused hurt feelings among the partnership. Although Gilbert and Sullivan were persuaded to collaborate on two last operas, they were not as successful as the previous ones, in later years, Gilbert wrote several plays, and a few operas with other collaborators. He retired, with his wife and ward, Nancy McIntosh, to a country estate, Gilbert died of a heart attack while attempting to rescue a young woman to whom he was giving a swimming lesson in the lake at his home. Gilbert was born at 17 Southampton Street, Strand, London and his father, also named William, was briefly a naval surgeon, who later became a writer of novels and short stories, some of which were illustrated by his son. Gilberts mother was the former Anne Mary Bye Morris, the daughter of Thomas Morris, Gilberts parents were distant and stern, and he did not have a particularly close relationship with either of them. They quarrelled increasingly, and following the break-up of their marriage in 1876, his relationships with them, especially his mother, Gilbert was nicknamed Bab as a baby, and then Schwenck, after his fathers godparents. As a child, Gilbert travelled to Italy in 1838 and then France for two years with his parents, who returned to settle in London in 1847. He then attended Kings College London, graduating in 1856, instead he joined the Civil Service, he was an assistant clerk in the Privy Council Office for four years and hated it. In 1859 he joined the Militia, a volunteer force formed for the defence of Britain, with which he served until 1878. In 1863 he received a bequest of £300 that he used to leave the service and take up a brief career as a barrister
8.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
9.
Timon of Athens
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Timon of Athens is a play by William Shakespeare, published in the First Folio and probably written in collaboration with another author, most likely Thomas Middleton, in about 1605–1606. It is about the fortunes of an Athenian named Timon, the central character is a well beloved citizen of Athens who through tremendous generosity spends his entire fortunes on corrupt hangers-on only interested in getting the next payout. The earliest known production of the play was in 1674, when Thomas Shadwell wrote an adaptation under the title The History of Timon of Athens, multiple other adaptations followed over the next century, by writers such as Thomas Hull, James Love and Richard Cumberland. The straight Shakespearean text was at Smock Alley in Dublin in 1761, Timon of Athens was originally grouped with the tragedies, but some scholars name it one of the problem plays. In the beginning, Timon is a wealthy and generous Athenian gentleman and he hosts a large banquet, attended by nearly all the main characters. Timon gives away money wastefully, and everyone wants to him to get more, except for Apemantus. He accepts art from Poet and Painter, and a jewel from the Jeweller, Timons servant, Lucilius, has been wooing the daughter of an old Athenian. The man is angry, but Timon pays him three talents in exchange for the couple being allowed to marry, because the happiness of his servant is worth the price, Timon is told that his friend, Ventidius, is in debtors prison. He sends money to pay Ventidiuss debt, and Ventidius is released, Timon gives a speech on the value of friendship. The guests are entertained by a masque, followed by dancing, as the party winds down, Timon continues to give things away to his friends, his horses, and other possessions. The act is divided arbitrarily into two scenes but the experimental and/or unfinished nature of the play is reflected in that it does not naturally break into a five-act structure. Now Timon has given all his wealth. Shadowing Timon is another guest at the banquet, the cynical philosopher Apemantus and he was the only guest not angling for money or possessions from Timon. Along with a Fool, he attacks Timons creditors when they show up to make their demands for immediate payment, Timon cannot pay, and sends out his servants to make requests for help from those friends he considers closest. Timons servants are turned down, one by one, by Timons false friends, elsewhere, one of Alcibiadess junior officers has reached an even further point of rage, killing a man in hot blood. Alcibiades pleads with the Senate for mercy, arguing that a crime of passion should not carry as severe a sentence as premeditated murder, the senators disagree, and, when Alcibiades persists, banish him forever. He vows revenge, with the support of his troops, the act finishes with Timon discussing with his servants the revenge he will carry out at his next banquet. Timon hosts a party, intended only for those he feels have betrayed him
10.
Jonathan Swift
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Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patricks Cathedral, Dublin. Swift is remembered for such as A Tale of a Tub, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, Gullivers Travels. He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language and he originally published all of his works under pseudonyms – such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, Drapiers Letters as MB Drapier – or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles and his deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed Swiftian. Jonathan Swift was born on 30 November 1667 in Dublin, Ireland and he was the second child and only son of Jonathan Swift and his wife Abigail Erick of Frisby on the Wreake. Swifts father died in Dublin about seven months before he was born, Swifts family had several interesting literary connections. His grandmother Elizabeth Swift was the niece of Sir Erasmus Dryden, the same grandmothers aunt Katherine Dryden was a first cousin of Elizabeth, wife of Sir Walter Raleigh. His great-great grandmother Margaret Swift was the sister of Francis Godwin and his uncle Thomas Swift married a daughter of poet and playwright Sir William Davenant, a godson of William Shakespeare. Swifts benefactor and uncle Godwin Swift took primary responsibility for the young man and he attended Dublin University in 1682, financed by Godwins son Willoughby, from which he received his B. A. in 1686 and developed his friendship with William Congreve. Temple was an English diplomat who arranged the Triple Alliance of 1668 and he had retired from public service to his country estate to tend his gardens and write his memoirs. Gaining his employers confidence, Swift was often trusted with matters of great importance, within three years of their acquaintance, Temple had introduced his secretary to William III and sent him to London to urge the King to consent to a bill for triennial Parliaments. Swift took up his residence at Moor Park where he met Esther Johnson, then eight years old, Swift was her tutor and mentor, giving her the nickname Stella, and the two maintained a close but ambiguous relationship for the rest of Esthers life. In 1690, Swift left Temple for Ireland because of his health, the illness consisted of fits of vertigo or giddiness, now known to be Ménières disease, and it continued to plague him throughout his life. During this second stay with Temple, Swift received his M. A. from Hart Hall, then he left Moor Park, apparently despairing of gaining a better position through Temples patronage, to become an ordained priest in the Established Church of Ireland. He was appointed to the prebend of Kilroot in the Diocese of Connor in 1694, with his parish located at Kilroot, Swift appears to have been miserable in his new position, being isolated in a small, remote community far from the centres of power and influence. While at Kilroot, however, he may well have become involved with Jane Waring, whom he called Varina. A letter from him survives, offering to remain if she would marry him and promising to leave and she presumably refused, because Swift left his post and returned to England and Temples service at Moor Park in 1696, and he remained there until Temples death. There he was employed in helping to prepare Temples memoirs and correspondence for publication, during this time, Swift wrote The Battle of the Books, a satire responding to critics of Temples Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning, though Battle was not published until 1704
11.
A Tale of a Tub
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A Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, arguably his most difficult satire and perhaps his most masterly. The Tale is a prose parody divided into sections each delving into the morals, composed between 1694 and 1697, it was eventually published in 1704. It was long regarded as a satire on religion, and has famously been attacked for that, the tale presents a consistent satire of religious excess, while the digressions are a series of parodies of contemporary writing in literature, politics, theology, Biblical exegesis, and medicine. The overarching parody is of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity, at the time it was written, politics and religion were still closely linked in England, and the religious and political aspects of the satire can often hardly be separated. The work made Swift notorious, and was misunderstood, especially by Queen Anne herself who mistook its purpose for profanity. It effectively disbarred its author from proper preferment within the church and it was enormously popular, but Swift believed it damaged his prospect of advancement in the Church of England. A Tale of a Tub is divided between various forms of digression and sections of a tale, the tale, or narrative, is an allegory of three brothers, Peter, Martin, and Jack, as they attempt to make their way in the world. Each brother represents one of the branches of Christianity in the West. This part of the book is a pun on tub, which Alexander Pope says was a term for a Dissenters pulpit. Peter stands in for the Roman Catholic Church, Jack represents the various dissenting Protestant churches such as Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Congregationalists and Anabaptists. The third brother, middle born and middle standing, is Martin, the brothers have inherited three wonderfully satisfactory coats by their father, and they have his will to guide them. Although the will says that the brothers are forbidden from making any changes to their coats, they do nearly nothing, from its opening, the book alternates between Digression and Tale. However, the digressions overwhelm the narrative, both in their length and in the forcefulness and imaginativeness of writing, furthermore, after Chapter X, the labels for the sections are incorrect. Sections then called Tale are Digressions, and those called Digression are also Digressions, a Tale of a Tub is an enormous parody with a number of smaller parodies within it. Many critics have followed Swifts biographer Irvin Ehrenpreis in arguing that there is no single, in general, whether a modern reader would view the book as consisting of dozens of impersonations or a single one, Swift writes the Tale through the pose of a Modern or New Man. See the abridged discussion of the Ancients and Moderns, below, Swifts explanation for the title of the book is that the Ship of State was threatened by a whale and the new political societies. His book is intended to be a tub that the sailors of state might toss over the side to divert the attention of the beast, Hobbes was highly controversial in the Restoration, but Swifts invocation of Hobbes might well be ironic. The narrative of the brothers is a faulty allegory, and Swifts narrator is either a madman or a fool, the digressions individually frustrate readers who expect a clear purpose
12.
Gulliver's Travels
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Gullivers Travels, whose full title is Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. It is Swifts best known work, and a classic of English literature. He himself claimed that he wrote Gullivers Travels to vex the world rather than divert it, the book became popular as soon as it was published. John Gay wrote in a 1726 letter to Swift that It is universally read,4 May 1699 The travel begins with a short preamble in which Lemuel Gulliver gives a brief outline of his life and history before his voyages. After giving assurances of his behavior, he is given a residence in Lilliput. He is also given permission by the King of Lilliput to go around the city on condition that he must not harm their subjects, at first, the Lilliputians are hospitable to Gulliver, but they are also wary of the threat that his size poses to them. The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power, Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbors the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the nation of Blefuscu to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King. Gulliver is charged with treason for, among other crimes, making water in the capital though he was putting out a fire and he is convicted and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a friend, a considerable person at court. Here, he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship,20 June 1702 –3 June 1706 He soon sets out again. The grass of that land is as tall as a tree and he is then found by a farmer who was about 72 ft. tall, judging from Gulliver estimating a mans step being 10 yards. He brings Gulliver home and the farmers daughter Glumdalclitch cares for Gulliver, the giant-sized farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. After a while the constant shows make Gulliver sick, and the farmer sells him to the queen of the realm, Glumdalclitch is taken into the Queen of Brobdingnags service to take care of the tiny man. Between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, the King is not happy with Gullivers accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the use of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his traveling box is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver,5 August 1706 –16 April 1710 Setting out again, Gullivers ship is attacked by pirates and he is marooned close to a desolate rocky island near India
13.
Philip Larkin
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Philip Arthur Larkin CH CBE FRSL was an English poet, novelist and librarian. His many honours include the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry and he was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman. After graduating from Oxford in 1943 with a first in English language and literature and it was during the thirty years he worked with distinction as university librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull that he produced the greater part of his published work. Eric Homberger called him the saddest heart in the post-war supermarket—Larkin himself said that deprivation for him was what daffodils were for Wordsworth, influenced by W. H. Auden, W. B. Yeats, and Thomas Hardy, his poems are highly structured, Larkins public persona was that of the no-nonsense, solitary Englishman who disliked fame and had no patience for the trappings of the public literary life. On 2 December 2016, the 31st anniversary of his death, a floor stone memorial for Larkin was unveiled at Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. Philip Larkin was born on 9 August 1922 at 2, Poultney Road, Radford, Coventry, the son and younger child of Sydney Larkin, who came from Lichfield. His sister Catherine, known as Kitty, was 10 years older than he was and he introduced his son to the works of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce and above all D. H. Lawrence. His mother was a nervous and passive woman, a kind of defective mechanism. Her ideal is to collapse and to be taken care of, although home life was relatively cold, Larkin enjoyed support from his parents. For example, his passion for jazz was supported by the purchase of a drum kit. From the junior school he progressed to King Henry VIII Senior School and he fared quite poorly when he sat his School Certificate exam at the age of 16. Despite his results, he was allowed to stay on at school, two later he earned distinctions in English and History, and passed the entrance exams for St Johns College, Oxford. Larkin began at Oxford University in October 1940, a year after the outbreak of Second World War, the old upper class traditions of university life had, at least for the time being, faded, and most of the male students were studying for highly truncated degrees. Due to his eyesight, Larkin failed his military medical examination and was able to study for the usual three years. Through his tutorial partner, Norman Iles, he met Kingsley Amis, who encouraged his taste for ridicule and irreverence, Amis, Larkin and other university friends formed a group they dubbed The Seven, meeting to discuss each others poetry, listen to jazz, and drink enthusiastically. During this time he had his first real social interaction with the opposite sex, in 1943 he sat his finals, and, having dedicated much of his time to his own writing, was greatly surprised at being awarded a first-class honours degree. In 1943 Larkin was appointed librarian of the library in Wellington. It was while working there that in early 1944 he met his first girlfriend, Ruth Bowman, in 1945, Ruth went to continue her studies at Kings College London, during one of his visits their friendship developed into a sexual relationship
14.
Michelangelo
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since described as one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of Michelangelos works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence and he sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library, at the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peters Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification. Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive, in his lifetime he was often called Il Divino. One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, the attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelos impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, at the time of Michelangelos birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelos mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, the Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa, this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it. Several months after Michelangelos birth, the returned to Florence. There Michelangelo gained his love for marble, as Giorgio Vasari quotes him, If there is good in me. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, as a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches, the city of Florence was at that time the greatest centre of the arts and learning in Italy. Art was sponsored by the Signoria, by the merchant guilds and by patrons such as the Medici. The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as The Gates of Paradise. The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence – Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco. The interiors of the churches were covered with frescos, begun by Giotto. During Michelangelos childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican, among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing, and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence at that period
15.
Don Van Vliet
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Don Van Vliet was an American singer, songwriter, musician and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with an ensemble of musicians called the Magic Band. Noted for his singing voice and his wide vocal range, Van Vliet also played the harmonica, saxophone. His music integrated blues, rock, psychedelia, and free jazz with contemporary experimental composition, Beefheart was also known for often constructing myths about his life and for exercising an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians. He began performing with his Captain Beefheart persona in 1964 and joined the original Magic Band line-up, initiated by Alexis Snouffer, the group drew attention with their cover of Bo Diddleys Diddy Wah Diddy, which became a regional hit. It was followed by their debut album Safe as Milk. After being dropped by two record labels, they signed to Zappas Straight Records. Beefheart followed this up with the album Lick My Decals Off, Baby, Van Vliet has been described as one of modern musics true innovators with a singular body of work virtually unrivalled in its daring and fluid creativity. Known for his personality and relationship with the public, Van Vliet made few public appearances after his retirement from music in 1982. He pursued a career in art, an interest that originated in his talent for sculpture. His expressionist paintings and drawings command high prices, and have exhibited in art galleries. Van Vliet died in 2010, having suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years and he claimed to have as an ancestor Peter van Vliet, a Dutch painter who knew Rembrandt. Van Vliet also claimed that he was related to adventurer and author Richard Halliburton and the cowboy actor Slim Pickens, Van Vliet began painting and sculpting at age three. His subjects reflected his obsession with animals, particularly dinosaurs, fish, African mammals, at the age of nine he won a childrens sculpting competition organised for the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park by a local tutor, Agostinho Rodrigues. Local newspaper cuttings of his junior sculpting achievements can be reproduced in the Splinters book, included in the Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh boxed CD work. The sprawling park, with its zoo and observatory, had a influence on young Vliet. The track Observatory Crest on Bluejeans & Moonbeams reflects this continued interest, a portrait photo of the school-age Vliet can be seen on the front of the lyric sheet within the first issue of the US release of Trout Mask Replica. For some time during the 1950s Van Vliet worked as an apprentice with Rodrigues, Vliet made claim to have been a lecturer at the Barnsdall Art Institute in Los Angeles at the age of eleven, although it is likely he simply gave a form of artistic dissertation
16.
Morrissey
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Steven Patrick Morrissey, professionally known as Morrissey, is an English singer, songwriter and author. He rose to prominence as the singer of the indie rock band The Smiths. Since then, Morrissey has had a career, making the top ten of the UK Singles Chart on ten occasions. Born in Davyhulme, Lancashire, to a working-class Irish migrant family, as a child he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism and popular music. Involved in Manchesters punk rock scene during the late 1970s, he fronted The Nosebleeds, beginning a career in music journalism, he authored a number of books on music and film in the early 1980s. With Johnny Marr he established The Smiths in 1982, soon attracting national recognition for their debut album. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in The Smiths separation in 1987, in 1988, Morrissey launched his solo career with the album Viva Hate. This and its follow-up albums – Bona Drag, Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, in the mid-to-late 1990s, his subsequent albums, Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted, also charted but were less well received. After a hiatus between 1998 and 2003, Morrissey released a comeback album, You Are the Quarry. Relocating to Italy, ensuing years saw the release of albums Ringleader of the Tormentors, Years of Refusal, in 2013 Morrissey released his autobiography, followed by his first novel in 2015. Highly influential, Morrissey is widely credited as being a figure in the emergence of indie rock. He has been acclaimed as one of the greatest lyricists in British history, in a 2006 poll held by the BBCs Culture Show, Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon. Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22 May 1959, at Park Hospital, Davyhulme and his parents – Elizabeth and Peter Morrissey – were working-class Irish Catholics. They had emigrated to Manchester from Dublin with his sibling, elder sister Jacqueline. They had given him the forename of Steven after the American actor Steve Cochran and his earliest home was a council house at 17 Harper Street in the Hulme area of inner Manchester. He also became aware of the sentiment in British society against Irish migrants to Britain. In 1970 the family relocated to another house at 384 Kings Road. Following an early education at St. Wilfreds Primary School, Morrissey failed his 11-plus exam, and proceeded to St. Marys Technical Modern School and he excelled at athletics, although he was an unpopular loner at the school
17.
Popular music
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Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training and it stands in contrast to both art music and traditional or folk music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of music, although since the beginning of the recording industry. Traditional music forms such as blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller. The original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period in the United States, although popular music sometimes is known as pop music, the two terms are not interchangeable. Popular music songs and pieces typically have easily singable melodies, in the 2000s, with songs and pieces available as digital sound files, it has become easier for music to spread from one country or region to another. Some popular music forms have become global, while others have an appeal within the culture of their origin. Through the mixture of genres, new popular music forms are created to reflect the ideals of a global culture. The examples of Africa, Indonesia and the Middle East show how Western pop music styles can blend with local traditions to create new hybrid styles. Sales of recordings or sheet music are one measure, middleton and Manuel note that this definition has problems because multiple listens or plays of the same song or piece are not counted. Manuel states that one criticism of music is that it is produced by large media conglomerates and passively consumed by the public. He claims that the listeners in the scenario would not have been able to make the choice of their favorite music, moreover, understandings of popular music have changed with time. A societys popular music reflects the ideals that are prevalent at the time it is performed or published, david Riesman states that the youth audiences of popular music fit into either a majority group or a subculture. The majority group listens to the commercially produced styles while the subcultures find a minority style to transmit their own values and this allows youth to choose what music they identify with, which gives them power as consumers to control the market of popular music. Form in popular music is most often sectional, the most common sections being verse, chorus or refrain, other common forms include thirty-two-bar form, chorus form *, and twelve-bar blues. Popular music songs are rarely composed using different music for each stanza of the lyrics, the verse and chorus are considered the primary elements. Each verse usually has the melody, but the lyrics change for most verses. The chorus usually has a phrase and a key lyrical line which is repeated
18.
Fernando Pessoa
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He also wrote in and translated from English and French. Pessoa was a writer, and not only under his own name. He did not call them pseudonyms because he felt that did not capture their true independent intellectual life and these imaginary figures sometimes held unpopular or extreme views. On July 13,1893, when Pessoa was five, his father, Joaquim de Seabra Pessoa, died of tuberculosis and next year, on January 2, his younger brother Jorge, aged one, the dates of the voyages related to the above event are, 1st. Voyage to Africa – left Lisbon beginning January 1896, return – left Durban in the afternoon of 1st. Voyage to Africa – left Lisbon about 20th, return – left Durban about 20th. The young Pessoa received his education at St. Joseph Convent School. He moved to the Durban High School in April,1899, becoming fluent in English, while preparing to enter university, he also attended the Durban Commercial High School during one year, in the evening shift. Meanwhile, Pessoa started writing stories in English, some under the name of David Merrick. In December, The Durban High School Magazine published his essay Macaulay and his poems often carried humorous versions of Anon as the authors name. Pessoa started using pen names quite young, the first one, still in his childhood, was Chevalier de Pas, supposedly a French noble. In addition to Charles Robert Anon and David Merrick, the writer also signed up, among other pen names, as Horace James Faber, Alexander Search. In the preface to The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa wrote about himself and he had spent his childhood alone. He never pursued a course of study and he never belonged to a crowd. How old he was at this time I don’t know, and he was pale and thin and appeared physically to be very imperfectly developed. He had a narrow and contracted chest and was inclined to stoop and he had a peculiar walk and some defect in his eyesight gave to his eyes also a peculiar appearance, the lids seemed to drop over the eyes. Although younger than his schoolfellows of the class he appeared to have no difficulty in keeping up with. For one of his age, he thought much and deeply and he took no part in athletic sports of any kind and I think his spare time was spent on reading
19.
The Book of Disquiet
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The Book of Disquiet, published posthumously, is a work by Fernando Pessoa, signed under the semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares. With a preface by Fernando Pessoa, orthonym, the book is a fragmentary lifetime project, left unedited by the author, who introduced it as a factless autobiography. In Lisbon there are a few restaurants or eating houses located above decent-looking taverns, places with the heavy and these second-story eateries, usually empty except on Sundays, frequently contain curious types whose faces are not interesting but who constitute a series of digressions from life. The book has seen publication in Spanish, German, Italian, French, the Book in 1991 had four English editions by different translators, Richard Zenith, Iain Watson, Alfred Mac Adam and Margaret Jull Costa. The Book is a bestseller, especially in German, the book was listed on the Norwegian Book Clubs list of the 100 best works of fiction of all time, based on the responses of 100 authors from 54 countries. Teresa Sobral Cunha considers that there are two Books Of Disquiet, however, António Quadros considers that the first phase of the book belongs to Pessoa. The second phase, more personal and diary-like, is the one belonging to Bernardo Soares, Richard Zenith, editor of a new Portuguese edition, in 1998, took the option of a single volume, as in his first translation, back in 1991. The Book of Disquietude was various books, with various authors, george Steiner on The Book Of Disquiet, «The fragmentary, the incomplete is of the essence of Pessoas spirit. Hence the vast torso of Pessoas Faust on which he laboured much of his life, hence the fragmentary condition of The Book of Disquiet which contains material that predates 1913 and which Pessoa left open-ended at his death. As Adorno famously said, the work is, in our times and climate of anguish. It was to Bernardo Soares that Pessoa ascribed his Book of Disquiet, the translation is at once penetrating and delicately observant of Pessoas astute melancholy. What is this Livro do Desassossego, neither commonplace book, nor sketchbook, nor florilegium will do. Imagine a fusion of Coleridges notebooks and marginalia, of Valerys philosophic diary, yet even such a hybrid does not correspond to the singularity of Pessoas chronicle. Nor do we know what parts thereof, if any, he intended for publication in some revised format. » The Book of Disquietude, tr, Richard Zenith, Carcanet Press,1991,323 p. ISBN 0-14-118304-7 The Book of Disquiet, tr. ISBN 0-7043-0153-9 The Book of Disquiet, tr, Alfred Mac Adam, New York NY, Pantheon Books,1991. ISBN 0-679-40234-9 The Book of Disquiet, tr, Margaret Jull Costa, London, New York, Serpents Tail,1991, ISBN 1-85242-204-1 The Book of Disquiet, tr. ISBN 978-0-14-118304-6 Le Livre de lIntranquillité de Bernardo Soares, adapté par Antonio Tabucchi, sous la direction de Robert Bréchon e Eduardo Prado Coelho, introduction de Eduardo Louranço, traduction de Françoise Laye
20.
Pre-Socratic philosophy
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Pre-Socratic philosophy is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates and schools contemporary to Socrates that were not influenced by him. In Classical antiquity, the Presocratic philosophers were called physiologoi, Aristotle called them physikoi because they sought natural explanations for phenomena, as opposed to the earlier theologoi, whose philosophical basis was supernatural. Diogenes Laërtius divides the physiologoi into two groups, Ionian, led by Anaximander, and the Italiote, led by Pythagoras, hermann Diels popularized the term pre-socratic in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker in 1903. However, the term pre-Sokratic was in use as early as George Grotes Plato, edouard Zeller was also important in dividing thought before and after Socrates. Major analyses of pre-Socratic thought have been made by Gregory Vlastos, Jonathan Barnes and it may sometimes be difficult to determine the actual line of argument some Presocratics used in supporting their particular views. While most of them produced significant texts, none of the texts has survived in complete form, all that is available are quotations by later philosophers and historians, and the occasional textual fragment. The Presocratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations of the phenomena they saw them in favor of more rational explanations. These philosophers asked questions about the essence of things, From where does everything come, how do we explain the plurality of things found in nature. How might we describe nature mathematically, others concentrated on defining problems and paradoxes that became the basis for later mathematical, scientific and philosophic study. Later philosophers rejected many of the answers the early Greek philosophers provided, furthermore, the cosmologies proposed by them have been updated by later developments in science. Western philosophy began in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE, the Presocratics were mostly from the eastern or western fringes of the Greek world. Their efforts were directed to the investigation of the ultimate basis and they sought the material principle of things, and the method of their origin and disappearance. As the first philosophers, they emphasized the unity of things. Only fragments of the writings of the presocratics survive. The knowledge we have of them derives from accounts - known as doxography - of later philosophical writers, the first Presocratic philosophers were from Miletus on the western coast of Anatolia. Thales is reputedly the father of Greek philosophy, he declared water to be the basis of all things, next came Anaximander, the first writer on philosophy. He assumed as the first principle an undefined, unlimited substance without qualities, out of which the primary opposites, hot and cold, moist and dry, became differentiated. His younger contemporary, Anaximenes, took for his air, conceiving it as modified, by thickening and thinning, into fire, wind, clouds, water
21.
Heraclitus
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Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, and a native of the city of Ephesus, then part of the Persian Empire. Little is known about his life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught. Heraclitus was famous for his insistence on ever-present change as being the essence of the universe, as stated in the famous saying. This position was complemented by his commitment to a unity of opposites in the world, stating that the path up and down are one. Through these doctrines Heraclitus characterized all existing entities by pairs of contrary properties and this, along with his cryptic utterance that all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos has been the subject of numerous interpretations. Diogenes said that Heraclitus flourished in the 69th Olympiad, 504–501 BC, All the rest of the evidence — the people Heraclitus is said to have known, or the people who were familiar with his work — confirms the floruit. His dates of birth and death are based on a span of 60 years. Heraclitus was born to a family in Ephesus, in the Persian Empire, in what is now called present-day Efes. His father was named either Blosôn or Herakôn, how much power the king had is another question. Ephesus had been part of the Persian Empire since 547 and was ruled by a satrap, two extant letters between Heraclitus and Darius I, quoted by Diogenes, are undoubtedly later forgeries. With regard to education, Diogenes says that Heraclitus was wondrous from childhood, Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a hearer of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus statement that he had taught himself by questioning himself. Burnet states in any case that, Xenophanes left Ionia before Herakleitos was born. Diogenes relates that as a boy Heraclitus had said he knew nothing and his statement that he heard no one but questioned himself, can be placed alongside his statement that the things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize the most. Diogenes relates that Heraclitus had an opinion of human affairs. He believed that Hesiod and Pythagoras lacked understanding though learned and that Homer, laws needed to be defended as though they were city walls. Timon is said to have called him a mob-reviler, Heraclitus hated the Athenians and his fellow Ephesians, wishing the latter wealth in punishment for their wicked ways. Says Diogenes, Finally, he became a hater of his kind, making his diet of grass and herbs. Heraclitus life as a philosopher was interrupted by dropsy, the physicians he consulted were unable to prescribe a cure
22.
Plato
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Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Platos entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. In addition to being a figure for Western science, philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, Platonism for the people, Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied, few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range, perhaps only Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Platos early life, the philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies, the exact time and place of Platos birth are unknown, but it is certain that he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus. Platos mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker, besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children, these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter Potone, the mother of Speusippus. The brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon are mentioned in the Republic as sons of Ariston, and presumably brothers of Plato, but in a scenario in the Memorabilia, Xenophon confused the issue by presenting a Glaucon much younger than Plato. Then, at twenty-eight, Hermodorus says, went to Euclides in Megara, as Debra Nails argues, The text itself gives no reason to infer that Plato left immediately for Megara and implies the very opposite. Thus, Nails dates Platos birth to 424/423, another legend related that, when Plato was an infant, bees settled on his lips while he was sleeping, an augury of the sweetness of style in which he would discourse about philosophy. Ariston appears to have died in Platos childhood, although the dating of his death is difficult. Perictione then married Pyrilampes, her mothers brother, who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato and these and other references suggest a considerable amount of family pride and enable us to reconstruct Platos family tree
23.
Phaedo
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Phædo or Phaedo, also known to ancient readers as On The Soul, is one of the best-known dialogues of Platos middle period, along with the Republic and the Symposium. The Phaedo, which depicts the death of Socrates, is also Platos fourth and last dialogue to detail the final days, following Euthyphro, Apology. In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife on his last day before being executed by drinking hemlock, Socrates has been imprisoned and sentenced to death by an Athenian jury for not believing in the gods of the state and for corrupting the youth of the city. The dialogue is told from the perspective of one of Socrates students, having been present at Socrates death bed, Phaedo relates the dialogue from that day to Echecrates, a Pythagorean philosopher. Phaedo tells the story following the discussion, he and the others were there to witness the death of Socrates. One of the themes in the Phaedo is the idea that the soul is immortal. As the body is mortal and is subject to physical death, plato then suggests the analogy of fire and cold. If the form of cold is imperishable, and fire, its opposite, was close proximity. This could be likened to the idea of the charges of magnets. The Theory of Recollection explains that we possess some non-empirical knowledge at birth, another account of the theory is found in Platos Meno, although in that case Socrates implies anamnesis whereas he is not so bold in Phaedo. The Affinity Argument, explains that invisible, immortal, and incorporeal things are different from visible, mortal and our soul is of the former, while our body is of the latter, so when our bodies die and decay, our soul will continue to live. The Argument from Form of Life, or The Final Argument explains that the Forms, incorporeal and static entities, are the cause of all things in the world, and all things participate in Forms. For example, beautiful things participate in the Form of Beauty, the soul, by its very nature, participates in the Form of Life, which means the soul can never die. The Phaedo was first translated into Latin from Greek by Henry Aristippus in 1160, today, it is generally considered one of Platos great works. The scene is set in Phlius where Echecrates who, meeting Phaedo, Phaedo explains why a delay occurred between his trial and his death, and describes the scene in a prison at Athens on the final day, naming those present. He tells how he had visited Socrates early in the morning with the others, Socrates wife Xanthippe was there, but was very distressed and Socrates asked that she be taken away. Socrates relates how, bidden by a dream to make and cultivate music, he wrote a hymn. Socrates tells Cebes to bid him farewell from me, say that I would have him come after me if he be a wise man Simmias expresses confusion as to why they ought hasten to follow Socrates to death
24.
Socrates
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Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is a figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon. Platos dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, though it is unclear the degree to which Socrates himself is hidden behind his best disciple, nothing written by Socrates remains extant. As a result, information about him and his philosophies depends upon secondary sources, furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem, or the Socratic question, to understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates life and philosophy, and also Xenophon. These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues, which consist of reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates, as for discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates, that dealt with his own time, a corollary of this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament, historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an accurate and consistent account of Socrates life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, even if consistent, amid all the disagreement resulting from differences within sources, two factors emerge from all sources pertaining to Socrates. It would seem, therefore, that he was ugly, also, Xenophon, being an historian, is a more reliable witness to the historical Socrates. It is a matter of debate over which Socrates it is whom Plato is describing at any given point—the historical figure. As British philosopher Martin Cohen has put it, Plato, the idealist, offers an idol, a Saint, a prophet of the Sun-God, a teacher condemned for his teachings as a heretic. It is also clear from other writings and historical artefacts, that Socrates was not simply a character, nor an invention, the testimony of Xenophon and Aristotle, alongside some of Aristophanes work, is useful in fleshing out a perception of Socrates beyond Platos work. The problem with discerning Socrates philosophical views stems from the perception of contradictions in statements made by the Socrates in the different dialogues of Plato and these contradictions produce doubt as to the actual philosophical doctrines of Socrates, within his milieu and as recorded by other individuals. Aristotle, in his Magna Moralia, refers to Socrates in words which make it patent that the virtue is knowledge was held by Socrates. Within the Metaphysics, he states Socrates was occupied with the search for moral virtues, however, in The Clouds, Aristophanes portrays Socrates as accepting payment for teaching and running a sophist school with Chaerephon. Also, in Platos Apology and Symposium, as well as in Xenophons accounts, more specifically, in the Apology, Socrates cites his poverty as proof that he is not a teacher. Two fragments are extant of the writings by Timon of Phlius pertaining to Socrates, although Timon is known to have written to ridicule, details about the life of Socrates can be derived from three contemporary sources, the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of Aristophanes
25.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
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Ontology
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Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Although ontology as an enterprise is highly hypothetical, it also has practical application in information science and technology. Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, between these poles of realism and nominalism, stand a variety of other positions. An ontology may give an account of which refer to entities, which do not, why. Principal questions of ontology include, What can be said to exist, into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things. What are the meanings of being, what are the various modes of being of entities. Various philosophers have provided different answers to these questions, one common approach involves dividing the extant subjects and predicates into groups called categories. Such an understanding of ontological categories, however, is merely taxonomic, what does it mean for a being to be. Is existence a genus or general class that is divided up by specific differences. Which entities, if any, are fundamental, how do the properties of an object relate to the object itself. What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental attributes of a given object, how many levels of existence or ontological levels are there. Can one give an account of what it means to say that an object exists. Can one give an account of what it means to say that an entity exists. What constitutes the identity of an object, when does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing. Do beings exist other than in the modes of objectivity and subjectivity, i. e. is the subject/object split of modern philosophy inevitable. e. Being, that which is, which is the present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, i. e. to be, I am, and -λογία, -logia, i. e. logical discourse. The first occurrence in English of ontology as recorded by the OED came in a work by Gideon Harvey, Archelogia philosophica nova, or, New principles of Philosophy
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Solitude
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Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i. e. lack of contact with people. It may stem from bad relationships, loss of loved ones, deliberate choice, infectious disease, mental disorders, short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think or rest without being disturbed. It may be desired for the sake of privacy, a distinction has been made between solitude and loneliness. In this sense, these two words refer, respectively, to the joy and the pain of being alone, symptoms from complete isolation, called sensory deprivation, often include anxiety, sensory illusions, or even distortions of time and perception. However, this is the case there is no stimulation of the sensory systems at all. Thus, by having other things to keep ones mind busy, still, long-term solitude is often seen as undesirable, causing loneliness or reclusion resulting from inability to establish relationships. Furthermore, it might lead to clinical depression. However, for people, solitude is not depressing. Still others regard long-term solitude as a means of spiritual enlightenment, indeed, marooned people have been left in solitude for years without any report of psychological symptoms afterwards. Enforced loneliness has been a punishment method throughout history and it is often considered a form of torture. In contrast, some conditions are strongly linked to a tendency to seek solitude. In animal experiments, solitude has been shown to cause psychosis, emotional isolation is a state of isolation where one has a well-functioning social network but still feels emotionally separated from others. In the last few years, however, researchers like Robert J. Coplan and Julie C. Bowker have bucked the trend that solitary practices and solitude are inherently dysfunctional and undesirable. In their groundbreaking work The Handbook of Solitude, the authors note how solitude can allow for enhancements in self-esteem, generates clarity, in the process, political prisoners in solitary confinement were examined to see how they concluded their views on society. Thus Fong, Coplan, and Bowker conclude that a persons experienced solitude generates immanent and personal content as well as collective and sociological content, there are both positive and negative psychological effects of solitude. Much of the time, these effects and the longevity is determined by the amount of time a person spends in isolation, the positive effects can range anywhere from more freedom to increased spirituality, while the negative effects are socially depriving and may trigger the onset of mental illness. While positive solitude is often desired, negative solitude is often involuntary or undesired at the time it occurs, there are many benefits to spending time alone. With increased freedom, a person’s choices are less likely to be affected by exchanges with others, a persons creativity can be sparked when given freedom
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Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
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Immanuel Kant
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Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who is considered a central figure in modern philosophy. Kant took himself to have effected a Copernican revolution in philosophy and his beliefs continue to have a major influence on contemporary philosophy, especially the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political theory, and aesthetics. Politically, Kant was one of the earliest exponents of the idea that peace could be secured through universal democracy. He believed that this will be the outcome of universal history. Kant wanted to put an end to an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, Kant argued that our experiences are structured by necessary features of our minds. In his view, the shapes and structures experience so that, on an abstract level. Among other things, Kant believed that the concepts of space and time are integral to all human experience, as are our concepts of cause, Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, which dealt with ethics, and the Critique of Judgment, Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia. His mother, Anna Regina Reuter, was born in Königsberg to a father from Nuremberg. His father, Johann Georg Kant, was a German harness maker from Memel, Immanuel Kant believed that his paternal grandfather Hans Kant was of Scottish origin. Kant was the fourth of nine children, baptized Emanuel, he changed his name to Immanuel after learning Hebrew. Young Kant was a solid, albeit unspectacular, student and he was brought up in a Pietist household that stressed religious devotion, humility, and a literal interpretation of the Bible. His education was strict, punitive and disciplinary, and focused on Latin and religious instruction over mathematics, despite his religious upbringing and maintaining a belief in God, Kant was skeptical of religion in later life, various commentators have labelled him agnostic. Common myths about Kants personal mannerisms are listed, explained, and refuted in Goldthwaits introduction to his translation of Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime. It is often held that Kant lived a strict and disciplined life. He never married, but seemed to have a social life — he was a popular teacher. He had a circle of friends whom he met, among them Joseph Green. A common myth is that Kant never traveled more than 16 kilometres from Königsberg his whole life, in fact, between 1750 and 1754 he worked as a tutor in Judtschen and in Groß-Arnsdorf
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Martin Heidegger
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Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher and a seminal thinker in the Continental tradition and philosophical hermeneutics. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he is acknowledged to be one of the most original. His first and best known book, Being and Time, though unfinished, is one of the philosophical works of the 20th century. Heidegger approached the question through an inquiry into the being that has an understanding of Being, and asks the question about it, namely, Human being, for Heidegger thinking is thinking about things originally discovered in our everyday practical engagements. The consequence of this is that our capacity to think cannot be the most central quality of our being because thinking is a reflecting upon this more original way of discovering the world. Heideggers later work includes criticisms of technologys instrumentalist understanding in the Western tradition as enframing, treating all of Nature as a reserve on call for human purposes. Heidegger was born in rural Meßkirch, Germany, the son of Johanna, raised a Roman Catholic, he was the son of the sexton of the village church that adhered to the First Vatican Council of 1870, which was observed mainly by the poorer class of Meßkirch. Heidegger was short and sinewy, with piercing eyes. He enjoyed outdoor pursuits, being proficient at skiing. In the two following, he worked first as an unsalaried Privatdozent. He served as a soldier during the year of World War I, working behind a desk. During the 1930s, critics of Heideggers espousal of a Nazi-style rhetoric of martial manliness noted the unheroic nature of his service in WWI, in 1923, Heidegger was elected to an extraordinary Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Marburg. His colleagues there included Rudolf Bultmann, Nicolai Hartmann, and Paul Natorp, Heideggers students at Marburg included Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Gerhard Krüger, Leo Strauss, Jacob Klein, Gunther Anders, and Hans Jonas. Following on from Aristotle, he began to develop in his lectures the main theme of his philosophy, the question of the sense of being. He extended the concept of subject to the dimension of history and concrete existence, which he found prefigured in such Christian thinkers as Saint Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Luther and he also read the works of Dilthey, Husserl, and Max Scheler. In 1927, Heidegger published his main work Sein und Zeit, when Husserl retired as Professor of Philosophy in 1928, Heidegger accepted Freiburgs election to be his successor, in spite of a counter-offer by Marburg. Heidegger remained at Freiburg im Breisgau for the rest of his life, declining a number of later offers and his students at Freiburg included Arendt, Günther Anders, Hans Jonas, Karl Löwith, Charles Malik, Herbert Marcuse and Ernst Nolte. Emmanuel Levinas attended his lecture courses during his stay in Freiburg in 1928, Heidegger was elected rector of the University on 21 April 1933, and joined the National Socialist German Workers Party on 1 May
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Conformity
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Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals and this tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or society as a whole, and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone, for example, people tend to follow social norms when eating or watching television, even when alone. People often conform from a desire for security within a group—typically a group of an age, culture, religion. Unwillingness to conform carries the risk of social rejection, conformity is often associated with adolescence and youth culture, but strongly affects humans of all ages. Although peer pressure may manifest negatively, conformity can have good or bad depending on the situation. Driving on the side of the road could be seen as beneficial conformity. Conformity influences formation and maintenance of norms, and helps societies function smoothly and predictably via the self-elimination of behaviors seen as contrary to unwritten rules. In this sense it can be perceived as a force that prevents acts that are perceptually disruptive or dangerous. As conformity is a phenomenon, factors such as group size, unanimity, cohesion, status, prior commitment. Some adolescents gain acceptance and recognition from their peers by conformity, according to Donelson Forsyth, after submitting to group pressures, individuals may find themselves facing one of several responses to conformity. These types of responses to conformity vary in their degree of public agreement versus private agreement, in turn, conversion, otherwise known as private acceptance, involves both publicly and privately agreeing with the groups decision. Thus, this represents a change of opinion to match the majority. Another type of response, which does not involve conformity with the majority of the group, is called convergence. In this type of response, the group member agrees with the groups decision from the outset. In addition, Forsyth shows that nonconformity can also fall into one of two response categories, firstly, an individual who does not conform to the majority can display independence. Independence, or dissent, can be defined as the unwillingness to bend to group pressures, thus, this individual stays true to his or her personal standards instead of the swaying toward group standards. Secondly, a nonconformist could be displaying anticonformity or counterconformity which involves the taking of opinions that are opposite to what the group believes and this type of nonconformity can be motivated by a need to rebel against the status quo instead of the need to be accurate in ones opinion
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Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi
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Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī, was a Persian polymath, physician, alchemist, philosopher, and important figure in the history of medicine. An early proponent of experimental medicine, he became a successful doctor, as a teacher of medicine, he attracted students of all backgrounds and interests and was said to be compassionate and devoted to the service of his patients, whether rich or poor. He also discovered numerous compounds and chemicals including alcohol and kerosene, through translation, his medical works and ideas became known among medieval European practitioners and profoundly influenced medical education in the Latin West. Some volumes of his work Al-Mansuri, namely On Surgery and A General Book on Therapy, Edward Granville Browne considers him as probably the greatest and most original of all the Muslim physicians, and one of the most prolific as an author. And has been described as a doctor, the father of pediatrics. Razi was born in the city of Ray situated on the Great Silk Road that for centuries facilitated trade and his nisba, Râzī, means from the city if Ray in Persian. It is located on the slopes of the Alborz mountain range situated near Tehran, Iran. In his youth, Razi moved to Baghdad where he studied and practiced at the local bimaristan, later, he was invited back to Rey by Mansur ibn Ishaq, then the governor of Rey, and became a bimaristans head. He dedicated two books on medicine to Mansur ibn Ishaq, The Spiritual Physic and Al-Mansūrī on Medicine, because of his newly acquired popularity as physician, Razi was invited to Baghdad where he assumed the responsibilities of a director in a new hospital named after its founder al-Muʿtaḍid. He spent the last years of his life in his native Rey suffering from glaucoma and his eye affliction started with cataracts and ended in total blindness. The cause of his blindness is uncertain, allegedly, he was approached by a physician offering an ointment to cure his blindness. The lectures of Razi attracted many students, as Ibn al-Nadim relates in Fihrist, Razi was considered a shaikh, an honorary title given to one entitled to teach and surrounded by several circles of students. When someone raised a question, it was passed on to students of the first circle, if they did not know the answer, it was passed on to those of the second circle, when all students would fail to answer, Razi himself would consider the query. Razi was a person by nature, with a considerate attitude towards his patients. He was charitable to the poor, treated them without payment in any form, One former pupil from Tabaristan came to look after him, but as al-Biruni wrote, Razi rewarded him for his intentions and sent him back home, proclaiming that his final days were approaching. According to Biruni, Razi died in Rey in 925 sixty years of age, Biruni, who considered Razi as his mentor, among the first penned a short biography of Razi including a bibliography of his numerous works. After his death, his fame spread beyond the Middle East to Medieval Europe, in an undated catalog of the library at Peterborough Abbey, most likely from the 14th century, Razi is listed as a part author of ten books on medicine. Smallpox appears when blood boils and is infected, resulting in vapours being expelled, thus juvenile blood is being transformed into richer blood, having the color of mature wine
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Jewish philosophy
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Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. With their acceptance into society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves. Medieval re-discovery of ancient Greek philosophy among the Geonim of 10th century Babylonian academies brought rationalist philosophy into Biblical-Talmudic Judaism, the philosophy was generally in competition with Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic Rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic rationalism coincided with events which drew Jews to the Kabbalistic approach. For Ashkenazi Jews, emancipation and encounter with secular thought from the 18th-century onwards altered how philosophy was viewed, Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities had later more ambivalent interaction with secular culture than in Western Europe. In the varied responses to modernity, Jewish philosophical ideas were developed across the range of emerging religious movements, Rabbinic literature sometimes views Abraham as a philosopher. Some have suggested that Abraham introduced a philosophy learned from Melchizedek, a midrash describes how Abraham understood this world to have a creator and director by comparing this world to a house with a light in it, what is now called the argument from design. Psalms contains invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works, from this, some scholars suggest, Judaism harbors a Philosophical under-current. Ecclesiastes is often considered to be the only genuine philosophical work in the Hebrew Bible, its author seeks to understand the place of human beings in the world, Philo attempted to fuse and harmonize Greek and Jewish philosophy through allegory, which he learned from Jewish exegesis and Stoicism. Philo attempted to make his philosophy the means of defending and justifying Jewish religious truths and these truths he regarded as fixed and determinate, and philosophy was used as an aid to truth, and a means of arriving at it. To this end Philo chose from philosophical tenets of Greeks, refusing those that did not harmonize with Judaism such as Aristotles doctrine of the eternity and indestructibility of the world. Dr. Philosophical speculation was not a part of Rabbinic Judaism. Rabbi Akiva has also been viewed as a figure, his statements include 1. )How favored is man, for he was created after an image for in an image, Elokim made man,2. )Everything is foreseen. But the divine decision is made by the preponderance of the good or bad in ones actions, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Rabbinic scholars gathered in Tiberias and Safed to re-assemble and re-assess Judaism, its laws, theology, liturgy, beliefs and leadership structure. In 219 CE, the Sura Academy was founded by Abba Arika, for the next five centuries, Talmudic academies focused upon reconstituting Judaism and little, if any, philosophic investigation was pursued. These investigations triggered new ideas and intellectual exchange among Jewish and Islamic scholars in the areas of jurisprudence, mathematics, astronomy, logic, Jewish scholars influenced Islamic scholars and Islamic scholars influenced Jewish scholars. Around 733 CE, Mar Natronai ben Habibai moves to Kairouan, then to Spain, borrowing from the Mutakallamin of Basra, the Karaites were the first Jewish group to subject Judaism to Muʿtazila. Rejecting the Talmud and Rabbinical tradition, Karaites took liberty to reinterpret the Tanakh and this meant abandoning foundational Jewish belief structures
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Saadia Gaon
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Rabbi Saadiah ben Yosef Gaon was a prominent rabbi, Jewish philosopher, and exegete of the Geonic period who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate. The first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Arabic, he is considered the founder of Judeo-Arabic literature, known for his works on Hebrew linguistics, Halakha, and Jewish philosophy, he was one of the more sophisticated practitioners of the philosophical school known as the Jewish Kalam. In this capacity, his philosophical work The Book of Beliefs, Saadia was also very active in opposition to Karaism, in defense of rabbinic Judaism. Expression was given to this claim by Saadia in calling his son Dosa, at a young age he left his home to study under the Torah scholars of Tiberias. At age 20 Saadia began composing his first great work, the Hebrew dictionary which he entitled Agron, in the same year he left Egypt and settled permanently in the Land of Israel. In 922 a controversy concerning the Hebrew calendar, that threatened the entire Jewish community. Since Hillel II, the calendar had been based on a series of rather than on observation of the moons phases. One of these required the date of Rosh Hashanah to be postponed if the calculated lunar conjunction occurred at noon or later. Rabbi Aaron ben Meir, the Gaon of the leading Talmudic academy in Israel, Saadia was in Aleppo, on his way from the East, when he learned of Ben Meirs regulation of the Jewish calendar. His dispute with Ben Meir was an important factor in the call to Sura which he received in 928, under his leadership, the ancient academy, founded by Rav, entered upon a new period of brilliancy. This renaissance was cut short, though, by a clash between Saadia and David, much as Nissim had predicted, in a probate case Saadia refused to sign a verdict of the exilarch which he thought unjust, although the Gaon of Pumbedita had subscribed to it. When the son of the exilarch threatened Saadia with violence to secure his compliance, each excommunicated the other, declaring that he deposed his opponent from office, and David b. Zakkai appointed Joseph b. Jacob as gaon of Sura, while Saadia conferred the exilarchate on Davids brother Hassan, Hassan was forced to flee, and died in exile in Khorasan, but the strife which divided Babylonian Judaism continued. Saadia did not fail to reply, the seven years which Saadia spent in Baghdad did not interrupt his literary activity. His principal philosophical work was completed in 933, and four years later, through Ibn Sargados father-in-law, Bishr ben Aaron, Saadia was reinstated in his office, but he held it for only five more years. Zakkai died before him, being followed a few months later by the exilarchs son Judah, Saadia translated the Torah and some of the other books of the Hebrew Bible into Judeo-Arabic, adding a Judeo-Arabic commentary. Torah Isaiah Megillot Tehillim, Iyyov, and Mishlei Daniel Saadia translated Megillath Antiyuchas into Judeo-Arabic and this small work has been frequently reprinted. Short monographs in which problems of Jewish law are systematically presented, of these Arabic treatises, little but the titles and extracts is known, and it is only in the Kitab al-Mawarith that fragments of any length have survived
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Platonism
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Platonism, rendered as a proper noun, is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. Lower case platonists need not accept any of the doctrines of Plato, in a narrower sense, the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism. The forms are described in dialogues such as the Phaedo, Symposium. In the Republic the highest form is identified as the Form of the Good, the source of all other forms, in the Sophist, a later work, the forms being, sameness and difference are listed among the primordial Great Kinds. The primary concept is the Theory of Forms, the only true being is founded upon the forms, the eternal, unchangeable, perfect types, of which particular objects of moral and responsible sense are imperfect copies. The multitude of objects of sense, being involved in perpetual change, are deprived of all genuine existence. The number of the forms is defined by the number of concepts which can be derived from the particular objects of sense. The following excerpt may be representative of Platos middle period metaphysics and epistemology, Since the beautiful is opposite of the ugly, and since they are two, each is one. And the same account is true of the just and unjust, the good and the bad, each of them is itself one, but because they manifest themselves everywhere in association with actions, bodies, and one another, each of them appears to be many. The lovers of sights and sounds like beautiful sounds, colors, shapes, and everything fashioned out of them, in fact, there are very few people who would be able to reach the beautiful itself and see it by itself. What about someone who believes in things, but doesnt believe in the beautiful itself. Dont you think he is living in a rather than a wakened state. Isnt this dreaming, whether asleep or awake, to think that a likeness is not a likeness, I certainly think that someone who does that is dreaming. Book VI of the Republic identifies the highest form as the Form of the Good, the cause of all other Ideas, conceptions derived from the impressions of sense can never give us the knowledge of true being, i. e. of the forms. It can only be obtained by the activity within itself, apart from the troubles and disturbances of sense. Dialectic, as the instrument in this process, leading us to knowledge of the forms, later Neoplatonism, beginning with Plotinus, identified the Good of the Republic with the so-called transcendent, absolute One of the first hypothesis of the Parmenides. Platonist ethics is based on the Form of the Good, virtue is knowledge, the recognition of the supreme form of the good. And, since in this cognition, the three parts of the soul, which are reason, spirit, and appetite, all have their share, we get the three virtues, Wisdom, Courage, and Moderation
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Anchorite
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Anchorites had a certain autonomy, as they did not answer to any ecclesiastical authority other than the bishop. The anchoritic life is one of the earliest forms of Christian monasticism, in the Catholic Church today, it is one of the Other Forms of Consecrated Life and governed by the same norms as the consecrated eremitic life. From the 12th to the 16th centuries, female anchorites consistently outnumbered their male equivalents, sometimes by as many as four to one, the gender of a high number of anchorites, however, is not recorded for these periods. The anchoritic life became widespread during the early and high Middle Ages, examples of the dwellings of anchorites and anchoresses survive. A large number of these are in England and they tended to be a simple cell, built against one of the walls of the local village church. Sometimes, if the anchorite were walled up inside the cell, some anchorites, however, freely moved between their cell and the adjoining church. Most anchoritic strongholds were small, perhaps no more than 12 to 15 ft square, viewing the altar, hearing Mass, and receiving the Eucharist was possible through one small, shuttered window in the common wall facing the sanctuary, called a hagioscope or squint. Anchorites would also provide advice and counsel to visitors through this window. Another small window would allow access to those who saw to the physical needs, such as food. A third window, often facing the street, but covered with translucent cloth, Anchorites were supposed to remain in their cell in all eventualities. Some were even burned in their cells, which refused to leave even when pirates or other attackers were looting and burning their towns. They ate frugal meals, spending their days both in contemplative prayer and interceding on behalf of others, Anchorites bodily waste was managed by means of a chamber pot. It is clear that, although set apart from the community at large by stone walls and specific spiritual precepts, the anchorhold was clearly also a communal womb from which would emerge an idealized sense of a communitys own reborn potential, both as Christians and as human subjects. An idea of their daily routine can be gleaned from an anchoritic Rule, the most widely known today is the early 13th century text known as Ancrene Wisse. Another, less known, example is the rule known as De Institutione Inclusarum written in the 12th century, around 1160–62. The earliest recorded anchorites lived in the 3rd century CE, for example, Hilarion was known as the founder of anchoritic life in Palestine. The anchoritic life proved popular in England. Wulfric of Haselbury was enclosed as an anchorite in a cell built against the church in his village of Haselbury, christine Carpenter, who submitted a petition in 1329 and was granted permission to become the Anchoress of Shere Church, in the Borough of Guildford, England
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Asceticism
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Asceticism is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Asceticism is classified into two types, Asceticism has been historically observed in many religious traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism and Judaism. Mainstream Islam has lacked asceticism, except for its minority Sufi sect whose long tradition has included strict asceticism, the practitioners of these religions eschewed worldly pleasures and led an abstinent lifestyle, in the pursuit of redemption, salvation or spirituality. Asceticism is seen in the ancient theologies as a journey towards spiritual transformation, where the simple is sufficient, the bliss is within, the adjective ascetic derives from the ancient Greek term askēsis, which means training or exercise. The original usage did not refer to self-denial, but to the training required for athletic events. Its usage later extended to rigorous practices that are used in all religious traditions, in varying degrees to attain redemption. Asceticism has been classified into natural and unnatural forms of asceticism, natural asceticism is defined as a lifestyle where material aspects of life are reduced to utmost simplicity and minimum. This may include minimal, simple clothing, sleeping on floor or caves, natural asceticism, state Wimbush and Valantasis, does not include maiming the body or harsher austerities that make the body suffer. Self-discipline and abstinence in some form and degree are parts of religious practice within many religious, ascetic lifestyle is associated particularly with monks, nuns, fakirs in Abrahamic religions, and bhikkhus, munis, sannyasis, yogis in Indian religions. Christian authors of antiquity such as Origen, St. Jerome, St. Ignatius, John Chrysostom. Scriptural examples of asceticism could be found in the lives of John the Baptist, Jesus, the twelve apostles, the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed ascetic practices of the ancient Jewish sect of Essenes who took vows of abstinence to prepare for a holy war. An emphasis on a religious life was evident in both early Christian writings and practices. Other Christian practitioners of asceticism include individuals such as Simeon Stylites, Saint David of Wales, according to Richard Finn, much of early Christian asceticism has been traced to Judaism, but not to traditions within Greek asceticism. Some of the thoughts in Christianity nevertheless, Finn states, have roots in Greek moral thought. Virtuous living is not possible when an individual is craving bodily pleasures with desire, the deserts of the Middle East were at one time inhabited by thousands of Christian hermits including St. Anthony the Great, St. Mary of Egypt, and St. Simeon Stylites. In 963 CE, an association of monasteries called Lavra was formed on Mount Athos and this became the most important center of orthodox Christian ascetic groups in the centuries that followed. In the modern era, Mount Athos and Meteora have remained a significant center, sexual abstinence such as those of the Encratites sect of Christians was only one aspect of ascetic renunciation, and both natural and unnatural asceticism have been part of Christian asceticism. The natural ascetic practices have included simple living, begging, fasting and ethical practices such as humility, compassion, patience, such ascetic practices were linked to the Christian concepts of sin and redemption
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Recluse
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A recluse is a person who lives in voluntary seclusion from the public and society. The word is from the Latin recludere, which means shut up or sequester, historically, the word referred to a hermits total isolation from the world. Celebrated figures who spent, or have spent, significant portions of their lives as recluses include Virgil, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Emily Brontë, J. D. In Japan, an estimated 1.2 million people are part of the phenomenon of Hikikomori or social withdrawal, entrepreneur Kim Smiley wrote, We live in a society that stigmatizes seclusion, yet has an almost rabid fascination with it at the same time. A survey of history shows that some of the most brilliant thinkers, writers, springfield, Massachusetts, C. & G. Merriam Co
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Isaac Newton
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His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, laid the foundations of classical mechanics. Newton also made contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing the infinitesimal calculus. Newtons Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists view of the universe for the next three centuries. Newtons work on light was collected in his influential book Opticks. He also formulated a law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–90 and 1701–02. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 and he spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint and his father, also named Isaac Newton, had died three months before. Born prematurely, he was a child, his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabas Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Newtons mother had three children from her second marriage. From the age of twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The Kings School, Grantham which taught Latin and Greek. He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Henry Stokes, master at the Kings School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a bully, he became the top-ranked student. In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge and he started as a subsizar—paying his way by performing valets duties—until he was awarded a scholarship in 1664, which guaranteed him four more years until he would get his M. A. He set down in his notebook a series of Quaestiones about mechanical philosophy as he found it, in 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his B. A. degree in August 1665, in April 1667, he returned to Cambridge and in October was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, although this was not enforced in the restoration years, however, by 1675 the issue could not be avoided and by then his unconventional views stood in the way. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II. A and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1672. Newtons work has been said to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied and his work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newtons mathematical papers
