Peter E. Gordon— In 1770, the empress Maria Theresa summoned to the Viennese court an imperial counselor named Wolfgang von Kempelen, a man from the Hungarian city of Pressburg who was already well esteemed for his services to the state. In an era when the German language was displacing Latin
Jonathan Rée— Without books, according to Hobbes, we could not be ‘excellently wise’, but on the other hand we would not be ‘excellently foolish’ either. “They which trust to books, do as they that cast up many little summs into a greater, without considering whether those little summes were rightly
Laszlo F. Foldenyi— In Venice, in an of the out-of-the-way corner of the Piazzetta located at the corner of the basilica of Saint Mark, there is a statuary group depicting the Four Tetrarchs. Carved out of the hardest granite, the sculpture, dating from the beginning of the fourth century, depicts
Giambattista Vico— Wisdom is the faculty that commands all the disciplines; by these, all the sciences and arts that complete our humanity are apprehended. Plato defines wisdom as that which is the perfecter of man. Man, in the being proper to him as a man, is nothing other than mind and
Follow @WRLBooks “Beginning of modern thought.” Witold Gombrowicz starts his guide through modern philosophy with characteristic concision. The “First Lesson” is a description of Kant’s contributions to philosophy, with some explanation of Descartes to see where Kant is coming from. Gombrowicz — playwright, diarist, novelist, and thinker — leaps through
Follow @yaleRELIbooks Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, felt the terrible effects of suicide twice in two years. The loss of two friends and fellow poets, the second of which seemed prompted by the first, inspired Hecht to write a column for The Best American
“I love you.” We call them “three little words,” and yet in Western thought, love as a concept is anything but a small concern. In fact, in Love: A History, Simon May demonstrates the way in which love has grown into a veritable colossus in our cultural consciousness, providing the
As we are soon to publish A Little History of Philosophy, a lively and accessible introduction to Western philosophy and its thinkers, author Nigel Warburton reflects on his first encounter with the works of the eminent art historian, Ernst Gombrich, who wrote the bestselling A Little History of the World,
We hope you’re enjoying our discussions and interview for Nigel Warburton‘s new book, A Little History of Philosophy. We’ll hear more from the author later this week, but in the meantime, our newest Goodreads giveaway for 10 copies of the book is just waiting for you to enter and win!