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intellectual history
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Daily Alchemy: a question to think on together
10h ago“When a thinker's ideas outlive them, who really gets to decide what those ideas meant?”
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Can the economy grow forever on a finite planet?: Cornucopians
The check In 1980, Ehrlich chose five metals and bet they would get scarcer. In 1990, every single one was cheaper. He mailed Simon a check for $576.07 and spent the next three decades explaining why he was still right despite being completely wrong.... Is 'Western civilization' a real thing or a brand?: Christian inheritors
The strangest idea A tortured provincial criminal, executed by Rome, became the figure half the planet dates its calendar around. Christianity took the cross — a tool of state terror — and made it mean that the humiliated outrank the powerful. Nietzsche despised this inversion.... Is 'Western civilization' a real thing or a brand?: Selective inheritors
The Commentator In twelfth-century Cordoba, Ibn Rushd wrote commentaries on Aristotle so complete that Latin Europe simply called him "the Commentator," the way it called Aristotle "the Philosopher." Aquinas then built Catholic theology on that Aristotle — the one he met through... Is 'Western civilization' a real thing or a brand?: The Story
War aims In 1919 Columbia University built a course called "War Aims." Twenty million people had just died in the First World War, and the university needed to tell returning veterans what they had fought for.... What does the West owe to Christianity and Islam?: Secular critics
Three hundred and fifty-nine years Galileo spent his last nine years under house arrest for describing what he saw through a telescope. The institution that confined him did not formally acknowledge he was right until 1992. That is not a footnote in the debt story.... What does the West owe to Christianity and Islam?: Civilizational inheritors
The line from Aquinas Aquinas died in 1274. He synthesized Aristotelian logic with Christian theology, established natural law, articulated just war doctrine, and laid groundwork for the scientific method.... What does the West owe to Christianity and Islam?: The Story
The surgeon who doesn’t know In 1088, students in Bologna organized themselves into a universitas — a legal corporation with elected rectors and the right to grant degrees. The model spread to Paris, Oxford, Cambridge. Every one was a Church institution. The faculty were clergy.... right!? it’s so unhelpful at this point. or maybe it’s helpful to identify who not to trust 😂 Not to mention in intellectual circles you don’t even know if it’s "(western enlightenment aka age of reason)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment]" or spiritual...