The discipline of psychology emerged from the discipline of philosophy. In the late 19th century, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that the human mind could be studied scientifically. … Continue reading William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Miller's Tale is one of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. These tales were supposedly stories that a group of pilgrims told each other as they were on their way from London to Canterbury Cathedral, to visit the Shrine of St. Thomas Becket (also known as Thomas à Becket). Nevertheless, some of the tales told by … Continue reading Geoffrey Chaucer: The Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale
Here's an interlinear Greek/English translation: farside.ph.utexas.edu/Books/Euclid/Elements.pdf Here's a series of videos: Euclid's elements: definitions, postulates, and axioms Euclid's Geometry was built on assumptions. But what if you altered one of those … Continue reading Euclid’s Elements
The Odyssey is an account of how Odysseus made his way home to his wife Penelope after the Trojan War. (The Trojan War itself was discussed in Homer's Iliad.) At one point, Odysseus must steer his ship between two perils: a sea monster named Scylla and a whirlpool named Charybdis. The whirlpool was probably inspired … Continue reading Homer’s Odyssey: Scylla and Charybdis
Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences was published in French in 1637. It was later translated into Latin. … Continue reading Rene Descartes: Discourse on the Method
Cancer Ward is a semiautobiographical novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who won the Nobel Prize in Litrature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature." Like Solzhenitsyn, the protagonist of Cancer Ward is a Russian World War II veteran who served time in the Gulag (Soviet forced labor camps) … Continue reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Cancer Ward
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (the Brothers Grimm) were German academics who studied the history of the German language and collected and published folktales. They popularized these "Grimms' Fairy Tales" through books that were translated into many languages. They also laid the groundwork for the study of folklore as an academic discipline. Here's an English translation … Continue reading Snow White, the Brothers Grimm, and Tolkien
Daniel Defoe was an English writer, businessman, and spy. He was one of the most important proponents of the English novel, and he was also an important political pamphleteer. He was born in 1660 (the year of the Restoration of the Stuart Monarchy)
