Tagged: Autodidact

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The Autodidact: Homer

The Homeric Mind: Introduction In this series, I want you to do your best to forget what have been told to believe.  We are going to concentrate more on what the Greeks said about themselves, and, more than that, we are going to compare what they said with how they lived.  In other words, we are going to do something like what an anthropologist does when he goes to visit an alien and primitive culture.  We must set aside our preconceptions, interview the subjects, and observe their behavior.  What we find may be shocking, but we shall report the truth,...

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The Autodidact on Aristotle

The one figure who defines modern thought is Aristotle, not of course because modern thinkers have followed him, but because since Galileo and Descartes and Bacon, scientists and philosophers have defined themselves by their opposition to Aristotle

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The Autodidact Remembers

Once upon a time I decided to learn Japanese.  I had none of the usual practical reasons: no business interests that would take me to Japan nor even an academic project comparing Noh plays with Attic tragedy.

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The Life of an Autodidact

This is a revised version of a piece first published in 2014. Once upon a time I decided to learn Japanese.  I had none of the usual practical reasons: no business interests that would take me to Japan nor even an academic project comparing Noh plays with Attic tragedy.  I knew next to nothing of Japan, though as a child my imagination had been stirred by the Mikado, and later, when a college friend persuaded me to read the Tale of Genjii, my mind was haunted by images of beautiful men and women spending languorous evenings composing allusive verses to...

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Autodidact: Filmer’s Patriarcha

I have been asked, many times, to explain my objections to John Locke and his  theory of natural rights and the social contract.   One way to address that question is the discussion of Sir Robert Filmer Patriarcha I undertook some years ago.  I am revising and condensing those pieces for our newer and better project.  Patriarcha was actually written before Locke’s Treatises, which effectively debunks the mythology.  During the month of June, I will be posting paragraphs of the work, making comments, taking questions and comments from participants in the discussion.  The book is available online at http://www.constitution.org/eng/patriarcha but...

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The Autodidact on Aristotle

The one figure who defines modern thought is Aristotle, not of course because modern thinkers have followed him, but because since Galileo and Descartes and Bacon, scientists and philosophers have defined themselves by their opposition to Aristotle.  That is my first introductory point, as obvious as it is true.  Let me add a second point, no less true but more controversial: In all that is most important, Aristotle is more often right than wrong, and consistently right on those points where he has been most attacked. Life Aristotle was born in 384, an Ionian Greek in Stagira in Chalcidice. His...