21 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
The Internet Archive is Inspired by the Library of Alexan...
“We bought it because it matched our logo,” Brewster Kahle told me when I met him there, and he wasn’t kidding. Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive and the inventor of the Wayback Machine. The logo of the Internet Archive is a white, pedimented Greek temple. When Kahle started the Internet Archive, in 1996, in his attic, he gave everyone working with him a book called “The Vanished Library,” about the burning of the Library of Alexandria. “The idea is to build the Library... 1 
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notes19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Greeks and Romans Lacked the Virtue of Doubt
The Greek and Roman antiquarians, and even their literati and philosophers, are
chargeable with a total neglect of that spirit of doubt which subjects to a rigorous
investigation both sacts, and the proofs that establish them. In reading their accounts
of the history of events or of manners, of the productions and phenomena of nature, or
of the works and processes of the arts, we are astonished at the composure with which
they relate the most palpable absurdities, and the most fulsome and dis... 1 notes
notes...and as a result, their writing reveals an incredible gullibility.
19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greece
With the Greeks, education was an important part of polity. Men were formed for
their country, much more than for themselves, or their family. This principle can only
be embraced by commonities little populous, in which it is more pardonable to
suppose a national interest, separate from the common interest of humanity. It is
practicable only in countries where the most painful labours of culture and of the arts
are performed by slaves. This branch of education was restricted almost entirely t...Folksonomies: history political science
Folksonomies: history political science
1 notes
notesIt is also the study of human beings.
19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
The Rise and Fall of Greek Science
This fortunate circumstance, still more than political freedom, wrought in the human mind, among the Greeks, an independance, the surest pledge of the rapidity and greatness of its future progress.
In the mean time their learned men, their sages, as they were called, but who soon took the more modest appellation of philosophers, or friends of science and wisdom, wandered in the immensity of the two vast and comprehensive plan which they had embraced. They were desirous of penetrating both th... 1 notes
notesCondorcet chronicles the Greek sciences, with their propensity for for philosophizing and fantasy, ending with Socrates, who demanded empiricism.
17 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Geometry Divides the World
This meant, then, that the Greeks, in attempting to communicate their mathematical conceptioning, defined the circle as "an area bound by a closed line of equal radius from one point," the triangle as "an area bo)ound by a closed line of three angles, three edges, and three vertices." The Greeks talked only of the area that was "bound" as having validity and identity, while outside (on the other side of the boundary) existed only treachenerous terrain leading outward to boundless infinity—a... 1 notes
notesBy describing shapes as bounded, the Greeks reflected (or influence?) our thoughts about our own boundaries.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Venus is Hell
Venus thus seems to be a place quite different from the Earth, and alarmingly
unappealing: Broiling temperatures, crushing pressures, noxious and corrosive
gases, sulfurous smells, and a landscape immersed in a ruddy gloom.
Curiously enough, there is a place astonishingly like this in the superstition,
folklore and legends of men. We call it Hell. In the older belief – that of the
Greeks, for example – it was the place where all human souls journeyed after
death. In Christian times it ha... 1 notes
notesVery similar to it as Carl Sagan describes the planet.
06 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
An Insightful Ancient Observation on the Origins of Things
The Greeks are wrong to recognize coming into being and perishing; for nothing comes into being nor perishes, but is rather compounded or dissolved from things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being composition and perishing dissolution. 1 notes
notesAnaxagoras correctly notes that things come into being as compounds of existing things and dissolve back into compounds.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Centrist Path Between Two Extremes of Knowing
Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men's efforts than good by their own. Those on the other hand who have tak...
1 Those who think the laws of nature are figured out and those who think we can know nothing are two erroneous extremes, a balance between acknowledging what we know and its boundaries is important.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Time Fertile in Sciences is Scarce in Human History
For out of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and learning of men extends, you can hardly pick out six that were fertile in sciences or favorable to their development. In times no less than in regions there are wastes and deserts. For only three revolutions and periods of learning can properly be reckoned: one among the Greeks, the second among the Romans, and the last among us, that is to say, the nations of Western Europe. And to each of these hardly two centuries can justl... 1 notes
notesFor out of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and learning of men extends, you can hardly pick out six that were fertile in sciences or favorable to their development.
30 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Greek or Latin?
If I were asked which, of the Greek and Latin languages, is to be preferred, I would answer neither; my opinion is that they both should be used: Greek for anything that Latin cannot express, or would not offer equivalent expression for, or one less exacting; I would have Greek serve only to fill in the gaps in Latin, and this simply because familiarity with Latin is more widespread: for I concede that if we were to choose on the grounds of richness and abundance, there would be no hesitation... 1 notes
notesDiderot discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using each of these classical languages.
