Idealism: The philosophical view that asserts that reality is fundamentally based on and shaped by ideas and mental experience, rather than material forces.
Author: Noah Yasskin
Big Thinkers, Big Questions, Big Problems
Last century's biggest tech giant reviews this century's biggest thinker asking today's biggest questions. Oh yeah, and it's all in the world's biggest newspaper.
Is Good Literature Bad for Life?
Is literature wise? In the sense, does it help us to live? And if not, what exactly is it good for?
Quote: Giacomo Leopardi on Works of Literary Genius
Works of [literary] genius have this intrinsic quality, that even when they capture exactly the nothingness of things, or vividly reveal and make us feel life’s inevitable unhappiness, or express the most acute hopelessness… they are always a source of consolation and renewed enthusiasm.
Whoever then has knowledge of good things, would know how to love them…
Whoever then has knowledge of good things, would know how to love them; but how could one who cannot distinguish good things from evil and things indifferent from both have power to love? —Epictetus Discourses, II.22
To Tell the Truth: ‘Truth Hath a Scratched Face’
Sanctimonious people everywhere denounce damn lies and the lying liars who tell them. Speaking the truth, they imply, would cure our political and personal ills. Its absence is the cause of our woes. But is telling the truth really good for you?
Quote: Epictetus on Facing Death
I must die, must I? If at once, then I am dying: if soon, I dine now, as it is time for dinner, and afterwards when the time comes I will die. —Epictetus, Discourses, I.i
What’s the Opposite of a Relativist?
Spin the bottle in any college dorm and you’ll kiss a relativist. But have you ever set lips on an absolutist?
