Labels such as “medieval” and “modern” are highly relative scholarly impositions. What counts as “modern” in philosophy is quite different – in chronology and in style – from modernity in literary studies. While such categories may be convenient for organizing the historiography of philosophy (among other disciplines), no one really thinks they represent precise and absolute distinctions. What, after all, does it mean for a philosophy to be “modern”?
Category: ideas
It *Is* Possible To Have Too Much Passion For Your Work
“Employees who treat their work as a calling risk burnout and discouragement, and are at risks of abandoning their profession, according to a [new research] paper.” (The study didn’t involve arts workers, though: it used employees at animal shelters.)
Imagining The Future Is Now Big Business
The industry doesn’t have a name, but its main product does: Design fiction. “It’s science fiction made real in the form of interactive exhibitions, product demonstrations, and behind-the-scenes consulting work. And it tends to pop up at any event Davos-ish enough to include the word ‘influencers.'” Kyle Chayka visits both a leading studio in the field, as well as perhaps the biggest example of design fiction: the Museum of the Future in Dubai.
Why You Feel The Urge To Jump: The Science And Philosophy Of Looking Down From A High Place
“The seemingly irrational, but common urge to leap – half of respondents felt it in one survey – can be so disturbing that ruminators from Jean-Paul Sartre (in Being and Nothingness) to anonymous contributors in lengthy Reddit sub-threads have agonized about it. … The French explain it as l’appel du vide, or call of the void. Are they just French, or can the void really beckon you to kill yourself? New science on balance, fear, and cognition shows that the voice of the abyss is both real and powerful.”
Can Neuroscience Explain The Power Effects Of Touch Between People?
Partly, but not by itself, argues researches Steven Phelps. “Touch embeds us in a social network. We choose what contacts we reveal and to whom, and those choices define us to a community.”
You May Not Be A Philosopher, But You Can Start Thinking Like One
We want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Heuristics.
Darwin Had It Right: Work Way Less, Accomplish Way More
“Figures as different as Charles Dickens, Henri Poincaré, and Ingmar Bergman, working in disparate fields in different times, all shared a passion for their work, a terrific ambition to succeed, and an almost superhuman capacity to focus. Yet when you look closely at their daily lives, they only spent a few hours a day doing what we would recognize as their most important work. The rest of the time, they were hiking mountains, taking naps, going on walks with friends, or just sitting and thinking. Their creativity and productivity, in other words, were not the result of endless hours of toil. Their towering creative achievements result from modest ‘working’ hours.”
The Art Of Persuading You Without You Even Knowing
“The behavioral techniques that are being employed by governments and private corporations do not appeal to our reason; they do not seek to persuade us consciously with information and argument. Rather, these techniques change behavior by appealing to our nonrational motivations, our emotional triggers and unconscious biases. If psychologists could possess a systematic understanding of these nonrational motivations they would have the power to influence the smallest aspects of our lives and the largest aspects of our societies.”
What Is An Elite College Really Worth?
Turns out that’s the wrong question. First of all, 70 percent of 29-year-olds don’t have a bachelor’s degree. And secondly, “after correcting for a student’s pre-existing talent, ambition, and habits, it’s hard to show that highly selective colleges add much earning power, even with their vaunted professors, professional networks, and signaling.”
Freedom Of Speech Is So Complex That We Need To Break It Up Into Different Parts And Laws
The theory: “Put free ‘speech’ as such to one side, and replace it with a series of more narrowly targeted expressive liberties. Rather than locating actions such as protest and whistleblowing under the umbrella of ‘free speech’, we could formulate specially tailored norms, such as a principle of free public protest, or a principle of protected whistleblowing.”