Essais

Enlightened Person or Event Enlightened Philosophy or Inspiration Writings or Works Influence or Impact on Society? (How did this person or event impact governments, citizens, etc.) Thomas Hobbes Greek Historian Thucydides history on the war between the Athens and Sparta inspired Thomas to improve the democracy. Galileo inspired Thomas to apply mechanistic principles to our society. Published first work in 1629. A translation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. A…

“Naked use of force has accomplished more for the human race than other endeavor.” Societies wage wars for any number of reason but the scale and scope of conflict is determined by ultimate end state of the conflict. This endstate is tied to development of instrument ( the army), national will, and resources mobilization. Limited war is characterized by the restrained use of weapons and military options while Total war is a conflict of unlimited scope in which a belligerent engages in a…

In 1517, an Augustinian Catholic priest and professor of theology, Martin Luther (1483-1546), unhappy with the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, posted his ninety-five theses on the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The subject of indulgences of the Church was his main dispute. The Church was raising money by promising salvation to the givers. This started the Protestant Reformation that was to lead to his excommunication and produce a major split in Christianity and the rest of the…

Bergson: Time, Memory and Modernism Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) was a French philosopher whose philosophy had a marked influence on later 19th century poetry and also on 20th century modernist thought. In my presentation, I will outline in brief Bergson’s key philosophical thoughts and how they influenced modernist literature. Bergson maintained that in animals, evolution caused a division between the instinct and the intellect. Although the two are not exclusive of…

Without philosophy, the study of human existence and reality, the world would be a dark and confusing place. We use philosophy to try and answer the seemingly unanswerable questions about life. Unlike science, which seeks to discover how the universe works, philosophy studies why the universe works. Because philosophy is subjective, there are many different theories about how people should conduct their lives. Countless philosophers have written down their philosophies over hundreds of years,…

Anti-Semitism in its broadest form is the “hatred of Jews” (Beller, 1). However, there several forms of Anti-Semitism. From racist beliefs to religious reasons, there are many ways an Anti-Semite can “justify” their hatred for Jews. Although, these arguments all have the underlying message of the dangers of the Jews, each one has a different reason or approach to their anti-Semitism. Unsurprisingly, these arguments speak to the historical events and issues of the time, such as the Enlightenment…

How John Snow’s Skepticism and Open-mindedness Influenced His Method of Conducting Research At the beginning of the 18th century little was known about cholera transmission or disease communication in general. The miasma theory was in full force. Most of the science world accepted the miasma theory and completely rejected any other theory for disease transmittance. This greatly hindered advancements in research of communicable diseases because miasmas were understood as a fact and no…

In ‘The Rhetoric of Empire’, David Spur explores the discourse that Western journalists, travel writers and imperial administrators have used to depict the non-Western world using tropes, which he identifies through a careful analysis, tracing various sorts of writings from different historical contexts, and studying the way in which these tropes have been deployed. Among these rhetorical modes are surveillance, classification, and affirmation; framing these themes proves very much useful, as it…

auxiliary prime, to eliminate the existence of solutions to the Fermat equation involving numbers not divisible by the exponent p” (Laubenbacher and Pengelley, 9). Legendre later used Germain’s findings in a supplement to the second edition of his book, Essai sur le Théorie des Nombres (O’Connor and Robertson). The Institut de France awarded Germain a medal for her work on Fermat’s Last Theorem and Germain “became the first woman, who was not a wife of a member, to attend lectures at the Academy…

acknowledges that he created many enemies while working at Shaffer, both parents and students. Next, Fletcher discusses how he believes that poor praise such as “good job” can be one of the most harmful things to say. According to Julie Kelsey at ESSAI, praise, such as “good job,” can have negative effects depending on whether a student’s motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is from within and means that an action is done because of self-determination and self-regulation of…