Thinking for oneself and avoiding any form of hero-worship seems sound advice, and most of my life I have followed it with genuine conviction. But in my quieter years, and closer to the big cliff, where I have found the space and time to live on a sloping ledge, well beyond the realm of grinding necessity, I have discovered a fellow human being with whom I feel great kinship and even a sense of quiet admiration, having none of his outstanding qualities myself.
I am talking about a Greek polymath who had a finger in almost every scientific pie of his day. They called him the pentathlete, due to his mental prowess in so many disciplines. He was a poet, a mathematician, a geographer, a historian, an astronomer, and finally, the director of the most important library of the ancient world, situated in Alexandria on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt, west of the Nile Delta. I am talking about Eratosthenes, who was born in North Africa in about 276 BC and who spent most of his adult life in the Greek colony of Alexandria, newly established by the ambitious Macedonian warlord Alexander the Great.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.