David Hume topped this 2009 PhilPapers survey of most influential and admired philosophers (scroll down to bottom of the page to “Non-living philosophers most identified with”). Aristotle came in second and Kant third. I’ve been thinking much about Nietzsche and Heidegger recently: eleventh and eighteenth, respectively. Overall, the list was still dominated by thinkers in […]
David Hume’s current influence Read More »
A striking quotation from Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: “Every civilization of which we have records has possessed a technology, an art, a religion, a political system, laws, and so on. In many cases those facets of civilization have been as developed as our own. But only the civilizations that descend from Hellenic
Kuhn on the Greeks and scientific culture Read More »
Syphilis is thought to have been brought back from America by Christopher Columbus’s fellow travelers. In Europe, it first manifested in Naples and so came to be called “the disease of Naples,” though most Italians came to call it the “French Pox.” As it made its way across Europe and then Asia, syphilis acquired a
Syphilis and friendly ethnic relations Read More »
Medieval medical know-how: “John of Gaddesden (1280-1349), physician to Edward II and compiler of the encyclopaedic Rosa anglica medicinae [The English Rose of Medicine], recommended reciting the gospel over an epileptic patient while bedecking him with peony and chrysanthemum amulets or the hair of a white dog” (From Roy Porter’s excellent The Greatest Benefit to
Curing epilepsy — peonies, the gospel, and hair of the dog Read More »
A fun anecdote from the history of medicine. (Fun in hindsight, though not necessarily fun for those who lived through the medical history.) The late-medieval Iatrochemists believed that progress could be made by uniting medicine with alchemy. Their intellectual leader was Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician whose goal was to reform medical chemistry by rejecting
Iatrochemists: why iron salts cure anemia Read More »
Why accurate translation and skilled editing are important: Bloodletting was a common practice in medieval medicine and did not die out until the nineteenth century. The practice was encouraged by the belief that the excellent Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen practiced it. Most phelobotomists followed the Persian genius Avicenna‘s editions of the Greek texts, which
The great Renaissance medical bloodletting controversy Read More »
Reprising this post about the early death of Franz Schubert, the great lyrical composer of the early nineteenth century. He died at age 31. While his music is usually too melancholy for my taste, what a sadness. Franz was lucky to get that many years. Biographer Christoper Gibbs reports that Schubert’s parents had fourteen children
Franz Schubert’s early death Read More »
How media report statistics according to their philosophy: Enlightenment headline: SCIENCE and CAPITALISM a great success. Jaded-feminist headline: The PATRIARCHY encouraging women to be BABY-MAKING MACHINES. Socialist-Marxist headline: Europeans gain by EXPLOITING poor women in the THIRD WORLD. Postmodern headline: NO news here — “HEALTH” and “PROGRESS” mere SUBJECTIVE narratives.
Mortality headlines [humor alert] Read More »