Great Books – A Valuation Statement
A great book one that catalyzes coherent thought, period. The more coherently a book catalyzes thought, the less I want to put it down.
William James – Feelings and Impulses Must be the Subject of Psychological Inquiry
If the inquiry be psychological, not religious institutions, but rather religious feelings and religious impulses must be its subject, and I must confine myself to those more developed subjective phenomena recorded in literature produced by articulate and fully self-conscious men, in works of piety and autobiography. The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James, Lecture […]
John Forbes Nash Jr: Eager to Astound: Sylvia Nasar: A Beautiful Mind
Almost always worked alone in his head… Eager to astound, he was always on the lookout for the really big problems. When he focused on some new puzzle he saw dimensions that people who really knew the subject, he never did, initially dismissed as Nieve or wrongheaded…. He sought to turn live’s decisions … into […]
Aristotle on Unity: When Every Part of the Soul Desires the Same Objects
He wishes for himself both what is, and what he believes to be, good; and he does it (it being characteristic of the good man to work at what is good)
Aristotle – Practical Wisdom and Science Different Parts of the Soul
Well, we have now stated the nature and objects of Practical Wisdom and Science respectively, and that they belong each to a different part of the Soul. But I can conceive a person questioning their utility. “Science,” he would say, “concerns itself with none of the causes of human happiness (for it has nothing to […]
Aristotle – Three functions of the Soul; Sense, Intellect, and Appetition
Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics – There are in the Soul three functions on which depend moral action and truth; Sense, Intellect, Appetition, whether vague Desire or definite Will.