classics digests, reflections and reviews
The Origin of Evolution The word “evolution” came from the Latin word evolutio, meaning unrolling or unfolding, as in unrolling a scroll. Before the codex was developed, the scroll had been the major form of written text in the ancient world. The scrolls were typically rolled up for storage and transportation. So one must first unroll the scroll to peruse the text. For sacred texts revered by adherents of religions […]
Read moreRethinking Evolution Having been raised as an atheist by scientist parents, and spent most of my life in and around scientific research institutes, I’ve always taken the theory of evolution for granted, although I’ve never read Darwin’s book The Origin of Species. Mark Twain rightly defines classic as “something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read”. However, the recent widespread debate on the relationship between religion […]
Read moreAs the author of an obscure blog, I sometimes become discouraged by the lack of engagements and dialogues. I learn more by engaging in discussions and debates on the subjects that fascinate me, than by reading and writing about them. For this reason, I envy the most those bloggers who attract a dozen comments following each and every one of their posts. At times like these, I find inspiration in […]
Read moreTruth is Its Own Evidence The word evidence comes from the Latin root meaning “to see”. When we demand evidence of something, we want to “see” it in some sense, although the thing itself may be absent by circumstance, or invisible by nature. The scientific method is evidence-based. It presupposes a correspondence between true abstract theories and natural phenomena. This is why theories in physics must be corroborated by experiments […]
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Philosophical Foundation of Science When quantum theory and the theory of general relativity shook the foundation of physics at the dawn of the 20th century, many physicists, such as Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg, explored and revisited ancient Greek philosophy. For they suspected there might be something wrong with the philosophical foundation of classical physics. They attempted to retrace the steps in the labyrinth and find out where the wrong […]
Read moreI might discern and distinguish what a difference there is between presumption and confession,— between those who saw whither they were to go, yet saw not the way, and the way which leads not only to behold but to inhabit the blessed country. (Confessions VII) In his Confessions, Augustine writes that it was God’s pleasure that he studied Platonism before being touched by Him though the Scriptures. Of all philosophies, […]
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Recently, I’ve had some interesting discussions with a couple of Straussians who argued that Plato didn’t really believe the Theory of Forms or the existence of gods, and that those metaphysical and theological notions are only means to an end, which is to teach people to lead a virtuous life, in other words, they serve as instructional tools for ethics. I asked them if Strauss provided any concrete evidence from […]
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