It starts to seem, as Albert Camus once put it, that we’ve made the mind into an armed camp—in which not only politicians and legislative proposals, but moral philosophies, artworks, even scientific theories, have to wear the insignia of one or the other army
Does anyone know the exact quote to which he is referring here?
Well, third-person pronouns were always political—it’s just that only the last century’s shift in values and ideological attitudes has allowed the spread of gender-neutral pronouns. Before that the issue was taken to be completely one-sided.
Sorry to have to tell you this, but Pythagoras of Samos probably didn’t even exist. More generally, essentially everything you’re likely to have read about the Pythagoreans (except for some of their wacky cultish beliefs about chickens) is false, especially the stuff about irrationals. The Pythagoreans were an orphic cult, who (to the best of our knowledge) had no effect whatsoever on mainstream Greek mathematics or philosophy.
Well, my source is Dr Bursill-Hall’s History of Mathematics lectures at Cambridge; I presume his source is ‘the literature’.
Sorry I can’t give you a better source than that.
Does anyone know the exact quote to which he is referring here?
We’ve reached the point where the weather is political, and so are third person pronouns.
Well, third-person pronouns were always political—it’s just that only the last century’s shift in values and ideological attitudes has allowed the spread of gender-neutral pronouns. Before that the issue was taken to be completely one-sided.
Conversely, evolution does not count as “political” here because we all belong to one camp. (Posted from Louisiana.)
I think it’s this but I’m not sure:
Tell that to Socrates.
Given that they supposedly drowned people for discussing irrational numbers that seems false.
Sorry to have to tell you this, but Pythagoras of Samos probably didn’t even exist. More generally, essentially everything you’re likely to have read about the Pythagoreans (except for some of their wacky cultish beliefs about chickens) is false, especially the stuff about irrationals. The Pythagoreans were an orphic cult, who (to the best of our knowledge) had no effect whatsoever on mainstream Greek mathematics or philosophy.
Source?
Well, my source is Dr Bursill-Hall’s History of Mathematics lectures at Cambridge; I presume his source is ‘the literature’. Sorry I can’t give you a better source than that.
Can anyone confirm this? Preferably with citation?
It’s not like the United States hasn’t also killed people for betraying its secrets.