Confucian Filial Piety and Science in China

This essay will attempt to show that the Neo-Confucian ideal of the family structure and Confucian system of patriarchal domination, especially the practice of filial piety, in conjunction with the conservative approach with which Confucian practitioners take towards social change shaped the formation of scientific works and methods, and the public policies which govern them, within China prior to the European intervention into the empire.

Plinius, Reddo Humanitae

Plinius, Reddo Humanitae

Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) was an author and philosopher of first century C.E. Rome.  He is the nephew of Pliny the Elder, who is best known to us as having penned the Historiae Naturalis, the first true attempt at an all-inclusive encyclopedia of the natural world.  The majority of the Younger’s work comes to us from his compilation of letters.  The letters are arranged throughout ten books in chronological order.  However, the individual letters are not kept in any particular order as seen by his letter to Speticius Clarus: “I have now made a collection, not keeping to the original order as I was not writing history, but taking them as they came to my hand” (Pliny 1).  It is believed by many that Pliny’s letters are the first attempt at the intentional publishing of letters for public reading.  Many of his letters are merely asides between acquaintances, however there are portions of his letters which show the true history and culture of the Roman civilization throughout Pliny’s lifetime.  Much of what is known of Roman architecture of this time period is what has been learned through the letters.  Further

Back on the Horse

Haven't posted any of my work in more than four years. Despite my absence there's plenty for me to post. Good or bad, I'm going to get most of my collegiate work online. Let's call it pay back for the professors who accused me of plagiarizing myself.

On the Singularity of the Trinity

On the Singularity of the Trinity

The Doctrine of the Trinity has been the basis of Church policy and practice for over 1600 years.  In building up what is supposedly a monotheistic religion around multiple divine beings, the Church has sectioned itself off from the rest of western religion.  Potential Jewish and Muslim converts, who were not raised in neo-Trinitarian societies (virtually everywhere outside of the Americas and Western Europe), find themselves taken aback and confused by the Doctrine.  What's worse is that many of the Church's parishioners, who claim allegiance to the Trinity, do not themselves understand the full meaning of their words when they ascribe thanks, "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."  While it may have been sufficient from the Middle Ages up through the Renaissance for the common person to have almost no understanding of the beliefs they were practicing, it is not so today; today a much greater portion of the population has the ability to read and write, practice religious or denominational freedom, and seek a general understanding of their religious institutions' practices.  The Trinity is an exclusivist ideal at heart; that is, it is difficult to understand without a previous experience in Christianity and therefore, necessarily keeps outsiders out.  Exclusivism is quite contradictory to traditional Christian thought on the conversion, in which it has been practice to make as much of the world Christian as possible, sometimes regardless of peoples' personal preference.  This exclusivism breeds a superiority complex in many Christian believers; the fact that one cannot understand, or at least make the claim of understanding, the Doctrine without being in the faith in earnest, makes those within Christianity feel that they are somehow better than those outsiders who they should in all reality be attempting to convince, but are really merely holding contempt for.

The Telephone Killed the Romantic in Me

Evolution is a cornerstone of communication in society.  If communication were to become stagnant then it would eventually break down and disappear entirely just as if the gene pool of a particular being were to stop changing that species would eventually die out.  Evolution is a necessity of communication.  However it seems as though, for the past 150 years, that this evolutionary process has made a misstep in direction.  As technology has advanced at a more and more rapid pace so too has the evolution of communication; in only the past century and half we've seen the rise of telephone, music, worldwide postal service, film, television, fax, and most recently the internet which has spawned a vast array of new forms including email, discussion board, instant message, voice over internet protocol, and video communication.  The problem is that with the recent strain of comm. tools communication has become depersonalized and romance has almost entirely fallen out of most forms.  Couple the depersonalization with the fact that much of the communication forms used throughout the West have actually caused devolution in language.  The Internet and telecommunications, it seems, are most responsible for this devolution because they emphasize speed and productivity.  This paper will discuss, primarily, why people need personal communication, the timeline for the evolution/devolution of communication, why this is a problem, and finally present possible solutions to the issue.

Why Religion Matters according to Huston Smith

Scientism is the enemy of culture and knowledge according to Smith. In order to further advance the knowledge of our civilization we must put away our strict bias toward science as the only haven for the answers to our great questions. We must, once again, as before the scientific revolution spun off in to scientism, allow the humanities to make their own attempt at an answer. Philosophy and religion are now seen more as pagan ritual than educating practice in the modern society. Smith purports that a civilization which is able to view things from both a quantitative (science) and qualitative (art) perspective will be much better off than the one in which one discipline is so greatly outweighed by the other, as is now the case.

Technological Innovation: Of Abundance and Want

The existence of a leisure class and the want for change are two key societal factors necessary for technological innovation. There are surely other things that factor in, such as the availability of materials, relative usefulness, and supranational interactions among many others, but the most important for the evolution of technology are the creative minds provided by a leisured class and the lesser limits that are imposed by a society open to change.