We often designate the 18th century as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason due to the pervasive confidence in rationality and the burgeoning optimism that distinguished the era. According to many virtuosos of rationalism, the possibility of mitigating all of our problems – social, psychological, and material – seemed not just feasible but inevitable.
Continue reading Nothing but Sophistry and Illusion
It is very likely that Blaise Pascal would’ve been one of the greatest skeptics and pessimists of all time except for a “miracle” that happened in 1639.
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From the early Seventeenth century to the early Eighteenth, artists abandoned the moderation of Renaissance classicism for a luxurious, embellished style that better expressed the extremes of their times. During this period, ongoing brutal doctrinal wars that began with the Reformation diminished the prestige and authority of Christendom. The appalling Thirty Years war (1618-1648) that devastated central Europe and reduced Germany’s population by a third, was but one of the conflicts initiated between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
Continue reading Nothing Exceeds like Excess
The moral and philosophical predicaments of Shakespeare still haunt us today. His sonnets exhibit a fixation with time, uncertainty and death, whereas his plays explore the gory existence beneath the pleasant veneer we manufacture.
Continue reading ShakespeareChapter 1: In the Beginning… There was Nothing.
Chapter 5: Nihil Perpetuum Est
Chapter 7: A Crack of Light between Two Nothings
Chapter 8: Nihil Sub Sole Novum
Chapter 9: Nothing Exceeds like Excess
Chapter 10: Nothing but Sophistry and Illusion
Chapter 12: …and Nothing Besides!
In the collected Essays, that masterpiece of self-analysis, the 16th century French essays Michel Eyquem de Montaigne began as a stoic and ended as a skeptic. The more carefully he pursued knowledge, the less he knew.
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