The Tale of Happiness

One of the ways in which happiness is made to seem like an inclusive ideal is by our asserting that by definition the things that matter most to us must make us happy, that that is how we know they are good. It is as though one word could do the work of the moral …

Passive Aggressive Behaviour

Many people face passive aggressive behaviour on a regular basis and they even use it, perhaps unknowingly. How can something seemingly self-contradicting become so common? And why is it so shocking, even when compared to straightforward “normal” aggression? Passive-aggressive behaviour is when someone expresses hostility indirectly. For example, rather than say they we angry at …

I Don’t Care. Do You?

Are you annoyed by the sense that while you care, others do not? You know what, that is because of people are heartless and human civilisation is cold-hearted. The bottom line is: humans are insensitive toward others, let alone other animals. And many people buy this and say that humans are just selfish. Is that …

Memory is a Tool

It is generally considered that memory is exclusively human. But there is a difference between memory and memorisation. Most people are convinced that only people can remember. Even though it is universally believed that apes learned fairly complex gestures and are able to reproduce them, they do memorise but do not remember them. By saying …

Human Memories

Human beings have memories, as far as I can remember. Where do these memories come from? How do they get made? Human brain usually compared to a computer. But the problem is, our brain do not have USB slots that allow us to pick up new information by jamming a flash drive in our ear …

Time and Self

If we are in a waiting situation, we really feel subjective time, and it is very much involved with our emotions. It has something to do with being more or less impulsive. Being able to wait is important, because if we are not able to wait we might then miss opportunities. We have to work …

Renaissance Humanism

Introduction Renaissance Humanism was an intellectual movement that originated in the thirteenth century and came to dominate European thought during the Renaissance era. At the core of Renaissance Humanism was using the study of classical (Greek and Roman) texts to alter contemporary thinking by breaking with the medieval mindset and creating something new. Studia Humanitatis …

Humanism: An Historical View

The term “humanism” was not applied to a philosophy or belief system until the European Renaissance. The European Renaissance intellectuals were inspired by the ideas and attitudes which they discovered in forgotten manuscripts from ancient Greece and Rome. The Greek humanism itself can be identified by a number of shared characteristics: it was materialistic in …

The Early, High, and Late Middle Ages

Introduction Historians label the term “Middle Ages” to the era that is plural. This is in part because of the numerous subjects encompassed by this long period of time and in part because of the chronological sub-eras within the era. To help us understand the characteristics of this long period of time with all its …

The Middle Ages

Introduction “When did the Middle Ages start and end?” The answer to this simple question is more complicated than we might think. There is currently no true consensus among historians, authors, and educators for the precise dates – or even the general dates – that mark the beginning and end of the medieval era. The …