MetaFilter posts tagged with enlightenment

"The Categorical Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Industries"

Iridic — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:13:48 -0800

The University of Michigan's collaborative translation of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encylopédie has completed some 650 selections from the Enlightenment keystone, including articles on California, vanilla, werewolves, the English language, beauty, and the complete structure of human knowledge. The project has an open call for translators to help with the 74,000 remaining articles.

how do you write "loaded" in Sanskrit?

oneirodynia — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:22:10 -0800

Drunk Yoga. An age-old practice of healing and mindful positions for the absolutely smashed. (bus stop optional)

Waste Pictures

kenko — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:25:36 -0800

Sites matching images to pregiven text have been done before, but the texts are seldom as good as those used at zweiterblick's sudelbild: the pictures are matched to (randomly selected?) aphorisms of scientist and all-around Enlightened fellow GC Lichtenberg (about whom more). The relation is sometimes fairly literal, sometimes fairly opaque, but it's worth it for the idiosyncratic selection of aphorisms in any case.

We are the footnotes of footnotes

hadjiboy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:36:39 -0800

How women have fought, and succeeded, and celebrated their victories. [previously here, and here]

Cabinet of Wonders

Kattullus — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:43:00 -0800

"What we have here is a Cabinet of Wonders, a place where things of interest are set out, in possibly bizarre, possibly fetishistic presentation, for perusal by the discerning, who understand that presentation, and scientific interest, are all a form of magic." [via Neil Gaiman]

Give Me a Lass with a Lump of Land

mwhybark — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:11:07 -0800

Eighteenth Century E-Texts, a sub-branch of Eighteenth Century Resources, maintained by Jack Lynch, of Rutgers.

Philosophy

semmi — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 20:45:20 -0800

The eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment.

Meaning of Life

andrew cooke — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:29:27 -0800

The Meaning of Life according to various rather famous people (Dennett, Fukuyama, etc). I'm watching the Dennett video at the moment and it starts rather weakly, but, by midway through, is rolling along nicely. With topics like "being good without god" and "the anthropic principle" it struck me as relevant to a couple of recent askmefi threads.
Dennett: [pause] i guess i'll say it again, more slowly...
(oh, and the player interface is rather delicate - give it time to load and click play a few times...)

Paul Kurtz on the Enlightenment

skallas — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 23:19:36 -0800

Paul Kurtz on the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, there has been a massive retreat from Enlightenment ideals in recent years, a return to pre-modern mythologies. There has been a resurgence of fundamentalist religions worldwide—Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodox Judaism. Added to this are occult-paranormal claims, which allegedly transcend the existing scientific paradigm. In the United States—the preeminent scientific-technological-military superpower in the world—significant numbers of Americans have embraced primitive forms of biblical religion. These focus on salvation, the Rapture, and the Second Coming of Jesus. Evangelical Protestant Christians have made alliances with conservative Roman Catholics and neo-conservative Jews, and they have captured political power—power they have used to oppose secular humanism and naturalism. via the council for secular humanism

Enlighten me.

lysdexic — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 10:25:50 -0800

Enlighten me, please.

lbergstr — Sun, 14 May 2000 12:48:30 -0800

Vatican Discloses 'Third Secret' of Fatima. Prophecies to shepherd children, conspiracy theories - this shit is old-school. It must be fun to be Catholic, living in a world that still has shadows and mist. I'm sick of this harsh, bright Enlightenment thinking.