http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab His pact with Muhammad bin Saud helped to establish the first Saudi state[5] and began a dynastic alliance and power-sharing arrangement between their families which continues to the present day in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.[6] The descendants of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, the Al ash-Sheikh, have historically led the ulama in the Saudi state,[7] dominating the state's clerical institutions.[8] Early years[edit] Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab is generally acknowledged[9] to have been born in 1703[10] into the sedentary Arab clan of Banu Tamim[11] (the Banu Tamim were not a nomadic tribe) in 'Uyayna, a village in the Najd region of the modern Saudi Arabia.[10][12] He was thought to have started studying Islam at an early age, primarily with his father, ʿAbd al-Wahhab[13][14] as his family was from a line of scholars of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence.[15] Following his early education in Medina, Abdul Wahhab traveled outside of the peninsula, venturing first to Basra. Early preaching[edit]
Cognitive closure (philosophy) It cannot be simply taken for granted that the human reasoning faculty is naturally suited for answering philosophical questions: the questions and their subject matter are one thing; and rational faculty, as a human trait, is another. From the fact that it is the best faculty we have… for doing philosophy it does not follow that it is a remotely good or adequate faculty for that purpose.[3]—Colin McGinn, Problems in Philosophy: The Limits of Inquiry When human minds interact with philosophical problems, especially those of the form 'How is X possible?', they are apt to go into one of four possible states. Either (i) they try to domesticate the object of puzzlement by providing a reductive or explanatory theory of it; or (ii) they declare it irreducible and hence not open to any levelling account; or (iii) they succumb to a magical story or image of what seems so puzzling; or (iv) they simply eliminate the source of trouble for fear of ontological embarrassment...
The Plague The Plague (French: La Peste) is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to show the effects the plague has on a populace. The novel is believed to be based on the cholera epidemic that killed a large percentage of Oran's population in 1849 following French colonization, but the novel is placed in the 1940s.[1] Oran and its environs were struck by disease multiple times before Camus published this novel. According to a research report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Oran was decimated by the plague in 1556 and 1678, but all later outbreaks, in 1921 (185 cases), 1931 (76 cases), and 1944 (95 cases), were very far from the scale of the epidemic described in the novel.
Muhammad bin Saud Muhammad ibn Saud (Arabic: محمد بن سعود ) (d. 1765), also known as Ibn Saud, was the emir of Al-Dir'iyyah and is considered the founder of the First Saudi State and the Saud dynasty, which are technically named for his father – Saud ibn Muhammad ibn Migrin. Ibn Saud's family (then known as the Al Migrin) traced its descent to the tribe of 'Anizzah but, despite popular misconceptions, Muhammad ibn Saud was neither a nomadic bedouin nor was he a tribal leader. Rather, he was the chief (emir) of an agricultural settlement near modern-day Riyadh, called Diriyyah.[1] Furthermore, he was a competent and ambitious desert warrior.[1] Dream argument The dream argument is the postulation that the act of dreaming provides preliminary evidence that the senses we trust to distinguish reality from illusion should not be fully trusted, and therefore any state that is dependent on our senses should at the very least be carefully examined and rigorously tested to determine whether it is in fact reality. Synopsis[edit] In Eastern philosophy and especially Chinese philosophy, this type of argument is well known as "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly" (莊周夢蝶 Zhuāngzhōu mèng dié): One night, Zhuangzi (369 BC) dreamed that he was a carefree butterfly, flying happily. After he woke up, he wondered how he could determine whether he was Zhuangzi who had just finished dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who had just started dreaming he was Zhuangzi. This was a metaphor for what he referred to as a "great dream": He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt.
The Stranger From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search The Stranger or Stranger may refer to: Literature[edit] Fictional characters and stage personae[edit] Phantom Stranger, a character in the DC Comics UniverseThe Handsome Stranger, early stage name for American professional wrestler Buff Bagwell (born 1970) Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS (/ˈɪzəmbɑrd bruːˈnɛl/; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859), was an English mechanical and civil engineer who built dockyards, the Great Western Railway, a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering. Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. During his short career, Brunel achieved many engineering "firsts", including assisting in the building of the first tunnel under a navigable river and development of SS Great Britain, the first propeller-driven ocean-going iron ship, which was at the time (1843) also the largest ship ever built.[1][2]
Tetrapharmakos The Tetrapharmakos (τετραφάρμακος) "four-part remedy" is a summary of the first four of the Κύριαι Δόξαι (Kuriai Doxai, the forty Epicurean Principal Doctrines given by Diogenes Laërtius in his Life of Epicurus) in Epicureanism, a recipe for leading the happiest possible life. They are recommendations to avoid anxiety or existential dread.[1] The four-part cure[edit] Nobel Prize in Literature One of the five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Alfred Nobel The Nobel Prize in Literature (Swedish: Nobelpriset i litteratur) is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction" (original Swedish: "den som inom litteraturen har producerat det mest framstående verket i en idealisk riktning").[2][3] Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, the award is based on an author's body of work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize. The academy announces the name of the laureate in early October. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. It was not awarded in 2018, but two names will be awarded in 2019.[4][5][6]