Sex on the Beach with Montaigne and Descartes
In the second installment of our FS Bar series (see here for the first), philosophers Montaigne and Descartes discuss the utility of experience, what kind of knowledge we should seek, and sex on the …
Michel de Montaigne
How to Remember What You Read
Why is it that some people seem to be able to read a book once and remember every detail of it for life, while others struggle to recall even the title a few days after putting down a book? The answer …
Montaigne’s Rule for Reading: The Promiscuous Pursuit of Pleasure
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) might have been the original essayist. George Orwell before George Orwell. Montaigne was well-read, smart, critical, and possesed a tendency to write in a personal …
Fooled By Randomness: My Notes
I loved Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Taleb. This is the first popular book he wrote, the book that helped propel him into an intellectual …
Seneca on Gathering Ideas And Combinatorial Creativity
“Combinatory play,” said Einstein, “seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.” Ruminating on the necessity of both reading and writing, so as not to confine ourselves to …
The Stoic Reading List: Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus and More
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. — Marcus Aurelius Do you know the section of the book after the last chapter? The one that everyone ignores? …
Are Our Opinions Really Our Own?
Here’s something worth reflecting upon: We take other men’s knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning. We must make them our own. We are just like a man …
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne, one of the most erudite humanists of the 16th century, died on September 13th in 1592. [B]orn in 1533 into the minor nobility of his family’s estate near Bordeaux. … His …