Thursday, June 29, 2017

Reccomended Reading

RECCOMENDED READING:


Tools of Titans- Tim Ferris
Man's Search for Meaning- Viktor Frankl
The Power of Myth- An Interview with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell; often transcribed.
The Joseph Campbell Companion-
The Einstein Factor- Win Wenger

The Enchridion- Epictetus
Sun Tzu's Art of War- (such as the Samul B. Griffith translation)
Dao de Ching- Lao Tzu

Re-invention- A book by Brian Tracy (Self-improvement)

The Mongol Warlords-
Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world-

Science and Civilization in China- Joseph Needham



RECCOMENDED WEBSITES:  azquotes.com

ancestry.com (study your ancestral past and your genealogy)

youtube and wikipedia

Monday, June 19, 2017

Top ten Roman scholars!

1. Columella- Agricultre

2. Varro- Agriculture

3. Cicero- Roman philosopher, lawyer and politician.

4. Seneca the younger- philosophy (stoic philosophy)

5. Boethius- Stoic philosopher (more of a medieval one but could be classified as a Roman)

6. Tacitus- history

7. Vitruvius- Roman architect who was "rediscovered" in western Europe around 1414.

8. Pliny the Elder- Natural historian, wrote an Encyclopedia; perhaps the first to remain intact until modern times. 

9. Pliny the Younger

10.   Horace- Roman lyric poet.

Carpe Diem!


HONORARY MENTIONS:

Sallust- Roman historian

Vegetius- who wrote on warfare and veterenary science. Not sure whether to classify him as a Roman or a byzantine or whomever.

Juvenal- Roman Poet

Lucretius-Another Roman poet

Plautus- Roman playwright

Ovid

Livy- Roman historian

Virgil- Roman poet

Martial

Suetonius

Terrence-

Aelian- Roman teacher or rhetoric, who spoke Greek fluently, and wrote a beastiary and some history.

Martianus Capella- From Roman Carthage.

Top Ten Greek scholars!

1. Aristotle- His individual contributions to science, logic, and humanities might be overrated individually; but collectively they are significant.

2. Archimedes- Greek Mathematician, physicist, engineer, and astronomer.

3. Pythagoras- Philosopher, astronomer, geometer.  often considered the first to propose or popularize the notion of a spherical Earth. 

4. Claudius Ptolemy- Greek mathematician, astronomer, geographer.  Most notable work was his Almagest.   Lived in Alexandria, wrote in Koine Greek and held Roman citizenship (according to Wikipedia.)

5. Eratosthenes- Made a measure of the Earth's circumference

6. Hipparchus- noted Greek scholar in Trigonometry; the invention of the Astrolabe is often attributed to him

7. Theophrastus- Botany

8. Euclid-  A Greek geometer

9. Hippocrates-

10. Diophantus- noted Alexandrian Greek scholar in the field of Algebra

HONORARY MENTIONS:

Apollonius of Perga- Greek geometer and astronomer and Greek scholar in the field of conics.


Menelaus of Alexandria- Greek astronomer and mathemetician.


Aristarchos of Samos- (astronomy)

Megasthenes- An ethnic Greek Indologist

Hero of Alexandria- Greek mathemetician and engineer. Often said to have invented the wind-wheel.

Plutarch- Historian, wrote "Plutarch's lives" and "Rise of Rome"

Sophocles- Greek playwright

Pedanius Dioscorides- Greco-Roman pharmocologist

Galen- Greco-Roman scholar in the field of medicine

Xenophon of Athens- Greek historian, soldier, and mercenary.

Philo of Byzantium- Greek engineer and writer on mechanics

Thucydides- Greek historian and general.

 Dionysius of Halicarnassus- Another of the more notable Greek historians.

Soranus of Ephesus-Greek gynecologist. But let it also be noted that the Greeks got a lot of their medicine from the Egyptian Papyruses. 

 Demosthenes-  Greek statesman and orator


Paul of Aegina (Byzantine)- noted medieval surgeon

John Philoponus- (Byzantine, unclear extraction)- Wrote a critique of Aristotle long before Ibn Sina or Galileo did. Marginalized in his own time; hence why he is even less famous than the Arab scholars.

Thales of Miletus-

Solon- Athenian statesman

Pericles-Athenian Statesman
Aeschylus- A Greek playwright (often considered a father of tragedy), though only 7 of his plays are still intact (and the authorship of these is often disputed as well). 

Euripedes-  Another Greek playwright in the field of tragedy.  Perhaps 18 of his plays are still intact.   


Euphorion- Son of Euripides; it is not certain if any of his plays are still around.  Often speculated to be author of the play "Prometheus bound".  


Pyrrh-  Perhaps the founder of Greek skepticism

Sextus Empiricus- Greco-Roman scholar in the field of skepticism


 Polybius- Greek historian who studied the second Punic war.

 Cassius Dio- A Greco-Roman scholar from Bythinia and historian. 
 

Strabo- Greco-Roman geographer. Did other fields (such as geology, philosophy, and history) though I am not sure if those works survived in their entirety. I'd say his geography was rediscovered in the Catholic west around 1469.

Crates of Mallus- Stoic philosopher and grammarian, though lots of his work has been lost. But he is often said to have made the first globe of the Earth.

Crates bay in Antarctica is named after him.

Appollonius Dyscolus- Greek Grammarian, some of his works have actually survived in their completion.

Aretaeus of Cappadocia- A greek medical scholar. I don't think he was rediscovered in the west until 1552 though (by which his medical work was probably superseded IMO).

Chrysippus- Stoic philosopher in ethics and logic. His logic was either mostly lost or not that influential in the west until the 19th century. Stoic logic was marginalized in favor of Aristotlean logic; though stoic logic was perhaps and influence on muslim logicinas such as Al-Farabi.

Posidonius- Noted Greek polymath, a respected source on his day, particularly in reference to study of the celts. His works have been lost though.

Selueucus of Selucia- Greek astronomer; also proposed a heliocentric thesis.

Appian- Greco-Roman scholar, thought not all of his histories have survived. 


-------------------------------------------
And of course, Greek and Greco-Roman philosophers such as:

Socrates
Zeno of Citium- Founder of stoicism
Epicurus- Epicurean hedonism. Good philosopher though
Diogenes- More or less the most noted Cynic; and one of my favorites.
Epictetus- More or less the most noted stoic philosopher

Panaetius- stoic philosopher

Antisthenes- Arguably the founder of cynic philosophy

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Top 50 philosophers in history

1. Thomas Jefferson
2. Noam Chomsky
3. Joseph Campbell
4. Ben Franklin
5. Edmund Burke
6. Viktor Frankl
7. Baltasar Gracian
8. Sun tzu
9. Epicurus
10. Epictetus
11. Buddha
12. Pythagoras-quite notable as a philosopher as well as a mathematician and astronomer.
13. Aristotle
14. Socrates
15. Lao-tzu
16. Diogenes
17.   Voltaire
18. Willliam James- American psychologist and philosopher
19.  Ramana Maharshi- Hindu sage...
20. John Stuart Mill
21. Sophocles
22.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
23. Seneca the younger 
24. Confucius
25. Musashi Miyamoto
26. John Taylor Gatto 
27. Edward Gibbon

28.   Ibn Taymiyyah
   
29. Will Durant-US historian and philosopher
30. Mahavira- A founder of Jainism
31.Bertrand Russell
32. Plutarch
33. Boddhidharma-  Chinese zen philosopher who trained Shaolin monks according to legend
34. Zeno of Citium- Founder of stoic thought
35. John Dewey- Another American educator
36.  Samuel Johnson
37.  Gore Vidal
38. Montesquieu
39.   Diderot
40.  Pierre Gassendi
41.   Zhuangzi
42. Al-Farabi- Perhaps the most notable philosopher to come out of the Islamicate
43.  Eckheart Tolle
44.  Jordan Peterson
45.  Tacitus
46.   Thucydides
47.  Swami Vivekananda
48. Peter Drucker
49.  Albert Ellis
50.  Henry Maslow
-----------------------

HONORARY MENTIONS:

Ibn Battuta- More of a scholar and traveler than a philosopher....

Poets such as Rumi and Hafez and Charles Bukowski.

You can read quotes by all these philosophers and intellectuals at:

http://www.azquotes.com/

OTHER: Those in the field of self improvement such as Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Steve Pavlina, Brian Tracy,  and Elliott Hulse, Og Mandino, James Allen, (who wrote as a Man thinketh) Earl Nightingale, Jack Canfield, Napoleon Hill, Jocko Willink and stuff.   Also Leo (of Actualised.org).

Tim Ferris and his noted book "Tools of Titans" is also worth a read.

Religious Texts:  The Vedas, the Zoroastrian Avesta

Friday, May 26, 2017

Top Ten Arab scholars:

Here, I will make a list of top ten Arab scholars; some who have been aforementioned on this blog. Later on, we will have top ten Moorish or Persian scholars. But for now....TEH TYOP TEN:

1. Ibn Khaldun- Sociology, economics, history, demography.

2.Al-Batani- (perhaps the most notable astronomer of the middle ages. Well, besides the Indian astronomer Aryabhatta.)

Like Aryubhatta, I think he did trigonometry as well as astronomy. Possibly of Sabian extraction; but noted as an Arab scholar according to Wikipedia.

3. Alhazen- A father of optics. Noted in physics as well. One of the more notable contributors (if not the most notable medieval contributor) to the improvement of the scientific method.

4. Al-Kindi- Cryptography. Modern cryptography started with the Arabs according to David Khan in his noted work "The Codebreakers"

5. Al-Nafis- Analyzed pulminary circulation centuries before William Harvey.

From Damascus and Cairo.

6. Al-Jazari- The father of robotics

7. Al-Jahiz- Biology. Put forth a hypothesis for evolution

8. Ahmad ibn Mājid-navigation and cartography, oceanography. A noted Omani navigator in the 1400s nicknamed "The Lion of the Sea"

9. Al-Masudi- The "Herodotus" of the Arabs. Geography and history.
Combined geography and history in his noted work

"Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems"

10 Al-Asma'i-zoology, botany, biology, animal husbandry and anatomy.



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HONORARY MENTIONS:


Abū Kāmil Shujāʿ ibn Aslam- Wrote the book on Algebra. Probably the most notable Muslim scholar in the field besides Al-Kwarizmi.



Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi- Egyptology and medicine



Al-Damiri- Zoology- Detailed about 931 animals, their dietary and medical use.


Al-Muqaddasi- Geography

Umar- Noted Caliph

Ibn Abi Usaibia- Noted medical historian


Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud- Arab mathemetician


Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani- Arab grammarian, astronomer, geographer, poet and historian

Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi- Wrote the first dictionary of the Arab language. Lexicographer and philologist.

Ibn Butlan- Arab Nestorian Christian from Baghdad. Wrote a manual on hygiene that caught on it late medieval western Europe.

Ibn Wahshiyya- Polymath in the fields of Alchemy, farm toxicology, agriculture, Egyptology, and history. Was from Iraq.

Mentioned the Harrow (agricultural tool) in his works; which he claimed he learned from the Babylonians during the 10th century.

Ibn al-Shatir- Arab astronomer who drastically reformed the Ptolemaic models according to wikipedia by introducing extra epicycles.

Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi- Wrote the earliest surviving work on the positional use of Indo-Arabic numerals. Also noted for using decimal fractions and carrying out calculations without deletion.





---------------------------------------------
Thābit ibn Qurra-a founder of statics (mechanics). But he was more of a Sabian.

Banū Mūsā scholars- Automation

(might have been of Persian extraction; but generally associated with Baghdad).

Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber)- Chemistry. Although, he might have been Persian.

Usamah ibn Munqidh- Poet, courtier, and diplomat, unclear extraction. Lived and wrote during the crusades; often about them.


Al-Mawardi-judge, diplomat, and author of influential works on governance and ethics- Might have been a Kurd though

Ibn Al-Athir- Arab or Kurdish historian


Hunayn ibn Ishaq- Noted translater of classical knowledge (especially of Galen)- Actually an Assyrian Christian


Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Maṭar- Mathemetician and translator who translated Euclid's "Elements" in to Arabic.



OTHER: Here is a list of Arab scholars according to wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_and_scholars

list of Muslim scholars generally:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_scientists

Moorish Raiders

Here, I will study Moorish Raiders in the context of 721-1000

The west lost Sicily, Andalucia, and many of it's cities were sacked by a bunch of Moorish raiders.

The raiders had their reversals however (most notable Tours).

Moorish raiders also conquered Malta and Crete (although they lost Crete ultimately, because it revolted). Moorish pirates also sacked Thessalonica, MonteCasino and Marseilles. Then there was the quasi-sack of Rome in 846.

It was from 827-961 that Crete was taken over by Andalusian exiles.

For a while, there were even "mountain Moors" who established a fortress for decades in Europe. Arabian raider may also have sacked Pisa in 1004. The Moors may also have sacked Pamplona in 924.


The noted Moorish general Almanzor sacked Barcelona according to wikipedia. Rather than re-take northern Spain; he sacked some of their cities; such as Santiago and Leon.

One thing you'll notice about Moorish raiders is how haphazard they were. They had major conquests (such as Sicily), but major botches (such as Toulouse, and perhaps, their raids of Sardinia). I wonder why that is.

It's possible that raiders, privateers are useful not despite but because their they are haphazard. If they win; it's a win. If they lose, all you've lost is a bunch of brigands. Although raids were often government backed; the Mulsim-world by 721 was already becoming too large to generalize.

Either way, a threat is established, and bandits are given their busywork.

I'd still like to know why the west fought curiously well against the Moorish Raiders in the context of 721-814 (Odo to Charlemagne)

In the 10th century the Moors had a notable fortress in Provence called Fraxinet. But they were defeated by William 1 of Provence at the battle of Tourtour in 973.

EXPULSION OF THE MOORS AND MORISCOES
----------------------------------------
The Moors were expelled in 1525 from Spain.

The Moriscoes (Christian Moors, or those deemed as false converts) were expelled in 1614.

I think some of those who fled went to the Maghreb or even the Ottoman Empire.
-----------------------------------------
Republic of Sale

Was a short lived republic during the 1600s in modern day Morrocco; perhaps a side effect of the expulsion of Moors and Moriscoes from Spain.

Indeed, it may have had a Dutch Admiral and President Jan Janszoon (AKA Murad Reis)

In 1625 they may have sacked a Cornish town (though admittedly I don't have a respectable reference for that)

-------------------------------
NOTES:

In 700 Arabs captured the Italian island of Pantelleria. In 1553 the Turks got it.

The Arabs had malta but I think the Normans got it back.

Saracen raiders even established a threat to Lazio (latium), and sacked the Abbey of Farfa.

"random" notes

*Asturian rebels sacked Lisbon in 798

*from 815-1008, Cordoba Caliphate was on the offensive.

*Exploits of the Moorish general Al-Mansur; sacked every major non-occupied city in Spain if I am not mistaken

*The first Crusade was a success, in part because the Seljuk Empire had devoluted in 1092, and because it was backed by the Byzantines.

* Saladin won the second crusade

*Richard the Lion Heart won the Third Crusade. However, he failed to re-take Jerusalem.

I think he also took Cyprus from the Byzantines.

*The Crusaders twice invaded Egypt, and failed

*Baibers took the Krek De Chevalier, and re-took Antioch

*1291, Acre Castle fell to the Egyptians


*The second Mongolian invasion of Hungary was a blunder. This was in part because of the Golden Horde. By 1285 (the second Mongol invasion of Hungary), the Mongol Empire had devoluted

*The first Mongol invasion of Europe by Ogodei and Subodei was a success. Mistakes are mitigated by the fact that they were moot compared to the mistakes Mongols made fighting the Indians; or how much they were slowed down in Korea.


Wenceslaus I of Bohemia-Falsely rumored to have defeated the Mongols at the battle of Olmutz.



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Quantas Airlines- flag carrier airline of Australia.
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Hans Lippershey- Is often credited as the inventor of the telescope; although it may have been invented earlier.




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CHINESE AGRICULTURE

China had multiple seed drills.

Medieval China was good at plow-making by the Tang dynasty.

China, of course, wrote agricultural treatises too.