Category Archives: The Sophist

“It is not me, it is the harvest” : Mencius on Economic Development and Sustainability

In front of a pair of hefty fortress gates at the state of Wei, billowing dust obscured the silhouette of an old man. The visitor’s reputation preceded him. He requested an audience with the king. This man was Mencius, from the 300s BCE.

Rousseau’s “Sad and Great System”: A Conversation with Professor Storey

Among Rousseau’s greatest concerns was human dividedness. How does Rousseau suggest solving this problem? After leading a seminar organized by the Yale Buckley Program in June, Professor Benjamin Storey at Furman University sat down with The Politic over Zoom to offer some explanations.

Remaining Somewhere in Between: Deconstructing the Mythical Past

One may argue that the Orient and the Occident neither are nor can become the things they represent, since language is always prone to being representative. This exercise regarding paintings under the light of language and representation may alert the need to change our constructed way of understanding the Occident and the Orient.

Idle and Vain: The Inverse Relationship Between Intellectual Pursuits and Morality

As we study in university, passing daily through an academic institution (toward our next station in life), Rousseau suspects we are only contributing to the deterioration of societal morals. “Morals” for Rousseau translates the French word mœurs, which is used in the general sense encompassing social manners, norms, and custom. From a thinker of the Enlightenment period, Rousseau’s stance inspires a double take.

Sisyphus, Sartre, and Searching for Meaning during COVID

One freak occurrence across the globe froze our lives in place. A microscopic fleck of protein prevented us all from seeing our families and friends, from attending parties and movies, from even showing our faces in public. How can we continue to live, knowing that existence itself is so fragile, so chaotic, so absurd?