Category: Environment
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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October 18, 2019
Thanks to Jennifer Taylor, a 2019 Harrison Middleton University Fellow in Ideas recipient, for today’s post.
Harari, Yuval N. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. [Toronto]: Signal, 2014.
I have often heard that if we choose not to learn from the mistakes of history, we will inevitably end up repeating them. Though it is undeniably very practical advice to be aware of the perils and pitfalls to which we as human beings are susceptible,
July 19, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In Creative Evolution, Henri Bergson uses natural science as the basis for his arguments towards a new understanding of reality. This July, a group of us discussed two sections from Creative Evolution in order to better understand Bergson’s philosophical ideas. In this work, Bergson explains that two popular views of reality cannot fully account for the way that the world presents itself.
April 26, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Spring is upon us. Just as blossoms begin to show their strength, color, and vibrancy, so too the weather changes and begins to warm. All of the seasonal changes often add up to a change in attitude as well. Flowers, I believe, bring out the best of human nature, fostering images of beauty, strength, love, hope, and imagination. But where does the beauty begin?
March 1, 2019
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I never needed a reason to love the world, I simply just always have. With its faults and near-misses, its greed and its hope. I love the way it is patched together like a great quilt of countries and languages, mountains and deserts. Most of all, I love, and am humbled by the fact that somehow I participate in that great,
September 21, 2018
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
According to Merriam-Webster, a weed is either A) a plant that is not valued where it is growing, or B) an obnoxious growth, thing or person. In better understanding how we use the term “weed” and what it signifies, I want to demonstrate how categories perform in speech. (FYI, while I will not be discussing marijuana in this post,
November 3, 2017
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
In celebration of fall color, today’s blog offers excerpts from both Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold. Both passages celebrate life, love and the mystery of nature. They also ask deep questions about the human place within nature. Changing colors and seasons present the perfect time for reflection. Enjoy – and happy fall!
Photo credit: Alissa Simon
From Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson,
May 26, 2017
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Many veterans have shaped our history in both service through military and then ongoing service after their military careers. All military contributions are incalculable, but important for contemplation and discussion. Additionally, the contributions of those once they have left military service is worth our contemplation. Veterans often face great unknowns in their military career, and then upon leaving the service,
April 7, 2017
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“It is only by becoming sensible of our natural disadvantages that we shall be roused to exertion, and prompted to seek out opportunities of discovering the operations now in progress, such as do not present themselves readily to view.” – Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell first published the Principles of Geology in 1830. However, over the next thirty years,
March 31, 2017
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“The word saguaro originated in Ópata, a language spoken by peoples of the Sonoran Desert region of Mexico. It came into English by way of the Spanish spoken by the Mexican settlers of the American West. The very saguaros we see today may well have been around when the word was first noted, some 150 years ago –
December 2, 2016
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Does a single word contain a saturation point? In other words, at some point, does a word begin to lose meaning simply because it has accumulated too many definitions? Translation can be a tricky business when we understand that a simple word can carry the weight of a contemporaneous discussion. For example, today’s blog leads us through a few examples of the evolution of the word “green”.