Archive

  • The Historical Development of Legal Systems

    The Historical Development of Legal Systems

    The following is a summary/reflection written during my study of the historical development of jurisprudence through Henry Sumner Maine’s Ancient Law. It was an exciting and rewarding read, hence this piece of writing. It’s also probably a bit more disconnected than usual, since Maine weaves together a large variety of ideas within short paragraphs and Read more

  • In Praise of the Romans

    In Praise of the Romans

    Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, the world was still a wild and untamed place. In the aftermath of the Bronze Age Collapse, the quest for sustenance defined the lives of beasts and men alike. Civilisation, scattered and confused, was confined to the north of the equator, in a narrow strip of the Read more

  • Liberty and 自由 (Liberty) . The dichotomy of one word between two cultures.

    Liberty and 自由 (Liberty) . The dichotomy of one word between two cultures.

    Today, there is perhaps no defining feature of the West more than the ideal of ‘liberty’, immortalised in word – ‘Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite’ – and manifested in material – the Statue of Liberty and money. We see this term as an inalienable human right, a juxtaposition of tyranny, and a sensationalist ‘mission civilisatrice’ to liberate Read more

  • Reflections From Across The Seas

    Reflections From Across The Seas

    It has been five years since with uncertain footsteps I boarded a vessel bound for the West. My luggage weighed heavy, my heart heavier still, leaden with a melancholy I did not yet know. Plump with the dew of paradise, aflame with youthful irreverence, and in defiance of orthodoxies past, my exodus had brought me Read more

  • Why do ancient historians use speeches in their works?

    Why do ancient historians use speeches in their works?

    Procopius records ‘he [Gelimer] neither wept nor cried but ceased not saying over the words of the Hebrew Scripture: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”’. Procopius commentates nothing; alas, there is no more to be said. Though in his lifetime the Mediterranean was once again a Romanum Lacum, Justinian’s empire was economically prostrate, beset on Read more

  • Can Science Really Tell Us What It Is Like To Be A Bat?

    Can Science Really Tell Us What It Is Like To Be A Bat?

    In this essay I will present the perspectives of Australian philosopher J.J.C Smart and American philosopher Thomas Nagel on the contemporary philosophical debate on the question: Can science ever tell us what it is like to be a bat? Smart presents an argument for the explanatory power of science, whilst Nagel argues the contrary, that Read more