1.6 The social context of Babylonian mathematical activity The extant mathematical tablets from the Old Babylonian period fall broadly into two categories, table texts and problem texts. You have seen examples of both of these. The weighing-the-stone problem with which we started is from a problem text, while all the others—the table of squares, the reciprocal table and Plimpton 322—are table texts, tablets consisting solely of tables of numbers. Several hundred table texts have been found, and many types of calculations appear to h
1.5.2 What is the significance of the numbers? In seeking the significance of these numbers, there is more information on the tablet that we have not yet taken into account, namely the text of the column headings themselves. The heading of column A is partly destroyed, but the text headings for B and C are clearer. B says something like ‘ib-sa of the front’, and C ‘ib-sa of the diagonal’, where ib-sa is a Sumerian word whose significance here is not precisely known. The geometrical
6 Conclusion William Wilberforce died on 29 July 1833, two days after hearing that the legislation for the abolition of slavery in British dominions had successfully completed its passage through the House of Commons, a fitting conclusion to the work he had begun nearly half a century before. The Practical View both reflected and contributed to a major shift in religious consciousness of which the continuing growth of the Evangelical movement was the most striking manifestation. Methodist num
5.1 The reception of Hume's views ‘Of suicide’ was received with the same degree of public hostility as his essay on immortality. Here is what an anonymous reviewer of the 1777 posthumous edition of both essays had to say in the Monthly Review (1784, vol. 70, pp. 427–8): Were a drunken libertine to throw out such nauseous stuff in the presence of his Bacchanalian companions, there might be some excuse for him; but were any man to advan 7.1 The Enlightenment, the French Revolution, Britain and Europe Je suis tombé par terre, C'est la faute à Voltaire; Le nez dans le ruisseau, C'est la faute à Rousseau [I've tumbled to the ground thanks to Voltaire; With my nose in the brook, thanks to Rousseau] So ran a ditty popular after the Revolution, which blamed it on Voltaire and Rousseau. 2.5.1 Imagery of the Declaration The decree on the abolition of nobility drew the line at damage to property, ownership of property having been proclaimed a natural right in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. (The decree is evidence that, as is known from other sources, the crowd was taking the law into its own hands by ransacking chateaux, destroying records of seigneurial dues, etc.) 2.5 Declaration of the Rights of Man On 26 August 1789, the Assembly passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen as the preamble to a constitution drawn up in 1791. (The Declaration also prefaced the later constitutions of 1793 and 1795.)
2.3 Fall of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 In a similar mood of aggrieved self-righteousness and revolutionary exultation came the fall of the Bastille, the medieval fortress and prison of Paris, on 14 July 1789. A catastrophic harvest in 1788 had provoked food riots in Paris and elsewhere. Louis XVI, alarmed both by this unrest and by the unexpected belligerence of the Third Estate, called troops into Paris to maintain order. It was feared that he also aimed to suppress the National Assembly, which rallied its supporters. The Parisia 1.8 Conflict and tension The management of a site such as Aberdulais Falls by its very nature highlights conflicting interests and tensions. Some relate to problems caused by the decision-making process itself, which can be slow and has to accommodate a range of interests of the various client bodies. For example, when a new information centre was to be built on the site, the client bodies involved in making decisions about its overall appearance, form and fabric were: the National Trust Planning Committee, the Acknowledgements The material acknowledged below is Proprietary (not subject to Creative Commons licensing) and used under licence. See terms and conditions. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following: Figure 1 Bodleian Library; Figure 2 Keele University, Turner Collection; Figure 7 Deutsches Museum, Munich. The material acknowledged below is contained in The History of Mathematics – A Reader (1987) J Fauvel and 2.5 Is the author dead? When Roland Barthes (1915–80) wrote ‘The Death of the Author’ (first published 1968, reprinted in Barthes 1977), he did not mean that, like Wimsatt and Beardsley, the author had been, or should always have been, absent in the interpretation of art works. Instead his position is a historicised one: while once it might have been acceptable to refer to the author in the interpretation of an art work, now, in a post-modern world, it is not. Michel Foucault (1926–84) responded to Barthes ( 1.2 The myth of the artist Consider Howard Hibbard's analysis of Caravaggio's The Martyrdom of St Matthew in the Contarelli chapel (Langdon Plate 19 – see the Web Gallery of Art at http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/caravagg/04/index.html) from his monograph, Caravaggio (1983). Hibbard identifies the figure at the rear to the left of the semi-naked executioner as the artist's self-portrait: ‘a bearded, saturnine villain who is none other than Caravaggio himself’. Discography Details of the recordings of Schubert's lieder provided in this unit are as follows: 'Heidenrölein' Irmgard Seefreid, Hermann von Nordberg (rec 1947), TESTAMENT SBT 1026 'Wanderers Nachtlied' Hans Hotter, Gerald Moore (rec 1949), EMI CDH5 65196-2 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' References 3.4 Strawson: Section VI There is only one more section left in the paper. Here, as we would expect, Strawson returns to the way in which he set out the problem (in II:4) and makes good his promise to ‘[give] the optimist something more to say’. 1 Introducing the concept of the 'person' and 'persons' This unit explores what it is to be a person. There are several philosophical questions around the nature of personhood. In this unit we will be exploring hat it is that defines the concept. As you read on, you will notice that this area of enquiry has evolved its own semi-technical vocabulary. The plural of ‘person’ is, in this area of enquiry, standardly ‘persons’ rather than ‘people’. It is not difficult to see the reason for this. The question ‘What are people?’ is poten Introduction This unit asks what it is to be a person. You will see that there are several philosophical questions around the nature of personhood. Here we explore what it is that defines the concept. As you work through the unit, you will notice that this area of enquiry has developed its own semi-technical vocabulary. The plural of ‘person’ is, in this area of enquiry, ‘persons’ rather than ‘people’. It is easy to see the reason for this. The question ‘What are people?’ is potentially c 4.2.4 Verbs Verbs are the most important words of all, as is suggested by the fact that the verb in both English and Latin is named after the Latin word uerbum, word! Without a verb, a sentence cannot be a proper sentence, or a clause a proper clause. A one-word sentence consists of a verb only, for example, Run! The ending of a Latin verb shows who the doer of the action of the verb is (which is why there is usually no need of a pronoun to show this). Below are the pres 4.2 Parts of speech In describing the grammar of written Latin, the best method is to use the traditional classical grammar, as worked out by the Greeks and Romans themselves. As a preliminary, it may be useful to learn the ‘parts of speech’ in English. A very brief explanation follows, and then a much fuller discussion.
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