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Article Title: Women in science are made to feel like impostors

 

Article Summary

This is an analytical piece of writing where the author explains why people encounter absurdity and why people think philosophers are absurd. She tries to explain how to encounter absurdity with the help of Thomas Nagel’s philosophical account of absurdity.

According to him, we encounter absurdity because we experience the clash of two perspectives from which to view the world. One perspective is that of an engaged agent that sees life from inside, from one’s heart and the other perspective is that of a detached spectator that sees life from outside.

Absurdity enters our mind when we snap between these two perspectives rapidly. If one can adopt any one of these perspectives, he can never experience absurdity at all. However, according to Nagel, we all adopt both the internal and external perspectives on our lives, one greater in degree than the other. The author feels that we should embrace absurdity as long as it doesn’t imply that nothing really matters and that all human pursuits are inherently meaningless.

Article Link: Click here to read the full article

 

Words to learn from this Article:

Intone – say or recite with little rise and fall of the pitch of the voice

Gesticulate – use gestures, especially dramatic ones, instead of speaking or to emphasise one’s words

Falter – speak hesitantly

Discrepancy – an illogical or surprising lack of compatibility or similarity between two or more facts

Diorama – a model representing a scene with three-dimensional figures, either in miniature or as a large-scale museum exhibit

Supine – failing to act or protest as a result of moral weakness or indolence

Infatuation – an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something

Intractable – hard to control or deal with

Ascetic – characterized by severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons

Fervent – having or displaying a passionate intensity

Tepid – (especially of a liquid) only slightly warm; lukewarm

 

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