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.
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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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