Genius, pt. X
In my previous post in this series, Eric Weiner was at the end of his trip in Florence. After his discoveries in the Italian capital, he went to Edinburgh to continue his learning about “The Geography of Genius.” During Edinburgh’s
golden age, “Scots made major contributions to – and in many cases invented – the fields of chemistry, geology, engineering, economics, sociology, philosophy, poetry and painting. Adam Smith brought us the “invisible hand” of capitalism, and James Hutton a radical new understanding of our planet.”
Like the places before it, there were a lot of geniuses in Edinburgh during it’s golden age and the author wrote about many of them. The one I found the most interesting was David Hume, a philosopher, historian, economist and essayist. I thought it was interesting that “Hume aimed to understand how we understand. Where do we get knowledge from? After engaging in a series of thought experiments, he reached the then-radical conclusion that all knowledge comes through direct experience – through our senses and only our senses.”
Using English as a tool to communicate is what I always try to make my students do in their class, but some students, especially the new ones, take time to realize that they have to actually say something instead of using up a lot of time thinking about what they should say or think is the right or perfect thing to say in order to get better at speaking English.
I think it’s my job to help them realize that, and I hope that I can. But I’m actually not a very patient person, so to my students in the past, present and future, I apologize. I’m not a very patient person, but I always want you to get better at English through experience.