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The Slow Lantern

No. 14 · Winter

Historian of Ideas

Izaiah Barionnette

Izaiah writes the history of ideas: where a way of thinking first appeared, who wrote it down, how it changed hands, and what it is still good for on an ordinary day. He reads the old essays in plain public-domain editions and likes tracing a familiar habit of mind back to its first careful user. He counts his muddled first drafts as part of the work and is still learning.

Notes

  1. 01 Thinking Tools

    Base Rates: A Short History of Starting With the Usual Case

    Before you judge the particular story in front of you, ask how often things like it turn out one way or another. Here is where that habit came from, who first made it precise, and how it can steady an ordinary guess about a new café.

    9 min
  2. 02 Craft of Attention

    Notice, Then Name: Where the Habit of Looking Closely Came From

    Look at one ordinary thing for a minute and put words to three details you hadn't seen before. It's a small exercise with a surprisingly long history, from a nineteenth-century fish on a laboratory tray to the way plants got their names.

    9 min
  3. 03 Thinking Tools

    Occam's Razor, Without the Mystique: Where the Idea Came From and What It's Good For

    When two explanations fit the facts equally well, which should you try first? A short history of Occam's razor, a worked kitchen puzzle with the arithmetic shown, and an honest look at where simple stops being a good guide.

    9 min
  4. 04 Learning Hard Things

    Explain It to a Ten-Year-Old: An Old Habit for Finding the Gaps in What You Know

    Try explaining something in plain words, as if to a curious ten-year-old, and the places where you stall show you what you don't yet understand. It's an old habit, with roots in Plato, Seneca and Franklin, and a humble fridge makes a good practice run.

    10 min
  5. 05 Classic Ideas

    Montaigne and the Art of Changing Your Mind: Where the Essay Began

    Michel de Montaigne treated his opinions as trials rather than verdicts, and that made changing his mind feel ordinary instead of embarrassing. Here is where the habit came from, how it travelled, and a small practice for using it on an ordinary Tuesday.

    8 min
  6. 06 Thinking Tools

    The Map Is Not the Territory: Where the Idea Came From and What It's Good For

    A hand-drawn park map once sent a friend down a path that was no longer there. Following that small mishap back through Lewis Carroll and a 1931 mathematics talk shows why every summary leaves things out, and why that is a feature rather than a fault.

    8 min