Things Worth Remembering: When the Earth Shakes
Residents overlooking downtown San Francisco as fires breakout across the city after the 1906 earthquake. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
Philosopher William James was thrilled by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and ‘the improvisation of order out of chaos’ that followed.
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Welcome to “Things Worth Remembering,” in which writers recall wisdom from history that we should commit to heart. Today, in a time of disruption and turmoil, Jonathan Rosen reflects on an essay by philosopher William James about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906—and how the violent upheaval inspired him to find hope in the midst of chaos.
When the great American philosopher William James was a visiting professor at Stanford University in 1906, he was flung out of bed at 5:30 in the morning by what would soon become known as the San Francisco earthquake.
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