Based in Italy, Jeanet Maduro de Polanco is an academic and aspiring writer studying history and philosophy. Since she was a young sprite, Jeanet sought after knowledge of the past, savoring stories her parents would read to her about history and world events.
While some shrink in the face of history—the world’s age can make us feel so small at times—Jeanet reacted oppositely. Learning about the past made her feel as if she was part of something greater. As she got older, her love for history grew alongside her and began carving a professional path.
Jeanet Maduro de Polanco possesses a dual Bachelor’s in History and the Classics. Shortly after graduating university with her undergraduate degree, she pursued her Master’s in History and has since been working towards her Ph.D. Along the way, she developed an appreciation for philosophy—the beliefs rooted in humanity and history—which turned into a new obsession.
She dove headfirst into the works of Aristotle, Plato and, of course, Socrates. Most fascinating to Jeanet is the fact that all of the questions she’s found herself pondering over throughout her life are asked by philosophers and, to an extent, answered by philosophers. This simple realization lends itself well to the study of history to better understand human nature and the events of the past.
“History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.” – Robert Penn Warren
Through her studies of history and philosophy, Jeanet Maduro de Polanco’s suspicion—that humans both past and present are all more alike than we have been led to believe—has been confirmed. One only needs to read the words of Aristotle to know that we have much more in common than our ancestors than we’d like to admit.
For instance, take one of Jeanet’s favourite quotes from Aristotle: “Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” In one compound-complex sentence, he shows that anger centuries before us manifests itself the same way it does currently.
It is lessons like these that Jeanet Maduro de Polanco hopes to highlight and discuss through this website. While history and philosophy are basically her whole life already, she needs an outlet to share and unload all the glorious facts she learns. For more interesting philosophy tidbits, be sure to check out her blog!