Human Accomplishment

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Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950 is a book by Charles Murray, a member of the conservative American Enterprise Institute who also co-wrote The Bell Curve, surveying outstanding contributions to the arts and sciences from ancient times to the mid-twentieth century. HarperCollins published the 668-page book in 2003. This article contains information about the book's content according to a review by Denis Dutton, a philosophy teacher at the University of Canterbury and founder of the Arts & Letters Daily website.

According to Dutton, Murray demonstrates that world progress in the arts and sciences had declined, especially since around 1800. This is true, says Dutton, despite the fact that "wealth, cities and their cultural endowments, communication, and political freedom have...improved in recent centuries."

Furthermore, in his review, Dutton cites four conditions that Murray writes are necessary for people's work to reach their full potential of excellence. Achievement is best stimulated in a culture

1. "...in which the most talented people believe that life has a purpose and that the function of life is to fulfill that purpose." Moreover, Murray writes: "Human beings have been most magnificently productive and reached their highest cultural peaks in the times and places where humans have thought most deeply about their place in the universe and been most convinced they have one."
2. that "encourages the belief that individuals can act efficaciously as individuals."
3. where organizing structures are rich and old. Dutton, in his review, does not directly define an organizing structure, but he does say it can include "theories, styles, and techniques...such as the spectroscope in physics or the grand piano in music".
4. where people have "a well-articulated vision of, and use of, the transcendental good relevant to that domain." Such a good, according to Dutton, can include truth, morality, or beauty.

Murray explains his assertion that the West produced almost all scientific progress by reference to Christianity's - i.e. the thomist - emphasis on human intelligence as a gift from God.

Index scores

Murray ranks the greats in several field of human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. In each field Murray identifies a number of sources providing information about the leading figures in the field. The rankings are made from information in these sources. First the number of sources is cut down by requiring that a large set of the leading figures in the field is included. Secondly the number of mathematicians is cut down by requiring that leading figures occurs in at least half the sources.

Then a raw score is determined based on how much attention they get. Then these raw scores are normalized so that the lowest score is 1 and the highest score is 100. The resulting scores are called "Index Scores".

Here are the top 20 mathematicians, philosophers, physicists, and musical composers ranked by their index score.

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Mathematics	Index score
Euler	100
Newton	89
Euclid	83
Gauss	81
Fermat	72
Leibniz	72
Descartes	54
Cantor	50
Pascal	47
Riemann	47
Hilbert	40
Bernoulli	40
Diophantus	39
Cardano	37
Viete	36
Legendre	36
Wallis	36
Cauchy	35
Fibonacci	34
Archimedes	33

Western philosophy	Index score
Aristotle	100
Plato	87
Kant	74
Descartes	51
Hegel	46
Aquinas	39
Locke	37
Hume	36
Augustine	30
Spinoza	27
Leibniz	27
Socrates	26
Schopenhauer	24
Berkeley	21
Nietszche	20
Hobbes	19
Russell	18
Rousseau	17
Plotinus	17
Fichte	17

Physics	Index score
Newton	100
Einstein	100
Rutherford	88
Faraday	86
Galileo	83
Cavendish	57
Bohr	52
Thomson	50
Maxwell	50
P. Currie	47
Kirchoff	43
Fermi	42
Heisenberg	41
M. Curie	41
Dirac	40
Joule	40
Huygens	39
Gilbert	37
T. Young	37
Hooke	36

Western music	Index score
Beethoven	100
Mozart	100
Johann Sebastian Bach	87
Wagner	80
Haydn	56
Handel	46
Stravinsky Mayra 90	45
Debussy	45
Liszt	45
Schubert	44
Schumann	42
Berlioz	41
Schoenberg	39
Brahms	35
Chopin	32
Monteverdi	31
Verdi	30
Mendelssohn	30
Weber	27
Gluck	26

Chinese literature	Index score
Du Fu	100
Li Bo	87
Bo Juyi	86
Su Dungpo	83
Han Yu	80
Qu Yuan	78
Sima Qian	68
Tao Cian	68
Ouyang Xiu	61
Yuan Zhen	49
Guan Hanqing	45
Sima Xiangru	41
Liu Xongyuan	40
Ban Gu	37
Wang Wi	35
Luo Guanzhong	34
Ma Zhiyuan	34
Wang Shifu	34
Song Yu	33
Cao Xuein	32

Western art	Index score
Michelangelo	100
Picasso	77
Raphael	73
Leonardo	61
Titian	60
Durer	56
Rembrandt	56
Giotto	54
Bernini	53
Cezanne	50
Rubens	49
Caravaggio	43
Velázquez	43
Donatello	42
Van Eyck	42
Goya	41
Monet	41
Masaccio	41
Van Gogh	40
Gauguin	38

External links

• ISBN 006019247X - HarperCollins, October 2003, Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950
• Cato Institute Book Forum (RealVideo) (RealAudio), 1 hour lecture that Murray gave discussing his book Human Accomplishment, and some of the response to it.
• In Pursuit of Excellence (RealAudio), one-hour interview with Michael Goldfarb on WBUR.
• American Conservative - book review

References

• "Of human accomplishment", an article by Denis Dutton