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Franzen, Jonathan

(Encyclopedia)Franzen, Jonathan, 1959–, American novelist, b. Western Springs, Ill., B.A. Swarthmore College, 1981. His first two novels, The Twenty-Seventh City (1988) and Strong Motion (1992), were well receive...

Daubigny, Charles-François

(Encyclopedia)Daubigny, Charles-François shärl-fräNswäˈ dōbēnyēˈ [key], 1817–78, French landscape painter. He went to Italy early in life and later studied in Paris with Paul Delaroche. Although usually ...

Sibelius, Jean Julius Christian

(Encyclopedia)Sibelius, Jean Julius Christian zhän yo͞oˈlyo͝os krĭsˈtyän sĭbāˈlyo͝os [key], 1865–1957, Finnish composer. Sibelius was a highly personal, romantic composer, yet at the same time he repre...

rationalism

(Encyclopedia)rationalism [Lat.,=belonging to reason], in philosophy, a theory that holds that reason alone, unaided by experience, can arrive at basic truth regarding the world. Associated with rationalism is the ...

paranoia

(Encyclopedia)paranoia prˌənoiˈə [key], in psychology, a term denoting persistent, unalterable, systematized, logically reasoned delusions, or false beliefs, usually of persecution or grandeur. In the former ca...

naturalism, in philosophy

(Encyclopedia)naturalism, in philosophy, a position that attempts to explain all phenomena and account for all values by means of strictly natural (as opposed to supernatural) categories. The particular meaning of ...

Vienna State Opera

(Encyclopedia)Vienna State Opera, opera house and company in Vienna, Austria, founded in 1869 as an expansion of the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper). Destroyed by wartime bombing in 1945, the elegant building's recons...

Brandt, Willy

(Encyclopedia)Brandt, Willy vĭlˈē bränt [key], 1913–92, German political leader. His name originally was Karl Herbert Frahm. Active in his youth in the Social Democratic party, after Adolf Hitler came to powe...

induction, in logic

(Encyclopedia)induction, in logic, a form of argument in which the premises give grounds for the conclusion but do not necessitate it. Induction is contrasted with deduction, in which true premises do necessitate t...

Scharnhorst, Gerhard Johann David von

(Encyclopedia)Scharnhorst, Gerhard Johann David von gĕrˈhärt yōˈhän däˈvēt fən shärnˈhôrst [key], 1755–1813, Prussian general. A Hanoverian army officer, military writer, and director of the war coll...