Quotes from Ritchie Robertson

While it would be absurd to doubt the reality of the external world, it would be mistaken to claim that we can have any certain knowledge of it. The study of the external world can never claim certainty, only a degree (often a very high degree) of probability.

Thus empiricism directed attention away from abstract principles to the data of experience. Hence, while the philosophers of the pre-Enlightenment period favoured the geometric method, reasoning deductively from first principles, their successors worked by induction, first observing particular details and arriving eventually at general truths.

The esprit de système favours closed, rigid systems, whereas the esprit systématique accepts the authority of empirical phenomena and comes to conclusions that are provisional and can be modified in the light of further findings.

Believing, with Locke, that all our knowledge comes ultimately from the senses, and is thus empirical, not metaphysical, in origin, the philosophes do not profess to know what lies behind empirical phenomena.151 They do not inquire into the ultimate nature of things.

hypothetical, because, as Kafka shows, success within an institution requires one to accept its rules, including its system of hierarchy, so that anything different becomes intolerable, even unthinkable. Josef K. is the supreme example of a professional man committed to order. His arrest

A wise man is free from passions, though Kant admits that, as the passions are so all-pervasive, we may have to search for this wise man in the moon.

human beings are very narcissistic, they like to see themselves everywhere and be the foil for the rest of creation' (I, iv).

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

Most people, Kant continues, are too lazy to think for themselves. They allow guardians of various kinds to think for them, and the guardians are only too happy to take control

An age of enlightenment is one in which people are free to think as their intellect guides them. No body, even the Church, can permanently restrict freedom of thought by prescribing what people must believe, now and for ever.

Passions of the soul are potentially valuable. Unlike the Stoics, Descartes thinks they should not be suppressed, but put to good use.

Democracies can become corrupt when the egalitarian spirit becomes so extreme that nobody wants to acknowledge anyone else's authority: this will lead to anarchy, which will in turn be quelled by the emergence of a tyrant.

A self-perpetuating aristocracy easily hardens into an oligarchy, and therefore a senate, for example, should be replenished from the ranks of the people.

Art imitates nature, but does not copy it.

In me there are two souls, alas, and their Division tears my life in two. One loves the world, it clutches her, it binds Itself to her, clinging with furious lust; The other longs to soar beyond the dust Into the realm of high ancestral minds. (lines 1102–7)

I came without my consent into this perverse world; since I am here, I am a citizen of the universe; I am a cosmopolitan, like Diogenes, I embrace with my love the entire human race. All mortals together, yellow, black, and white are everywhere my neighbours, are everywhere my relatives.]

The answer is not to suppress our desires, as a Christian ascetic would recommend, for that leads to a condition of vegetation rather than life, but rather the prudent management of our desires, for example by eliminating whatever in them is chimerical.

Reason must be deployed not to reduce compassion and affection, but to direct them effectively, and to avoid throwing oneself away on unworthy objects of love.

More than a popular belief, it was a delusion of the learned.

we are naturally inclined to search for happiness, but he argues that nature has destined us never to find it. We will always be somewhat discontented, and that very discontent is good for us by spurring on our energies and our creativity.

As late as 1711, Addison says cautiously: 'I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.

methods of education that would bring out pupils' individuality and equip them to understand the world around them.

To them, happiness was not, as it often is in present-day discussions, simply a subjective state, such as might be induced by chemicals; it meant attaining the preconditions for personal happiness, including domestic affection, material sufficiency and a suitable degree of freedom.

How fine to be willing to admit that one does not know what one does not know, instead of spewing out such nonsense and disgusting oneself!' (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods).