Quotes from Roger Ariew

For this reason we should not take any confidence from the fact that our soul is contented and satisfied with what we have, given that it has no way of knowing its illness and its imperfection in this, if there is one. It is impossible to say anything to that blind man by reasoning, argument, or analogy that accommodates in his imagination any apprehension of light, color, and vision. There is nothing further that can make the sense evident.

As to the properties we call occult in a number of things, like the magnet's ability to attract iron, is it not likely that there are sensitive capacities in nature fit for judging and perceiving them, and that the lack of such capacities produces our ignorance of the true essence of such things? It is perhaps some particular sense that lets cocks know the hour of morning and of midnight, and moves them to crow

Of all absurdities the most absurd, <> is to disavow the force and efficacy of the senses: Whatever has been seen at some time is true. And if reason cannot distinguish the cause Why those things that, seen near at hand, were square Are seen round at a distance, still it is better Through lack of argument to err in accounting For the causes of either shape Rather than to allow things clearly seen to elude your grasp, Attack the grounds of belief, and tear up the

foundations On which life and existence rest. For not only would all reasoning collapse, But so, straight away, would life itself, Unless we choose to trust the senses, And avoid precipitous places And other things of the kind that are to be shunned.9 <> As to the error and uncertainty of the

operation of the senses, everyone can furnish as many examples as he likes

For it is frequently seen that our senses are masters of our reasoning, and compel it to receive impressions that it knows and judges to be false.

Put a philosopher in a cage of small bars of thin iron suspended at the top of the towers of Notre Dame de Paris, he will see for obvious reasons that it is impossible for him to fall, and yet (unless he is used to the roofer's trade) he will not be able to keep the vision of that height from frightening and astonishing him.

Set a plank between those two towers, of a size such as is needed for us to walk on it: there is no philosophical wisdom of such firmness as to give us the courage to walk on it as we would do if it was on the ground.

The same trick that the senses play on our