"In all history, nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece. ... They invented mathematics and science and philosophy; they first wrote history as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about life, without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy." - p. 3, Part I.
It really is amazing to look at what the Greeks did and the ensuing progress in the West. I've always been impressed by what they achieved and the impact that they've had on civilization ever since, even down until today. But when you frame the way Russell did here - they not only excelled at what they did, they excelled at it with nothing to build upon - it's truly mind boggling. Every great philosopher/intellectual has had at least some prior work to pull from and add to, but not the Greeks. And yet, they still pushed human thought so far forward.
I mean, the geometry we learn today is at heart the same as what the Greeks formalized 2,300 years ago. It's even still called Euclidean geometry, and is sufficient to describe nearly the entire universe under "normal" human conditions. How freaky is that to think that basic Greek mathematics is still being taught 23 centuries later??
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Thoughts on Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy", part I
I've gone through this book a few times, and I always stumble across bits that stick in my mind. I've decided to read it again, and I figure I'll take notes on it and give some of my thoughts on it here for my own use later and for anyone else who might be interested. This will be an on-going project as I make my way through this again as a secondary philosophical pursuit while I also tangle with Jacques Derrida for the first time (an undertaking which is kicking my intellectual behind right now, btw).
"Science tells us what we can know... Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to life without the support of comforting fairy tales. ... To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it." - p. xiv, Introductory.
This really brought into focus what it is about Russell that's first appealed to me. In my struggles with religion and belief and where it is that I stood, I had never been able to accurately describe what I was or what I believed. I bounced between calling myself a doubter or an atheist, but I knew I had unmanageable problems with the atheistic approach. It wasn't until I read Russell's description of agnosticism and why he embraced it that my own stance was crystallized and became clear. I'm a firm believer that we don't, and in all likelihood can't, know the answer of whether or not there is any form of God out there (regardless of how much we might lean one way or another). With that inability for certain knowledge on either end, the only logically sensible position is to remain undecided and keep searching and pushing. The result can either end up in finding proof of God or in coming asymptotically close to "proving" God doesn't exist (as proving non-existence of anything is rather tricky even in much simpler cases). And so the discussion keeps marching forward.
As a totally irrelevant tangent, this is the first time I've delved into philosophy using an eBook as the text. It's an interesting experience. I've always had that comfort of holding the book in my hands and having that smell of a book as integral parts of the experience, and now I'm just looking at the screen while digesting the words, as my music plays away in the background and I keep cmd-tabbing over here to type some more. It's not better or worse - just a different experience of reading.
"Science tells us what we can know... Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to life without the support of comforting fairy tales. ... To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it." - p. xiv, Introductory.
This really brought into focus what it is about Russell that's first appealed to me. In my struggles with religion and belief and where it is that I stood, I had never been able to accurately describe what I was or what I believed. I bounced between calling myself a doubter or an atheist, but I knew I had unmanageable problems with the atheistic approach. It wasn't until I read Russell's description of agnosticism and why he embraced it that my own stance was crystallized and became clear. I'm a firm believer that we don't, and in all likelihood can't, know the answer of whether or not there is any form of God out there (regardless of how much we might lean one way or another). With that inability for certain knowledge on either end, the only logically sensible position is to remain undecided and keep searching and pushing. The result can either end up in finding proof of God or in coming asymptotically close to "proving" God doesn't exist (as proving non-existence of anything is rather tricky even in much simpler cases). And so the discussion keeps marching forward.
As a totally irrelevant tangent, this is the first time I've delved into philosophy using an eBook as the text. It's an interesting experience. I've always had that comfort of holding the book in my hands and having that smell of a book as integral parts of the experience, and now I'm just looking at the screen while digesting the words, as my music plays away in the background and I keep cmd-tabbing over here to type some more. It's not better or worse - just a different experience of reading.
Quotations
I've always wanted to keep track of some of my favorite quotes, so I'm going to start doing that on here. Most of them are things that have made me think, or things that I agree with, or things that were funny enough that I laughed out loud when I read/heard them. Others just found their way into the land of my mind by whatever means they employed. So here's a few that I've collected over the last couple of years as a start to all this.
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. -- Bertrand Russell
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Bertrand Russell
I wish to propose for the reader's favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: That it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it. -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical Essays I" - taken from "Contact" by Carl Sagan
The tragedy of one successful politician after another is the gradual substitution of narcissism for an interest in the community and the measures for which he stands. The man who is only interested in himself is not admirable, and is not felt to be so. Consequently, the man whose sole concern with the world is that it shall admire him is not likely to achieve his object. -- Bertrand Russell, "The Conquest of Happiness", p. 20
Drunkenness, for example, is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 22
And not only is love a source of delight, but its absence is a source of pain. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 34
"Finding someone is like finding yourself a home
If the key fits - just open the door
'Cause you're never gonna spend a lonely day here
Come and watch your fear fly away
And you'll never hunger for a greener side than here"
-- "Cottonwool" by Lamb
All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small. -- Lao Tzu
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." -- Anais Nin, quoted at http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12092005.shtml
If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern - if both its delights and social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press and at the dinner table - we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us. -- Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain", p. 14
If a man is in the forest and his wife isn't there, is he still wrong? -- Fortune on Worldwinner.com
"Spinoza was persecuted during his lifetime, and after death his works were condemned as profane, blasphemous and atheistic. And yet it is probable that few men more sincerely religious than he have ever lived and taught. His doctrine was one of abnegation of self and patient devotion to the eternal. He was in love with the Infinite; it was Nature that fluttered his pulse; it was the Spirit of the universe that filled his heart with living springs. ... But in all sincerity one may ask which is the more blasphemous, nay, which is the more vulgar, the mind that pictures the Deity as a jealous tyrant who keeps the world as a separate establishment, or the thinker who seeks to banish the dream that veils the part from the whole, and who shows the soul of man and of the universe to be the same? -- Edgar Saltus, "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Aggrandise God; free Him from the captivity of temples and creeds. See Him everywhere, or say that He does not exist." -- Denis Diderot, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Lastly, in admitting the doctrine that an Intelligence presided over the formation of the world and still watches over its well-being, it is hard to reconcile the theory of that Intelligence with the idea of infinite wisdom and power. For, to the misfortune of humanity, this world of ours is very far from being the best one possible. With the best of intentions, we are therefore unable to recognise any other God than one who, at most, is material, limited and dependent. I do not know whether this view is the correct one, but certainly it is not that of the Deity's partisans, who would much prefer to have us atheists than the Spinozists that we are. To mollify them, let us turn sceptic and repeat with Montaigne, Que sais-je?" -- Jean le RondD'Alembert, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true." —- Bertrand Russell, p. 39, "A History of Western Philosophy"
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. -- Bertrand Russell
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Bertrand Russell
I wish to propose for the reader's favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: That it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it. -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical Essays I" - taken from "Contact" by Carl Sagan
The tragedy of one successful politician after another is the gradual substitution of narcissism for an interest in the community and the measures for which he stands. The man who is only interested in himself is not admirable, and is not felt to be so. Consequently, the man whose sole concern with the world is that it shall admire him is not likely to achieve his object. -- Bertrand Russell, "The Conquest of Happiness", p. 20
Drunkenness, for example, is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 22
And not only is love a source of delight, but its absence is a source of pain. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 34
"Finding someone is like finding yourself a home
If the key fits - just open the door
'Cause you're never gonna spend a lonely day here
Come and watch your fear fly away
And you'll never hunger for a greener side than here"
-- "Cottonwool" by Lamb
All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small. -- Lao Tzu
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." -- Anais Nin, quoted at http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12092005.shtml
If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern - if both its delights and social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press and at the dinner table - we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us. -- Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain", p. 14
If a man is in the forest and his wife isn't there, is he still wrong? -- Fortune on Worldwinner.com
"Spinoza was persecuted during his lifetime, and after death his works were condemned as profane, blasphemous and atheistic. And yet it is probable that few men more sincerely religious than he have ever lived and taught. His doctrine was one of abnegation of self and patient devotion to the eternal. He was in love with the Infinite; it was Nature that fluttered his pulse; it was the Spirit of the universe that filled his heart with living springs. ... But in all sincerity one may ask which is the more blasphemous, nay, which is the more vulgar, the mind that pictures the Deity as a jealous tyrant who keeps the world as a separate establishment, or the thinker who seeks to banish the dream that veils the part from the whole, and who shows the soul of man and of the universe to be the same? -- Edgar Saltus, "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Aggrandise God; free Him from the captivity of temples and creeds. See Him everywhere, or say that He does not exist." -- Denis Diderot, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Lastly, in admitting the doctrine that an Intelligence presided over the formation of the world and still watches over its well-being, it is hard to reconcile the theory of that Intelligence with the idea of infinite wisdom and power. For, to the misfortune of humanity, this world of ours is very far from being the best one possible. With the best of intentions, we are therefore unable to recognise any other God than one who, at most, is material, limited and dependent. I do not know whether this view is the correct one, but certainly it is not that of the Deity's partisans, who would much prefer to have us atheists than the Spinozists that we are. To mollify them, let us turn sceptic and repeat with Montaigne, Que sais-je?" -- Jean le RondD'Alembert, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true." —- Bertrand Russell, p. 39, "A History of Western Philosophy"
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