Discourse On The Method Quotes

And thus, the actions of life often not allowing any delay, it is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine the most true opinions we ought to follow the most probable.

Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.

At last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.

Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus – Tragedies 4. Sophocles – Tragedies 5. Herodotus – Histories 6. Euripides – Tragedies 7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes – Comedies 10. Plato – Dialogues 11. Aristotle – Works 12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid – Elements 14. Archimedes – Works 15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections 16. Cicero – Works 17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil – Works 19. Horace – Works 20. Livy – History of Rome 21. Ovid – Works 22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy – Almagest 27. Lucian – Works 28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations 29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus – The Enneads 32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njál 36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More – Utopia 44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays 48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan 57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton – Works 59. Molière – Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics 63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve – The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.

By overcoming biases - be it through a closer and more honest examination of ourselves, deeper self-knowledge, an understanding of the patterns of thoughts and behaviors we experience, or any other method - we can undo these mental blocks and reignite a passion for honest, genuine, and will-intentioned discourse.

Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

Reading good books is like engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts.

I think therefore I am

Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.

The dreams we imagine when we are asleep should not in any way make us doubt the truth of the thoughts we have when we are awake.

Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

I had become aware, as early as my college days, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible can be imagined, that has not been held by one of the philosophers.

...reading good books is like engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts

For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellence, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.

. . .it is not my design to teach the method that everyone must follow in order to use his reason properly, but only to show the way in which I have tried to use my own.

Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.

For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.

It is thus quite certain that the constitution of the true religion, the ordinances of which are derived from God, must be incomparably superior to that of every other.

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.

My third maxim was to endeavor always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and change my desires rather than the order of the world, and in general, accustom myself to the persuasion that, except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power; so that when we have done our best in things external to us, all wherein we fail of success is to be held, as regards us, absolutely impossible: and this single principle seemed to me sufficient to prevent me from desiring for the future anything which I could not obtain, and thus render me contented

The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing.

[...] the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.

those who move but very slowly, may advance much farther, if they always follow the right way; then those who run and straggle from it.

that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects.

...all that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment

Those who reason most powerfully and are the most successful at ordering their thoughts so as to make them clear and intelligible will always be best able to persuade others of what they say, even if they speak in the thickest of dialects

And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.

The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.

Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am)

...the perusal of all excellent books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages, who have written them.

I resolv’d to faign, that all those things which ever entred into my Minde, were no more true, then the illusions of my dreams.

so that there resulted a chaos as disordered as the poets ever feigned,

it appears to me that I have discovered many truths more useful and more important than all I had before learned, or even had expected to learn.

On the other hand, I compared the disquisitions of the ancient moralists to very towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud:

But, because I had already very clearly recognized in myself that the intelligent nature is distinct from the corporeal,

there is often not so much perfection in works composed of many pieces and made by the hands of various master craftsmen as there is in those works on which but a single individual has worked.

although we very clearly see the sun, we ought not therefore to determine that it is only of the size which our sense of sight presents; and we may very distinctly imagine the head of a lion joined to the body of a goat, without being therefore shut up to the conclusion that a chimaera exists; for it is not a dictate of reason that what we thus see or imagine is in reality existent; but it plainly tells us that all our ideas or notions contain in them some truth.

Good sense is the most evenly distributed thing in the world; for everyone believes himself to be so well provided with it that even those who are the hardest to please in every other way do not usually want more of it than they already have.

On the other hand, when too much time is occupied in traveling, we become strangers to our native country; and the over curious in the customs of the past are generally ignorant of those of the present.

It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational, a conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited to their own country.

Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée : car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose, n'ont point coutume d'en désirer plus qu'ils en ont.

For ’tis not enough to have good faculties, but the principal is, to apply them well.

Exposition is a mode of thought, a method of learning, and a means of expression. Almost all of the characteristics we associate with mature discourse were amplified by typography, which has the strongest possible bias toward exposition: a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance for delayed response.

Thereafter, I showed how the greatest part of the matter of this chaos must, in accordance with these laws, dispose and arrange itself in such a way as to present the appearance of heavens;

And it is evident that it is not less repugnant that falsity or imperfection, in so far as it is imperfection, should proceed from God, than that truth or perfection should proceed from nothing.

I knew that the languages which one learns there are necessary to understand the works of the ancients; and that the delicacy of fiction enlivens the mind; that famous deeds of history ennoble it and, if read with understanding, aid in maturing one's judgment; that the reading of all the great books is like conversing with the best people of earlier times; it is even studied conversation in which the authors show us only the best of their thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable powers and beauties; that poetry has enchanting delicacy and sweetness; that mathematics has very subtle processes which can serve as much to satisfy the inquiring mind as to aid all the arts and diminish man's labor; that treatises on morals contain very useful teachings and exhortations to virtue; that theology teaches us how to go to heaven; that philosophy teaches us to talk with appearance of truth about things, and to make ourselves admired by the less learned; that law, medicine, and the other sciences bring honors and wealth to those who pursue them; and finally, that it is desirable to have examined all of them, even to the most superstitious and false in order to recognize their real worth and avoid being deceived thereby

The romance of militancy dominated our predecessors; now serious ideas ousted this way of thinking. No more mysticism! No more blind faith! Now realism was our mode of thinking. At times of terrible necessity, we can resort to extreme methods, but violence produces opposite results in mass movements.

there are no objects except particular ones and no science except of the general

Nothing can be imagined which is too strange or incredible to have been said by some philosopher.

« En un mot, s'il y a au monde quelque ouvrage qui ne puisse être si bien achevé par aucun autre que par le même qui l'a commencé, c'est celui auquel je travaille».

the more uncommon often only mislead us so long as the causes of the more ordinary are still unknown;

thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “ I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.

Finally, if there be still persons who are not sufficiently persuaded of the existence of God and of the soul, by the reasons I have adduced, I am desirous that they should know that all the other propositions, of the truth of which they deem themselves perhaps more assured, as that we have a body, and that there exist stars and an earth, and such like, are less certain;

But this could not be the case with-the idea of a nature more perfect than myself; for to receive it from nothing was a thing manifestly impossible; and, because it is not less repugnant that the more perfect should be an effect of, and dependence on the less perfect, than that something should proceed from nothing, it was equally impossible that I could hold it from myself:

engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts;

That the reading of good books, is like the conversation with the honestest persons of the past age, who were the Authors of them, and even a studyed conversation, wherein they discover to us the best only of their thoughts. That eloquence hath forces & beauties which are incomparable.

I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the certitude and evidence of their reasonings; but I had not as yet a precise knowledge of their true use; and thinking that they but contributed to the advancement of the mechanical arts, I was astonished that foundations, so strong and solid, should have had no loftier superstructure reared on them.

thought I had said enough respecting them to show that there is nothing observable in the heavens or stars of our system that must not, or at least may not appear precisely alike in those of the system which I described.

There is no need to allege that Descartes sat in or on a stove. A poêle is simply a room heated by an earthenware stove. Cf. E. Gilson, Discours de la méthode: texte et commentaire, 4th edition (Paris: Vrin, 1967), p. 157.

But as soon as I had finished my course of study, at which time it is usual to be admitted to the ranks of the well educated, I completely changed my opinion, for I found myself bogged down in so many doubts and errors, that it seemed to me that having set out to become learned, I had derived no benefit from my studies, other than that of progressively revealing to myself how ignorant I was.

regarding speculative matters that are of no practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther, perhaps, than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they are from common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise of greater ingenuity and art to render them probable.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

One of the first of the considerations that occurred to me was that there is very often less perfection in works composed of several portions, and carried out by the hands of various masters, than in those on which one individual alone has worked. Thus we see that buildings planned and carried out by one architect alone are usually more beautiful and better proportioned than those which many have tried to put in order and improve, making use of old walls which were built with other ends in view.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

la lectura de todos los buenos libros es como una conversación con los mejores ingenios de los pasados siglos,

Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one.

hardly any ruler lives so long as to have time to accustom to right methods a city which has long been accustomed to wrong. Wherefore,

was most keen on mathematics, because of its certainty and the incontrovertibility* of its proofs; but I did not yet see its true use. Believing as I did that its only application was to the mechanical arts,* I was astonished that nothing more exalted had been built on such sure and solid foundations; whereas, on the other hand, I compared the moral works of ancient pagan writers to splendid and magnificent palaces built on nothing more than sand and mud.

Those in whom the faculty of reason is predominant, and who most skillfully dispose their thoughts with a view to render them clear and intelligible, are always the best able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay down, though they should speak only in the language of Lower Brittany, and be wholly ignorant of the rules of rhetoric; and those whose minds are stored with the most agreeable fancies, and who can give expression to them with the greatest embellishment and harmony, are still the best poets, though unacquainted with the art of poetry.

I revered our theology, and aspired as much as any one to reach heaven: but being given assuredly to understand that the way is not less open to the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that the revealed truths which lead to heaven are above our comprehension, I did not presume to subject them to the impotency of my reason; and I thought that in order competently to undertake their examination, there was need of some special help from heaven, and of being more than man.

while I wanted thus to think that everything was false, it necessarily had to be the case that I, who was thinking this, was something. And noticing that this truth—I think, therefore I am—was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I judged that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.

Be that as it may, there is fixed in my mind a certain opinion of long [21] standing, namely that there exists a God who is able to do anything and by whom I, such as I am, have been created. How do I know that he did not bring it about that there is no earth at all, no heavens, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, and yet bringing it about that all these things appear to me to exist precisely as they do now?

For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations...

I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “ I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.

those people who formerly had been half wilde, and civiliz’d but by degrees, made their laws but according to the incommodities which their crimes and their quarrels constrain’d them to, could not be so wel pollic’d, as those who from the beginning of their association, observ’d the constitutions of some prudent Legislator.

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.

For indeed when painters themselves wish to represent sirens and satyrs [20] by means of especially bizarre forms, they surely cannot assign to them utterly new natures. Rather, they simply fuse together the members of various animals. Or if perhaps they concoct something so utterly novel that nothing like it has ever been seen before (and thus is something utterly fictitious and false), yet certainly at the very least the colors from which they fashion it ought to be true. And

But after I had imployed some years in thus studying the Book of the World, and endeavouring to get experience, I took one day a resolution to study also within my self, and to employ all the forces of my minde in the choice of the way I was to follow: which (me thought) succeeded much better, then if I had never estranged my self from my Country, or from my Books.

Mais lorsqu'on emploie trop de temps à voyager, on devient enfin étranger en son pays; et lorsqu'on est trop curieux des choses qui se pratiquoient aux siècles passés, on demeure ordinairement fort ignorant de celles qui se pratiquent en celui-ci.

But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am (COGITO ERGO SUM), was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search

Feminism involves so much more than gender equality. And it involves so much more than gender. Feminism must involve a consciousness of capitalism— I mean, the feminism that I relate to. And there are multiple feminisms, right? It has to involve a consciousness of capitalism, and racism, and colonialism, and postcolonialities, and ability, and more genders than we can even imagine, and more sexualities than we ever thought we could name. Feminism has helped us not only to recognize a range of connections among discourses, and institutions, and identities, and ideologies that we often tend to consider separately. But it has also helped us to develop epistemological and organizing strategies that take us beyond the categories “women” and “gender.” And, feminist methodologies impel us to explore connections that are not always apparent. And they drive us to inhabit contradictions and discover what is productive in these contradictions. Feminism insists on methods of thought and action that urge us to think about things together that appear to be separate, and to disaggregate things that appear to naturally belong together.

Those who possess the strongest reasoning and who best order their thoughts in order to make them clear and intelligible can always best persuade others of what they are proposing, even if they were to speak only Low Breton and had never learned rhetoric.

For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they [philosophers of former times] became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their disposal except their own thoughts, that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent their entertaining any desire of other objects; and over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute, that they had some ground on this account for esteeming themselves more rich and more powerful, more free and more happy, than other men who, whatever be the favors heaped on them by nature and fortune, if destitute of this philosophy, can never command the realization of all their desires.

For, in fine, whether awake or asleep, we ought never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our reason. And it must be noted that I say of our reason, and not of our imagination or of our senses: thus, for example, although we very clearly see the sun, we ought not therefore to determine that it is only of the size which our sense of sight presents; and we may very distinctly imagine the head of a lion joined to the body of a goat, without being therefore shut up to the conclusion that a chimaera exists;

Whether this has ever happened I know not, nor whether it ever can happen. For we see, as I have said a little way back, that a city which owing to its pervading corruption has once begun to decline, if it is to recover at all, must be saved not by the excellence of the people collectively, but of some one man then living among them, on whose death it at once relapses into its former plight; as happened with Thebes, in which the virtue of Epaminondas made it possible while he lived to preserve the form of a free Government, but which fell again on his death into its old disorders; the reason being that hardly any ruler lives so long as to have time to accustom to right methods a city which has long been accustomed to wrong.

The majority of men is composed of two classes, for neither of which would this be at all a befitting resolution: in the first place, of those who with more than a due confidence in their own powers, are precipitate in their judgments and want the patience requisite for orderly and circumspect thinking; whence it happens, that if men of this class once take the liberty to doubt of their accustomed opinions, and quit the beaten highway, they will never be able to thread the byway that would lead them by a shorter course, and will lose themselves and continue to wander for life; in the second place, of those who, possessed of sufficient sense or modesty to determine that there are others who excel them in the power of discriminating between truth and error, and by whom they may be instructed, ought rather to content themselves with the opinions of such than trust for more correct to their own reason.

I would like those who are not at all versed in anatomy to take the trouble, before reading this, to have the heart of some large animal that has lungs dissected in their presence (for such a heart is in all respects sufficiently similar to that of a man), and to be shown the two chambers or cavities that are in it.

There is in the chemist a form of thought by which all ideas become visible in the mind as strains of an imagined piece of music. This form of thought is developed in Faraday in the highest degree, whence it arises that to one who is not acquainted with this method of thinking, his scientific works seem barren and dry, and merely a series of researches strung together, while his oral discourse when he teaches or explains is intellectual, elegant, and of wonderful clearness.

And I have always had an especially great desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see my way clearly in my actions, and to go forward with confidence in this life. It is true that, so long as I merely considered the customs of other men, I found hardly anything there about which to be confident, and that I noticed there was about as much diversity as I had previously found among the opinions of philosophers. Thus the greatest profit I derived from this was that, on seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples, I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I little by little freed myself from many errors that can darken our natural light and render us less able to listen to reason.

porque también pueden los sentidos engañarnos con frecuencia durante la vigilia, como los que tienen ictericia lo ven todo amarillo, o

Las oscuras entidades metafísicas se deshacen en la clara sucesión de razones matemáticas.

This is so much the case that the will is the chief basis for my understanding that I bear a certain image and likeness of God.

y que dice que nada hay en el entendimiento que no haya estado antes en el sentido

Descartes busca reglas fijas para descubrir verdades, no para defender tesis o exponer teorías.

La base primera de la filosofía cartesiana es el cogito ergo sum: pienso, luego soy.

I am, I exist” is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind.

Και καθώς πολλές φορές ο μεγάλος αριθμός νόμων δικαιολογεί τις αδυναμίες.

Η ευγλωττία έχει μια ασύγκριτη δύναμη και ομορφιά, ότι η ποίηση διαθέτει μια ευαισθησία και μια γλυκύτητα πραγματικά σαγηνευτική.

Αυτό στο οποίο αποδίδουν έναν τόσο όμορφο χαρακτηρισμό δεν είναι παρά απάθεια ή έπαρση, απελπισί, πατροκτονία.

Ένα πραγματικό μανιφέστο της σύγχρονης σκέψης.

Έκρινα ότι τίποτα γερό δεν μπορούσε να έχει χριστεί πάνω σε τόσο ασταθή θεμέλια

Και πάντοτε είχα τεράστια επιθυμία να μάθω να ξεχωρίζω το ψεύτικο από το αληθινό, έτσι ώστε να κατανοώ καλά τις ίδιες τις πράξεις μου και να προχωρώ με σιγουριά σε τούτη τη ζωή.

Το ανθρώπινο σώμα αντιμετωπίζεται ως μια μηχανή με την ικανότητα της κίνησης

Υποθέτω ότι το σώμα δεν είναι παρά ένα άγαλμα ή μια μηχανή από πηλό, την οποία ο Θεός δημιουργεί με σαφή πρόθεση να μοιαζει όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο με εμάς.

Καθώς, όμως, αν γκρεμιστούν τα θεμέλια, ό,τι είναι χτισμένο πάνω σε αυτά καταρρέει μόνο του, θα προσβάλω αμέσως τις αρχές αυτές πάνω στις οποίες στηρίζονταν όλα όσα πίστευα κάποτε.

我思う故に我あり

أنني آمل أن هؤلاء الذين لا يستعينون إلا بعقلهم الفطري الخالص سوف يكونون أحسن حكما في رأيي من أوئك الذين لا يؤمنون الا بالكتب القديمة.

من يجمعون بين العقل والتحصيل هم وحدهم من أتمني أن يكونوا قضاتي

The first was never to accept anything as true that I did not plainly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid hasty judgment and prejudice; and to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself to my mind so clearly and so distinctly that I had no occasion to call it in doubt. The second, to divide each of the difficulties I would examine into as many parts as possible and as was required in order better to resolve them. The third, to conduct my thoughts in an orderly fashion, by commencing with those objects that are simplest and easiest to know, in order to ascend little by little, as by degrees, to the knowledge of the most composite things, and by supposing an order even among those things that do not [19] naturally precede one another. And the last, everywhere to make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I was assured of having omitted nothing.

During the nine subsequent years, I did nothing but roam from one place to another, desirous of being a spectator rather than an actor in the plays exhibited on the theater of the world.

For it seemed to me that much more truth could be found in the reasonings which a man makes concerning matters that concern him than in those which some scholar makes in his study about speculative matters. For the consequences of the former will soon punish the man if he judges wrongly, whereas the latter have no practical consequences and no importance for the scholar except that perhaps the further they are from common sense the more pride he will take in them, since he will have had to use so much more skill and ingenuity in trying to render them plausible.

Καλό είναι να έχουμε εξετάσει όλες τις επιστήμες, ακόμα και εκείνες με τις περισσότερες προλήψεις και τα πιο πολλά σφάλματα, έτσι ώστε να μάθουμε ακριβώς τι αξίζουν και να μη μας εξαπατήσουν

Και εκείνοι που σκαρφίζονται τις πιο ευχάριστες ιστορίες και μπορούν να τις αφηγηθούν πολύ γλυκά και περίτεχνα, θα είναι πάντα οι καλύτεροι ποιητές, έστω και αν η ποιητική τένη τους είναι άγνωστη.

Και εκείνοι που σκαρφίζονται τις πιο ευχάριστες ιστορίες και μπορούν να τις αφηγηθούν πολύ γλυκά και περίτεχνα, θα είναι πάντα οι καλύτεροι ποιητές, έστω και αν η ποιητική τέχνη τους είναι άγνωστη.

I am in doubt as to the propriety of making my first meditations in the place above mentioned matter of discourse; for these are so metaphysical, and so uncommon, as not, perhaps, to be acceptable to every one. And yet, that it may be determined whether the foundations that I have laid are sufficiently secure, I find myself in a measure constrained to advert to them. I had long before remarked that, in relation to practice, it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain, as has been already said; but as I then desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought that a procedure exactly the opposite was called for, and that I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained aught in my belief that was wholly indubitable. Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am ["cogito ergo sum"], was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search

«Yo soy un ser que piensa, siente, quiere, ama y odia; esta naturaleza que me rodea es bella y luminosa, y la vida nos ha sido dada por un Dios justo y benévolo, para vivirla con entereza y plenitud.»

Για την ακρίβεια, με βασάνιζαν τόσες αμφίβολιες και σφάλματα ώστε νόμιζα πως, στην προσπάθεια μου να μορφωθώ, δεν είχα αποκομίσει κανένα όφελος πέρα απ' ότι διαπίστωνα όλο και πιο περισσότερο την άγνοια μου.

Γνωρίζω ότι υπάρχω, και ρωτάω ποιος είμαι εγώ, το εγώ που γνωρίζω. Είναι παραπάνω από βέβαιο ότι γνώση που έχω γι' αυτό το εγώ, με την ακριβή του έννοια, δεν εξαρτάται από αυτό που δεν γνωρίζω ακόμα αν υπάρχει.

«Y no me precio tampoco de ser el primer inventor de mis opiniones, sino solamente de no haberlas admitido ni porque las dijeran otros ni porque no las dijeran, sino sólo porque la razón me convenció de su verdad.»

hay pocas personas que consientan en decir lo que creen, sino también porque muchas lo ignoran, pues el acto del pensamiento, por el cual uno cree una cosa, es diferente de aquel otro por el cual uno conoce que la cree,

El cartesiano Espinosa pudo conseguir exponer la filosofía de Descartes en una serie geométrica de axiomas, definiciones y teoremas (Renati Descartes Principiorum philosophiæ pars. I et II, more geometrico demonstratæ.)

The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, and which they revealed to us none but their best thoughts

Η κοινή λογική, δηλαδή, ο ανθρώπινος λόγος, αφορά την ικανότητα διαμόρφωσης ορθής κρίσης και διάκρισης του σωστού από το λάθος. Τη συναντάμε εξίσου σε όλους τους ανθρώπους, και διαμορφώνεται μόνο με βάση το πως χρησιμοποιείται

And I have always had an especially great desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see my way clearly in my actions, and to go forward with confidence in this life. It is true that, so long as I merely considered the customs of other men, I found hardly anything there about which to be confident, and that I noticed there was about as much diversity as I had previously found among the opinions of philosophers. Thus the greatest profit I derived from this was that, on seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples, I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I little by little freed myself from many errors that can darken our natural light and render us less able to listen to reason. But after I had spent some years thus studying in the book of the world and in trying to gain some experience, I resolved one day to study within myself too and to spend all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths that I should follow.

Εκείνοι που έχουν μεγαλύτερη συλλογιστική ικανότητα και επεξεργάζονται καλύτερα τις σκέψεις τους, προκειμένου να τις καταστήσουν σαφείς και κατανοητές, μπορούν πάντα να κάνουν πιο πειστικά τα λεγόμενα τους, έστω και αν δεν μιλούν.

Κυρίως μου άρεσαν τα μαθηματικά, για τη βεβαιότητα και το προφανές της τεκμηρίωσης τους όμως εξακολουθούσα να μην αντιλαμβάνομαι καθόλουτη πραγματική χρησιμότητα τος και, θεωρώντας ότι δεν χρησίμευαν παρά μόνο στις μηχανικές τέχνες.

But so soon as I had achieved the entire course of study at the close of which one is usually received into the ranks of the learned, I entirely changed my opinion. For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance. —Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking the Truth in the Sciences, 1637

Bueno es saber algo de las costumbres de otros pueblos, para juzgar las del propio con mejor acierto, y no creer que todo lo que sea contrario a nuestras modas es ridículo y opuesto a la razón, como suelen hacer los que no han visto nada.

And I paused here, particularly to show that, if there were such machines having organs and the shape of a monkey or some other nonrational animal, we would have no way of telling whether or not they were of the same nature as these animals.

seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; and because some men err in reasoning, and fall into paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams.

Αν όμως αφιερώνει κανείς πολύ χρόνο στα ταξίδια, τελικά αποξενώνεται από την ίδια του τη χώρα και όταν έχει υπερβολική περιέργεια για όσα συνηθίζονταν στους προηγούμενους αιώνες, συχνά έχει μεγάλη άγνοια για όσα συνηθίζονται σε αυτόν εδώ τον αιώνα.

punto de partida es la duda metódica. La duda cartesiana no es escepticismo, sino un procedimiento dialéctico de investigación, encaminado a desprender y aislar la primera verdad evidente, la primera idea clara y distinta, la primera naturaleza simple.

Los orígenes del método están, según nos cuenta Descartes ( Discurso), en la lógica, el análisis geométrico y el álgebra. Conviene ante todo insistir en que el gravísimo defecto de la lógica de Aristóteles es, para Descartes, su incapacidad de invención.

Καλό είναι να έχουμε κάποιες γνώσεις για τα ήθη των διαφόρων λαών, έτσι ώστε να κρίνουμε τα δικά μας πιο δίκαια και να μη θεωρούμε πως οτιδήποτε διαφέρει από τις δικές μας συνήθειες είναι γελοίο και αντίθετο προς τη λογική, όπως κάνουν όσοι δεν έχουν δει τίποτα.

Cuando la conciencia del individuo queda reducida a reflejar la conciencia colectiva del grupo social, el pensamiento se hace siervo de los dogmas colectivos; el hombre se recluye en el organismo superior de la nación o clase, y el concepto de lo humano se disuelve

For the mind depends so much on the temperament and disposition of the bodily organs that, if it is possible to find a means of rendering men wiser and cleverer than they have hitherto been, I believe that it is in medicine that it must be sought. It is true that the medicine which is now in vogue contains little of which the utility is remarkable; but, without having any intention of decrying it, I am sure that there is no one, even among those who make its study a profession, who does not confess that all that men know is almost nothing in comparison with what remains to be known; and that we could be free of an infinitude of maladies both of body and mind, and even also possibly of the infirmities of age, if we had sufficient knowledge of their causes, and of all the remedies with which nature has provided us.

hay pocas personas que consientan en decir lo que creen, sino también porque muchas lo ignoran, pues el acto del pensamiento, por el cual uno cree una cosa, es diferente de aquel otro por el cual uno conoce que la cree, y por lo tanto muchas veces se encuentra aquél sin éste.

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.

One starts things moving without a thought of how to stop them. In order to speak. The search for the means to put an end to things, an end to speech, is what enables the discourse to continue. No, I must not try to think, simply utter. Method or no method I shall have to banish them in the end, the beings, things, shapes, sounds and lights with which my haste to speak has encumbered this place. In the frenzy of utterance the concern with truth. Hence the interest of a possible deliverance by means of encounter. But not so fast. First dirty, then make clean.

Right understanding is the most equally divided thing in the World; for every one beleevs himself so well stor’d with it, that even those who in all other things are the hardest to be pleas’d, seldom desire more of it then they have; wherein it is not likely that all Men are deceived:

El esquema de la demostración es el siguiente: la existencia es una perfección; Dios tiene todas las perfecciones; luego Dios tiene la existencia. Como se ve, Descartes considera la existencia de Dios tan segura y evidentemente demostrada como la propiedad del triángulo de tener tres ángulos.

so that even although he had from the beginning given it no other form than that of chaos, provided only he had established certain laws of nature, and had lent it his concurrence to enable it to act as it is wont to do, it may be believed, without discredit to the miracle of creation, that, in this way alone, things purely material might, in course of time, have become such as we observe them at present; and their nature is much more easily conceived when they are beheld coming in this manner gradually into existence, than when they are only considered as produced at once in a finished and perfect state.

Ο πρώτος είναι να μη δέχομαι τίποτα ως αληθινό αν δεν γνωρίζω ότι είναι τεκμηριωμένο: να αποφεύγω, δηλαδή, προσεκτικά τη βιασύνη και τις προκαταλήψεις και να μην υιοθετώ ως δική μου κρίση τίποτα που να μην εμφανίζεται στο μυαλό μου με τρόπο τόσο σαφή και διακριτό ώστε να μην έχω κανέναν λόγο να το αμφισβητήσω.

[Foucault's] criticism is not transcendental, and its goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible: it is genealogical in its design and archaeological in its method. Archaeological –and not transcendental– in the sense that it will not seek to identify the universal structures of all knowledge or of all possible moral action, but will seek to treat the instances of discourse that articulate what we think, say, and do as so many historical events. And this critique will be genealogical in the sense it will not deduce from the form of what we are what is impossible for us to do and to know; but it will separate out, from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do or think. It is not seeking to make possible a metaphysics that has finally become a science; it is seeking to give new impetus, as far and wide as possible, to the undefined work of freedom.

Pues tales frutos he recogido ya de ese método, que, aun cuando, en el juicio que sobre mí mismo hago, procuro siempre inclinarme del lado de la desconfianza mejor que del de la presunción, y aunque, al mirar con ánimo filosófico las distintas acciones y empresas de los hombres, no hallo casi ninguna que no me parezca vana e inútil

Λαχταρούσα όσο κάνείς άλλος να κατακτήσω τος ουρανούς όμως, αφού έμαθα με απόλυτη βεβαιότητα ότι ο δρόμος είναι ανοιχτός τόσο για τους αδαείς όσο και για τους περισσότερο μορφωμένους, και ότι οι αλήθειες που αποκαλύπτονται και οι οποίες οδηγούν εκεί, είναι υπεράνω της διάνοιας μας, δεν θα τολμούσα να τις υποβάλω στους αδύναμους συλλογισμούς μου.

[...] I cannot in any degree approve of those restless and busy meddlers who, called neither by birth nor fortune to take part in the management of public affairs, are yet always projecting reforms; and if I thought that this [treatise] contained [anything] which might justify the suspicion that I was a victim of such folly, I would by no means permit its publication.

Philosophy means and includes five fields of study and discourse: logic, aesthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphysics. Logic is the study of ideal method in thought and research: observation and introspection, deduction and induction, hypothesis and experiment, analysis and synthesis - such are the forms of human activity which logic tries to underhand the guide; it is a dull study for most of us, and yet the great events in the history of understand are the improvements men have made in their methods of thinking and research. Aesthetics is the study of ideal form, or beauty; it is the philosophy of art. Ethics is the study of ideal conduct; the highest knowledge, said Socrates, is the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of the wisdom of life. Politics is the study of ideal social organization (it is not, as one might suppose, the art and science of capturing and keeping office); monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, socialism, anarchism, feminisim - these are the dramatis personae of political philosophy. And lastly, metaphysics (which gets into so much trouble because it is not, like the other forms of philosophy, an attempt to coordinate the real in the light of the ideal) is the study of the "ultimate reality" of all things: of the real and final nature of "matter" (ontology), of "mind" (philosophical psychology), and of the interrelation of "mind" and "matter" in the processes of perception and knowledge (epistemology).

Πράγματι, δεν αρκεί να διαθέτουμε ισχυρό πνέυμα: σημασία έχει να ξέρουμε να το χρησιμοποιούμε σωστά. Τα μεγαλύτερα πνεύματα μπορεί να έχουν τα σοβαρότερα ελαττώματα όπως και τις σπουδαιότερες αρετές, και εκείνοι που προχωρούν πολύ αργά, αν ακολουθούν πάντα τον σωστό δρόμο, μπορούν να διανύσουν μια διαδρομή πολύ μεγαλύτερη απ' ό,τι εκείνοι που τρέχουν, όμως απομακρύνονται από αυτόν.

Αφιέρωσα την υπόλοιπη νιότη μου στα ταξίδια, στις επισκέψεις, σε αυλές και στρατεύματα, στη συναναστροφή με ανθρώπους με διαφορετικές ιδιοσυγκρασίες και από διαφορετικές τάξεις, στη συλλογή ποικίλων εμπειριών, στη δοκιμή του εαυτού μου μέσα από τις συναντήσεις που μου έφερνε η τύχη, συλλογιζόμενος πάντα τα όσα μου συνέβαιναν, έτσι ώστε να μπορέσω να αποκομίσω κάποιο όφελος από αυτά.

En realidad, la hipótesis del genio maligno ni es un juego ni un círculo de hierro, sino un movimiento dialéctico, muy importante en el curso del pensamiento cartesiano. Repárese en que la hipótesis del genio maligno, necesita, para ser destruida, la demostración de la existencia de Dios. Sólo cuando sabemos que Dios existe y que Dios es incapaz de engañarnos, sólo entonces queda deshecha la última

Así como la existencia del yo ha sido, en el cogito, establecida por una intuición intelectual, también la existencia de Dios queda establecida en el argumento ontológico por medio de una deducción (que para Descartes es una serie de intuiciones intelectuales). La metafísica del cartesianismo y filosofías subsiguientes tienden, por modo inevitable, a demostrar las existencias, mediante actos intelectuales subjetivos.

Και από τη συνήθεια έτσι, απελευθερώθηκα σταδιακά από πολλά σφάλματα που μπορούν να επισκιάσουν το φυσικό φως μας και να περιορίσουν την ικανότητα μας να αφουγκραστούμε τη λογική. Όμως αφού πέρασα μερικά χρόνια μελετώντας όλα αυτά στο βιβλίο του κόσμου και προσπαθώντας να αποκτήσω κάποια εμπειρία, πήρα μια μέρα την απόφαση να μελετήσω και τον εαυτό μου και να αξιοποιήσω όλες τις πνευματικές δυνάμεις μου για να επιλέξω τους δρόμους που έπρεπε να ακολουθήσω.

Η ικανότητα να κρίνει κανείς ορθά και να διακρίνει το σωστό από το λάθος- γεγονός στο οποίο ακριβώς εγκείται αυτό που ονομάζεται κοινός νους και λογική- είναι από τη φύση της ίδια σε όλυος τους ανθρώπους, και ότι, για τον λόγο αυτόν, η διαφορετικότητα των απόψεων μας δεν εξαρτάται από το γεγονός ότι κάποιοι είναι περισσότερο λογικοί απ' ό,τι άλλου, παρά μόνο από το ότι ακολουθούμε με ετις σκέψεις μας διαφορετικούς δρόμους και δεν λαμβάνουμε υπόψη μας τα ίδια πράγματα.

One method, which he had developed during his mock debates with John Collins in Boston and then when discoursing with Keimer, was to pursue topics through soft, Socratic queries. That became the preferred style for Junto meetings. Discussions were to be conducted “without fondness for dispute or desire of victory.” Franklin taught his friends to push their ideas through suggestions and questions, and to use (or at least feign) naïve curiosity to avoid contradicting people in a manner that could give offense.

I myself once heard a great fool (a great scholar I would have said) undertaking in a laborious discourse to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity; in the unfolding whereof, that he might shew his wit and reading, and together satisfy itching ears, he proceeded in a new method, as by insisting on the letters, syllables, and proposition, on the concord of noun and verb, and that of noun substantive, and noun adjective; the auditors all wondered, and some mumbled to themselves that hemistich of Horace, Why all this needless trash?

That is why I can’t in any way approve of those MEDDLESOME and RESTLESS characters who, without being called by BIRTH or by FORTUNE to the management of public affairs, are yet forever thinking up some new reform! If I thought this present work contained the SLIGHTEST ground for suspecting me of such FOLLY, I would SHRINK from allowing it to be published! My plan has NEVER gone beyond trying to reform my own thoughts and to build on a foundation that is ALL MY OWN. If I’m pleased enough with my work to present you with this sketch of it, it’s not because I would advise anyone to imitate it. Those on whom GOD has bestowed more of his favours than he has on me will PERHAPS have higher aims; but I’m afraid that this project of mine may be too bold for many people! The mere decision to rid myself all the opinions I have hitherto accepted isn’t an example that everyone ought to follow! The world is mostly made up of two types of minds for whom it is QUITE unsuitable. (1) There are those who, believing themselves cleverer than they are, can’t help rushing to judgment and can’t muster the patience to direct all their thoughts in an ORDERLY manner. So that if they ONCE took the liberty of doubting the principles they have accepted and leaving the common path, they would NEVER be able to stay on the straighter path that they ought to take, AND would REMAIN lost ALL their LIVES. (2) And there are those who are reasonable enough, or modest enough, to THINK that they can’t distinguish true from false as well as some other people by whom they can be taught. THESE should be content to follow the opinions of those others rather than to seek better opinions themselves.

La lectura de todos los buenos libros es como una conversación con los mejores ingenios de los pasados siglos que los han compuesto, y hasta una conversación estudiada en la que no nos descubren sino lo más selecto de sus pensamientos. [...] Es casi lo mismo conversar con gentes de otros siglos que viajar. Pero el que emplea demasiado tiempo en viajar acaba por tornarse extranjero en su propio país; y al que estudia con demasiada curiosidad lo que se hacía en los siglos pretéritos ocúrrele de ordinario que permanece ignorante de lo que se practica en el presente

Lenin was once asked to define communism in a single sentence. ‘Communism is power to worker councils,’ he said, ‘plus electrification of the whole country.’ There can be no communism without electricity, without railroads, without radio. You couldn’t establish a communist regime in sixteenth-century Russia, because communism necessitates the concentration of information and resources in one hub. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ only works when produce can easily be collected and distributed across vast distances, and when activities can be monitored and coordinated over entire countries. Marx and his followers understood the new technological realities and the new human experiences, so they had relevant answers to the new problems of industrial society, as well as original ideas about how to benefit from the unprecedented opportunities. The socialists created a brave new religion for a brave new world. They promised salvation through technology and economics, thus establishing the first techno-religion in history, and changing the foundations of ideological discourse. Before Marx, people defined and divided themselves according to their views about God, not about production methods. Since Marx, questions of technology and economic structure became far more important and divisive than debates about the soul and the afterlife. In the second half of the twentieth century, humankind almost obliterated itself in an argument about production methods. Even the harshest critics of Marx and Lenin adopted their basic attitude towards history and society, and began thinking about technology and production much more carefully than about God and heaven.

Feminism involves so much more than gender equality. And it involves so much more than gender. Feminism must involve a consciousness of capitalism—I mean, the feminism that I relate to. And there are multiple feminisms, right? It has to involve a consciousness of capitalism, and racism, and colonialism, and postcolonialities, and ability, and more genders than we can even imagine, and more sex-ualities than we ever thought we could name. Feminism has helped us not only to recognize a range of connections among discourses, and institutions, and identities, and ideologies that we often tend to consider separately. But it has also helped us to develop epistemological and organizing strategies that take us beyond the categories “women” and “gender.” And, feminist methodologies impel us to explore connections that are not always apparent. And they drive us to inhabit contradictions and discover what is productive in these contradictions. Feminism insists on methods of thought and action that urge us to think about things together that appear to be separate, and to disaggregate things that appear to naturally belong together.

The whole force of the argument rests on the fact that I recognize that it would be impossible for me to exist, being of such a nature as I am (namely, having in me the idea of God), unless God did in fact exist. God, I say, that same being the idea of whom is in me: a being having all those perfections that I cannot comprehend, but can somehow touch with my thought, and a being subject to no defects whatever. From these considerations it is quite obvious that he cannot be a deceiver, for it is manifest by the light of nature that all fraud and deception depend on some defect

I esteemed Eloquency highly, and was in raptures with poesy; but I thought that both were gifts of nature rather than fruits of study. Those in whom the faculty of Reason is predominant, and who most skillfully dispose their thoughts with a view to render them clear and intelligible, are always the best able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay down, though they should speak only in the language of Lower Brittany, and be wholly ignorant of the rules of Rhetoric; and those whose minds are stored with the most agreeable fancies, and who can give expression to them with the greatest embellishment and harmony, are still the best poets, though unacquainted with the Art of Poetry.

I come now to Descartes's two most important books, so far as pure philosophy is concerned. These are the Discourse on Method (1637) and the Meditations (1642). They largely overlap, and it is not necessary to keep them apart. In these books Descartes begins by explaining the method of 'Cartesian doubt', as it has come to be called. In order to have a firm basis for his philosophy, he resolves to make himself doubt everything that he can manage to doubt. As he foresees that the process may take some time, he resolves, in the meanwhile, to regulate his conduct by commonly received rules; this will leave his mind unhampered by the possible consequences of his doubts in relation to practice.

I have always understood PaGaian Cosmology as Poetry: it is not a ‘discourse’ or a theory, or a ‘study’ of something as a theology is, or even as a thealogy may be. It is a speaking with our Place, this Habitat, which is understood to be alive and responsive, and deeply complex: how else may we speak with our dynamic Place of Being, who is always much more than we can imagine? The ceremonial celebration of the complete cycle of Seasonal ceremonies, wherever one is on our Planet, and in all the diverse possibilities, may be experienced and recognised as a Poiesis: that is, the intention is to make a world, to participate in “an action that transforms and continues the world” … the sacred ceremonies when engaged in fully, are a method of action. They may serve as a catalyst for changing of mind, for personal and cultural change.

And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.

Now we understand that it's all cultural. That, after all, is what a culture is—a group of people who share in common certain acquired traits. “Information technology has freed cultures from the necessity of owning particular bits of land in order to propagate; now we can live anywhere. The Common Economic Protocol specifies how this is to be arranged. “Some cultures are prosperous; some are not. Some value rational discourse and the scientific method; some do not. Some encourage freedom of expression, and some discourage it. The only thing they have in common is that if they do not propagate, they will be swallowed up by others. All they have built up will be torn down; all they have accomplished will be forgotten; all they have learned and written will be scattered to the wind. In the old days it was easy to remember this because of the constant necessity of border defence. Nowadays, it is all too easily forgotten.

Feminism involves so much more than gender equality. And it involves so much more than gender. Feminism must involve a consciousness of capitalism - I mean, the feminism that I relate to. And there are multiple feminisms, right? It has to involve a consciousness of capitalism, and racism, and colonialism, and postcolonialities, and ability, and more genders than we can even imagine, and more sexualities than we ever thought we could name. Feminism has helped us not only to recognize a range of connections among discourses, and institutions, and identities, and ideologies that we often tend to consider separately. But it has also helped us to develop epistemological and organizing strategies that take us beyond the categories 'women' and 'gender.' And, feminist methodologies impel us to explore connections that are not always apparent. And they drive us to inhabit contradictions and discover what is productive in these contradictions. Feminism insists on methods of thought and action that urge us to think about things together that appear to be separate, and to disaggregate things that appear to naturally belong together.

The methods of meditation taught by the Buddha in the Pali Canon fall into two broad systems. One is the development of serenity (samatha), which aims at concentration (samādhi); the other is the development of insight (vipassanā), which aims at understanding or wisdom (paññā). In the Buddha’s system of mental training the role of serenity is subordinated to that of insight because the latter is the crucial instrument needed to uproot the ignorance at the bottom of saṁsāric bondage. The attainments possible through serenity meditation were known to Indian contemplatives long before the advent of the Buddha. The Buddha himself mastered the two highest stages under his early teachers but found that, on their own, they only led to higher planes of rebirth, not to genuine enlightenment (MN 26.15–16). However, because the unification of mind induced by the practice of concentration contributes to clear understanding, the Buddha incorporated the techniques of serenity meditation and the resulting levels of absorption into his own system, treating them as a foundation and preparation for insight and as a “pleasant abiding here and now.

The ancient Romans built elaborate networks of pipes to deliver water where they wanted it to go. The networks were a marvel. But many of the pipes were made of lead, and the water carried the lead along with it. One school of thought regards this as part of the reason for the decline and fall of Rome: lead poisoning gradually took its toll, impairing the thought and judgment of many Romans, especially at the top. The theory is much disputed; perhaps it contains no truth. But as a metaphor it is irresistible. We have built networks for the delivery of information—the internet, and especially social media. These networks, too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from those sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage. It craves confirmation and resents contradiction. Attention spans collapse; imbecility propagates, then seems normal, then is celebrated. The capacity for rational discourse between people who disagree gradually rots. I have a good deal more confidence in the lead-pipe theory of the internet, and its effect on our culture, than in the lead-pipe theory of the fall of Rome.

Then, when he has acquired some skill in discovering the truth in these questions, he should commence to apply himself in earnest to true philosophy, of which the first part is Metaphysics, containing the principles of knowledge, among which is the explication of the principal attributes of God, of the immateriality of the soul, and of all the clear and simple notions that are in us; the second is Physics, in which, after finding the true principles of material things, we examine, in general, how the whole universe has been framed; in the next place, we consider, in particular, the nature of the earth, and of all the bodies that are most generally found upon it, as air, water, fire, the loadstone and other minerals. In the next place it is necessary also to examine singly the nature of plants, of animals, and above all of man, in order that we may thereafter be able to discover the other sciences that are useful to us. Thus, all Philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics is the root, Physics the trunk, and all the other sciences the branches that grow out of this trunk, which are reduced to three principal, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and Ethics. By the science of Morals, I understand the highest and most perfect which, presupposing an entire knowledge of the other sciences, is the last degree of wisdom.

Finally, if there still are men who have not been sufficiently persuaded of the existence of God and of their soul by means of the reasons I have brought forward, I very much want them to know that all the other things of which they think themselves perhaps more assured, such as having a body, that there are stars and an earth, and the like, are less certain. For although one might have a moral assurance about these things, which is such that it seems one cannot doubt them without being extravagant, still when it is a question of metaphysical certitude, it seems unreasonable for anyone to deny that there is not a sufficient basis for one's being completely assured about them, when one observes that while asleep one can, in the same fashion, imagine that one has a different body and that one sees different stars and a different earth, without any of these things being the case. For how does one know that the thoughts that come to us in dreams are any more false than the others, given that they are often no less vivid and explicit? And even if the best minds study this as much as they please, I do not believe they can give any reason sufficient to remove this doubt, unless they presuppose the existence of God. For first of all, even what I have already taken for a rule, namely that the things we very clearly and very distinctly conceive are all true, is assured only for the reason that God is or exists, and that he is a perfect being, and that all that is in us comes from him.

Here’s the four point battle plan, which we’ll return to at the end of the book: Disregard the Doomsayers: The misguided belief that “it’s too late” to act has been co-opted by fossil fuel interests and those advocating for them. It’s just another way of legitimizing business-as-usual and a continued reliance on fossil fuels. We must reject the overt doom and gloom that we increasingly encounter in today’s climate discourse. A Child Shall Lead Them: The youngest generation is fighting tooth and nail to save their planet, and there is a moral authority and clarity in their message that none but the most jaded ears can fail to hear. They are the game-changers that climate advocates have been waiting for. We should model our actions after theirs and learn from their methods and their idealism. Educate, Educate, Educate: Most hard-core climate-change deniers are unmovable. They view climate change through the prism of right-wing ideology and are impervious to facts. Don’t waste your time and effort trying to convince them. But there are many honest, confused folks out there who are caught in the crossfire, victims of the climate-change disinformation campaign. We must help them out. Then they will be in a position to join us in battle. Changing the System Requires Systemic Change: The fossil fuel disinformation machine wants to make it about the car you choose to drive, the food you choose to eat, and the lifestyle you choose to live rather than about the larger system and incentives. We need policies that will incentivize the needed shift away from fossil fuel burning toward a clean, green global economy. So-called leaders who resist the call for action must be removed from office.

This makes a mockery of real science, and its consequences are invariably ridiculous. Quite a few otherwise intelligent men and women take it as an established principle that we can know as true only what can be verified by empirical methods of experimentation and observation. This is, for one thing, a notoriously self-refuting claim, inasmuch as it cannot itself be demonstrated to be true by any application of empirical method. More to the point, though, it is transparent nonsense: most of the things we know to be true, often quite indubitably, do not fall within the realm of what can be tested by empirical methods; they are by their nature episodic, experiential, local, personal, intuitive, or purely logical. The sciences concern certain facts as organized by certain theories, and certain theories as constrained by certain facts; they accumulate evidence and enucleate hypotheses within very strictly limited paradigms; but they do not provide proofs of where reality begins or ends, or of what the dimensions of truth are. They cannot even establish their own working premises—the real existence of the phenomenal world, the power of the human intellect accurately to reflect that reality, the perfect lawfulness of nature, its interpretability, its mathematical regularity, and so forth—and should not seek to do so, but should confine themselves to the truths to which their methods give them access. They should also recognize what the boundaries of the scientific rescript are. There are, in fact, truths of reason that are far surer than even the most amply supported findings of empirical science because such truths are not, as those findings must always be, susceptible of later theoretical revision; and then there are truths of mathematics that are subject to proof in the most proper sense and so are more irrefutable still. And there is no one single discourse of truth as such, no single path to the knowledge of reality, no single method that can exhaustively define what knowledge is, no useful answers whose range has not been limited in advance by the kind of questions that prompted them. The failure to realize this can lead only to delusions of the kind expressed in, for example, G. G. Simpson’s self-parodying assertion that all attempts to define the meaning of life or the nature of humanity made before 1859 are now entirely worthless, or in Peter Atkins’s ebulliently absurd claims that modern science can “deal with every aspect of existence” and that it has in fact “never encountered a barrier.” Not only do sentiments of this sort verge upon the deranged, they are nothing less than violent assaults upon the true dignity of science (which lies entirely in its severely self-limiting rigor).

If the symbolic father is often lurking behind the boss--which is why one speaks of 'paternalism' in various kinds of enterprises--there also often is, in a most concrete fashion, a boss or hierarchic superior behind the real father. In the unconscious, paternal functions are inseparable from the socio-professional and cultural involvements which sustain them. Behind the mother, whether real or symbolic, a certain type of feminine condition exists, in a socially defined imaginary context. Must I point out that children do not grow up cut off from the world, even within the family womb? The family is permeable to environmental forces and exterior influences. Collective infrastructures, like the media and advertising, never cease to interfere with the most intimate levels of subjective life. The unconscious is not something that exists by itself to be gotten hold of through intimate discourse. In fact, it is only a rhizome of machinic interactions, a link to power systems and power relations that surround us. As such, unconscious processes cannot be analyzed in terms of specific content or structural syntax, but rather in terms of enunciation, of collective enunciative arrangements, which, by definition, correspond neither to biological individuals nor to structural paradigms... The customary psychoanalytical family-based reductions of the unconscious are not 'errors.' They correspond to a particular kind of collective enunciative arrangement. In relation to unconscious formation, they proceed from the particular micropolitics of capitalistic societal organization. An overly diversified, overly creative machinic unconscious would exceed the limits of 'good behavior' within the relations of production founded upon social exploitation and segregation. This is why our societies grant a special position to those who specialize in recentering the unconscious onto the individuated subject, onto partially reified objects, where methods of containment prevent its expansion beyond dominant realities and significations. The impact of the scientific aspirations of techniques like psychoanalysis and family therapy should be considered as a gigantic industry for the normalization, adaption and organized division of the socius. The workings of the social division of labor, the assignment of individuals to particular productive tasks, no longer depend solely on means of direct coercion, or capitalistic systems of semiotization (the monetary remuneration based on profit, etc.). They depend just as fundamentally on techniques modeling the unconscious through social infrastructures, the mass media, and different psychological and behavioral devices...Even the outcome of the class struggle of the oppressed--the fact that they constantly risk being sucked into relations of domination--appears to be linked to such a perspective.

Though Aristotle allows so many several forms of corrupted governments; yet he insists upon no one form of all those that he can define or describe, in such sort, that he is able to say that any one city in all Greece was governed just according to such a form; his diligence is only to make as many forms as the giddy or inconstant humour of a city could happen upon; he freely gives the people liberty to invent as many kinds of government as they please, provided he may have liberty to find fault with every one of them; it proved an easier work for him to find fault with every form, than to tell how to amend any one of them; he found so many imperfections in all sorts of common-weals, that he could not hold from reproving them before ever he tells us what a commonweal is, or how many sorts there are, and to this purpose he spends his whole second book in setting out, and correcting the chief commonweals of Greece, and among others the Lacedemonian, the Cretan and Carthaginian commonweals; which three he esteems to be much alike, and better than any other, yet he spares not to lay open their imperfections, and doth the like to the Athenian; wherein he breaks the rule of method, by delivering the faults of commonweals, before he teach us what a commonweal is; for in his first book, he speaks only of the parts, of which a city, or a commonweal is made, but tells us not what a city or commonweal is, until he come to his third book, and there in handling the sorts of government, he observes no method at all, but in a disorderly way, flies backward and forward from one sort to another: and howsoever there may be observed in him many rules of policy touching government in general, yet without doubt where he comes to discourse of particular forms, he is full of contradiction, or confusion, or both: it is true, he is brief and difficult, the best right a man can do him, is to confess lie understands him not; yet a diligent reader may readily discern so many irregularities and breaches in Aristotle's books of Politics, as tend to such distraction or confusion, that none of our new politicians can make advantage of his principles, for the confirmation of an original power by nature in the people, which is the only theme now in fashion: for Aristotle's discourse is of such commonweals as were founded by particular persons, as the Chalcedonian by Phaleas, the Milesian by Hippodamas, the Lacedemonian by Lycurgus, the Cretan by Minos, the Athenian by Solon, and the like: but the natural right of the people to found, or elect; their kind of government is not once disputed by him: it seems the underived majesty of the people, was such a metaphysical piece of speculation as our grand philosopher was not acquainted with; he speaks very contemptuously of the multitude in several places, he affirms that the people are base or wicked judges in their own cases, ‘οι πλειστοι φαυλοι κριται περι των οικειων and that many of them differ nothing from beasts; τι διαφερουσιν ενιοι των θηριων; and again he saith, the common people or freemen are such as are neither rich, nor in reputation for virtue; and it is not safe to commit to them great governments; for, by reason of their injustice and unskilfulness, they would do much injustice, and commit many errors and it is pleasanter to the multitude to live disorderly, than soberly, ‘ηδιον γαρ τοις πολλοις το ζην ατακτως η το σωφρονως.

Question : I FEEL I HAVE SURRENDERED TO SAI BABA, BUT STILL I FEEL THE NECESSITY OF WORKING WITH ANOTHER TEACHER OR GURU. IS THIS POSSIBLE? Osho : The first thing is to remember that the master really does not work. He is there, his presence works, but the presence can work only if you have trust. If you don't have trust, nothing can be done. So really, if you feel you have surrendered to Sai Baba, what is the need to come to me? If the surrender has really happened, then asking for another master is futile. I doubt your surrender, your trust, because when trust has happened nothing more is needed. It is good if you feel an intimate closeness with Sai Baba..But then don't wander here and there, then don't go to anybody else, because this is impossible. If you have surrendered then move to Sai Baba, open yourself to him so that he can work; then don't go seeking here and there. I am ready to help, but for that you will have to be receptive. If you trust me, something becomes possible. You cannot be forced into nirvana, you can only flow into it. There are many who go on wandering from one master to another. The total result may be simply confusion, because each master works in his own way, he has his own methods, and you go on accumulating information. That information is bound to be contradictory. Then you will get confused, you may even go insane. It is better to stick to one master and give your heart totally to him. If then nothing happens, move. But be finished with that master, don't be in an incomplete relationship. First go back to Sai Baba, be finished with him. Either you are transformed, then there is no need to find anyone; or Sai Baba is not your master, it is proved. Then come to me. And the same applies to my own disciples. If you are here with me, be finished with me. Be totally with me, so that either the mutation happens and then there is no need to find anyone or to go anywhere, or you come to realize, "This man is not for me." Then you can leave me totally, then you can move, then somewhere else.... But being here with me halfheartedly and then moving to someone else halfheartedly will not do. Rather, it may be dangerous. You may become so split, so divided, with so many voices in you, that you may become a crowd. Patience is needed. If you are totally devoted to one master the thing is bound to happen. And I would say that even if the master is not true, the thing can happen if you are totally devoted. Even if the master is false the happening is possible if you are totally devoted - because the happening doesn't happen through the master, it happens through total devotion. So even a dead master, or a master who has never been, just the name, will do. The real alchemy, the science of mutation, is within you. The master is at the most just a catalytic agent, nothing more. Go back to your own master and be with him. And don't try to judge him; you have got no way to judge anybody. All that you can do is give your total heart to him. And what have you got to lose? So why be so afraid? You have got nothing to lose, so why be so untrusting? Give yourself totally. Many times it has happened that a disciple was transformed through a master who was not a master at all. And many times the contrary has also happened: the master was true but the disciple was not transformed. The ultimate thing depends on you, not on me. You are the deciding factor. So wherever you go, make it a law: go with your total heart. Otherwise you will move with empty hands everywhere. And the more you move, the more you go to this master and that, the more there will be confusion, suffering, and finally you may decide that there exists no one who can transform you. Or, you may come to conclude that there is nothing like transformation, this is all hocus-pocus. And the reason will only be this - that you were never anywhere with your total heart.

Dialectic generally means “of the nature of the dialogue,” which is a conversation between two persons. Nowadays it means logical argumentation. It involves a technique of cross-examination, by which truth is arrived at. It’s the mode of discourse of Socrates in the Dialogues of Plato. Plato believed the dialectic was the sole method by which the truth was arrived at. The only one.

M. Romains had taken many journeys in his country’s interest and at his own expense. He had talked with the statesmen of fourteen European lands. Three years ago he had traveled to Berlin and delivered a lecture under government auspices. Brownshirted leaders had been summoned from all over the land to hear him, and one of the top-flight Nazis had said to him: “You know, no private individual has ever been received like this in Berlin.” The philosopher-novelist had also been welcomed by the King of the Belgians, who had discussed frankly that country’s attitude to the gravely threatened war. As M. Romains told about these matters, you couldn’t doubt that he was patriotically in earnest, but also you couldn’t help feeling that he was intensely impressed by his own importance. His plan was the one known as le couple France-Allemagne, and it meant reconcilation with Germany, by the simple method of giving the Nazis whatever they demanded. For example, he had had the idea that the Allies should have got out of the Saar without the formality of a plebiscite. Lanny happened to know that Briand had been trying to work out some compromise on this question as far back as ten years ago; but apparently M. Romains didn’t know that, and certainly it wasn’t up to Lanny to correct him on his facts. The philosopher-novelist seemed to have the idea that the Saar settlement had been a matter between France and Germany, and that the plebiscite had taken place under French military control, whereas the fact was it had been a League matter, and French troops had been withdrawn nine years before the plebiscite was held. Among the members of that attentive audience was Kurt Meissner, who had met the Frenchman many years ago in Emily’s drawing-room. Evidently he had put his opportunity to good use, for it was just as if M. Romains had sat in a seminar conducted by the Wehrmacht’s agent, had absorbed the entire doctrine, and was now giving an oral dissertation to demonstrate what he had learned and get his degree. His discourse embraced the complete Nazi program for the undermining of the French republic: warm protestations of friendship; unlimited promises of peace; the sowing of distrust of all politicians and of the entire democratic procedure; and, above all else, fear of the Red specter. The Reds kept faith with nobody, their country was a colossus with feet of clay, their army a broken reed upon which France persisted in trying to lean. The republic had to choose between Stalin and Hitler; between an illusory military alliance and a secure and enduring peace. The words burned Lanny’s tongue: “M. Romains, have you ever read Mein Kampf?” Of course, Lanny couldn’t say them; but he wondered, how would this somewhat self-conscious idol of the bourgeois world have replied? Lanny recalled the Max Beerbohm cartoon in which a drawing-room fop is asked if he has read a certain book, and replies: “I do not read books; I write them.

There is a perhaps understandable reluctance to come to grips scientifically with the problem of race differences in intelligence—to come to grips with it, that is to say, in the same way the scientists would approach the investigation of any other phenomenon. This reluctance is manifested in a variety of ‘symptoms’ found in most writings and discussions of the psychology of race differences. These symptoms include a tendency to remain on the remotest fringes of the subject, to sidestep central questions, and to blur the issues and tolerate a degree of vagueness in definitions, concepts and inferences that would be unseemly in any other realm of scientific discourse. Many writers express an unwarranted degree of skepticism about reasonably well-established quantitative methods and measurements. They deny or belittle facts already generally accepted—accepted, that is, when brought to bear on inferences outside the realm of race differences—and they demand practically impossible criteria of certainty before even seriously proposing or investigating genetic hypotheses, as contrasted with with extremely uncritical attitudes towards purely environmental hypotheses. There is often a failure to distinguish clearly between scientifically answerable aspects of the question and the moral, political and social policy issues; there is tendency to beat dead horses and set up straw men on what is represented, or misrepresented I should say, as the genetic side of the argument. We see appeals to the notion that the topic is either too unimportant to be worthy of scientific curiosity, or is too complex, or too difficult, or that it will be forever impossible for any kind of research to be feasible, or that answers to key questions are fundamentally ‘unknowable’ in any scientifically accepted sense. Finally, we often see complete denial of intelligence and race as realities, or as quantifiable attributes, or as variables capable of being related to one another. In short, there is an altogether ostrich-like dismissal of the subject.

His comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and retentive, his discourse is methodical, and his expression clear.

The Mahatma’s singular insight was that self-government would never be achieved by the resolutions passed by a self-regarding and unelected elite pursuing the politics of the drawing room. To him, self-government had to involve the empowerment of the masses, the toiling multitudes of India in whose name the upper classes were clamouring for Home Rule. This position did not go over well with India’s political class, which consisted in those days largely of aristocrats and lawyers, men of means who discoursed in English and demanded the rights of Englishmen. Nor did Gandhi’s insistence that the masses be mobilized not by the methods of ‘princes and potentates’ (his phrase) but by moral values derived from ancient tradition and embodied in swadeshi and satyagraha.

Accordingly, Dr. Williams, the opponent of Mr. Booth, inquires, ‘Are not the same reasons, which are brought for infant baptism, in like manner, applicable to infant communion? And will not the objections against the latter, admit of the same answer, as those against the former?’208 The reasons stated in both parts of this discourse, lead us to the conclusion, that the immersion of a professing believer, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is the only Christian baptism. ‘He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned’.209 To believe in Christ is necessary to salvation; and to be baptized is the instituted method of professing our belief. It is, therefore, not only an infinitely important question to all men, whether they believe in Christ; but it is also a very important question to all Christians, whether they have been baptized.

there is a need to generate appropriate discourses to convince assessors and policy-makers that within the context of studio-based research, innovation is derived from methods that cannot always be pre-determined, and “outcomes” of artistic research are necessarily unpredictable.

The evangelical tradition itself arose from the 18th century movement that came to be known as the Enlightenment. The philosophers, religious leaders, and political thinkers of the Enlightenment had declared freedom and democracy to be the principle values of human society, and reason to be the source of all authority. The Enlightenment promoted a vigorous public life, an emphasis on rational discourse as the path to truth, and an embrace of the scientific method. Leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson considered the ideas of the Enlightenment to be the very foundation of the new American republic, and documents such as the Declaration of Independence to be the height of Enlightenment thinking.

Contemporary theologians are not accustomed to think of poetry, literature, and plays as theological discourse. In the contemporary era, where faith is often counter-posed with reason, theological discourse seeks to stand on academic ground. As a result, it has lost much of its original flavor, seeking to prove its validity rather than assume it. In Sor Juana's era, at a time on the brink of modernity (yet not there) such concerns were not operating. Sor Juana is part of a tradition that not only speaks to her context and the theology of her time, but one that continues to exist today, though often marginalized from academic centers of reflection. Like Seneca, Russell, and Sartre, Sor Juana uses drama and poetry as a form of philosophical reflection.61 She stands among those thinkers who offer alternative constructions of philosophical method.

In one of his essays William Placher comments on a time when the theological use of the Bible presupposed a deep knowledge of what the Bible says.1 The example he serves up is from the final pages of Calvin’s Institutes, where the Reformer thinks through the issue of what Christians should do if they find themselves under a wicked ruler. Placher notes that Calvin reflects on Daniel and Ezekiel regarding the need to obey even bad rulers; he weighs the command to serve the king of Babylon in Jeremiah 27. He quotes from the Psalms, and he cites Isaiah to the effect that the faithful are urged to trust in God to overcome the unrighteous. On the other hand, he evenhandedly notes episodes in Exodus and Judges “where people serve God by overthrowing the evil rulers,” and texts in 1 Kings and Hosea where God’s people are criticized for being obedient to wicked kings. He cites Peter’s conclusion before Gamaliel, according to Acts: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). From these and other biblical passages, he proceeds to weave nuanced conclusions. We should disobey what governement mandates if it violates our religious obligations. By contrast, Christians should not normally go around starting revolutions. But those who are in positions of authority should deploy that authority to deal with those who exploit others. Even violent revolutionaries may in mysterious ways perform the will of God, though of course they may be called to judgment on account of their evil. Placher then comments: My point is not to defend all of Calvin’s conclusions, or even all of his method, but simply to illustrate how immersion in biblical texts can produce a very complex way of reflecting within a framework of biblical authority, compared to which most contemporary examples look pretty simple-minded. We can’t “appeal to the Bible” in a way that’s either helpful or faithful without beginning to do theology. Theology begins to put together a way of looking as a Christian at the world in all its variety, a language that we share as Christians and that provides a context rich enough for discussing the complexities of our lives. Absent such a shared framework, we can quote passages at each other, but the only contexts in which we can operate come from the discourses of politics and popular culture.2

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. DISCOURSE ON METHOD

Although left-leaning liberals tend to favor the underdog, liberalism across the board centers human dignity; Theory focuses on victimhood. Liberalism encourages disagreement and debate as means to getting at the truth; Theory rejects these as ways of reinforcing dominant discourses that suppress certain perspectives and insists that we cannot get to “the” truth, but only to “our” truths, which are rooted in our values. Liberalism accepts the correspondence theory of truth—that a statement is true if it accurately describes reality; Theory promotes the idea that truth is a “language game” and that words, ultimately, only point to other words and can never correspond concretely to reality—unless those words describe oppression. Liberalism accepts criticism, even of itself, and is therefore self-correcting; Theory cannot be criticized. Liberalism believes in progress; Theory is radically cynical about the possibility of progress. Liberalism is inherently constructive because of the evolutionary processes it engenders; Theory is inherently corrosive because of its cynicism and attachment to methods it calls “critical.” This is no surprise since critical methods have always been explicitly and by design critical of liberalism as a means of social, political, and economic organization.

If a connoisseur of the irony of political life is struck solemn by it, if he talks of tragic irony, then he is a ‘wet’ Machiavellian, a Christian. If he is fascinated by it, intellectually interested, he is a central Machiavellian, like the master himself. If he is amused by the irony of political life, he is an extreme Machiavellian, a cynic, a man who enjoys the sufferings and embarrassments of others. Just as Machiavellians do not understand the nature of tragedy, so Grotians are unable to understand the structure or texture of irony, which has several strands. The first is that of mere accident. Thus Cesare Borgia made many precautions against Alexander VI's death… Machiavelli recalls: ‘On the day that Julius II was elected, he told me that he had thought of everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had provided a remedy for all, except that he had never foreseen that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to die... Another strand of historical irony is multiple or cumulative causation of a single result. Thus there were many mistakes in Louis XII's policy in Italy: he destroyed the small powers; aggrandized a greater power, the papacy; and called in a foreign power, Spain. He did not settle in Italy, nor send colonies to Italy, and he weakened the Venetians... A third strand is the single causation of opposite results, or paradox. Marxists like this notion: the bourgeoisie created simultaneously a single world economy and the extreme of international anarchy… A fourth strand of irony is self-frustration, or failure. Men intend one result and produce another... Japan, too, by attempting to conquer China, did much to make China instead of herself the future Great Power of the Orient... A fifth strand in historical irony is that the same policy, in different circumstances, will produce different effects... The sixth and last strand is that contrary policies, in different circumstances, can produce the same effects. This is discussed in an unintentionally amusing way in The Discourses (bk III), when Machiavelli discusses whether harsh methods or mild are the more efficacious. He lists examples where humanity, kindness, common decency, and generosity paid political dividends, including Fabricius' rejection of the offer to poison Pyrrhus. But Hannibal obtained fame and victory by exactly opposite methods: cruelty, violence, rapine, and perfidy.

In his book Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli noted that those who have held power over a population have long realized that a population united is always stronger than those who rule over it, and thus stretching back into ancient times rulers have sought to “divide the many, and weaken the force which was strong while it was united” (Machiavelli) through the use of “those methods which promote division” (Machiavelli)

He admits that “such a method” of somehow thinking together the philosophical foundations and the hermeneutical articulations in terms of the Holocaust is “circular,” but, he says, “provided this circle is recognized, and the recognition of it permeates the whole discourse, it merely illustrates . . . that a philosophical writer with a systematic purpose cannot say everything that needs to be said

The ancient Romans built elaborate networks of pipes to deliver water where they wanted it to go. The networks were a marvel. But many of the pipes were made of lead, and the water carried the lead along with it. One school of thought regards this as part of the reason for the decline and fall of Rome: lead poisoning gradually took its toll, impairing the thought and judgment of many Romans, especially at the top. The theory is much disputed; perhaps it contains no truth. But as a metaphor it is irresistible. We have built networks for the delivery of information—the internet, and especially social media. These networks, too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from those sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage. It craves confirmation and resents contradiction. Attention spans collapse; imbecility propagates, then seems normal, then is celebrated. The capacity for rational discourse between people who disagree gradually rots.

The debate has been bounded by the rules of ordinary scientific discourse. This highly regulated space makes room for technical papers; grant applications; informal networks of students, teachers, and laboratories; official symposia to promote methods and interpretations; and finally, textbooks to socialize new scientists.

Descartes's little book {Discourse on the Method} is among the most accessible of recognized philosophic classics in the Western tradition. It is not a book by an erudite addressed to other erudites. Descartes explicitly devalues erudition. His thesis is that everybody has what is essential for identifying truth—natural reason—whether or not that person has any special educational formation. Failure to identify truth comes either from directing natural reason to the wrong objects—which can include the recondite lore of erudition—or from uncritically accepting opinion and custom.

It is time for the US military to scrap all existing planning manuals and to start afresh. Few officers read these voluminous and poorly written documents except to meet academic requirements. The new manuals must begin with recognition that there are three approaches to decision-making, not one. These are intuitive, analytical, and systemic. None is better or worse than the others are; officers must know which to use in the situation at hand. The analytical approach cannot remain the default choice. To conclude, the US national security community must overhaul the way it currently acquires policy, which it needs to develop the nation’s grand strategy and in turn its military strategy. The 1988 NSS did this best. To translate strategy successfully into campaign plans and operational plans the national defense community must adopt a systemic approach to operational design. In doing so, the community will replace analytical checklist-like procedures with discourse. The latter method enables planers to discern what makes an unfavorable situation a problem, thereby uncovering the counter-logic needed to resolve that problem. (Excerpt from article “From Grand Strategy to Operational Design: Getting it Right”)

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Descartes created four principles in his book Discourse on Method for proper critical thinking, but before anything else, you have to start with a clear conception of what idea you are reasoning toward.

Descartes explicates a method for arriving at such intellectual clarity in his Discourse on Methods, which has four steps:

The study of Islamic perceptual culture is distinct from, yet dependent on, art history. It respects the knowledge gained from a secular approach to the cultures of Islam, but questions the premise that a secularism gleaned from Christianate roots can apprehend a culture in which everything can be conceived within a relationship with the Divine. This inquiry renders contingent premises such as the centrality of vision, the role of the image, the importance of the object, the linearity of history, the centrality of matter, and the authority of perspective. In their stead, this study of perceptual culture looks to Islamic discourses for an alternative language through which to conceive the human encounter with the created world. On the one hand, these new concepts expand our understanding of Islam in its relationship with antique philosophy and neighboring religions. On the other, these methods transcend the category of Islam, providing potentially useful tools through which to develop transcultural epistemic models for global art history. Featuring the agency of works over their physicality, the study of Islamic perceptual culture expands the concept of ‘art’ to include music, dreams, visions, and mirrors, both real and metaphorical. The shift from art to perception, production to reception replaces the exchange value of the commodity with the interactive sharing of discourse. We become less what we make than how we make, and what we do with that making. Rather than annealing history in the preservation of forms, the discursive preservation of ideas enables that which has been to persist in what becomes. Bergsonian duration gains methodological centrality over Hegelian historicism.