Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.
C.S. Peirce
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Doug Belshaw
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Doug Belshaw
Faith and philosophy are air, but events are brass.
Herman Melville
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Doug Belshaw
He is a fool that has nothing of philosophy in him, but not so much as he that has nothing else but philosophy in him.
Samuel Butler
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Doug Belshaw
Without historical sensitivity, the interpreter will be at the mercy of his sources, or of his own prejudices, or both/ And without some philosophical impetus, he will not be able to create a lifelike account of what is protagonists were about, why they inquired and reasons as they did; at best. he will produce a hodge-podge of unrelated insights.
Edward Hussey, ‘The Presocratics’ (p.154) -
Doug Belshaw
The inner logic of the Atomist theory, therefore, led straight to the conclusion that consciousness and perception, as they are known in ordinary experiences, are epiphenomena, determined and accounted for completely by the states and rearrangements of components not themselves capable of consciousness or perception… It followed that the whole history of the universe was determined, if at all, by a ‘meaningless’ necessity inherent in the laws governing the collision and rebound of atoms, a force which was devoid of any inherent tendency to the better, or of any regard for the wishes and requirements of such accidental by-products as conscious beings.
Edward Hussey, ‘The Presocratics’ (p.148) -
Doug Belshaw
Anaxagoras said that the most happy man was someone who would seem a strange person to the common run of men, and that what made existence as a human being preferable to non-existence was the possibility of contemplating the universe.
Edward Hussey, ‘The Presocratics’ (p.141) -
Doug Belshaw
Our minds must relax: they will rise better and keener after a rest. Just as you must not force fertile farmland, as uninterrupted productivity will soon exhaust it, so constant effort will sap our mental vigour, while a short period of rest and relaxation will restore our powers. Unremitting effort leads to a kind of mental dullness and lethargy.
– Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind
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Doug Belshaw
‘Recte facti, fecisse merces est;’ [The reward for acting properly is to have done so]
Michel de Montaigne, ‘On glory’, The Complete Essays -
Doug Belshaw
I a not so much worried about how I am in the minds of other men as how I am to myself. I want to be enriched by me not by borrowings from others. Those outside us only see events and external appearances: anyone can put on a good outward show while inside he is full of fever and fright. They do not see my mind: they only see the looks on my face.
Michel de Montaigne, ‘On glory’, The Complete Essays -
Doug Belshaw
Whoever acts worthily only when others can know of it (and think better of him when they do), whoever never wishes to act well in circumstances where his virtue cannot come to the knowledge of men, is not a man who will be of much use to you.
Michel de Montaigne, ‘On glory’, The Complete Essays
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