display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
5 ideas
| 3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Those who go forward only very slowly can progress much further if they always keep to the right path, than those who run and wander off it. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: Like Descartes' 'Method'. This seems to place a low value on 'nous' or intuition. |
| 3656 | The greatest good for a state is true philosophers [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The greatest good which can exist in a state is to have true philosophers. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
| A reaction: …because they understand true reality, especially the Good. |
| 24032 | Clever scholars can obscure things which are obvious even to peasants [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Scholars are usually ingenious enough to find ways of spreading darkness even in things which are obvious by themselves, and which the peasants are not ignorant of. | |
| From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 12) | |
| A reaction: Wonderful! I see it everywhere in philosophy. It is usually the result of finding ingenious and surprising grounds for scepticism. The amazing thing is not their lovely arguments, but that fools then take their conclusions seriously. Modus tollens. |
| 3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Looking at the various activities and enterprises of mankind with the eye of a philosopher, there is hardly one which does not seem to me vain and useless. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §1.3) | |
| A reaction: Well, yes. The obvious retort is that everything is vain and useless; or if not, then certainly metaphysics is. Useful for what? Is ornamental gardening useless, or sport? Art? What is the use of cosmology? He's right, of course. |
| 3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing one can imagine so strange or so unbelievable that has not been said by one or other of the philosophers. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §2.16) | |
| A reaction: Actually I think that extensive areas of logical possibilities for existence remain totally unexplored. On the other hand, most of the metaphysical beliefs of most of the human race, including the majority of philosophers, strike me as being false. |