display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
| 23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 08) | |
| A reaction: Excellent! I cannot imagine studying anything at all in great depth without it resulting in a dwindling expectation of full understanding. Philosophy in spades, but also probably any topic in history. |
| 23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: To have opinions is inevitable, is natural; to have convictions is less so. Each time I meet someone who has convictions, I wonder what intellectual vice, what flaw has caused him to acquire such a thing. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12) | |
| A reaction: 'The best lack all conviction/ While the worst are full of passionate intensity' (Yeats). I agree with this. Convictions are so often accompanied by anger. |
| 5590 | 'I think therefore I am' is an identity, not an inference (as there is no major premise) [Kant] |
| Full Idea: My existence cannot be regarded as inferred from the proposition "I think" (for otherwise the major premise "Everything that thinks, exists" would have to precede it), but rather it is identical with it. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B422) | |
| A reaction: "I think" can hardly be identical with "I exist". One is an activity, the other a state. I prefer: within the unified activity of thinking which is clearly occurring, it is self-evident that there must be an 'I' which holds it together. |