3 ideas
| 22520 | You can't reason someone out of an irrational opinion [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired. | |
| From: Jonathan Swift (Letters to a Young Clergyman [1720]) | |
| A reaction: It would be hard to prove this, and someone full of irrational beliefs may have their rationality awakened by a sound argument. Nice remark, but too pessimistic. |
| 20948 | Human cultures are organisms which grow, and then fade and die [Spengler, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Spengler relies upon the idea of human cultures as organisms which grow and then inevitably die, having lost their vitality. | |
| From: report of Oswald Spengler (The Decline of the West [1918]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 2 'Herder' | |
| A reaction: He should have thought more about technology. If the 'West' collapses and is replaced by China (say), the new Chinese culture will be barely distinguishable from the West, because they will pursue similar technologies. |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
| From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
| A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |