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Ideas for 'The Fixation of Belief', 'fragments/reports' and 'Prospects: Proletarian Revolution?'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 2. Wise People
421 Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B035), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.140.5
     A reaction: …which invites the question 'Is there anything that a wisdom-seeker should NOT be interested in?'
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy
1491 Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B116), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.05.06
     A reaction: This is true. When people are labelled as incapable of philosophy (e.g. by Plato), it is just that they are slow developers.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
5863 Reason is eternal, but men are foolish [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Although reason exists forever, men are foolish.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - The Art of Rhetoric 1407b
     A reaction: The despair of all philosophers (e.g. Plato) who think reason is the easiest thing in the world, and stares everyone in the face, and yet people seem to spurn this supreme gift from the gods. They needed the optimism of the career teacher.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
6947 Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15)
     A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs.