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9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The incremental progress which I envisage for philosophy lacks the drama after which some philosophers still hanker, and that hankering is itself a symptom of the intellectual immaturity that helps hold philosophy back. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], Intro) | |
A reaction: This could stand as a motto for the whole current profession of analytical philosophy. It means that if anyone attempts to be dramatic they can make their own way out. They'll find Kripke out there, smoking behind the dustbins. |
12780 | We can grasp the wisdom of God a priori [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: We can grasp the wisdom of God a priori, and not from the order of the phenomena alone. ... For the senses put nothing forward concerning metaphysical matters. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
A reaction: Nice instance of the aspirations of big metaphysics, before Kant cut it down to size. The claim is not far off Plato's, that by dialectic we can work out the necessities of the Forms, to which even the gods must bow. Are necessities really kept from us? |