Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Logical Pluralism', 'A Discourse on Method' and 'Mind, Brain and the Quantum'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
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.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
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.
2956 There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood]
     Full Idea: There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it.
     From: Michael Lockwood (Mind, Brain and the Quantum [1989], p.73)
     A reaction: [Idea of Varro] Just as unreliable witnesses are the bane of a murder enquiry, so bad philosophers throw a cloud of obscurity roundphilosophy. If 9999 people thought 2+2=4, but there is always one who thinks something different.