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2 ideas
7504 | Modern science comes from Descartes' view that knowledge doesn't need moral purity [Descartes, by Foucault] |
Full Idea: Before Descartes, one could not be impure, immoral, and know the truth. After Descartes, direct evidence is enough, and we have a nonascetic subject of knowledge; this change makes possible the institutionalisation of modern science. | |
From: report of René Descartes (Meditations [1641]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics | |
A reaction: I would have thought Gassendi and the British Empiricists would be a more plausible source for this shift of attitude. Plato would relegate modern science to a lower level of knowledge. |
1798 | He studied philosophy by suspending his judgement on everything [Pyrrho, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: He studied philosophy on the principle of suspending his judgement on all points. | |
From: report of Pyrrho (reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.3 | |
A reaction: In what sense was Pyrrho a philosopher, then? He must have asserted SOME generalised judgments. |