display all the ideas for this combination of texts
1 idea
| 19757 | No one would bother to reason, and try to know things, without a desire for enjoyment [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: We seek to know only because we desire to find enjoyment; and it is impossible to conceive why someon who had neither desires nor fears would go to the bother reasoning. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be an echo of Hume's pessimism about the autonomy of reason. This downgrading of reason is a striking feature of the Enlightenment, which presumably culminates in the romantic movement. |