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2 ideas
19917 | Without reason and human help, human life is misery [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: Without mutual help and the cultivation of reason, human beings necessarily live in great misery. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.05) | |
A reaction: A clarion call from a great voice of the Enlightenment. I agree, but in 2017 the rest of western civilization seems to have given up on this ideal. I blame Adorno and Horkheimer. |
5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'. |