47 ideas
| 7990 | Serene wisdom is freedom from ties, and indifference to fortune [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Who everywhere is free from all ties, who neither rejoices nor sorrows if fortune is good or is ill, his is a serene wisdom. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 2.57) | |
| A reaction: This is very similar to the 'apatheia' of the Stoics, though they are always more committed to rationality. This is quite a good strategy when times are hard, but as a general rule it offers a bogus state of 'wisdom' which is really half way to death. |
| 21422 | Moral self-knowledge is the beginning of all human wisdom [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Moral self-knowledge, which seeks to penetrate into the depths (the abyss) of one's heart that are quite difficult to fathom, is the beginning of all human wisdom. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 441 I.I) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear what I am supposed to be looking for on this quest. I'm guessing that being completely honest about one's own maxims in moral action would be a good start. And maybe confronting one's murkier desires. |
| 21408 | For any subject, its system of non-experiential concepts needs a metaphysics [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A philosophy of any subject (a system of rational knowledge from concepts) requires a system of pure rational concepts independent of any conditions of intuition, that is, a metaphysics. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 375 Pref) | |
| A reaction: 'Pure rational concepts' must be a priori, and (in Kant's case) transcendental - i.e. discovered from the study of presuppositions. Does this actually say that the philosophies of science, biology, psychology, economics etc each needs a metaphysics? |
| 21416 | Philosophers should not offer multiple proofs - suggesting the weakness of each of them [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is a highly unphilosophic expedient to resort to a number of proofs for one and the same proposition, consoling oneself that the multitude of reasons makes up for the inadequacy of any one of them taken by itself. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 403 Intro XIII) | |
| A reaction: This makes philosophical proofs sound very mathematical in character, whereas I think most reasons for a proposition given in philosophy are more like evidence, which can clearly accumulate in a rational way. Some maths proofs are better than others. |
| 8797 | The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: If I have a headache, I could have a set of beliefs that I do not have a headache, that I am not in pain, that no one is in pain, and so on. The resulting system of beliefs would cohere as fully as does my actual system of beliefs. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §9) | |
| A reaction: I think this is a misunderstanding of coherentism. Beliefs are not to be formulated through a process of coherence, but are evaluated that way. A belief that I have headache just arrives; I then see that its denial is incoherent, so I accept it. |
| 7989 | Seek salvation in the wisdom of reason [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Seek salvation in the wisdom of reason. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 2.49) | |
| A reaction: Quotations like this can usually be counterbalanced in eastern philosophy by wild irrationality, but they certainly felt to tug of reason. Only the Dhaoists seem really opposed to reason (e.g. Idea 7289). |
| 7996 | I am all the beauty and goodness of things, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: I am the beauty of all things beautiful; ...I am the goodness of those who are good, says Krishna. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 10.36) | |
| A reaction: Another attempt to annexe everything which is admirable to the nature of God. This sounds strikingly Platonic (c.f. Idea 7992, which seems Aristotelian). One scholar dates the text to 150 BCE. I think there is influence, one way or the other. |
| 21410 | That a concept is not self-contradictory does not make what it represents possible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: That the concept of a thing is possible (not self-contradictory) is not yet sufficient for assuming the possibility of the thing itself (the objective reality of the concept). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 382 Intro I) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an inkling of Kripke's a posteriori scientific necessities, which place far greater restrictions on the possibilies of what we seem to have conceived, in addition to the mere need for consistency. |
| 8794 | There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: Radical foundationalism suffers from two weaknesses: there are not so many perfectly obvious truths as Descartes thought; and if we restrict ourselves to what it truly obvious, very little supposed common sense knowledge can be proved. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §3) | |
| A reaction: It is striking how few examples can ever be found of self-evident a priori truths. However, if there are self-evident truths about direct experience (pace Descartes), that would give us more than enough. |
| 8796 | A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: A single belief can trail at once regresses of both sorts: one terminating and one not. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §6) | |
| A reaction: This makes foundationalism possible, while admitting the existence of regresses. It is a good point, and triumphalist anti-foundationalists can't just point out a regress and then smugly troop off to the pub. |
| 8799 | If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: If a mental state is not propositional, then how can it possibly serve as a foundation for belief? How can one infer or justify anything on the basis of a state that, having no propositional content, must be logically dumb? | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §11) | |
| A reaction: This may be the best objection to foundationalism. McDowell tries to argue that conceptual content is inherent in perception, thus giving the beginnings of inbuilt propositional content. But an organism awash with bare experiences knows nothing. |
| 8795 | Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: If a mental state provides no guarantee against error, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §4) | |
| A reaction: That assumes that knowledge entails certainty, which I am sure it should not. On a fallibilist account, a foundation could be incredibly secure, despite a barely imaginable scenario in which it turned out to be false. |
| 8798 | Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: Visual experience is recognized as both the cause and the justification of our visual beliefs. But these are not wholly independent. Presumably the justification that something is red derives partly from the fact that it originates in visual experience. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §10) | |
| A reaction: Yes, but the fact that certain visual experiences originate in dreams is taken as grounds for denying their truth, not affirming it. So why do we distinguish them? I am thinking that only in the 'space of reasons' can a cause become a justification. |
| 7995 | In all living beings I am the light of consciousness, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: In all living beings I am the light of consciousness, says Krishna. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 10.22) | |
| A reaction: Everything grand seems to be claimed for God at this stage of culture, but I am not sure how coherent this view is, unless this is pantheism. In what sense could we possibly be Krishna, when none of us (except Arjuna) is aware of it? |
| 21421 | Within nature man is unimportant, but as moral person he is above any price [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In the system of nature, man is a being of slight importance ....but man regarded as a person, that is as the subject of a morally practical reason, is exalted above any price. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 434 I.I) | |
| A reaction: See what you've done, John Locke? You've given yet another ground for claiming that humans are angels or demi-gods, exalted far above our animal cousins. |
| 7999 | All actions come from: body, lower self, perception, means of action, or Fate [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Whatever a man does, good or bad, in thought, word or deed, has these five sources of action: the body, the lower 'I am', the means of perception, the means of action, and Fate. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 18.14/15) | |
| A reaction: The 'means of action' will presumably take care of anything we haven't thought of! Nothing quite matches the idea of 'the will' here. A twitch from the first, eating from the second, a startled jump from the third, struck by lightning from the fifth. |
| 21415 | Duty is impossible without prior moral feeling, conscience, love and self-respect [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Moral feeling, conscience, love of one's neighbour, and respect for oneself (self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, because they lie at the basis of morality, as subjective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 399 Intro XII) | |
| A reaction: A bit of a revelation, this one, because I thought the only precondition for Kantian morality was rationality. Turns out that he agrees with Aristotle (Idea 46) that you can't started in morality if your heart isn't in the right place. |
| 7991 | Hate and lust have their roots in man's lower nature [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Hate and lust for things of nature have their roots in man's lower nature. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 3.34) | |
| A reaction: It seems outmoded now (since Freud) to label parts of human nature as 'higher' and 'lower'. I would defend the distinction, but it is not self-evident. The basis of morality is good citizenship, and parts of our nature are detrimental to that. |
| 21409 | Moral principles do not involve feelings [Kant] |
| Full Idea: No moral principle is based on any feeling whatsoever. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 376 Pref) |
| 21431 | The love of man is required in order to present the world as a beautiful and perfect moral whole [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Love of man is required by itself, in order to present the world as a beautiful moral whole in its full perfection, even if no account is taken of advantages (of happiness). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 458 I.II) | |
| A reaction: For me, this illustrates the basic problem with Kant. In the Groundwork he presents morality as arising from pure reason, deriving moral maxims from contradictions, but here we find a totally ungrounded assertion of grand traditional values. |
| 21437 | All morality directs the will to love of others' ends, and respect for others' rights [Kant] |
| Full Idea: All moral relations of rational beings, which involve a principle of the harmony of the will of one with another, can be reduced to love and respect. Love reduces one's will to another's end, and respect to another's right. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 488 II) | |
| A reaction: It all comes out too neat and tidy in Kant. Love doesn't merely focus on another person's 'ends', and respect should be for a lot more than another person's mere 'rights'. They'd have to be natural rights, because some societies restrict rights. |
| 21429 | The duty of love is to makes the ends of others one's own [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The duty of love for one's neighbour can be expressed as the duty to make others' ends my own (provided they are not immoral). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: An interesting idea. Kant's remarks on love and respect seem distorted, to shoehorn them into his system of end/means and maxims. If I love someone, should I continually enquire what their current ends are? |
| 21411 | A duty of virtue is a duty which is also an end [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Only an end that is also a duty can be called a duty of virtue. ....[385] The necessary ends are one's own perfection, and the happiness of others. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 383 Intro II) | |
| A reaction: So virtues are a subset of duties. I don't think an Aristotelian virtue is anything like a duty. A soldier might do his duty, with no virtue at all. An even a Kantian categorical imperative duty can be formed without right feeling or good character. |
| 21413 | Virtue is strong maxims for duty [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Virtue is the strength of man's maxims in fulfilling his duty. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 394 Intro IX) | |
| A reaction: So virtue is just strong moral commitment. So what are we to make of the lists of distinctive virtues, found in every culture? How do they differ? Only in the areas of duty to which they refer? How do we possess some virtues without others? |
| 21414 | The supreme principle of virtue is to find universal laws for ends [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The supreme principle of the doctrine of virtue is: Act in accordance with a maxim of ends that it can be a universal law for everyone to have. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 395 Intro IX) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that any end can be a universal law. I certainly don't expect everyone to study philosophy. I suppose basic human ends, such as kindness and avoidance of suicide, are what he means. He's even more conformist than Aristotle! |
| 21436 | We are obliged to show the social virtues, but at least they make a virtuous disposition fashionable [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Affability, sociability, courtesy, hospitality and gentleness in argument ...are merely the manners one is obliged to show in social intercourse, ...and so they promote a virtuous disposition by at least making virtue fashionable. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 473-4 I.II App) | |
| A reaction: His emphasis on rational duty forces him to diminish virtue, making it sound hypocritical. He needs Aristotle's distinction between the controlled [enkratic] man and the man of true virtue (which is rational and whole-hearted). |
| 21419 | If virtue becomes a habit, that is a loss of the freedom needed for adopting maxims [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If the practice of virtue were to become a habit the subject would suffer loss to that freedom in adopting his maxims which distinguishes an action done from duty. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 409 Intro XVI) | |
| A reaction: Looks like a misunderstanding of Aristotle, who always promotes the role of 'phronesis' [practical reason], and never advocates unthinking virtuous habits. I think Aristotle would ask how you select your maxim, if you lack the virtues. |
| 21417 | How do we distinguish a mean? The extremes can involve quite different maxims [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Who will specify for me this mean between the two extremes? What distinguishes avarice (as a vice) from thrift (as a virtue) is not that avarice carries thift too far but that avarice has an entirely different principle (maxim). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 404n Intro XIII) | |
| A reaction: He says one concerns enjoyment of possessions, and the other their mere possession. Similarly, reckless courage may aim at glory, while cowardice aims at survival. Aristotle is looking at circumstances, Kant at mental states. |
| 21420 | If virtue is the mean between vices, then virtue is just the vanishing of vice [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If the mean between prodigality and avarice is supposed to be one of degree, then one vice would pass over into the opposite vice only through the virtue. So virtue would simply be a diminished, or rather a vanishing vice. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 432 I.I) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, but not convincing. Doesn't the thought equally show that vice is a vanishing virtue? Aristotle gives the example of the quantity of food we eat, which obviously passes from starvation to appropriate diet to gluttony. |
| 21418 | There is one principle of virtues; the virtues are distinguished by their objects [Kant] |
| Full Idea: To think of several virtues (as one unavoidably does) is nothing other than to think of the various moral objects to which the will is led by the one principle of virtue. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 406 Intro XIII) | |
| A reaction: So Kant commits to the Greek ideal of the unity of virtue - but not for Greek reasons. The unity of duty is what concerns Kant. |
| 21425 | We can love without respect, and show respect without love [Kant] |
| Full Idea: One can love one's neighbour though he might deserve but little respect, and can show him the respect necessary for every man regardless of the fact that he would hardly be judged worthy of love. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 448 I.II) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. Respect seems much clearer than love. You can train yourself and others to show respect, but you can't switch on love. Personally, I don't love strangers, but I try hard to respect them. |
| 21427 | Respect is limiting our self-esteem by attending to the human dignity of other persons [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Respect ...is to be understood as the maxim of limiting our self-esteem by the dignity of humanity in another person. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: I can't see any direct connection between my own self-esteem and my respect for others, though in practice great vanity makes us neglect others. I also don't find the concept of 'dignity' very helpful. I think we should respect plants. |
| 21430 | Disrespect is using a person as a mere means to my own ends [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The duty of respect for my neighbour is contained in the maxim not to degrade any other man to a mere means to my ends (not to demand that another throw himself away in order to slave for my end). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: A weirdly narrow concept of respect. Is enslavement the only way to show disrespect? What about sneering at people, or ignoring them, or prejudicially depriving them of some benefit? |
| 21428 | Respect is purely negative (of not exalting oneself over others), and is thus a duty of Right [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A duty of free respect towards others is only a negative one (of not exalting oneself above others) and is thus analogous to the duty of Right not to encroach upon what belongs to anyone. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: Not good enough. He seems to think belongings are the main issue. By referring to one's own modesty, he has no way to indicate equality of respect (among races, ages, genders, religions, animals etc). Being humble does not entail being respectful. |
| 21426 | Love urges us to get closer to people, but respect to keep our distance [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The principle of mutual love admonishes men constantly to come closer to one another; that of the respect they owe one another, to keep themselves at a distance from one another. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: It might be a situation where it is right to invoke the Golden Rule. Do we want others to be close to us all the time? Probably not. Respect wins, and love loses! Kant's makes a nice distinction. Respect is a virtue, and love is not. |
| 21434 | We must respect the humanity even in a vicious criminal [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I cannot deny all respect to even a vicious man as a man; I cannot withdraw at least the respect that belongs to him in his quality as a man, even though by his deeds he makes himself unworthy of it. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 463 I.II) | |
| A reaction: The obvious way to find some respect for a vicious criminal is to ask how they got that way. Their state is almost certainly self-destructive, and not what they would ever have wished for. Would they choose eternal recurrence? |
| 21412 | Humans are distinguished from animals by their capacity to set themselves any sort of end [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The capacity to set oneself an end - any end whatsoever - is what characterises humanity (as distinguished from animality). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 392 Intro VIII) | |
| A reaction: This appears to exclude animals which hunt, or build nests - but we have now hugely closed the gap between humans and other animals. I like this, because it chimes in with Sandel's Idea 21045. |
| 21435 | Man is both social, and unsociable [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Man is a being meant for society (though he is also an unsociable one). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 471 I.II) | |
| A reaction: A striking contrast with Aristotle in Idea 5133. It is the difference between the communitarian and the liberal views of society. The latter values privacy and good fences. |
| 21433 | Violation of rights deserves punishment, which is vengeance, rather than restitution [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Every deed that violates a man's right deserves punishment, the function of which is to avenge a crime on the one who committed it (not merely to make good the harm done). ...but no punishment may be inflicted out of hatred. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 460-1 I.II) | |
| A reaction: A fairly hideous idea, confirming the image of Kant as someone who coldly perfoms ruthless duties. I don't think Kant ever offers any clarity for the concepts of 'deserving' or of 'avenging'. What is the appropriate vengeance for theft? |
| 7988 | There is no greater good for a warrior than to fight in a just war [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: There is no greater good for a warrior than to fight in righteous war. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 2.31) | |
| A reaction: What worries me now is not the urging to fight, as long as a good cause can be found, but the idea that someone should see his social role as 'warrior'. The modern 'soldier' is ready to fight, but a traditional 'warrior' is obliged to fight. |
| 21423 | Men can only have duties to those who qualify as persons [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Man has duties only to men, ...since his duty to any other subject is moral constraint by that's subject's will. Hence the constraining (binding) subject must first be a person. Man can therefore have no duty to any beings other than men. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 442 I.I) | |
| A reaction: This is good for illuminating why I am not a Kantian. It is not just that animals are ruled out - it is that whether you show respect depends on whether the recipient passes some test or other. Humans with brain damage may fail the test. |
| 21424 | Cruelty to animals is bad because it dulls our empathy for pain in humans [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Cruel treatment of animals is intimately opposed to man's duty to himself; ...for it dulls his shared feeling of their pain and so weakens and gradually uproots a natural predisposition that is very serviceable to morality in relations with other men. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 443 I.I) | |
| A reaction: This idea is quite shocking. Kant's rough contemporary Bentham was far more enlightened. If we could be certain that our feelings of empathy for pain were not dulled by cruelty to animals, then it would be fine. |
| 7992 | The visible forms of nature are earth, water, fire, air, ether; mind, reason, and the sense of 'I' [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: The visible forms of nature are eight: earth, water, fire, air, ether; the mind, reason, and the sense of 'I'. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there is an implication that there are also invisible forms. The Bhuddists launched an attack on 'I' as one of the categories. The first five appear to be Aristotle's, which must be of scholarly (and chronological) interest. |
| 7994 | Everything, including the gods, comes from me, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: All the gods come from me, says Krishna. ...I am the one source of all | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 10.2/8) | |
| A reaction: This seems very close to monotheism, and sounds very similar to the position that Zeus seems to occupy in later Greek religion, where he is shading off into a supreme and spiritual entity. |
| 7993 | Brahman is supreme, Atman his spirit in man, and Karma is the force of creation [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Brahman is supreme, the Eternal. Atman is his Spirit in man. Karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: I can't help wondering how they know all this stuff, but then I'm just a typical product of my culture. We seem to have a trinity here. Who's in charge? Is Atman just a servant? Is Karma totally under the control of Brahman? |
| 7997 | Only by love can men see me, know me, and come to me, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Only by love can men see me, and know me, and come unto me, says Krishna | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 11.54) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a paradox here, as it is unclear how you can love Krishna, if you have not already seen him in some way. This is another paradox of fideism - that faith cannot possibly be the first step in a religion, as faith needs a target. |
| 7998 | The three gates of hell are lust, anger and greed [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Three are the gates of this hell, the death of the soul: the gate of lust, the gate of wrath, and the gate of greed. Let a man shun the three. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 16.21) | |
| A reaction: Anyone who wishes to procreate, champion justice, and make a living, has to pursue all three. Wisdom consists of pursuing the three appropriately, not in shunning them. How did this bizarre puritanism ever come to grip the human race? |