College Address Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838 loc: 1416
One is constrained to respect the perfection of this world, in which our senses converse. How wide; how rich; what invitation from every property it gives to every faculty of man! loc: 1424
But when the mind opens, and reveals the laws which traverse the universe, and make things what they are, then shrinks the great world at once into a mere illustration and fable of this mind. What am I? and What is? asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched. loc: 1429
A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is above him. He learns that his being is without bound; that, to the good, to the perfect, he is born, loc: 1434
The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. loc: 1448
These facts have always suggested to man the sublime creed, that the world is not the product of manifold power, but of one will, of one mind; and that one mind is everywhere active, loc: 1463
The perception of this law of laws awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes our highest happiness. loc: 1472
the fountain of all good to be in himself, and that he, equally with every man, is an inlet into the deeps of Reason. loc: 1480
the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this, namely; it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. loc: 1492
What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject; loc: 1494
The doctrine of the divine nature being forgotten, a sickness infects and dwarfs the constitution. Once man was all; now he is an appendage, a nuisance. And because the indwelling Supreme Spirit cannot wholly be got rid of, the doctrine of it suffers this perversion, that the divine nature is attributed to one or two persons, and denied to all the rest, and denied with fury. The doctrine of inspiration is lost; the base doctrine of the majority of voices, usurps the place of the doctrine of the soul. Miracles, prophecy, poetry; the ideal life, the holy life, exist as ancient history merely; loc: 1497
Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. loc: 1509
He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. loc: 1511
But what a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next, and the following ages! loc: 1513
Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual. loc: 1524
That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself. That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen. loc: 1540
To aim to convert a man by miracles, is a profanation of the soul. loc: 1546
The second defect of the traditionary and limited way of using the mind of Christ is a consequence of the first; this, namely; that the Moral Nature, that Law of laws, whose revelations introduce greatness, — yea, God himself, into the open soul, is not explored as the fountain of the established teaching in society. Men have come to speak of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead. loc: 1559
Note: Is this w here Nietzsche conceives the idea that god is dead? Edit
It is very certain that it is the effect of conversation with the beauty of the soul, to beget a desire and need to impart to others the same knowledge and love. If utterance is denied, the thought lies like a burden on the man. Always the seer is a sayer. Somehow his dream is told: loc: 1563
The man enamored of this excellency, becomes its priest or poet. loc: 1568
The man on whom the soul descends, through whom the soul speaks, alone can teach. loc: 1570
the need was never greater of new revelation than now. loc: 1575
The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life, — life passed through the fire of thought. loc: 1601
thus, historical Christianity destroys the power of preaching, by withdrawing it from the exploration of the moral nature of man, where the sublime is, where are the resources of astonishment and power. loc: 1629
Look to it first and only, that fashion, custom, authority, pleasure, and money, are nothing to you, — are not bandages over your eyes, that you cannot see, — but live with the privilege of the immeasurable mind. loc: 1672
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause. loc: 1696
The remedy to their deformity is, first, soul, and second, soul, and evermore, soul. loc: 1709
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The American Scholar
American Scholar An Oration
delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837 loc: 1078
The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man, — present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man. loc: 1099
Note: Could this be what E O Wilson discusses inThe Social Conquest of Earth? Edit
The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. loc: 1105
Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. loc: 1107
In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking. loc: 1111
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. loc: 1154
The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry, if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. loc: 1159
Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. loc: 1164
Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. loc: 1167
They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. loc: 1168
The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; loc: 1169
The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, — let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. loc: 1172
Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar’s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings. loc: 1181
Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. loc: 1214
The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. loc: 1216
If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town, — in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions. loc: 1245
But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than books, is, that it is a resource. loc: 1251
The mind now thinks; now acts; and each fit reproduces the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books are a weariness, — he has always the resource to live loc: 1255
Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. loc: 1257
A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. loc: 1258
The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. loc: 1271
He is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one, who raises himself from private considerations, and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart. loc: 1281
These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. loc: 1287
In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach; and bide his own time, — happy enough, if he can satisfy himself alone, that this day he has seen something truly. loc: 1291
In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be, — free and brave. loc: 1301
I believe man has been wronged; he has wronged himself. He has almost lost the light, that can lead him back to his prerogatives. loc: 1322
Men in history, men in the world of to-day are bugs, are spawn, and are called ‘the mass’ and ‘the herd.’ In a century, in a millennium, one or two men; that is to say, — one or two approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in the hero or the poet their own green and crude being, — ripened; loc: 1324
Note: Is Emerson talking the Overman? Edit
For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth the particular natures of all men. Each philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. loc: 1338
show me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; loc: 1374
the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle; there is no puzzle; but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench. loc: 1376
Note: The world in a grain of sand; eternity in an hour Edit
If there be one lesson more than another, which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all. loc: 1396
Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these, — but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust, loc: 1402
Note: I certainly felt this at 19 and 20 or so. Why am I so cynical about it now? Edit
if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. loc: 1405
We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. loc: 1411
delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837 loc: 1078
The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is One Man, — present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man. loc: 1099
Note: Could this be what E O Wilson discusses inThe Social Conquest of Earth? Edit
The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. loc: 1105
Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. loc: 1107
In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking. loc: 1111
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. loc: 1154
The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry, if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. loc: 1159
Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. loc: 1164
Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. loc: 1167
They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. loc: 1168
The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; loc: 1169
The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, — let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. loc: 1172
Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar’s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings. loc: 1181
Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. loc: 1214
The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. loc: 1216
If it were only for a vocabulary, the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town, — in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions. loc: 1245
But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than books, is, that it is a resource. loc: 1251
The mind now thinks; now acts; and each fit reproduces the other. When the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books are a weariness, — he has always the resource to live loc: 1255
Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. loc: 1257
A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. loc: 1258
The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. loc: 1271
He is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one, who raises himself from private considerations, and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart. loc: 1281
These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular cry. loc: 1287
In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach; and bide his own time, — happy enough, if he can satisfy himself alone, that this day he has seen something truly. loc: 1291
In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be, — free and brave. loc: 1301
I believe man has been wronged; he has wronged himself. He has almost lost the light, that can lead him back to his prerogatives. loc: 1322
Men in history, men in the world of to-day are bugs, are spawn, and are called ‘the mass’ and ‘the herd.’ In a century, in a millennium, one or two men; that is to say, — one or two approximations to the right state of every man. All the rest behold in the hero or the poet their own green and crude being, — ripened; loc: 1324
Note: Is Emerson talking the Overman? Edit
For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth the particular natures of all men. Each philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself. loc: 1338
show me the ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence of the highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in these suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle bristling with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; loc: 1374
the world lies no longer a dull miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle; there is no puzzle; but one design unites and animates the farthest pinnacle and the lowest trench. loc: 1376
Note: The world in a grain of sand; eternity in an hour Edit
If there be one lesson more than another, which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all. loc: 1396
Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these, — but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust, loc: 1402
Note: I certainly felt this at 19 and 20 or so. Why am I so cynical about it now? Edit
if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. loc: 1405
We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. loc: 1411
Nature
Nature loc: 308
Introduction loc: 319
Note: Lear, the old buffer, the old chough, the old chuffer! Emerson, the old fluffer, the old puffer. Edit
The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? loc: 321
We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. loc: 327
Every man’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. loc: 328
Let us inquire, to what end is nature? loc: 330
But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. loc: 334
Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. loc: 335
I Nature loc: 346
I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. loc: 349
stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. loc: 354
The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. loc: 365
In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. loc: 368
There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. loc: 375
I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. loc: 377
greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. loc: 382
II Commodity loc: 391
the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature. loc: 396
it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature which all men apprehend. loc: 397
in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other’s hands for the profit of man. loc: 404
useful arts are reproductions or new combinations by the wit of man, of the same natural benefactors. loc: 408
III Beauty loc: 419
Such is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us a delight in and for themselves loc: 423
First, the simple perception of natural forms is a delight. loc: 436
The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough. loc: 439
Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. loc: 445
this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality. loc: 463
The presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element is essential to its perfection. loc: 469
Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. loc: 470
There is still another aspect under which the beauty of the world may be viewed, namely, as it become s an object of the intellect. loc: 492
The intellect searches out the absolute order of things as they stand in the mind of God, loc: 494
Therefore does beauty, which, in relation to actions, as we have seen, comes unsought, and comes because it is unsought, remain for the apprehension and pursuit of the intellect; and then again, in its turn, of the active power. loc: 497
This love of beauty is Taste. loc: 501
The creation of beauty is Art. loc: 502
world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. This element I call an ultimate end. loc: 512
IV Language loc: 517
The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation. loc: 525
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. loc: 549
Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason: it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property loc: 555
That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in all ages and countries, embodies it in his language, as the FATHER. loc: 558
All the facts in natural history taken by themselves, have no value, but are barren, like a single sex. But marry it to human history, and it is full of life. loc: 564
man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. loc: 581
When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, — and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections. loc: 582
facts may suggest the advantage which the country-life possesses for a powerful mind, over the artificial and curtailed life of cities. We know more from nature than we can at will communicate. Its light flows into the mind evermore, and we forget its presence. loc: 597
A Fact is the end or last issue of spirit. The visible creation is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world. loc: 631
A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text. By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause. loc: 638
That which was unconscious truth, becomes, when interpreted and defined in an object, a part of the domain of knowledge, loc: 643
V Discipline loc: 645
the significance of nature, we arrive at once at a new loc: 647
Note: A new fact, that Nature is a discipline. Edit
he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time. loc: 753
Note: I didn't understand the vast majority of what this chapter said. It was so general, so abstract, that it was just a bunch of words on the page. And what little I could understand seemed like a lot of horse shit. Edit
VI Idealism loc: 755
Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me. loc: 766
it is ideal to me, so long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses. loc: 767
the end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession. loc: 770
Note: This his proof? That God never jests with us? I'm starting to lose respect for Emerson big time right now. Edit
Any distrust of the permanence of laws, would paralyze the faculties of man. Their permanence is sacredly respected, and his faith therein is perfect. loc: 770
are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. loc: 772
Note: Yeah, it's called evolution. Edit
whilst we acquiesce entirely in the permanence of natural laws, the question of the absolute existence of nature still remains open. loc: 775
Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as his main end; the other Truth. But the philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones the apparent order and relations of things to the empire of thought. “The problem of philosophy,” according to Plato, “is, for all that exists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute.” It proceeds on the faith that a law determines all phenomena, which being known, the phenomena can be predicted. loc: 846
The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both. loc: 850
Note: Is Emerson channwling Keats? Edit
of particulars, and carries centuries of observation in a single formula. loc: 855
Note: What a sentence! Edit
Intellectual science has been observed to beget invariably a doubt of the existence of matter. loc: 859
It fastens the attention upon immortal necessary uncreated natures, that is, upon Ideas; and in their presence, we feel that the outward circumstance is a dream and a shade. loc: 861
As objects of science, they are accessible to few men. Yet all men are capable of being raised by piety or by passion, into their region. And no man touches these divine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine. loc: 867
Note: Emerson is equating piety, passion and knowledge as ways of knowing truth? Edit
We apprehend the absolute. As it were, for the first time, we exist. We become immortal, for we learn that time and space are relations of matter; that, with a perception of truth, or a virtuous will, they have no affinity. loc: 871
Finally, religion and ethics, which may be fitly called, — the practice of ideas, or the introduction of ideas into life, — have an analogous effect with all lower culture, in degrading nature and suggesting its dependence on spirit. Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not. They are one to our present design. They both put nature under foot. loc: 875
advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith, is this, that it presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable to the mind. loc: 893
Note: Desirable to the mind determines the doctrines worth Edit
Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul. loc: 896
Note: This is starting to veer off into the realm of fairy tale. Edit
VII Spirit loc: 904
all the uses of nature admit of being summed in one, which yields the activity of man an infinite scope. Through all its kingdoms, to the suburbs and outskirts of things, it is faithful to the cause whence it had its origin. It always speaks of Spirit. It suggests the absolute. It is a perpetual effect. It is a great shadow pointing always to the sun behind us. loc: 908
problems are put by nature to the mind; What is matter? Whence is it? and Whereto? The first of these questions only, the ideal theory answers. Idealism saith: matter is a phenomenon, not a substance. loc: 921
the mind is a part of the nature of things; the world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day. Idealism is a hypothesis to account for nature by other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry. Yet, if it only deny the existence of matter, it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit. loc: 924
the dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; one and not compound, it does not act upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves: therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, loc: 934
Note: I guess you could make a case that Emerson could be neurologically correct, that the world as we know it and understand it and act on it is built upthrough our minds. It's how we survived and evolved as a species. So why all the metaphysical claptrap? I don't think he has Spinoza's God in mind here. Edit
Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man? Once inhale the upper air, being admitted to behold the absolute natures of justice and truth, and we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the finite. loc: 939
Note: No wonder that so many self help gurus like and quote Emerson. Edit
it animates me to create my own world through the purification of my soul. loc: 946
world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the unconscious. loc: 948
It is not, like that, now subjected to the human will. Its serene order is inviolable by us. It is, therefore, to us, the present expositor of the divine mind. It is a fixed point whereby we may measure our departure. loc: 949
Note: Do these last two statements contradict one another? Edit
VIII Prospects loc: 956
Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole. loc: 960
Note: What a phrase: "manly contemplation of the whole." Edit
the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility. He will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility; that a guess is often more fruitful than an indisputable affirmation, and that a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments. loc: 961
Note: Intuition is as good as knowledge? Edit
perception of this class of truths makes the attraction which draws men to science, but the end is lost sight of in attention to the means. In view of this half-sight of science, we accept the sentence of Plato, that, “poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.” loc: 1001
is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from him sprang the sun and moon; loc: 1019
Meantime, in the thick darkness, there are not wanting gleams of a better light, — occasional examples of the action of man upon nature with his entire force, — with reason as well as understanding. Such examples are; the traditions of miracles in the earliest antiquity of all nations; the history of Jesus Christ; the achievements of a principle, as in religious and political revolutions, and in the abolition of the Slave-trade; the miracles of enthusiasm, as those reported of Swedenborg, Hohenlohe, and the Shakers; many obscure and yet contested facts, now arranged under the name of Animal Magnetism; prayer; eloquence; self-healing; and the wisdom of children. loc: 1033
Note: Waldo sounds a lot like a Christian Scientist, here. Edit
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself. loc: 1045
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. loc: 1054
shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. loc: 1062
Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit. loc: 1068
Note: Reframing? Edit
Introduction loc: 319
Note: Lear, the old buffer, the old chough, the old chuffer! Emerson, the old fluffer, the old puffer. Edit
The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? loc: 321
We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. loc: 327
Every man’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. loc: 328
Let us inquire, to what end is nature? loc: 330
But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. loc: 334
Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. loc: 335
I Nature loc: 346
I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. loc: 349
stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. loc: 354
The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. loc: 365
In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. loc: 368
There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. loc: 375
I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. loc: 377
greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. loc: 382
II Commodity loc: 391
the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature. loc: 396
it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature which all men apprehend. loc: 397
in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other’s hands for the profit of man. loc: 404
useful arts are reproductions or new combinations by the wit of man, of the same natural benefactors. loc: 408
III Beauty loc: 419
Such is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us a delight in and for themselves loc: 423
First, the simple perception of natural forms is a delight. loc: 436
The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough. loc: 439
Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. loc: 445
this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality. loc: 463
The presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element is essential to its perfection. loc: 469
Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. loc: 470
There is still another aspect under which the beauty of the world may be viewed, namely, as it become s an object of the intellect. loc: 492
The intellect searches out the absolute order of things as they stand in the mind of God, loc: 494
Therefore does beauty, which, in relation to actions, as we have seen, comes unsought, and comes because it is unsought, remain for the apprehension and pursuit of the intellect; and then again, in its turn, of the active power. loc: 497
This love of beauty is Taste. loc: 501
The creation of beauty is Art. loc: 502
world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. This element I call an ultimate end. loc: 512
IV Language loc: 517
The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation. loc: 525
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. loc: 549
Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason: it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property loc: 555
That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. And man in all ages and countries, embodies it in his language, as the FATHER. loc: 558
All the facts in natural history taken by themselves, have no value, but are barren, like a single sex. But marry it to human history, and it is full of life. loc: 564
man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. loc: 581
When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise, — and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections. loc: 582
facts may suggest the advantage which the country-life possesses for a powerful mind, over the artificial and curtailed life of cities. We know more from nature than we can at will communicate. Its light flows into the mind evermore, and we forget its presence. loc: 597
A Fact is the end or last issue of spirit. The visible creation is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world. loc: 631
A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text. By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause. loc: 638
That which was unconscious truth, becomes, when interpreted and defined in an object, a part of the domain of knowledge, loc: 643
V Discipline loc: 645
the significance of nature, we arrive at once at a new loc: 647
Note: A new fact, that Nature is a discipline. Edit
he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time. loc: 753
Note: I didn't understand the vast majority of what this chapter said. It was so general, so abstract, that it was just a bunch of words on the page. And what little I could understand seemed like a lot of horse shit. Edit
VI Idealism loc: 755
Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me. loc: 766
it is ideal to me, so long as I cannot try the accuracy of my senses. loc: 767
the end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession. loc: 770
Note: This his proof? That God never jests with us? I'm starting to lose respect for Emerson big time right now. Edit
Any distrust of the permanence of laws, would paralyze the faculties of man. Their permanence is sacredly respected, and his faith therein is perfect. loc: 770
are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. loc: 772
Note: Yeah, it's called evolution. Edit
whilst we acquiesce entirely in the permanence of natural laws, the question of the absolute existence of nature still remains open. loc: 775
Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as his main end; the other Truth. But the philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones the apparent order and relations of things to the empire of thought. “The problem of philosophy,” according to Plato, “is, for all that exists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute.” It proceeds on the faith that a law determines all phenomena, which being known, the phenomena can be predicted. loc: 846
The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both. loc: 850
Note: Is Emerson channwling Keats? Edit
of particulars, and carries centuries of observation in a single formula. loc: 855
Note: What a sentence! Edit
Intellectual science has been observed to beget invariably a doubt of the existence of matter. loc: 859
It fastens the attention upon immortal necessary uncreated natures, that is, upon Ideas; and in their presence, we feel that the outward circumstance is a dream and a shade. loc: 861
As objects of science, they are accessible to few men. Yet all men are capable of being raised by piety or by passion, into their region. And no man touches these divine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine. loc: 867
Note: Emerson is equating piety, passion and knowledge as ways of knowing truth? Edit
We apprehend the absolute. As it were, for the first time, we exist. We become immortal, for we learn that time and space are relations of matter; that, with a perception of truth, or a virtuous will, they have no affinity. loc: 871
Finally, religion and ethics, which may be fitly called, — the practice of ideas, or the introduction of ideas into life, — have an analogous effect with all lower culture, in degrading nature and suggesting its dependence on spirit. Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not. They are one to our present design. They both put nature under foot. loc: 875
advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith, is this, that it presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable to the mind. loc: 893
Note: Desirable to the mind determines the doctrines worth Edit
Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul. loc: 896
Note: This is starting to veer off into the realm of fairy tale. Edit
VII Spirit loc: 904
all the uses of nature admit of being summed in one, which yields the activity of man an infinite scope. Through all its kingdoms, to the suburbs and outskirts of things, it is faithful to the cause whence it had its origin. It always speaks of Spirit. It suggests the absolute. It is a perpetual effect. It is a great shadow pointing always to the sun behind us. loc: 908
problems are put by nature to the mind; What is matter? Whence is it? and Whereto? The first of these questions only, the ideal theory answers. Idealism saith: matter is a phenomenon, not a substance. loc: 921
the mind is a part of the nature of things; the world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day. Idealism is a hypothesis to account for nature by other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry. Yet, if it only deny the existence of matter, it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit. loc: 924
the dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all things exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; one and not compound, it does not act upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves: therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, loc: 934
Note: I guess you could make a case that Emerson could be neurologically correct, that the world as we know it and understand it and act on it is built upthrough our minds. It's how we survived and evolved as a species. So why all the metaphysical claptrap? I don't think he has Spinoza's God in mind here. Edit
Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man? Once inhale the upper air, being admitted to behold the absolute natures of justice and truth, and we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the finite. loc: 939
Note: No wonder that so many self help gurus like and quote Emerson. Edit
it animates me to create my own world through the purification of my soul. loc: 946
world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the unconscious. loc: 948
It is not, like that, now subjected to the human will. Its serene order is inviolable by us. It is, therefore, to us, the present expositor of the divine mind. It is a fixed point whereby we may measure our departure. loc: 949
Note: Do these last two statements contradict one another? Edit
VIII Prospects loc: 956
Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole. loc: 960
Note: What a phrase: "manly contemplation of the whole." Edit
the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility. He will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility; that a guess is often more fruitful than an indisputable affirmation, and that a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments. loc: 961
Note: Intuition is as good as knowledge? Edit
perception of this class of truths makes the attraction which draws men to science, but the end is lost sight of in attention to the means. In view of this half-sight of science, we accept the sentence of Plato, that, “poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.” loc: 1001
is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from him sprang the sun and moon; loc: 1019
Meantime, in the thick darkness, there are not wanting gleams of a better light, — occasional examples of the action of man upon nature with his entire force, — with reason as well as understanding. Such examples are; the traditions of miracles in the earliest antiquity of all nations; the history of Jesus Christ; the achievements of a principle, as in religious and political revolutions, and in the abolition of the Slave-trade; the miracles of enthusiasm, as those reported of Swedenborg, Hohenlohe, and the Shakers; many obscure and yet contested facts, now arranged under the name of Animal Magnetism; prayer; eloquence; self-healing; and the wisdom of children. loc: 1033
Note: Waldo sounds a lot like a Christian Scientist, here. Edit
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself. loc: 1045
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. loc: 1054
shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. loc: 1062
Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit. loc: 1068
Note: Reframing? Edit
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Is the Purpose of Sleep to Let Our Brains “Defragment,” Like a Hard Drive?
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Is the Purpose of Sleep to Let Our Brains “Defragment,” Like a Hard Drive?
- the function of sleep is to reorganize connections and “prune” synapses
- Memory formation involves a process called long-term potentiation (LTP), which is essentially the strengthening of synaptic connections
- most of the synapses that strengthen during memory are based on glutamate
- Glutamate works as a transmitter molecule by opening channels on the cells that receive it. The channels allow calcium into the cells on the receiving end, which activates them, allowing messages to go through. But too much glutamate can cause excess calcium to build up inside the very cell
- a harmful process called excitotoxicity
- One function of sleep, according to the theory, is to protect the brain against excitotoxicity or other “synaptic overload” problems by pruning the synapses
- If the brain is essentially removing the “extra” synaptic strength formed during the previous day, it must do so in a way that preserves the new information. One possible mechanism for this is synaptic scaling.
- After some of the neural connections into a given cell, or “inputs,” become stronger, then all of the synapses on that cell could be weakened. This would preserve the relative strength of the different inputs, while keeping the total inputs constant.
- sleep may serve to reorganize and reconsolidate memories
- This theory is specifically about slow-wave sleep (SWS). It doesn’t try to explain rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when dreams happen. Interestingly, some animals do not have REM, but they all have SWS. In some animals, like dolphins, only one side of the brain has it at a time, which is strong evidence that SWS, but not REM, is vital for life.)
- synaptic strength and density is increased in sleep-deprived animals, compared to recently rested ones.
- The results showed a steady increase in brain excitability with increasing time spent awake. Sleep put this back to normal—mostly.
- consistent with the idea that synapses become steadily stronger during wakefulness, and are pruned during sleep.
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Saturday, May 12, 2012
Shift Happens
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- Kuhn wanted to free us from the illusion that knowledge is independent of history and of the sociality that marks us as humans, but he did not think that all beliefs that our history and sociality put before us are equally worthy.
- First, scientific ideas occur within a context that enables them to make sense. Second, context is accepted for different sorts of reasons than are the hypotheses that emerge within it. Third, the idea of a new scientific context occurs roughly the way his own illumination of Aristotle's ideas did: all at once, an entire whole snapping into view
- The positivists were strict parents. If a proposition could not be verified, it not only wasn't science, it was devoid of meaning.
- Popper had pulled much of the ground out from under the positivists by arguing that falsifiability was the real test: If a hypothesis doesn't come with ways to show it could be false, then it isn't a scientific hypothesis
- individual propositions within a science might be characterized by falsifiability, but how about the sort of gestalt that crystallized for Kuhn when at last and in an instant he understood Aristotle's idea of motion? That gestalt—which Kuhn of course called a paradigm—was of a different category than the propositions it enabled.
- Margaret Masterman listed 21 senses in which Kuhn used the term in that book. She clustered them into three groups: (1) a set of beliefs, (2) a "universally recognized scientific achievement" that serves as a defining example of how that science is done, and (3) the textbooks, instruments, and other physical artifacts by which scientists learn and practice their fields.
- Kuhn emphasized the second view of paradigms, as exemplars that guide practice
- normal science," the daily work of career scientists. He said they are not in the business of plotting revolutionary overthrows of existing paradigms, but are instead solving puzzles. Which puzzles are interesting, how to address them, and what counts as solutions all are determined by the paradigm—or, depending on which sense of paradigm one uses, those are the paradigm.
- new paradigms emerge to explain the accumulation of anomalies: findings that do not make sense within the current paradigm.
- When a new paradigm is conceived that makes sense of the anomalies, science is in for a revolutionary shift.
- Is progress possible?
- the most consistently attacked idea was what Kuhn referred to as incommensurability, a term taken from geometry, where it refers to the lack of a shared measurement. In SSR it means something like the inability to understand one paradigm from within another.
- The scientists hated incommensurability because it seemed to imply that science makes no real progress, the philosophers hated it because it seemed to imply that there is no truth, and the positivists hated it because it seemed to imply that science is based on nonrational decisions.
- if science exists within paradigms, and if those paradigms can't understand one another, and if there is no Archimedean platform from which to view them, then how can we tell if we're making progress? It was easier before Kuhn, when science looked like it was the gradual accumulation of knowledge over time.
- Outside of the metaphysical paradigm that says a true statement corresponds to an objective reality, the concept of progress becomes problematic,
- Stephen Toulmin wrote that the continuous small adjustments paradigms go through make them less discontinuous and more commensurable than Kuhn's use of religious language—"conversion," for example—often made them sound
- Steven Weinberg, in a 1998 article, also wasn't buying the incommensurability of scientific revolutions, pointing to the "hard"—that is, durable—parts of science that endure across paradigms
- Kuhn rejected our old metaphysics—consciousness consists of an inner representation of an outer reality—as incoherent, impossible, and fundamentally inhuman. That's why he begins SSR by invoking history not as a discipline that can be applied to science, but as a necessary part of scientific understanding. All understanding is historical, and no human project escapes the characteristics of history-based humanity: fallible, limited, impure of motive, social, and always situated in a culture, a language, and a time.
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Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Destroyer and Builder: Peter Gordon reviews Stephen Nadler's book: A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age
http://www.tnr.com/book/review/book-forged-hell-spinoza-treatise-steven-nadler
God’s decrees and commandments, and consequently God’s providence, are in truth nothing but Nature’s order
Spinoza laid the foundations not only for the modern self, but also for the modern conception of the
universe as well.
The philosophical identification of God and nature—the thesis of pure immanence—laid down a pattern of naturalistic explanation that would inspire many of the greatest thinkers of modernity
the universe, he claims, is a single substance, unique, infinite, and absolutely necessary. It is an order without alternative, without contingency or division, and its existence is nothing less than eternal
the birth of the secular age.
The highest ideal of the Treatise is libertas philosophandi, the freedom to philosophize.
Although civil religion is designed to fashion better citizens, a government “that attempts to control men’s minds is regarded as tyrannical,
A perfect divinity does not perform miracles but is identical with the perfection of its creation. To insist on miracles merely betrays one’s failure to grasp the structure of reality: “miracles and ignorance are the same.”
In his cosmos, there is no personal redeemer to whom we might appeal in our distress, and there is no room for a higher creator who dwells outside of nature. Indeed, such a monistic vision allows little room for the traditional conception of God at all. For nature is all that there is; thought and extension are merely its attributes.
Nature is infinite and acts with thoroughgoing necessity, but it is utterly indifferent to our individual cares and aspirations. Spinozism, in other words, does not divinize nature, it naturalizes the divine.
Kant recoiled from naturalistic monism, and cleaved instead to the idea of freedom as a “miracle in the phenomenal world.”
this metaphysical principle amounts to a kind of “secular theology.” The assumption that the natural order is perfect and its laws necessarily inviolable across all possible variations of space and time does not actually surrender but instead secularizes the idea of divine perfection
The Bible, Spinoza argued, is “faulty, mutilated, adulterated, and inconsistent.” Much of the Treatise consists of a deliberate and merciless dismantling of its miraculous reports and, most of all, its moral codes
For the entirety of this “mutilated” text, in Spinoza’s view, contains little more than one lesson that is truly of value: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus, 19:18) and “He who loves his neighbor has satisfied every claim of the law.” (Romans 13:8). But the final blow to the authority of the text is that even this lesson can be learned in other ways.
the best form of government, according to Spinoza, is one that permits the individual to exercise his own rational will. Obedience to laws simply because they are imposed is analogous to the irrational condition that Spinoza described in the Ethics as enslavement to the passions. In both cases one is merely responsive to external commands
The Four Million Dollar Philosopher
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The Four Million Dollar Philosopher
- According to some people, free will is housed only in non-physical souls; it’s a supernatural power
- According to others, whether or not souls exist, free will doesn’t depend on them. People in this second group divide into two subgroups. Some will tell you that the ability to make rational, informed, conscious decisions in the absence of undue force – no one holding a gun to your head – is enough for free will. Others say that something important must be added: If you have free will, then alternative decisions are open to you in a deep way
- What is needed is that more than one option was open to you, given everything as it actually was at the time
- I assessed some much-discussed scientific arguments for the thesis that free will does not exist. The general structure of these arguments is simple. In stage 1, data are offered in support of some featured empirical proposition or other – for example, the proposition that conscious intentions are never among the causes of corresponding actions. In stage 2, the featured empirical proposition is combined with a proposition that expresses some aspect of the author’s view about what “free will” means to yield the conclusion that free will does not exist.
- The real threat, I am sometimes told, is bound up with what philosophers call substance dualism – a doctrine that includes a commitment to the idea that every human person is or has a non-physical soul or mind. (So we’re back to the analogue of premium gas.) This alleged threat is based on two claims: first, given what “free will” means, having free will requires being or having a non-physical soul or mind; and, second, the experiments at issue provide powerful evidence that such souls or minds don’t exist.
- Anthony Cashmore, in a 2010 article (’The Lucretian Swerve: The Biological Basis of Human Behavior and the Criminal Justice System’), asserts that “if we no longer entertain the luxury of a belief in the ‘magic of the soul,’ then there is little else to offer in support of the concept of free will.”
- Michael Gazzaniga says that free will involves a ghostly or nonphysical element and “some secret stuff that is YOU.” Obviously, this isn’t a report of a scientific discovery about what “free will” means; he is telling us how he understands that expression – that is, what “free will” means to him. Given what Gazzaniga means by “free will,” it’s no surprise that, in his view, “free will is a miscast concept, based on social and psychological beliefs . . . that have not been borne out and/or are at odds with modern scientific knowledge about the nature of our universe.”
- Because there is no place in the experiment for conscious reflection about which button to press, there is no place for an explanation of the button pressing in terms of conscious reasons for pressing it.
- Self-deception, as I think of it, is (roughly) motivationally or emotionally biased false belief.
- Part of the answer would seem to lie in what they want to be true: that they are very good at their job or extremely easy to get along with. It is likely that their wanting something to be true of them biases their self-estimations.
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