'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Tuesday, June 16, 2009

on certainty 30


30. When someone has made sure of something, he says: “Yes, the calculation is right”, but he did not infer from his condition of certainty. One does not infer how things are from one’s own certainty.

Certainty is as it were a tone of voice in which one declares how things are, but one does not infer from the tone of voice that one is justified.



yes –‘a tone of voice’ – effectively – just rhetoric

what is justification?

your claim of authority – for your proposition

and your authority?

if it is anything more than your authorship

it is false and deceptive

the claim of justification – like that of certainty

is rhetorical 


© greg t. charlton. 2010.