'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, November 10, 2009

on certainty 153


153.  No one ever taught me that my hands don’t disappear when I am not paying attention to them. Nor can I be said to presuppose the truth of this proposition in my assertions etc., (as if they rested on it) while it only gets sense from the rest of our procedure of asserting.



a proposition –

is open to question –

open to doubt –

if it is asserted

and if it is asserted –

its sense –

is open to question –

open to doubt –

uncertain

if it is not asserted –

it’s not in the picture


© greg t. charlton. 2010.