'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.



Sunday, December 06, 2009

on certainty 186

186. “I might suppose that Napoleon never existed, and it is a fable, but not that the earth did not exist 150 years ago.”



what do I ‘know’ here?

what I have been told –

the latest scientific theory –

do I have cause to doubt it?

right at this minute?

no

is it doubtable?

yes 


© greg t. charlton. 2009.
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