'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.




Saturday, January 30, 2010

on certainty 262


262. I can imagine a man who had grown up in quite special circumstances and been taught that the earth came into being 50 years ago, and therefore believed this. We might instruct him: the earth has long…etc. – We should be trying to give him our picture of the world.

This would happen through a kind of persuasion.



yes – persuasion is all this business of ‘knowledge’ is about


© greg t. charlton. 2010.