'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 264


264. I could imagine Moore being captured by a wild tribe, and their expressing the suspicion that he has come from somewhere between the earth and the moon. Moore tells them that he knows etc. but he can’t give them, the grounds for his certainty, because they have fantastic ideas of human ability to fly and know nothing of physics. This would be an occasion for making that statement.



Moore makes his assertions –

and because the natives will not be persuaded –

he has to face the fact that all he has is assertion

and that all his authority amounts to –

is authorship


© greg t. charalton. 2010.