'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, March 13, 2010

on certainty 335

335. The procedure in a court of law rests on the fact that circumstances give statements a certain probability. The statement that, for example, someone came into the world without parents wouldn’t be taken into consideration there.



in the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925 – William Jennings Bryan before Judge Raulston argued the creationist case –

part of which was that Adam and Eve did not have parents –

the court took this into consideration

Wittgenstein’s idea of jurisprudence –

is based not it seems on the practice of law –

but his own philosophical prejudices


© greg t. charlton. 2010.