'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, April 10, 2010

on certainty 402


402. In this remark the expression “propositions of the form of empirical propositions” is itself thoroughly bad; the statements in question are statements about material objects. And they do not serve as foundations in the same way as hypotheses which, if they turn out to be false, are replaced by others.

…und schreib gerost
“Im Anfang war die Tat.” *

(* ...and write with confidence
"In the beginning was the deed."

Goethe, Faust I. Trans.)



a statement about a material object –

is open to question –

open to doubt –

as with any hypothesis

no statement – no hypothesis –

no proposition –

is ‘irreplaceable’

the basis – the ‘foundation’ –

of any proposal

of any deed –

is uncertainty


© greg t. charlton. 2010.