'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, July 11, 2010

on certainty 549

549. It would be wrong to say that I can only say “I know that there is a chair there” when there is a chair there. Of course it isn’t true unless there is, but I have a right to say this if I am sure there is chair there, even if I am wrong.

[Pretensions are a mortgage which burdens a philosopher’s capacity to think.]



so you can make claims to knowledge – even when you are wrong –

you have a ‘right’ to be sure – even if you are wrong –

and here is a perfect example of where pretension has burdened a philosopher’s capacity to think


© greg t. charlton. 2010.