'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 18, 2010

on certainty 557


557. A court-martial may well have to decide whether it was reasonable in such and such a situation to have assumed this or that with confidence (even though wrongly)
.


an assumption is uncertain –

it may be described in any number of ways –

‘reasonable’ is one possible description –

and what reasonable amounts to –

will be open to question


© greg t. charlton. 2010.