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Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
3 months 1 week ago
Perhaps there is one chain [of...

Perhaps there is one chain [of inference] leading from the mental and the physical to a common source. It is conceivable in the abstract that if mental phenomena derive from the properties of matter at all, these may be identical at some level with nonphysical properties from which physical phenomena also derive. ...If there were such properties, they would be discoverable only by explanatory inference from both mental and physical phenomena. ... There would be properties of matter that were not physical from which the mental properties of organic systems were derived. This could still be called panpsychism.

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"Panpsychism" (1979), pp. 184-185.
Philosophical Maxims
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
1 month 3 weeks ago
To me, believing that some correspondence...

To me, believing that some correspondence intrinsically just is reference (not as a result of our operational and theoretical constraints, or our intentions, but as an ultimate metaphysical fact) amounts to a magical theory of reference. Reference itself becomes what Locke called a 'substantial form' (an entity which intrinsically belongs with a certain name) on such a view. Even if one is willing to contemplate such unexplainable metaphysical facts, the epistemological problems that accompany such a metaphysical view seem insuperable. For, assuming a world of mind- independent, discourse-independent entities (this is the presupposition of the view we are discussing), there are, as we have seen, many different 'correspondences' which represent possible or candidate reference relations (infinitely many, in fact, if there are infinitely many things in the universe).

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Chap. 2 : A problem about reference
Philosophical Maxims
Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
4 days ago
If you would not have a...

If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 2 days ago
Some will ask, what about weak...

Some will ask, what about weak natures, must they not be protected? Yes, but to be able to do that, it will be necessary to realize that education of children is not synonymous with herdlike drilling and training. If education should really mean anything at all, it must insist upon the free growth and development of the innate forces and tendencies of the child. In this way alone can we hope for the free individual and eventually also for a free community, which shall make interference and coercion of human growth impossible.

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Philosophical Maxims
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
3 months 2 weeks ago
Amy Kofman: Have you read all...

Amy Kofman: Have you read all the books in here?Derrida: No, only four of them. But I read those very, very carefully.

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Derrida (2003 documentary), referring to his personal library
Philosophical Maxims
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
2 months 4 days ago
In training a child to activity...

In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call "inert ideas"-that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is, that they are overladen with inert ideas. Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
The fact that all Mathematics is...

The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists in the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.

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Principles of Mathematics (1903), Ch. I: Definition of Pure Mathematics, p. 5
Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
Formerly, it was held by philosophers...

Formerly, it was held by philosophers and mathematicians alike that the proofs in Geometry depended on the figure; nowadays, this is known to be false. In the best books there are no figures at all. The reasoning proceeds by the strict rules of formal logic from a set of axioms laid down to begin with.

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Ch. 5: Mathematics and the Metaphysicians
Philosophical Maxims
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2 months 2 weeks ago
If not reason, then the devil.

If not reason, then the devil.

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Philosophical Maxims
Simone Weil
Simone Weil
2 months 5 days ago
The state of conformity is an...

The state of conformity is an imitation of grace. By a strange mystery - which is connected with the power of the social element - a profession can confer on quite ordinary men in their exercise of it, virtues which, if they were extended to all circumstances of life, would make of them heroes or saints. But the power of the social element makes these virtues natural.

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Accordingly they need a compensation. p. 124
Philosophical Maxims
Jesus
Jesus
2 months 1 week ago
This heaven will pass away, and...

This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?

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Philosophical Maxims
David Hume
David Hume
3 months 3 weeks ago
Hypothetical liberty is allowed to everyone...

Hypothetical liberty is allowed to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains

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§ 8.23
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Tolerance - the function of an...

Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
What every man who loves his...

What every man who loves his country hopes for in his inmost heart: the suppression of half his compatriots.

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Philosophical Maxims
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
3 months 2 weeks ago
I had obtained some distinction, and...

I had obtained some distinction, and felt myself of some importance, before the desire of distinction and of importance had grown into a passion: and little as it was which I had attained, yet having been attained too early, like all pleasures enjoyed too soon, it had made me blasé and indifferent to the pursuit. Thus neither selfish nor unselfish pleasures were pleasures to me. And there seemed no power in nature sufficient to begin the formation of my character anew, and create in a mind now irretrievably analytic, fresh associations of pleasure with any of the objects of human desire.

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(p. 139)
Philosophical Maxims
George Santayana
George Santayana
2 months 1 week ago
The truth is cruel, but it...

The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.

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p. 107
Philosophical Maxims
Karl Jaspers
Karl Jaspers
2 months 1 week ago
Man is always something more than...

Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once and for all, but is a process...

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Philosophical Maxims
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3 months 2 weeks ago
For what avail the plough or...

For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

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Boston
Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 1 week ago
Follow the seasons of Ha,Ride in...

Follow the seasons of Ha,Ride in the state carriage of Yau,Wear the ceremonial cap of Chan,Let the music be the Shiu with its pantomimes.

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Philosophical Maxims
Confucius
Confucius
4 months 1 week ago
The man of virtue makes...

The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration: this may be called perfect virtue.

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Philosophical Maxims
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1 month 2 days ago
When one is a stranger to...

When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
5 days ago
That the individual is of himself...

That the individual is of himself a world's history, and possesses his property in the rest of the world's history, goes beyond what is Christian. To the Christian the world's history is the higher thing, because it is the history of Christ or 'man'; to the egoist only his history has value, because he wants to develop only himself not the mankind-idea, not God's plan, not the purposes of Providence, not liberty, and the like. He does not look upon himself as a tool of the idea or a vessel of God, he recognizes no calling, he does not fancy that he exists for the further development of mankind and that he must contribute his mite to it, but he lives himself out, careless of how well or ill humanity may fare thereby.

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Cambridge 1995, p. 323
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 2 days ago
The Outsider wants to cease to...

The Outsider wants to cease to be an Outsider. He wants to be 'balanced'. He would like to achieve a vividness of sense-perception (Lawrence, Van Gogh, Hemingway) He would also like to understand the human soul and its working and, be 'possessed' by a Will topower, to more life. (Barbusse and Mitya Karamazov) He would like to escape triviality forever. Above all, he would like to know how to express himself because that is the means by which he can get to know himself and hi unknown possibilities.

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Chapter Seven, The Great Synthesis…
Philosophical Maxims
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus
3 months 4 weeks ago
He that gives quickly….

He that gives quickly gives twice.

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Adagia, 1508
Philosophical Maxims
comfortdragon
comfortdragon
2 weeks 3 days ago
The poor, the short....
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Seneca the Younger
Seneca the Younger
4 days ago
He knows his own strength; he...

He knows his own strength; he knows that he was born to carry burdens.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
3 months 2 weeks ago
The appearance in nineteenth-century psychiatry, jurisprudence,...

The appearance in nineteenth-century psychiatry, jurisprudence, and literature of a whole series of discourses on the species and subspecies of homosexuality, inversion, pederasty, and "psychic hermaphroditism" made possible a strong advance of social controls into this area of "perversity"; but it also made possible the formation of a "reverse" discourse: homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf, to demand that its legitimacy or "naturality" be acknowledged, often in the same vocabulary, using the same categories by which it was medically disqualified.

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Vol. I, p. 101
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Each time I fail to think...

Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.

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Philosophical Maxims
Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
3 months 3 weeks ago
Confidence in another man's virtue is...

Confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

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Book I, Ch. 14
Philosophical Maxims
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
4 months 2 weeks ago
Someone in despair despairs over something....

Someone in despair despairs over something. So, for a moment, it seems, but only for a moment. That same instant the true despair shows itself, or despair in its true guise. In despairing over something he was really despairing over himself, and he wants now to be rid of himself.

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Philosophical Maxims
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
3 months 2 weeks ago
The love of power is a...

The love of power is a part of human nature, but power-philosophies are, in a certain precise sense, insane. The existence of the external world, both that of matter and of other human beings, is a datum, which may be humiliating to a certain kind of pride, but can only be denied by a madman. Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships in philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships. Certified lunatics are shut up because of the proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach.

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Ch. 16: Power philosophies
Philosophical Maxims
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
3 months 3 weeks ago
Man can, indeed, act contrarily to...

Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.

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Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
Philosophical Maxims
John Locke
John Locke
3 months 3 weeks ago
Encourage therefore his inquisitiveness all you...

Encourage therefore his inquisitiveness all you can, by satisfying his demands, and informing his judgement, as far as it is capable. When his reasons are any way tolerable, let him find the credit and commendation of it, without being laugh'd at for his mistake be gently put into the right; and if he shew a forwardness to be reasoning about things that come in his way, take care, as much as you can, that no body check this inclination in him, or mislead it by captious or fallacious ways of talking with him. For when all is done, this is the highest and most important faculty of our minds, deserves the greatest care and attention in cultivating it: the right improvement, and exercise of our reason being the highest perfection that a man can attain to in his life.

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Sec. 122
Philosophical Maxims
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre
3 months 2 weeks ago
Yes, I am so free...

Yes, I am so free. And what a superb absence is my soul.

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Orestes, Act 1
Philosophical Maxims
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
2 months 2 days ago
The contention that a standing army...

The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 3 days ago
Were we required to characterise this...

Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is by rule and calculated contrivance. For the simplest operation, some helps and accompaniments, some cunning abbreviating process is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion are all discredited, and thrown aside. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster.

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Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
Objection to scientific knowledge: this world...

Objection to scientific knowledge: this world doesn't deserve to be known.

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Philosophical Maxims
Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
2 weeks 1 day ago
Agricultural association, which in all ages...

Agricultural association, which in all ages has been deemed impossible, would produce results of unbounded magnificence the rigorous demonstrations, the mathematical calculations by which these results will be verified, will not, however, prevent the picture of the future harmony and happiness which they present from repelling minds habituated to the miseries and wretchedness of our present civilization. The Theory of Social Organization.

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Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier, p. 5.
Philosophical Maxims
bell hooks
bell hooks
2 months 3 days ago
Indeed much of the literature written...

Indeed much of the literature written about black folks in the post-civil rights era emphasized the need for jobs. Material advancement was deemed the pressing agenda. Mental health concerns were not a high priority.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
1 month 5 days ago
Within the last half century, the...

Within the last half century, the labours of such men as Von Baer, Rathke, Reichert, Bischof, and Remak, have almost completely unravelled... the successive stages of development which... are now as well known to the embryologist as are the steps of the metamorphosis of the silk-worm moth to the school boy.

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Ch.2, p. 75
Philosophical Maxims
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
2 months 2 days ago
Man is as much a slave...

Man is as much a slave to his immediate surroundings now as he was when he lived in tree-huts. Give him the highest, the most exciting thoughts about man's place in the universe, the meaning of history; they can all be snuffed out in a moment if he wants his dinner, or feels irritated by a child squalling on a bus. He is bound by pettiness.

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Chapter Two, World Without Values
Philosophical Maxims
John Rawls
John Rawls
3 months 2 weeks ago
An intolerant sect has no right...

An intolerant sect has no right to complain when it is denied an equal liberty. ... A person's right to complain is limited to principles he acknowledges himself.

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p. 217
Philosophical Maxims
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva
1 month 3 days ago
I do not allow myself to...

I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that in itself creates new potential.

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Philosophical Maxims
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
1 week 3 days ago
Consider, for example, the state of...

Consider, for example, the state of Science generally, in Europe, at this period. It is admitted, on all sides, that the Metaphysical and Moral Sciences are falling into decay, while the Physical are engrossing, every day, more respect and attention. In most of the European nations there is now no such thing as a Science of Mind; only more or less advancement in the general science, or the special sciences, of matter.

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Philosophical Maxims
Max Stirner
Max Stirner
5 days ago
What matters the party to me?...

What matters the party to me? I shall find enough anyhow who unite with me without swearing allegiance to my flag.

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Dover 2005, p. 236
Philosophical Maxims
Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
2 months 2 weeks ago
By virtue of depression, we recall...

By virtue of depression, we recall those misdeeds we buried in the depths of our memory. Depression exhumes our shames.

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Philosophical Maxims
Adam Smith
Adam Smith
3 months 3 weeks ago
Poor David Hume is dying very...

Poor David Hume is dying very fast, but with great cheerfulness and good humour and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things then any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.

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Letter to Alexander Wedderburn 14 August 1776. The Correspondence of Adam Smith edited by E.C. Mossner and Ian Simpson Ross, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press 1986. The Future Hope in Adam Smith's System, Paul Oslington
Philosophical Maxims
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer
2 months 1 week ago
It is as if thinking itself...

It is as if thinking itself had been reduced to the level of industrial processes, subjected to a close schedule-in short, made part and parcel of production.

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p. 21.
Philosophical Maxims
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
3 months 2 weeks ago
Freud's fanciful pseudo-explanations (precisely because they...

Freud's fanciful pseudo-explanations (precisely because they are brilliant) perform a disservice. (Now any ass has these pictures available to use in "explaining" symptoms of an illness).

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p. 55e
Philosophical Maxims
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
3 months 1 week ago
It is not that I am...

It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.

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Stobaeus, iii. 3. 51
Philosophical Maxims
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