HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · logic, method, and demonstration · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · value, price, and exchange · understanding · truth and falsehood in mind · trade, markets, and merchants · trade balance · taxation, tribute, and revenue · spiritual insight and salvation · reason virtue knowledge · quiddity vs composition
Usually: argument (5) · detachment (3) · skepticism (2) · reflection (1) · crisis of belief (1) · the test or trial (1) · curiosity (1) · exhortation (1) · indignation (1)
“In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason.” Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman · precept
She urges returning to first principles to define human rights through reason, virtue, and knowledge, arguing that men use reason to rationalize inherited prejudices and that “prescription” cannot justify deprivation of natural rights.
THE RIGHTS AND INVOLVED DUTIES OF MANKIND CONSIDERED. In the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when en…
Keynes argues Germany’s ability to pay annual reparations depends on trade surpluses, not assumptions of vastly higher future exports, and he frames payment as goods exports requiring a reduced import bill.
indemnity from Germany depend on the assumption that she is in a position to conduct in the future a vastly greater trade than ever she has had in the past. For the purpose of arriving at a figure it is of no great consequence whether payment takes the form of cash (or rather of foreign exchange) or is partly effected in kind (coal, dyes, timber, etc.), as contemplated by the Treaty. In any event, it is only by the …
Aquinas argues falsity is in the intellect through judgments that involve composition in affirmation/negation; the intellect is not deceived about essence, but can err by applying or combining definitions incorrectly.
things there is neither true nor false, but in complex things only. But affirmation and negation do not belong to the senses. Therefore in the senses there is no falsity. *On the contrary,* Augustine says (Soliloq. ii, 6), "It appears that the senses entrap us into error by their deceptive similitudes." *I answer that,* Falsity is not to be sought in the senses except as truth is in them. Now truth is not in them i…
In Q.85, Art.6, Aquinas argues that the intellect cannot err regarding the quiddity of a material thing and first principles, though it can be deceived accidentally in composite definitions, relations, and reasoning.
Whether the Intellect Can Be False? Objection 1: It would seem that the intellect can be false; for the Philosopher says (Metaph. vi, Did. v, 4) that "truth and falsehood are in the mind." But the mind and intellect are the same, as is shown above (Q. 79, A. 1). Therefore falsehood may be in the mind. Obj. 2: Further, opinion and reasoning belong to the intellect. But falsehood exists in both. Therefore falsehood c…
Pascal contrasts people who judge by feeling with those who reason from first principles, saying each struggles to grasp the other’s mode of understanding.
18 When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose. The manner…
Pascal argues that first principles are known by the heart’s intuition (not proved by reason), while reason must trust them, and he urges waiting on God for spiritual insight when intuition is absent.
JUSTICE AND THE REASON OF EFFECTS 291 In the letter *On Injustice* can come the ridiculousness of the law that the elder gets all. "My friend, you were born on this side of the mountain, it is therefore just that your elder brother gets everything." "Why do you kill me?" 292 He lives on the other side of the water. 293 "Why do you kill me? What! do you not live on the other side of the water? If you lived on t…