HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · the passions and the emotions · natural law and higher law · weather, storms, and the seasons · the problem of evil and theodicy · the nature and attributes of God · spring hydraulics · species, variation, and descent · sensualism · sensation · sceptics · religious persecution and toleration
Usually: argument (3) · skepticism (3) · letter or document (2) · reflection (2) · censure (2) · curiosity (2) · detachment (2) · crisis of belief (1) · forbidden love (1) · exhortation (1)
“I think,” assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me.” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil · insight
Locke pauses for a brief natural-philosophy digression, distinguishing primary real qualities of bodies from secondary imputed qualities that generate ideas in minds.
real, original, or primary qualities; because they are in the things themselves, whether they are perceived or not: and upon their different modifications it is that the secondary qualities depend. The other two are only powers to act differently upon other things: which powers result from the different modifications of those primary qualities. 24. The first are Resemblances; the second thought to be Resemblances, …
Nietzsche argues that sensory-based “natural philosophy” explains only what can be seen and felt, not the world itself, contrasting popular sensualism and the Platonic aristocratic resistance to sense evidence.
to me that this is a complete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something fundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT the work of our organs--? 16. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are "immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and …
He divides philosophy into three ancient branches—natural philosophy, ethics, and logic—and traces their origins to human curiosity about nature and to the later systematic organization of moral maxims.
them must naturally have been the first branch of philosophy that was cultivated. The first philosophers, accordingly, of whom history has preserved any account, appears to have been natural philosophers. In every age and country of the world, men must have attended to the characters, designs, and actions of one another; and many reputable rules and maxims for the conduct of human life must have been laid down and a…
In an open letter to the Rambler, Captator-like “adept” claims long study of electricity and magnetism, then proposes using a magnet to preserve marital trust and prevent jealousy and suspicion.
SIR, THOUGH you have seldom digressed from moral subjects, I suppose you are not so rigorous or cynical as to deny the value or usefulness of natural philosophy; or to have lived in this age of inquiry and experiment, without any attention to the wonders every day produced by the pokers of magnetism and the wheels of electricity. At least, I may be allowed to hope that, since nothing is more contrary to moral excel…
He discusses natural philosophy and mathematics, claiming skepticism attacks our knowledge of nature, but that Berkeley’s principles answer it by rejecting occult causes and reducing explanation to effects of spirit.
difficult, and the study thereof of small use to mankind. And in effect the doctrine of abstraction has not a little contributed towards spoiling the most useful parts of knowledge. 101. OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND MATHEMATICS.--The two great provinces of speculative science conversant about ideas received from sense, are Natural Philosophy and Mathematics; with regard to each of these I shall make some observations. …
Pliny describes to Licinius Sura a spring near a mountain whose water ebbs and flows regularly three times daily as it feeds the Larian lake, and asks Licinius to investigate causes.
claim, it might be of some service to him, and this I was ready and willing to do, if he could clearly prove to me that he was unjustly disinherited. "Do then," he said, "be my arbitrator in this case." After a short pause I answered him, "I will, for I don't see why I should not have as good an opinion of my own impartial disinterestedness as you seem to have. But, mind, I am not to be prevailed upon to decide the …
He criticizes philosophical confusion about nature and God attributed to Aristotle, then discusses Plato’s merit for avoiding the conflation of God with the universe in natural philosophy.
Inque rei signum *serpentem serpere* jussum; he would want no other proofs that it was an allegory he was reading, and intended to be understood as such. Nor, if we suppose him conversant with Oriental works of any thing like the same antiquity, could it surprise him to find events of true history in connexion with, or historical personages among the actors and interlocutors of, the parable. In the temple-language o…