Physicians think they do a lot for a patient when they give his disease a name.
Immanuel KantRead
[Aristotle formal logic thus far (1787)] has not been able to advance a single step, and hence is to all appearances closed and completed.
Interpretation
Kant suggests that Aristotle's formal logic has reached its limits and cannot evolve further.
In this quote, Immanuel Kant reflects on the state of Aristotle's formal logic, indicating that it has been thoroughly explored and no new advancements can be made from it. This assertion highlights the idea that certain philosophical frameworks may become stagnant over time, suggesting the need for new perspectives or methods in the pursuit of knowledge.
In practice
In a lecture on the history of philosophy, I referred to Kant's analysis of Aristotle's logic.
Physicians think they do a lot for a patient when they give his disease a name.
The inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in respect to what it denies us than in respect to what it has granted.
One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result that at the end one is puzzled to know what idea to form of our species which prides itself so much on its advantages.
I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.
. . . as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings. . . .
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
And usually [the philosopher] philosophizes either in order to resign himself to life, or to seek some finality in it, or to distract himself and forget his griefs, or for pastime and amusement.
Every physicist knows that things connect with each other. To isolate things is not the way the universe works - winning best actor is arbitrary.
The more dignity is widely and freely available in a society, the less people want to be famous.
The prison is not the only institution that has posed complex challenges to the people who have lived with it and have become so inured to its presence that they could not conceive of society without it. Within the history of the United States the system of slavery immediately comes to mind.
Anything whose presence or absence makes no discernible difference is no essential part of the whole.
My hair would continue to gray, and then one day, it would fall out entirely, and then, on a day meaninglessly close to the present one, meaninglessly like the present one, I would disappear from the earth. And all these emotions, all these yearnings, all these data, if that helps to clinch the enormity of what I'm talking about, would be gone. And that's what immortality means. It means selfishness. My generations belief that each one of us matters more than you or anyone else would think.
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