That this individual life of all of us is not something limited in its temporal expression to the life that now we experience, follows from the very fact that here nothing final or individual is found expressed.
Josiah RoyceRead
No consensus of men can make an error erroneous. We can only find or commit an error, not create it. When we commit an error, we say what was an error already.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Errors are inherent truths in understanding, not inventions by agreement.
This quote by Josiah Royce suggests that an error is not something that can be created just by a consensus or agreement among people. Rather, errors exist independently, and our understanding is merely an interpretation of these inherent truths. It signifies the philosophical stance that truth and correctness are not determined by collective opinion but are instead discovered through observation and reasoning.
Themes
ErrorTruthConsensusPhilosophyUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a debate about the nature of truth during a philosophy class.
More from Josiah Royce
All quotes →A crowd, whether it be a dangerous mob, or an amiably joyous gathering at a picnic is not a community. It has a mind, but no institutions, no organizations, no coherent unity, no history, no traditions.
Josiah RoyceRead
We seek true individuality and the true individuals. But we find them not. For lo, we mortals see what our poor eyes can see; and they, the true individuals, - they belong not to this world of our merely human sense and thought.
Josiah RoyceRead
Thinking is like loving and dying. Each of us must do it for himself.
Josiah RoyceRead
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