Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.
Interpretation
Human reasoning often defies logic, clinging to old beliefs despite a lack of rational support.
This quote by John Dewey highlights the paradox of human reasoning, emphasizing that individuals often cling to their longstanding beliefs and reservations even when evidence or logic suggest otherwise. It illustrates how the history of human thought is not a straightforward trajectory of rational evolution but rather a complex interplay of compromise and emotional attachment to certain ideas.
In practice
This quote can be used in a philosophical discussion about the nature of belief and reason.
Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
It science involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add to their accuracy, and, above all, to give them such shape that the dependencies of the various facts upon one another may be as obvious as possible.
For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an ‘ism becomes so involved in reaction against other ‘isms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a comprehensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems, and possibilities.
Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
He who is by nature not his own but another's man is by nature a slave.
The goal of my work is to help assure that we can create a world of abundance in which we meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child.
Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people's side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey.
Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.
Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.
Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.
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