Thursday, September 18, 2008

Uh-oh

"...a nation's civilization and refinement depends on the superiority of the philosophy which is practised there."

-Descartes, Preface to the French edition of the Principia philosophiae

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha! No doubt he was being an egoist first and a French chauvinist second. And how typical of a post-medieval philosopher to make philosophy the first indicator, rather than religious culture, observance of religion, piety, etc.

Lee Faber said...

that's Descartes. in the same preface he was also claiming that the scholastics didn't know the true philosophy, that it was easier to learn real philosophy if one had never studied with them.

Michael Sullivan said...

The problem with applying this dictum to our own democratic age is that every philosophy under the sun can be found, including ours.