Idealists and Aw Gis, Here's a quote from one of William James' best and brightest students, George Santayana. It comes from his essay entitled Fifty Years of British Idealism.
"...the transcendental attitude is kept pure: for them there is really no universe save spirit creating its experience; and if we ask whence or on what principle occasions arise for all this compulsory fiction, we are reminded that this question, with any answer which spirit might invent for it, belongs not to philosophy but to some special science like physiology, itself, of course, only a particular product of creative thought. Thus the more impetuously the inquisitive squirrel would rush from his cage, the faster and faster he causes the cage to whirl about his ears. He has not the remotest chance of reaching his imaginary bait--God, nature, or truth; for to seek such things is to presuppose them, and to presuppose anything, if spirit be absolute, is to invent it. Even those philosophies of history which the idealist may for some secret reason be impelled to construct would be superstitious, according to his own principles..." I would have used a "Ham"ster instead of a squirrel but the point is the same. When a philosophy is top-down, it is driven by its presuppositions. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
