Monthly Archives: February 2003

Carlos Escudé

El ambiente está lleno de intelectuales sin obra que en realidad son políticos sin votos: a tales seres no se les puede pedir un pensamiento que, por desmitificador, pueda alienarlos de las grandes mayorías. Se trata del tipo de animal político que puede ser marxista si es que hay un segmento de la opinión local para el cual el marxismo es la “buena doctrina”, pero que jamás podría lanzarse a la aventura del pensamiento a que se entregó Karl Marx, ni aspiraría a ello.

Carlos Escudé, Realismo periférico, Buenos Aires, 1992, p. 11

Derek Parfit

Nagel once claimed that it is psychologically impossible to believe the Reductionist View. Buddha claimed that, though it is very hard, it is possible. I find Buddha’s claim to be true. After reviewing my arguments, I find that, at the reflective or intellectual level, though it is very hard to believe the Reductionist View, this is possible. My remaining doubts or fears seem to me irrational. Since I can believe this view, I assume that others can do so too. We can believe the truth about ourselves.

Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Oxford, 1984, p. 280

Mario Bunge

El sistema mundial nació el 12 de octubre de 1492. Como es sabido, el parto fue doloroso, ya que involucró la subyugación de centenares de pueblos en cuatro continentes. Para millones de personas, su cristianización fue literalmente su crucifixión.

Mario Bunge, Tres mitos de nuestro tiempo: virtualidad, globalización, igualamiento, Santa Fe, 2001, p. 29

F. H. Bool

In 1878 [George Arnold, M. C. Escher’s father,] left Japan. He did not find it difficult to get work back in Holland. After some fruitful visits to colleagues at the Ministry of Transport, he applied for the post of District Engineer in Maastrich. After his stay in Japan, and as the result of an inheritance, his financial position had improved. So he started to look for a wife.

‘However, Catholic Maastrich was not suitable in this respect,’ he writes in his autobiography. ‘I did know some gifted and attractive women and girls in the Protestant circle but these by no means fitted the equation w = 1/2m + 10, in which ‘w’ is the right age for a girl and ‘m’ represents the man’s age.

F. H. Bool et al., Escher: The Complete Graphic Work, London, 1982, p. 10

María Esther Vázquez

Cuando era todavía profesor en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, una mañana irrumpió un muchacho en su aula y lo interpeló:-Profesor, tiene que interrumpir la clase.

-¿Por qué? -interrumpió Borges.

-Porque una asamblea estudiantil ha decidido que no se dicten más clases hoy para rendir homenaje al Che Guevara.

-Ríndanle homenaje después de clase -agregó Borges.

-No. Tiene que ser ahora y usted se va.

-Yo no me voy, y si usted es tan guapo, venga a sacarme del escritorio.

-Vamos a cortar la luz -prosiguió el otro.

-Yo he tomado la precaución de ser ciego. Corte la luz, nomás.

Borges se quedó, habló a oscuras, fue el único profesor que dictó su clase hasta el final y sus alumnos, impresionados, no se movieron del aula.

María Esther Vázquez, Borges, sus días y su tiempo, Buenos Aires, 1999, pp. 33-34

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872-1914, London, 1967, p. 13

Louis Pascal

Thus we have, I think, a rather complete refutation of those strange people who think life is nice. In the first place, life is clearly not nice for that substantial proportion of mankind (soon to be a majority) who must live from day to day from hand to mouth for ever on the verge or over the verge of starvation. Ask some of the thousands who starve each day how much they enjoy the beautiful birds and flowers and trees. Ask them their opinion of God’s love and His tender mercy. Or if perchance you don’t believe in God, then ask them their opinion of the love and tender mercy of their fellow human beings, the rich gods across the sea who couldn’t care less about their sufferings -at any rate not enough to go out of their way to help them. Ask them those questions. They count too.

Louis Pascal, ‘Judgment Day’, in Peter Singer (ed.), Applied Ethics, Oxford, 1986, pp. 113-114

Lori Gruen and Peter Singer

Experimental psychology raises, in an especially acute form, a central contradiction of much animal experimentation. For if the monkeys Harlow used do not crave affection like human infants, and if they do not experience loneliness, terror and despair like human infants, what is the point of the experiments? But if the monkeys do crave affection, and do feel loneliness, terror and despair in the way that humans do, how can the experiments possibly justified?

Lori Gruen and Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A Graphic Guide, London, 1987, p. 81

René Descartes

Comme on voit aussi que presque jamais il n’est arrivé qu’aucun de leurs sectateurs les ait surpassés; et je m’assure que les plus passionnés de ceux qui suivent maintenant Aristote se croiraient hereux s’ils avaient autant de connaissance de la nature qu’il en a eu, encore même que ce fût à condition qu’ils n’en auraient jamais davantage. Ils sont comme la lierre, qui ne tend point à monter plus haut que les arbres qui le soutiennent, et même souvent qui redescend après qu’il est parvenu jusqu’à leur faît.

René Descartes, Discours de la méthode, Leyden, 1637, chap. 6

José Gallegos Rocafull

La sociedad de nuestros días conoce tan bien como la de Séneca a esos hombres fofos, vacíos por dentro, hueros de ideas, incapaces de esfuerzo, que viven de la obra colectiva, repitiendo como un eco palabras o consignas, que a veces ni entienden ni tratan de hacer suyas. Pululan por todas partes, tratan de imponer su voluntad, parece que dirigen a los demás y en realidad no son más que juguetes del destino, que los derriba tan arbitrariamente como los encontró y deja ver, cuando ya están humillados y hechos polvo, que su pretendida grandeza no era más que una vana apariencia sin consistencia y sin realidad.

José Gallegos Rocafull, ‘Introducción’, in Lucio Anneo Séneca, Cartas morales, México, 1951, vol. 1, pp. xi-xii

Mumon

If the feet of enlightenment moved, the great ocean would overflow;
If that head bowed, it would look down upon the heavens.
Such a body has no place to rest…
Let another one continue this poem.

Mumon, ‘The Gateless Gate’, in Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki (eds.), Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Boston, 1994, pp. 194-195

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wenn diese Arbeit einen Wert hat, so besteht er in Zweierlei. Erstens darin, dass in ihr Gedanken ausgedrückt sind, und dieser Wert wird umso grösser sein, je besser die Gedanken ausgedrückt sind. Je mehr der Nagel auf den Kopf getroffen ist. – Hier bin ich mir bewusst, weit hinter dem Möglichen zurückgeblieben zu sein. Einfach darum, weil meine Kraft zur Bewältigung der Aufgabe zu gering ist. – Mögen andere kommen und es besser machen.

Dagegen scheint mir die Warheit der hier mitgeteilten Gedanken unantasbar ist un definitiv. Ich bin also der Meinung, die Probleme im Wesentlichen endgültig gelöst zu haben. Und wenn ich mich hierin nicht irre, so besteht nun der Wert dieser Arbeit zeitens darin, dass sie zeigt, wie wening damit getan ist, dass die Probleme gelöst sind.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, London, 1922, Vorwort

Daniel Dennett

Do we really think what we are currently confronted with is worth protecting with some creative obscurantism? Do we think, for instance, that vast resources should be set aside to preserve the imaginary prospects of a renewed mental life for deeply comatose people, while there are no resources to spare to enhance the desperate, but far from imaginary, expectations of the poor? Myths about the sanctity of life, or of consciousness, cut both ways. They may be useful in erecting barriers (against euthanasia, against capital punishment, against abortion, against eating meat) to impress the unimaginative, but at the price of offensive hypocrisy or ridiculous self-deception among the more enlightened.

Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained, Boston, 1991, p. 454

David DeGrazia

When a Benjamin Franklin or a Jeremy Bentham suggested that we look at animals in a radically different way, the suggestion was probably greeted not with a refutation but with a laugh or sneer. Until animals are taken seriously enough that this possibility is clearly in mind, intelligent discussion of the reasons for and against equal consideration is impossible.

David DeGrazia, Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status, Cambridge, 1996, p. 49