The following Hobbes’ quote deserves a write up, slow and careful thought. But I don’t have the time and energy for everything I want to engage in, and neither do you. But sometimes a little seed for thought can get a lot of conceptual mileage, particularly when you can put the seed in your pocket and pull it out to plant when you evaluate arguments. Hence, the takeaway,
If ‘x’ is true, then ‘x’ is true whether one man [sic] or all men believe ‘x’ is true.
But no one man’s reason, or the reason of any one number of men makes the certainty, no more than an account is therefore well cast up, because a great many men have unanimously approved it. (Hobbes, 28) Part : 1, Chapter 5; Paragraph 3 (Right reason where.)
Thomas Hobbes. J.C.A. Gaskin, Ed. Leviathan. (1651) Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford University Press: New York. Reissue 2008.
Thomas Hobbes on controversy. A quote worth contemplating. Series 3.3.
Categories: Ponderings
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