Medieval Debate

One of the most heavily debated topics of the period was that of faith versus reason. Avicenna and Averroes both leaned more on the side of reason. Augustine stated that he would never allow his philosophical investigations to go beyond the authority of God. Anselm attempted to defend against what he saw as partly an assault on faith, with an approach allowing for both faith and reason. The Augustinian solution to the faith/reason problem is to believe, and then seek to understand.

Nothing Stable In Human Affairs

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
Socrates
Greek philosopher in Athens (469 BC - 399 BC)

A Free Life

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.
Epicurus

Ancient Philosophy: Main Concerns

The main subjects of ancient philosophy are: understanding the fundamental causes and principles of the universe; explaining it in an economical way; the epistemological problem of reconciling the diversity and change of the natural universe, with the possibility of obtaining fixed and certain knowledge about it; questions about things that cannot be perceived by the senses, such as numbers, elements, universals, and gods. Socrates is said to have been the initiator of more focused study upon the human things including the analysis of patterns of reasoning and argument and the nature of the good life and the importance of understanding and knowledge in order to pursue it; the explication of the concept of justice, and its relation to various political systems.

Tacoma Artist....

I was asked, once, what I believed.
I believe in nothing.Of course, I was fully aware that all the sciences disallow my belief.
I corrected my structures.
I believe in something, but am not quite sure what something is.

Some thing requires the existence of no thing.

So, I am back to where I started..

Diogenes buys me a beer now and then.I buy him soap.

Einstein On Knowledge

... knowledge must continually be renewed by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost. It resembles a statue of marble which stands in the desert and is continually threatened with burial by the shifting sand. The hands of service must ever be at work, in order that the marble continue to lastingly shine in the sun. To these serving hands mine shall also belong. (Albert Einstein, 1950)

Wars, factions, and fighting...

'Wars, factions, and fighting,' said Socrates as he looked forward from his last hour, 'have no other origin than this same body and its lusts ... We must set the soul free from it; we must behold things as they are. And having thus got rid of the foolishness of the body, we shall be pure and hold converse with the pure, and shall in our own selves have complete knowledge of the Incorruptible which is, I take it, no other than the very truth. (Socrates)

Politics, Peace, and Reason

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. ~Albert Einstein

Occam's Razor

Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor, Latin lex parsimoniae) is the law of parsimony, economy or succinctness. It is a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect.

"I know one thing, that I know nothing"

"I know one thing, that I know nothing" (Ancient Greek: ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα hèn oîda hóti oudèn oîda; Latin: scio me nihil scire or scio me nescire) is a well-known saying that is derived from Plato's account of the Greek philosopher Socrates. This saying is also connected and/or conflated with a contemporary Pythian oracular answer "Socrates" to the question "who is the wisest man in Greece?".

Scientific Innovation

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out.
Max Planck

Reality, i.e., The Truth Isn't Mine.

Was it you didn't believe in me or was it you didn't believe in the reality I could see and told you about that I couldn't control and you didn't want to hear?

Ethical Hedonism

Ethical Hedonism is the idea that all men have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. It is also the idea that every man's pleasure should far surpass their amount of pain. Along with those ideas ethical hedonism supports that idea that it is morally and ethically right to do what is needed to achieve such pleasure. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, it is possible to adopt psychological hedonism without adopting ethical hedonism. It goes on to state that unqualified psychological hedonism does not leave very much room for ethical admonition. On the matter of history, ethical hedonism has been around longer than psychological hedonism. It is said to have been started by a student of Socrates, Aristippus of Cyrene (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, pg. 567 vol. 6). He held the idea that pleasure is the highest good (pg.567 2nd paragraph). He also said that everyone should try to attain pleasure at every time they possibly could.

Critics Don't Count

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt