A Quote by Robert M. Pirsig
Definitions are the foundation of reason. You can't reason without them.
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The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard
The claim is also sometimes made that science is as arbitrary or irrational as all other claims to knowledge, or that reason itself is an illusion. As Ethan Allen said Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are labouring to dethrone. If they argue without reason, which they must do, in order to be consistent with themselves, they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.
Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason.
...there is nothing that has been created without some reason, even if human nature is incapable of knowing precisely the reason for them all.
Without language we would have no reason, without reason no religion, and without these three essential aspects of our nature, neither mind nor bond of society.
I will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition, then I will go to hell with my reason rather than to heaven without it.
Wit is a pleasure-giving thing, largely because it eludes reason; but in the apprehension of an absurdity through the working of the comic spirit there is a foundation of reason, and an impetus to human companionship.
Now it is characteristic of play that one plays without reason and there must be no reason for it. Play is its own good reason.
It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion.
There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that.
The reason for the unreason with which you treat my reason , so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty.
Science, incidentally, not only ignores the question of indwelling 'essences' by looking instead at measurable relationships, but science also does not agree that knowledge is obtained through Rothbard's Medieval 'investigation by a reason,' i.e., by inventing definitions and then deducing what your definitions implicitly assumed.
My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.
But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them." Viola: "Thy reason, man?" Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.
The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language.
Sometimes the world will tell you that you do what you do for a different reason than your reason. And if you let them convince you that that's your reason, it will become your reason, and you will lose track of yourself.
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