Extrapolation of insights
Posted by gkb on January 15, 1998 at 23:00:27:
In response to The limits of man, written by Helen on January 15, 1998 at 09:42:39
] When you read the sources of a school of thought, it's amazing how good they are - the trouble is the way in which they get taken up and simplified by their followers - the transmutation from the philosophers who begin their enquiry into reason with an acknowledgement of its limits to the school of thought which takes their comments in praise of reason as proof of its all-sufficiency.
Hear, hear! This is a human tendency that appears in nearly every form of endeavour (except in discussing Jane Austen, of course!)--the tendency to take things to the extremes. So many systems recommend the balance that Erin describes, including Yin/Yang principles, justice systems, etc. I think that reason may be the counterweight of emotion/passion but neither is the fulcrum of the balance. The fulcrum is that elusive concept of wisdom. Blake thought that living to the extremes brought one eventually to the point of wisdom, but I think that is a hard road to walk and an easy one to get lost on. Most of us ordibary folks do better by moderating both our feelings and our critical judgements than by giving in wholly to one or the other.
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