Why is it so difficult for us to think in relative terms? Well, for the good reason that human nature loves absoluteness, and erroneously considers it as a state of higher knowledge.
We all find joy and radiance and a reason to move on even in the most dire of circumstances. Even in chaos and madness, there's still a beauty that comes from just the vibrancy of another human spirit.
Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of past dinosaurs. For that reason, I'm optimistic that we can eventually arrive at convincing explanations for these broadest patte...
It is not at all coincidental that Darwinian psychology has the same difficulty explaining the unity and integration of human reasoning as Darwinian biology has explaining the unity and integration of irreducibly complex functions. Practical and theo...
To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however...
Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it ...
The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to deat...
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
We must become reacquainted with our true human selves.
You know, it's possible for two humans to be in a relationship without there needing to be some public reason for that relationship.
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew should be sufficient to save...
An enlightened trust in the sovereignty of human reason can be every bit as magical as the exploits of Merlin, and a faith in our capacity for limitless self-improvement just as much a wide-eyed superstition as a faith in leprechauns.
The distinction between diseases of "brain" and "mind," between "neurological" problems and "psychological" or "psychiatric" ones, is an unfortunate cultural inheritance that permeates society and medicine. It reflects a basic ignorance of the relati...
He accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for him; he knew that it had warped his character, but no he saw also that by reason of it he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so much delight. Without it he would neve...
our moral reasoning is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the wag-the-dog illusion: We believe that our own moral judgment (the dog) is driven by our own moral reasoning (the tail). The second illusion can be called the wag-th...
I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are--or, at all events, that I must try and become one.
Modernity gone wrong has isolated humanity and made human reason autonomous of (and dismissive toward) revelation.
As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.
The offspring of nationalist thinking too often expresses itself in exclusionary and passively-violent legal policies, and then sadly, through militarism, which becomes manifest on the endless blood-soaked borders and battlefields of humanity's great...
I would say that my fatal flaw, as a human being, is that I need people to like me, and if they don't like me, I will obsess over it - and try to change my personality until they like me - even if they don't like me for reasons that have nothing to d...
