Friday, February 08, 2008

nestled in the modern mind

"Greek thinkers in the classical period, though they set no bounds to the daring of their thought, and though their wild speculations could easily lead to thoroughgoing scepticism, were yet too healthy-minded to entertain seriously either the problem of the existence of the 'outside' world or its specialized version, the reality of other persons. It was Descartes, the 'father of modern philosophy', who neatly chopped the whole human person into a knowing subject and a known object, that sired the rogue twins.

"Doubt for Descartes was a methodological stance, but the thought that all of the world around us could conceivably be a delusion or a dream, which Descartes introduced simply as a thought experiment, nestled in the modern mind, so that there is hardly any major philosopher during the past four centuries who has not had to grapple with it."

--D.R. Khashaba, "Subjectivism and Solipsism"


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