Choice Quote by Brand Blanshard

“I am a determinist...The real issue, so far as the will is concerned, is not whether we can do what we choose to do, but whether we can choose our own choice, whether the choice itself issues in accordance with law from some antecedent.”

Brand Blanshard

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Choice Determinism

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“Thinking in art and morals and even mathematics is neither the reflection in consciousness of a mechanical order in the brain nor the tracing with the mind’s eye of some empirical order in its object, but an endeavour to realize in thought an ideal order which would satisfy an inner demand. The nearer thought comes to its goal, the more…

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“...reality is a system, completely ordered and fully intelligible, with which thought in its advance is more and more identifying itself. We may look at the growth of knowledge … as an attempt by our mind to return to union with things as they are in their ordered wholeness…. and if we take this view, our notion of truth is…

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Once the anchor of reason has been cut, ones craft may go anywhere. One may become a St Francis or equally a Hitler.

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When the man who knows all about the fruit fly chromosomes finds himself sitting next to an authority on Beowulf, there may be an…

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To think at its best is to find oneself carried down the current of necessity.

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Most men live like raisins in a cake of custom.

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[How to think about a problem:] The first step is to make the problem specific . . . ; The second step is to form theories freely of how to rid yourself of that burden . . . ; The third step is to develop in foresight the consequences of your proposals . . . ; The fourth and final…

Brand Blanshard