Word: truthfulness
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...divine principle in things, is likely to take the form of a simple Optimism, which declares that all must be somehow for the best in a world ruled by Divine Providence; and that, in consequence, evil must be merely an illusion. This view has an element of deeper truth; but, as it is usually stated, Optimism of this sort is extremely superficial. No optimism can really stand the test of experienced reason, until it has appreciated the genuine force of Pessimism...
...second form of the religious consciousness, and the one into which this first superficial optimism easily passes, is Mysticism of the type exemplified by Spinoza and by the "Imitation." This declares evil to be a necessary truth from the finite and relative point of view, but declares it to be nevertheless in a higher sense, and from the absolute point of view, an illusion. Yet this notion again, as our historical discussion has shown, proves to be very near indeed to a pessimism. The way from Spinoza to Schopenhauer is short...
...great truth of the old vision is that the secret of a righteous life is to stand up. We teach our children to stand instead of leaning and lolling about, not only because it looks better to stand unsupported but because the habit carries a moral lesson. The first thing a recruit is taught to do is to stand straigt, no for looks but because the act of so standing conveys the idea of discipline. And for centuries the word in our language which is the typical expression fro absolute honesty has been uprightness...
...exists as an outer world known by the observer, and shown to him in the facts of experience. Upon these facts his thinking is to base itself. He is to describe the world of experience. His feelings, his "Appreciate comments" on the world are not to reveal to him truth; only his "Descriptions" are to be objective. All that he assumes of the outer world is that it is describable. As such, however, it turns out to be a world of a "well-knit" order; for only the "well-knit" is describable. Hence the world of Realism has "laws...
...question arises, whether, after all, the whole foregoing analysis of Reality and Truth can defend itself against an ultinate skepicism, which should question how any conscious being can in any wise escape from his in her life as such, and know any truth, real or ideal beyond his private consciousness. The essentially Kantian answer is suggessel, that in fact no self really escapes or even means to escape from the world of its own true selfconsciousness, in the act of knowing truth; but that. never the less, the world of the Self is not the world of the private...