Posted by Crusader
Mar 6, 2007 5:49 pm

Replies (5)

Posted by

• "if man spent too much time thinking about yesterday, today's importance would be lost"
  Surely Descartes would have recognized this as a tautology. "too much" is by definition excessive, ergo bad in some way.

  Mar 7, 2007 3:23 pm
  by juv3nal

• I don't think it's a tautology because "too much" doesn't imply the outcome... he could say too much time thinking causes a rash on your knee or causes tomorrow to be poorly planned or anything else. tautology would be too much thinking causes you to think too much. the use of too much simply shows that thinking about the past is okay, but there is a point at which the act is endangering the enjoyment of the present.

  Mar 8, 2007 5:30 pm
  by joceleone

• Tautology, needless repitition, never once enters Destartes thoughts. He is crisp and bright about the message he sends. In other words, he intimates that this is how he sees his situation, the world at large, and opines that this is all rheteric.

  Mar 8, 2007 6:48 pm
  by Crusader

• Too much thinking on any one thing means that implicitly anything else is thought about too little. What does it mean for something's importance to be lost if it does not mean that people *consider it less*? Too much thinking on one thing implies the importance of all else being diminished.

  Mar 9, 2007 2:48 pm
  by juv3nal

• Descartes thoughts were never muddled. He was terse, concise and offered a simile, here and there, as a matter of explanation. "Why build on an old foundation," he said. "If the building is decrepit and falling apart, why not (like the sciences) sweep them away and learn anew."

  Mar 10, 2007 6:53 pm
  by Crusader

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