Baruch Spinoza Quotes
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.
Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
Benedict Spinoza, Letter to Hugo Boxel. 1674
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Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
Proof in a scientific and mathematical context is very different from the legal concept of proof. For Feynman, proof consisted of both being able to deduce a statement in much the same way as a proof is offered in plane geometry and being able to construct an experiment which will demonstrate the validity (confirm the prediction of what will happen all cases. As a theoretical physicist, most of his proofs were of the mathematical, deductive kind. There are many phenomena in mathematics and science that were, and are, known long before someone was able to offer a proof.
This is a modern summary of the philosophy of Benedict Spinoza who developed the modern philosophical foundation of science and scientific thinking. When the authorities are clerics and religious leaders, their authority gets undermined which is why the Jews, Christians, and Muslims all excommunicated Spinoza. For the scientists, they themselves are to be rejected as determiners of knowledge and truth so they tend to do poorly in political disputes because the good scientists would never assert a belief that the politicians should listen to them just because they are great scientists and they “know.” It is the ideologues and junk scientists who are sure of their testimony and can advise with certainty. See linked quote(s).
Baruch (de) Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. One of the early thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. Inspired by the groundbreaking ideas of René Descartes, Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name, which means "Blessed", varies among different languages. In the Netherlands he used the Portuguese name Bento. In his Latin and Dutch works, he used Latin: Benedictus de Spinoza.
