penchant for paradox

[penchant-for-paradox]

The unconditioned necessity, which we need so indispensably as the ultimate sus­tainer of all things, is for human reason the true abyss. Even eternity—however aw­ful the sublimity with which a Haller might portray it—does not make such a dizzy­ing impression on the mind; for eternity only measures the duration of things, but it does not sustain that duration. One cannot resist the thought of it, but one also cannot bear it that a being that we represent to ourselves as the highest among all possible beings might as it were, say to itself: "If I am from eternity to eternity, out­side me is nothing except what is something merely through my will; but whence then am I? " Here everything gives way beneath us, and the greatest perfection as well the smallest, hovers without support before speculative reason, for which it would cost nothing to let the one as much as the other disappear without the least obstacle.

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A613/B641

[penchant-for-paradox]

Can the soul complain about anything other than itself? All these complaints after the fact are unjust, if they would have been unjust before the fact. Now, could this soul, a little before sinning, complain about God in good faith, as if God determined it to sin? Since God's determinations in these matters cannot be foreseen, how does the soul know that it is determined to sin, unless it is actually sinning already? It is only a matter of not willing, and God could not put forth an easier and more just condition; thus judges do not seek the reasons which have disposed a man to have a bad will, but only stop to consider the extent to which this particular will is bad. But perhaps it is certain from all eternity that I shall sin? Answer this question for yourself: perhaps not; and without considering what you cannot know and what can give you no light, act according to your duty, which you do know.

Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics

[penchant-for-paradox]

You seem to think me inferior to the swans in prophecy. They sing before too, but when they realize that they must die they sing most and most beautifully, as they rejoice that they are about to depart to join the god whose servants they are. But men, because of their own fear of death, tell lies about the swans and say that they lament their death and sing in sorrow. They do not reflect that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold or suffers in any other way, neither the nightingale nor the swallow nor the hoopoe, though they do say that these sing laments when in pain. Nor do the swans, but I believe that as they belong to Apollo, they are prophetic, have knowledge of the future and sing of the blessings of the underworld, sing and rejoice on that day beyond what they did before. As I believe myself to be a fellow servant with the swans and dedicated to the same god, and have received from my master a gift of prophecy not inferior to theirs, I am no more despondent than they on leaving life.

Socrates, from Plato’s Phaedo

[thephotoregistry]

Neil Krug

[aoyeol-blog]

moto on Flickr

[melisica]

[archiveofaffinities]

Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Hotel Mielmonte, Spa, Nikko Kirifuri, Nikko, Japan, 1992-1997

[focused-on-taiwan-deactivated20]

high school blues

taipei, 2011

[belacqui-pro-quo]

As long as reason’s cognition is homogeneous, no determinate boundaries can be thought for it. In mathematics and natural science human reason recognizes limits but not boundaries; that is, it indeed recognizes that something lies beyond it to which it can never reach, but not that it would itself at any point ever complete its inner progression. The expansion of insight in mathematics, and the possibility of ever new inventions, goes to infinity; so too does the discovery of new properties in nature (new forces and laws) through continued experience and the unification of that experience by reason. But limits here are nonetheless unmistakable, for mathematics refers only to appearances, and that which cannot be an object of sensory intuition, like the concepts of metaphysics and morals, lies entirely outside its sphere, and it can never lead there; but it also has no need whatsoever for such concepts. There is therefore no continuous progress and advancement toward those sciences, or any point or line of contact, as it were. Natural science will never reveal to us the inside of things, i.e., that which is not appearance but can nonetheless serve as the highest ground of explanation for the appearances; but it does not need this for its physical explanations; nay, if such were offered to it from elsewhere (e.g., the influence of immaterial beings), natural science should indeed reject it and ought by no means bring it into the progression of its explanations, but should always base its explanations only on that which can belong to experience as an object of the senses and which can be brought into connection with our actual perceptions in accordance with laws of experience.

Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (via belacqui-pro-quo)

[20aliens-deactivated20200625]

watercolor on paper by Mark Adams.

[ps1]

helsinki by arnd dewald

[penchant-for-paradox]

To take up a quantum in the imagination intuitively, in order to be able to use it as a measure or a unit for the estimation of magnitude by means of numbers, involves two actions of this faculty: apprehension (apprehensio) and comprehension (comprehensio aesthetica). There is no difficulty with apprehension, because it can go on to infinity; but comprehension becomes ever more difficult the further apprehension advances, and soon reaches its maximum, namely the aesthetically greatest basic measure for the estimation of magnitude. For when apprehension has gone so far that the partial representations of the intuition of the senses that were apprehended first already begin to fade in the imagination as the latter proceeds on to the apprehension of further ones, then it loses on one side as much as it gains on the other, and there is in the comprehension a greatest point beyond which it cannot go.

Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment

[yimmyayo]

[definitelydope]

[1010ll]

https://instagram.com/p/BQtAFIxlELv/

[razorshapes]

Joel Tettamanti - Greenland

[ghost--electricity]

Every human existence which is not conscious of itself as spirit, or conscious of itself before God as spirit, every human existence which is not thus grounded transparently in God but obscurely reposes or terminates in some abstract universality (state, nation, etc.), or in obscurity about itself takes its faculties merely as active powers, without in a deeper sense being conscious whence it has them, which regards itself as an inexplicable something which is to be understood from without – every such existence, whatever it accomplishes, though it be the most amazing exploit, whatever it explains, though it were the whole of existence, however intensely it enjoys life aesthetically – every such existence is after all despair.

Søren Kierkegaard (via ghost–electricity)