Wednesday, March 14, 2007

John Hyman's 'The Objective Eye' (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2006)

This is a great book. In addition to all of the great philosophy it contains, it also contains a fair number of great lines. For instance:

p. 61: "Both sides mix truth with falsehood and exaggeration, as many philosophical theories that prosper do."

p. 162: "The safest battles to join are the ones that have already been won."

p. 190: "Like many philosophical ideas, it gets a leg up from the doctrine that it clamorously rejects."

p. 39: "Agreements are the only realities that agreements can produce."

p. 41: "It is true that agreement among observers leaves us in no doubt that grass is green, and agreement in clocks leaves us in no doubt that eggs are boiled in five minutes at sea level. But the statement that grass is green is not a covert generalization about observers, any more than the statement about eggs is a covert generalization about clocks."

There's more where these came from, but I encourage you to find them by reading the book on your own. It's worth it.

1 Comments:

Blogger Nat Hansen said...

When's the review coming out?

10:12 PM  

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