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Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.”

Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Book:Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art

Work

Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art

This book compiles Goethe's insights and opinions on the world, mankind, literature, science, and art, offering a comprehensive view of his philosophical and intellectual views. more

Author

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born on August 28, 1749, and died on March 22, 1832, was a prominent German writer, thinker, and scientist. He is one of the greatest writers in German literary history and his works have had a profound impact on the world. His most famous works include 'Faust' and 'The Sorrows of Young Werther'. more

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“The endeavor of scientific research to see events in their more general connection in order to determine their laws, is a legitimate and useful occupation. Any protest against such efforts, in the name of freefom from restrictive conditions, would be fruitless if science did not naïvely identify the abstractions called rules and laws with the actually efficacious forces, and confuse the probability that B will follow A with the actual effort make B follow A.”

Ifs Would Be Law Order Names Force Effort Conditions Events Research Connections Determine Protest Occupation Endeavor Probability Abstraction Scientific Research

Author:Max Horkheimer

“Whoever desires to live among men has to obey their laws this is what the secular morality of Western civilization comes down to. ... Rationality in the form of such obedience swallows up everything, even the freedom to think.”

Thinking Men Form Law Desire Morality Civilization Western Obedience Secular Rationality Western Civilization Desire To Live

Book:Zeitschrift Fur Sozialforschung

Source: Zeitschrift Fur Sozialforschung

“The inversion of external compulsion into the compulsion of conscience ... produces the machine-like assiduity and pliable allegiance required by the new rationality.”

Produce Conscience Machines Rationality Compulsion Allegiance Inversions

Author:Max Horkheimer

“Calvin's theocentric irrationalism eventually revealed itself as the cunning to technocratic reason which had to shape its human material. Misery and the poor laws did not suffice to drive men into the workshops of the early capitalistic era. The new spirit helped to supplement external pressures with a concern for wife and child to which the moral autonomy of the introverted subject in reality was tantamount.”

Men Humans Children Reason Reality Law Spirit Poor Moral Wife Subjects Materials Shapes Concern Pressure Misery Eras Autonomy Cunning Workshops Supplements Introverted

Author:Max Horkheimer

“With the abolition of otium and of the ego no aloof thinking is left. ... Without otium philosophical thought is impossible, cannot be conceived or understood.”

Thinking Left Impossible Ego Understood Philosophical Abolition Aloof

Book:Zeitschrift Fur Sozialforschung

Source: Zeitschrift Fur Sozialforschung

“The world is so possessed by the power of what is and the efforts of adjustment to it, that the adolescent's rebellion, which once fought the father because his practices contradicted his own ideology, can no longer crop up. ... Psychologically, the father is ... replaced by the world of things.”

World Father Effort Practice Ideology Rebellion Possessed Replaced Crops Adjustment

Author:Max Horkheimer

“If the subjectivist view hold true, thinking cannot be of any help in determining the desirability of any goal in itself. The acceptability of ideals, the criteria for our actions and beliefs, the leading principles of ethics and politics, all our ultimate decisions are made to depend upon factors other than reason. They are supposed to be matters of choice and predilection, and it has become meaningless to speak of truth in making practical, moral or esthetic decisions.”

“Reason has never really directed social reality, but now reason has been so thoroughly purged of any specific trend or preference that it has finally renounced even the task of passing judgment on man's actions and way of life. Reason has turned them over for ultimate sanction to the conflicting interests to which our world actually seems abandoned.”

Men World Way Has Beens Reason Reality Seems Action Social Interest Judgment Tasks Ultimate Passing Passings Our World Trends Abandoned Preference Sanctions Passing Judgment

Book:Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason

“In most cases, to be reasonable means not to be obstinate, which in turn points to conformity with reality as it is. The principle of adjustment is taken for granted. When the idea of reason was conceived, it was intended to achieve more than the mere regulation of the relation between means and ends: it was regarded as the instrument for understanding the ends, for determining them.”

Source: Eclipse of Reason

“Subjective reason ... is inclined to abandon the fight with religion by setting up two different brackets, one for science and philosophy, and one for institutionalized mythology, thus recognizing both of them. For the philosophy of objective reason there is no such way out. Since it hold to the concept of objective truth, it must take a positive or a negative stand with regard to the content of established religion.”

Source: Eclipse of Reason