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Quote by Roger Scruton

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Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction

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Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton, born on February 27, 1944, is a renowned British philosopher. His research areas include aesthetics, political philosophy, and moral philosophy, which have had a profound impact on the philosophical world. more

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“Even among philosophers, we may say, broadly, that only those universals which are named by adjectives or substantives have been much or often recognized, while those named by verbs and prepositions have been usually overlooked. This omission has had a very great effect upon philosophy; it is hardly too much to say that most metaphysics, since Spinoza, has been largely determined by it. The way this has occurred is, in outline, as follows: Speaking generally, adjectives and common nouns express qualities or properties of single things, whereas prepositions and verbs tend to express relations between two or more things. Thus the neglect of prepositions and verbs led to the belief that every proposition can be regarded as attributing a property to a single thing, rather than as expressing a relation between two or more things. Hence it was supposed that, ultimately, there can be no such entities as relations between things. Hence either there can be only one thing in the universe, or, if there are many things, they cannot possibly interact in any way, since any interaction would be a relation, and relations are impossible. The first of these views, advocated by Spinoza and held in our own day by Bradley and many other philosophers, is called monism; the second, advocated by Leibniz but not very common nowadays, is called monadism, because each of the isolated things is called a monad. Both these opposing philosophies, interesting as they are, result, in my opinion, from an undue attention to one sort of universals, namely the sort represented by adjectives and substantives rather than by verbs and prepositions.”

MonismMonadism
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“Gödel (and indeed the whole mathematical community) failed to realise that all valid mathematical axioms must be tautological, i.e. must be shown to have a common root, of which they are equivalent expressions. Any mathematical axioms that are not tautologous automatically fall foul of Cartesian substance dualism, i.e. they imply different ontologies and epistemologies – different and incompatible versions of mathematics – hence cannot be complete and consistent with regard to each other. In other words, Gödel simply came up with an ingenious way of showing that existence must be predicated on monism, and not on dualism or pluralism.”

MathematicsIncompletenessMonismGodel
Book:Gödel Versus Wittgenstein
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“First let us clearly understand the position of monism: As manifested beings we appear to be separate, but our reality is one, and the less we think of ourselves as separate from that One, the better for us. The more we think of ourselves as separate from the Whole, the more miserable we become. From this monistic principle we get at the basis of ethics, and I venture to say that we cannot get any ethics from anywhere else.”

EthicsMonism
Book:Practical Vedanta
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“The whole is the Absolute; but within it every particle is in a constant state of flux and change. It is unchangeable and changeable at the same time, Impersonal and Personal in one. The Personal God and all that exists in the universe are the same Impersonal Being seen through our minds. When we shall be rid of our minds, our little personalities, we shall become one with It. This is what is meant by "Thou art That". For we must know our true nature, the Absolute. The finite, manifested man forgets his source and thinks himself to be entirely separate. We, as personalised, differentiated beings, forget our reality, and the teaching of monism is not that we shall give up these differentiations, but we must learn to understand what they are.”

GodTheologyHinduismVedantaVedanta ConceptsMonism
Book:Practical Vedanta
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“Among all the miracles in Kildare, none appears to me more wonderful than th marvellous book which they say was written in the time of the Virgin [ie. St. Bridgit] at the dictation of an angel. It contains the Four Gospels according to St. Jerome, and almost every page is illustrated by drawings illuminated with a variety of brilliant colours. In one page you see the countenance of the Divine Majesty supernaturally pictured; in another, the mystic forms of the evangelists, with either six, four, or two wings: here are depicted the eagle, there the calf; here the face of man, there of a lion; with other figures in almost endless variety. If you observe them superficially, and in the usual careless manner, you would imagine them to be daubs, rather than careful compositions; expecting to find nothing exquisite. But if you apply yourself to a more close examination, and are able to penetrate the secrets of the art displayed in these pictures, you will find them so delicate and exquisite, so finely drawn, and the work of interlacing so elaborate, while the colours with which they are illuminated are so blended, and still so fresh, that you will be ready to assert that all this is the work of angelic, and not human skill.”

AngelsEvangelistsHuman SkillsBook Of KildareFour GospelsIlluminated ManuscriptInsular ArtKildareSaint BrigidSaint Jerome
Book:The History and Topography of Ireland
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