“Reaching and understanding is the process of bringing about an agreement on the presupposed basis of validity claims that are mutually recognized.” ProcessUnderstandingBasesClaimsReachingAgreementValidity Author:Jurgen Habermas
“Suicide is a crime the most revolting to the feelings; nor does any reason suggest itself to our understanding by which it can be justified. It certainly originates in that species of fear which we denominate poltroonery. For what claim can that man have to courage who trembles at the frowns of fortunes? True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life in whatever shape they may challenge him to combat.” MenMayDoeReasonFeelingsUnderstandingChallengesCrimeShapesClaimsSuicideFortuneSpeciesSuperiorsCombatHeroismJustifiedTrue Hero Author:Napoleon Bonaparte
“It seems to me that responsiveness is a better source for understanding what moral claims are and how they work upon us.” SeemsUnderstandingMoralSourceClaimsResponsiveness Author:Judith Butler
“I think that growing up in a crowded continent like Europe with an awful lot of competing claims, ideas, cultures, and systems of thought we have, perforce, developed a more sophisticated notion of what the word freedom means than I see much evidence of in America. To be frank, it sometimes seems that the American idea of freedom has more to do with my freedom to do what I want than your freedom to do what you want. I think that in Europe we're probably better at understanding how to balance those competing claims, though not a lot.” ThinkingWantMeanIdeasSometimesSeemsAmericaCultureUnderstandingGrowing UpGrowingBalanceEvidenceEuropeClaimsNotionWhat You WantAwfulFrankContinentsSophisticatedCompetingCrowdedYour Freedom Author:Douglas Adams
“We have to find a way of understanding how one category of sex can be "assigned" from both and another sense of sex can lead us to resist and reject that sex assignment. How do we understand that second sense of sex? It is not the same as the first - it is not an assignment that others give us. But maybe it is an assignment we give ourselves? If so, do we not need a world of others, linguistic practices, social institutions, and political imaginaries in order to move forward to claim precisely those categories we require, and to reject those that work against us?” IfsWorldWayNeedsGivingFirstsMovingPoliticalOrderSocialSexUnderstandingPracticeClaimsInstitutionsMoving ForwardRejectsCategoriesAssignmentsSocial Institutions Author:Judith Butler
“Conservatives have no understanding of modern capitalism. They have a distorted understanding of the traditional values they claim to defend.” ValuesUnderstandingModernCapitalismClaimsConservativeTraditionalIdolatryTraditional Values Author:Christopher Lasch
“I claim no right to myself, no right to this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me. Neither do I have any right to this body or its members, no right to this tongue, to these hands, feet, ears or eyes. I have given myself clear away and not retained anything of my own.” BodyHandsEyeGivenUnderstandingMy OwnClearFeetMembersEarsClaimsAffectionTongueGods Will Author:Jonathan Edwards
“I cannot think of a single field in biology or medicine in which we can claim genuine understanding, and it seems to me the more we learn about living creatures, especially ourselves, the stranger life becomes.” ThinkingLifeSeemsScienceUnderstandingFieldsCreaturesClaimsMedicineStrangerGenuineBiologyLiving Creatures Author:Lewis Thomas
“Life is such a mystery, no one can understand it, and one who claims that he understands it is simply ignorant. He is not aware of what he is saying, of what nonsense he is talking. If you are wise, this will be the first realization: life cannot be understood. Understanding is impossible. Only this much can be understood - that understanding is impossible.” IfsLifeFirstsLife IsUnderstandingTalkingWiseImpossibleMysteryInspirational LifeUnderstoodClaimsIgnorantRealizationNonsense Author:Rajneesh
“The new spirituality will also base itself on a third very large spiritual understanding, which is that life is eternal. Most religious people claim to believe that, but very few people actually live as if that were true.” PeopleIfsBelieveSoulSpiritualLife IsSpiritualityLiteratureUnderstandingReligiousEternalThirdsClaims Author:Neale Donald Walsch
“Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can seldom add more than some small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.” AbleScienceUnderstandingOpinionKnowledgeGreaterThousandClaimsAddAncientIntellectLabourCollectivesProvidenceParticlesHereditaryAncient Times Book:Selected poetry and prose Source: Selected poetry and prose