Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Bertrand Russell

On war and pacifism...

1 comment:

  1. The phrase in the last paragraph about Reagan's "accidental canniness" leads me to conclude that Reé has not read Ronald Reagan: A Life in Letters, which I reviewed. Had he read it, he would know that there was nothing accidental about Reagan's canniness. As for Russell, when I was 16 I started reading Why I Am Not a Christian, but stopped when I got to his response to Aquinas's argument from causation. Russell said that he could easily imagine an infinite series of causes. Even my adolescent self knew that was bullshit. He could no more imagine the infinite in any meaningful sense than anyone else. Moreover, the matter didn't have to do with what anyone could imagine. After all, I could have easily imagined the famous philosopher hadn't really written so silly a sentence. Overall, an overrated figure.

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