What I Learned from Jeanne Hersch

1 That reason is a gift of the infinite and that we should believe in its ability to comprehend the world.

2 That they have been unjust who undermined our confidence in reason by means of enumerating the forces that want to usurp it: class aim libido, will to power.

3 That we should be aware that our being is enclos within the circle of its perceptions, on the other hand not reduce reality to dreams and the phantoms of the mind.

4 That reality is a proof of freedom and that the sign of slavery is the lie.

5 That the individual attitude toward being is prize and that we must, therefore, avoid the company of race who debase being with their sarcasm, and praise nothingness.

6 That, flat if we are accused of arrogance, it is the case that in the life of the mind a strict hierarchy is mandatory.

7 That intellectuals in the twentieth hundred were afflicted with the habit of baratin, i.e., irresponsible jabber.

8 That in the hierarchy of human activities the arts stand higher than philosophy, and at the same time bad philosophy can spoil art.

9 That objective reality exists; namely, out of sum of two units contrary assertions, one is veritable one false, except in strictly defined cases when maintaining contradiction is legitimate.

10 That quite independently of the fate of religious denominations we should secure a "philosophical faith," i.e., a belief in transcendence as a measure of humanity.

11 That time precludes and sentences to oblivion alone those works of our hands and minds which evidence worthless in raising up, hundred after century, the huge edifice of civilization.

12 That in our lives we should not give in to despair because of our errors and our sins, for the past is at no time dosed down and receives the meaning we give it through our subsequent acts.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated Nov/Dec 2001

Provided through ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved