The premise of this statement is what one might call the principle of non-indirection. I call "indirection” an indirect operation that makes it possible to arrive at a certain result through two successive actions, the first of which serves only to make the second possible. ... This principle is not limited to rational actions. ... The principle of non-indirection thus expresses a broader idea of coherence that includes the emotional as well as the rational.
Jon ElsterRelated topics
arrive call certain coherence emotional idea indirection limited might operation possible premise result second thus wellRelated quotes
This passion for form is a way of trying to find and constitute meaning in life. And this is what genuine creativity is. Imagination, broadly defined, seems to me to be a principle in human life underlying even reason, for the rational functions, according to our definitions, can lead to understanding - can participate in the constituting of reality - only as they are creative. Creativity is thus involved in our every experience as we try to make meaning in our self-world relationship.
Rollo May
The utmost possible regarding an individual is a statement as to some order of probability about the future. Heisenberg's principle has been seized upon as a basis for wild statements to the effect that the doctrine of arbitrary free will and totally uncaused activity are now scientifically substantiated. Its actual force and significance is generalization of the idea that the individual is a temporal career whose future cannot logically be deduced from its past.
John Dewey
The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed within. Were these to be worthily recounted, they would form a narrative of no small interest and instruction, and possessing, moreover, a certain remarkable unity, which might almost seem the result of artistic arrangement.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.
William Blackstone
I am willing to believe that my unobtainable sixty seconds within a sponge or a flatworm might not reveal any mental acuity that I would care to call consciousness. But I am also confident [...] that vultures and sloths, as close evolutionary relatives with the same basic set of organs, lie on our side of any meaningful (and necessarily fuzzy) border-and that we are therefore not mistaken when we look them in the eye and see a glimmer of emotional and conceptual affinity.
Stephen Jay Gould