Categoria: quotes

enlightenment too – and the irony of historical un-reason

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As wise as it is, it counteracts its own claim of reason and enlightenment: Why are individuals only men?

No, I don’t claim to be better as the master – we are children of our time, caught in the language of the time … – and criticising those times and words may evoke the hope that our own limitations and errors are less bold, less harming, less offending …

Science and Truth

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, quotes

Ed elli a me: “Ritorna a tua scïenza,

che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta,

più senta il bene, e così la doglienza.

Tutto che questa gente maladetta

in vera perfezion già mai non vada,

di là più che di qua essere aspetta.”

********

And he replied: ‘Return to your science,

which has it that, in measure of a thing’s perfection,

it feels both more of pleasure and of pain.

‘Although these accursèd people

will never come to true perfection,

they will be nearer it than they are now.’

(From Dante’s Inferno, scene VI)

But should these people walk each on his/her alone – ON THEIR OWN? True knowledge is only knowledge owned by all – and can only emerge from collective and cooperative endeavour.

Education

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, quotes

People who blindly subordinate themselves in collectivities, degrade themselves to some kind of material, a sort of thing, obliterate themselves as self-determined beings. This concurs with the readiness to treat others as amorphous mass … Democracy that does not only function in a mechanical way but that works according to it’s meaning requires responsible citizens. We can imagine realised democracy only as society of mature beings. … The concretisation of such matureness that some people who feel destined aim with all energy on defining education as education provoking dissent and resistance.

Menschen, die Blind in Kollektive sich einordnen, machen sich selber schon zu etwas wie Material, löschen sich als selbstbestimmte Wesen aus. Dazu paßt die Bereitschaft, andre als amorphe Masse zu behandeln ….. Eine Demokratie, die nicht nur funktionieren, sondern ihrem Begriff gemäß arbeiten soll, verlangt mündige Menschen. Man kann sich verwirklichte Demokratie nur als Gesellschaft von Mündigen vorstellen ….. Die Konkretisierung der Mündigkeit besteht darin, daß die paar Menschen, die dazu gesonnen sind, mit aller Energie darauf hinwirken, daß die Erziehung eine Erziehung zum Widerspruch und zum Widerstand ist. 

Theodor W. Adorno, 1966 – translation P.H.

Postmodernism ….

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

…, post-modernism can be seen as the discourse of cognition without an tention of intellectual reconstruction.

Kiss, Endre: The Dialectics of Modernity. A theoretical interpretation of Globalization; in: Journal of Globalization Studies. 1/2. November 2010: 12-26; Volgograd: Uchitel

Expectations – at least

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

Go open the door.

There might be someone there.

Go open the door.

There might be a bird. Or a firefly.

Go open the door.

If nothing, there will be at least a breeze.

Or a current of fresh air.

(Hakakian, Roya, 2004: Journey from the Land of No. A Girlhood caught in revolutionary Iran; New York: Crown Publishers: 41)

Globalisation – Mindsets

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

So our fish glided his little body past the angry neighbours who could not believe their ears. No one, certainly never an insider, had ever insulted them so by questioning the ways of their idyllic stream. But for everything there is a first, and for that mossy stream this little fish was indeed a first. And now, swimming breathlessly away from the mob, he was trying to reach the waterfalls and the big, unseen world under it. The little black fish looked down and saw his friends, who soon would go back to the same old life. What a thought! He took heart and said, ‘Farewell, my friends. Do not forget me.’

(Hakakian, Roya, 2004: Journey from the Land of No. A Girlhood caught in revolutionary Iran; New York: Crown Publishers: 31 f.)

Globalisation – Sunrise

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, quotes, thoughts on life and its philosophy

When the sun rises, it makes the one staying in the shadow feeling comfortable; the one who happens to be unshaded feels uncomfortable feels uncomfortable and even bad. Still, no one dares to to ‘for’ or ‘against’ such a development because the celestial body is not responsible for who and why has happened to be in the worse or better conditions. These are problems of another type: social problems related to the issue of equality, social justice, etc. Therefore, one should confront not natural developments but unjust social relations. At the same time, one should have in mind that, in spite of the objective and the subjective to be interconnected into the organic whole, the subjective factor is not able to dominate natural development. It, nevertheless, plays an important, sometimes even decisive role in human destiny.

Alexander N. Chumakov, 2008: Recognizing Globalization; in: Alexander N. Chumakov: Philosophy of Globalization. Selected Articles; Moscow, 2010: 36

TIME

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

Time appears as a result of our actions, and vanishes when we neglect or ignore it. It is something that springs to life under our influence, but falls into a state of hibernation, even non-existence, if we do not direct our energy toward it. It is a subservient, passive essence, and, most importantly, one dependent on man.

(Kapuściński, Ryszard, 1998: The Shadow of the Sun; Victoria et al: Penguin: 2001: 17)

Mathematics

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in quotes

Could one send any more appropriate quote from a conference of economists here at Moskovskij Gosudarstvennyj Universitet?

Mathematics has the completely false reputation of yielding infallible

conclusions. Its infallibility is nothing but identity. Two times two

is not four, but it is just two times two, and that is what we call

four for short. But four is nothing new at all. And thus it goes on

and on in its conclusions, except that in the higher formulas the

identity fades out of sight.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe