A Sound Bite from my Favorite Writer who Isn't on Librivox

(Note: I wrote this blog post a while back, then wrote a second on Peirce. As far as explication goes, this briefer, earlier post is better than the later one.)

Charles Sanders Peirce, credited by William James as the founder of Pragmatism (a term Peirce hated), is my favorite writer who does not have recordings on Librivox.While I'm not usually enamored with sound bites, I like the statement below from Peirce:


“What is more wholesome than any particular belief is integrity of belief.” 

 While this quotation might make some think Peirce is downplaying the value of belief, he's actually asking us to think about 1) whether our beliefs are consistent with the evidence available to us; are we choosing to ignore some evidence because that evidence upsets the comfort of our beliefs? 2)  how internally consistent our beliefs are; do individual beliefs fit into a harmonious whole? Have we so compartmentalized our thoughts that various beliefs contradict each other? and 3) how our beliefs affect our actions; do our actions reflect the beliefs we claim? do our beliefs lead us to actions that those beliefs suggest we should take? 4) how convenient our beliefs are; do we hold certain beliefs because they benefit us socially, financially, politically?

Whose beliefs wouldn't past the criteria of integrity?

Fundamentalist Christians who called for a Christian in the White House for multiple elections, then voted for Donald Trump.

The Democratic National Convention, that supports free elections, then helps Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders behind the scenes. 

The members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who apparently have not read 1st Corinthians, Chapter Thirteen.

State Republican conventions, whose members give lip service to "all men (sic) created equal," yet continue supporting voter ID laws designed to remove minorities from the election rolls. 

  
   



     

Spinoza on Pride and Ambition

Ethics, Part III, Notes from Propositions 25 to 31

Spinoza so clearly nails the state of modern politics that he needs no commentary. Who, in your estimation best fits this description?

"This endeavour to do a thing or leave it undone, solely in order to please men, we call ambition, especially when we so eagerly endeavour to please the vulgar, that we do or omit certain things to our own or another's hurt: in other cases it is generally called kindliness.

"This endeavour to bring it about, that our own likes and dislikes should meet with universal approval, is really ambition (see III. xxix. note); wherefore we see that everyone by nature desires (appetere), that the rest of mankind should live according to his own individual disposition: when such a desire is equally present in all, everyone stands in everyone else's way, and in wishing to be loved or praised by all, all become mutually hateful. 

"Thus we see that it may readily happen, that a man may easily think too highly of himself, or a loved object, and, contrariwise, too meanly of a hated object. This feeling is called pride, in reference to the man who thinks too highly of himself, and is a species of madness, wherein a man dreams with his eyes open, thinking that he can accomplish all things that fall within the scope of his conception, and thereupon accounting them real, and exulting in them, so long as he is unable to conceive anything which excludes their existence, and determines his own power of action. Pride, therefore, is pleasure springing from a man thinking too highly of himself.

"Again, as it may happen (II. xvii. Coroll.) that the pleasure, wherewith a man conceives that he affects others, may exist solely in his own imagination, and as (III. xxv.) everyone endeavours to conceive concerning himself that which he conceives will affect him with pleasure, it may easily come to pass that a vain man may be proud and may imagine that he is pleasing to all, when in reality he may be an annoyance to all."

Ethics, Book III, Notes to Propositions 26 to 30