One of the questions that has most bothered me in my reflections on culture is the question of kitsch. Just what is it? When did it begin? And why?
Roger ScrutonRead
There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the limitations of science in addressing existential questions.
Roger Scruton's quote highlights the philosophical inquiry into the fundamental nature of existence, questioning why there is something instead of nothing. He asserts that such profound questions transcend scientific explanation, suggesting that they belong to a realm of thought that precedes empirical science and delves into the essence of reality itself.
Themes
ExistencePhilosophyScienceQuestionsNothingness
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussion about the nature of existence, this quote can stimulate thought.
More from Roger Scruton
All quotes →18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Roger ScrutonRead
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
Roger ScrutonRead
For two centuries the English countryside has been an icon of national identity and the loved reminder of our island home. Yet the government is bent on littering the hills with wind turbines and the valleys with high speed railways.
Roger ScrutonRead
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are far fewer fake symphonies or fake novels than there are fake works of visual art.
Roger ScrutonRead
For many artists and critics, beauty is a discredited idea. It denotes the saccharine sylvan scenes and cheesy melodies that appealed to Granny.
Roger ScrutonRead
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Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library-and a pen warmed up in hell.
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Hamilton had one of those extraordinary 18th-century minds that touched on virtually every major topic of the day.
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