Physicians think they do a lot for a patient when they give his disease a name.
Immanuel KantRead
The ideal of the supreme being is nothing but a regulative principle of reason which directs us to look upon all connection in the world as if it originated from an all-sufficient necessary cause.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that our understanding of existence and causality is influenced by the idea of a supreme being, guiding our reason.
Immanuel Kant posits that the concept of a supreme being serves as a guiding principle for human reason, prompting us to interpret the connections and events in the world as stemming from a necessary and sufficient cause. This reflects a philosophical approach that values the integration of metaphysical ideas into our understanding of rationality and existence, suggesting that our cognitive frameworks shape how we perceive reality.
Themes
PhilosophyReasonSupreme BeingCausalityExistence
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophical discussion on the nature of existence, this quote could be employed to illustrate Kant's view on causality.
More from Immanuel Kant
All quotes βThe inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in respect to what it denies us than in respect to what it has granted.
Immanuel KantRead
One cannot avoid a certain feeling of disgust, when one observes the actions of man displayed on the great stage of the world. Wisdom is manifested by individuals here and there; but the web of human history as a whole appears to be woven from folly and childish vanity, often, too, from puerile wickedness and love of destruction: with the result that at the end one is puzzled to know what idea to form of our species which prides itself so much on its advantages.
Immanuel KantRead
I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.
Immanuel KantRead
. . . as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings. . . .
Immanuel KantRead
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Immanuel KantRead
Similar quotes
Surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.
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Purity of morals [is] the only sure foundation of public happiness in any country.
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