Abandonemos as idéias naufragadas

"How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. (...) Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as 'necessities of thought,' 'a priori givens,' etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long-commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken."

Albert Einstein, from 'Ernst Mach.' Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916): 101, 102 - A memorial notice for the philosopher, Ernst Mach.

 

Quando eu falo que os homens comuns são patéticos, eu realmente quero dizer isso.
Estou de saco cheio do homem comum. Ele governa o meu país e eu (pessoalmente) não o elegi. Ele infesta as instituições que participo, e é de tão grande número que o meu maior esforço parece inútil.
Salvo-me em mais Einstein, que mais do que nunca, reforça algo que conforta e que sei verdade:

"A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future." 

Como eu já disse antes, tão importante quanto posição, é direção.

 

Nota mental: lembrar de falar sobre Crise = Estrutura - Idéias e de Jovem X Velho.