The Limits of Limiting Ourselves
No, I can’t hope to embrace the whole world in my verses,
no not though I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,
and a voice made of iron. Be with me, sail down the coastline––
land lies in sight. Nor shall I hold you back with improptu
songs, untoward wandering, and windy introductions.
–Virgil, Georgics II, 41Â-46. Translated by Janet Lembke. New Haven, CT: Yale UP. 2005.
Suffice it now to say that [G.E.] Moore attacked the fog that secondhand Hegelians had spread over the British universities. A therapeutic effort was unquestionably called for; but the cure of a disease should not be taken for a panacea, let alone salvation. The limits of its [analytic philosophy’s] applicability should be recognized.
–Walter Kaufmann. Critique of Religion and Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. 1958. p. 26.
Economy and constraint are companion concepts, for the more highly constrained a system of multiple elements, the more economically it may be described and understood.
–Philip Converse, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics†(Originally published in David E. Apter, ed. Ideology and Its Discontents. NY: The Free Press of Glencoe. 1964. Republished in Critical Review. Vol. 18. No. 1-3. (2006). pp. 1-–4 at 11–12.)
