Works
In his day Foucher enjoyed considerable reputation as a keen opponent of Malebranche and Leibniz. He revived the old arguments of the Academy, and advanced them with much ingenuity against Malebranche's doctrine. Otherwise his skepticism is subordinate to orthodox belief, the fundamental dogmas of the church seeming to him intuitively evident. His object was to reconcile his religious with his philosophical creed, and to remain a Christian without ceasing to be an academician.
In his 1673 publication, Dissertation on the Search for Truth, he brought to light people's psychological predilection for certainties. He wrote about the art of doubting—about positioning oneself between doubting and believing. He wrote, "One needs to exit doubt in order to produce science—but few people heed the importance of not exiting from it prematurely....It is a fact that one usually exits doubt without realizing it." He wrote further, "We are dogma-prone from our mother's wombs."
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.”
—D.W. (David Wark)
“Reason, the prized reality, the Law, is apprehended, now and then, for a serene and profound moment, amidst the hubbub of cares and works which have no direct bearing on it;Mis then lost, for months or years, and again found, for an interval, to be lost again. If we compute it in time, we may, in fifty years, have half a dozen reasonable hours.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The noble simplicity in the works of nature only too often originates in the noble shortsightedness of him who observes it.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)