Opinion
"Common Opinion" is what the English Social philosopher David Hume called it in his 1739 published work. Agreement and a sense of the common is what lay behind the English and French "opinion." In researching the term opinion, which is pronounced meinung in German, researchers were led back to Plato's Republic. In Plato's Republic, a quote from Socrates conclude that opinion takes the middle position. Kantt (1893,411)considered opinion to be an "insufficient judgement, subjectively as well as objectively." How valuable opinion may be was left out, however, the fact that it is suggested to be unified agreement of a population, or segment of the population, was still considered.
Read more about this topic: Spiral Of Silence
Famous quotes containing the word opinion:
“The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)