. . .[F]or it is a constant law of human nature that the more a man has to indulge in, the less disposed he is to endure the discipline of toil–that is to say, the less willing he is to produce that which is to be consumed. Labor ceases to be functional in life; it…
Read moreWeaver on Perversion
This story of man’s passage from religious or philosophical transcendentalism has been told many times, and, since it has usually been told as a story of progress, it is extremely difficult today to get people in any number to see contrary implications. Yet to establish the fact of decadence is the most pressing duty of…
Read moreWeaver on Authority to Teach
So with the subject matter of education. The renaissance increasingly adapted its course of study to produce a successful man of the world, though it did not leave him without philosophy and the graces, for it was still, by heritage, at least, an ideational world and was therefore near enough transcendental conceptions to perceive the…
Read moreWeaver on the Origins of Relativism
The denial of universals carries with it the detail of everything transcending experience. The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably–though way are found to hedge on this–the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of “man [is] the measure of all things.” The witches spoke…
Read moreWeaver on the Origin on Lost Reality
For this reason I turn to William of Occam as the best representative of a change which came over man’s conception of reality at this historic juncture. It was William of Occam who propounded the fateful doctrine of nominalism, which denies that universals have a real existence. HIs triumph tended to leave universal terms mere…
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