Lewis White Beck Quotes
Lewis White Beck was an American philosopher and the most influential English-language Kant scholar of his generation. After studies at Emory and Duke and a long teaching career at the University of Rochester, where he was Burbank Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, he produced the standard English-language commentary on Kant's second Critique in his A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and the anthology Kant: Selections, which made the central texts of the critical philosophy accessible to generations of students. The quotes below are attributed to Lewis White Beck, organized by topic.
Browse Lewis White Beck by topic
Lewis White Beck on Knowledge
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“Whatever plausibility the machine theory has- and it has much plausibility and is a rich model for psychology and neurology- it gains by being associated with a self-exemption clause.”
Lewis White Beck , The Actor and the Spectator - book reviewed by Mary Midgley in The Philosophical Quarterly", Vol. 27, Issue 107, April 1977 p. 185-186 (1975) , p. 25 -
“If you believe that you are not a machine , but that I am (then) I do not know why you are reading this book".”
Lewis White Beck , The Actor and the Spectator - book reviewed by Mary Midgley in The Philosophical Quarterly", Vol. 27, Issue 107, April 1977 p. 185-186 (1975) , p. 29 -
“But somewhat like people who object to spending money needed in the ghettoes on exploring the moon, I think the best hope for our survival is to be based on understanding human predicaments here on earth, not expecting a saving message from super-human beings in the sky...Thinking about and even hoping to find extraterrestrial civilizations, however, sharpen our search for and appreciation of the peculiar virtues and vices of the only form of life we know.”
Lewis White Beck , "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life" in Extraterrestrials Science and Alien Intelligence ( Regis Jr., Edward. Ed., 1985) , Part V, p. 14
Lewis White Beck on Life
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“But somewhat like people who object to spending money needed in the ghettoes on exploring the moon, I think the best hope for our survival is to be based on understanding human predicaments here on earth, not expecting a saving message from super-human beings in the sky...Thinking about and even hoping to find extraterrestrial civilizations, however, sharpen our search for and appreciation of the ”
Lewis White Beck , "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life" in Extraterrestrials Science and Alien Intelligence ( Regis Jr., Edward. Ed., 1985) , Part V, p. 14 -
“The quest for other, and better, forms of life, society, technology, ethics, and law may not reveal that they are actually elsewhere; but it may in the long run help us to make some of them actual on earth.”
Lewis White Beck , "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life" in Extraterrestrials Science and Alien Intelligence ( Regis Jr., Edward. Ed., 1985) , Part V, p. 14
Lewis White Beck on Mind
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“In the logic of science there is a principle as important as that of parsimony: it is that of sufficient reason. The former directs us to look for simplest causes, the later cautions us not to simplify so far that the explanation is inadequate to the facts to be explained....Parsimony is not itself a simple criterion of a good methodology; we cannot simply count the factors of explanation and say that the theory containing the smallest number is the best. The ideal of parsimony cannot be expressed without the proviso that the conditions for which it is a norm shall themselves be adequate.”
Lewis White Beck , The "Natural Science Ideal" in the Social Sciences (1949) , pp. 393-394 -
“For it is only in the Critique that all the various strands of Kant's thought are woven together into the pattern of his practical philosophy. This pattern, in turn, can be understood only in the entire fabric of the critical philosophy, and that rich design can be clear only to those who have understood each of its three principal parts, which are the three Critiques and not shorter and more popular works like the Prolegomena and the Foundations .”
Lewis White Beck , A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (1961) , p. VI Foreword -
“Lewis White Beck , A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (1961) , p. VI Foreword”
For it is only in the Critique that all the various strands of Kant's thought are woven together into the pattern of his practical philosophy. This pattern, in turn, can be understood only in the entire fabric of the critical philosophy, and that rich design can be clear only to those who have understood each of its three principal parts, which are the three Critiques and not shorter and more popu
Lewis White Beck on Nature
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“Lewis White Beck , The "Natural Science Ideal" in the Social Sciences (1949) , pp. 393-394”
In the logic of science there is a principle as important as that of parsimony: it is that of sufficient reason. The former directs us to look for simplest causes, the later cautions us not to simplify so far that the explanation is inadequate to the facts to be explained....Parsimony is not itself a simple criterion of a good methodology; we cannot simply count the factors of explanation and say -
“[T]he only species on earth which prides itself on its intelligence is the only one with the intelligence necessary, and possibly sufficient, to render itself extinct tomorrow.”
Lewis White Beck , "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life" in Extraterrestrials Science and Alien Intelligence ( Regis Jr., Edward. Ed., 1985) , Part III, pp. 9-10
Lewis White Beck on Truth
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Attributed to Lewis White Beck:
“Kant's critique of pure reason is the critique of metaphysics, not its dismissal.”
Lewis White Beck on Virtue
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Attributed to Lewis White Beck:
“Kant's moral philosophy is the most uncompromising defense of human dignity in philosophy.”
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Attributed to Lewis White Beck:
“The categorical imperative is the form of every moral act.”
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Attributed to Lewis White Beck:
“What Kant calls reverence is the proper feeling of a rational being for the moral law.”
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Attributed to Lewis White Beck:
“The dignity of the person is what no exchange can replace.”