Magni Formica Laboris

Because we have in the understanding and sensibility two stems of cognition independent of one another, we must distinguish between possibility and actuality (otherwise we would have an intellectual intuition); because we are both sensible and rational beings, the moral law appears to us as what ought to be, not as what is or volition (otherwise we would have a holy will); because our understanding is discursive, the power of judgment judges organisms inevitably as natural purposes (otherwise we would have an intuitive understanding). And since Kant in all three causes insists that the ground for our corresponding judgments lies in our subjective character and not in things themselves, he draws for us general limits of cognition and at the same time indicates that it is necessary to attempt to think beyond those limits, at least experimentally. Such an attempt, if undertaken seriously, will hardly be without consequences. - Eckart Förster, The Significance of §§76 and 77 Of the Cr...

Diogenes believed human beings live artificially and hypocritically and would do well to study the dog. - Wikipedia.

Aristotle was a little man with eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet much more important than the carved handles on the coffins of the great. He said you should put your hand out at the time and place of need: strength matters little, he said, nor even speed. His pupil, a king's son, died at an early age. That Aristotle spoke of him it is impossible to find—the youth was notorious, a conqueror, a kid with a gang, but even this Aristotle didn't ever say. Around the farthest forest and along all the bed of the sea, Aristotle studied immediate, local ways. Many of which were wrong. So he studied poetry. There, in pity and fear, he found Man. Many thinkers today, who stand low and grin, have little use for anger or power, its palace or its prison— but quite a bit for that little man with eyes like a lizard. - Humanities Lecture, William Stafford

Thus, 7000 Oaks is a sculpture referring to peoples' life, to their everyday work. That is my concept of art which I call the extended concept or art of the social sculpture. I wish to go more and more outside to be among the problems of nature and problems of human beings in their working places. This will be a regenerative activity; it will be a therapy for all of the problems we are standing before.... I wished to go completely outside and to make a symbolic start for my enterprise of regenerating the life of humankind within the body of society and to prepare a positive future in this context. I think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time. The oak is especially so because it is a slowly growing tree with a kind of really solid heartwood. It has always been a form of sculpture, a symbol for this planet. The planting of seven thousand oak trees is thus only a symbolic beginning. And such a symbolic beginning requires a marker, in this instanc...

"The fact that nature has produced a vast multitude of objects that we find beautiful, as if they were made for us, makes us think that we somehow fit. It seems to us as if this were a gift or blessing given to us by nature or by God. From the perspective of human autonomy, we might also say that it is not that nature does us a favor, but the other way around: we do nature a favor by finding it beautiful. But in any case, Kant suggests that this makes us think that ideas and higher purposes of our inner nature, like freedom and morality, may be realized in outer nature and society where human beings live together under moral laws. Reason thus takes an interest in any sign or trace in nature that might indicate a bridge between freedom and nature.” (Wenzel 115) “But since it also interests reason that the ideas (for which it produces an immediate interest in the moral feeling) also have objective reality, i.e., that nature should at least show some trace or give a sign that ...

from "Imagination & Perception" (in Foster and Swanson, Experience and Theory . Massachusetts, 1970.) "Of course when you first see a new, an unfamiliar thing of a familiar kind, there is no question of past perceptions of that thing being alive in the present perception. Still, one might say, to take it, to see it, as a thing of that kind is implicitly to have the thought of other possible perceptions related to your actual perception as perceptions of the same object. To see it as a dog, silent and stationary, is to see it as a possible mover and barker, even though you give yourself no actual images of it as moving and barking; though, again, you might do so if, say, you were particularly timid, if, as we say, your imagination was particularly active or particularly stimulated by the sight. Again, as you continue to observe it, it is not just a dog, with such and such characteristics, but the dog, the object of your recent observation, that you see, and see i...

When he was in his twenties, [Miguel Mihura] wrote his best known comedy, Tres sombreros de copa , but its humour was not appreciated by the conservative pre-war Spanish society. Tres sombreros de copa was not staged until 1952, achieving a great success. cf. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring , others, and Ray's instructive query into the criteria of truth with respect to one's artistic decisions, and his response that the audience has a major role. also think of poems of canonical poets not yet canonical. It's a precarious situation...