Schopenhauer

=== notes ===
:"...If we had followed materialism this far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its fatal result --knowledge-- which it had reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensible condition of its very starting point. ..."
Schopenhauer quoted in Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy", Washington Square Press, 1926 , p.311
from http://books.google.co.za/books?id=I1ypyLl76lsC&pg=PA330&lpg=PA330&dq=carl+jung+tautology&source=bl&ots=NvhVJc_3Uy&sig=oopXtEkeQLqqDi1NFS_vZqogSl4&hl=af&sa=X&ei=U1KKUrTQHNKShgf87oGYBg&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=carl%20jung%20tautology&f=false
=== Full quote p.888 ===
If we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas,
when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be
seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result—knowledge—which it had
reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable
condition of its very starting-point. Mere matter; and
when we imagined that we thought matter, we really thought
only the subject that perceives matter: the eye that sees it,
the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it*
Thus the tremendous petitio principii reveals itself 'unexpectedly ; for suddenly the last link is seen to be the startingpoint, the chain a circle; and the materialist is like Baron
Münchhausen(Agrippa's trilemma), who, when swimming on horseback, drew the
horse into the air with his legs, and himself by his queue.
1
. • •
The crude materialism which even now, in the middle of the
nineteenth century,
2
has been served up again under the ignorant delusion that it is original, . . . stupidly denies vital
force, and first of all tries to explain the phenomena of life
from physical and chemical forces, and those again from
the mechanical effects of matter.
3
. . . But I will never believe that even the simplest chemical combination will ever
admit of mechanical explanation; much less the properties
of light, heat, and electricity. These will always require a
dynamical explanation.
4
Category:Logical fallacies
Category:Agrippa's trilemma
Category:Schopenhauer