Ambiance

Credo

July 21, 2009 at 4:54 pm (By Miles Lascaux)

From the “New York Times” obituary of Polish dissident academic Leszek Kolakowski:

In a noted lecture in 1982, Kolakowski said the cultural role of philosophy was “never to let the inquisitive energy of mind go to sleep, never to stop questioning what appears to be obvious and definitive, always to defy the seemingly intact resources of common sense” and “never to forget that there are questions that lie beyond the legitimate horizon of science and are nonetheless crucially important to the survival of humanity as we know it.”

Which makes me wish more historians and journalists were philosophers — something I haven’t often wished. Read it for a glimpse of a 20th century life.