"Reason has prejudices, senses uncertainties, memory limits, imagination flashes, tools imperfections; the symptoms are infinite, the causes are hidden, the forms are perhaps temporary and changeable. What do we have against so many obstacles, which are within us and which nature piles up in front of us from the outside? With slow experience and limited thinking: these are the levers with which philosophy wants to move the world.
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Author
Denis DiderotAll Translations
All Translations
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Reason has prejudices, senses uncertainties, memory limits, imagination flashes, tools imperfections; the symptoms are infinite, the causes are hidden, the forms are perhaps temporary and changeable. What do we have against so many obstacles, which are within us and which nature piles up in front of us from the outside? With slow experience and limited thinking: these are the levers with which philosophy wants to move the world.
""Az értelemnek megvannak előítéletei, az érzékeknek bizonytalanságai, az emlékezetnek határai, a képzelődésnek villanatai, az eszközöknek tökéletlenségei; a tünemények végtelen számúak, az okok rejtettek, az alakok talán átmenetiek s változók. Ennyi akadály ellen, melyek bennünk vannak, s melyeket a természet kívülről elénk halmoz, mivel rendelkezünk? Lassú tapasztalattal s korlátolt gondolkodással: ezek az emeltyűk, melyekkel a filozófia a világot mozgatni akarja."