{"id":33954,"date":"2017-10-07T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-10-07T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=33954"},"modified":"2017-09-26T07:36:39","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T11:36:39","slug":"qotd-madman-or-academic-on-the-loose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/10\/07\/qotd-madman-or-academic-on-the-loose\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Madman or academic on the loose?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Chesterton, somewhere, memorably notes that the madman is not without reason. Verily, in the mental department, he has lost everything <em>except<\/em> his reason. I remember this every time I find myself arguing with an atheist: that it is best not to. The mere idea of \u201cpure reason\u201d enabled a certain Immanuel Kant to anticipate post-modernity, set the stage for some bizarre descendants, and reset all our metaphysical dials to an atheist default position. Not that he was intending this. He was only taking a step beyond Hume. \u201cFully autonomous reason,\u201d shall we call it, is a powerfully destructive force. Perfection of the intellect is no more possible, down here on earth, than a life entirely without sin. The belief that we can elevate ourselves by the synaptic bootstraps of our wee tiny brains, has much for which to answer.<\/p>\n<p>In Parkdale for instance: a district of this city renowned for its accumulation of \u201coutpatients,\u201d on and off their \u201cmeds.\u201d They also illustrate Chesterton\u2019s aphorism. Often they are reasoning, aloud; and seldom on my walks do I detect any logical errors. From the facts or premisses that they have supposed, their (often angry) mutterings to themselves flow quite naturally. I have even overheard some impressive hair-splitting; and have often thought that, with a little anger management, they could be candidates for tenure \u2014 at Ryerson, if not the U of T.<\/p>\n<p>David Warren, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.davidwarrenonline.com\/2015\/12\/15\/not-all-there\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Not all there&#8221;, <em>Essays in Idleness<\/em><\/a>, 2015-12-15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chesterton, somewhere, memorably notes that the madman is not without reason. Verily, in the mental department, he has lost everything except his reason. I remember this every time I find myself arguing with an atheist: that it is best not to. The mere idea of \u201cpure reason\u201d enabled a certain Immanuel Kant to anticipate post-modernity, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,57,41],"tags":[906,764],"class_list":["post-33954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","category-humour","category-quotations","tag-mentalhealth","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8PE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33956,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33954\/revisions\/33956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}