#theory

Theology is just not important in Judaism, or in any other religion, really. There's no orthodoxy, as you have it in the Catholic Church. No complicated creeds to which everybody must subscribe. No infallible pronouncements by a pope. Nobody can tell Jews what to believe. Within reason, you can believe what you like... We have orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy. Right practice rather then right belief. That's all. You Christians make such a fuss about theology, but it's not important in the way you think. It's just poetry, really, ways of talking about the inexpressible. ↗

— Hyam Maccoby

#christianity #judaism #practice #theory #religion

In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient. ↗

— William James

#proof #religion #science #spirituality #theory

The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#science #theory #truth #religion

When the critic has said everything in his power about a literary text, he has still said nothing; for the very existence of literature implies that it cannot be replaced by non-literature ↗

— TODOROV TZVETAN

#literary-theory #literature #literary-criticism

Humans do not simply, innocently, and honestly disagree with each other about the good, the just, the right, the principles and applications of moral distinction and valuation, for they are already caught, like it or not, in a complex dynamic of each other’s desires, recognition, power, and comparisons which not only relativizes moral distinctions and valuations, but makes them a constant and dangerous source of discord. ↗

— Gregory B. Sadler

#desire #disagreements #moral-theory #morality #philosophy

Sovereign is he who decides on the exception. ↗

— Carl Schmitt

#political-theory #politics #political-philosophy

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. ↗

— John Rawls

#individuals #justice #liberalism #philosophy #social-institutions

All resistance is a rupture with what is. And every rupture begins, for those engaged in it, through a rupture with oneself. ↗

— Alain Badiou

#ontology #philosophy #politics #resistance-theory #political-philosophy

Good art theory must smell of the studio, although its language should differ from the household talk of painters and sculptors. ↗

— Rudolf Arnheim

#art #differ #good #good art #household

I have this theory that, depending on your attitude, your life doesn't have to become this ridiculous charade that it seems so many people end up living. ↗

— Christian Bale

#become #depending #end #i #life