If some others do not understand what is essential to human life, Gerald Postema does:
To cut oneself off from others is to cut oneself off from oneself, for it is only in the mirror of the souls of others that one finds one’s own self, one’s character. The pleasures and satisfactions of conversation and intercourse are essential to human life, because they are essential to a sense of one’s continuity through a constantly changing external and internal world. . . . Thus, a truly successful strategy of deception effectively cuts oneself off from the community in which alone one can find the confirmation essential to one’s own sense of self.
(Quoted from page 72 of Person, Polis, Planet: Essays in Applied Philosophy, by David Schmidtz. Oxford University Press, 2008.)
For a brief biography of Gerald Postema, click here. For images of and relating to Gerald Postema, click here. For David Schmidtz’s website, click here.
To cut oneself off from others is to cut oneself off from oneself, for it is only in the mirror of the souls of others that one finds one’s own self, one’s character. The pleasures and satisfactions of conversation and intercourse are essential to human life, because they are essential to a sense of one’s continuity through a constantly changing external and internal world. . . . Thus, a truly successful strategy of deception effectively cuts oneself off from the community in which alone one can find the confirmation essential to one’s own sense of self.
(Quoted from page 72 of Person, Polis, Planet: Essays in Applied Philosophy, by David Schmidtz. Oxford University Press, 2008.)
For a brief biography of Gerald Postema, click here. For images of and relating to Gerald Postema, click here. For David Schmidtz’s website, click here.
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