The most significant thing about writing is that it makes possible the detachment of affirmation from the speaker. Without writing..., all speech is context-bound: in such conditions, the only way in which an affirmation can be endowed with special solemnity is by ritual emphasis, by an unusual and deliberately solemnized context, by a prescribed rigidity of manner. But once writing is available, an affirmation can be detached from context. The fact that it is so detached in turn constitutes a very special context of a radically new kind. In a sense, the transcendent is born at that point, for meaning now lives without speaker or listener. It also makes possible solemnity without emphasis, and respect for content rather than for context.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Enlightenment codified the vision of the world as a unified, self-sufficient Nature, governed by orderly laws, and including m...an within itself as a part of Nature and nothing else. It is the codification, in outline, of the world we now inhabit. The supposition that the Enlightenment is but a kind of continuation and completion of the Reformation is sometimes attacked as naive and over-intellectualist. Yet the logical connection is obviously there: the notion that it is legitimate to scrutinize the claims of a self-proclaimed sacred institution, by checking it against the independent testimony of scripture, would seem to lead naturally to the idea that everything, including scripture itself, can be scrutinized in the light of the independent testimony of "Reason" or fact.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »