For the Hindu the creation was not a bringing into being of the wonder of the world. Rather it was a dismemberment, a disintegration of the original … - Daniel J. Boorstin

MY hero is Man the Discoverer. The world we now view from the literate West — the vistas of time, the land and the seas, the heavenly bodies and our own bodies, the plants and animals, history and human societies past and present — had to be opened for us by countless Columbuses. In the deep recesses of the past, they remain anonymous. As we come closer to the present they emerge into the light of history, a cast of characters as varied as human nature. Discoveries become episodes of biography, unpredictable as the new worlds the discoverers opened to us. The obstacles to discovery — the illusions of knowledge — are also part of our story. Only against the forgotten backdrop of the received common sense and myths of their time can we begin to sense the courage, the rashness, the

While the easiest way in metaphysics is to condemn all metaphysics as nonsense, the easiest way in morals is to elevate the common practice of the community into a moral absolute.

Pseudo‑events do, of course, increase our illusion of grasp on the world, what some have called the American illusion of omnipotence. Perhaps, we come to think, the world’s problems can really be settled by “statements,” by “Summit” meetings, by a competition of “prestige,” by overshadowing images, and by political quiz shows.