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What our view of the effectiveness of religion in history does at once make evident as to its nature is--first, its necessary distinction; second, it… - William Ernest Hocking
" "What our view of the effectiveness of religion in history does at once make evident as to its nature is--first, its necessary distinction; second, its necessary supremacy. These characters though external have been so essential to its fruitfulness, as to justify the statement that without them religion is not religion. A merged religion and a negligible or subordinate religion are no religion.
English
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About William Ernest Hocking
William Ernest Hocking (August 10, 1873 – June 12, 1966) was an American idealist philosopher at Harvard University. He continued the work of his philosophical teacher Josiah Royce (the founder of American idealism) in revising idealism to integrate and fit into empiricism, naturalism and pragmatism. He said that metaphysics has to make inductions from experience: "That which does not work is not true. His major field of study was the philosophy of religion, but his 22 books included discussions of philosophy and human rights, world politics, freedom of the press, the philosophical psychology of human nature; education; and more. In 1958 he served as president of the Metaphysical Society of America.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
W.E. Hocking
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William Ernst Hocking
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William Hocking
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Additional quotes by William Ernest Hocking
As in reply to the skeptic or agnostic, who asserts in despair that there is no absolute truth. The dialectician retorts: Then at least your own assertion must be absolutely true. There must be some absolute truth, for you cannot assert that there is none without self-contradiction. As in Descartes' case, the doubter is reminded of himself. There, in his own assertion, is a certainty from which he cannot escape.
This turn of thought which reminds the enquirer of himself, we shall call the reflexive turn. It reappears in all discoveries of the Absolute. It is clinching--but is likely to disappoint, even as Descartes' result disappoints. For the skeptic finds that he also was in search of objective truth: and that the absolute truth of his statement is irrelevant to his quest. Whence his skepticism toward objective truth remains unanswered.
Nothing can stir the "depths" of mind, but total out-of-doors. We call "depth," last dregs, etc., that in man which only ultimate facts and happenings can interest; that which the near and usual can neither rouse nor ruffle. Somewhere in each man, we imagine, there lies an ultimatum, to be backed by all his energies from all reservoirs, ordinary and extraordinary,--what can elicit from any man such ultimatum and ultimatum-backing?--nothing that has not somewhere in it the word All! There are such things, we think, as ruling passions, "deepest desires," in any man some nameable or unnameable last ambition--what can set such a depth on fire?--nothing but some total opportunity (real or believed real), discovered in the wide world beyond the self.
Pure community is a matter of no interest to any will; but a community which pursues a common good is of supreme interest to all wills; and what we have here said is that whatever the nature of that common good … it must contain the development of individual powers, as a prior condition for all other goods.
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