getwood is a computer addict and professional procrastinator who should be doing something else right now.

I stumbled upon this quote recently. I have seen it used once before, and both times it was used to 'prove' that a ridiculous idea was true.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

1) Schopenhauer also said "woman is by nature meant to obey." Let's see. This "truth" has been... ridiculed, yes. Violently opposed, yes. Now the Schopenhauerites just need to wait for it to be accepted as self-evident. Because, apparently, that's the only possibility.

2) There were people who violently opposed the idea of the planets and sun revolving around the Earth too! Oh, wait... Well, there are also people who ridiculed the contention that the speed of sound could not be broken. And nobody has been able to... Hmm.

3) Personally, I think that ridiculous ideas DO advance science. They do because they shake things up. They do because they force study in that direction, and not by the snail's pace, but by leaps. Then, the idea is either "accepted as being self-evident" or it is discarded, lovingly, in the flat earth nostalgia pile.

4) Schopenhauer's logic is very weak, and his misogyny is pathetic. I see two logical (mis)statements in his declaration. The first is the most obvious: if a statement is true, then it will pass through these three stages. The second, implied statement, is the one most used when this line is quoted: If a statement is ridiculed, then it must be true. Did he backtrack from something like: "it is self-evident that the Earth revolves around the Sun." Before this, the truth was violently opposed (Galileo was placed under house arrest for following the Copernican system.) And even before this, maybe it was just ridiculed. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Ridicule and violent opposition therefore are the only possible explanations to prove the, (I can't help it), "truthiness." And the opposite proves false in his statement as well: not all truth is ridiculed first. I am guessing that "it is warmer in the sun than in the shade" probably didn't have to go through the three Schopenhaueric stages before "accepted as being self-evident.".

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