Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Leibniz on Skepticism

The Skeptics are never liked by the experts in a scientific field or a doctrine, whatever it may be; they only satisfy the ignorant, who bow to skepticism because it seems to console their ignorance. However, insightful objections are always useful, and serve to better clarify the truth: but those who only object, and who doubt only for the purpose of doubting, damage their own reputation in the company of well educated people and harm those who are not educated, by seducing them, and by teaching them to neglect to learn.

G. W. F. Leibniz, quoted in Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz on the Trinty and the Incarnation, Gerald Parks, tr. [Yale UP: 2007] p. 148.