Edwin Arthur Burtt Quote - Liberty Quotes Blog

"As compared with impulsive commitment to the first idea which dawns,
that is, with intuitive action, reasoning is patient,
exploratory of other possibilities, and deliberative."

by:	Edwin Arthur Burtt (1892-1989) American philosopher
Source:	Right Thinking, 1946
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Categories:	Experimentation, Reason, Truth
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Reader comments about this quote:

In this day and age, I'm not so sure it's the "first idea that dawns" so much as the first idea planted by the media. If it's about world events or foreign policy...always follow the money to find the truth. Because 90% of what's in the news is "spin" and half truths. -- J Carlton, Calgary 1
Reminds of heatlh care debate. Dole said he has worked on the problem for 30 years. Repubs now say Demos are rushing a solution but they did nothing during 20 years of Prez reign and a Rupub Congress. Some said we could not "rush" race relations and their we sat for 100 years. There is always a time to get up and get off the pot. Taken alone the quote is reasonable, I wonder though if this philosopher ever stopped thinking and started acting. -- Waffler, Smith
-- Randy, Pheonix
-- Mike, Norwalk
"Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons—a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million—who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world." ~ Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda (1923) -- E Archer, NYC
"The systematic study of mass psychology revealed to students the potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group. Trotter and Le Bon, who approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas, Walter Lippmann and others who continued with searching studies of the group mind, established that the group has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual psychology. So the question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?" ~ Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda (1923) -- E Archer, NYC
Reasoning characteristics are also filtering out conclusions and rational pattern recognition. -- Fredrick William Sillik, Anytown

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