Minnesota declaration (1999)
“Facts do not convey truth. That's a mistake. Facts create norms, but truth creates illumination.”
chap. 24, sect. 82
Reasons and Persons (1984)
“With no fact as a referent, what is normative is purely a matter of preference.”
2000s
Source: [The Real Face of Atheism, 2004, 9780801065118, 3293056M, http://books.google.com/books?id=0SD0mYaYz3sC&pg=PA56&dq=%22with+no+fact%22, 56]
Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)
“There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.”
Our Christ : The Revolt of the Mystical Genius (1921)
Context: In point of fact there are two kinds sorts of mysticism, differing from one another as the ranting of drunkards from the language of illumined spirits. There is the muddled, stammering mysticism, and there is the mysticism luminous with truly ultimate ideas. On the one hand there are the empty dimness and darkness, the barren, chilling sentimentalism and mental debauchery, the foolishly grimacing but rigid phantasms of the Cabbala, of occultism, mysteriosophy and theosophy. We cannot draw too sharp a dividing line between these and the brightness, the simple sincerity, and healthy, rejuvenating strength of genuine mysticism, which takes the most precious gems from philosophy's treasure chest and displays them in the beauty of its own setting. Mysticism is in complete accord with the result, with the sum of philosophy. In fact, mysticism is precisely the sum and the soul of philosophy, in the form of that rapturous, passionate outpouring of love.... We are concerned with an understanding of this serious mysticism, and its meaning could be stated in three words... godlessness... freedom from the world... blessedness of soul.
Source: Derek Parfit, ‘Reasons and Motivation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 71 (1997), p. 121
Source: Reasons and Persons (1984), p. 619
