Book: History of philosophy

All ideas that exist in the human mind arise from experience. The soul of a newborn child is a white sheet of paper.

God is perfect, therefore the world created by him combines the greatest diversity with the best order. Therefore, our world is the best of all possible worlds. The existence of evil in the world is the result of the imperfection of people, the result of man's failure to fulfill the goals for which he was created.

Newton introduced the concepts of absolute and relative space and time. Relative space is the distance between bodies, which we can measure with the help of measuring instruments, and relative time is the time between different events, which we can measure with the help of clocks. Absolute space and time are mathematical abstractions rather than something that actually exists.

In Newton's picture of the world, nature turns out to be a huge mechanism (like a clock).

Freedom is a recognized necessity!

Don't laugh, don't cry, don't turn away, but understand!

To conquer, rather, yourself than fate, and change, rather, your desires than the world order; to believe that there is nothing that is entirely in our control, with the exception of our thoughts.

The task of the thinking man is to strengthen the power of reason over the tyranny of the senses.

Doubt is useful and necessary; it is an obligatory stage on the path to truth. You can doubt everything, but for this it is still necessary that there be someone who doubts, thinks, reflects.

There is no absolute peace in the world.

Religious truths are beyond our understanding, we just have to believe in them, so I would never dare to embrace them with my weak reasoning.

Francis Bacon was a supporter of an absolute monarchy and a strong centralized state. The people are a constant source of unrest, but the cause of the riots lies in great hunger and great discontent, and the latter is caused by ruin, want, and heavy taxes. These evils can be cured by easing duties and taxes and curbing luxury.

The errors of the human mind are rooted in man's desire to view nature by analogy with himself, and are inherent in all people. Misconceptions arise individually for each person due to the specific conditions of upbringing: at the same time, each person, as it were, looks at the world from his own cave. Misconceptions also arise from blind faith in authority.

During the Enlightenment, belief in the limitless power of human reason and science was established. It seemed that the application of human reason and scientific methodology to all spheres of existence would make it possible to understand all the secrets of nature and reorganize social life on a reasonable and natural basis. An attempt to reorganize social life in a rational way based on educational slogans Freedom.