morningtrain
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- Aug 23, 2012
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- Student or Learner
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- Korean
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This paragraph as below is so difficult for me to follow. I got a few question here.
First, I don't understand "we think the way we do because of the kind of animals we are."
What does "do" mean? I'd like to know the meaning of the whole sentence.
Second, I do not find out what it refers to. Somebody says it indicate our reasoning.
I roughly understand the sentence as "we always think in a specific situation."
Why do we need to have "it belong to our reasoning"? Any comments would be appreciated.
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Eagleton, Terry, On Evil (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2010)
("Thomas Aquinas taught that our reasoning is closely bound up with our bodies. Roughly speaking, we think the way we do because of the kind of animals we are. It belongs to our reasoning, for example, that it always goes on within a specific situation. We think from inside a particular perspective on the world. This is not an obstacle to grasping the truth. On the contrary, it is the only way we can grasp it. The only truths we can attain to are those appropriate to finite beings like ourselves. And these are the truths of neither angels nor anteaters. Overreachers, however, refuse to accept these enabling constraints. For them, only truths which are free of all perspective can be authentic. The only valid viewpoint is the God's-eye viewpoint. But this is a vantage point from which we humans would see nothing at all. For us, absolute knowledge would be utter blindness.
First, I don't understand "we think the way we do because of the kind of animals we are."
What does "do" mean? I'd like to know the meaning of the whole sentence.
Second, I do not find out what it refers to. Somebody says it indicate our reasoning.
I roughly understand the sentence as "we always think in a specific situation."
Why do we need to have "it belong to our reasoning"? Any comments would be appreciated.
=========================================================
Eagleton, Terry, On Evil (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2010)
("Thomas Aquinas taught that our reasoning is closely bound up with our bodies. Roughly speaking, we think the way we do because of the kind of animals we are. It belongs to our reasoning, for example, that it always goes on within a specific situation. We think from inside a particular perspective on the world. This is not an obstacle to grasping the truth. On the contrary, it is the only way we can grasp it. The only truths we can attain to are those appropriate to finite beings like ourselves. And these are the truths of neither angels nor anteaters. Overreachers, however, refuse to accept these enabling constraints. For them, only truths which are free of all perspective can be authentic. The only valid viewpoint is the God's-eye viewpoint. But this is a vantage point from which we humans would see nothing at all. For us, absolute knowledge would be utter blindness.