“There’s more to life than books, you know (but not much more…)”

Nicole has tagged me for this reading meme, which you’ll all have seen before:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people. (Shan’t! Can’t make me!)

Here is the quote:

For him [Fichte] the first principle of our thought in general must be itself grounded in a higher principle of spontaneity—most familiar in its derivative form as the moral law—if the unification of theoretical and practical philosophy is to be possible without the obliteration of freedom.

Reinhold insists that, in order to end the series of conditions known to philosophy, the Grundsatz cannot merely fail to have any condition or ground outside itself, for then it and philosophy as a whole would be merely arbitrary or groundless; rather the Grundsatz must be self-grounding. Although he is not always careful to distinguish them, Reinhold seems to have three different sorts of self-grounding in mind [self-explanation, self-evidence and self-determination].

Paul Franks ‘The Origins of Post-Kantianism’ in Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects (ed.) R. Stern

All in all, that’s a very suitable suitable quote to represent this blog; I think I would be hard pressed to find a better passage were I to try to cherry pick one. The book is not even mine though! It is from my housemate’s collection on transcendental arguments that was lying at my feet on the floor of our living room.