It will now be clear what is meant if I make the following statement: by his clear critique Hume did not only advance philosophy in a decisive way but also – though through no fault of his – created a danger for philosophy in that, following his critique, a fateful “fear of metaphysics” arose which has come to be a malady of contemporary empiricistic philosophizing; this malady is the clouds, which thought it could neglect and dispense with what was given by the sense. – Alert Einstein’s Ideas and Opinions (Page 23, 24).
It is easy to say that Albert Einstein is correct about something. Today we are over reliant on our five senses. We live to satisfy materialistic impulses. If people cannot see, hear, taste, touch, or smell a thing – they will not believe in it. I often hear 300 pound people claim that they are starving when it is impossible for anyone carrying around that much body fat and be starving at the same time. I have had many conversations with college graduates that believe they are smart because they have a piece of paper which says the person completed a program of study, yet these graduates have little to no knowledge of what they studied. I watch people’s eyes glaze over when I tell them that a dollar is only worth 30 cents on a good day. Nine out of ten people have no understanding of the concepts behind our physical world.
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