The DIM Hypothesis Quotes

“The worse the coming future, the more it should motivate its opponents.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“For the reader’s future reference, here are brief summaries of the DIM modes, each described in a few phrases. Aristotle: Unity through: natural world/grasped by concepts derived from percepts. I: One in the Many Plato: Unity through: transcendent world/grasped by concepts independent of percepts; natural world is appearance, and percepts are untrustworthy. M2: One without the Many Worldly Supernaturalists: Unity through: M2 above, except: natural world is real, and concepts, some or all, must be applicable to percepts. M1: Many from the One Kant: Unity impossible and undesirable; concepts and percepts alike are detached from reality. D2: Many without the One Knowing Skeptics: Unity through: natural world/grasped in unrelated chunks by lower-level concepts. D1: Ones in the Many”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Since DIM categories are epistemological, their applicability to a given individual is determined not by his mind’s content, but by its method—not by what he thinks, but by why he thinks it.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“I call the Platonic mode “misintegration”—M. I call the Aristotelian mode simply “integration”—I. I call the Kantian mode “disintegration”—D.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Plato appeals to soaring idealism scornful of the practical. Aristotle appeals to joyful realism on earth. Kant appeals to rage.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Kant is the first and greatest nihilist in the history of thought. A nihilist is one who works to destroy man’s mind and values as an end in itself, for the sake of the destruction.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Although there are many variants of Plato’s system, what makes them the same in regard to integration is their commitment to two fundamental principles. In metaphysics, their principle is supernaturalism. In epistemology, it is rationalism.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“For those new to philosophy, its two fundamental branches are metaphysics, which studies the nature of existence, and epistemology, which studies man’s means of knowledge.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Although rarely given a clear definition, “extremism,” in essence, is a term used to condemn those who hold unpopular values intransigently and in action refuse to compromise them; the nature of such action is not delimited by the concept.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Human knowledge is not a mere collection, but a structure; it is a single body of interrelated cognitions.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Knowledge is a hierarchy; it consists of integrations, each level making the next possible and in due course necessary. Thinking, we can say, consists of integrating integrations.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“A necessary complement to induction is deduction, the standard example of which is: “All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.” The”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“the first requirement of expanding his knowledge is induction, which is in essence the process of inferring a generalization from observations.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“The “floater” misses reality; the concrete-bound person misses understanding.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“Thus three elements unite to define the Objectivist concept of reason: perception,† conception, and logic.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out

“The essentialized approach is the opposite of that practiced by today’s academic establishment, who reject system-building—that is, broad integration—in favor of the analysis of minutiae. I am as far from today’s philosophy departments as an atheist is from the pope or, in more positive terms, as a man who wants to live is from an ascetic writhing in the desert. My explanation of today’s philosophers is offered below, in my discussion of the D2 mentality.”
― Leonard Peikoff, The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out