Philosophy - the love of others' wisdom?

[Fido]

Originally Posted by boagie

Fido,

The question was not, do concepts exist, but, at what point do you begin thinking for yourself. I added a sentence to the end of my statement above stating that, one way to detect an author guilty of this, is by his use of unlimited footnotes to justify his work, chances are he will never fully graduate out of this process of authority referral.

We all think for ourselves, and begin to do so quite early. The question is, given the same facts and the same material conditions upon which to ponder; why should we not all reach the same conclusions, and if we do, how should we then prove original thought? A precondition to all reason is a certain maturity of understanding, and the other thing required is a wealth of knowledge. The understanding required is the principal of conservation, or identity. Children set about learning the identities of objects early on. The principal of conservation requires that the magical quality that imbues all reality for children should lose its power, so that the child may know that nothing out of sight can change its shape or being.