Glenn Negley Quotes

8 Sourced Quotes

The excess of presumption which is implied in so grandiose a project as the "organization of knowledge" will, it is hoped, be tempered by a word of explanation. It is an explanation with admission, first, of limited aim; second, of minimum anticipation of achievement. Such an apologetic implies, however, no plea of pardon for sins of omission and commission; on these let the axe hew and the quips fall where they may.

Glenn Negley
Perhaps the last philosopher who gave any significant attention to the privacy of the individual was Jeremy Bentham; his strongly expressed view that law was an invasion of privacy that must be justified on the ground of necessary utility was somewhat, but not profoundly, modified by John Stuart Mill.

Glenn Negley
In the first place, utopia literally means "no place", and the use of the fiction of an imagined or mythical state is indeed a characteristic mark of utopian writing. This primary and necessary discrimination eliminates from utopian literature all speculation the form of which indicates that it should properly be designated political philosophy or political theory.

Glenn Negley
It seems apparent that the circumstances of existence in modern society are in many ways more restrictive of privacy than conditions in the past; we seem haunted by specters of the organization man, Big Brother, and the omnipresent state. Yet the facts of a changing social and political structure do not themselves attest the badness of that change.

Glenn Negley
Any pattern of analysis or any system of categories for the classification of knowledge is simply a suggestion for the arrangement of the data of experience. An analysis of this experience can be made in terms of certain points-of-view, categories and sciences (including Administration).

Glenn Negley
MAN, the thinking animal, seeks the revealing light which discloses to his curious eyes the nature of things. The ages of his history in which he learned he calls enlightened; the ages of intellectual sterility are dark. It is in the daylight that man moves and has his active being; yet there is beauty in the night, when the concealing cloak of darkness shrouds the harsh and sordid realities which appear in the penetrating light of day. Why should man not prefer to live in a world of night? Why does he not go to bed with the dawn, pull the covers over his head, and shut out the stark disillusion of a world revealed nakedly in the light?

Glenn Negley
Utopias are expressions of political philosophy and theory, to be sure, but they are descriptions of fictional states in which the philosophy and theory are already implemented in the institutions and procedures of the social structure.

Glenn Negley
Philosophical literature has given scant attention to the problem of privacy as such; the framework of reference within which privacy has so recently and widely become a matter of controversy is a distinctly contemporary one. What has not been discussed, or at least made clear, is why privacy is commonly considered a right or a value to be protected by the law. There is no historical consensus, in philosophy, politics, or law, that it is such a right. Few philosophers would argue that privacy is a "natural" right or that the intrinsic nature of privacy establishes it as a legal right.

Glenn Negley