Don’t waste time trying to make him think that [your philosophy] is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous — that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about. The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy’s own ground. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?
-- Archfiend Screwtape, The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
Allow me to play captain obvious: This is screwtape’s (the archdevil? tempter?) advice to one of the devils assigned to a human (patient). He basically states here that humans don’t need to have certainty that a philosophical system is well founded, what he cares about is that it is controversial, scandalous, etc. And I have to agree to that, gone are the times that people change their lifestyle according to the latest scientific literature or piece of philosophy; how many among those who’ve read Nietzsche actually understood the profundity and the weakness of his writings? It appears that since he is wrongly associated with the Nazis it qualify him to be a philosopher of the edgy thirteen year olds.
On the other hand I see this as Lewis’s jab at the philosophy that he opposes, particularly atheistic and agnostic ones. He didn’t disprove them, he just committed slander. TSL is a good read tho
-- Archfiend Screwtape, The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
Allow me to play captain obvious: This is screwtape’s (the archdevil? tempter?) advice to one of the devils assigned to a human (patient). He basically states here that humans don’t need to have certainty that a philosophical system is well founded, what he cares about is that it is controversial, scandalous, etc. And I have to agree to that, gone are the times that people change their lifestyle according to the latest scientific literature or piece of philosophy; how many among those who’ve read Nietzsche actually understood the profundity and the weakness of his writings? It appears that since he is wrongly associated with the Nazis it qualify him to be a philosopher of the edgy thirteen year olds.
On the other hand I see this as Lewis’s jab at the philosophy that he opposes, particularly atheistic and agnostic ones. He didn’t disprove them, he just committed slander. TSL is a good read tho