Enlightenment thinking sought the indubitable and lost sight of the undeniable

Evidence

Entranced by our powers of reason and observation, we have sought only the indubitable and forgotten the undeniable. The undeniable, if unfulfi llable, promise of the Enlightenment is simply this: Let every life, let every death, speak for itself. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 657

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the book’s core epistemic distinction: indubitable (what reductionist empiricism chases) vs. undeniable (integral truths like each life and death speaking) — a crisp conceptual frame.
• CANDY: ‘Let every life, let every death, speak for itself’ is the sort of aphoristic line one remembers and quotes.
• XREF: connects to: Environmental crisis roots are epistemological, ethical, and political, a crisis of ideas — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 654; Moral philosophy belongs to culture and thus coevolves with, rather than opposes, cognition. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 111; Romantic orientalism rejected Enlightenment reason in a search for lost wholeness — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists…, 272 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Romantic orientalism rejected Enlightenment reason in a search for lost wholeness #complicates (0.75) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 272