Which philosopher writes the most mind-numbingly long sentences?
Ken Brown sends in a new contender — a 179 word-marathon from John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism:
“But inasmuch as the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity, is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch as any, even unintentional, deviation from truth, does that much towards weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support of all present social well-being, but the insufficiency of which does more than any one thing that can be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything on which human happiness on the largest scale depends; we feel that the violation, for a present advantage, of a rule of such transcendant expediency, is not expedient, and that he who, for the sake of a convenience to himself or to some other individual, does what depends on him to deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance which they can place in each other’s word, acts the part of one of their worst enemies.” (Source: Chapter 2 of Utilitarianism.)
Good find, Ken!
So updating our ongoing contest results: Kierkegaard is still in first place, but Mill passes Kant into fourth place.
1. Kierkegaard: 330 words.
2. Locke: 309 words.
3. Aristotle: 188 words.
4. Mill 179 words. (Also: 161 words.)
5. Kant: 174 words. (Also: 163 words.)
6. Bentham: 164 words.