| 24343 | The people think philosophers should never lie, because only the truthful know truth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The people demand from a philosopher that he not lie: for they believe that only the truthful can recognise the truth. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[033]) | |
| A reaction: I would say that no one could be a philosopher if they are not appalled by unnecessary lies. I get the slight impression that Nietzsche doesn't agree. He probably had a different concept of lying. |
| 24342 | The people are too remote from wisdom to understand it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The people have, justifiably, the falsest concept of the circumstances from which they are most distant - of wisdom. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[030]) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the people are too trapped in ossified conventions of thought. I'm not sure how Nietzsche understood wisdom. |
| 24314 | Once religion is unmasked, the task of philosophy is to unmask other types of self-estrangement [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the holy form of self-estrangement has been unmasked, is to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy form. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860], Vol 3: 176), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx | |
| A reaction: I take it that this means that the first task is to deconstruct religious beliefs, and the second is to deconstruct cognitive bias. I find the image of unbiased philosophers smugly unmasking all the pathetic masked people very unattractive. |
| 24362 | You need to be narrow-minded to have a system [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I am not narrow-minded enough for a system - not even for my system… | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 10[146]) | |
| A reaction: Ooh! Is this a confession that he actually has a system, but his mind keeps wandering away from it? I agree with John Richardson that Nietzsche has a system. This is a nice insult aimed at systematisers (like me!). |
| 24317 | Critical theory aims to liberate, by showing the contradictions in societal systems [Edwards,J/Leiter,B] |
| Full Idea: Critical theory (of the Frankfurt School, outlined by Horkheimer in 1937) is a method of enquiry oriented towards revealing the latent contradictions inherent in societal systems, thereby paving the way for potential tranformation. | |
| From: Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter (Marx [2025], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: It seems a rather Kantian dream to think that we only need to identify the contradictions, and then truth and reason beautifully fall into place. Presumably the 'true' system contains no contradictions. Do Marxists aspire to that? |
| 24312 | Will and emotion influence understanding, creating false knowledge, and believing what we prefer [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: The human understanding is not composed of dry light, but is subject to influence from the will and emotions, a fact that creates fanciful knowledge; man prefers to believe what he wants to be true. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620], p.44), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 5.4 | |
| A reaction: Cognitive bias! What a striking observation, long before Kant's Copernican Revolution. Bacon is obviously somewhat right - but to what extent? I defend the concept of genuine objectivity. Modern scientific methods come closest. |
| 24356 | Might apparent objectivity just be a different degree within subjectivity? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The apparent objective character of things; could it not just be a difference of degree within the subjective? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 9[040]) | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of objectivity, but I accept that it comes in degrees, and that perfect objectivity is impossible. I think a strong consensus of Nietzchean 'perspectives' could add up to a high degree of objectivity. |
| 24341 | Thinking is only possible with linguistic contraints, and reasoning is trapped in a schema [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We cease to think when we do not want to do it within linguistic contraints. …Rational thought is an interpreting according to a schema that we are unable to shake off. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[022]) | |
| A reaction: Most people think Wittgenstein was the first to entertain such ideas. Both thinkers fail to acknowledge that we can extend the language, and push the boundaries of the schema. And a lot of good thinking is non-linguistic. |
| 24354 | Won't philosophy eventually reveal the presuppositions of reason? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Must not all philosophy finally bring to light the presuppositions on which the movement of reason rests? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 7[63]) | |
| A reaction: Probably not, I would say! If reason itself becomes unavailable as a tool of research (because it is now the object of that research), I don't see any alternative tools for the job. Nietzsche (I think) only only offers 'instinct' to oppose reason. |
| 24318 | Instrumental Reason aims at efficient management, of humanity as well as of nature [Adorno/Horkheimer, by Edwards,J/Leiter,B] |
| Full Idea: 'Instrumental reason' sees everything, including human beings, as resources to be efficiently managed. This was honed in the early Enlightenment, to master nature, but inevitably led to systems of social control. | |
| From: report of T Adorno / M Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1944]) by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 7.5 | |
| A reaction: This startling book evidently sees the Enlightenment as a supreme source of evil. I guess Bentham's Panopticon illustrates the idea, followed through by Foucault. What can you possibly be for, if you are against reason? |
| 24313 | Cognitive bias mainly results from prior beliefs, or readily available information [Edwards,J/Leiter,B] |
| Full Idea: There are two main varieties of cognitive bias: order-of-information biases are manifest when the information we receive first or our prior beliefs have disproportionate influence; availability bias is when the information at hand has too much influence | |
| From: Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter (Marx [2025], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: [The particuarly mention Daniel Kahneman for this type of thinking] The present book tracks such ideas back to Marx. |
| 24338 | If proof is the criterion of truth, that criterion is arbitrary, and cannot be proven [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'What allows itself to be proven, is true'. That is an arbitrary determination of the concept 'true' which does not allow itself to be proven. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[018]) | |
| A reaction: This criticism seems to anticipate the views of Hilbert and Brouwer on such things. No theory of truth can be proven within a language, and hence the later move to meta-languages. I favour the axiomatic approach to truth. |
| 24299 | Equals added to unequals maintain the difference between them [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Equals added to unequals, in time or anything else at all, always make them differ by an amount equal to that which they differed at first. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 154b) | |
| A reaction: An early assumption that entities must remain identical to themselves during any logical procedure. |
| 24302 | Without oneness we can't conceive of many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Without oneness it is impossible to conceive of many. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 166b) | |
| A reaction: This is the culmination of a long discussion of the nature of the One (of Parmenides), so it ties that concept to the standard Greek idea that counting, and hence all of arithmetic, is grounded in the concept of a unit. Primitive processes? |
| 24301 | If we subtract a part from a multitude, will that part not itself be a multitude? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Now if we would be willing to subtract, in thought, the very least we can from these multitudes, must not that which is subtracted, too, be a multitude and not one, if it doesn't partake of the one? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 158c) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be remarkably close to Dedekind's famous and widely accepted definition of infinity in Idea 9826. |
| 24297 | Is existence just being combined with time? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is to be simply partaking of being with time present? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 151e) | |
| A reaction: This would only make sense is there were a timeless mode of being, which presumably what Plato attributes to Forms and mathematics. Does that therefore imply that timeless beings 'are not'? |
| 24298 | What is becoming can't avoid the now, and then its ceases to become, and is itself [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If nothing that comes to be can sidestep the now, whenever a thing 'is' at this point, it always stops its coming-to-be and then is whatever it may have come to be. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 152c) | |
| A reaction: Just common sense, but interesting that Plato works so hard to precisely identify the stages of becoming and being. |
| 24339 | We believe in realities that affect us, and 'being' is where we detect activity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The more our interest is touched the more we believe in the reality of a thing. …The 'being' is thus understood by us as that which acts upon us, that which proves itself through its activity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[019]) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche is not an anti-realist. These comments are about 'the world that concerns us'. I see no reason why we should not speculate about being which does not affect us, and especially if it figures in complex explanations. What care I of quarks? |
| 24355 | We commit to being (rather than becoming) only because we need stable beliefs [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: As we must maintain stability in our beliefs in order to flourish, we've made it up that the 'true' world is not one of change and becoming, but is one of being. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 9[038]) | |
| A reaction: So if we commit, with Nietzsche, to becoming (rather than being) we will no longer have any stable beliefs, and hence we won't flourish. Thanks a lot, FN! Unless we can have stable beliefs about becoming… In its patterns? |
| 24335 | Kant can't distinguish appearance from thing-in-itself, because he rejected the inference needed [Nietzsche on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Kant no longer had the right to his distinction between 'appearance' and 'thing in itself' - …insofar as he rejected as impermissible the inference to a cause of the appearance, in accord with his account of causality. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) 5[004] | |
| A reaction: This is the core of the debate over whether Kant is an idealist. Nietzsche thinks he is, and hence entirely rejects his basic ontology. |
| 24292 | Are many people covered by a whole sail, or each person by a part of it? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides: If a sail covering many people is one thing as a whole over many …would the sail as a whole be over each person, or would a part of it be over one person and another part over another? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 131c) | |
| A reaction: The standard idea of a universal is a concept which is one-over-many, but does a single horse embrace all the generalities included in the concept 'horse'? A puzzle for Plato's forms, but also for modern concepts. |
| 24293 | Maybe thoughts are just thoughts in minds - but how then do they cover many instances? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: Maybe each of these forms is a thought and properly occurs only in minds. Then each of them might be one. …Parm: But won't this thing that is thought to be one, being the same over all the instances, be a form? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132b-c) | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that a word or concept can only operate as a universal (a one-over-many) if it is an ideal form. They don't seem to consider options like resemblance nominalism. Or simply that 'horse' covers many horses because it is vague. |
| 24294 | The powers of forms and powers of our world are quite separate [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The forms do not have their power in relation to things in our world, and things in our world do not have theirs in relation to the forms, but things in each group have their power in relation to themselves. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 134d) | |
| A reaction: This seems to invite the unasked question of how the forms can apply their 'power' to anything other than to other forms. How can the Form of the Good influence human morality? |
| 24288 | Probably partaking in the Forms is like being modeled on a pattern [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What appears to me most likely is these forms are like patterns set in nature, and other things resemble them and are likenesses; and this partaking of the forms is simply being modeled on them. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 132c) | |
| A reaction: This invites the question of whether the things depend for their existence on the Forms, or whether things could survive the loss of their patterns (if Zeus destroyed all the Forms). Plato generally implies dependence. |
| 24287 | If a Form exists completely in may things, then it is separated from itself [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Does a thing share the whole of its form, or a part of it? - What's to prevent the form as whole from being in each of the many? [Parmenides:] So it will be at the same time, as a whole, in things that are many; and thus it would be separate from itself. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 131a) | |
| A reaction: This is one of Parmenides' major objections to the standard theory of Foms. A Form is a single unified thing, existing in many place simultanously, which contradicts common sense. The best reply is Forms are patterns, not objects. |
| 24289 | Forms are very difficult, if we must posit a new Form every time we make a distinction [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You do not, Socrates, have an inkling of how great the difficulty is if you are going to posit one form in each case every time you make a distinction among things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 133b) | |
| A reaction: For example, is there a platonic form for each of the 39 isotopes of tin? Is there a new form each time humans create a new artifact, such as model 16 of the Apple iPhone? A rather good objection, from fictional Parmenides. |
| 24290 | The master-slave relationships are between people, not between mastery and slavery [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Masters and slaves are not masters of slavery or slaves of mastery - they are master or slave of a human being. But mastery is of slavery itself, and slavery of mastery itself. Things don't get powers from forms, nor forms from us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 133e) | |
| A reaction: This may be the key objection to platonic forms - that they lack causal powers in the real world. They may therefore fail the only sensible criterion we have for something's existence. |
| 24347 | Plato's reversal said the more value the more reality, and the more 'idea' the more being [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Platonism boasted a bold reversal. He measured the degree of reality according to the degree of value, and said: the more 'idea' the more being. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 7[02]) | |
| A reaction: The second part seems to be a sliding scale of idealism. The highest values are the most real, but the Good in particular is very vague and undetermined. You then have the problem of people with unhealthy values. |
| 24352 | The world is knowable up to a point, but there are many interpretations [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: So far as the word 'knowledge' has meaning at all, the world is knowable: but the world can be interpreted otherwise, it has no meaning behind it, rather innumerable meanings "Perspectivism" | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 7[60]) | |
| A reaction: Premonition of Putnam's account in model theory of how many models are possible for any theory. I disagree. It seems to me obvious that 'knowledge' can be assigned a sharp meaning, and that we know lots of things. Most perspectives are indistinguishable. |
| 24351 | The question of values is prior to the question of certainty [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The question of values is more fundamental than the question of certainty: the latter obtains its gravity only on the presupposition that the question of value has been answered. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 7[48]) | |
| A reaction: I think that nowadays most people, and notably scientists, have given up the pursuit of certainty - so Nietzsche has won this battle. If values label what is important, then they are self-evidently the first question in any enquiry. |
| 24363 | The Cogito means assuming substances, and a grammatical convention assigning doers to deeds [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: [The Cogito] means positing our belief in the concept of substance as 'true a priori': that if thinking occurs there must be something 'that thinks' is, however, simply a formulation of our grammatical convention that assigns a doer to each deed. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 10[158]) | |
| A reaction: He says the Cogito is not a certainty, but just 'an intensely strong belief'. The idea that it is just a linguistic convention anticipates a common twentieth century criticism. |
| 24344 | We couldn't survive having much stronger or weaker senses [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If we sharpened or dulled our senses by a factor of ten, we would perish. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[036]) | |
| A reaction: Hm. We survive looking through telescopes and microscopes. I think I could cope with hearing mice breathing, though I suppose I would then be overloaded with sensations. He must be roughly right about this. |
| 24349 | Single judgements are never 'true', because that needs coherent support [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A single judgment is never 'true', never cognition, surety first comes about in coherency, in the relationship of many judgments. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 7[04]) | |
| A reaction: [Is this Nietzsche's view, or Kant's?] If a single judgment were surrounded by coherent support, then we would judge the single judgment to be true. I hope this is Nietzsche supporting coherentism. It would fit his perspectivalism. |
| 24337 | Sciences are precise about what is superficial, and thus explore impoverished parts of existence [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Scientific exactitude is first attained in cases of the most superficial appearances; where one can count, calculate, touch, see, where quantities can be ascertained. Thus the most impoverished areas of existence have been fruitfully cultivated first. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[016]) | |
| A reaction: The advent of computers, and even AI, have just accelerated this process. Statistical methods dominate social thinking. Thus accountants dominate our education system. |
| 24295 | To find the truth about the being of something, you must study all of its consequences [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Concerning what you might hypothesise as being or as not being, or having any other property, you must examine the consequences in relation to itself and each one of the others. …All this you must do if you are to achieve a full view of the truth. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 136b-c) | |
| A reaction: This shows that Plato was keenly interested in how to study the natural world, as well the world of ideas and pure reason. This is a good first step in an account of scientific reasoning. |
| 24304 | Functional explanations occur after that thing to be explained [Edwards,J/Leiter,B] |
| Full Idea: Functional explanations are peculiar because the thing to be explained (the explanandum) is prior in time to the thing that explains it (the explanans). In evolution the speed of cheetahs is explained by their resulting reproductive success. | |
| From: Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter (Marx [2025], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of functional explanations(for the existence of eyes and ears, for example), but this pinpoints a standard objection (from those who think there are only causal explanations). My trip to London is explained by the concert I attend. |
| 24291 | A man was disgusted by corpses, but he angrily overruled his appetite [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Leontius saw some corpses near the public executioner. He desired to look at them, but was disgusted and turned away. Finally he mastered his appetite and rushed to the corpses, saying 'Look for yourselves, you evil eyes, take your fill'. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.371 BCE], 439e) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The story suggests to Socrates that anger can master appetite, so the mind must have 'spirit' [thumos], as well as reason and appetite. So the soul has three parts, not two. |
| 24336 | Intellects cannot critically self-examine, because no comparisons can be made [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The intellect cannot critically examine itself precisely because it cannot be compared with other intellects of dissimilar natures. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[011]) | |
| A reaction: There is obviously an assumption that understanding always needs comparisons. This entails that nothing unique can ever be understood, which seems dubious. An interesting thought, though. Try applying it to yourself. |
| 24358 | If something is regular and calculable, that doesn't mean it is necessary [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: That something regularly and calculably takes place does not consequently imply that it necessarily takes place. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 9[091]) | |
| A reaction: I strongly deny this fixed idea that the only alternative to free will is something called 'determinism'. That is a quite separate issue. I like Nietzsche's thought. |
| 24329 | The starting point of an action is a human being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A human being is a starting point of actions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112b31) | |
| A reaction: [Thomson translates as 'originating cause'; Ross has 'moving principle'; Irwin has 'a principle'] 'Starting point' has the minimum ontological commitment. This no more implies free will than the start of May does. It is just how we individuate actions. |
| 24330 | Deliberation ends when we return to our leading element, which does the choosing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Each of us stops inquiring about what way to act when he brings back the starting-point to himself and, within himself, to the leading element, since this is what deliberately chooses. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113a04) | |
| A reaction: [Thomson 'dominant part'; Ross' ruling part'; Irwin 'guiding part'] Sounds awfully like the 'element' which we now call 'the will'. It probably actually refers to the reason, but this is the aspect of reason which controls action (rather than belief). |
| 24320 | Involuntary actions arise from force or ignorance, with the agent contributing nothing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: An involuntary action seems to come about because of force or ignorance. What is forced has a starting-point that comes from outside, …where the agent or the one affected contributes nothing, as when wind or controlling people take him off somewhere. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1109b35) | |
| A reaction: Note that an action has a 'starting-point', but this can't be seen as free will (any more than any event has a starting-point). Severe kleptomania seems to be involuntary, despite having an interior starting point. What 'contributes' it? |
| 24323 | Voluntary acts have their starting-point in the agent himself [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The voluntary would seem to be what has its starting-point in the agent himself, when he knows the particulars in which the action lies. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111a23) | |
| A reaction: He cites failure to know the circumstantial particulars as the most forgivable sort of ignorance. Aristotle's key question about responsibility seems to concern the 'starting-point' of an action. Not free will - just the start of an event. |
| 24324 | Actions produced by feeling are just as human as rational actions, so they can be voluntary [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The non-rational feelings seem to be no less human [than reason], so that actions resulting from spirit and appetite are no less the actions of human beings. It would be strange, then to count them as involuntary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b01) | |
| A reaction: If they are voluntary then we are evidently responsible for them, but that would only apply if we could control the actions, so these acts can't be merely the product of feeling. ...I suppose we might have trained our feelings to be habitually good. |
| 24328 | The best beliefs need not produce the best choices, because vice can intervene [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The people who make the best deliberate choices do not seem to be the same as the ones who form the best beliefs; on the contrary, some people form better beliefs but because of vice choose what one shouldn't. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112a08) | |
| A reaction: This is a more careful account of why Aristotle disagrees with Socrates on akrasia. The intellectualism of Socrates implies that making the best choices largely consists of forming good beliefs. Wickedness is ignorance. |
| 24326 | Deliberate choice is voluntary, but the voluntary also covers children and animals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Deliberate choice is apparently something voluntary, although not the same as the voluntary (which extends more broadly); for children and other animals share in the voluntary but not in deliberate choice. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b07) | |
| A reaction: Since children and animals are barely responsible for what they do, this implies that responsibility correlates with deliberate choice, rather than with merely acting voluntarily. |
| 24332 | We can't refer our actions back beyond starting-points in us, so we control them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If we cannot refer our actions back to any starting-points beyond the ones in us, then, since they are indeed things that have their starting-points in us, they themselves are also up to us and voluntary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113b19) | |
| A reaction: In Idea 24326 it seems that it is deliberative choice, rather than voluntariness, which determines responsibility. The voluntariness (?) described above is necessary for responsibility, but not sufficient. |
| 24319 | People's praise and blame depends on what is voluntary, so that must be studied [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the voluntary feelings and actions which are praised and blamed, while the involuntary ones elicit sympathetic consideration and are sometimes even pitied, … so an investigation of virtue must make determinations about the voluntary and involuntary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1109b30) | |
| A reaction: The important point here is that Aristotle's study of responsibility begins with what is praised or blamed by the community. Obviously an 'unhealthy' community might praise or blame some strange actions. So community health is part of the necessary study. |
| 24321 | Bad actions done through fear are still voluntary, though they may still be praised [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Actions done because of fear of greater evils …give rise to disputes about whether they are voluntary. …But the agent does them voluntarily …because the starting-point of the action is internal to himself. The acts can even merit praise. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110a3-) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is clear that it depends on the merit of the action, and the circumstances. He says Alcmaeon should have chosen death, rather than his actual murder of his mother. He decides that forced actions all start externally. |
| 24322 | Call regretted ignorant acts 'contra-voluntary', but accepted such acts 'non-voluntary' [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Of those people who act because of ignorance, the one who regrets what he did seems a contra-voluntary agent. The one who does not regret, let him be a 'non-voluntary' agent. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110b22) | |
| A reaction: That is (I think) that the contra-voluntary actions are not properly chosen (because of the ignorance), but the non-voluntary actions would have probably chosen even if there were no ignorance. We blame the non-voluntary ones. |
| 24371 | Natural law offers guidelines when a clash of laws creates a dilemma [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Natural law suggests eight principles to understand which law should be followed in the case where both cannot be followed at the same time. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], I.17) | |
| A reaction: [The passage is too lengthy for this database] As with the strategy of 'precisification' in the case of vague concepts, so we can have secondary principles to solve some dilemmas. What Hursthouse calls 'tragic dilemmas' remain, of course. |
| 24364 | Enthusiasts' Nature is Christian ideals, of freedom, goodness, innocence, equity, justice [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The soft and cowardly concept 'nature' introduced by enthusiasts …is an attempt to read from nature that moral-Christian Rouseauian 'humanity', as if Nature were freedom, goodness, innocence, equity, justice, idyll, at base a cult of Christian morality. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 10[170]) | |
| A reaction: Pastoral poetry has a much longer history. 'King Lear' is the great debate about the values in nature. I guess 'the pcturesque' is Nietzsche's target here. |
| 24340 | When we are affected by values, we have forgotten that we created them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Suppose that we place certain values in things, then these values have an effect back upon us, once we have forgotten that we were the givers. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[019]) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a problem in the whole of human culture - that we reify and objectify all sorts of things which we created. New generations have entirely lost touch with the creative acts. Fractions, for example. |
| 24331 | The excellent person is a standard of values, because they grasp the nature of things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Each state has its own special set of things that are pleasant or noble, and the excellent person is perhaps distinguished most by his seeing what is true in each case, since he is like a standard and measure of them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113a31) | |
| A reaction: Seems like a subjective view of value, decided by superior individuals, but the point is that such people see what is 'true'. The excellent person is Aristotle's bridge between subjective and objective views. Excellence is now unfashionable! |
| 24286 | Perceiving true beauty leads to truth, and hence to goodness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There's no other medium in which someone who uses the appropriate faculty to see beauty can give birth to true goodness, instead of phantom goodness, because it is truth rather than illusion whose company he is in. | |
| From: Plato (The Symposium [c.373 BCE], 212a) | |
| A reaction: This is the core of platonism, where the faculties of love and intellect achieve the truth about beauty, which immediately leads to goodness. I wish I could find a modern way that is less mystical to express this thought. Beauty, truth and goodness. |
| 24348 | Spinoza's supreme value is clear thought, to which other values are subservient [Spinoza, by Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: [For Spinoza] nothing has value when compared to the value of clear inference. All other values are merely the consequence of unclear thought. | |
| From: report of Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) 7[02] | |
| A reaction: Spinoza certainly embodies the Enlightenment respect for reason. What if clear inference suggested that there are no values, or that lives go better if we are irrational? I see little connection between reason and value. Values label what is important. |
| 24361 | It is naďve to posit any one value from consciousness as the highest value [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is naivety to posit pleasure or spirituality or morality or any single particular from the sphere of consciousness as the highest value. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 10[137]) | |
| A reaction: His main reason is that we overrate what is conscious. I agree. I see myself less and less as a primarily conscious being. Just watch yourself while you cook a meal or drive a car. You are highly rational, but consciousness is a small part. |
| 24368 | In a shipwreck I am entitled to defend my one-person plank by force [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: In a shipwreck, suppose I have got hold of a plank which cannot carry two, if someone swims up with the intention of getting on the plank with me, thus destroying both of us together, I may use any amount of force to keep him away from the plank. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], I.05) | |
| A reaction: The limits of altruism. Presumably the force could include killing him. This example was often cited in the seventeenth century. The point is that Pufendorf is citing it as a self-evident principle of natural law. What if the other man is the King? |
| 24350 | Should I value my neighbour higher than me, and my neighbour value me higher than themselves? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What does it mean that the well-being of my neighbour should be of higher value to me than my own? That, however, the neighbour should assess the value of his well-being other than I do, namely that he should simply place my well-being above it? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 7[06]) | |
| A reaction: Has Nietzsche fallen into the Kantian trap that says morality should be consistent. This idea is what I call the 'paradox of altruism', that everyone values others higher than themselves, and also that suffering is what promotes altruism. |
| 24334 | We have control of an action when we know the particulars [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We control our actions from their starting-point up to their end because we know the particulars. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1114b30) | |
| A reaction: Presumably we might cease to be responsible in the middle of an action, because of unavoidable ignorance of changing particulars. |
| 24360 | The virtuous are not persons, because they conform to a fixed scheme for life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A virtuous human is a lower species because he is not a 'person', but rather he takes his value from conforming to a schema of the human that is set out once and for all. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 10[085]) | |
| A reaction: This is a standard objection to virtue theory - that it is too conservative, because the virtues are socially determined. I can't see why 'higher' beings can't develop their own virtues. The historical figures Nietzsche admires have distinctive virtues. |
| 24325 | Deliberate choices (rather than actions) best reveal character [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Deliberate choice …seems to better distinguish people's characters than their actions do. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b04) | |
| A reaction: That is, roughly, that we should know people not by what they do, but their reasons for doing them. So attend more closely to what they say than to what they do. I think I agree with this, though is is contrary to the normal view. But see Idea 24327. |
| 24327 | Character is determined and revealed by how actions are chosen (and not by beliefs) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is by deliberately choosing good things or bad things that we are people of a certain sort, not by believing them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112a01) | |
| A reaction: ….So we know character not by mere action, or by mere beliefs expressed, but by the reasons that people have for what they do. For Aristotle character concerns how we act, and not just how we are when sitting quietly. |
| 24333 | Depravity of character is initially voluntary, but eventually it can't be changed [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It was possible at the start for the unjust and the intemperate person not to become like that, which is why such people are voluntarily unjust and intemperate; but once they have become like that, it is no longer possible not to be. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1114a20) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be generally true, but there seem to be cases of big changes later on in moral character, usually resulting from traumatic events. Or there may be a long slow progress into either depravity or nobility of character. |
| 24373 | Cautious men see everyone as a friend who could become an enemy [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: A cautious man who loves his own security will believe all men his friends, but liable at any time to become enemies. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.01) | |
| A reaction: I'm looking at my friends in a different light after reading this one. This sounds like a strategy in game theory. |
| 24345 | We have nihilism now, because what seems the only possible interpretation has collapsed [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Nihilism appears now …because one interpretation collapsed; because it was deemed the interpretation, it seems as if there is utterly no meaning in existence, as if everything is in vain. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[071].4) | |
| A reaction: One can imagine such a feeling in German Nazis in 1945, or Russian communists in 1989. Collapses are quick, but rebuildings are very slow. |
| 24372 | In nature we rely on strength, and life is utterly hideous in every respect [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: In the state of nature each is protected only by his own strength. There is the reign of passions, there there is war, fear, poverty, nastiness, solitude, barbarity, ignorance, savagery. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.01) | |
| A reaction: He then describes a state in glowing terms. Clearly Pufendorf thought that Hobbes had been too soft in his account. |
| 24377 | The unity of a people is only possible through subservience to a man or an assembly [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: The only means by which the wills of the many may be united is that each submit his will to the will of one man or one assembly, so that the will of that man or assembly on common security be taken as the will of all. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.06) | |
| A reaction: Only anarchists could, I think, disagree with this. Like Hobbes, Pufendorf preferred one man for the job (to avoid conflict), but all other modern countries acknowledge an assembly, usually elected. He doesn't acknowledge Hobbes's social contract. |
| 24376 | A good citizen is obedient, puts the state before himself, and identifies his good with the state's [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: A good citizen is one who promptly obeys the orders of those in power; one who strives for the public good, and puts his private good second - one, in fact, who believes that nothing is good for him unless it is also good for the state. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.05) | |
| A reaction: We are obviously some way off liberal democracy here. Neoliberals are more selfish; trade unionists are less obedient. Perhaps the test of a good citizen is willingness to pay taxes. |
| 24310 | Young Hegelians think the conflict only concerns concepts and ideas [Marx] |
| Full Idea: [The Young Hegelians] consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas as the real chains of men, and take it as evident that they have to fight only against these illusions of consciousness. …They are opposing nothing but phrases to these phrases. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860], Vol 5: 30), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 5.1 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This leads Marx to dialectical materialism, and to revolutionary thinking. |
| 24309 | An ideology is largely false, is biased and unevidenced, and supports the ruling class [Marx, by Edwards,J/Leiter,B] |
| Full Idea: Marx assumes, in general, that at least some of an ideology is false, that an ideology is the product of theorists who make biased claims undetermined by evidence, and that an ideology only supports the interests of the ruling class. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860]) by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 5.0 | |
| A reaction: [summarised] I tend to understand an ideology as simply the theory which guides any social movement, and that it is possible for an ideology to be very good. If a Marxist ideology is gradually improved, when does it stop being an ideology? |
| 24311 | Ideologists think their theories drive social forces, when they are actually mere symptoms [Marx] |
| Full Idea: In general ideologists inevitably put the thing upside-down, and regard their ideology both as the creative force and as the aim of all social relations, whereas it is only an expression and symptom of these relations.154 | |
| From: Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860], Vol 5: 419-20), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 5.1 | |
| A reaction: Marx can't seem to decide whether ideologists are actively duplicitous, or merely misguided. I presume the latter, since Marxists tend to assume that no one (apart from Marxists?) is aware of their own biases. |
| 24378 | Democracy is rule by an assembly of the heads of households [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Where sovereignty is in the hands of an assembly consisting of all heads of households, this is called democracy. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.08) | |
| A reaction: He is explicit that the heads of households should always be men, though he never explains why. A useful reminder that democracy does not entail universal suffrage (or even elections). |
| 24365 | What divides us from Christian values is respect for even non-virtuous humans [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Respect for humans, and in fact decidedly not merely for virtuous humans, is perhaps the element that divides us most strongly from a Christian valuation. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 10[176]) | |
| A reaction: Christianity does at least value the salvation of every individual soul, but we are all degraded by intrinsic sin. I classify this under 'liberalism', which may not fit Nietzsche's elitism, because I take respect to be the defining liberal value. |
| 24303 | Alienation is from the product, the work, the human achievement, and from fellow humans [Marx, by Edwards,J/Leiter,B] |
| Full Idea: Marx sees four types of alienation: from the product of labour, from the activity of work itself, from a worker's species-being [Gattungswesen, the distinctive human power], and from other humans. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (Paris Manuscripts [1844]) by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 1.4 | |
| A reaction: [summary by PG] A helpful breakdown of the concept. It invites the question of whether the four are united, or whether some could occur without others. A happy team doing alienated labour; a dreary life doing something worthwhile. |
| 24305 | The dictatorship of the proletariat is just a transition stage to a classless society [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The dictatorship of the proletariat only constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860], Vol 39:62-5 letter), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 3.0 | |
| A reaction: The authors note that the Roman 'dictatura' was an office granted powers for up to six months. The concept seems to have been abused in the Soviet Union, where the power was both sustained and ruthless. |
| 24308 | The working class will gradual exclude social classes and their antagonisms [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society, an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860], Vol 6:212), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 3.4A | |
| A reaction: A hopeless dream. The exclusion of the formation of classes will need to be enforced, which will necessitate a group with superior power (the Communist Party, for example). A group with superior power was precisely what Marx hoped to avoid. |
| 24307 | The proletariat will become the ruling class, wresting all capital, and centralising production [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860], Vol 6:504), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 3.4A | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that Marx failed to grasp the importance of education in the modern world. To run the modern world the proletariat need education, but it is obvious that highly educated people tend to become bourgeois. |
| 24306 | The bourgeoisie now control society, through modern industry and markets [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of modern industry and the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Collected works (w Engels) - 50 vols [1860], Vol 6: 486), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This idea has endured and led to hatred of the middle classes, and even their extermination. And yet surely if the proletariat gain power and wealth, they become bourgeois? This is all outmoded by the modern super-rich. |
| 24346 | We need many nations, to produce a world-perspective [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: As many international powers as possible - to put into practice the world-perspective. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 5[084]) | |
| A reaction: An original view of world affairs, which deserves serious consideration. But huge states produce a few huge wars, and lots of little states produce lots of little wars? Still, if liberalism promotes intellectual creativity, so should this suggestion. |
| 24374 | A man may sell his son into slavery, if the alternative is death from want [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: If there is no other means of supporting his child, a father may give up his son as a pledge for a loan, or sell him into endurable slavery rather than let him die of want, at least on the condition that these acts may be revoked. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.03) | |
| A reaction: Shocking to us, but bear in mind 1) very large families, and 2) that to die of want was not uncommon. Even so, using your son as surety for a load is a bit startling, coming from a famous proponent of natural law. |
| 24375 | Originally slavery was probably voluntary, driven by necessities [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: In the beginning slaves probably offered themselves of their own free will; their motive was poverty, or a sense of their own lack of intelligence. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.04) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to say that the commonest type of slave is a prisoner of war (who is lucky to be alive). There are still people who are trapped in poverty or illiterate, and are facing such a dilemma. |
| 24316 | Private property is self-interested freedom, rather than freedom through community [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The right to private property is the self-interested right to dispose of one's own fortune, independently of society, and is the basis of civil society. It makes men see in others not the realisation of his own freedom, but the barrier to it. | |
| From: Karl Marx (On the Jewish Question [1844], Vol 3: 135), quoted by Peter Gibson - Natural Ideas: a naturalist system of philosophy | |
| A reaction: The idea that freedom is a communal matter is probably Hegel's main legacy to Marx. |
| 24369 | We are all equal in human nature, and hence should treat others as equals [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Human nature belongs equally to all …and hence it is the duty of every man that each man value and treat the other as naturally his equal, or as equally a man. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], I.07) | |
| A reaction: Being 'equally a man' is a mere tautology, and any other sense of 'equal' needs to specify the respect of the equality (which obviously is not height). I would guess that the equality is in their common human needs, like food, drink, shelter, security. |
| 24315 | The state pretends that inequalities are non-political, but takes their influence for granted [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The state abolishes distinctions of birth, rank, education, occupation, by saying they are non-political, making all citizens equal partners. But the state allows private property, education, occupation, which exert their influence, and are presupposed. | |
| From: Karl Marx (On the Jewish Question [1844], Vol 3: 153), quoted by Jaime Edwards/Brian Leiter - Marx 6.1 | |
| A reaction: It is certainly true that educational qualifications are seen as equal, despite any inequalities in how they are achieved. Marx persistently sees the supposed virtues of liberal societies as illusory. |
| 24370 | Equity corrects deficiencies in more universal laws [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Equity is the correction of what is deficient in the law because of its universality. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], I.17) | |
| A reaction: For Pufendorf this is most needed when there is a gap between 'the letter of the law' and the principles of natural law. Some school teachers need to be reminded of the principle of equity when administering school rules! |
| 24366 | Natural law fits human nature so closely that a society cannot flourish without it [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Natural law is law which is so congruent with the rational and social nature of man that there cannot be a good and peaceful society for the human race without it. Hence it can be known …by reflection on human nature in general. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], I.02) | |
| A reaction: 'Nonsense on stilts' says Bentham! My view is closer to Pufendorf. If law is merely the creation of rulers, what guidance could that have other than human nature, if a flourishing society is the aim? Only imperialism or pyramids would need otherwise. |
| 24367 | The basic natural law is: everyone should cultivate and preserve society [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental natural law is: every man ought to do as much as he can to cultivate and preserve sociality. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], I.03) | |
| A reaction: That seems exactly right, and yet what is the authority for making such a firm assertion? The only possible basis for natural law has to be a wide consensus among the citizens. Then the consensus might vary between cultures. |
| 24359 | Crime is a rebellion against social order, so punishment should be the quelling of rebels [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Crime belongs to the concept 'rebellion against the social order'. One does not punish a rebel, one suppresses him. …The concept of punishment should be reduced to the concept of quelling a rebellion. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 10[050]) | |
| A reaction: This seems to fit the actual practice of the law quite accurately. Recently we have pounced on rebels against the oil industry, or against defenders of Israel, even when they do little actual harm. |
| 24381 | Humanity requires us to minimise an enemy's suffering when we pursue our rights [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Humanity requires that so far as the momentum of warfare permits, we should inflict no more suffering on an enemy than defence or vindication of our right and its future assurance requires. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.16) | |
| A reaction: The standard natural law view. Dream on! War always lets loose chaos and innumerable opportunities for unfettered violence and cruelty. That is not to disagree with the principle, which seems right. |
| 24380 | A citizen does no wrong if he obediently fights in an unjust war [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: If a citizen bears arms on the orders of the sovereign even in an unjust war, he does not do wrong. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.12) | |
| A reaction: Pufendorf goes on to say that the individual still bears moral responibility for specific wrongs, such as bearing false witness. McMahan disagrees with this idea. |
| 24379 | Sovereigns need only maintain subjects who (undeservingly) cannot support themselves [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Sovereigns are not obliged to maintain their subjects, though, exceptionally, charity requires them to take particular care of those who cannot support themselves because of some undeserved misfortune. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.11) | |
| A reaction: In Anglo-Saxon England lords seem to have fully maintained their followers, perhaps because they owned all the food and housing. Plenty of scope here to debate the meaning of 'cannot' and 'undeserved'! |
| 24382 | Teachers should hold knowledge worthless if it does not enhance our lives [Pufendorf] |
| Full Idea: Teachers should hold that all human knowledge which is not useful for human and civil life is worthless. | |
| From: Samuel Pufendorf (On the Duty of Man and Citizen [1673], II.18) | |
| A reaction: An idea which was despised in the twentieth century, but is approaching orthodoxy in the twenty-first. Personally I think the arts and philosophy hugely enhance human life, but that view is becoming an uphill struggle. |
| 24296 | The one is completely unmoving, because no types of motion are possible for it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one doesn't change places by going somewhere and coming to be in something, not does it move by spinning in the same location or by being altered, …so the one is therefore unmoved by every sort of motion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 139a) | |
| A reaction: This is the culmination of a sequence of arguments. The argument is here proposed by a semi-fictional Parmenides long after his death. This is a sort of ontological argument, drawing inferences from the nature of the central concept. |
| 24353 | We should avoid the idea of the unity of everything, because we then give it godlike authority [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It seems important to me, that one rid oneself of the all, the unity, any sort of force, an unconditioned; one would not be able to avoid taking it as the highest authority and baptising it God. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 7[62]) | |
| A reaction: I don't see much sign that any Greeks after Parmenides saw the One as a god, because it lacks all movement. I also doubt whether a fully unified physics will culminate in a religion. Don't panic, Friedrich. |
| 24300 | The instant has no time, but change moves to rest in an instant [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The instant signifies something such that changing occurs from it to each of two states. …This queer creature the instant lurks between motion and rest - being in no time at all - and to it and from it the moving thing changes to resting, and vice versa. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 156d) | |
| A reaction: An instant of time, and the now, strike me as the weirdest and most incomprehensible features in all of reality. I have nothing more to say on the subject. How could the place where past meets future have a duration of its own? |
| 24357 | The second Buddhism was a nihilistic catastrophe [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The second Buddhism was a nihilistic catastrophe that put an end to Indian culture. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1886-87 (v 17) [1887], 9[082]) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to give some of his reasons. Less knowledgeable people (such as myself) tend to see Buddhism as a single movement, so I find this interesting. I often see a nihilistic strain in eastern thought. The recipe for life: don't think or act. |