40 ideas
| 22338 | An unexamined life can be virtuous [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: An unexamined life can be virtuous. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: Nice. A firm rejection of the intellectualist view of virtue, to which most Greeks subscribed. Jesus would have liked this one. |
| 6928 | Only that which can be an object of religion is an object of philosophy [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Only that which can be an object of religion is an object of philosophy. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §35) | |
| A reaction: The temple of Pythagoras at Solon sounds like an embodiment of this idea. The obvious candidate would be truth, to which philosophers must show almost religious respect. Some what motivates the philosophy of a minimalist (Idea 3750)? |
| 22337 | Philosophy must keep returning to the beginning [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy has in a sense to keep trying to return to the beginning. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: This is a sign that philosophy is not like other subjects, and indicates that although the puzzles are not solved, they won't go away. Also that, unlike most other subjects, the pre-suppositions are not part of the subject. |
| 23563 | Philosophy moves continually between elaborate theories and the obvious facts [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: There is a two-way movement in philosophy, a movement towards the building of elaborate theories, and a move back again towards the consideration of simple and obvious facts. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Without the theories there is no philosophy, but without continual reference back to the obvious facts the theories are worthless. |
| 6918 | Philosophy should not focus on names, but on the determined nature of things [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy need not care about the conceptions that common usage or misuse attaches to a name; philosophy, however, has to bind itself to the determined nature of things, whose signs are names. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §23) | |
| A reaction: I like this attempt to nip ordinary language philosophy in the bud. Indeed I like the notion of philosophy binding itself to the 'determined nature of things' (which sound like essences to me), rather than to their names or descriptions. |
| 6904 | Modern philosophy begins with Descartes' abstraction from sensation and matter [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The beginning of Descartes' philosophy, namely, the abstraction from sensation and matter, is the beginning of modern speculative philosophy. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §10) | |
| A reaction: In Britain it might be said that modern philosophy begins with a rebellion against Descartes' move. Feuerbach is charting the movement towards idealism. |
| 6931 | Empiricism is right about ideas, but forgets man himself as one of our objects [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Empiricism rightly derives the origin of our ideas from the senses; only it forgets that the most important and essential object of man is man himself. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §41) | |
| A reaction: This seems to nicely pinpoint the objection of most 'continental' philosophy to British empiricism and analytic philosophy. It seems to point towards Husserl's phenomenology as the next step. It is true that empiricists divided person from world. |
| 6933 | The laws of reality are also the laws of thought [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The laws of reality are also the laws of thought. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §45) | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot, though it runs contrary to a lot of conventionalist thinking in the twentieth century. Russell, though, agrees with Feuerbach (Idea 5405). There is not much point to thought if it doesn't plug into reality at the roots. |
| 6919 | Absolute thought remains in another world from being [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Absolute thought never extricates itself from itself to become being. Being remains in another world. …If being is to be added to an object of thought, so must something distinct from thought be added to thought itself. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §24/5) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit like a child wishing for the moon. Is he saying he doesn't just want to think about reality - he wants his mental states to BE external reality? The distinction between a thought and its content or intentionality would help here. |
| 19457 | Being is what is undetermined, and hence indistinguishable [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Being in the sense in which it is an object of speculative thought is that which is purely and simply unmediated, that is, undetermined; in other words, there is nothing to distinguish and nothing to think of in being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], 26) | |
| A reaction: This sounds remarkably like the idea of 'prime matter' used in scholastic Aristotelian philosophy. Matter existing without form is somehow ungraspable, but presented from Hegel onwards as the ultimate mystery. |
| 6920 | Being posits essence, and my essence is my being [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Being is the positing of essence. That which is my essence is my being. The fish exists in water; you cannot, however, separate its essence from this being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §27) | |
| A reaction: This throws a different light on later (e.g. Heidegger) discussions of 'being', which may map onto Aristotelian discussions of essences. |
| 6921 | Particularity belongs to being, whereas generality belongs to thought [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Particularity and individuality belong to being, whereas generality belongs to thought. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §29) | |
| A reaction: This agrees with Russell's view that every sentence (and proposition) must contain a universal (i.e a generality). The very notion of thinking 'about' a horse seems to require a move to the universal concept of a horse. |
| 6926 | The only true being is of the senses, perception, feeling and love [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Being as an object of being - and only this being is being and deserves the name of being - is the being of the senses, perception, feeling, and love. …Only passion is the hallmark of existence. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §33) | |
| A reaction: This remark seems to make Feuerbach a romantic and anti-Enlightenment figure. I don't see why there shouldn't be just as much 'being' in doing maths as in admiring a landscape. The mention of love links him to Empedocles (Ideas 459 + 630). |
| 6908 | Consciousness is absolute reality, and everything exists through consciousness [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is the absolute reality, the measure of all existence; all that exists, exists only as being for consciousness, as comprehended in consciousness; for consciousness is first and foremost being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §17) | |
| A reaction: This is Feuerbach declaring himself in favour of idealism even as he was trying to rebel against it, and move towards a more sensuous and human view of the world. I just see idealists as confusing ontology and epistemology. |
| 6932 | Ideas arise through communication, and reason is reached through community [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Only through communication and conversation between man and man do ideas arise; not alone, but only with others, does one reach notions and reason in general. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §41) | |
| A reaction: This is a strikingly modern view of the solipsism problem, and is close in spirit to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument (Ideas 4143 +4158). Feuerbach is interested in universals rather than rules. I prefer Feuerbach. |
| 6935 | In man the lowest senses of smell and taste elevate themselves to intellectual acts [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Even the lowest senses, smell and taste, elevate themselves in man to intellectual and scientific acts. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §53) | |
| A reaction: Since Darwin we have, I am glad to say, lost this need to distinguish what is 'low' or 'high', and to try to show that even our 'lowest' functions are on the 'high' side. Personally, though, I still need the low/high distinction in moral thinking. |
| 6925 | The new philosophy thinks of the concrete in a concrete (not a abstract) manner [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The new philosophy is the philosophy that thinks of the concrete not in an abstract, but in a concrete manner. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §31) | |
| A reaction: This leads to placing a high value on art, and on virtuous action through particulars rather than principles, and on empirical science. The only problem is that what he proposes is impossible. To think 'about' is to abstract from the particulars. |
| 22341 | Literature is the most important aspect of culture, because it teaches understanding of living [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], i) | |
| A reaction: It is significant that literature belongs more clearly to a nation or community than does most music or painting. You learn about Russians from their literature, but not much from their music. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 22347 | Appreciating beauty in art or nature opens up the good life, by restricting selfishness [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: The appreciation of beauty in art or nature is not only the easiest available spiritual exercise; it is also a completely adequate entry into (and not just analogy of) the good life, since it checks selfishness in the interest of seeing the real. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], II) | |
| A reaction: Not keen on 'spiritual' exercises, but I very much like 'seeing the real' as a promotion of the good life. The hard bit is to know what reality you are seeing in a work of art. [p.84] Her example is the sudden sight of a hovering kestrel. |
| 6924 | Plotinus was ashamed to have a body [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Plotinus, according to his biographers, was ashamed to have a body. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §29) | |
| A reaction: When Feuerbach draws our attention to this, we see what an astonishing state it is for a human being to have got into. Modern thought is appalled by it, but it also has something heroic about it, like swimming all the time because you want to be a fish. |
| 22339 | Love is a central concept in morals [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Love is a central concept in morals. ....[p.30] The central concept of morality is 'the individual' thought of as knowable by love, thought of in the light of the command 'Be ye therefore perfect'. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a critique of the chillier aspects of utilitarianism and Kantian duty. Love doesn't seem essential to Aristotle's concept of virtue either, and Murdoch's tradition seems to be Christian. I'm undecided about this idea. |
| 22348 | Ordinary human love is good evidence of transcendent goodness [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Is not ordinary human love ...striking evidence of a transcendental principle of good? | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], II) | |
| A reaction: Sorry to be mean, but I would say not. Love is tied up with sexual desire, and with family and tribal loyalty, and can be observed in quite humble animals. (Love, I should quickly add, is a very good thing indeed. Really). |
| 6927 | If you love nothing, it doesn't matter whether something exists or not [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: To him who loves nothing it is all the same whether something does or does not exist. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §33) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be quite a good motto for the aim of education - just get them to love something, no matter what (well, almost!). Loving something, even if it is train-spotting, seems a good route to human happiness. |
| 22343 | If I attend properly I will have no choices [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: If I attend properly I will have no choices, and this is the ultimate condition to be aimed at. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: I take it this is an expression of what we now call Particularism. It is not just that every moral situation is subtly morally different, but that the particulars of the situation will lead directly to moral choices (in a 'healthy' agent). |
| 22349 | Art trains us in the love of virtue [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: The enjoyment of art is a training in the love of virtue. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], III) | |
| A reaction: Very Aristotelian to talk of 'training'. Unfortunately it is children who have the greatest need for training, but most art is aimed at mature adults. Can you be too old to be trained by art, even if you enjoy it? |
| 22340 | It is hard to learn goodness from others, because their virtues are part of their personal history [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: It is the historical, individual, nature of the virtues as actually exemplified which makes it difficult to learn goodness from another person. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: A penetrating remark, which strikes me as true. When confronted with a virtuous person you might want to acquire their virtue, just as you might want them to teach you algebra, but their virtues are too bound up with their individuality. |
| 22350 | Only trivial virtues can be possessed on their own [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: It would be impossible to have only one virtue, unless it were a very trivial one such as thrift. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], III) | |
| A reaction: A nicely nuanced commitment to the unity of virtue. You might exhibit courage alone in a brute animal way, but the sort of courage we all admire is part of more extended virtues. |
| 22346 | Moral reflection and experience gradually reveals unity in the moral world [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Reflection rightly tends to unify the moral world, and increasing moral sophistication reveals increasing unity. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], II) | |
| A reaction: As an example she suggests asking what is the best type of courage. Connections to other virtues will emerge. That is a persuasive example. We all have strong views on what type of courage is the most admirable. |
| 22342 | Kantian existentialists care greatly for reasons for action, whereas Surrealists care nothing [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: What may be called the Kantian wing and the Surrealist wing of existentialism may be distinguished by the degree of their interest in reasons for action, which diminishes to nothing at the Surrealist end. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: Presumably for all existentialists moral decisions are the most important aspect of life, since they define what you are, but the Surrealist wing seem to be nihilists about that, so they barely count as existentialists. For them life is sleepwalking. |
| 22351 | Only a philosopher might think choices create values [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: The ordinary person does not, unless corrupted by philosophy, believe that he creates values by his choices. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], III) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a swipe at Nietzsche, more than anyone. Sartre and co talk less about values, other than authenticity. Philosophy can definitely be corrupting. |
| 6934 | Man is not a particular being, like animals, but a universal being [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Man is not a particular being, like the animals, but a universal being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §53) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit extravagent. The capacity of man to use universals in thought seems crucial to Feuerbach (though he doesn't directly address the problem). 'We are particulars with access to universals' sounds better. |
| 6936 | The essence of man is in community, but with distinct individuals [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The essence of man is contained only in the community and unity of man and man; it is a unity, however, which rests only on the reality of the distinction between I and thou. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §59) | |
| A reaction: In English provincial suburbs (where I live) it is astonishing how little interest in and need for their neighbours people seem to have. People seem to survive without community. Most of us, though, think full human happiness needs community. |
| 22345 | Moral philosophy needs a central concept with all the traditional attributes of God [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: God was (or is) a single perfect transcendent non-representable and necessarily real object of attention. ....Moral philosophy should attempt to retain a central concept which has all these characteristics. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], II) | |
| A reaction: This is a combination of middle Platonism (which sees the Form of the Good as the mind of God) and G.E. Moore's indefinable ideal of goodness. Murdoch connects this suggestion with the centrality of love in moral philosophy. I disagree. |
| 6913 | God's existence cannot be separated from essence and concept, which can only be thought as existing [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: God is the being in which existence cannot be separated from essence and concept and which cannot be thought except as existing. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §18) | |
| A reaction: This shows how faith in God endured through the Idealist movement by means of the Ontological Argument, despite the criticisms of Hume and Kant. To me this now appears as an odd abberation in the history of human thought. |
| 6903 | If God is only an object for man, then only the essence of man is revealed in God [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: If God is only an object of man, what is revealed to us in his essence? Nothing but the essence of man. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §07) | |
| A reaction: It is important to distinguish here between what we could know about God, and what we think God might actually be like. We may well only be able to read the essence of man into God, but we might speculate that God is more than that. |
| 6923 | God is what man would like to be [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: God is what man would like to be. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §29) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to see how even the most devout person could deny the truth of this. Perhaps the essential hallmark of humanity is a desire to be different from the way we are. |
| 6911 | God is for us a mere empty idea, which we fill with our own ego and essence [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: God exists, but he is for us a tabula rasa, an empty being, a mere idea; God, as we conceive and think of him, is our ego, our mind, and our essence. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §17) | |
| A reaction: He accepted God's existence because of the Ontological Argument. This is a little stronger than Hume's view (Idea 2185), because Hume seems to be talking about imagining God, but Feuerbach says this is our understanding of God. |
| 6902 | Catholicism concerns God in himself, Protestantism what God is for man [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Protestantism is no longer concerned, as Catholicism is, about what God is in himself, but about what he is for man. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §02) | |
| A reaction: It is certainly true that the major religions in their origins seem to be almost exclusively concerned with God alone, and have little interest in human life (or morality). |
| 6905 | Absolute idealism is the realized divine mind of Leibnizian theism [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Absolute idealism is nothing but the realized divine mind of Leibnizian theism. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §10) | |
| A reaction: In general it seems an accurate commentary that during the eighteenth century philosophers on the continent were designing a religion without God. Kantian duty tries to replace the authority of God with pure reason. |