6 ideas
| 15663 | Adorno and Horkheimer subjected the Enlightenment to 'critical theory' analysis [Adorno/Horkheimer, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: Adorno and Horkheimer's analysis of Enlightenment sets the agenda for the subsequent development of critical theory. | |
| From: report of T Adorno / M Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1944]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.1:07 |
| 20572 | De Sade said it was impossible to rationally argue against murder [Adorno/Horkheimer] |
| Full Idea: De Sade trumpeted far and wide the impossibility of deriving from reason any fundamental argument against murder. | |
| From: T Adorno / M Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1944], p.118) | |
| A reaction: [They focus on 'Juliette'] This is a big problem for utilitarians, because murdering an unhappy person may maximise happiness. Presumably a maniac could will universal carnage, and thus thwart Kant. |
| 13550 | To be always happy is to lack knowledge of one half of nature [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: To be always happy and to pass through life without any mental distress is to lack knowledge of one half of nature. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §4) | |
| A reaction: These kind of paradoxes plague virtue theory, and any theory which aims at an ideal. Heaven, for example, seems to have no problems to solve, which spells boredom. The fascination of corrupt people is their superior knowledge of the world. |
| 13549 | Nothing bad can happen to a good man [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Nothing bad can happen to a good man. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is a pithy summary of a well know ancient attitude - one that is rejected by Aristotle, but defended by Socrates. It depends what you mean by 'bad' - but that is a rather modern response. |
| 21994 | The handmill gives feudalism, the steam mill capitalism [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill society with the industrial capitalist. | |
| From: Karl Marx (The Poverty of Philosophy [1847], p.202), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 7 | |
| A reaction: If technology dictates social structure, then feudalism is still with us, in low-tech industries. What if the steam mill had been invented in 1300? |
| 13548 | The ocean changes in volume in proportion to the attraction of the moon [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: The waves increase by degrees, approaching to the hour and day proportionately larger or smaller in volume as they are attracted by the star we call the moon, whose power controls the ocean's surge. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §1) | |
| A reaction: ....just in case anyone thought that Isaac Newton had invented gravity. |