display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
7 ideas
| 22323 | The philosophical I is the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body, or the human soul of wh9ch psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], 1916. 2 Sep), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 58 Intro | |
| A reaction: This is to treat the self as a phenomenon of thought, rather than of a human being. So if a machine could think, would it hence necessarily have a metaphysical self? |
| 2940 | The subject stands outside our understanding of the world [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 5.632) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. We must not confuse epistemology with ontology, but the perceived world exists between two limits - the farthest reaches of my perceptions, and the farthest reaches of myself. I wish I could clearly disentangle the nearer border. Dasein? |
| 5676 | To say that I 'know' I am in pain means nothing more than that I AM in pain [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: As the word is normally used, it can't be said of me at all that I 'know' I am in pain; what is it supposed to mean - except perhaps that I am in pain? | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §246) | |
| A reaction: This raises the question of whether self-consciousness implies self-knowledge, and suggests that it doesn't. All our normal talk of knowledge requires some sort of reliable justification of beliefs, and we can't drop that in the case of self-knowledge. |
| 22419 | 'I' is a subject in 'I am in pain' and an object in 'I am bleeding' [Wittgenstein, by McGinn] |
| Full Idea: 'I' is used as a subject in 'I am in pain', ....and used as an object in 'I am bleeding'. | |
| From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (The Blue and Brown Notebooks [1936], pp. 66-7) by Colin McGinn - Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals 4 | |
| A reaction: How about 'my wound is painful'? Does that have the logical form of a conversation? This idea is incorrect. Shoemaker (1968) suggests that the subjective use is immune to error, unlike the object use. |
| 23498 | The modern idea of the subjective soul is composite, and impossible [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: Therre is no such thing as the soul - the subject, etc. - as it is conceived in the superficial psychology of the present day. Indeed a composite soul would no longer be a soul. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 5.5421) | |
| A reaction: This seems to endorse Descartes' claim about the essential unity of the mind. I think Hume is in the background of LW's thought. Presumably the psychologist offered a 'composite' view. Prior discussion of belief leads into this remark. |
| 20323 | Freedom needs knowledge, the possibility of arbitrariness, and law [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Without knowledge there is no freedom ....and without an arbitrary act there is no freedom, ....and there is no freedom without law. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: He emphasises that an arbitrary act is not a free act, but it is a precondition for being free. The submission to law is active freedom. If you believe in education (and you should) you must believe that knowledge is liberating. |
| 20322 | I am aware that freedom is possible, and the freedom is not in theory, but in seeking freedom [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Either there is no freedom or it is in asking about it. But what makes me ask is an original will to be free, so my freedom is anticipated in the fact of asking. I cannot prove it first, then will it. I will it because I am conscious of its possibility. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This presents the subjective claims for free will rather more persuasively than usual. I am conscious of a possibility that I might flap my arms and fly, so that doesn't establish anything. But yearning to be free is a sort of freedom. |