display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
20742 | The real subject is ethical, not cognitive [Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: The real subject is not the cognitive subject …the real subject is the ethically existing subject. | |
From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.281), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Subjective' | |
A reaction: Perhaps we should say the essence of the self is its drive to live, not its drive to know. Just getting through the day is top priority, and ethics don’t figure much for the solitary person. But each activity, such as cooking, has its virtues. |
16002 | The self is a combination of pairs of attributes: freedom/necessity, infinite/finite, temporal/eternal [Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: A human being is essentially spirit, but what is spirit? Spirit is to be a self. But what is the Self? In short, it is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. | |
From: Søren Kierkegaard (Sickness unto Death [1849], p.59) | |
A reaction: The dense language of his first paragraph was to poke fun at fashionable Hegelian writing. The book gets very lucid afterwards! [SY] |
2506 | If I have a set of mental modules, someone had better be in charge of them! [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If there is a community of computers living in my head, there had also better be somebody who is in charge; and, by God, it had better be me. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) | |
A reaction: Dennett quotes this as a quaintly old-fashioned view. I agree quite strongly with Fodor, for reasons that Dennett should like - evolutionary ones. A mind is a useless tool without central co-ordination. What makes my long-term plans? It isn't anarchy! |