16 ideas
| 9271 | Human knowledge may not produce well-being; the examined life may not be worth living [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Human knowledge is one thing, human well-being another. There is no predetermined harmony between the two. The examined life may not be worth living. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 1.9) | |
| A reaction: John Gray has set himself up as the Eeyore of modern times, but this point may obviously be correct. Presumably Socrates meant that the examined life was better even if the result was less 'well-being'. Even Gray doesn't want a lobotomy. |
| 18086 | Weierstrass eliminated talk of infinitesimals [Weierstrass, by Kitcher] |
| Full Idea: Weierstrass effectively eliminated the infinitesimalist language of his predecessors. | |
| From: report of Karl Weierstrass (works [1855]) by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.6 |
| 18092 | Weierstrass made limits central, but the existence of limits still needed to be proved [Weierstrass, by Bostock] |
| Full Idea: After Weierstrass had stressed the importance of limits, one now needed to be able to prove the existence of such limits. | |
| From: report of Karl Weierstrass (works [1855]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.4 | |
| A reaction: The solution to this is found in work on series (going back to Cauchy), and on Dedekind's cuts. |
| 9275 | Knowledge does not need minds or nervous systems; it is found in all living things [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge does not need minds, or even nervous systems. It is found in all living things. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.10) | |
| A reaction: I consider it a misnomer to call such things 'knowledge', for which I have much higher standards. Gray is talking about 'information'. Knowledge needs reasons, and possibility of error, not just anticipatory behaviour. |
| 9276 | The will hardly ever does anything; most of our life just happens to us [Gray] |
| Full Idea: We think our actions express our decisions, but in nearly all of our life, willing decides nothing. We cannot wake up or fall asleep, remember or forget our dreams, summon or banish our thoughts, by deciding to do so. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.12) | |
| A reaction: Gray's point does not rule out occasional total control over mental life, but his point is important. The traditional picture is of a life controlled, so the will is seen as at the centre of a person, but it just isn't the case. |
| 1757 | The Electra: she knows this man, but not that he is her brother [Eucleides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The 'Electra': Electra knows that Orestes is her brother, but not that this man is Orestes, so she knows and does not know her brother simultaneously. | |
| From: report of Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Eu.4 | |
| A reaction: Hence we distinguish 'know of', 'know that' and 'know how'. Hence Russell makes 'knowledge by acquaintance' fundamental, and descriptions come later. |
| 3028 | The chief good is unity, sometimes seen as prudence, or God, or intellect [Eucleides] |
| Full Idea: The chief good is unity, which is known by several names, for at one time people call it prudence, at another time God, at another intellect, and so on. | |
| From: Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.9.2 | |
| A reaction: So the chief good is what unites and focuses our moral actions. Kant calls that 'the will'. |
| 9278 | Nowadays we identify the free life with the good life [Gray] |
| Full Idea: We do not value freedom more than people did in earlier times, but we have identified the good life with the chosen life. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 3.13) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This is Enlightenment liberalism gradually filtering down into common consciousness, especially via the hegemony of American culture. I sympathise the Gray; don't get me wrong, but I think freedom is overrated. |
| 9280 | Over forty percent of the Earth's living tissue is human [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Humans co-opt over forty per cent of the Earth's living tissue. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.15) | |
| A reaction: If you add our domestic animals, I understand that the figure goes up to 95 per cent! I take this to be virtually the only significant ecological fact - population, population, population. Why are there so many cars? So many carbon footprints? |
| 23061 | Free atheism should start by questioning its faith in humanity [Gray] |
| Full Idea: A free-thinking atheism would begin by questioning the prevailing faith in humanity. But there is little prospect of contemporary atheists giving up their reverence for this phantom. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Conc) | |
| A reaction: He seems to be referring to 'humanism', which I take to be quite different from atheism. I take it as obvious that simple atheism is entirely neutral on the question of whether we should have 'faith' in humanity (which presumably mean optimism). |
| 23057 | Gnosticism has a supreme creator God, giving way to a possibly hostile Demiurge [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Gnostic traditions envisage a supreme God that created the universe and then withdrew into itself, leaving the world to be ruled by a lesser god, or Demiurge, which might be indifferent or hostile to mankind. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It doesn't seem to solve any problems, given that the first God is 'supreme', and is therefore responsible for the introduction and actions of the later Demiurge. |
| 23056 | Judaism only became monotheistic around 550 BCE [Gray] |
| Full Idea: It was only sometime around the sixth century BC, during the period when the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, that the idea that there is only one God emerged in Jewish religion. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a parallel move among the Greeks to elevate Zeus to special status. |
| 9272 | Without Christianity we lose the idea that human history has a meaning [Gray] |
| Full Idea: For Christians, it is because they occur in history that the lives of humans have a meaning that the lives of other animals do not. ..If we truly leave Christianity behind, we must give up the idea that human history has a meaning. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Compare the dispute between 'whig' and 'tory' historians, the former of whom believe that history is going somewhere. |
| 23055 | Christians introduced the idea that a religion needs a creed [Gray] |
| Full Idea: The notion that religions are creeds - lists of propositions or doctrines that everyone must accept or reject - emerged only with Christianity. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: With a creed comes the possibility of heresy. I''m not happy with children being taught to recite something which begins 'I believe…', but which they have never thought about and barely understand. |
| 9279 | What was our original sin, and how could Christ's suffering redeem it? [Gray] |
| Full Idea: No one can say what was humankind's original sin, and no one understands how the suffering of Christ can redeem it. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This nicely articulates a problem that has half bothered me, but I have never put into words. I always assumed Eve committed the sin, and Adam cops the blame for not controlling his woman. Dying for our sins has always puzzled me. |
| 23058 | Buddhism has no divinity or souls, and the aim is to lose the illusion of a self [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Buddhism says nothing of any divine mind and rejects any idea of the soul. The world consists of processes and events. The human sense of self is an illusion; freedom is found in ridding oneself of this illusion. | |
| From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear why shaking off the illusion of a self is a superior state. Freedom to do what? Presumably nothing at all, since there is no self to desire anything. |