44 ideas
| 5278 | Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At best it is a summing up of general results, abstractions which arise from observation of the historical development of man. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense, based on a bogus Hegelian notion that history is following some sort of pattern, and that mental reality is fixed by physical conditions. The philosophy of mathematics, for one, won't fit into this definition. |
| 5287 | Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Every profound philosophical problem is resolved quite simply into an empirical fact. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This shows that empirical accounts of metaphysics are not just a branch of British empiricism, but are a basic fact of any materialist view of the world. The influence of David Hume, however, hovers behind this Marxist doctrine. |
| 5303 | For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Law, morality, religion are to the proletarian so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This Marxist idea has been the main driving force in spreading relativist views through modern culture. There is a lot of truth here, but philosophy is plausibly the search for truths which both the bourgeois and the proletarian will accept. |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles. | |
| From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture? |
| 23872 | 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In the Marxist formula 'social existence determines consciousness' there are more contradictions than words. Since 'social' can only exist in human minds, 'social existence' is already consciousness. It cannot determine consciousness, which is undefined. | |
| From: comment on K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846]) by Simone Weil - Fragments p.126 | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that society only exists in minds. Many children in Victorian London had never heard of 'London', but that didn't stop it existing. Our problems are often social substrata of which we are unaware. |
| 5277 | Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This slogan is the heart of Marxism. It begs the obvious question of what determines (social) life? Aristotle is at least partly right - that some activities and social organisation are 'unnatural', going against the grain of the human 'given'. |
| 5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: Dennett takes a similar view - that consciousness is more-or-less a consequence of the development of consciousness. This is understandable if you make intentional rather than phenomenal consciousness central. Otherwise ants may well have it. |
| 5276 | The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: As individuals express their life, so they are; what they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be contradicted by their subsequent idea that 'alienation' from the means of production is possible. Presumably intellectuals (in all ages) are to some extent exempt from this rule. It is, in fact, not true. |
| 5281 | Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is from the very beginning a social product. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This slogan has produced the sociological view of truth which has stood opposed to philosophy for the last 150 years. It would be silly to deny that there is a good point here, but equally silly to think that all consciousness is explicable in this way. |
| 21998 | Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Morality, law and religion are bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], p.230), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is whether this creation of values is conscious or unconscious. Personally I believe in conspiracies. Some cynical conversations go on behind the scenes, of which historians will never hear. |
| 5289 | When aristocracy or the bourgeoisie dominate, certain values dominate with them [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: During the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty etc. were dominant, and during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts of freedom, equality etc. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This is a very anti-Aristotelian view, based on a very different idea of human nature. It must, to some extent, be true, but freedom and equality will be a value for the proletariat, and loyalty will be a key value if the family is central. |
| 5274 | Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus removing their limitations. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: It seems there are three views here: this one (that we can change our consciousness), the Aristotelian view (that consciousness is 'given'), and the Marxist view (that society determines consciousness). The truth is somewhere between them. |
| 21992 | Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], p.160), quoted by Sydney Shoemaker - Some varieties of functionalism 6 | |
| A reaction: At the very least, we must say that there had to be some intrinsic distinctiveness in place before men could do this. I like meta-thought. |
| 5275 | Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This seems a rather external criterion. Presumably we can ask what biological or mental feature made it possible for men to produce their own means of subsistence, and why it evolved. Darwin puts a different perspective on this idea. |
| 5292 | Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
| A reaction: Beneath the Marxist view that consciousness is a social creation lies a Hobbesian pessimism about basic human nature. This idea bodes ill for ultimate communism, because class struggle will have been abolished. What, then, can unite people? |
| 5293 | Only in community are people able to cultivate their gifts, and therefore be free [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
| A reaction: This is where Aristotle and Marx agree, and I agree too. I think we could drop the word "free", which is to some degree a necessary right and precondition of human happiness, but is not the real target. |
| 5273 | Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men (just as the Old Hegelians declared them the true bonds of human society). | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: Marx and Engels will attack both views. The Young Hegelians seem potential existentialists, and the Old Hegelians followers of Aristotle. The correct view is somewhere in the middle. Self-criticism is an option given to us by our culture. |
| 5283 | In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates production, and I can hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and criticise after dinner. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a hopeless daydream, and Plato would be appalled. It now (2004) looks as if this aspiration is more likely to be met in a liberal capitalist democracy than it is under any state-controlled communism. |
| 5282 | If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: As long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: An isolated individual could feel 'alienated' doing menial tasks for themselves when they yearned to get on with their poetry. Alienation is not all-or-nothing. Compare working for a good employer with working for Nazi conquerors. |
| 5288 | The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This is mostly true, because the wealthy will control both the media and most of the educational institutions, but in a world of universal education and underground presses it doesn't seem to be a necessary truth. Wide dissemination of ideas needs money. |
| 5290 | The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a 'class', not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be the source of most of the troubles of the last 150 years. Aristotle thought a benevolent tyrant could represent all of society. It looks to me as if a representative democracy has the best chance, but control of the media is tricky. |
| 5294 | To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In order to assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
| A reaction: By the 'State' is here meant the centralised power of the owners of the means of production. They are not aiming at anarchism, but at a more fluid 'society' or 'community'. Most of us have an Orwellian fear of violent 'overthrowing'. |
| 5302 | Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: In Britain the Labour Party and the Trade Unions have appeared since 1848, but bourgeoisie control of the media has pushed us a long way back towards Marx's time. Government will always be someone's management committee. |
| 5304 | Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is a sinister remark which has led to huge numbers of murders in the Soviet Union and China. People resent having their property 'abolished', especially if they have worked hard for it. But most of our wealth is owned by about 2% of our people. |
| 5307 | Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §3.II) | |
| A reaction: …so don't try being nice to us. No TRUE bourgeois would actually want to help the proletariate… Nevertheless, he is probably largely right. Do we want the poor to suffer? No. Do we want them to be as rich as us? No! |
| 5285 | Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: In Britain and its colonies it does appear that the rise of factories and the abolition of slavery coincided. It is hard to see why this should be a necessity, though. Did the early Christians keep slaves? Some ancient Greeks objected to slavery. |
| 5284 | Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: It is empirically established that by the overthrow of the existing state of society by the communist revolution, and the abolition of private property, which is identical with it, the power of the world market will be dissolved. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: They later dropped the abolition of private property as an aim. They were very early in spotting the problem of global capitalism. As long as there are scarcities of anything (e.g. Rembrandts) it is hard to imagine the disappearance of the market. |
| 5306 | The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In a communist society we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This ringing slogan is remarkably close to John Stuart Mill's defence of liberalism, where liberty is an absolute, as long as it avoids the liberty of others. Personally I think freedom is marginal in political philosophy, like food and shelter. |
| 5291 | The law says private property is the result of the general will [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In civil law the existing property relations are declared to be the result of the general will. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.C) | |
| A reaction: In other words, the 'general will' is open to endless abuse, because it is defined by the current power group, which nowadays is whoever controls the mass media. Even a 'free' election doesn't prove the general will, which is a cultural thing. |
| 5305 | Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Communists seek to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: Someone has to control education, and I would personally prefer it if the controllers were well educated themselves. Neutral education is an idle dream. We must educate for democracy, if we really want democracy. |
| 5279 | Human history must always be studied in relation to industry and exchange [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The 'history of humanity' must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: There is a lot of truth in this, but why did the Greeks produce Pythagoras, or the Jews produce Jesus, or the British produce Sid Vicious? Two very similar industrial societies can produce very different cultures. Individuals can make a difference. |
| 5286 | Most historians are trapped in the illusions of their own epoch [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Most historians see in history just the political actions of princes and states, religious and all sorts of theoretical struggles, and in particular in each historical epoch have had to share the illusion of that epoch. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: Is it an illusion of our epoch that we share the illusions of our epoch? It seems unfair to say that Marx and Engels can see beyond the illusions of their epoch, but some historian writing about the Wars of the Roses can't. Princes were important. |
| 5301 | The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to make, say, the English Peasants' Revolt of 1481 crucial, and the building of Lincoln Cathedral fairly minor. Where does the advent of the telephone figure? Etc. Still, we must concede his point. Most medieval history is about power. |
| 8388 | Causation is either direct realism, Humean reduction, non-Humean reduction or theoretical realism [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The main approaches to causation I shall refer to as direct realism, Humean reductionism, non-Humean reductionism, and indirect or theoretical realism. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: The first simply observes causation (Anscombe), the second reduces it to regularity (Hume), the third reduces it to other natural features (Fair, Salmon, Dowe), the fourth takes an instrumental approach (Armstrong, Tooley). I favour the third approach. |
| 8389 | Causation distinctions: reductionism/realism; Humean/non-Humean states; observable/non-observable [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The three main distinctions concerning causation are between reductionism and realism; between Humean and non-Humean states of affairs; and between states that are immediately observable and those that are not. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: I favour reductionism over realism, because I like the question 'If x is real, what is it made of?' I favour non-Humean states of affairs, because I think constant conjunction is very superficial. I presume the existence of non-observable components. |
| 8416 | Reductionists can't explain accidents, uninstantiated laws, probabilities, or the existence of any laws [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: Reductionist accounts of causation cannot distinguish laws from accidental uniformities, cannot allow for basic uninstantiated laws, can't explain probabilistic laws, and cannot even demonstrate the existence of laws. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causality: Reductionism versus Realism [1990], 2) | |
| A reaction: I am tempted to say that this is so much the worse for the idea of laws. Extensive regularities only occur for a reason. Probabilities aren't laws. Hypothetical facts will cover uninstantiated laws. Laws are just patterns. |
| 8393 | We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: A reductionist can hold that the direction of causation is to be defined in terms of the direction of time; but this response is only available if one is prepared to adopt a realist view of the direction of time. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.2.1.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of the problems that arise if we try to be reductionist about everything. Personally I prefer my realism to be about time rather than about causation. Time, I would say, makes causation possible, not the other way around. |
| 8390 | Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The arguments in favour of causation being observable appeal especially to the impression of pressure upon one's body, and to one's introspective awareness of willing, together with the perception of the event which one willed. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Evan Fagels] Anscombe also cites words which have causality built into their meaning. This would approach would give priority to mental causation, and would need to demonstrate that similar things happen out in the world. |
| 8418 | Quantum physics suggests that the basic laws of nature are probabilistic [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: Quantum physics seems to lend strong support to the idea that the basic laws of nature may well be probabilistic. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causality: Reductionism versus Realism [1990], 3.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Groan. Quantum physics should be outlawed from all philosophical discussions. The scientists don't understand it themselves. I'm certainly not going to build my worldview on it. I don't accept that these probabilities could count as 'laws'. |
| 8392 | Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: If laws of causation are probabilistic then the law does not entail any restrictions upon the proportion of events that follow a cause: ...it can have absolutely any value from zero to one. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.1.3) | |
| A reaction: This objection applies to an account of laws of nature, and also to definitions of causes as events which increase probabilities. One needn't be fully committed to natural necessity, but it must form some part of the account. |
| 8399 | The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: A given type of state may be causally efficacious, but not as efficacious as an alternative states, so it is not true that even a direct cause need raise the probability of its effect. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 6.2.4) | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that explaining causation in terms of probabilities entirely misses the point, which mainly concerns explaining the sense of necessitation in a cause. This idea give me a good reason for my intuition. |
| 8391 | In counterfactual worlds there are laws with no instances, so laws aren't supervenient on actuality [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: If a counterfactual holds in a possible world, that is presumably because a law holds in that world, which means there could be basic causal laws that lack all instances. But then causal laws cannot be totally supervenient on the history of the universe. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.1.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice argument, which sounds like trouble for Lewis. One could deny that the laws have to hold in the counterfactual worlds, but then we wouldn't be able to conceive them. |
| 8394 | Explaining causation in terms of laws can't explain the direction of causation [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The most serious objection to any account of causation in terms of nomological relations alone is that it can't provide any account of the direction of causation. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 8393. I am not convinced that there could be an 'account' of the direction of causation, so I am inclined to take it as given. If we take 'powers' (active properties) as basic, they would have a direction built into them. |
| 8398 | Causation is a concept of a relation the same in all worlds, so it can't be a physical process [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: Against the view that causation is a particular physical process, might it not be argued that the concept of causation is the concept of a relation that possesses a certain intrinsic nature, so that causation must be the same in all possible worlds? | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: This makes the Humean assumption that laws of nature might be wildly different. I think it is perfectly possible that physical processes are the only way that causation could occur. Alternatively, the generic definition of 'cause' is just very vague. |