66 ideas
| 19579 | The history of philosophy is just experiments in how to do philosophy [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: The history of philosophy up to now is nothing but a history of attempts to discover how to do philosophy. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 01) | |
| A reaction: I take post-Fregean analytic metaphysics to be another experiment in how to do philosophy. I suspect that the experiment of Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida etc has been a failure. |
| 19583 | Philosophy only begins when it studies itself [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: All philosophy begins where philosophizing philosophises itself. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 79) | |
| A reaction: The modern trend for doing metaphilosophy strikes me as wholly admirable, though I suspect that the enemies of philosophy (who are legion) see it as a decadence. |
| 22026 | Philosophy is homesickness - the urge to be at home everywhere [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is actually homesickness - the urge to be everywhere at home. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 45) | |
| A reaction: The idea of home [heimat] is powerful in German culture. The point of romanticism was seen as largely concerning restless souls like Byron and his heroes, who do not feel at home. Hence ironic detachment. |
| 19588 | The highest aim of philosophy is to combine all philosophies into a unity [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: He attains the maximum of a philosopher who combines all philosophies into a single philosophy | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 31) | |
| A reaction: I have found the epigraph for my big book! Recently a few narrowly analytical philosophers have attempted big books about everything (Sider, Heil, Chalmers), and they get a huge round of applause from me. |
| 19598 | Philosophy relies on our whole system of learning, and can thus never be complete [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Now all learning is connected - thus philosophy will never be complete. Only in the complete system of all learning will philosophy be truly visible. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 39) | |
| A reaction: Philosophy is evidently the unifying subject, which reveals the point of all the other subjects. It matches my maxim that 'science is the servant of philosophy'. |
| 19586 | Philosophers feed on problems, hoping they are digestible, and spiced with paradox [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: The philosopher lives on problems as the human being does on food. An insoluble problem is an indigestible food. What spice is to food, the paradoxical is to problems. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 09) | |
| A reaction: Novalis would presumably have disliked Hegel's dialectic, where the best food seems to be the indigestible. |
| 19587 | Philosophy aims to produce a priori an absolute and artistic world system [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy ...is the art of producing all our conceptions according to an absolute, artistic idea and of developing the thought of a world system a priori out of the depths of our spirit. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 19) | |
| A reaction: A lovely statement of the dream of building world systems by pure thought - embodying perfectly the view of philosophy despised by logical positivists and modern logical metaphysicians. The Novalis view will never die! I like 'artistic'. |
| 19574 | If man sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself, by acting against his own convictions [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Man has his being in truth - if he sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself. Whoever betrays truth betrays himself. It is not a question of lying - but of acting against one's conviction. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 038) | |
| A reaction: Does he condone lying here, as long as you don't believe the lie? We would call it loss of integrity. |
| 21032 | Speak truth only to those who deserve the truth [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The duty to tell the truth applies only to those who deserve the truth. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: [from Benjamin Constant, in opposition to Kant] I prefer the idea that we should use people 'after our own honour and dignity' (Hamlet), which means speaking the truth even to Donald Trump (for those of you who remember 2018). But not always. |
| 21033 | Careful evasions of truth at least show respect for it [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: A carefully crafted evasion pays homage to truth-telling in a way that an outright lie does not. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: Nicely put. He refers to an incident in Kant's life. I think of the great equivocation controversy at the time of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. See the porter in Macbeth. All I ask is that people care about the truth. Many people don't. Why? |
| 19571 | Delusion and truth differ in their life functions [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between delusion and truth lies in the difference in their life functions. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 008) | |
| A reaction: Pure pragmatism, it seems. We might expect doubts about objective truth from a leading light of the Romantic movement. |
| 19597 | Logic (the theory of relations) should be applied to mathematics [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Ought not logic, the theory of relations, be applied to mathematics? | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 38) | |
| A reaction: Bolzano was 19 when his was written. I presume Novalis would have been excited by set theory (even though he was a hyper-romantic). |
| 19581 | A problem is a solid mass, which the mind must break up [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: A problem is a solid, synthetic mass which is broken up by means of the penetrating power of the mind. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 04) |
| 19584 | Whoever first counted to two must have seen the possibility of infinite counting [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Whoever first understood how to count to two, even if he still found it difficult to keep on counting, saw nonetheless the possibility of infinite counting according to the same laws. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 84) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it is the discerning of the 'law' which triggers this. Is the key concept 'addition' or 'successor' (or are those the same?). |
| 22025 | Novalis thought self-consciousness cannot disclose 'being', because we are temporal creatures [Novalis, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Novalis came to think that the kind of existence , or 'being', that is disclosed in self-consciousness remains, as it were, forever out of our reach because of the kind of temporal creatures we are. | |
| From: report of Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: It looks here as if Novalis kicked Heidegger's Dasein into the long grass before it even got started, but maybe they have different notions of 'being', with Novalis seeking timeless being, and Heidegger, influenced by Bergson, accepting temporality. |
| 19575 | Refinement of senses increasingly distinguishes individuals [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: The more our senses are refined, the more capable they become of distinguishing between individuals. The highest sense would be the highest receptivity to particularity in human nature. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 072) | |
| A reaction: I adore this idea!! It goes into the collection of support I am building for individual essences, against the absurd idea of kinds as essences (when they are actually categorisations). It also accompanies particularism in ethics. |
| 22067 | Poetry is true idealism, and the self-consciousness of the universe [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Poetry is true idealism - contemplation of the world as contemplation of a large mind - self-consciousness of the universe. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], vol 3 p.640), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism | |
| A reaction: It looks like the step from Fichte's idealism to the Absolute is poetry, which embraces the ultimate Spinozan substance through imagination. Or something... |
| 19572 | Experiences tests reason, and reason tests experience [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Experience is the test of the rational - and vice versa. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 010) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful remark. Surely we can't ignore our need to test claims of pure logic by filling in the variables with concrete instances, to assess validity? And philosophy without examples is doomed to be abstract waffle. Coherence is the combined aim. |
| 19590 | Empiricists are passive thinkers, given their philosophy by the external world and fate [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: An empiricist is one whose way of thinking is an effect of the external world and of fate - the passive thinker - to whom his philosophy is given. | |
| From: Novalis (Teplitz Fragments [1798], 33) | |
| A reaction: Novalis goes on to enthuse about 'magical idealism', so he rejects empiricism. This is an early attack on the Myth of the Given, found in Sellars and McDowell. |
| 19594 | General statements about nature are not valid [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: General statements are not valid in the study of nature. | |
| From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 17) | |
| A reaction: This is his striking obsession with the particularity and fine detail of nature. Alexander von Humbolt was exploring nature in S.America in this year. It sounds wrong about physics, but possibly right about biology. |
| 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? |
| 19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: An absolute drive toward perfection and completeness is an illness, as soon as it shows itself to be destructive and averse toward the imperfect, the incomplete. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 33) | |
| A reaction: Deep and true! Novalis seems to be a particularist - hanging on to the fine detail of life, rather than being immersed in the theory. These are the philosophers who also turn to literature. |
| 19596 | The whole body is involved in the formation of thoughts [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: In the formation of thoughts all parts of the body seem to me to be working together. | |
| From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 20) | |
| A reaction: I can only think that Spinoza must be behind this thought, or La Mettrie. It seems a strikingly unusual intuition for its time, when almost everyone takes a spiritual sort of dualism for granted. |
| 19573 | The seat of the soul is where our inner and outer worlds interpenetrate [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: The seat of the soul is the point where the inner and the outer worlds touch. Wherever they penetrate each other - it is there at every point of penetration. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 020) | |
| A reaction: I surmise that Spinoza's dual-aspect monism is behind this interesting remark. See the related idea from Schopenhauer. |
| 19577 | Everything is a chaotic unity, then we abstract, then we reunify the world into a free alliance [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Before abstraction everything is one - but one as chaos is - after abstraction everything is again unified - but in a free alliance of independent, self-determined beings. A crowd has become a society - a chaos is transformed into a manifold world. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 094) | |
| A reaction: Personally I take (unfashionably) psychological abstraction to one of the key foundations of human thought, so I love this idea, which gives a huge picture of how the abstracting mind relates to reality. |
| 19585 | Every person has his own language [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Every person has his own language. Language is the expression of the spirit. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 91) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see someone enthusiastically affirming what was later famously denied, and maybe even disproved. |
| 19578 | Only self-illuminated perfect individuals are beautiful [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Everything beautiful is a self-illuminated, perfect individual. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 101) | |
| A reaction: It is a commonplace to describe something beautiful as being 'perfect'. Unfinished masterpieces are interesting exceptions. Are only 'individuals' beautiful? Is unity a necessary condition of beauty? Bad art fails to be self-illuminated. |
| 19582 | Morality and philosophy are mutually dependent [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Without philosophy there is no true morality, and without morality no philosophy. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 21) | |
| A reaction: Challenging! Maybe unthinking people drift in a sea of vague untethered morality, and people who seem to have a genuine moral strength are always rooted in some sort of philosophy. Maybe. Is the passion for philosophy a moral passion? |
| 21036 | Not all deals are fair deals [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The mere fact that you and I make a deal is not enough to make it fair. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) |
| 21038 | Does consent create the obligation, or must there be some benefit? [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Legal thinkers have debated this question for a long time: can consent create an obligation on its own, or is some element of benefit or reliance required? | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: Clearly mere consent could be under some compulsion, either by the other party, or by some other forces. Keeping a deathbed promise usually brings no benefit, but is a matter of honour. Ah, honour! Can anyone remember what that is? |
| 21039 | Moral contracts involve both consent and reciprocity; making the deal, and keeping it [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Despite a tendency to read consent into moral claims, it is hard to make sense of our morality without acknowledging the independent weight of reciprocity. If my wife is unfaithful I have two different grounds of outrage: our promise, and my loyalty. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: The point is that Hobbes and co over-simplify what a contract is. Compare a contract with a promise. One must be two-sided, the other can be one-sided. |
| 21030 | The categorical imperative is not the Golden Rule, which concerns contingent desires [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The Golden Rule depends on contingent facts about how people like to be treated. The categorical imperative asks that we abstract from such contingencies and respect persons as rational beings, regardless of what they might want in particular situations. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: I think the Golden Rule is wrong for a different reason. It assumes that we all want similar things, which we don't. Focus on other people's needs, not yours. |
| 22262 | Kant's moral law has no foundation - because that would undermine its priority [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Given the stringent demands of the Kantian ethic, the moral law would seem almost to require a foundation in nothing, for any empirical precondition would undermine its priority. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Procedural republic and unencumbered self [1984], 'Kantian') | |
| A reaction: The idea of a value with 'a foundation in nothing' is particular anathema to me, because my project is to find a foundation for everything (in nature, which is the Given). Kant's only foundational value seems to be rational consistency. |
| 21031 | Man cannot dispose of himself, because he is not a thing to be owned [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Man cannot dispose over himself because he is not a thing; he is not his own property. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: [Kant lecture note] This is an important qualification to persons as ends. If a person owned themselves, that would separate the person from what they owned. Sandel mentions selling your own organs. Kant is considering prostitution. Why is slavery wrong? |
| 22027 | Life isn't given to us like a novel - we write the novel [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 99) | |
| A reaction: The roots of existentialism are in the Romantic movement. Sartre seems to have taken this idea literally. |
| 20594 | Choosers in the 'original position' have been stripped of most human characteristics [Sandel, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
| Full Idea: Sandel argues that people in the 'original position' have been stripped of everything that makes them recognisably human: their conceptions of the good, their nationality, family membership, religion, friendships and past histories. | |
| From: report of Michael J. Sandel (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice [1982]) by Tuckness,A/Wolf,C - This is Political Philosophy 4 'Communitarian' | |
| A reaction: This draws attention to what a pure Enlightenment rational project Rawls is pursuing, in the spirit if Kant's ethics. Choosers in the original position become identical, and thus choose a homogeneous society. |
| 21035 | Just visiting (and using roads) is hardly ratifying the Constitution [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to see how just passing through town is morally akin to ratifying the Constitution. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: They say that philosophical ideas are never refuted, and no progress is made, but this sure put paid to John Locke. |
| 21037 | A ratified constitution may not be a just constitution [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The fact that a constitution is ratified by the people does not prove that its provisions are just. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: Yes indeed. And the fact that a majority won a referendum does not make their decision wise. Hence all constitutions must be open to evaluation. Gun laws in the US are the obvious example. |
| 21034 | A just constitution harmonises the different freedoms [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: As Kant sees it, a just constitution aims at harmonising each individual's freedom with that of everyone else. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: [source?] Nice statement of the project. I increasingly see political philosophy as constitution design. I say philosophers have got fifty years to design an optimum constitution, and they should then down tools and promote it, in simple language. |
| 19589 | The whole point of a monarch is that we accept them as a higher-born, ideal person [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: The distinguishing character of the monarchy lies precisely in the fact of belief in a higher-born person, of voluntary acceptance of an ideal person. I cannot choose a leader from among my peers. | |
| From: Novalis (Fath and Love, or the King and Queen [1798], 18) | |
| A reaction: Novalis was passionately devoted to the new king and queen of Prussia, only a few years after the French Revolution. This attitude seems to me unchanged among monarchists in present day Britain. Genetics has undermined 'higher-born'. |
| 22258 | Passion for progress is always short-lived [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Progress demands passions that cannot last for long. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Beyond Individualism [1988], p.35) | |
| A reaction: The obvious example, for me, is the Labour Government in the UK, 1945-51. This is the kind of realism which progressive politicians must face up to. Unfortunately it is the logic of very ruthless revolutionaries. |
| 22259 | Conservatives are either individualistic, or communal [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Individualist conservatives believe people should be free to do as they please so long as they do not harm others. ...Communal conservatives, by contrast, believe government should affirm moral and religious values. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Beyond Individualism [1988], p.38) | |
| A reaction: Nozick represents the first group (as does J.S.Mill, usually seen as epitomising liberalism). He says the first group like volunteer armies and oppose welfare; the second group favour conscription and conservative welfare. |
| 22264 | Modern liberal rights in democracies protect individuals against the majority [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Liberty in the modern procedural republic is defined in opposition to democracy, as an individual's guarantee against what the majority might will. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Procedural republic and unencumbered self [1984], 'Present') | |
| A reaction: And so I should hope. Sandel is sort of criticising this view, but it seems obvious that rights of this sort must be basic to any civilised democracy. But how do you decide those rights, if not by a majoritarian decision? |
| 22261 | Liberals say rights always come first, and justice is neutral on social values [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The liberal claim that the right is prior to the good means that individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and that the basic principles of justice cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Procedural republic and unencumbered self [1984], 'The right') | |
| A reaction: In Rawls, the first thesis is chosen from a neutral position, and the second is all that is needed to affirm rights as basic. These two are the target of Sandel's communitarian claims. Utilitarians will make the sacrifices. No consensus on the good life! |
| 21120 | The self is 'unencumbered' if it can abandon its roles and commitments without losing identity [Sandel, by Shorten] |
| Full Idea: Sandel says liberals are committed to the 'unencumbered self', ..when it has no roles, commitments or projects that are 'so essential that turning away from them would call into question the person I am'. | |
| From: report of Michael J. Sandel (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice [1982], p.86) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 02 | |
| A reaction: This is a very penetrating criticism of liberalism. The liberal self that makes social and legal contracts and exercises basic political rights is not far from being a robot. It has the minimum needed to join a society. Belonging is quite different. |
| 22263 | Liberal justice means the withdrawal of the self, as transcendental or as unencumbered [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For the liberal concept of justice we must stand to our circumstances always at a certain distance, whether as transcendental subject in the case of Kant, or as unencumbered selves in the case of Rawls. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Procedural republic and unencumbered self [1984], 'Transcendental') | |
| A reaction: Maybe the only way to be unencumbered is to be transcendental. There is an insecure feeling that if the self becomes immanent or encumbered it thereby loses its objective rationality. You wake up one morning and find you are a nazi? |
| 21049 | Liberal freedom was a response to assigned destinies like caste and class [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Liberal freedom developed as an antidote to political theories that consigned persons to destinies fixed by caste or class, station or rank, custom, tradition or inherited status. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 09) | |
| A reaction: Virtually all human beings before modern times found that they had been 'assigned destinies'. The huge exception is war, especially civil war, which must be a huge liberation for many people, despite the danger. |
| 22805 | Liberalism concerns rights, and communitarianism concerns the common good [Sandel, by Avineri/De-Shalit] |
| Full Idea: Sandel argues that liberalism is the politics of rights, while communitarianism is the politics of the common good. | |
| From: report of Michael J. Sandel (Procedural republic and unencumbered self [1984]) by Avineri,S/De-Shalit,A - Intro to 'Communitarianism and Individualism' §4 | |
| A reaction: The first thing on the agenda of the common good should be to assert and protect the rights of individual citizens. How could there be a common good which trampled on individuals? I agree that the common good is prior (e.g. in a pandemic). |
| 22260 | Modern liberalism fails to articulate a vision of the common good [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: In recent years liberalism has faltered because of its failure to argue for a vision of the common good. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Beyond Individualism [1988], p.45) | |
| A reaction: This is Sandel's main theme. He derives his concept of the common good from the essential natures of persons and institutions. I greatly admire this. |
| 22265 | I can't defend the view that the majority values of a community are thereby right [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Insofar as 'communitarian' is another name for majoritarianism, or for the idea that rights should rest on the values that predominate in any given community at any given time, it is not a view I would defend. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Where') | |
| A reaction: I should hope not. You could soon end up as a good nazi if you follow that route. Sandel defends a critical view of community values (implying a role for philosophy?). The community good must be continually negotiated. Sounds fine to me. |
| 22268 | If persons define themselves by a group membership, insults to that group are a real harm [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For persons who understand themselves as defined by the ethnic or religious group to which they belong, an insult to the group can inflict a harm as real and as damaging as some physical harms. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Free speech') | |
| A reaction: In Britain many people fully define themselves by their allegiance to a football club. Really! They usually learn to laugh off an insult to their club, but it hurts. Laughing off an insult is an essential modern skill - up to a point. |
| 22267 | In the liberal view an insult to my group doesn't hurt me, since I'm defined by choices not groups [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: By the liberal conception of a person, my dignity could never be damaged by an insult to a group with which I identify, because what matters is not my social role, but my capacity to choose that role. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Free speech') | |
| A reaction: If I'm defined by my capacity to choose, and I choose to join some group, why is an insult to that group not an insult to my capacity to choose? How do you insult a liberal? 'I despise your individual freedom!'. |
| 21040 | Libertarians just want formal equality in a free market; the meritocratic view wants fair equality [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The libertarian view of distributive justice is a free market with formal equality of opportunity. The meritocratic view is a free market with fair equality of opportunity. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is what has to be done, by intervention, to make the market fair. There are two major rival views of equality here. Is the starting point fair, and is the race itself fair? |
| 21043 | Distributive justice concern deserts, as well as who gets what [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Debates about distributive justice are about not only who gets what but also what qualities are worthy of honour and reward. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 07) | |
| A reaction: So the 'undeserving poor' get nuffink? Does just being a human being deserve anything? Obviously yes. That said, we can't deny the concept of 'appropriate reward'. |
| 21028 | We can approach justice through welfare, or freedom, or virtue [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: We have identified three ways of approaching the distribution of goods: welfare, freedom and virtue. ...and these are three ways of thinking about justice. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 01) | |
| A reaction: Virtue is Sandel's distinctively Aristotelian contribution to the problem. The best known instance of justice is punishment, which is a distribution of harms. |
| 21027 | Justice concerns how a society distributes what it prizes - wealth, rights, power and honours [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: To ask whether a society is just is to ask how we distribute the things we prize - income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honours. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 01) | |
| A reaction: There is, of course, the prior question of what things should be controlled by a society for distribution. But there is also justice in the promotional and pay structure of institutions within a society, including private institutions. |
| 21042 | Should we redress wrongs done by a previous generation? [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Can we ever have a moral responsibility to redress wrongs committed by a previous generation? | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 07) | |
| A reaction: Just asking for a friend. It seems to depend on how close we feel to the previous generation. Regretting the crime committed by a beloved parent is one thing. Despising the crime committed by some right bastard who shares my nationality is another. |
| 21048 | Work is not fair if it is negotiated, even in a fair situation, but if it suits the nature of the worker [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For the libertarian free exchange for labour is fair; for Rawls it requires fair background conditions; for Aristotle, for the work to be just it must be suited to the nature of the workers who perform it. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Aristotle's idea is powerful, and Sandel performs a great service in drawing attention to it. Imagine the key negotiation in an interview being whether this particular work suits your nature! |
| 21052 | Justice is about how we value things, and not just about distributions [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Justice is not only about the right way to distribute things. It is also about the right way to value things. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 10) | |
| A reaction: This is Sandel's distinctively Aristotelian contribution to the justice debate - with which I have great sympathy. And, as he argues, the values of things arise out of assessing their essential natures. |
| 22266 | The case for religious liberty depends on the religion contributing to a morally good life [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Unless there were reason to believe that religious beliefs and practices contribute to morally admirable ways of life, the case for a right to religious liberty would be weakened. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Religious') | |
| A reaction: I think many religious people would deny that their religion is primarily moral. (W.Blake: 'If morality is Christianity, then Socrates was the saviour'). Whose concept of a morally good life is Sandel referring to? |
| 19580 | If the pupil really yearns for the truth, they only need a hint [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: If a pupil genuinely desires truth is requires only a hint to show him how to find what he is seeking. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 02) | |
| A reaction: The tricky job for the teacher or supervisor is assessing whether the pupil genuinely desires truth, or needs motivating. |
| 19593 | Persons are shaped by a life history; splendid persons are shaped by world history [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: What is it that shapes a person if not his life history? And in the same way a splendid person is shaped by nothing other than world history. Many people live better in the past and in the future than in the present. | |
| From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 15) | |
| A reaction: Clearly there is a lot to be said for splendid people who live entirely in the present (such as jazz musicians). Some people do have an awesomely wide historical perspective on their immediate lives. Palaeontology is not the master discipline though! |
| 19595 | Nature is a whole, and its individual parts cannot be wholly understood [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Nature is a whole - in which each part in itself can never be wholly understood. | |
| From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 18) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem right when studying some item in a laboratory, but it seems undeniable when you consider the history and future of each item. |
| 21045 | Teleological thinking is essential for social and political issues [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: It is not easy to dispense with teleological reasoning in thinking about social institutions and political practices. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: I think teleological thinking is also indispensable in biology. You can't understand an ear or an eye if you don't know what it is FOR. If it relates to a mind, it is teleological. The eye of a dead person is for nothing. |
| 19592 | The basic relations of nature are musical [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Musical relations seem to me to be actually the basic relations of nature. | |
| From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 10) | |
| A reaction: Novalis shows no signs of being a pythagorean, and then suddenly comes out with this. I suppose if you love music, this thought should float into your mind at regular intervals, because the power of music is so strong. Does he mean ratios? |
| 19576 | Religion needs an intermediary, because none of us can connect directly to a godhead [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is more indispensable for true religious feeling than an intermediary - which connects us to the godhead. The human being is absolutely incapable of sustaining an immediate relation with this. | |
| From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 073) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a defence of priests and organised religion, and an implied attack on protestants who give centrality to private prayer and conscience. |