Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hermarchus, A.R. Lacey and Terry Pinkard

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these philosophers


9 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
Wolff's version of Leibniz dominated mid-18th C German thought [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: The dominant philosophy of mid-eighteenth century Germany was Wolffianism, a codified and almost legalistically organised form of Leibnizian thought.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], Intro)
     A reaction: Kant grew up in this intellectual climate.
Romantics explored beautiful subjectivity, and the re-enchantment of nature [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Early Romanticism can be seen as the exploration of subjective interiority and as the re-enchantment of nature (as organic). Hegel said they had the idea of a 'beautiful soul', which (he said) either paralysed action, or made them smug.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], 06)
     A reaction: [compressed, inc Note 1] A major dilemma of life is the extent of our social engagement, because it makes life worthwhile, but pollutes the mind with continual conflicts.
The combination of Kant and the French Revolution was an excited focus for German philosophy [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: After the French Revolution, philosophy suddenly became the key rallying point for an entire generation of German intellectuals, who had been reading Kant as the harbinger of a new order.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], Pt II Intro)
     A reaction: Kant was a harbinger because he offered an autonomous status to each individual, rather than being subservient to a social order.
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / d. Nineteenth century philosophy
In Hegel's time naturalism was called 'Spinozism' [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: In Hegel's time the shorthand for the Naturalistic worldview was 'Spinozism'.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], 10)
     A reaction: Spinozism hit Germany like a bomb in 1786, when it was reported that the poet Hölderlin was a fan of Spinoza.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism
Idealism is the link between reason and freedom [Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Idealism was conceived as a link between reason and freedom.
     From: Terry Pinkard (German Philosophy 1760-1860 [2002], 14 Conc)
     A reaction: I'm beginning to see the Romantic era as the Age of Freedom, which followed the Age of Reason. This idea fits that picture nicely. Pinkard says that paradoxes resulted from the attemptl
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
Maybe 'sense-data' just help us to talk about unusual perceptual situations [Lacey]
     Full Idea: One possibility is that talk of sense-data is a mere linguistic convenience, providing a noun for talking about appearances, as when seeing a red object in sodium light (when it looks grey).
     From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196)
     A reaction: The term seems to have been coined to deal with situations where there is a gap between appearance and presumed reality, as in illusions. Maybe illusions prove the existence of sense-data, rather than it being a 'convenient' term.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / b. Nature of sense-data
Where do sense-data begin or end? Can they change? What sort of thing are they? [Lacey]
     Full Idea: It is hard to individuate sense-data, saying where one ends and the next begins, and hard to say whether they can change; are they substances, qualities, events, or what?
     From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196)
     A reaction: The problem is not that these questions are unanswerable. The answer seems to be either that they are physical and external, or that they are mental and internal, and that there is no ontological space for them between the two.
Some claim sense-data are public, and are parts of objects [Lacey]
     Full Idea: Sometimes it is said that sense-data are public, and parts either of objects or of the surfaces of objects.
     From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196)
     A reaction: This suggests two drastically different theories, one making sense-data into mental events, the other placing them in the 'external' world. The latter theory can dovetail them with the physics, but then why would we need them?
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley]
     Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us.
     From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus
     A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts?