29 ideas
| 7973 | There is no longer anything on which there is nothing to say [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: There is no longer anything on which there is nothing to say. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 17) | |
| A reaction: Compare Ideas 2937 and 6870. I'm not sure whether Baudrillard is referring to the limits of philosophy, or merely to social taboos. I like Ansell Pearson's view: we should attempt to discuss what appears to be undiscussable. |
| 6841 | Some continental philosophers are relativists - Baudrillard, for example [Baudrillard, by Critchley] |
| Full Idea: There are philosophers in the continental tradition who are relativists - Baudrillard, for example. | |
| From: report of Jean Baudrillard (works [1976]) by Simon Critchley - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.192 | |
| A reaction: This remark is in the context of Critchley denying that most continental philosophers are relativists. |
| 7975 | The task of philosophy is to unmask the illusion of objective reality [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The task of philosophy is to unmask the illusion of objective reality - a trap that is, in a sense, laid for us by nature. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 40) | |
| A reaction: There is a vast gap between this and the Lockean view (Idea 7653) that philosophers are there to help reveal reality, probably via science. I retain the Enlightenment faith that there is a reality to be found. Baudrillard must be taken seriously, though. |
| 7986 | Drunken boat pilots are less likely to collide than clearly focused ones [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Two boats on Lake Constance in dense fog are in less danger of colliding if their pilots are drunk than if they are attempting to master the situation. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.196) | |
| A reaction: Charming, but I think empirical research would prove it false. At least rational pilots know to keep to the right (?) when a shape looms through the fog. I prefer rational pilots, but then I am one of those sad people who admires the Enlightenment. |
| 7982 | Instead of thesis and antithesis leading to synthesis, they now cancel out, and the conflict is levelled [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Gone is the dialectic, the play of thesis and antithesis resolving itself in synthesis. The opposing terms now cancel each other out in a levelling of all conflict. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.129) | |
| A reaction: This is from someone who approved of 9/11 (p.137 of this text), and seemed to welcome conflict. His idea, which has plausibility, is that the modern media have become a great warm bath that calmly absorbs every abrasive thrown into it. |
| 7974 | Without God we faced reality: what do we face without reality? [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The eclipse of God left us up against reality. Where will the eclipse of reality leave us? | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004]) | |
| A reaction: Baudrillard's distinctive view is that modern culture is thwarting all our attempts to grasp reality, which itself becomes a fiction. The answer is that you are left in the position of the ancient sceptics. Sextus Empiricus (see) is the saviour. |
| 7987 | Nothing is true, but everything is exact [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Someone said: everything is true, nothing is exact. I would say the opposite: nothing is true, everything is exact. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.210) | |
| A reaction: In analytical terminology, this appears to say that vagueness is ontological, not epistemological, agreeing with Williamson and others. To say that 'nothing is true', though, just strikes me as silly. What does Baudrillard mean by 'true'? |
| 13076 | Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1) | |
| A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata? |
| 13102 | If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?' | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
| A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place. |
| 13103 | Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job. |
| 13104 | Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4) | |
| A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity? |
| 13100 | Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously. |
| 13068 | We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance? | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1) | |
| A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence. |
| 13069 | The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open. |
| 13072 | Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties. |
| 17080 | Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates. |
| 13101 | Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
| A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant). |
| 13081 | Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46) | |
| A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is! |
| 13071 | We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view. |
| 7978 | There is no need to involve the idea of free will to make choices about one's life [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: There is no need to involve the idea of free will to make choices about one's life. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 57) | |
| A reaction: Someone who believed that free will was metaphysically possible, but that they themselves lacked it, might feel paralysed, defeated or fatalistic about their decision-making. But that would be like falsely believing you were fatally ill. |
| 7980 | In modern times, being useless is the essential aesthetic ingredient for an object [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Since the nineteenth century it has been art's claim that it is useless...so it is enough to elevate any object to uselessness to turn it into a work of art...and obsolete useless objects automatically acquire an aesthetic aura. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.111) | |
| A reaction: Art is 'purposive without purpose' (Kant). An nice summary of the situation, and this seems to explain the role of Duchamp's famous urinal, up on the wall and rendered useless. The obvious rebellion, though, is Arts and Crafts. |
| 7983 | Good versus evil has been banefully reduced to happiness versus misfortune [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The ideal opposition between good and evil has been reduced to the idealogical oppositions between happiness and misfortune. The reduction of good to happiness is as baneful as that of evil to misfortune. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.139) | |
| A reaction: A nice example is the use in the media of the word 'tragic' for every misfortune. See the debate over the translation of the Greek 'eudaimonia'. 'Happiness' seems the wrong translation, if it leads to comments like Baudrillard's. |
| 7981 | Whole populations are terrorist threats to authorities, who unite against them [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: One way or another, populations themselves are a terrorist threat to the authorities...and by extension, we can hypothesize a coalition of all governments against all populations. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.120) | |
| A reaction: This may count as left-wing paranoia, but it is a striking thought, which plants an uneasy notion in the mind whenever we see two world leaders disappear behind closed doors for a chat. |
| 7976 | People like democracy because it means they can avoid power [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: If the people puts itself into the hands of the political class, it does so more to be rid of power than out of any desire for representation. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 54) | |
| A reaction: Very nice. If we are all in the grips of some biological 'will to power', that needn't be power over huge numbers of other people, merely power over our immediate lives. It can be expressed by building a wall. |
| 7977 | Only in the last 200 years have people demanded the democratic privilege of being individuals [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Individuality is a recent phenomenon. It is only over the last two centuries that the populations of the civilized countries have demanded the democratic privilege of being individuals. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 55) | |
| A reaction: I think Aristotle's ethics and politics imply individuality, given that the only purpose of civic society seems to be to enable individuals to flourish and lead virtuous lives. Society is justified, for example, because it makes friendship possible. |
| 7979 | The arrival of the news media brought history to an end [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The course of history came to an end with the entry on the scene of the news media. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 83) | |
| A reaction: The sort of remark for which Baudrillard became famous. It strikes me as nonsense. The view the British people got of the Battle of Trafalgar was even more distorted than their picture of the Battle of El Alamein. We know what he means, though. |
| 7984 | Suicide is ascribed to depression, with the originality of the act of will ignored [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Suicide is always ascribed to depressive motivations with no account taken of an originality of, an original will to commit, the act itself. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.153) | |
| A reaction: Apparently research suggests that most suicides are clinically depressed, but even within the depression there is a startling act of will that goes beyond merely feeling bad. |
| 7985 | Pascal says secular life is acceptable, but more fun with the hypothesis of God [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: What Pascal says, more or less, is that you can more or less content yourself with a secular existence and its advantages, but it's much more fun with the hypothesis of God. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.155) | |
| A reaction: Pascal will be a bit startled when he reads this, but it is a lovely way to present his idea. It suddenly sounds much more attractive. Life would be much more fun if we lived according to all sorts of startling beliefs. Relating your life to God is one. |
| 1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |
| Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born. | |
| From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2) |