8 ideas
15663 | Adorno and Horkheimer subjected the Enlightenment to 'critical theory' analysis [Adorno/Horkheimer, by Finlayson] |
Full Idea: Adorno and Horkheimer's analysis of Enlightenment sets the agenda for the subsequent development of critical theory. | |
From: report of T Adorno / M Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1944]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.1:07 |
2170 | Homer does not distinguish between soul and body [Homer, by Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Homer's descriptions of people did without a dualistic distinction between soul and body. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.23 |
2171 | The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37 | |
A reaction: This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing. |
20572 | De Sade said it was impossible to rationally argue against murder [Adorno/Horkheimer] |
Full Idea: De Sade trumpeted far and wide the impossibility of deriving from reason any fundamental argument against murder. | |
From: T Adorno / M Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1944], p.118) | |
A reaction: [They focus on 'Juliette'] This is a big problem for utilitarians, because murdering an unhappy person may maximise happiness. Presumably a maniac could will universal carnage, and thus thwart Kant. |
21819 | Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus] |
Full Idea: In Plato the order of generation is from the Good, the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 509b) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
A reaction: The doctrine of Plotinus merely echoes Plato, in that case, except that the One replaces the Form of the Good. Does this mean that what is first in Plotinus is less morally significant, and more concerned with reason and being? |
20992 | Right and wrong concerns what other people cannot reasonably reject [Scanlon] |
Full Idea: Thinking about right and wrong is, at the most basic level, thinking about what could be justified to others on grounds that they, if appropriately motivated, could not reasonably reject. | |
From: Thomas M. Scanlon (What We Owe to Each Other [1998], Intro) | |
A reaction: The tricky bit is that the acceptance by others must be 'reasonable', so we need a reasonably objective view of rationality. Don't picture your neighbours, picture the locals when you are on holiday in a very different culture. Other Nazis? |
11388 | Let there be one ruler [Homer] |
Full Idea: The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler. | |
From: Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 2.204), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 8.9 | |
A reaction: [Quoted by Aristotle at Metaphysics 1076a04] |
14829 | Homer so enjoys the company of the gods that he must have been deeply irreligious [Homer, by Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Homer is so at home among his gods, and takes such delight in them as a poet, that he surely must have been deeply irreligious. | |
From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human 125 | |
A reaction: Blake made a similar remark about where the true allegiance of Milton lay in 'Paradise Lost'. |