63 ideas
| 5300 | Philosophers have interpreted the world, but the point is to change it [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach [1846], §XI) | |
| A reaction: The 'point' of what? Personally I am more with Aristotle - that the aim is to create a society in which we can all aspire to contemplate like gods. As an interim statement of aim, though, one must respect Marx. But was he a philosopher? |
| 23027 | Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: To T.H. Green an ideal was no creation of an idle imagination, metaphysics no mere play of the speculative reason. Ideals were the most solid, and metaphysics the most practical thing about a man. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: This is despite the fact that Green was an idealist in the Hegelian tradition. I like this. I see it not just as ideals having practical guiding influence, but also that ideals themselves arising out of experience. |
| 5297 | Whether human thinking can be 'true' must be decided in practice, not theory [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question; man must prove the truth of his thinking in practice. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach [1846], §II) | |
| A reaction: This would appear to be an assertion of the pragmatic view of truth well before Peirce. The obvious objections arise, such as whether falsehood (Plato's 'noble lie') might not have equal practical success, and whether truth might be disastrous. |
| 23030 | Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: When we speak of anything as true or false, we do so on the ground of its relation to a whole of organised knowledge existing actually in no human mind, but prefigured in every mind which is possessed of reason. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I n1 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the super-idealist view of the coherence account of truth. I have no idea what 'prefigured' means here. |
| 10496 | Monothetic categories have fixed defining features, and polythetic categories do not [Ellen] |
| Full Idea: Many categories are 'monothetic' (the defining set of features is always unique), and others are 'polythetic' (single features being neither essential to group membership nor sufficient to allocate an item to a group). | |
| From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.33) | |
| A reaction: This seems a rather important distinction which hasn't made its way into philosophy, where there is a horrible tendency to oversimplify, with the dream of a neat and unified picture. But see Goodman's 'Imperfect Community' problem (Idea 7957). |
| 10497 | In symbolic classification, the categories are linked to rules [Ellen] |
| Full Idea: Symbolic classification occurs when we use some things as a means of saying something about other things. ..They enhance the significance of some categories, so that categories imply rules and rules imply categories. | |
| From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.35) | |
| A reaction: I'm afraid the anthropologists seem to have more of interest to say about categories than philosophers do. Though maybe we couldn't do anthropology if philosophers had made us more self-conscious about categories. Teamwork! |
| 10494 | Several words may label a category; one word can name several categories; some categories lack words [Ellen] |
| Full Idea: Words are not always a good guide to the existence of categories: there may be several words which label the same categories (synonyms). and the same word can be used for quite different ideas. Some categories may exist without being labelled. | |
| From: Roy Ellen (Categories, Classification, Cogn. Anthropology [2006], I) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of point which seems obvious to anyone outside philosophy, but which philosophers seem to find difficult to accept. Philosophers should pay much more attention to animals, and to illiterate peoples. Varieties of rice can lack labels. |
| 10495 | Continuous experience sometimes needs imposition of boundaries to create categories [Ellen] |
| Full Idea: Because parts of our experience of the world are complexly continuous, it is occasionally necessary to impose boundaries to produce categories at all. | |
| From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I like it. Ellen says that people tend to universally cut nature somewhere around the joints, but we can't cope with large things, so the sea tends to be labelled in sections, even though most of the world's seas are continuous. |
| 23044 | All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: All knowledge is seen on ultimate analysis to rest upon the idea of a fundamental unity between subject and object, between the knower and that which there is to be known. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: I don't really understand this thought, but I think it embodies the essence of Hegelian idealism. If I know a tree in the wood, any 'unity' between us strikes as merely imaginary. If the tree isn't separate, what does 'knowing' it mean? |
| 23034 | The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Systematic interdependence in the world of nature is the ultimate test of truth. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Green (or Muirhead) drifts between coherence as the nature of truth and coherence as the nature of justification. He it is the 'test' for truth, which was Russell's view. |
| 23029 | Knowledge is secured by the relations between its parts, through differences and identities [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: What gives reality and stability to our knowledge is the reality and stability of the relations established between its parts..…by the differences and identities with other things which have similarly achieved comparative fixity and substantiality. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although I don't sympathise with Green's idealist metaphysics, and nevertheless think that this internalist account of knowledge is correct. |
| 10498 | Classification is no longer held to be rooted in social institutions [Ellen] |
| Full Idea: The view that all classification finds its roots in social institutions is now generally considered untenable. | |
| From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.36) | |
| A reaction: And about time too. Ellen (an anthropologist) inevitably emphasises the complexity of the situation, but endorses the idea that people everywhere largely cut nature at the joints. |
| 22598 | The authentic self exists at the level of class, rather than the individual [Marx, by Dunt] |
| Full Idea: Instead of focusing on the individual, Marxism suggested that the authentic self was at the social level in the form of class. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach [1846]) by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 6 | |
| A reaction: [not sure of the best source in Marx] This idea is expressed here by a defender of liberal individualism. Dunt persuasively attacks any concept of the self as part of some group, rather than as being an individual. |
| 23035 | The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The differentia of the good life …is controlled by the consciousness of there being some perfection which has to be fulfilled, some law which has to be obeyed, something absolutely desirable whatever the individual may for the time desire. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.134), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: The 'perfection' suggests Plato, and the 'law' suggests Kant. The idea that something is 'absolutely desirable' is, I suspect, aimed at the utilitarians, who don't care what is desired. I'm no idealist, but have some sympathy with this idea. |
| 5298 | The human essence is not found in individuals but in social relations [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual; in its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach [1846], §VI) | |
| A reaction: This is a key Marxist doctrine, and the central difference from Aristotle. Personally I am more with Aristotle, but the truth obviously lies somewhere in between. Man must be a 'social being', or there wouldn't be any social relations. |
| 23032 | What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: All that is distinctively human in the life of man springs not from the desire to possess this or that object, and so far to realise a better, but to be something more and better than he is. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: An example of Victorian optimism, I think. I'm guessing that people who are not motivated by this impulse are not behaving in a way that is 'distinctively human'. That said, this is an interesting aspect of human nature. |
| 23874 | Armies and businesses create moralities in which their activity can do no wrong [Marx, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: Marx saw that social groups manufacture moralities for their own use, so their activity is placed outside the reach of evil. Thus the first articles of soldiers and businessmen is to deny that it is possible to do evil while waging war or doing business. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Fragments: London 1943 p.146 | |
| A reaction: This is especially true of the modern reverence for 'market forces'. It is a key debate in the ethics of warfare - compare Walzer and McMahon. A striking thought, obviously containing a lot of truth. |
| 23033 | Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Hedonism failed because it offered as an end of human aspiration an object in which the human spirit, pledged by its own nature to self-betterment, …could never find satisfaction. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: It is always both sad and amusing to see that 150 years ago someone wrote of a doctrine that is still with us that it has 'failed'. Nowadays they try to say the same of physicalism. His objection rests on optimism about humanity. |
| 23046 | States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The claim of the state is only absolutely paramount on the supposition that in its commands and prohibitions it takes account of all the claims that arise out of human fellowship. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §146), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: He rejects the idea of the general will in ordinary political activity, so it is not clear how this condition could ever be met in practice. Hideous governments just pay lip service to 'human fellowship'. How could you tell whether they believe it? |
| 22001 | The real will of the cooperative will replace the 'will of the people' [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Under collective property, the so called will of the people disappears in order to make way for the real will of the cooperative. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Grundrisse [1876], p.563), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 10 | |
| A reaction: [from an 1874 note on Bakunin's 'Statism and Anarchy'] So how do you settle on the 'real' will of a cooperative? The travesty is when a ruling elite decide that, without consultation. An institution is needed. This is still a social contract. |
| 23045 | Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Where laws and institutions are apparently the work of deliberate volition, they are in reality the result of a compromise, which while by a kind of social contract it has the acquiescence of all, expresses the will of none. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: Politicians who claim to be enacting the 'will of the people' (e.g. when they won a referendum 52-48) are simply lying. Committees usually end up enacting one person's will, but often without realising what has happened. |
| 23050 | The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: With all seriousness and reverence we may hope and pray for a condition of English society in which all honest citizens will recognise themselves and be recognised by each other as gentlemen. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Call me old fashioned but, as long as we expand this to include ladies, I like this thought. Chaucer's knight (in his Prologue) should be our national role model. The true gentleman is an Aristotelian ideal. |
| 23052 | Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Enfranchisement of the people is an end in itself. …Only citizenship makes the moral man; only citizenship gives that respect which is the true basis of the respect for others. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:436), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Should people respect their betters? If so, that is a sort of deferential respect which is different from the mutual respect between equals. That said, I wholly approve of this idea. |
| 21991 | The middle class gain freedom through property, but workers can only free all of humanity [Marx, by Singer] |
| Full Idea: Where the middle class can win freedom for themselves on the basis of rights to property - thus excluding others from their freedom - the working class have nothing but their title as human beings. They only liberate themselves by liberating humanity. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right [1844]) by Peter Singer - Marx 4 | |
| A reaction: Individual workers might gain freedom via education, marriage, or entrepreneurship, or by opting for total simplicity of life, but in general Marx seems to be right about this. But we must ask what sort of 'freedom' is needed. |
| 21990 | Theory is as much a part of a revolution as material force is [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Material force must be overthrown by material force. But theory also becomes a material force once it has gripped the masses. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right [1844], Intro p.69), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 4 | |
| A reaction: A huge problem, I think, is that every theory (even conservatism) has to be simplified in a democracy if it is to grip the imagination of the majority. My current hatred is labels in political philosophy. They give us a cartoon view of the world. |
| 22971 | In moving from capitalism to communism a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is needed [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Between the capitalist and communist society lies the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], IV) | |
| A reaction: This hugely influential idea was catastrophic for the twentieth century, because the leaders of the proletarian dictatorship adored and abused the power, and wouldn't give it up for some feeble next stage. |
| 23036 | The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: The modern idea of the good has developed in respect of the range of persons who have the capacity and therefore the right to participate in this good. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Green is a notable Victorian liberal, starting from an idealist metaphysics. This is an intriguing view of liberal values. The concept of the good should be what suits persons with full capacity. Having the capacity bestows the right of access to it. Hm. |
| 23039 | A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: In so far as society commits itself to the principle of individuality of its citizens does it realise the unity and stability that constitute it a true 'State'. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: This asserts the liberal vision of a state, rather than asserting a fact. A state consistently mostly of slaves still seems to be a state, and may achieve a lot. |
| 23037 | People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Man has bettered himself through institutions and habits which tend to make the welfare of all the welfare of each. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.180), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot. We underestimate how the best social values are promoted by the existence of enlightened institutions, rather than by preaching and teaching. Schools, law courts and churche embody their values. |
| 23051 | Equality also implies liberty, because equality must be of opportunity as well as possessions [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Liberty was essential, not only as a means to equality, but as part of it. …because the opportunity which was to be equalised was not merely to have and to be happy, but to do and to realise. It was 'the right of man to make the best of himself'. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: This nicely identifies the core idea of civilised liberalism (as opposed to the crazy self-seeking kind). I think 'give people the right to make the best of themselves' makes a good slogan, because it implies ensuring that they have the means. |
| 18662 | Liberal freedom is the right to be separate, and ignores the union of man with man [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The liberal right of man to freedom is not based on the union of man with man, but on the separation of man from man; it is the right to this separation. | |
| From: Karl Marx (works [1860]), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 7.2.a | |
| A reaction: [quoted from an anthology] It is interesting that liberal freedom is the right NOT to be involved in politics, and even not to vote in elections. Home counties England (high hedges etc) is the embodiment of the freedom not to be involved in society. |
| 23043 | All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Our ultimate standard of worth is an ideal of personal worth. All other values are relative to personal values. To speak of any progress of a nation or society or mankind except as relative to some greater worth of persons is to use words without meaning. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.193), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Note that, pre-verificationism, a Victorian talks of plausible words actually being meaningless. This is a good statement of the core doctrine of liberalism. |
| 23372 | Liberals want the right to be separate, rather than for people to be united [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The [liberal] right of man to freedom is not based on the union of man with man, but on the separation of man from man. It is the right to this separation. | |
| From: Karl Marx (works [1860], p.53), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) 7 | |
| A reaction: [in collection ed.McLelland p.53] That nicely encapsulates the debate. Modern liberal thinkers regret the loss of community, but people in authoritarian communities yearn for separation. You can have too much 'union'! |
| 20576 | Early Marx anticipates communitarian objections to liberalism [Marx, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: The early writings of Marx anticipate the communitarian critique of liberalism. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: [Oksala says modern writers seem to prefer this to the hardcore later Marx, which is presumably too 'scientific'. He says 'Capital Vol 1' is Marx's most important work] |
| 23038 | People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: In so far as the individual commits himself to the principle of co-operation in a social whole does he realise his end as individual personality. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (works [1875]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: This makes for a very communitarian type of liberalism. The question is whether we create insitutions which suck our free citizens into a communal way of life, or whether that is a matter of their own initiative. |
| 23028 | The highest political efforts express our deeper social spirit [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Political effort in all its highest forms is the expression of a belief in the reality of the social spirit as the deeper element in the individual. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although Green is rather literally spiritual, if we express it as a central aspect of human nature, this idea strikes me as correct. Writing in 2021, I am totally bewildered by the entire absence of any 'higher' forms of political expression. |
| 21989 | Man is dominated by money, which is the essence of his alienation [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Money is the alienated essence of man's labour and life, and this alien essence dominates him as he worships it. | |
| From: Karl Marx (On the Jewish Question [1844], p.60), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 3 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is inherit in the very nature of money, rather than in the wickedness of capitalists who control it. But money is not inherently alienting for the rich, or for the comfortable bourgeoisie (is it?). |
| 22000 | From each according to his ability, to each according to his need [Marx] |
| Full Idea: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875]), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: Singer says this was not original to Marx, and he placed little emphasis on it. The obvious capitalist response is to ask how you will motivate someone who has huge abilities but few needs. It implies huge inequalities of altruism. |
| 23862 | By saying the material dialectic of history aspires to the best, Marx agreed with capitalism [Weil on Marx] |
| Full Idea: When Marx inverted Hegel's dialectic of history, by substituting matter for mind as the motive, he attributed to matter the essence of mind, an unceasing aspiration towards the best - which was in keeping with the general current of capitalist thought. | |
| From: comment on Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression p.43 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] A rather nice debating point! Marx seems to share the universal nineteenth century belief in unremitting progress. Without that, it is impossible to believe that a revolution will necessarily improve anything. |
| 21999 | False consciousness results from concealment by the superstructure [Marx, by Singer] |
| Full Idea: False consciousness involves failing to see things as they really are. It comes about because a society's superstructure can conceal the real basis of the society. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: That seems a poor label, probably revealing a Hegelian background. It seems a matter of knowledge rather than consciousness. Can a whole mind be in a state of error? |
| 23875 | Marx says force is everything, and that the weak will become strong, while remaining the weak [Weil on Marx] |
| Full Idea: Marx posits on the one hand that force alone governs social relations to the exclusion of anything else, and on the other hand that one day the weak, while remaining weak, will nevertheless be stronger. He believed in miracles. | |
| From: comment on Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Fragments: London 1943 p.149 | |
| A reaction: This is close to the obvious contradiction if the working classes despise the middle classes (the dreaded 'bourgeoisie') while their only aspiration is to be like them. It is hard to custom design a new class to which they could both aspire. |
| 21995 | Must production determine superstructure, or could it be the other way round? [Singer on Marx] |
| Full Idea: Once the 'interaction' between the superstructure and the productive forces is admitted, is it still possible to maintain that production determines the superstructure, rather than the other way round? | |
| From: comment on Karl Marx (Capital Vol. 1 [1867]) by Peter Singer - Marx 7 | |
| A reaction: It is much harder to defend historical determinism if Singer is right about this. Modern capitalism won't admit of the sort of simple distinctions that mark was looking for. |
| 18653 | Marx rejected equal rights because they never actually treat people as equals [Marx, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Marx rejected the idea of equal rights, not because he was not a friend to the idea of treating people as equals, but precisely because he thought rights failed to live up to that ideal. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 5.1 | |
| A reaction: Presumably because the power to award 'rights' goes to the highest bidder. If equality is to be enshrined in law, it is a bit difficult to see how else to manage it. |
| 20577 | Even decently paid workers still have their produce bought with money stolen from them [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Even if the workers are paid a fair wage, the whole thing still remains the age-old activity of the conqueror, who buys commodities from the conquered with the money has has stolen from them, | |
| From: Karl Marx (Capital Vol. 1 [1867], p.728), quoted by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: [Penguin edition cited] The word 'stolen' is obviously dubious here. 'Exploitation' is a much more accurate word. One might talk of 'blackmail' or 'extortion' rather than theft. |
| 22969 | People who only have their labour power are the slaves of those permitting them to work [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The man who possesses no other property than his labour power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labour. He can only work with their permission. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], I) | |
| A reaction: In a world of vast multinationals, the person giving the permission to work is nearly always dependent on some higher level permission. In any sort of society people can only work with the consensus of other people. |
| 23054 | Communism is wrong because it restricts the freedom of individuals to contribute to the community [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Green condemned pure communism, not in the name of any abstract rights of the individual, but of the right of the community itself to the best that individuals can contribute through the free and spontaneous exercise of their powers of self-expression. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Interesting. In a very authoritarian communist state it does seem that citizens are less able to contribute to the general good. But extreme liberty seems also to undermine the general good. Hm. |
| 23047 | Original common ownership is securing private property, not denying it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Common ownership in early societies is not the denial of a man's private property in the products of his own labour, but the only way under the circumstances of securing it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §218) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: This is announced with some confidence, but it is very speculative. I think there is some truth in Locke's thought that putting work into a creation creates natural ownership. But who owns the raw materials? Why is work valued highly? |
| 21996 | Freedom only comes when labour is no longer necessary [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Capital Vol. 3 [1873], p.496), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 8 | |
| A reaction: This is a bit discouraging fo idealistic dreamers. Modern political thought needs an ecological dimension to this problem. If society always needs a fair degree of labour, there must be a way to maximise freedom in that context. |
| 22970 | Freedom is making the state subordinate to its society [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed on society into one completely subordinate to it. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], IV) | |
| A reaction: The intermediate stage is dictatorship of the proletariat (presumably exercised by the communist leadership). No twentieth century marxist state ever got near the freedom which Marx was seeking. A liberal society might achieve it! |
| 21994 | The handmill gives feudalism, the steam mill capitalism [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill society with the industrial capitalist. | |
| From: Karl Marx (The Poverty of Philosophy [1847], p.202), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 7 | |
| A reaction: If technology dictates social structure, then feudalism is still with us, in low-tech industries. What if the steam mill had been invented in 1300? |
| 20958 | Capitalism changes the world, by socialising the idea of a commodity [Marx, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: In Marx's view the essential factor in capitalism is that the encroachment of the commodity form into society fundamentally changes the world. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 6 'Historical' | |
| A reaction: The main point is that people and their labour become commodities. Haven't animals always been treated as commodities? Clearly slave were commodities, long before capitalism. Capitalism universalises it? |
| 23876 | The essence of capitalism is the subordination of people to things [Marx, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: Marx discovered a formula impossible to surpass when he said that the essence of capitalism lies in the subordination of subject to object, of man to thing. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Fragments: London 1943 p,155 | |
| A reaction: I find this rather too vague to be a penetrating observation. I would suggest the obliteration of cooperation and community, in favour of competition. Winners and losers. |
| 20960 | Marx thought capitalism was partly liberating, and could make labour and ownership more humane [Marx, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Marx did not disapprove per se of capitalism. New divisions of labour and forms of ownership could transform individuals in modern societies, creating a more humane world with the means capitalism had liberated from feudalism. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 11 'Metaphysics' | |
| A reaction: I'm guessing this might be early Marx, which has less to say about the 'scientific' inevitably of deep change, and the necessity for revolution. Nowadays we tinker with humane changes at the poorer end, while the rich run rampant. |
| 23042 | National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: A national spirit cannot exist apart from the individuals who embody it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: We see this in football supporters. They are thrilled by the glory of a great victory, but the reality is just the thrill of the players, and the exuberance in each supporter's mind. There is no further entity called the 'glory'. Green was a liberal. |
| 22972 | Bourgeois 'freedom of conscience' just tolerates all sorts of religious intolerance [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Bourgeois 'freedom of conscience' is just the toleration of all possible kinds of religious unfreedom of conscience, and the workers' party should endeavour to liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], IV) | |
| A reaction: We see this in modern 'faith' schools in the UK, which do not seem to be required to live up to the standards of freedom of belief expected in the rest of a liberal society. |
| 20519 | Marxists say liberal rights are confrontational, and liberal equality is a sham [Marx, by Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: For Marx liberal rights are egoistic rights of separation: they encourage each individual to view others as limitations to his or her freedom. ....Liberals set up a sham community of 'equal' citizens. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (On the Jewish Question [1844]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 4 'Marxist' | |
| A reaction: The point is that equality in law does not ensure equal treatment in daily life. I suppose a liberal right can be seen as an opt-out clause for some aspect of society. |
| 23048 | The ground of property ownership is not force but the power to use it for social ends [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: It is not the power of forcible tenure but the power of utilisation for social ends that is the ground of the permanent recognition that constitutes a right to property. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: Tell that to the aristocratic owners of British grouse moors! This just seems to be wishful thinking. Does that mean that I have no right to property if my ends are not 'social'? |
| 23049 | Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The rationale of property is that every one should be secured by society in the power of getting and keeping the means of realising a will which in possibility is a will directed to social good. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §220), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: An interesting argument. If you want free citizens in a liberal society to be capable of achieving social good, you must allow them the right to acquire the means of doing so. |
| 23040 | If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: To anyone who understands a process of development, the result being developed is the reality; and it is its ability to become this that the subject undergoing development has its true nature. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii: 224), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Although this contains the dubious Hegelian idea that development tends towards some 'end', presented as fixed and final, it still seems important that anything accepted as a 'development' is the expression of some natural potential. |
| 23031 | God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: God is a subject which is eternally all that the self-conscious subject as developed in time has the possibility of becoming. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: [Ethics p.197] Reminiscent of Peirce's account of truth, as the ideal end of enquiry. If God is a human ideal, we either limit God, or exaggerate our powers of idealisation. |
| 23041 | God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: God is identical with the self of every man in the sense of being the realisation of its determinate possibilities.…In being conscious of himself man is conscious of God and thus knows that God is, but only in so far as he knows what he himself really is. | |
| From: T.H. Green (works [1875], iii:226-7), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Does this, by the transitivity of identity, imply the identity of all individual men? Do we all contain identical possibilities, which converge on a unified concept of God? I always take the monotheistic God to far exceed mere human possibilities. |
| 7128 | Religion is the opium of the people, and real happiness requires its abolition [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Religion is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right [1844], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Not being religious myself, I have some sympathy with this ringing clarion-call. However, while opium satisfies an artificial and superficial need, religion certainly seems to speak to something deeper and more central in people. |
| 5299 | Religious feeling is social in origin [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The "religious sentiment" (discussed by Feuerbach) is itself a social product. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Theses on Feuerbach [1846], §VII) | |
| A reaction: Recent brain research has identified a part of the brain which is only active during religious thought and experience. It is easy to produce cynical political accounts of religion, but in its time it was also quite a good scientific account of nature. |