28 ideas
9247 | Life will be lived better if it has no meaning [Camus] |
Full Idea: Life will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs free') | |
A reaction: One image of the good life is that of a successful wild animal, for which existence is not a problem, merely a constant activity and pursuit. Maybe life begins to acquire meaning once we realise that meaning should not be sought directly. |
6707 | Suicide - whether life is worth living - is the one serious philosophical problem [Camus] |
Full Idea: There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judgine whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], p.11) | |
A reaction: What a wonderful thesis for a book. In Idea 2682 there is the possibility of life being worth living, but not worth a huge amount of effort. It is better to call Camus' question the first question, rather than the only question. |
9245 | To an absurd mind reason is useless, and there is nothing beyond reason [Camus] |
Full Idea: To an absurd mind reason is useless, and there is nothing beyond reason. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Phil Suic') | |
A reaction: But there is, surely, intuition and instinct? Read Keats's Letters. There is good living through upbringing and habit. Read Aristotle. If you like Camus' thought, you will love Chuang Tzu. Personally I am a child of the Enlightenment. |
9244 | Logic is easy, but what about logic to the point of death? [Camus] |
Full Idea: It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end. The only problem that interests me is: is there a logic to the point of death? | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs and Suic') | |
A reaction: This is a lovely hand grenade to lob into an analytical logic class! It is very hard to get logicians to actually ascribe a clear value to their activity. They tend to present it as a marginal private game, and yet it has high status. |
16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: It seems unavoidable that the facts about logically necessary relations between levels of facts are themselves logically distinct further facts, irreducible to the microphysical facts. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
A reaction: I'm beginning to think that rejecting every theory of reality that is proposed by carefully exposing some infinite regress hidden in it is a rather lazy way to do philosophy. Almost as bad as rejecting anything if it can't be defined. |
16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
A reaction: This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic. |
16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. …The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B) | |
A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism. |
16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property. | |
From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11) | |
A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream. |
9249 | Whether we are free is uninteresting; we can only experience our freedom [Camus] |
Full Idea: Knowing whether or not a man is free doesn't interest me. I can only experience my own freedom. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs free') | |
A reaction: Camus has the right idea. Personally I think you could drop the word 'freedom', and just say that I am confronted by the need to make decisions. |
9253 | The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it [Camus] |
Full Idea: The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Appendix') | |
A reaction: Nice. It might just as much be fate that you live a happy bourgeois life, as that you inadvertently murder your own father at a crossroads. But you can't avoid the powerful awareness of fate when a road accident occurs. |
9250 | Discussing ethics is pointless; moral people behave badly, and integrity doesn't need rules [Camus] |
Full Idea: There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs Man') | |
A reaction: I don't agree. If someone 'behaves badly with great morality' there is something wrong with their morality, and I want to know what it is. The last part is more plausible, and could be a motto for Particularism. Rules dangerously over-simplify life. |
9252 | The more one loves the stronger the absurd grows [Camus] |
Full Idea: The more one loves the stronger the absurd grows. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Don Juan') | |
A reaction: A penetrating remark, to be placed as a contrary to the remarks of Harry Frankfurt on love. But if the absurd increases the intensity of life, as Camus thinks, then they both make love the great life-affirmation, but in different ways. |
9251 | One can be virtuous through a whim [Camus] |
Full Idea: One can be virtuous through a whim. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs Man') | |
A reaction: A nice remark. Obviously neither Aristotle nor Kant would be too impressed by someone who did this, and Aristotle would certainly say that it is not really virtue, but merely right behaviour. I agree with Aristotle. |
6708 | Happiness and the absurd go together, each leading to the other [Camus] |
Full Idea: Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth; they are inseparable; it would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery; it happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], p.110) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure that I understand this, but I understand the experience of absurdity, and I can see that somehow one feels a bit more alive when one acknowledges the absurdity of it all. Meta-meta-thought is the highest form of human life, I say. |
9243 | If we believe existence is absurd, this should dictate our conduct [Camus] |
Full Idea: What a man believes to be true must determine his action. Belief in the absurdity of existence must then dictate his conduct. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs and Suic') | |
A reaction: It is intriguing to speculate what the appropriate conduct is. Presumably it is wild existential gestures, like sticking a knife through your hand. Suicide will be an obvious temptation. But bourgeois life might be equally appropriate. |
9242 | Essential problems either risk death, or intensify the passion of life [Camus] |
Full Idea: The essential problems are those that run the risk of leading to death, or those that intensify the passion of living. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs and Suic') | |
A reaction: This seems to be distinctively existentialist, in a way that a cool concern for great truths are not ranked as so important. Ranking dangerous problems as crucial seems somehow trivial for a philosopher. Intensity of life is more impressive. |
9246 | Danger and integrity are not in the leap of faith, but in remaining poised just before the leap [Camus] |
Full Idea: The leap of faith does not represent an extreme danger as Kierkegaard would like it to do. The danger, on the contrary, lies in the subtle instant that precedes the leap. Being able to remain on the dizzying crest - that is integrity. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Phil Suic') | |
A reaction: I have always found that a thrilling thought. It perfectly distinguishes atheist existentialism from religious existentialism. It is Camus' best image for how the Absurd can be a life affirming idea, rather than a sort of nihilism. Life gains intensity. |
20086 | Nowadays sovereignty (once the basis of a state) has become relative [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: In the twenty-first century, sovereignty, once the basis of the nation state, has become a relative concept. ...Powerlessness is the key word of our time. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 1 'Crisis') | |
A reaction: The point is that nation states now have limited power, in the face of larger unions, multinational companies, and global problems. |
20090 | Today it seems almost impossible to learn the will of the people [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Imagine having to develop a system today that would express the will of the people. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'electoral') | |
A reaction: Our recent Brexit referendum didn't do the job, because it was confined to a single question. Van Reybrouck laughs at the idea of expressing it through a polling both. How about a council of 500, drawn by lots? Meet for three months. |
20087 | There are no united monolothic 'peoples', and no 'national gut feelings' [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: There is no such thing as one monolithic 'people' (every society has its diversity), nor is there anything that could be described as a 'national gut feeling'. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'populism') | |
A reaction: Rousseau yearned for a republic no bigger than Geneva. I don't see why we should give up on the general will in huge modern societies. It is likely, though, to be an anodyne lowest common denominator. No bad thing, perhaps. |
20089 | Technocrats may be efficient, but they lose legitimacy as soon as they do unpopular things [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Efficiency does not automatically generate legitimacy, and faith in the technocrat melts away as soon as spending cuts are implemented. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'democracy') | |
A reaction: They can hang on to legitimacy if they can come up with some technical mumbo-jumbo like 'monetarism' which the people will swallow. |
20088 | Technocrats are expert managers, who replace politicians, and can be long-term and unpopular [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Technocracy is a system where experts are charged with looking after the public interest. ...Technocrats are managers who replace politicians, so they can concentrate on long-term solutions and announce unpopular measures. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'technocracy') | |
A reaction: I like technocrats. They just need to be accountable. In the UK we have far more respect for the governor of the Bank of England than for any politician. |
20085 | Democracy is the best compromise between legitimacy and efficiency [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Democracy is the least bad form of all governments precisely because it attempts to find a healthy balance between legitimacy and efficiency. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 1 'Crisis') | |
A reaction: There seems to be a widespread feeling that democracy is declining in efficiency, and that may be because our remoteness from government decreases legitimacy, so we have less commitment to getting things done. |
20095 | A referendum result arises largely from ignorance [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: In a referendum you ask everyone to vote on a subject that usually only a few know anything about. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 4 'remedies') | |
A reaction: Tell me about it! I was forced to vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and felt thoroughly out of my depth on such a complex economic question. |
20094 | You don't really govern people if you don't involve them [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Even with the best of intentions, those who govern the people without involving them, govern them only in a limited sense. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 4 intro) | |
A reaction: But if they are highly involved, who is governing who? Do we want the people to become happier about being governed, or do we want them more involved in doing the governing? |
20093 | In the 18th century democratic lots lost out to elections, that gave us a non-hereditary aristocracy [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: The drawing of lots, the most democratic of all political instruments, lost out in the eighteenth century to elections, a procedure that was not invented as a democratic instrument, but as a means of bringing a new non-hereditary aristocracy to power. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 3 'democratisation') | |
A reaction: This is the basic thesis of Van Reybrouck's book. He argues for the extensive use of lots ('sortition') for getting people involved in modern democracies. I love the idea that in a good democracy you get an occasional chance to rule. |
20091 | Representative elections were developed in order to avoid democracy [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Bernard Manin (1995) revealed how, immediately after the American and French revolutions, the electoral-representative system was chosen with the intention of keeping at bay the tumult of democracy. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 3 'procedure') | |
A reaction: At the time America and France were two of the largest countries in the world, and communication and transport were slow. That has changed. |
9248 | It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will [Camus] |
Full Idea: It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will. Suicide is a repudiation. | |
From: Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus [1942], 'Abs free') | |
A reaction: Camus' whole book addresses the question of suicide. He suggests that life can be redeemed and become livable if you squarely face up to the absurdity of it, and the gap between what we hope for and what we get. |