15 ideas
| 7493 | Let us reason together, saith the Lord [Isaiah] |
| Full Idea: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. | |
| From: Isaiah (23: Book of Isaiah [c.680 BCE], 01.18) | |
| A reaction: A verse which not only offers Biblical support for philosophy, but would also seem to be a challenge to Christian fideists. |
| 23531 | Philosophers should interpret the world, by expressing its possibilities [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: The philosopher's task is to interpret the world, that is, to capture its tendency and above all to enunciate the possibilities inscribed therein. …The politician's eye does not see the possible, being attracted instead by the probable. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], How to) | |
| A reaction: An inspiring idea! He is rejecting Marx's aim of changing the world, which had 'catastrophic' results. But I love his view of interpretation as spotting tendencies and possibilities. This fits my preferred ontology of dispositions and powers. |
| 23538 | Nothingness only exists in consciousness [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is the only place where nothingness exists. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], II 'Expanding') | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this, but an interesting remark from someone with a Hegelian background. We certainly have a concept of nothingness (a mental file of it, even). |
| 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. |
| 23532 | The delusion of free will brings a sense of guilt [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: A sense of guilt is linked to the delusion of free will. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], How to) | |
| A reaction: I agree that free will is a delusion, but I'm not sure about this. Clearly if you think you are 'ultimately' responsible for all of your actions this will increase guilt, but belief in free will is compatible with various excuses for actions. |
| 23537 | American white men trusted the philosophy of winning, and then discovered losing [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: American white men trusted the promises of neoliberal selfishness, they trusted the philosophy of winning, then discovered losing. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Fascism') | |
| A reaction: The most pernicious terminology in the English-speaking world is the labelling of people as 'winners' and 'losers'. We celebrate the one winner, and ignore everyone else. Celebrity, excessive wealth, honourable titles. |
| 23536 | Community is now a nostalgic memory, which no longer exists [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: Community is only a nostalgic memory of a past condition of belonging that exists no longer. Regret, not a living experience. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Fascism') | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this. Local heroes in my town make lovely efforts to improve the place (with flowers, sculptures) but most of us don't know who they are. Capitalist competition erodes community. |
| 23534 | Communism failed to unite western workers with the oppressed of the south [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: Communist internationalism was the only attempt to reconcile the workers of the West and the oppressed population of the Global South, and this attempt failed. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Hundred') | |
| A reaction: It was unfortunate that communism was launched in Russia, which we now see (in 2023) as poisoned by imperialist ambitions, and quite unsuited to international idealism. The Chinese are notably active in Africa. |
| 23533 | The economy has replaced medieval theocracy at the centre of our society [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: The economy has progressively acquired the central place in the system of knowledge and research. Re-enacting the privilege of theocracy in the Middle Ages. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Knowledge') | |
| A reaction: Illuminating. This is indeed how the economy is treated, centring on Gross National Product (no matter how distributed), and economic league tables. Is it even a quasi-religion? |
| 23535 | Western workers turn to nationalism, to avert the effects of globalisation [Berardi] |
| Full Idea: Western workers are following nationalist agendas in order to avert the effects of globalization, and resorting to nationalist and racist forms of identification. | |
| From: Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Hundred') | |
| A reaction: By 'globalisation' must be meant the impersonal work and exploitation that results from huge ruthless anonymous companies. People barely know who they are working for, so it can't give them an identity. |
| 7608 | The world is established, and cannot be moved [Isaiah] |
| Full Idea: The world is also established, that it cannot be moved. | |
| From: Isaiah (23: Book of Isaiah [c.680 BCE], 93.1) | |
| A reaction: This verse caused big trouble for Galileo. The only reason I can think of for Isaiah to write this is that occasionally people were prone to panic, and worry that the Earth might suddenly and abruptly be moved. |
| 7343 | Beside me there is no God [Isaiah] |
| Full Idea: I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. | |
| From: Isaiah (23: Book of Isaiah [c.680 BCE], 44.06) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the first clear statement (c. 680 BCE) of monotheism, certainly preceding any Greek views on the subject (cf. Idea 2629,Idea 7347). It is not just an arrogant assertion by the jews, but a humble sacrifice, donating their god to humanity. |