80 ideas
| 7113 | Phenomenology assumes that all consciousness is of something [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The essential principle of phenomenology is that 'all consciousness is consciousness of something'. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: This idea is found well before Husserl, in Schopenhauer (Idea 4166). It seems to contradict a thought such as Locke's (Idea 1202), that self-awareness is a separate and distinct criterion for personal identity. Sartre gives a nice account. |
| 22664 | I do not care if my trivial beliefs are false, and I have no interest in many truths [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: I find that I do not mind at all the thought that I have some false beliefs (of US state capitals), and there are many truths I do not care to know at all (total grains of sand on the beach). | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.67) | |
| A reaction: A useful corrective to anyone who blindly asserts that truth is the supreme human value. I would still be annoyed if someone taught me lies about these two types of truth. |
| 22665 | Maybe James was depicting the value of truth, and not its nature [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: We might see William James's pragmatic view that truth is what works as depicting the value of truth, and not its nature. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.68) | |
| A reaction: James didn't think that he was doing this. He firmly says that this IS truth, not just the advantages of truth. Another view is that pragmatists are giving a test for truth. |
| 17699 | Variables are auxiliary notions, and not part of the 'eternal' essence of logic [Schönfinkel] |
| Full Idea: A variable in a proposition of logic ....has the status of a mere auxiliary notion that is really inappropriate to the constant, 'eternal' essence of the propositions of logic. | |
| From: Moses Schönfinkel (Building Blocks of Mathematical Logic [1924], §1) | |
| A reaction: He presumably thinks that what the variables stand for (and he mentions 'argument places' and 'operators') will be included in the essence. My attention was caught by the thought that he takes logic to have an essence. |
| 22227 | For Sartre there is only being for-itself, or being in-itself (which is beyond experience) [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| Full Idea: The two most fundamental modes of being in Sartre's ontology are being in-itself, and being for-itself. ...The in-itself lies beyond our experience of it. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.2 | |
| A reaction: This appears to be Kant's ding-an-sich, paired with Heidegger's Dasein. If those are the only options, then reality is either subjective or unknown, which seems to make Sartre an idealist, but he asserted that phenomena vindicate the in-itself. |
| 3570 | Maybe knowledge is belief which 'tracks' the truth [Nozick, by Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Nozick suggests that knowledge is just belief which 'tracks the truth' (hence leaving out justification). | |
| From: report of Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations [1981]) by Michael Williams - Problems of Knowledge Ch. 2 |
| 7112 | The Cogito depends on a second-order experience, of being conscious of consciousness [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: We must remember that all authors who have described the Cogito have presented it as a reflective operation, i.e. as second-order. This Cogito is performed by a consciousness directed towards consciousness, which takes consciousness as its object. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: Sartre is raising the nice question of whether the Cogito still works for first-order consciousness, which attends totally to external objects. He claims that it doesn't. Contrast Russell, who says (Idea 5380) that it only works when it is first-order! |
| 7114 | The consciousness that says 'I think' is not the consciousness that thinks [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The consciousness that says 'I think' is precisely not the consciousness that thinks. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: All parties seem to be agreed that if we are going to introspect in search of our own ego, we must distinguish between the mental act of instrospection and the mental act of applying the mind to the world. Each gives a different result. |
| 7119 | Is the Cogito reporting an immediate experience of doubting, or the whole enterprise of doubting? [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: When Descartes says 'I doubt therefore I am', is he talking about the spontaneous doubt that reflective consciousness grasps in its instantaneous character, or is he talking of the enterprise of doubting? This ambiguity can lead to serious errors. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (B)) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. The obvious response is that it is about the immediate experience, but that leads to the problem of an instantaneous ego, which can't be justified over time. The 'enterprise' gives an enduring ego, but it is a more intellectual concept. |
| 20743 | Appearances do not hide the essence; appearances are the essence [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: We reject the dualism of appearance and essence. The appearance does not hide the essence, it reveals it; it is the essence. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.4-5), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology' | |
| A reaction: This idea, expressed in the language of Hegel and Husserl, strikes me as the same as the analytic phenomenalism of Mill and Ayer. Hence I take it to be wrong. |
| 2748 | A true belief isn't knowledge if it would be believed even if false. It should 'track the truth' [Nozick, by Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Nozick says Gettier cases aren't knowledge because the proposition would be believed even if false. Proper justification must be more sensitive to the truth ("track the truth"). | |
| From: report of Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations [1981], 3.1) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 3.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a bad idea. I see a genuine tree in my garden and believe it is there, so I know it. That I might have believed it if I was in virtually reality, or observing a mirror, won't alter that. |
| 7125 | A consciousness can conceive of no other consciousness than itself [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: A consciousness can conceive of no other consciousness than itself. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], Conc (1)) | |
| A reaction: This is why we don't know what it is like to be a bat. This seems right, though it looks like a contingent truth, and yet Sartre seems to offer it as a necessary truth. Can God conceive of my consciousness? |
| 7122 | We can never, even in principle, grasp other minds, because the Ego is self-conceiving [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The Ego can be conceived only through itself and this is why we cannot grasp the consciousness of another (for this reason alone, and not because bodies separate us). | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This makes telepathy a logical impossibility, and the body the only possible route for the communication between two minds. But, is Sartre is right, how do bodily events penetrate the inturned world of the Ego? |
| 7108 | The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The unity of the thousand active consciousnesses through which I have added two and two to make four, is the transcendent object '2+2=4'. Without the permanence of this eternal truth, it would be impossible to conceive of a real unity of mind. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of externalism, here presented as a Platonic attitude to arithmetic, rather than being about water or gold. He claims that internalist attitudes to unity are fictions. I am inclined to think he is wrong, and that unity is biological. |
| 24016 | Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: It is of the essence of consciousness to transcend itself | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: As usual, I am a bit baffled by these sorts of pronouncement. Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Maybe it is a development of Schopenhauer's thought. |
| 6151 | Sartre says consciousness is just directedness towards external objects [Sartre, by Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Sartre defends a view of consciousness as nothing but a directedness towards objects, insisting that these objects are transcendent with respect to that consciousness; hence Sartre is one of the first genuine externalists. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: An ancestor here is, I think, Schopenhauer (Idea 4166). The idea is attractive, as we are brought up with idea that we have a thing called 'consciousness', but if you removed its contents there would literally be nothing left. |
| 7111 | Consciousness exists as consciousness of itself [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The existence of consciousness is an absolute, because consciousness is consciousness of itself; the type of existence that consciousness has is that it is consciousness of itself. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: I find this unconvincing. Anyone analysis the nature of the mind should think as much about animal minds as human minds. It seems obvious to me that there is likely to be an animal consciousness which is entirely of environment and its body. |
| 22226 | Since we are a consciousness, Sartre entirely rejected the unconscious mind [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| Full Idea: Sartre refused, denied and fought against the unconscious. Since we are consciousness, there cannot be such a thing as unconsciousness. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.1 | |
| A reaction: The modern view is increasingly opposed to this, as neuroscience and psychology uncover hidden motives etc. Sartre's view is still legitimate, though. An unconscious motive is not more my motive than a law of the land is part of me? |
| 7107 | Intentionality defines, transcends and unites consciousness [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is defined by intentionality. Through intentionality it transcends itself, it unifies itself by going outside itself. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: The standard view for a hundred years was Brentano's idea that intentionality defines the mind. Qualia are the modern rival. If I had to choose I think I would go for intentionality, but they may be naturally and metaphysically inseparable. |
| 3847 | Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.41) | |
| A reaction: This might be plausible if unperformed actions are included. For some people, their whole life story consists of what they failed to do. |
| 7109 | If you think of '2+2=4' as the content of thought, the self must be united transcendentally [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: It is possible that those who think that '2 and 2 make 4' is the content of my representations may be forced to resort to a transcendental and subjective principle of unification - in other words, the I. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that thoughts themselves unite the mind, externally. If you think of thoughts as internal, you must resort to a transcendental fiction to unify the mind. Personally I think the mind is inherently unified by brain structures. |
| 7106 | The Ego is not formally or materially part of consciousness, but is outside in the world [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: I should like to show here that the Ego is neither formally nor materially in consciousness; it is outside, in the world; it is a being in the world, like the Ego of another. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This idea is the germ of what has got modern externalists about the mind (see quotations from Mark Rowlands) interested in Sartre. Personally I think he is wrong, and the Ego is a part of consciousness. It doesn't, though, have sharp boundaries. |
| 7117 | How could two I's, the reflective and the reflected, communicate with each other? [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: If the 'I' is part of consciousness, there will be two I's: the reflective and the reflected. ...but it is unacceptable for any communication to be established between the reflective I and the reflected I, if they are real elements of consciousness. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: If we accept that there are two orders of consciousness (reflective, about itself, and reflected, about the world) it seems reasonable to say that there cannot be an 'I' in both of them. A nice, and intriguing, argument. |
| 7123 | Knowing yourself requires an exterior viewpoint, which is necessarily false [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: 'To know oneself well' is inevitably to look at oneself from the point of view of someone else, in other words from a point of view that is necessarily false. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: (This is because the Ego cannot be known from the outside). I agree with Russell that the self is most evident when we are engaged with the world, which implies that you can only acquire self-knowledge by studying those engagements. |
| 22225 | My ego is more intimate to me, but not more certain than other egos [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: My I, in efffect, is no more certain for consciousness than the I of other men. It is only more intimate. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], p.104), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.1 | |
| A reaction: Not sure how to assess this. Other people seem just as real as I do, when I encounter them, as friend or as foe. And in dealing with them we act as if dealing with their Self (rather than their legs, say). So this idea seems a good one. |
| 7124 | The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: He denies that we know the Ego when engaged with the world, and agrees with Hume that the ego can't be directly known. All that is left is this, which seems to be introspection 'out of the corner of your eye'. Not persuasive. |
| 7116 | When we are unreflective (as when chasing a tram) there is no 'I' [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: There is no 'I' on the unreflected level. When I run after a tram, ...there is no I. There is a consciousness of the tram-needing-to-be-caught, and a non-positional consciousness of consciousness. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: Russell (Idea 5380) says exactly the opposite. My sympathies are more with Russell. I don't just focus on the tram, I focus on the relation between myself and the tram, and that includes my need to catch it, as well as my body. |
| 7120 | It is theoretically possible that the Ego consists entirely of false memories [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: One cannot rule out the metaphysical hypothesis that my Ego is not composed of elements that have existed in reality (ten years or one second ago), but is merely constituted by false memories. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: (He mentions the evil demon as a source). The problem that false memories (such as George IV 'remembering' he was at Waterloo, when he wasn't) is well known. But this raises the possibility of all memories being false, yet constituting the person. |
| 7110 | If the 'I' is transcendental, it unnecessarily splits consciousness in two [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The superfluous transcendental 'I' is actually a hindrance. If it existed, it would violently separate consciousness from itself, it would divide it, slicing through consciousness like an opaque blade. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: I see no a priori reason why consciousness should not be split in two, if that's how it is. Personally I am happy with a fairly traditional Cartesian view, that the self is the will and understanding, and the rest of consciousness is its working material. |
| 7115 | Maybe it is the act of reflection that brings 'me' into existence [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Might it not be precisely the reflective act that brings the me into being in reflected consciousness? | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: He admits some sort of self a second-order entity, but this is 'transcendental', and essentially an illusion. This elimination of the first-order self clears the way for the existential view, that we can create whatever self we want. I disagree. |
| 7121 | The Ego only appears to reflection, so it is cut off from the World [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The Ego is an object that appears only to reflection, and is thereby radically cut off from the World. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: This is the culmination of Sartre's attack (in 1937) on the Ego, paving the way for the freedom of existentialism. Personally I don't accept this picture of the Ego as a second-order fiction. My Ego is part of my relationship with the World. |
| 3846 | Man IS freedom [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: There is no determinism - man is free, man IS freedom. …Man is condemned to be free. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.34) |
| 24013 | An emotion and its object form a unity, so emotion is a mode of apprehension [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Emotion returns to its object every moment, and feeds upon it. …The emotional subject and the object of the emotion are united in an indissoluble synthesis. Emotion is a specific manner of apprehending the world. …[39] It is a transformation of the world. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: The last sentence is the essence (or existence?) of Sartre's core theory of the emotions. They are, it seems, a mode of perception, like a colour filter added to a camera. I don't think I agree. I see them as a response to perceptions, not part of them. |
| 24017 | Emotion is one of our modes of understanding our Being-in-the-World [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Emotion is not an accident, it is a mode of our conscious existence, one of the ways in which consciousness understands (in Heidegger's sense of verstehen) its Being-in-the-World. …It has a meaning. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: Calling emotions a 'mode' suggests that this way of understanding is intermittent, which seems wrong. Even performing arithmetical calculations is coloured by emotions, so they go deeper than a 'mode'. |
| 24014 | Emotions are a sort of bodily incantation which brings a magic to the world [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Joy is the magical behaviour which tries, by incantation, to realise the possession of the desired object as an instantaneous totality. [47] Emotions are all reducible to the constitution of a magic world by using our bodies as instruments of incantation. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: I can't pretend to understand this, but I am reminded of the fact that the so-called primary qualities of perception are innately boring, and it is only the secondary qualities (like colour and smell) which make the world interesting. |
| 24015 | Emotions makes us believe in and live in a new world [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Emotion is a phenomenon of belief. Consciousness does not limit itself to the projection of affective meanings upon the world around it; it lives the new world it has thereby constituted. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an implied anti-realism in this, since the emotions prevent us from relating more objectively to the world. The 'magic' seems to be compulsory. |
| 22662 | In the instrumental view of rationality it only concerns means, and not ends [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: On the instrumental conception of rationality, it consists in the effective and efficient achievement of goals, ends, and desires. About the goals themselves it has little to say. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.64) | |
| A reaction: [He quotes Russell 1954 p.viii as expressing this view] A long way from Greek logos, which obviously concerns the rational selection of right ends (for which, presumably, reasons can be given). In practice our ends may never be rational, of course. |
| 22666 | Is it rational to believe a truth which leads to permanent misery? [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: If a mother is presented with convincing evidence that her son has committed a grave crime, but were she to believe it that would make her life thereafter miserable, is it rational for her to believe her son is guilty? | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.69) | |
| A reaction: I assume there is a conflict of rationalities, because there are conflicting ends. Presumably most mothers love the truth, but most of us also aim for happy lives. It is perfectly rational to avoid discovering a horrible family truth. |
| 22667 | Rationality needs some self-consciousness, to also evaluate how we acquired our reasons [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: Rationality involves some degree of self-consciousness. Not only reasons are evaluated, but also the processes by which information arrives, is stored, and recalled. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.74) | |
| A reaction: I defend the idea that animals have a degree of rationality, because they can make sensible judgements, but I cannot deny this idea. Rationality comes in degrees, and second-level thought is a huge leap forward in degree. |
| 22663 | Rationality is normally said to concern either giving reasons, or reliability [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: The two themes permeating the philosophical literature are that rationality is a matter of reasons, or that rationality is a matter of reliability. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.64) | |
| A reaction: Since a clock can be reliable, I would have thought it concerns reasons. Or an unthinking person could reliably recite truths from memory. There is also the instrumental view of rationality. |
| 6164 | Sartre rejects mental content, and the idea that the mind has hidden inner features [Sartre, by Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Sartre's attack on the idea that consciousness has contents is an attack on the idea that the mental possesses features that are hidden, inner and constituted or revealed by the individual's inwardly directed awareness. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This is part of the move towards 'externalism' about the mind. The notion of 'content' implies a container. It seems slightly ridiculous, though, to try to say that the mind just 'is the world'. How is reasoning possible, and the relation of ideas? |
| 6687 | Man is the desire to be God [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Man fundamentally is the desire to be God. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.556?), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: It is better to see man (as seen all the way through the European tradition) as caught between the self-images of being an angel and being a 'quintessence of dust' (Hamlet). |
| 7074 | Man is a useless passion [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Man is a useless passion. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], IV.2.III) | |
| A reaction: Memorable and neat. Since all of existence is ultimately 'useless', that part of it is not a revelation. The notion that we are essentially a 'passion' chimes nicely with David Hume's view, against the enlightenment rational view, and against Aristotle. |
| 3843 | There is no human nature [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: There is no human nature. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.28) | |
| A reaction: Everything which can be individuated has a nature, say I, wearing my Aristotelian lapel badge. Does he think the same of cats? Does he think the mind is a blank page? |
| 20762 | There are no values to justify us, and no excuses [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: There are no values or commands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. …We are alone with no excuses. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.296), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Bad' | |
| A reaction: If there are no values or duties, why might you ever need excuses? |
| 3852 | If values depend on us, freedom is the foundation of all values [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Once a man has seen that values depend upon himself, he can only will one thing, and that is freedom as the foundation of all values. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.51) | |
| A reaction: I don't think so. Is freedom the foundation of all arithmetic, because I am untrammelled when doing addition? Values are ridiculous if they don't reflect facts. |
| 22228 | Sartre's freedom is not for whimsical action, but taking responsibility for our own values [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| Full Idea: Readers often confuse Sartre's notion of freedom with the freedom of acting whimsically ....but since there is no God, we must create our own values. Freedom is not merely a licence to act whimsically.; it entails responsibility. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.3 | |
| A reaction: The idea that we create our values comes from Nietzsche. Did Sartre want everyone to behave like an übermensch? How can you form a society from individuals who create private values, even if they (somehow) take responsibility for them? |
| 18648 | Freedom to live according to our own conception of the good is the ultimate value [Nozick, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Nozick says that the freedom to lead our lives in accordance with our own conception of the good is the ultimate value, so important that it cannot be sacrificed for other social ideals (e.g. equality of opportunity). | |
| From: report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b.ii | |
| A reaction: Clearly this ultimate value will not apply to children, so this view needs a sharp dislocation between children and adults. But some adults need a lot of looking after. Maybe we ALL need looking after (by one another)? |
| 22233 | Love is the demand to be loved [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Love is the demand to be loved. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.488), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.5 | |
| A reaction: Is that all love is? Hard to imagine someone loving another person without hoping that the other person will reciprocate. You need high self-esteem to 'demand' it. Low self-esteem merely hopes for it. He says the other person may feel the same. |
| 20764 | In becoming what we want to be we create what we think man ought to be [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: In creating the man that we want to be, there is not a single one of our acts which does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.293), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 7 'Anything' | |
| A reaction: I recall this being one of my earliest thoughts about morality - that in everything we do we are all role models for the people around us. For me, that leads to virtue theory. |
| 3848 | Cowards are responsible for their cowardice [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The existentialist, when he portrays a coward, shows him as responsible for his cowardice. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.42) |
| 20763 | When my personal freedom becomes involved, I must want freedom for everyone else [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Freedom as the definition of man does not depend on others, but as soon as there is involvement, I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.306), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 7 'Anything' | |
| A reaction: Appears to be a highly Kantian sense of rational duty, and a rather odd constraint on someone whose only value is freedom. Sartre is aware that he needs an existential politics, but he's not there yet. 'Involvement' is an interesting addition to Kant. |
| 20585 | If an experience machine gives you any experience you want, should you hook up for life? [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired ...such as writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. ...Should you plug into this machine for life? | |
| From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], 3 'Experience') | |
| A reaction: A classic though experiment which crystalises a major problem with hedonistic utilitarianism. My addition is a machine which maximises the pleasure of my family and friends, to save me the bother of doing it. |
| 22229 | Existentialists says that cowards and heroes make themselves [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: What the existentialist says is that the coward makes himself cowardly, that the hero makes himself heroic. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.35), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.3 | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of the existential plasticity of the self, in opposition to the much stronger concept of human nature in Aristotle (who nevertheless believes you can acquire virtues and vices). |
| 20755 | Fear concerns the world, but 'anguish' comes from confronting my self [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Anguish is distinguished from fear in that fear is fear of being in the world whereas anguish is anguish before myself. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.65), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 5 'Radical' | |
| A reaction: I'm guessing that the anguish comes from the horror of the infinite choices available to me. Once you've made major life choices with full commitment (such as marriage), does that mean that existentialism becomes irrelevant? |
| 3842 | Existence before essence (or begin with the subjective) [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Existentialism says that existence comes before essence - or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.26) |
| 6868 | 'Existence precedes essence' means we have no pre-existing self, but create it through existence [Sartre, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: I take 'existence precedes essence' to mean that we do not have a pre-existing self, which organises our behaviour, but rather that we create our self as we go along, through our existence and activities. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.222 | |
| A reaction: The direct opponent of this is Aristotle, who builds his ethics on a fairly fixed human nature, but even he agrees that we mould our moral characters through our activities, in a circular way. There are not, though, infinite possibilities in mankind. |
| 3844 | Existentialism says man is whatever he makes of himself [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. This is the first principle of existentialism. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.28) |
| 20760 | Sincerity is not authenticity, because it only commits to one particular identity [Sartre, by Aho] |
| Full Idea: Being sincere [in Sartre] has nothing to do with authenticity because, in committing ourselves to a particular identity, we strip away the possibility of transcendence by reducing ourselves to a thing. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Bad' | |
| A reaction: I take this to mean that sincerity says genuinely what role you are playing (such as a waiter), but authenticity is recognition that you don't have to play that role. I think. |
| 22231 | We flee from the anguish of freedom by seeing ourselves objectively, as determined [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: We are always ready to take refuge in a belief in determinism if this freedom weighs upon us or if we need an excuse. Thus we flee from anguish by attempting to apprehend ourselves from without as an Other or a thing. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.82), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.4 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought we blame social pressures, or biological pressures, rather than metaphysical determinism, but it amounts to the same thing. If we are not free then probably nothing else is. |
| 20754 | It is dishonest to offer passions as an excuse [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Every man who takes refuge behind the excuse of his passions is a dishonest man. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.305), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 5 'Core' | |
| A reaction: To say 'my passion was so strong that I was too weak to resist it' doesn't sound prima facie dishonest. Sartre's idea is more of an exhortation than a fact, and sounds rather old fashioned and puritan. Do my reasons constitutes excuses? |
| 22230 | Sartre gradually realised that freedom is curtailed by the weight of situation [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| Full Idea: Sartre evolved from a notion of absolute freedom to one that truly takes into account the weight of situation. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (works [1950]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.3 | |
| A reaction: This change seems to have come much later, in the 1960s. The main influence seems to have been Marxism, which claims that consciousness is created by society, rather than by free individuals. |
| 22232 | Authenticity is taking responsibility for a situation, with all its risks and emotions [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Authenticity consists in having a true and lucid consciousness of the situation, in assuming the responsibilities and risks that it involves, in accepting it in pride of humiliation, sometimes in horror and hate. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Anti-Semite and Jew [1946], p.90), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.4 | |
| A reaction: [Not sure what 'pride of humiliation' is, so it may be a typo for 'or'] |
| 3851 | If I do not choose, that is still a choice [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: If I do not choose, that is still a choice. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.48) |
| 6571 | When a man must choose between his mother and the Resistance, no theory can help [Sartre, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: When a young man must choose between his bereft mother and the French Resistance, Sartre says no moral theory is capable of resolving the dilemma; the man must act on his own, and in the process define his moral character. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.35-9) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Fogelin agrees, but rejects Sartre's claim that all morality is like this. I agree with Fogelin. However, what I like is the idea of 'defining one's moral character' by choices, but that is because it endorses the views of Aristotle (e.g. Idea 4394). |
| 20491 | States have a monopoly of legitimate violence [Sartre, by Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Max Weber observed that states possess a monopoly of legitimate violence. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 2 'State' | |
| A reaction: This sounds rather hair-raising, and often is, but it sounds quite good if we describe it as a denial of legitimate violence to individual citizens. Hobbes would like it, since individual violence breaches some sort of natural contract. Guns in USA. |
| 18643 | A minimal state should protect, but a state forcing us to do more is unjustified [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: A minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This has some plausibility for a huge modern state, where we don't know one another, but it would be a ridiculous attitude in a traditional village. |
| 18642 | Individual rights are so strong that the state and its officials must be very limited in power [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This claim appears to be an axiom, but I'm not sure that the notion of 'rights' make any sense unless someone is granting the rights, where the someone is either a strong individual, or the community (perhaps represented by the state). |
| 18644 | States can't enforce mutual aid on citizens, or interfere for their own good [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: A state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purposes of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref) | |
| A reaction: You certainly can't apply these principles to children, so becoming an 'adult' seems to be a very profound step in Nozick's account. At what age must we stop interfering with people for their own good. If the state is prohibited, are neighbours also? |
| 22661 | My Anarchy, State and Utopia neglected our formal social ties and concerns [Nozick on Nozick] |
| Full Idea: The political philosophy represented in Anarchy, State and Utopia ignored the importance of joint and official symbolic statement and expression of our social ties and concern, and hence (I have written) is inadequate. | |
| From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.32) by Robert Nozick - The Nature of Rationality p.32 | |
| A reaction: In other words, it was far too individualistic, and neglected community, even though it has become the sacred text for libertarian individualism. Do any Nozick fans care about this recantation? |
| 21240 | The truth about events always comes from the oppressed and disadvantaged [Sartre, by Bakewell] |
| Full Idea: Work out who is most oppressed and disadvantaged in the situation, and then adopt their version of events as the right one. If something is not true in the eyes of the least favoured, then it is not true. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (The Communists and Peace [1953], final part) by Sarah Bakewell - At the Existentialist Café 12 | |
| A reaction: A theory of social truth, rather than truth in general. A bit simplistic, but appealing. If you want to know the truth, ask the people involved. This is true of the Savoy Grill, as well as of homeless life. You must first care about the oppressed. |
| 18641 | If people hold things legitimately, just distribution is simply the result of free exchanges [Nozick, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: If we assume that everyone is entitled to the goods they currently possess (their 'holdings'), then a just distribution is simply whatever distribution results from people's free exchanges. | |
| From: report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.1.b | |
| A reaction: If people's current 'legitimate' holdings are hugely unequal, it seems very unlikely that the ensuing exchanges will be 'free' in the way that Nozick envisages. |
| 20539 | Property is legitimate by initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, or rectification of injustice [Nozick, by Swift] |
| Full Idea: Nozick identified three ways in which people can acquire a legitimate property holding: initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, and rectification (of unjust transfers). | |
| From: report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 1 'Nozick' | |
| A reaction: I think it is a delusion to look for justice in the ownership of property. You can't claim justice for buying property if the money to do it was acquired unjustly. And what rights over those who live on the land come with the 'ownership'? |
| 18645 | Nozick assumes initial holdings include property rights, but we can challenge that [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
| Full Idea: Nozick assumes that the initial distribution of holdings includes full property-rights over them, ..but our preferred theory may not involve distributing such particular rights to particular people. ...The legitimacy of such rights is what is in question. | |
| From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.1.c | |
| A reaction: [somewhat compressed] All of these political philosophies seem to have questionable values (such as freedom or equality) built into their initial assumptions. |
| 20521 | Can I come to own the sea, by mixing my private tomato juice with it? [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: If I own a can of tomato juice and spill it in the sea so that its molecules mingle evenly throughout the sea, do I thereby come to own the sea? | |
| From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.175) | |
| A reaction: This is a reductio of Locke's claim that I can own land by 'mixing' my labour with it. At first glance, mixing something with something would seem to have nothing to do with ownership. |
| 18646 | How did the private property get started? If violence was involved, we can redistribute it [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
| Full Idea: How did these natural resources, which were not initially owned by anyone, come to be part of someone's private property? ...The fact that the initial acquisition often involved force means there is no moral objection to redistributing existing wealth. | |
| From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b | |
| A reaction: [He cites G.A. Cphen 1988 for the second point] Put like this, Nozick's theory just looks like the sort of propaganda which is typically put out by the winners. Is there an implicit threat of violent resistance in his advocacy of individual rights? |
| 18647 | If property is only initially acquired by denying the rights of others, Nozick can't get started [Kymlicka on Nozick] |
| Full Idea: If there is no way that people can appropriate unowned resources for themselves without denying other people's claim to equal consideration, then Nozick's right of transfer never gets off the ground. | |
| From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b.i | |
| A reaction: The actual history of these things is too complex to judge. Early peoples desperately wanted a lord to rule over them, and their lord's ownership of the land implied the people's right to live there. See Anglo-Saxon poetry. |
| 21737 | Unowned things may be permanently acquired, if it doesn't worsen the position of other people [Nozick] |
| Full Idea: One may acquire a permanent bequeathable property right in a previously unowned thing, as long as the position of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is not thereby worsened. | |
| From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.178), quoted by G.A. Cohen - Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? 2 | |
| A reaction: Cohen attacks this vigorously. His main point is that Nozick has a very narrow view of what the acquisition should be compared with. There are many alternatives. Does being made unable to improve something 'worsen' a person's condition? |
| 21738 | Maybe land was originally collectively owned, rather than unowned? [Cohen,GA on Nozick] |
| Full Idea: Why should we not regard land as originally collectively owned rather than, as Nozick takes for granted, owned by no one? | |
| From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.178) by G.A. Cohen - Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? 2 | |
| A reaction: Did native Americans and Australians collectively own the land? Lots of peoples, I suspect, don't privately own anything, because the very concept has never occured to them (and they have no legal system). |
| 3845 | Without God there is no intelligibility or value [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: For the atheist existentialist there disappears with God all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. (Dostoevsky wrote "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted"). | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.33) |