48 ideas
6319 | Wise people choose inaction and silence [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: The sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practises the teaching that uses no words. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], I.II.6) | |
A reaction: Notice that this is an active 'deed', and a positive 'practice'. He is not just recommending indifference and lethargy. Personally I don't find the advice very appealing, but it might be good if you live in 'interesting times'. |
6325 | One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.LVI.128) | |
A reaction: A famous remark, which my western mind finds simply perplexing. It strikes me as wicked selfishness to keep your wisdom to yourself, and not try to persuade others to follow it. We are all in this together, I say. |
19579 | The history of philosophy is just experiments in how to do philosophy [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The history of philosophy up to now is nothing but a history of attempts to discover how to do philosophy. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 01) | |
A reaction: I take post-Fregean analytic metaphysics to be another experiment in how to do philosophy. I suspect that the experiment of Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida etc has been a failure. |
19583 | Philosophy only begins when it studies itself [Novalis] |
Full Idea: All philosophy begins where philosophizing philosophises itself. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 79) | |
A reaction: The modern trend for doing metaphilosophy strikes me as wholly admirable, though I suspect that the enemies of philosophy (who are legion) see it as a decadence. |
22026 | Philosophy is homesickness - the urge to be at home everywhere [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Philosophy is actually homesickness - the urge to be everywhere at home. | |
From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 45) | |
A reaction: The idea of home [heimat] is powerful in German culture. The point of romanticism was seen as largely concerning restless souls like Byron and his heroes, who do not feel at home. Hence ironic detachment. |
19588 | The highest aim of philosophy is to combine all philosophies into a unity [Novalis] |
Full Idea: He attains the maximum of a philosopher who combines all philosophies into a single philosophy | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 31) | |
A reaction: I have found the epigraph for my big book! Recently a few narrowly analytical philosophers have attempted big books about everything (Sider, Heil, Chalmers), and they get a huge round of applause from me. |
19598 | Philosophy relies on our whole system of learning, and can thus never be complete [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Now all learning is connected - thus philosophy will never be complete. Only in the complete system of all learning will philosophy be truly visible. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 39) | |
A reaction: Philosophy is evidently the unifying subject, which reveals the point of all the other subjects. It matches my maxim that 'science is the servant of philosophy'. |
19586 | Philosophers feed on problems, hoping they are digestible, and spiced with paradox [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The philosopher lives on problems as the human being does on food. An insoluble problem is an indigestible food. What spice is to food, the paradoxical is to problems. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 09) | |
A reaction: Novalis would presumably have disliked Hegel's dialectic, where the best food seems to be the indigestible. |
6321 | Vulgar people are alert; I alone am muddled [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: Vulgar people are alert; I alone am muddled. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], I.XX.47) | |
A reaction: Personally I think all human beings are deeply perplexed when they actually address their situation, but most people never spend more than a few minutes a year worrying about it. |
19587 | Philosophy aims to produce a priori an absolute and artistic world system [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Philosophy ...is the art of producing all our conceptions according to an absolute, artistic idea and of developing the thought of a world system a priori out of the depths of our spirit. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 19) | |
A reaction: A lovely statement of the dream of building world systems by pure thought - embodying perfectly the view of philosophy despised by logical positivists and modern logical metaphysicians. The Novalis view will never die! I like 'artistic'. |
19574 | If man sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself, by acting against his own convictions [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Man has his being in truth - if he sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself. Whoever betrays truth betrays himself. It is not a question of lying - but of acting against one's conviction. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 038) | |
A reaction: Does he condone lying here, as long as you don't believe the lie? We would call it loss of integrity. |
19571 | Delusion and truth differ in their life functions [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The distinction between delusion and truth lies in the difference in their life functions. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 008) | |
A reaction: Pure pragmatism, it seems. We might expect doubts about objective truth from a leading light of the Romantic movement. |
10247 | We have no adequate logic at the moment, so mathematicians must create one [Veblen] |
Full Idea: Formal logic has to be taken over by mathematicians. The fact is that there does not exist an adequate logic at the present time, and unless the mathematicians create one, no one else is likely to do so. | |
From: Oswald Veblen (Presidential Address of Am. Math. Soc [1924], 141), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics | |
A reaction: This remark was made well after Frege, but before the advent of Gödel and Tarski. That implies that he was really thinking of meta-logic. |
19597 | Logic (the theory of relations) should be applied to mathematics [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Ought not logic, the theory of relations, be applied to mathematics? | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 38) | |
A reaction: Bolzano was 19 when his was written. I presume Novalis would have been excited by set theory (even though he was a hyper-romantic). |
19581 | A problem is a solid mass, which the mind must break up [Novalis] |
Full Idea: A problem is a solid, synthetic mass which is broken up by means of the penetrating power of the mind. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 04) |
19584 | Whoever first counted to two must have seen the possibility of infinite counting [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Whoever first understood how to count to two, even if he still found it difficult to keep on counting, saw nonetheless the possibility of infinite counting according to the same laws. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 84) | |
A reaction: Presumably it is the discerning of the 'law' which triggers this. Is the key concept 'addition' or 'successor' (or are those the same?). |
22025 | Novalis thought self-consciousness cannot disclose 'being', because we are temporal creatures [Novalis, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Novalis came to think that the kind of existence , or 'being', that is disclosed in self-consciousness remains, as it were, forever out of our reach because of the kind of temporal creatures we are. | |
From: report of Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
A reaction: It looks here as if Novalis kicked Heidegger's Dasein into the long grass before it even got started, but maybe they have different notions of 'being', with Novalis seeking timeless being, and Heidegger, influenced by Bergson, accepting temporality. |
19575 | Refinement of senses increasingly distinguishes individuals [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The more our senses are refined, the more capable they become of distinguishing between individuals. The highest sense would be the highest receptivity to particularity in human nature. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 072) | |
A reaction: I adore this idea!! It goes into the collection of support I am building for individual essences, against the absurd idea of kinds as essences (when they are actually categorisations). It also accompanies particularism in ethics. |
6328 | To know yet to think that one does not know is best [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: To know yet to think that one does not know is best. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.LXXI.173) | |
A reaction: Tricky. Self-deception doesn't sound like a virtue to me. There are epistemic virtues, and caution about one's own knowledge has to be one of them, but a totally false assessment sounds counter-productive. |
6323 | Pursuit of learning increases activity; the Way decreases it [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: In the pursuit of learning one knows more every day; in the pursuit of the Way one does less every day. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.XLVII.108) | |
A reaction: Everything in my culture has raised the status of the pursuit of learning, so that I can hardly comprehend what is proposed by the Way. I don't believe that the Way can be achieved without great learning, but one might move beyond learning. |
22067 | Poetry is true idealism, and the self-consciousness of the universe [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Poetry is true idealism - contemplation of the world as contemplation of a large mind - self-consciousness of the universe. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], vol 3 p.640), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism | |
A reaction: It looks like the step from Fichte's idealism to the Absolute is poetry, which embraces the ultimate Spinozan substance through imagination. Or something... |
19572 | Experiences tests reason, and reason tests experience [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Experience is the test of the rational - and vice versa. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 010) | |
A reaction: A wonderful remark. Surely we can't ignore our need to test claims of pure logic by filling in the variables with concrete instances, to assess validity? And philosophy without examples is doomed to be abstract waffle. Coherence is the combined aim. |
19590 | Empiricists are passive thinkers, given their philosophy by the external world and fate [Novalis] |
Full Idea: An empiricist is one whose way of thinking is an effect of the external world and of fate - the passive thinker - to whom his philosophy is given. | |
From: Novalis (Teplitz Fragments [1798], 33) | |
A reaction: Novalis goes on to enthuse about 'magical idealism', so he rejects empiricism. This is an early attack on the Myth of the Given, found in Sellars and McDowell. |
19594 | General statements about nature are not valid [Novalis] |
Full Idea: General statements are not valid in the study of nature. | |
From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 17) | |
A reaction: This is his striking obsession with the particularity and fine detail of nature. Alexander von Humbolt was exploring nature in S.America in this year. It sounds wrong about physics, but possibly right about biology. |
19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
Full Idea: An absolute drive toward perfection and completeness is an illness, as soon as it shows itself to be destructive and averse toward the imperfect, the incomplete. | |
From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 33) | |
A reaction: Deep and true! Novalis seems to be a particularist - hanging on to the fine detail of life, rather than being immersed in the theory. These are the philosophers who also turn to literature. |
19596 | The whole body is involved in the formation of thoughts [Novalis] |
Full Idea: In the formation of thoughts all parts of the body seem to me to be working together. | |
From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 20) | |
A reaction: I can only think that Spinoza must be behind this thought, or La Mettrie. It seems a strikingly unusual intuition for its time, when almost everyone takes a spiritual sort of dualism for granted. |
19573 | The seat of the soul is where our inner and outer worlds interpenetrate [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The seat of the soul is the point where the inner and the outer worlds touch. Wherever they penetrate each other - it is there at every point of penetration. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 020) | |
A reaction: I surmise that Spinoza's dual-aspect monism is behind this interesting remark. See the related idea from Schopenhauer. |
19577 | Everything is a chaotic unity, then we abstract, then we reunify the world into a free alliance [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Before abstraction everything is one - but one as chaos is - after abstraction everything is again unified - but in a free alliance of independent, self-determined beings. A crowd has become a society - a chaos is transformed into a manifold world. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 094) | |
A reaction: Personally I take (unfashionably) psychological abstraction to one of the key foundations of human thought, so I love this idea, which gives a huge picture of how the abstracting mind relates to reality. |
6331 | Truth is not beautiful; beautiful speech is not truthful [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.LXXXI.194) | |
A reaction: A sharp disagreement with Keats ('Ode to a Grecian Urn'). A deep and important question, especially in relation to Plato's discussion of rhetoric (where he is very ambivalent). Great mathematics is beautiful. Truth can harsh. On the whole, I disagree. |
19585 | Every person has his own language [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Every person has his own language. Language is the expression of the spirit. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 91) | |
A reaction: Nice to see someone enthusiastically affirming what was later famously denied, and maybe even disproved. |
19578 | Only self-illuminated perfect individuals are beautiful [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Everything beautiful is a self-illuminated, perfect individual. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 101) | |
A reaction: It is a commonplace to describe something beautiful as being 'perfect'. Unfinished masterpieces are interesting exceptions. Are only 'individuals' beautiful? Is unity a necessary condition of beauty? Bad art fails to be self-illuminated. |
19582 | Morality and philosophy are mutually dependent [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Without philosophy there is no true morality, and without morality no philosophy. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 21) | |
A reaction: Challenging! Maybe unthinking people drift in a sea of vague untethered morality, and people who seem to have a genuine moral strength are always rooted in some sort of philosophy. Maybe. Is the passion for philosophy a moral passion? |
6330 | One with no use for life is wiser than one who values it [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: It is just because one has no use for life that one is wiser than the man who values life. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.LXXV.181a) | |
A reaction: To have no use for life certainly seems to put a person into a position of superiority, especially when the 'Titanic' is sinking. However, if our lives have no value, I don't know what does. A balance must clearly be struck. |
6327 | Do good to him who has done you an injury [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: Do good to him who has done you an injury. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.LXIII.148) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 6288 (Jesus). People like this really mess up the social contract theory of morality. If they are going to return good for your evil, there doesn't seem much point in helping them, given how much effort is involved. Most peculiar… |
23402 | The highest virtue is achieved without effort [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: Those of highest virtue do not strive for virtue, and so they have it. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], 38), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 8.II.2 | |
A reaction: Every moralist's dream is the person to whom virtue comes so naturally that no thought is required. This says they don't even notice it; Aristotle says they simply enjoying behaving virtuously. |
6324 | To gain in goodness, treat as good those who are good, and those who are not [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: Those who are good I treat as good; those who are not good I also treat as good; in doing so I gain in goodness. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.XLIX.111) | |
A reaction: Socrates (idea 346) and Jesus (Idea 6288) had similar ideas. Who, though, is going to administer justice, and where is the idea that people 'deserve' good or ill treatment? Schoolteachers should treat all children as if they were good. |
6322 | There is no crime greater than having too many desires [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: There is no crime greater than having too many desires. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.XLVI.104) | |
A reaction: It seems harsh to call this a 'crime', given that no one is likely to choose to have 'too many' desires. The crime is in deciding to stimulate desire to excess, or deciding to show no sensible restraint. |
22027 | Life isn't given to us like a novel - we write the novel [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 99) | |
A reaction: The roots of existentialism are in the Romantic movement. Sartre seems to have taken this idea literally. |
6320 | The best rulers are invisible, the next admired, the next feared, and the worst are exploited [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects; next comes the ruler they love and praise; next comes one they fear; next comes one with whom they take liberties. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], I.XVII.39) | |
A reaction: This fits our understanding of football referees to perfection. It might apply to anyone doing a vital adminstrative job, such as compiling a school timetable. It is hard, though, to accept anonymity as a mark of success. |
19589 | The whole point of a monarch is that we accept them as a higher-born, ideal person [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The distinguishing character of the monarchy lies precisely in the fact of belief in a higher-born person, of voluntary acceptance of an ideal person. I cannot choose a leader from among my peers. | |
From: Novalis (Fath and Love, or the King and Queen [1798], 18) | |
A reaction: Novalis was passionately devoted to the new king and queen of Prussia, only a few years after the French Revolution. This attitude seems to me unchanged among monarchists in present day Britain. Genetics has undermined 'higher-born'. |
6329 | People are hard to govern because authorities love to do things [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: It is because those in authority are too fond of action that the people are difficult to govern. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.LXXV.181) | |
A reaction: I love this. It should be on the wall of every human institution in our civilization. How the heart sinks at the prospect of a 'new initiative'. Not that I am against action; it is just important to recognise that inaction is sometimes the best option. |
6326 | The better known the law, the more criminals there are [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: The better known the laws and edicts, the more thieves and robbers there are. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], II.LVII.132) | |
A reaction: Nice. I link this with my favourite moral maxim from Democritus (Idea 519). The idea is that continual emphasis on what you should not do fills the mind with evil possibilities. Moral perfection must start by taking goodness for granted. |
23401 | A military victory is not a thing of beauty [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
Full Idea: A military victory is not a thing of beauty. | |
From: Laozi (Lao Tzu) (Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) [c.530 BCE], 31), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 8.II.1 | |
A reaction: Should be written on the wall of every military academy and barracks. |
19580 | If the pupil really yearns for the truth, they only need a hint [Novalis] |
Full Idea: If a pupil genuinely desires truth is requires only a hint to show him how to find what he is seeking. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 02) | |
A reaction: The tricky job for the teacher or supervisor is assessing whether the pupil genuinely desires truth, or needs motivating. |
19593 | Persons are shaped by a life history; splendid persons are shaped by world history [Novalis] |
Full Idea: What is it that shapes a person if not his life history? And in the same way a splendid person is shaped by nothing other than world history. Many people live better in the past and in the future than in the present. | |
From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 15) | |
A reaction: Clearly there is a lot to be said for splendid people who live entirely in the present (such as jazz musicians). Some people do have an awesomely wide historical perspective on their immediate lives. Palaeontology is not the master discipline though! |
19595 | Nature is a whole, and its individual parts cannot be wholly understood [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Nature is a whole - in which each part in itself can never be wholly understood. | |
From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 18) | |
A reaction: This doesn't seem right when studying some item in a laboratory, but it seems undeniable when you consider the history and future of each item. |
19592 | The basic relations of nature are musical [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Musical relations seem to me to be actually the basic relations of nature. | |
From: Novalis (Last Fragments [1800], 10) | |
A reaction: Novalis shows no signs of being a pythagorean, and then suddenly comes out with this. I suppose if you love music, this thought should float into your mind at regular intervals, because the power of music is so strong. Does he mean ratios? |
19576 | Religion needs an intermediary, because none of us can connect directly to a godhead [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Nothing is more indispensable for true religious feeling than an intermediary - which connects us to the godhead. The human being is absolutely incapable of sustaining an immediate relation with this. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 073) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a defence of priests and organised religion, and an implied attack on protestants who give centrality to private prayer and conscience. |