61 ideas
20455 | Philosophy really got started as the rival mode of discourse to tragedy [Critchley] |
Full Idea: The pre-Socratics are interesting, but philosophy really begins in drama; it's a competitive discourse to tragedy. Which is why Plato's 'Republic' excludes the poets: they're the competition; gotta get rid of them. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 6) | |
A reaction: That's an interesting and novel perspective. So what was the 'discourse' of tragedy saying, and why did that provoke the new rival? Was it too fatalistic? |
18450 | Philosophy has its own mode of death, by separating soul from body [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: There is a double death. One, known by all men, consists in the separation of the body with the soul; the other, characteristic of philosophers, results in the separation of the soul from the body. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn9 3) |
20446 | Philosophy begins in disappointment, notably in religion and politics [Critchley] |
Full Idea: I claim that philosophy begins in disappointment, and there are two forms of disappointment that interest me: religious and political disappointment | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: You are only disappointed by reality if you expected something better. To be disappointed by the failures of religion strikes me as rather old-fashioned, which Critchley sort of admits. Given the size and tumult of modern states, politics isn't promising. |
6848 | Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Humour, for me, is practically enacted philosophy. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
A reaction: This may be overstating it, as the funniest jokes may be the least philosophical, and remarks may be faintly amusing but very profound. Lear and his Fool make up a single worldview together. |
6847 | Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Humour provides an oblique phenomenology of ordinary life; it is a way of describing the situation of our existence, and, at its best, it indicates how we might change that situation. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
A reaction: The trouble is that this leads us to relentlessly political standup comedians who aren't very funny. Critichley may have a problem with remarks which are very funny precisely because they are so politically incorrect. I sympathise, though. |
7068 | If infatuation with science leads to bad scientism, its rejection leads to obscurantism [Critchley] |
Full Idea: If what is mistaken in much contemporary philosophy is its infatuation with science, which leads to scientism, then the equally mistaken rejection of science leads to obscurantism. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Clearly a balance has to be struck. I take philosophy to be a quite separate discipline from science, but it is crucial that philosophy respects the physical facts, and scientists are the experts there. Scientists are philosophers' most valued servants. |
6844 | Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Scientism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained through the methodology of the natural sciences, and the belief that, therefore, all phenomena are capable of a causal explanation. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.196) | |
A reaction: He links two ideas together, but I tend to subscribe fully to the second idea, but less fully to the first. Scientific method, if there is such a thing (Idea 6804), may not be the best way to lay bare the causal network of reality. |
20449 | Science gives us an excessively theoretical view of life [Critchley] |
Full Idea: One of the problems with the scientific worldview is that it leads human beings to have an overwhelmingly theoretical relationship to the world. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: Critchley is defending phenomenology, but this also supports its cousin, existentialism. I keep meeting bright elderly men who have immersed themselves in the study of science, and they seem very remote from the humanist culture I love. |
7075 | To meet the division in our life, try the Subject, Nature, Spirit, Will, Power, Praxis, Unconscious, or Being [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Against the Kantian division of a priori and empirical, Fichte offered activity of the subject, Schelling offered natural force, Hegel offered Spirit, Schopenhauer the Will, Nietzsche power, Marx praxis, Freud the unconscious, and Heidegger offered Being. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001]) | |
A reaction: The whole of Continental Philosophy summarised in a sentence. Fichte and Schopenhauer seem to point to existentialism, Schelling gives evolutionary teleology, Marx abandons philosophy, the others are up the creek. |
7069 | The French keep returning, to Hegel or Nietzsche or Marx [Critchley] |
Full Idea: French philosophy since the 1930s might be described as a series of returns: to Hegel (in Kojève and early Sartre), to Nietzsche (in Foucault and Deleuze), or to Marx (in Althusser). | |
From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: An interesting map. The question might be why they return to those three, rather than (say) Hume or Leibniz. If the choice of which one you return to a matter of 'taste' (as Nietzsche would have it)? |
6835 | German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley] |
Full Idea: In his Third Critique Kant established a series of dualisms (pure/practical reason, nature/freedom, epistemology/ethics) but failed to provide a unifying principle; German idealism can be seen as an attempt to provide this principle. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.187) | |
A reaction: He cites 'subject', 'spirit', 'art', 'will to power', 'praxis' and 'being' as candidates. This is a helpful overview for someone struggling to get to grips with that tradition. |
6836 | Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley] |
Full Idea: If reason must criticise itself (in Kant) how does one avoid total scepticism? In my view, the problem that has animated the continental tradition since Jacobi (early 19th cent) is the threat of nihilism. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
A reaction: As an outsider to 'continental' philosophy, this is the most illuminating remark I have read about it. It is not only a plausible account of the movement, but also a very worth aim, which should be taken seriously by analytical philosophers. |
6837 | Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley] |
Full Idea: In continental philosophy from Hegel onwards, systematic philosophical questions have to be linked to socio-historical enquiry, and the distinctions between philosophy, history and society begin to fall apart. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
A reaction: I have a strong sales resistance to this view of philosophy, just as I would if it was said about mathematics. It seems to imply a bogus view that history exhibits direction and purpose (the 'Whig' view). There are pure reasons among the prejudices. |
6838 | Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley] |
Full Idea: The basic map of the continental tradition can be summarised in three terms: critique, praxis and emancipation. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.189) | |
A reaction: I wince at 'emancipation', which seems to take freedom as of unquestionably high value, instead of being one of the principles up for question in social philosophy. There are more presuppositions in Marxist than in analytical philosophy. |
6845 | Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley] |
Full Idea: In continental philosophy there is a pernicious tendency to explain everything in terms of 'one big thing', such as the 'death drive' (Freud), 'being' (Heidegger), 'the real' (Lacan), 'power' (Foucault), 'the other' (Levinas), or 'différance' (Derrida). | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.197) | |
A reaction: From a fan of this type of philosophy, this is a refreshing remark, because if pinpoints a very off-putting feature. Each of these 'big things' should be up for question, not offered as axiomatic assumptions that explain everything else. |
6846 | Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Phenomenology (as in the later Husserl) is for me a way of assembling reminders which clarify the social world in which we exist; it is a technique of redescription. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure if I can identify with this as a target for philosophy, but it is interesting and sound worthy of effort. Critchley offers this as the best strand in 'continental' philosophy, rather than the big explanatory ideas. |
20448 | Phenomenology uncovers and redescribes the pre-theoretical layer of life [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Phenomenology is a philosophical method that tries to uncover the pre-theoretical layer of human experience and redescribe it. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: I would be delighted if someone could tell me what this means in practice. I have the impression of lots of talk about phenomenology, but not much doing of it. Clearly I must enquire further. |
6675 | The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing [Pascal] |
Full Idea: The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 423 (277)) | |
A reaction: This romantic remark has passed into folklore. I am essentially against it, but the role of intuition and instinct are undeniable in both reasoning and ethics. I don't feel inclined, though, to let my heart overrule my reason concerning what exists. |
10121 | Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor lack of contradiction a sign of truth [Pascal] |
Full Idea: Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (works [1660]), quoted by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.6 | |
A reaction: [Quoted in Auden and Kronenberger's Book of Aphorisms] Presumably we would now say that contradiction is a purely formal, syntactic notion, and not a semantic one. If you hit a contradiction, something has certainly gone wrong. |
18451 | The presence of the incorporeal is only known by certain kinds of disposition [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Being everywhere and nowhere, the incorporeal, wherever it happens to be, betrays its presence only by a certain kind of disposition. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 4Enn3 21(20)) | |
A reaction: There is a mystical or dualist view of fundamental powers, as the spiritual engine which drives passive physical nature. It's rubbish of course, but if powers are primitive in a naturalistic theory, it is not a view which can be refuted. |
15034 | Are genera and species real or conceptual? bodies or incorporeal? in sensibles or separate from them? [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: I shall beg off talking of a) whether genera and species are real or situated in bare thoughts alone, b) whether as real they are bodies or incorporeals, and c) whether they are separated or in sensibles and have their reality in connection with them. | |
From: Porphyry (Isagoge ('Introduction') [c.295], (2)) | |
A reaction: This passage, picking up on Aristotle, seems to be the original source that grew into the medievel debate about universals. It seems to rather neatly lay out the agenda for the universals debate which is still with us. |
18459 | Diversity arises from the power of unity [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Diversity is born of the development of the power of unity. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 42) | |
A reaction: I doubt whether even Porphyry understood this, but we might say that once the principle of unification enters into nature, it will inevitably result in diversity. One all-embracing unity would be indiscernible. |
22011 | The first principles of truth are not rational, but are known by the heart [Pascal] |
Full Idea: We know the truth not only through our reason but also through our heart. It is through that latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to refute them. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 110 p.58), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 04 n4 | |
A reaction: This resembles the rationalist defence of fundamental a priori principles, needed as a foundation for knowledge. But the a priori insights are not a feature of the 'natural light' of reason, and are presumably inexplicable (of the 'heart'). |
18452 | Memory is not conserved images, but reproduction of previous thought [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Memory does not consist in preserving images. It is a faculty of reproducing the conceptions with which our soul has been occupied. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn6 25(2)) |
18453 | Intelligence is aware of itself, so the intelligence is both the thinker and the thought [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Since intelligence is intelligible for intelligence, intelligence is its own object. ...Intelligence, therefore, is simultaneously thinker and thought, all that thinks and all that is thought. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
A reaction: This is a bit of a problem for Descartes, if the Cogito is taken as offering evidence (thought) for the existence of a thinker ('I'). Porphyry implies that the separation Descartes requires is impossible. |
18462 | The soul is everywhere and nowhere in the body, and must be its cause [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The soul is neither a body, nor in the body, but is only the cause of the body, because she is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere in the body. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 43) | |
A reaction: This is the rather bewildering phenomenology of consciousness which persuaded Descartes of dualism. |
18463 | Successful introspection reveals the substrate along with the object of thought [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: He who by thought can penetrate within his own substance, and can thus acquire knowledge of it, finds himself in this actualisation of knowledge and consciousness, where the substrate that knows is identical with the object that is known. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 44) | |
A reaction: It seems remarkably that this ability is confidently asserted by Porphyry, and flatly denied by Hume. Were they just different people, or were they looking for different things, or was one of them deluded? |
18458 | The soul is bound to matter by the force of its own disposition [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The individual soul, which declines towards matter, is bound to the matter by the form which her disposition has made her choose. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn4 39) | |
A reaction: This sounds like the soul is boss over the matter, and yet the soul is 'made' to choose union with matter. The Universal Soul is seen by Porphyr as the controller of the situation. |
6681 | We only want to know things so that we can talk about them [Pascal] |
Full Idea: We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 77 (152)) | |
A reaction: This may be right, but I wouldn't underestimate it as a worthy end (though Pascal, as usual, calls it 'vanity'). Good talk might even be the highest human good (how many people like, more than anything, chatting in pubs?), and good talk is knowledgeable. |
20454 | Wallace Stevens is the greatest philosophical poet of the twentieth century in English [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Wallace Stevens is the greatest philosophical poet of the twentieth century in the English language - full stop - in my humble opinion. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 6) | |
A reaction: I include this because I tend to agree, and love Stevens. Hear recordings of him reading. I once mentioned Stevens in a conversation with Ted Hughes, and he just shrugged and said Stevens 'wasn't much of a poet'. Wrong. |
6676 | Painting makes us admire things of which we do not admire the originals [Pascal] |
Full Idea: How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 40 (134)) | |
A reaction: A lesser sort of painting simply depicts things we admire, such as a nice stretch of landscape. For Pascal it is vanity, but it could be defended as the highest achievement of art, if the purpose of artists is to make us see beauty where we had missed it. |
20456 | Interesting art is always organised around ethical demands [Critchley] |
Full Idea: I don't think that art can be unethical. I think that interesting art is always ethical. It is organised around ethical demands. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 8) | |
A reaction: It is a struggle to make this fit instrumental music. Critchley likes punk rock, so he might not see the problem. How to compare Bachian, Mozart, Beethovenian and Debussyian ethics? Not impossible. |
20447 | The problems is not justifying ethics, but motivating it. Why should a self seek its good? [Critchley] |
Full Idea: The issue is not so much justification as motivation, that in virtue of which the self can be motivated to act on some conception of the good. ...How does a self bind itself to whatever it determines as its good? | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: That is a bold and interesting idea about the starting point for ethics. It is always a problem for Aristotle, that he can offer no motivation for the quest for virtue. Contractarians start from existing motivations, but that isn't impressive. |
18464 | Justice is each person fulfilling his function [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Justice, as has been rightly said, consists in each one fulfilling his [authentic and proper] function. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 44) | |
A reaction: This is presumably a direct reference to the theory in Plato's 'Republic'. It makes the connection between virtue and function which I take to be basic to virtue theory, giving it a naturalistic advantaged over other theories. |
6680 | It is a funny sort of justice whose limits are marked by a river [Pascal] |
Full Idea: It is a funny sort of justice whose limits are marked by a river; true on this side of the Pyrenees, false on the other. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 60 (294)) | |
A reaction: Pascal gives nice concise summaries of our intuitions. Legal justice may be all we can actually get, but everyone knows that what happens to someone could be 'fair' on one side of a river, and very 'unfair' on the other. |
6677 | Imagination creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the supreme good [Pascal] |
Full Idea: Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world's supreme good. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 44 (82)) | |
A reaction: Compare Fogelin's remark in Idea 6555. I see Pascal's point, but these ideals are also responses to facts about the world, such as human potential and human desire and successful natural functions. |
7067 | Food first, then ethics [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Food first, then ethics. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], 8857) | |
A reaction: This is not a dismissal of philosophy, but a key fact which ethical philosophers must face up to. See Mr Doolittle's speech in Shaw's 'Pygmalion. It connects to the debate c.1610 about whether one is entitled to grab someone's plank to avoid drowning. |
18448 | We should avoid the pleasures of love, or at least, should not enact our dreams [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The pleasures of love will not even involuntarily be tasted, at least, she will not allow herself to be drawn beyond the lights of fancy that occur in dreams. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.4) | |
A reaction: Presumably erotic dreams are only tolerated because not much can be done about them. This brings out the puritanism of neo-platonism. |
6678 | We live for the past or future, and so are never happy in the present [Pascal] |
Full Idea: Our thoughts are wholly concerned with the past or the future, never with the present, which is never our end; thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 47 (172)) | |
A reaction: A very nice expression of the importance of 'living for the moment' as a route to happiness. Personally I am occasionally startled by the thought 'Good heavens, I seem to be happy!', but it usually passes quickly. How do you plan for the present? |
18444 | Civil virtues make us behave benevolently, and thereby unite citizens [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The object of the civil virtues is to make us benevolent in our dealings with our fellow-human beings, and are so-called because they unite citizens. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.1) | |
A reaction: Modern commentators underestimate the close link between ancient virtue and citizenship. It is hard for one person to have much of a notion of virtue if they live on a desert island, beyond caring for personal health. |
18445 | Civil virtues control the passions, and make us conform to our nature [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The civil virtues moderate the passions; their object is to teach us to live in conformity with the laws of human nature. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.2) | |
A reaction: The link with human nature is basic to virtue theory, but this proposal is rather too vague. Are passions not part of the laws of human nature? |
18446 | Purificatory virtues detach the soul completely from the passions [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The object of the 'purificatory' virtues is to detach the soul completely from the passions. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.4) | |
A reaction: This is an aspect of virtue theory which doesn't appear in Aristotle. He is in favour of rational control of the passions, but not of totally abandoning them. The neo-platonists are much more puritanical. They seem to go against human nature. |
18447 | There are practical, purificatory, contemplative, and exemplary virtues [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The practical virtues make man virtuous; the purificatory virtues make man divine....; the contemplative virtues defiy; while the exemplary virtues make a man the parent of divinities. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.4) | |
A reaction: I like the idea of the 'exemplary' virtues. I think an entire theory of morality could be built on the notion that we are all role-models for one another. |
6843 | Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley] |
Full Idea: If nihilism is the threat of the collapse of meaning, then my position is that one has to accept meaninglessness as an achievement, as an accomplishment that permits a transformed relation to everyday life. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.193) | |
A reaction: This sounds cheerfully upbeat and life-enhancing, but I don't quite see how it works. One could easily end up laughing at the most appalling tragedies, and that seems to me to be an inappropriate (Aristotelian word) way to respond to tragedy. |
20732 | If man considers himself as lost and imprisoned in the universe, he will be terrified [Pascal] |
Full Idea: Let man consider what he is in comparison with what exists; let him regard himself as lost, and from this little dungeon the universe, let him learn to take the earth and himself at their proper value. Anyone considering this will be terrified at himself. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], p.199), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction Pref 'What? | |
A reaction: [p.199 of Penguin edn] Cited by Aho as a forerunner of existentialism. Montaigne probably influenced Pascal. Interesting that this is to be a self-inflicted existential crisis (for some purpose, probably Christian). |
20452 | Anarchism used to be libertarian (especially for sexuality), but now concerns responsibility [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Anarchism in the 1960s was libertarian and organised around issues of sexual liberation. That moment has passed. People are and should be organising around responsibility. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: So there are two types of anarchism, focused on freedom or on responsibility. An organisation like Greenpeace might represent the latter. |
20450 | The state, law, bureaucracy and capital are limitations on life, so I prefer federalist anarchism [Critchley] |
Full Idea: I begin with the ontological premise that the state is a limitation on human existence. I am against the state, law, bureaucracy, and capital. I see anarchism as the only desirable way of organising, politically. ...Its political form is federalist. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: Hm. Some sympathy, but caution. All systems, even federalist anarchism, are limitations on our lives, so which limitations do we prefer? The law aspires to a calm egalitarian neutrality, which seems promising to me. |
20451 | Belief that humans are wicked leads to authoritarian politics [Critchley] |
Full Idea: If you think human beings are wicked, you turn to an authoritarian conception of politics, the Hobbesian-Machiavellian-Straussian lie. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Impossible Objects: interviews [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: Right-wingers also tend to believe in free will, so they can blame and punish. Good people are more inspired by a great leader than bad people are? (Later, Critchley says authoritarians usually believe in original sin). |
6682 | Majority opinion is visible and authoritative, although not very clever [Pascal] |
Full Idea: Majority opinion is the best way because it can be seen, and is strong enough to command obedience, but it is the opinion of those who are least clever. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 85 (878)) | |
A reaction: A nice statement of the classic dilemma faced by highly educated people over democracy. Plato preferred the clever, Aristotle agreed with Pascal, and with me. Politics must make the best of it, not pursue some ideal. Education is the one feeble hope. |
6679 | It is not good to be too free [Pascal] |
Full Idea: It is not good to be too free. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 57 (379)) | |
A reaction: All Americans, please take note. I agree with this, because I agree with Aristotle that man is essentially a social animal (Idea 5133), and living in a community is a matter of compromise. Extreme libertarianism contradicts our natures, and causes misery. |
18456 | Unified real existence is neither great nor small, though greatness and smallness participate in it [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: By its identity and numerical unity, real existence is neither great nor small, neither very large nor very small, though it causes even greatest and smallest to participate in its nature. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn4 37(5)) | |
A reaction: Note the platonic word 'participate' [metechein], suggesting that he is talking about the Form of Existence here. Note also that we have 'real' existence here, implying a lesser type of existence that participates in it. |
18454 | Time is the circular movement of the soul [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: It is the circular movement of the soul that constitutes time, just as the permanence of intelligence in itself constitutes eternity. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
A reaction: Plato loved circles. If you think time is subjective, this is trying to express your intuition. Personally I think it is nonsense |
18455 | Some think time is seen at rest, as well as in movement [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Some have believed that time manifested in rest as well as in movement. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
A reaction: If you like this idea, you should see Shoemaker's lovely three-worlds thought experiment. |
18460 | God is nowhere, and hence everywhere [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: The divinity is everywhere because it is nowhere. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 43) |
7455 | Pascal knows you can't force belief, but you can make it much more probable [Pascal, by Hacking] |
Full Idea: Pascal knows that one cannot decide to believe in God, but he thinks one can act so that one will very probably come to believe in God, by following a life of 'holy water and sacraments'. | |
From: report of Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 418 (233)) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.8 | |
A reaction: This meets the most obvious and simple objection to Pascal's idea, and Pascal may well be right. I'm not sure I could resist belief after ten years in a monastery. |
7457 | Pascal is right, but relies on the unsupported claim of a half as the chance of God's existence [Hacking on Pascal] |
Full Idea: Pascal's argument is valid, but it is presented with a monstrous premise of equal chance. We have no good reason for picking a half as the chance of God's existence. | |
From: comment on Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 418 (233)) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.8 | |
A reaction: That strikes me as the last word on this rather bizarre argument. |
7456 | The libertine would lose a life of enjoyable sin if he chose the cloisters [Hacking on Pascal] |
Full Idea: The libertine is giving up something if he chooses to adopt a pious form of life. He likes sin. If God is not, the worldly life is preferable to the cloistered one. | |
From: comment on Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 418 (233)) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.8 | |
A reaction: This is a very good objection to Pascal, who seems to think you really have nothing at all to lose. I certainly don't intend to become a monk, because the chances of success seem incredibly remote from where I am sitting. |
6684 | If you win the wager on God's existence you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing [Pascal] |
Full Idea: How will you wager if a coin is spun on 'Either God is or he is not'? ...If you win you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing. | |
From: Blaise Pascal (Pensées [1662], 418 (233)) | |
A reaction: 'Sooner safe than sorry' is a principle best used with caution. Do you really 'lose nothing' by believing a falsehood for the whole of your life? What God would reward belief on such a principles as this? |
18461 | Everything existing proceeds from divinity, and is within divinity [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: All things that possess or do not possess existence proceed from divinity, and are within divinity. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 43) | |
A reaction: Nice to see Porphyry endorsing Meinongian objects. I doubt whether he counts as a pantheist, but this is a very pantheistic remark. |
18449 | Nature binds or detaches body to soul, but soul itself joins and detaches soul from body [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Nature binds the body to the soul, but it is the soul herself that has bound herself to the body. It, therefore, belongs to nature to detach the body from the soul, while it is the soul herself that detaches herself from the body. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn9 2) | |
A reaction: Baffling. What happens if there is a conflict? I suppose either party can cancel the bargain, but who wins when they disagree? |
18457 | Individual souls are all connected, though distinct, and without dividing universal Soul [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Individual souls are distinct without being separated from each other, and without dividing the universal Soul into a number of parts; they are united to each other without becoming confused. | |
From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn4 39) | |
A reaction: This sounds like Jung's theory that there is a universal subconscious which links us all together. Taken literally, I assume it is nonsense. As an invitation to acknowledge how much we all have in common, it is a nice corrective to liberal individualism. |