28 ideas
| 13165 | Geometrical proofs do not show causes, as when we prove a triangle contains two right angles [Proclus] |
| Full Idea: Geometry does not ask 'why?' ..When from the exterior angle equalling two opposite interior angles it is shown that the interior angles make two right angles, this is not a causal demonstration. With no exterior angle they still equal two right angles. | |
| From: Proclus (Commentary on Euclid's 'Elements' [c.452], p.161-2), quoted by Paolo Mancosu - Explanation in Mathematics §5 | |
| A reaction: A very nice example. It is hard to imagine how one might demonstrate the cause of the angles making two right angles. If you walk, turn left x°, then turn left y°, then turn left z°, and x+y+z=180°, you end up going in the original direction. |
| 9569 | The origin of geometry started in sensation, then moved to calculation, and then to reason [Proclus] |
| Full Idea: It is unsurprising that geometry was discovered in the necessity of Nile land measurement, since everything in the world of generation goes from imperfection to perfection. They would naturally pass from sense-perception to calculation, and so to reason. | |
| From: Proclus (Commentary on Euclid's 'Elements' [c.452]), quoted by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics 9.12 n55 | |
| A reaction: The last sentence is the core of my view on abstraction, that it proceeds by moving through levels of abstraction, approaching more and more general truths. |
| 7357 | People who control others with fluent language often end up being hated [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Of what use is eloquence? He who engages in fluency of words to control men often finds himself hated by them. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], V.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't recall Socrates making this very good point to any of the sophists (such as Gorgias). The idea that if you battle or connive your way to dominance over others then you are successful is false. Life is a much longer game than that. |
| 23928 | Good art produces exaltation and detachment [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The contemplation of pure form leads to a state of extraordinary exaltation and complete detachment from the concerns of life. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: The last part is what gets the arts a bad name with the people who do deal with the concerns of life (which won't go away, even for an artist!). However, being totally trapped in the concerns of life is probably a recipe for misery. |
| 23922 | The word 'beauty' leads to confusion, because it denotes distinct emotions [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The word 'beauty' connotes objects of quite distinguishable emotions, and the term would land me in confusions and misunderstandings. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.I) | |
| A reaction: His main example is a comparison of beautiful women with beautiful art. Personally I don't think the word aspires to be precise, so there is no problem. Maths has beautiful solutions, golf has beautiful shots, cooking has beautiful results. Wow! |
| 23921 | Our feeling for natural beauty is different from the aesthetic emotion of art [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: It is not what I call an aesthetic emotion that most of us feel, generally, for natural beauty. …Most people feel a very different kind of emotion for birds, flowers and butterfly wings from that we feel for pictures, pots, temples and statues. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.I) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced. I think the main difference is our awareness that art is a human production, the result of choice, whereas nature is a given. Beethoven 9 and a good sunset don't seem to me far apart in our responses. |
| 23929 | We only see landscapes as artistic if we ignore their instrumental value [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: It is only when we cease to regard the objects in a landscape as means to anything that we can feel the landscape artistically. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.I) | |
| A reaction: This sounds as if only the exploitative attitude blocks the artistic view, but I would expect the scientific view (of an ecologist, for example) to do the same. |
| 23923 | Visual form can create a sublime mental state [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: Pure visual form transports me to an infinitely sublime state of mind. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.I) | |
| A reaction: Unusual for anyone to use to term 'sublime' for works of art, and I suspect that Bell was the last to do so. Bell offers a quasi-religious role for art. I accept that being struck by something exceptionally good in art is a very distinctive experience. |
| 23932 | Art is the expression of an emotion for ultimate reality [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: My hypothesis is that art is the expression of an emotion for ultimate reality. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.II) | |
| A reaction: So later in his discussion the word 'ultimate' has crept in, after a chapter about the close relation between religious and artistic attitudes. He also sees good art as deeply 'spiritual'. It seems that religious belief is essential to his theory of art. |
| 23927 | Aestheticism invites artist to create beauty, but with no indication of how to do it [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The danger of aestheticism is that the artist who has got nothing to do but make something beautiful hardly knows where to begin or where to end | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: Aestheticism strikes me as the main motivation for art nouveau artifacts, which I love. You start with beautiful lines, and then find ways to implement them. Bell has a point, though! |
| 8115 | Only artists can discern significant form; other people must look to art to find it [Bell,C, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Bell thinks that only artists can discern significant form directly in the natural world, and that all others must look to art for significant form. | |
| From: report of Clive Bell (Art [1913]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.3 | |
| A reaction: I have a horrible feeling that 'significant' form will turn out to be the sort of form that artists can see. Presumably the form spotted by geologists won't be quite so 'significant'. Not a promising theory. |
| 23924 | Maybe significant form gives us a feeling for ultimate reality [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: When we strip things of all associations and significance, what is left is 'the thing in itself', or 'ultimate reality'. …Artists can express an emotion felt for reality through line and colour. …So through 'significant form' we sense ultimate reality. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The thing in itself is a Kantian idea. He offers this as a speculation, rather than a fact. Maybe quantum physics gets us closer to the thing in itself? Bell knows that his faith in significant form needs more justification than an emotion. |
| 23931 | Significant form is the essence of art, which I believe expresses an emotion about reality [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: My view that the essential quality in work of art is significant form was based on experience I am sure about. Of my view that significant form is the expression of a peculiar emotion felt for reality I am far from confident. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.II) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to understand the idea of 'significant' form without a clear proposal for the nature of the significance. A detective doesn't stop at the point where evidence is seen as significant. Why should a 'peculiar' emotion matter? |
| 20434 | 'Form' is visual relations, and it is 'significant' if it moves us aesthetically; art needs both [Bell,C, by Feagin] |
| Full Idea: By 'form' Bell means the relations of lines, colours and shapes. Forms are 'significant' when the relationships of lines and so on move us aesthetically. If something is art it must have, to at least a minimum extent, significant form. | |
| From: report of Clive Bell (Art [1913], p.17) by Susan Feagin - Roger Fry and Clive Bell 3 | |
| A reaction: So art has two necessary conditions - that it move us aesthetically, and that it does so by means of its form. The obvious problem is to explain which forms are 'significant' without mentioning the aesthetic feeling they have to invoke. |
| 23934 | The only expression art could have is the emotion resulting from pure form [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: If art expresses anything, it expresses an emotion felt for pure form and that which gives pure form its extraordinary significance. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], III.I) | |
| A reaction: I don't think 'expresses' is the right word here. Artists express, but works just transmit. I personally doubt whether anything can have 'extraordinary significance' simply because it expresses one particular emotion. Why art, but not geometry? |
| 23925 | Mere copies of pictures are not significant - unless the copies are very exact [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: A literal copy is seldom reckoned even by its owner a work of art. Its forms are not significant. Yet if it were an absolutely exact copy, clearly it would be as moving as the original, and a photographic reproduction of a drawing often is. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: What if the original artist made the copy? In 1913, Bell begins to spot this modern problem. He undermines his own theory of significant form here, if the form only becomes significant once we have checked it is an original. |
| 23926 | Art is distinguished by its aesthetic emotion, which produces appropriate form [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The characteristic of a work of art is its power of provoking aesthetic emotion; the expression of emotion is what gives it its power. ...Rightness of form is invariably a consequence of rightness of emotion. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: Bell doesn't dig very deep, because the obvious next question, not really addressed, is what makes the emotion 'right'. He suggests that significant form reveals reality, but why would an emotion do that? Does each work have a distinct emotion? |
| 23933 | Aesthetic contemplation is the best and most intense mental state [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: Art is not only a means to good states of mind, but, perhaps, the best and most potent that we possess; …there is no state of mind more excellent or more intense than the state of aesthetic contemplation. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.III) | |
| A reaction: Why does intensity make it good? It is pretty intense being involved in a road accident, but that doesn't make it good. There are many states of mind we enjoy or value highly, but we need more than that to prove them objectively 'excellent'. |
| 23935 | Aesthetic experience is an exaltation which increases the possibilities of life [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: Those who have been thrilled by the pure aesthetic significance of a work of art …carry a state of excitement and exaltation making them more sensitive to all that is going forward about them. Thus they realise …the significance and possibility of life. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], IV.III) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a bit of an afterthought, because he struggles to explain why his 'significant form' is so important. He shifts between it being an end - an intrinsic value - or a moral state, or now an increaser of life potential. |
| 22691 | Only artistic qualities matter in art, because they also have the highest moral value [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The only relevant qualities in art are artistic qualities: judged as a means to good, no other qualities are worth considering; for there are no qualities of greater moral value than artistic qualities, since there is no greater means to good than art. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.III) | |
| A reaction: Wishful thinking, I suspect. I can't see anyone acquiring a moral education just by looking a Cezannes. This seems to be a late manifesto for the aesthetic movement. |
| 7358 | All men prefer outward appearance to true excellence [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: I have yet to meet a man as fond of excellence as he is of outward appearances. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], IX.18) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, this cynical view of the love of virtue is put by Plato into the mouths of Glaucon and Adeimantus (in Bk II of 'Republic', e.g. Idea 12), and not into the mouth of Socrates, who goes on to defend the possibility of true virtue. |
| 7362 | Humans are similar, but social conventions drive us apart (sages and idiots being the exceptions) [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: In our natures we approximate one another; habits put us further and further apart. The only ones who do not change are sages and idiots. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.2) | |
| A reaction: I find most of Confucius rather uninteresting, but this is a splendid remark about the influence of social conventions on human nature. Sages can achieve universal morality if they rise above social convention, and seek the true virtues of human nature. |
| 7360 | Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself. Then you will have no enemies, either in the state or in your home. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XII.2) | |
| A reaction: The Golden Rule, but note the second sentence. Logically, it leads to the absurdity of not giving someone an Elvis record for Christmas because you yourself don't like Elvis. Kant (Idea 3733) and Nietzsche (Idea 4560) offer good criticisms. |
| 7359 | Excess and deficiency are equally at fault [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Excess and deficiency are equally at fault. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XI.16) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of wisdom we admire in Aristotle (and in any sensible person), but it may also be the deepest motto of conservatism, and it is a long way from romantic philosophy, and the clarion call of Nietzsche to greater excitement in life. |
| 7363 | The virtues of the best people are humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: He who in this world can practise five things may indeed be considered Man-at-his-best: humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.5) | |
| A reaction: A very nice list. Who could resist working with a colleague who had such virtues? Who could go wrong if they married a person who had them? I can't think of anything important that is missing. |
| 7361 | Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XIV.37) | |
| A reaction: Plato notes that such people tend to avoid political life (and a left sheltering, as if from a wild storm!), but he thinks they should be dragged into the political arena for the common good. Confucius seems to approve of the avoidance. Plato is right. |
| 23393 | Confucianism assumes that all good developments have happened, and there is only one Way [Norden on Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: The two major limitations of Confucianism are that it assumes that all worthwhile cultural, social and ethical innovation has already occurred, and that it does not recognise the plurality of worthwhile ways of life. | |
| From: comment on Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE]) by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 3.III | |
| A reaction: In modern liberal terms that is about as conservative as it is possible to get. We think of it as the state of mind of an old person who can only long for the way things were when they were young. But 'hold fast to that which is good'! |
| 23930 | Religion sees infinite value in some things, and irrelevance in the rest [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The essence of religion is a conviction that because some things are of infinite value most are profoundly unimportant. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.I) | |
| A reaction: The aspect of religion which most worries atheists like Nietzsche. You can end up with a rather cool and detached view of genocide, if you really believe that worldly matters are unimportant. Do souls in heaven worry about the next life after that? |