64 ideas
| 5278 | Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At best it is a summing up of general results, abstractions which arise from observation of the historical development of man. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense, based on a bogus Hegelian notion that history is following some sort of pattern, and that mental reality is fixed by physical conditions. The philosophy of mathematics, for one, won't fit into this definition. |
| 9456 | Modal logic is multiple systems, shown in the variety of accessibility relations between worlds [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Modal logic by its very nature is not monolithic, but fragmented into multiple systems of modal qualifications, reflected in the plurality of accessibility relations on modal model structures or logically possible worlds. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §3) | |
| A reaction: He implies the multiplicity is basic, and is only 'reflected' in the relations, but maybe the multiplicity is caused by incompetent logicians who can't decide whether possible worlds really are reflexive or symmetrical or transitive in their relations. |
| 7689 | The modal logic of C.I.Lewis was only interpreted by Kripke and Hintikka in the 1960s [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The modal syntax and axiom systems of C.I.Lewis (1918) were formally interpreted by Kripke and Hintikka (c.1965) who, using Z-F set theory, worked out model set-theoretical semantics for modal logics and quantified modal logics. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A historical note. The big question is always 'who cares?' - to which the answer seems to be 'lots of people', if they are interested in precision in discourse, in artificial intelligence, and maybe even in metaphysics. Possible worlds started here. |
| 9457 | The two main views in philosophy of logic are extensionalism and intensionalism [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy of logic has (roughly) two camps: extensionalists and intensionalists, with the former view dominant. ...There is a close connection between this and eliminativist or reductivist versus folk psychological and intentionalist philosophy of mind. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I think I favour intensionalism in the logic, and reductivism about the mind, so I may have a bit of bother here. I'm convinced that this jigsaw can be completed, despite all appearances. |
| 7681 | Logic describes inferences between sentences expressing possible properties of objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: It is fundamental that logic depends on logical possibilities, in which logically possible properties are predicated of logically possible objects. Logic describes inferential structures among sentences expressing the predication of properties to objects. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: If our imagination is the only tool we have for assessing possibilities, this leaves the domain of logic as being a bit subjective. There is an underlying Platonism to the idea, since inferences would exist even if nothing else did. |
| 9463 | Classical logic is bivalent, has excluded middle, and only quantifies over existent objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Classical logic (of Whitehead, Russell, Gödel, Church) is a two-valued system of propositional and predicate logic, in which all propositions are exclusively true or false, and quantification and predication are over existent objects only. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to I: Classical Logic [2002], p.9) | |
| A reaction: All of these get challenged at some point, though the existence requirement is the one I find dubious. |
| 7682 | Logic is not just about signs, because it relates to states of affairs, objects, properties and truth-values [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: At one level logic can be regarded as a theory of signs and formal rules, but we cannot neglect the meaning of propositions as they relate to states of affairs, and hence to possible properties and objects... there must be the possibility of truth-values. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Thus if you define logical connectives by truth tables, you need the concept of T and F. You could, though, regard those too as purely formal (like 1 and 0 in electronics). But how do you decide which propositions are 1, and which are 0? |
| 7697 | On Russell's analysis, the sentence "The winged horse has wings" comes out as false [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: It is infamous that on Russell's analysis the sentences "The winged horse has wings" and "The winged horse is a horse" are false, because in the extant domain of actual existent entities there contingently exist no winged horses | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is the best objection I have heard to Russell's account of definite descriptions. The connected question is whether 'quantifies over' is really a commitment to existence. See Idea 6067. |
| 9466 | Nominalists like substitutional quantification to avoid the metaphysics of objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Some substitutional quantificationists in logic hope to avoid philosophical entanglements about the metaphysics of objects, ..and nominalists can find aid and comfort there. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to III: Quantifiers [2002], p.143) | |
| A reaction: This has an appeal for me, particularly if it avoids abstract objects, but I don't see much problem with material objects, so we might as well have a view that admits those. |
| 9465 | Substitutional universal quantification retains truth for substitution of terms of the same type [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The substitutional interpretation says the universal quantifier is true just in case it remains true for all substitutions of terms of the same type as that of the universally bound variable. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to III: Quantifiers [2002], p.143) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem to tell us how it gets started with being true. |
| 9458 | Extensionalists say that quantifiers presuppose the existence of their objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Extensionalists hold that quantifiers in predicate logic presuppose the existence of whatever objects can be referred to by constants or bound variables, or enter into true predication of properties. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: I have strong sales resistance to this view. Why should a procedure for correctly reasoning from one proposition to another have anything whatever to do with ontology? A false world picture can be interconnected by perfect logic. |
| 9461 | Intensionalists say meaning is determined by the possession of properties [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: According to intensionalist semantics the meaning of a proposition is determined by the properties an object possesses. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds good to me. Extensionalist don't seem to care what sets they put things in, but if property possession comes first, then things will fall into their own sets without any help for us. We can add silly sets afterwards, if we fancy. |
| 7701 | Can a Barber shave all and only those persons who do not shave themselves? [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The Barber Paradox refers to the non-existent property of being a barber who shaves all and only those persons who do not shave themselves. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: [Russell spotted this paradox, and it led to his Theory of Types]. This paradox may throw light on the logic of indexicals. What does "you" mean when I say to myself "you idiot!"? If I can behave as two persons, so can the barber. |
| 7707 | To grasp being, we must say why something exists, and why there is one world [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: We grasp the concept of being only when we have satisfactorily answered the question why there is something rather than nothing and why there is only one logically contingent actual world. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Conclusion) | |
| A reaction: See Ideas 7688 and 7692 for a glimpse of Jacquette's answer. Personally I don't yet have a full grasp of the concept of being, but I'm sure I'll get there if I only work a bit harder. |
| 7692 | Being is maximal consistency [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Being is maximal consistency. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: You'll have to read Ch.2 of Jacquette to see what this is all about, but as it stands it is a lovely slogan, and a wonderful googly/curve ball to propel at Parmenides or Heidegger. |
| 7687 | Existence is completeness and consistency [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: A combinatorial ontology holds that existence is nothing more or less than completeness and consistency, or what is also called 'maximal consistency'. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: You'll have to read Jacquette to understand this one! The claim is that existence is to be defined in terms of logic (and whatever is required for logic). I take this to be a bit Platonist (rather than conventionalist) about logic. |
| 7679 | Ontology is the same as the conceptual foundations of logic [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The principles of pure philosophical ontology are indistinguishable ... from the conceptual foundations of logic. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I would take Russell to be an originator of this view. If the young Wittgenstein showed that the foundations of logic are simply conventional (truth tables), this seems to make ontology conventional too, which sounds very odd indeed (to me). |
| 5287 | Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Every profound philosophical problem is resolved quite simply into an empirical fact. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This shows that empirical accounts of metaphysics are not just a branch of British empiricism, but are a basic fact of any materialist view of the world. The influence of David Hume, however, hovers behind this Marxist doctrine. |
| 7678 | Ontology must include the minimum requirements for our semantics [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The entities included in a theoretical ontology are those minimally required for an adequate philosophical semantics. ...These are the objects that we say exist, to which we are ontologically committed. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Worded with exquisite care! He does not say that ontology is reducible to semantics (which is a silly idea). We could still be committed, as in a ghost story, to existence of some 'nameless thing'. Things utterly beyond our ken might exist. |
| 7683 | Logic is based either on separate objects and properties, or objects as combinations of properties [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Logic involves the possibilities of predicating properties of objects in a conceptual scheme wherein either objects and properties are included in altogether separate categories, or objects are reducible to combinations of properties. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: In the first view, he says that objects are just 'logical pegs' for properties. Objects can't be individuated without properties. But combinations of properties would seem to need essences, or else they are too unstable to count as objects. |
| 7684 | Reduce states-of-affairs to object-property combinations, and possible worlds to states-of-affairs [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: We can reduce references to states-of-affairs to object-property combinations, and we can reduce logically possible worlds to logically possible states-of-affairs combinations. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: If we further reduce object-property combinations to mere combinations of properties (Idea 7683), then we have reduced our ontology to nothing but properties. Wow. We had better be very clear, then, about what a property is. I'm not. |
| 7703 | If classes can't be eliminated, and they are property combinations, then properties (universals) can't be either [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: If classes alone cannot be eliminated from ontology on Quine's terms, and if classes are defined as property combinations, then neither are all properties, universals in the tradition sense, entirely eliminable. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: If classes were totally conventional (and there was no such things as a 'natural' class) then you might admit something to a class without knowing its properties (as 'the thing in the box'). |
| 7685 | An object is a predication subject, distinguished by a distinctive combination of properties [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: To be an object is to be a predication subject, and to be this as opposed to that particular object, whether existent or not, is to have a distinctive combination of properties. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: The last part depends on Leibniz's Law. The difficulty is that two objects may only be distinguishable by being in different places, and location doesn't look like a property. Cf. Idea 5055. |
| 7699 | Numbers, sets and propositions are abstract particulars; properties, qualities and relations are universals [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Roughly, numbers, sets and propositions are assumed to be abstract particulars, while properties, including qualities and relations, are usually thought to be universals. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: There is an interesting nominalist project of reducing all of these to particulars. Numbers to patterns, sets to their members, propositions to sentences, properties to causal powers, relations to, er, something else. |
| 7691 | The actual world is a consistent combination of states, made of consistent property combinations [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The actual world is a maximally consistent state-of-affairs combination involving all and only the existent objects, which in turn exist because they are maximally consistent property combinations. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: [This extends Idea 7688]. This seems to invite the standard objections to the coherence theory of truth, such as Ideas 5422 and 4745. Is 'maximal consistency' merely a test for actuality, rather than an account of what actuality is? |
| 7688 | The actual world is a maximally consistent combination of actual states of affairs [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The actual world can be defined as a maximally consistent combination of actual states of affairs, or maximally consistent states-of-affairs combination. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A key part of Jacquette's program of deriving ontological results from the foundations of logic. Is the counterfactual situation of my pen being three centimetres to the left of its current position a "less consistent" situation than the actual one? |
| 7695 | Do proposition-structures not associated with the actual world deserve to be called worlds? [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Many modal logicians in their philosophical moments have raised doubts about whether structures of propositions not associated with the actual world deserved to be called worlds at all. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A good question. Consistency is obviously required, but we also need a lot of propositions before we would consider it a 'world'. Very remote but consistent worlds quickly become unimaginable. Does that matter? |
| 7694 | We must experience the 'actual' world, which is defined by maximally consistent propositions [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Conventional modal semantics, in which all logically possible worlds are defined in terms of maximally consistent proposition sets, has no choice except to allow that the actual world is the world we experience in sensation, or that we inhabit. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Jacquette dislikes this because he is seeking an account of ontology that doesn't, as so often, merely reduce to epistemology (e.g. Berkeley). See Idea 7691 for his preferred account. |
| 5303 | For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Law, morality, religion are to the proletarian so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This Marxist idea has been the main driving force in spreading relativist views through modern culture. There is a lot of truth here, but philosophy is plausibly the search for truths which both the bourgeois and the proletarian will accept. |
| 23872 | 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In the Marxist formula 'social existence determines consciousness' there are more contradictions than words. Since 'social' can only exist in human minds, 'social existence' is already consciousness. It cannot determine consciousness, which is undefined. | |
| From: comment on K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846]) by Simone Weil - Fragments p.126 | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that society only exists in minds. Many children in Victorian London had never heard of 'London', but that didn't stop it existing. Our problems are often social substrata of which we are unaware. |
| 5277 | Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This slogan is the heart of Marxism. It begs the obvious question of what determines (social) life? Aristotle is at least partly right - that some activities and social organisation are 'unnatural', going against the grain of the human 'given'. |
| 7706 | If qualia supervene on intentional states, then intentional states are explanatorily fundamental [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: If qualia supervene on intentional states, then intentionality is also more explanatorily fundamental than qualia. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 7272 for opposite view. Maybe intentional states are large mental objects of which we are introspectively aware, but which are actually composed of innumerable fine-grained qualia. Intentional states would only explain qualia if they caused them. |
| 7704 | Reduction of intentionality involving nonexistent objects is impossible, as reduction must be to what is actual [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: If intentionality sometimes involves a relation to nonexistent objects, like my dreamed-of visit to a Greek island, then such thoughts cannot be explained physically or causally, because only actual physical entities and events can be mentioned. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: Unimpressive. Thoughts of a Greek island will obviously reduce to memories of islands and Greece and travel brochures. Memory clearly retains past events in the present, and hence past events can be part of the material used in reductive accounts. |
| 5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: Dennett takes a similar view - that consciousness is more-or-less a consequence of the development of consciousness. This is understandable if you make intentional rather than phenomenal consciousness central. Otherwise ants may well have it. |
| 9460 | Extensionalist semantics forbids reference to nonexistent objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: In extensionalist semantics only existent objects can be referred to, ...but in everyday thought and discourse we regularly and apparently without undue confusion speak about nonexistent objects. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: This is the reason why Meinong, whose views are presented by Russell as absurd, are undergoing a revival. The full-blown view will even treat 'round squares' as objects about which we can reason - and why not? Don't open a shop which sells them. |
| 9459 | Extensionalist semantics is circular, as we must know the extension before assessing 'Fa' [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Extensional semantics is blatantly circular. For 'Fa' to be interpreted as true, we must know that object a belongs to the extension of the predicate F, so we must already know which objects belong to the extension. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: I'm delighted to read this, because it was the first thought that occurred to me when I encountered the theory. Presumably this leads Quine to take predication as basic, because you can't break into the circle. Or, vote for intensionalism? |
| 7702 | The extreme views on propositions are Frege's Platonism and Quine's extreme nominalism [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The extreme ontological alternatives with respect to the metaphysics of propositions are a Fregean Platonism (his "gedanken", 'thoughts'), and a radical nominalism or inscriptionalism, as in Quine, where they are just marks related to stimuli. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would want something between the two - that propositions are brain events of a highly abstract kind. I say that introspection reveals pre-linguistic thoughts, which are propositions. A proposition is an intentional state. |
| 5276 | The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: As individuals express their life, so they are; what they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be contradicted by their subsequent idea that 'alienation' from the means of production is possible. Presumably intellectuals (in all ages) are to some extent exempt from this rule. It is, in fact, not true. |
| 5281 | Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is from the very beginning a social product. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This slogan has produced the sociological view of truth which has stood opposed to philosophy for the last 150 years. It would be silly to deny that there is a good point here, but equally silly to think that all consciousness is explicable in this way. |
| 21998 | Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Morality, law and religion are bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], p.230), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is whether this creation of values is conscious or unconscious. Personally I believe in conspiracies. Some cynical conversations go on behind the scenes, of which historians will never hear. |
| 5289 | When aristocracy or the bourgeoisie dominate, certain values dominate with them [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: During the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty etc. were dominant, and during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts of freedom, equality etc. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This is a very anti-Aristotelian view, based on a very different idea of human nature. It must, to some extent, be true, but freedom and equality will be a value for the proletariat, and loyalty will be a key value if the family is central. |
| 5274 | Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus removing their limitations. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: It seems there are three views here: this one (that we can change our consciousness), the Aristotelian view (that consciousness is 'given'), and the Marxist view (that society determines consciousness). The truth is somewhere between them. |
| 21992 | Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], p.160), quoted by Sydney Shoemaker - Some varieties of functionalism 6 | |
| A reaction: At the very least, we must say that there had to be some intrinsic distinctiveness in place before men could do this. I like meta-thought. |
| 5275 | Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This seems a rather external criterion. Presumably we can ask what biological or mental feature made it possible for men to produce their own means of subsistence, and why it evolved. Darwin puts a different perspective on this idea. |
| 5292 | Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
| A reaction: Beneath the Marxist view that consciousness is a social creation lies a Hobbesian pessimism about basic human nature. This idea bodes ill for ultimate communism, because class struggle will have been abolished. What, then, can unite people? |
| 5293 | Only in community are people able to cultivate their gifts, and therefore be free [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
| A reaction: This is where Aristotle and Marx agree, and I agree too. I think we could drop the word "free", which is to some degree a necessary right and precondition of human happiness, but is not the real target. |
| 5273 | Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men (just as the Old Hegelians declared them the true bonds of human society). | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: Marx and Engels will attack both views. The Young Hegelians seem potential existentialists, and the Old Hegelians followers of Aristotle. The correct view is somewhere in the middle. Self-criticism is an option given to us by our culture. |
| 5283 | In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates production, and I can hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and criticise after dinner. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a hopeless daydream, and Plato would be appalled. It now (2004) looks as if this aspiration is more likely to be met in a liberal capitalist democracy than it is under any state-controlled communism. |
| 5282 | If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: As long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: An isolated individual could feel 'alienated' doing menial tasks for themselves when they yearned to get on with their poetry. Alienation is not all-or-nothing. Compare working for a good employer with working for Nazi conquerors. |
| 5288 | The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This is mostly true, because the wealthy will control both the media and most of the educational institutions, but in a world of universal education and underground presses it doesn't seem to be a necessary truth. Wide dissemination of ideas needs money. |
| 5290 | The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a 'class', not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be the source of most of the troubles of the last 150 years. Aristotle thought a benevolent tyrant could represent all of society. It looks to me as if a representative democracy has the best chance, but control of the media is tricky. |
| 5294 | To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In order to assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
| A reaction: By the 'State' is here meant the centralised power of the owners of the means of production. They are not aiming at anarchism, but at a more fluid 'society' or 'community'. Most of us have an Orwellian fear of violent 'overthrowing'. |
| 5302 | Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: In Britain the Labour Party and the Trade Unions have appeared since 1848, but bourgeoisie control of the media has pushed us a long way back towards Marx's time. Government will always be someone's management committee. |
| 5304 | Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is a sinister remark which has led to huge numbers of murders in the Soviet Union and China. People resent having their property 'abolished', especially if they have worked hard for it. But most of our wealth is owned by about 2% of our people. |
| 5307 | Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §3.II) | |
| A reaction: …so don't try being nice to us. No TRUE bourgeois would actually want to help the proletariate… Nevertheless, he is probably largely right. Do we want the poor to suffer? No. Do we want them to be as rich as us? No! |
| 5285 | Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: In Britain and its colonies it does appear that the rise of factories and the abolition of slavery coincided. It is hard to see why this should be a necessity, though. Did the early Christians keep slaves? Some ancient Greeks objected to slavery. |
| 5284 | Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: It is empirically established that by the overthrow of the existing state of society by the communist revolution, and the abolition of private property, which is identical with it, the power of the world market will be dissolved. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: They later dropped the abolition of private property as an aim. They were very early in spotting the problem of global capitalism. As long as there are scarcities of anything (e.g. Rembrandts) it is hard to imagine the disappearance of the market. |
| 5306 | The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In a communist society we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This ringing slogan is remarkably close to John Stuart Mill's defence of liberalism, where liberty is an absolute, as long as it avoids the liberty of others. Personally I think freedom is marginal in political philosophy, like food and shelter. |
| 5064 | Rights are moral significance, or liberty, or right not to be restrained, or entitlement [Mawson] |
| Full Idea: A 'right' can mean 'x counts morally', or 'x is permitted to do this' (liberty), or 'x can't be stopped from doing this' (negative right), or 'someone should provide this for x'. | |
| From: Tim Mawson (Animal Rights talk [2003]), quoted by PG - lecture notes | |
| A reaction: A useful analysis. It is a useful preliminary to considering whether any of these are natural rights. Personally I am sympathetic to that concept. You cannot deny a person's right to self-defence, even when you are sitting on them. Persons have rights. |
| 5291 | The law says private property is the result of the general will [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In civil law the existing property relations are declared to be the result of the general will. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.C) | |
| A reaction: In other words, the 'general will' is open to endless abuse, because it is defined by the current power group, which nowadays is whoever controls the mass media. Even a 'free' election doesn't prove the general will, which is a cultural thing. |
| 5305 | Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Communists seek to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: Someone has to control education, and I would personally prefer it if the controllers were well educated themselves. Neutral education is an idle dream. We must educate for democracy, if we really want democracy. |
| 5279 | Human history must always be studied in relation to industry and exchange [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The 'history of humanity' must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
| A reaction: There is a lot of truth in this, but why did the Greeks produce Pythagoras, or the Jews produce Jesus, or the British produce Sid Vicious? Two very similar industrial societies can produce very different cultures. Individuals can make a difference. |
| 5286 | Most historians are trapped in the illusions of their own epoch [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Most historians see in history just the political actions of princes and states, religious and all sorts of theoretical struggles, and in particular in each historical epoch have had to share the illusion of that epoch. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
| A reaction: Is it an illusion of our epoch that we share the illusions of our epoch? It seems unfair to say that Marx and Engels can see beyond the illusions of their epoch, but some historian writing about the Wars of the Roses can't. Princes were important. |
| 5301 | The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to make, say, the English Peasants' Revolt of 1481 crucial, and the building of Lincoln Cathedral fairly minor. Where does the advent of the telephone figure? Etc. Still, we must concede his point. Most medieval history is about power. |