69 ideas
| 21970 | Philosophy attains its goal if one person feels perfect accord between their system and experience [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: If even a single person is completely convinced of his philosophy; ...if his free judgement in philosophising, and what life obtrudes upon him, are perfectly in accord; then in this person philosophy has completed its circuit and attained its goal. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:512), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.4 | |
| A reaction: Interesting to hear a famous idealist offering accordance with real life as a criterion for philosophical success. But that is real life, but not as you and I may know it.... His criterion is very subjective. A bad philosopher might attain it? |
| 9978 | Analytic philosophy focuses too much on forms of expression, instead of what is actually said [Tait] |
| Full Idea: The tendency to attack forms of expression rather than attempting to appreciate what is actually being said is one of the more unfortunate habits that analytic philosophy inherited from Frege. | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], IV) | |
| A reaction: The key to this, I say, is to acknowledge the existence of propositions (in brains). For example, this belief will make teachers more sympathetic to pupils who are struggling to express an idea, and verbal nit-picking becomes totally irrelevant. |
| 22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte 'subjectivity' came first, and he was then stuck with the (impossible) task of showing how 'objectivity' arose out of it. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: The best available answer to this problem (for idealists) is, I think, Nietzsche's perspectives, in which multiple subjectivities are summed to produce a blurred picture which has a degree of consensus. Fichte later embraced other minds. |
| 6912 | For Fichte there is no God outside the ego, and 'our religion is reason' [Fichte, by Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte there is no God outside the ego, and 'our religion is reason'. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (works [1798]) by Ludwig Feuerbach - Principles of Philosophy of the Future §17 | |
| A reaction: Fichte was not an atheist, but this seems to be a supreme aphorism for summarising our image of the Englightenment. Personally I subscribe to the Enlightenment ideal (the best life is the rational life), despite doubts about 'pure' reason. |
| 23247 | The need to act produces consciousness, and practical reason is the root of all reason [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness of the real world proceeds from the need to act, not the other way around. …Practical reason is the root of all reason. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I) | |
| A reaction: Strongly agree with the last part. In my conceptual scheme 'sensible' behaviour (e.g. of animals) precedes, in every way, rational behaviour. Sensible attitudes to quantity and magnitude precede mathematical logic. Minds exist for navigation. |
| 23232 | Sufficient reason makes the transition from the particular to the general [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: The principle of sufficient reason is the point of transition from the particular, which is itself, to the general, which is outside it. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but it seems worth passing on. Personally I would say that we have a knack of generalising, triggered when we spot patterns. |
| 9986 | The null set was doubted, because numbering seemed to require 'units' [Tait] |
| Full Idea: The conception that what can be numbered is some object (including flocks of sheep) relative to a partition - a choice of unit - survived even in the late nineteenth century in the form of the rejection of the null set (and difficulties with unit sets). | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], IX) | |
| A reaction: This old view can't be entirely wrong! Frege makes the point that if asked to count a pack of cards, you must decide whether to count cards, or suits, or pips. You may not need a 'unit', but you need a concept. 'Units' name concept-extensions nicely! |
| 9984 | We can have a series with identical members [Tait] |
| Full Idea: Why can't we have a series (as opposed to a linearly ordered set) all of whose members are identical, such as (a, a, a...,a)? | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], VII) | |
| A reaction: The question is whether the items order themselves, which presumably the natural numbers are supposed to do, or whether we impose the order (and length) of the series. What decides how many a's there are? Do we order, or does nature? |
| 22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: To adopt any kind of normative stance is to commit oneself necessarily to the possibility of negation. It involves doing something correctly or incorrectly, so there must exist the possibility of denying or affirming. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key idea for understanding Hegel's logic. Personally I think animals have a non-verbal experience of negation - when a partner dies, for example. |
| 13416 | Mathematics must be based on axioms, which are true because they are axioms, not vice versa [Tait, by Parsons,C] |
| Full Idea: The axiomatic conception of mathematics is the only viable one. ...But they are true because they are axioms, in contrast to the view advanced by Frege (to Hilbert) that to be a candidate for axiomhood a statement must be true. | |
| From: report of William W. Tait (Intro to 'Provenance of Pure Reason' [2005], p.4) by Charles Parsons - Review of Tait 'Provenance of Pure Reason' §2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the classic twentieth century shift in the attitude to axioms. The Greek idea is that they must be self-evident truths, but the Tait-style view is that they are just the first steps in establishing a logical structure. I prefer the Greeks. |
| 23227 | Each object has a precise number of properties, each to a precise degree [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Each object has a definite number of properties, no more, no less. …Each of these objects possesses each of these properties to a definite degree. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: Quine flatly disagrees with this. Fichte offers no grounds for his claim. On the whole I think of properties as psychologically abstracted by us from holistic objects, so there is plenty of room for error. The underlying powers are real. |
| 23228 | The principle of activity and generation is found in a self-moving basic force [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: The principle of activity, of generation and becoming in and for itself, is purely in that force itself and not in anything outside it…; the force is not driven or set in motion, it sets itself in motion. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: A good account of primitive powers, as self-motivating forces. I can't think what else could be fundamental to nature. This whole passage of Fichte expounds a powers ontology. |
| 22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte thought that everything that involves necessary truths - even mathematics and logic - should be shown to follow from the more basic principles involved in assertion and negation. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: An interesting proposal, though I am struggling to see how it works. Fichte sees assertion and negation as foundational (Idea 22017), but I take them to be responses to the real world. |
| 22062 | Mental presentation are not empirical, but concern the strivings of the self [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: The intelligence has as the object of its presentation not an empirical perception, but rather only the necessary striving of the self. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (Review of 'Aenesidemus' [1792], Wks I:22), quoted by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.62 | |
| A reaction: The embodiment of Fichte's idealism. The 'striving' is the spontaneous application of concepts described the Kant. Kant looks outwards, but Fichte sees only the striving. |
| 22015 | The thing-in-itself is an empty dream [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte said that the thing-in-itself (which both Reinhold and Schulze accepted) is only "a piece of whimsy, a pipe-dream, a non-thought". | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (Review of 'Aenesidemus' [1792]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a key moment in German philosophy, and the first step towards the idealist interpretation of Kant. |
| 22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Only Fichte's principles are deduced in his book, that is, the logical ones, and not even these completely. And what about the practical, the moral and ethical ones. Society, learning, wit, art, and so on are also entitled to be deduced here. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works Vol 18 p.34 | |
| A reaction: This is the beginnings of the romantic rebellion against a rather narrowly rationalist approach to philosophy. Schlegel also objects to the fact that Fichte only had one axiom (presumably the idea of the not-Self). |
| 21973 | Fichte believed in things-in-themselves [Fichte, by Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Fichte retained a broadly Kantian conception of how things are in themselves. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (works [1798]) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.2 | |
| A reaction: The contrast is between those who believe in the thing-in-itself, while admitting that we can't know it, and those who deny such a thing. The debate returned 130 years later as verificationism in language. |
| 21914 | We can deduce experience from self-consciousness, without the thing-in-itself [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: We can abandon the thing-in-itself, and aim for 'a complete deduction of all experience from the possibility of self-consciousness'. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I p.425), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 3 | |
| A reaction: German Idealism now looks to me like a weird abberation in the history of philosophy, though no doubt it has (like every philosophical theory) some supporters out there somewhere. Schopenhauer called this 'raving nonsense'. |
| 23241 | I am myself, but not the external object; so I only sense myself, and not the object [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I sense in myself, not in the object, for I am myself and not the object; therefore I sense only myself and my condition, and not the condition of the object. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear why anyone would have total confidence in internal experience and almost no confidence in experience of externals. In daily life I am equally confident about both. In philosophical mode I make equally cautious judgements about both. |
| 22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte's key claim was that the difference between the subjective and the objective points of view had to be itself a subjective distinction, something that the 'I' posits. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09 | |
| A reaction: This seems to lock us firmly into the idealist mental prison and throw away the key. |
| 20951 | The absolute I divides into consciousness, and a world which is not-I [Fichte, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Fichte's very influential idea is that the subject becomes divided against itself. The absolute I splits into an I (consciousness) and a not-I (the objective world) that are relative to each other. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (works [1798]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 3 'Fichtean' | |
| A reaction: This is German Idealism in action. Is there a before and after the split here? I can't make much sense of this idea. It is said that babies spend a while deciding which bits are them and which aren't. There is more to the world than 'not-I'. |
| 21964 | Reason arises from freedom, so philosophy starts from the self, and not from the laws of nature [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Not by any law of nature do we attain to reason; we achieve it by absolute freedom. ...In philosophy, therefore, we must necessarily start from the self. The materialists' project of deriving the appearance of reason from natural laws is impossible. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:298), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics | |
| A reaction: I blame Descartes' Cogito for this misunderstanding. The underlying idea (in Kant, and probably earlier) is that pure reason needs pure free will. Modern thought usually sees reason as extremely impure. |
| 21968 | Abandon the thing-in-itself; things only exist in relation to our thinking [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: We must be rid of the thing-in-itself; for whatever we may think, we are that which thinks therein, and hence nothing could ever come to exist independently of us, for everything is necessarily related to our thinking. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:501), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.3 | |
| A reaction: Some statements of idealism are understandable, or even quite plausible, but this one sounds ridiculous. The idea that if human beings die out then reality ceases to exist is absurd humanistic vanity. |
| 21966 | Self-consciousness is the basis of knowledge, and knowing something is knowing myself [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: The immediate consciousness of myself is the condition of all other consciousness; and I know a thing only in so far as I know that I know it; no element can enter into the latter cognition which is not contained in the former. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.37), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.2 | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as false, and a lot of intellectual contortion would be needed to believe it. Is knowing this pen is in front of me a case of knowing that I have knowledge of this pen, or is it just knowledge of this pen? [cf Kant 1781:A129] |
| 21967 | There is nothing to say about anything which is outside my consciousness [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Of any connection beyond the limits of my consciousness I cannot speak. ...I cannot proceed a hair's breadth beyond this consciousness, any more than I can spring out of myself. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.74), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.3 | |
| A reaction: I can't see that this is any different from the idealism of Berkeley, although they get there from different starting points. Idealist seem unable to even begin explaining consciousness. |
| 21969 | Awareness of reality comes from the free activity of consciousness [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: It is the necessary faith in our freedom of power, in our own real activity, and in the definite laws of human action, which lies at the root of all our consciousness of a reality external to ourselves. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.98), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.4 | |
| A reaction: I'd love to know what the 'laws of human action' are. Is it what Hume was trying to do? Moore says there is an 'element of self-creation' in Fichte's account of the source of reality. This is Descartes' dream argument biting back. |
| 23231 | I immediately know myself, and anything beyond that is an inference [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Immediately I know only of myself. What I am able to know beyond that I am only able to know through inference. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: A direct descendant of the Cartesian Cogito, I assume. Personally, if I bang my head on a beam I take the beam to be a full paid-up member of reality. Is it not possible that he also knows himself through inference? Do animals infer reality? |
| 23246 | Faith is not knowledge; it is a decision of the will [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Faith is no knowledge, but a decision of the will to recognise the validity of knowledge. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I) | |
| A reaction: What matters is the grounds for the decision. Mad conspiracy theories are decisions of the will which are false. Legitimate faith is an intuition of coherence which cannot be fully articulated. |
| 23245 | Knowledge can't be its own foundation; there has to be regress of higher and higher authorities [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: No knowledge can be its own foundation and proof. Every knowledge presupposes something still higher as its foundation, and this ascent has no end. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I) | |
| A reaction: A metaphor that's hard to visualise! He must have in mind a priori as well as empirical knowledge. The 'higher' levels don't seem to be God, but some region of absolute rationality, to which free minds have access. I think. |
| 23242 | Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: My immediate consciousness is composed of two constituent parts, the consciousness of my passivity, the sensation; and the consciousness of my activity, in the production of an object according to the principle of causality. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2) | |
| A reaction: Kind of obvious, but unusual to make this sharp binary division. Modern neuroscience strongly militates against any and every simple binary division of brain activities. |
| 22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: A rational creature cannot posit itself as such a creature with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among many rational creatures. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.8), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 n25 | |
| A reaction: [1796 book about his Wissenschaftlehre] This is the transcendental (Kantian) approach to other minds. Wittgenstein's private language argument is similar. Hegel was impressed by this idea (I think). |
| 23240 | We can't know by sight or hearing without realising that we are doing so [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Q. Could you not perhaps know an object through sight or hearing without knowing that you are seeing or hearing? A. Not at all. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2) | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of the traditional view which seemed to be demolished by the discovery of blindsight. In the light of modern brain research, the views of the mind found in past philosophers mostly seem very naïve. |
| 22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: According to Fichte, spontaneity, self-relatedness, and unity are the basic traits of knowledge (which includes conscience). ...This principle of all knowledge is what he calls the 'I' or the Self. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.58 | |
| A reaction: This is the idealist view. He gets 'spontaneity' from Kant, which is the mind's contribution to experience. Self-relatedness is the distinctive Fichte idea. Unity presumably means total coherence, which is typical of idealists. |
| 22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Novalis aimed to create a theory of the ego with a much wider scope than Fichte's doctrine of knowledge had been able to establish. ....Without philosophy, imperfect poet - without poetry, imperfect thinker. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Novalis - Logological Fragments I vol.3 p.531 | |
| A reaction: [in his 'Fichte Studies] Since this is at the heart of early romanticism, I take the concept to embrace nature, as well as creative imagination. There is a general rebellion against the narrowness of Fichte. |
| 22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte said the self is not a natural 'thing' but is itself a normative status, and 'it' can obtain this status, so it seems, only by an act of attributing it to itself. ...He continually identified the 'I' with 'reason' itself. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: Pinkard says Fichte gradually qualified this claim. Fichte struggled to state his view in a way that avoided obvious paradoxes. 'My mind produces decisions, so there must be someone in charge of them'? Is this transcendental? |
| 23243 | Consciousness of external things is always accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of self [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Q. So that constantly and under all circumstances my consciousness of things outside of me is accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of myself? A. Quite so. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2) | |
| A reaction: He should be more cautious about asserting the existence of something 'unnoticed'. The Earth's core is unnoticed by me, but there is plenty of evidence for it. Not so sure about unnoticed self. Still, I think central control of the mind is indispensable. |
| 22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I can be conscious of any object only on the condition that I am also conscious of myself, that is, of the conscious subject. This proposition is incontrovertible. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.112), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: [from the 1797/8 version of Wissenschaftslehre] Russell might be cross to find that his idea on this was anticipated by Fichte. I still approve of the idea. |
| 22063 | Effective individuals must posit a specific material body for themselves [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Rational beings cannot posit themselves as effective individuals without ascribing to themselves a material body and determining it in doing so. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Rights [1797], p.87), quoted by Ludwig Siep - Fichte | |
| A reaction: To be free entails a belief that one is 'effective', and a body is our only concept for that. This seems to be a transcendental proof that the body must exist, which is a neat inverted move! The Self sustains the body, for Fichte. |
| 23244 | Forming purposes is absolutely free, and produces something from nothing [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: My thinking and originating of a purpose is in its nature absolutely free and brings forth something from nothing. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I) | |
| A reaction: Modern fans of free will are more equivocal in their assertions, and would be uncomfortable bluntly claiming to 'get something from nothing'. But that's what free will is! Embrace it, or run for your life. |
| 23237 | The capacity for freedom is above the laws of nature, with its own power of purpose and will [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: This capacity [for freedom], once it exists, is in the servitude of a power which is higher than nature and quite free of its laws, the power of purposes, and the will. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: You would think this could only refer to God, but he in fact is referring to the power of human free will. The clearest statement I have found of the weird human exceptionalism implied by a strong commitment to free will. |
| 23235 | I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I want to be independent - not to be in and through another but to be something for myself: and as such I want myself to be the fundamental cause of all my determinations. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: I think this sums up the absurdity of the concept of free will. The only reason he gives for his passionate belief in free will is that he desperately wants some imagined 'fundamental cause' for his action, and he wants full control of that chimera. |
| 21965 | Spinoza could not actually believe his determinism, because living requires free will [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Spinoza could only think his philosophy, not believe it, for it stood in immediate contradiction to his necessary conviction in daily life, whereby he was bound to regard himself as free and independent. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:513), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be invoking Kant's idea that we must presuppose free will, rather than an assertion that we actually have it. |
| 23230 | Nature contains a fundamental force of thought [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: There is an original force of thought in nature just as there is an original formative force. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: I think this idea is false, but it helps to understand Fichte. |
| 22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte, to judge means to distinguish concepts from one another and to place them in relationship to one another. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.59 | |
| A reaction: This idea of Fichte's seems to be the key one for Hegel, and hence (I presume) it is the lynchpin of German Idealism. It seems to describe mathematical knowledge quite well. I don't think it fits judging whether there is a snake in the grass. |
| 9981 | Abstraction is 'logical' if the sense and truth of the abstraction depend on the concrete [Tait] |
| Full Idea: If the sense of a proposition about the abstract domain is given in terms of the corresponding proposition about the (relatively) concrete domain, ..and the truth of the former is founded upon the truth of the latter, then this is 'logical abstraction'. | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], V) | |
| A reaction: The 'relatively' in parentheses allows us to apply his idea to levels of abstraction, and not just to the simple jump up from the concrete. I think Tait's proposal is excellent, rather than purloining 'abstraction' for an internal concept within logic. |
| 9982 | Cantor and Dedekind use abstraction to fix grammar and objects, not to carry out proofs [Tait] |
| Full Idea: Although (in Cantor and Dedekind) abstraction does not (as has often been observed) play any role in their proofs, but it does play a role, in that it fixes the grammar, the domain of meaningful propositions, and so determining the objects in the proofs. | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], V) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is part of a defence of abstractionism in Cantor and Dedekind (see K.Fine also on the subject). To know the members of a set, or size of a domain, you need to know the process or function which created the set. |
| 9985 | Abstraction may concern the individuation of the set itself, not its elements [Tait] |
| Full Idea: A different reading of abstraction is that it concerns, not the individuating properties of the elements relative to one another, but rather the individuating properties of the set itself, for example the concept of what is its extension. | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], VIII) | |
| A reaction: If the set was 'objects in the room next door', we would not be able to abstract from the objects, but we might get to the idea of things being contain in things, or the concept of an object, or a room. Wrong. That's because they are objects... Hm. |
| 9972 | Why should abstraction from two equipollent sets lead to the same set of 'pure units'? [Tait] |
| Full Idea: Why should abstraction from two equipollent sets lead to the same set of 'pure units'? | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996]) | |
| A reaction: [Tait is criticising Cantor] This expresses rather better than Frege or Dummett the central problem with the abstractionist view of how numbers are derived from matching groups of objects. |
| 9980 | If abstraction produces power sets, their identity should imply identity of the originals [Tait] |
| Full Idea: If the power |A| is obtained by abstraction from set A, then if A is equipollent to set B, then |A| = |B|. But this does not imply that A = B. So |A| cannot just be A, taken in abstraction, unless that can identify distinct sets, ..or create new objects. | |
| From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], V) | |
| A reaction: An elegant piece of argument, which shows rather crucial facts about abstraction. We are then obliged to ask how abstraction can create an object or a set, if the central activity of abstraction is just ignoring certain features. |
| 23233 | The will is awareness of one of our inner natural forces [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: To will is to be immediately conscious of the activity of one of our inner natural forces. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: A more Nietzschean view would be that to will is to be conscious of the victor among our inner natural drives. It can't just be awareness of one force, because the will feels conflicts. |
| 23234 | I cannot change the nature which has been determined for me [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I cannot will the intention of making myself something other than what I am determined to be by nature, for I don't make myself at all but nature makes me and whatever I become. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a lot more accurate than Sartre's claim that we can re-make ourselves, but Fichte doesn't seem quite right. Don't I get any credit at all if I give up smoking, or train myself to treat someone more sympathetically? |
| 23239 | The self is, apart from outward behaviour, a drive in your nature [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: This 'you' for which you show such a lively interest is, so far as it is not overt behaviour, at least a drive in your own peculiar nature. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: I assume this use of 'drive' is the origin of Nietzsche's picture of such things, focused on the basic will to power. I like Fichte's emphasis on active forces as the basis of nature. |
| 22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte placed emphasis on human spontaneity, on nothing 'counting' for us unless we somehow bestowed some kind of status on it. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: This idea evidentally arises from Kant's account of thought. Pinkard says this idea inspired the early Romantics. I would have thought the drive to exist (Spinoza's conatus) would make things count whether we liked it or not. |
| 23238 | If life lacks love it becomes destruction [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Only in love is there life; without it there is death and annihilation. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: He gives not context of justification for this sudden claim. Watching from a melancholy distance the current 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, I take this idea to be a profound truth. If you let go of love, you float away down a dark stream. |
| 5901 | Is 'productive of happiness' the definition of 'right', or the cause of it? [Ross on Bentham] |
| Full Idea: Bentham has not made up his mind whether he thinks that 'right' means 'productive of the general happiness', or that being productive of the general happiness is what makes acts right (and he would have thought the difference unimportant). | |
| From: comment on Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789]) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §I | |
| A reaction: The issue is whether rightness exists as a concept separate from happiness. I take it Bentham would vote for the first reading, as he has no interest in what is right, apart from increasing happiness. |
| 5934 | Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham] |
| Full Idea: Most of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure refer to further pleasures, or are irrelevant to the pleasure; we are left with intensity and duration as the characteristics on which depend the value of a pleasure qua pleasure, and there is nothing to add. | |
| From: comment on Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789]) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §VI | |
| A reaction: I agree. When Bentham produces his list he seems to be trying to add a bogus enrichment to what is really a rather crude and basic notion of the aim of life. Your simple hedonist appears to only desire high intensity and long duration. |
| 5271 | Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and science of music and poetry. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Constitutional Code I [1827], p.139), quoted by J.R. Dinwiddy - Bentham p.114 | |
| A reaction: Mill quoted this with implied outrage, but Bentham was attacking public subsidies to the arts when he said it. It is a basic idea in the debate on pleasure - that pleasures are only distinguished by their intensity, not some other value. |
| 3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], I.1) | |
| A reaction: Ridiculous. Both halves are false. We pursue things for other reasons, and to deny this makes his idea a tautology. Deep ecology has nothing to do with human pleasure or pain. |
| 3554 | Bentham thinks happiness is feeling good, but why use morality to achieve that? [Annas on Bentham] |
| Full Idea: It is easy to fall into Bentham's mindless assumption that happiness must be a specific state of feeling good about something, but it is mysterious why anyone would think morality a good strategy for achieving this. | |
| From: comment on Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 2.7 |
| 3781 | The value of pleasures and pains is their force [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: It behoves the legislator to understand the force of pleasures and pains, which is their value. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], IV.1) |
| 23236 | Freedom means making yourself become true to your essential nature [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I want to be free means: I myself want to make myself be whatever I will be. I would therefore …already have to be, in a certain sense, what I am to become, so that I could make myself be it. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is much closer to the existenial picture of the malleable self, which Fichte arrives out once he commits to his desperate desire to have free will. [Not sure if my gist captures what he says]. |
| 20977 | Natural rights are nonsense, and unspecified natural rights is nonsense on stilts [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Anarchical Fallacies: on the Declaration of Rights [1796]) | |
| A reaction: If you want your opinion to be remembered, express it memorably! I take natural rights to be the basic principles and values which are obvious to almost everyone when they come for formulate legal rights (which are the only true rights). |
| 3778 | The community's interest is a sum of individual interests [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: The interest of the community is the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], I.4) |
| 21003 | Only laws can produce real rights; rights from 'law of nature' are imaginary [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: Right, the substantive right, is the child of law; from real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws, from 'law of nature' can come only imaginary rights. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Anarchical Fallacies: on the Declaration of Rights [1796], II.523), quoted by Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice 17 'Ethics' | |
| A reaction: I am coming to agree with this. What are called 'natural rights' are just self-evident good reasons why someone should be allowed a right. A right can, of course, come from an informal agreement. The question is: why award that particular legal right? |
| 20280 | Large mature animals are more rational than babies. But all that really matters is - can they suffer? [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: A full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational animal than an infant of a day, or even a month, old. But suppose they be otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], XVIII 1 n), quoted by Peter Singer - Practical Ethics 03 | |
| A reaction: This is certainly an inspiring, and even shocking question, which never seems to have been so directly asked before in the entire history of European thought. Awesome. |
| 3779 | Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: Unnatural, when it means anything, means unfrequent. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], II.14 n8.9) |
| 23229 | Nature is wholly interconnected, and the tiniest change affects everything [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Nature is an interconnected whole; …you could shift no grain of sand from its spot without thereby, perhaps invisibly to your eyes, changing something in all parts of the immeasurable whole. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: Sounds like idealist daydreaming, but might it actually be true with respect to gravity? |
| 22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Fichte reduces the non-Ego or nature to a state of constant calm, standstill, immobility, lack of all change, movement and life, that is death. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works vol 12 p.190 | |
| A reaction: The point is that Fichte's nature is a merely logical or conceptual deduction from the spontaneous reason of the self, so it can't have the lively diversity we find in nature. |
| 3780 | We must judge a thing morally to know if it conforms to God's will [Bentham] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary to know first whether a thing is right in order to know from thence whether it be conformable to the will of God. | |
| From: Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], II.18) |