Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Stilpo, Francis Bacon and Simon Critchley

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these philosophers


45 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 2. Ancient Philosophy / b. Pre-Socratic philosophy
Philosophy really got started as the rival mode of discourse to tragedy [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / d. Philosophy as puzzles
Philosophy begins in disappointment, notably in religion and politics [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
Philosophy is like a statue which is worshipped but never advances [Bacon]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour
Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley]
Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science
Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 5. Metaphysics beyond Science
Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon]
Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
If infatuation with science leads to bad scientism, its rejection leads to obscurantism [Critchley]
Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley]
Science gives us an excessively theoretical view of life [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
To meet the division in our life, try the Subject, Nature, Spirit, Will, Power, Praxis, Unconscious, or Being [Critchley]
The French keep returning, to Hegel or Nietzsche or Marx [Critchley]
German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley]
Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley]
Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley]
Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley]
Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley]
Phenomenology uncovers and redescribes the pre-theoretical layer of life [Critchley]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism
Only individual bodies exist [Bacon]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / c. Form as causal
In hylomorphism all the explanation of actions is in the form, and the matter doesn't do anything [Bacon]
There are only individual bodies containing law-based powers, and the Forms are these laws [Bacon]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
The senses deceive, but also show their own errors [Bacon]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon]
Empiricists are collecting ants; rationalists are spinning spiders; and bees do both [Bacon]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 3. Experiment
Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon]
Nature is revealed when we put it under pressure rather than observe it [Bacon]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science
Science must clear away the idols of the mind if they are ever going to find the truth [Bacon]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 5. Commensurability
Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 5. Generalisation by mind
People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon]
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature
Wallace Stevens is the greatest philosophical poet of the twentieth century in English [Critchley]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Interesting art is always organised around ethical demands [Critchley]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
The problems is not justifying ethics, but motivating it. Why should a self seek its good? [Critchley]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
Food first, then ethics [Critchley]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 2. Anarchism
Anarchism used to be libertarian (especially for sexuality), but now concerns responsibility [Critchley]
The state, law, bureaucracy and capital are limitations on life, so I prefer federalist anarchism [Critchley]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism
Belief that humans are wicked leads to authoritarian politics [Critchley]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / c. Purpose denied
Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / a. Greek matter
Stripped and passive matter is just a human invention [Bacon]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism
Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question
Even without religion, there are many guides to morality [Bacon]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius]