63 ideas
7500 | Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault] |
15045 | The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault] |
7426 | Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault] |
7423 | Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault] |
15038 | Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history [Foucault] |
7420 | When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault] |
21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
15044 | 'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault] |
15042 | Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault] |
15037 | Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault] |
21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7424 | Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault] |
21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
20589 | Maybe a person's true self is their second-order desires [Tuckness/Wolf] |
7422 | A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault] |
22235 | Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault] |
21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7419 | Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault] |
23688 | Noncognitivism tries to avoid both naturalism and mysterious morality [Hacker-Wright] |
7501 | Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault] |
7498 | Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault] |
20583 | If maximising pleasure needs measurement, so does fulfilling desires [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20584 | Desire satisfaction as the ideal is confused, because we desire what we judge to be good [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20598 | In a democracy, which 'people' are included in the decision process? [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20614 | People often have greater attachment to ethnic or tribal groups than to the state [Tuckness/Wolf] |
21940 | Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault] |
20596 | For global justice, adopt rules without knowing which country you will inhabit [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20593 | The veil of ignorance ensures both fairness and unanimity [Tuckness/Wolf] |
15043 | Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault] |
20608 | Unjust institutions may be seen as just; are they legitimate if just but seen as unjust? [Tuckness/Wolf] |
15040 | Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault] |
15041 | Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault] |
8991 | Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton] |
7425 | The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault] |
20597 | If winning elections depends on wealth, we have plutocracy instead of democracy [Tuckness/Wolf] |
22236 | The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault] |
21947 | Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting] |
20606 | Epistemic theories defend democracy as more likely to produce the right answer [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20600 | Which areas of public concern should be decided democratically, and which not? [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20609 | If several losing groups would win if they combine, a runoff seems called for [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20605 | Rights as interests (unlike rights as autonomy) supports mandatory voting [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20599 | How should democratic votes be aggregated? Can some person's votes count for more? [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20601 | Discussion before voting should be an essential part of democracy [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20613 | We have obligations to our family, even though we didn't choose its members [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20586 | Free speech does not include the right to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre [Tuckness/Wolf] |
21946 | Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7418 | The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault] |
20587 | Most people want equality because they want a flourishing life [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20591 | If there is no suffering, wealth inequalities don't matter much [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20602 | Some rights are 'claims' that other people should act in a certain way [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20604 | Choice theory says protecting individual autonomy is basic (but needs to cover infants and animals) [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20603 | One theory (fairly utilitarian) says rights protect interests (but it needs to cover trivial interests) [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20607 | Having a right does not entail further rights needed to implement it [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20612 | If being subject to the law resembles a promise, we are morally obliged to obey it [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20611 | If others must obey laws that we like, we must obey laws that they like? [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20610 | Instead of against natural law, we might assess unjust laws against the values of the culture [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20617 | How should the punishment fit the crime (for stealing chickens?) [Tuckness/Wolf] |
21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
20615 | Just wars: resist aggression, done on just cause, proportionate, last resort, not futile, legal [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20616 | During wars: proportional force, fair targets, fair weapons, safe prisoners, no reprisals [Tuckness/Wolf] |
20620 | If minority views are accepted in debate, then religious views must be accepted [Tuckness/Wolf] |
15039 | History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles [Foucault] |
20619 | Is abortion the ending of a life, or a decision not to start one? [Tuckness/Wolf] |