| 21462 | It is still possible to largely accept Kant as a whole (where others must be dismantled) [Kant, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Unusually, Kant's system has continued to seem possible, to some degree, to endorse as a whole, as opposed to an edifice that has most to offer by being dismantled. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Sebastian Gardner - Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason 10 Intro | |
| A reaction: I think Aristotle passes this test, but Plato has to be dismantled. No one ever swallows Leibniz whole. I suppose Hume can be taken complete, but only because of his minimal commitments. |
| 5600 | Human reason considers all knowledge as belonging to a possible system [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Human reason is by nature architectonic, i.e. it considers all cognitions as belonging to a possible system, and hence it permits only such principles as do not render an intended cognition incapable of standing together with others in some system. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B502/A474) | |
| A reaction: Speak for yourself! However, there is no denying that the making connections seems basic to thought, and there is clearly an enticing magic in making lots of extended connections. Beautiful finished structures may, though, be coherent but false. |
| 21457 | Reason has two separate objects, morality and freedom, and nature, which ultimately unite [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The legislation of human reason (philosophy) has two objects, nature and freedom, and thus contains the natural law as well as the moral law, initially in two separate systems, but ultimately in a single philosophical system. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B868/A840) | |
| A reaction: Pure reason is for nature, and practical reason (which has priority) is for freedom and morality. There is a streak of religiosity in Kant which makes him give morality and normativity priority over truth and science. |
| 19587 | Philosophy aims to produce a priori an absolute and artistic world system [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy ...is the art of producing all our conceptions according to an absolute, artistic idea and of developing the thought of a world system a priori out of the depths of our spirit. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 19) | |
| A reaction: A lovely statement of the dream of building world systems by pure thought - embodying perfectly the view of philosophy despised by logical positivists and modern logical metaphysicians. The Novalis view will never die! I like 'artistic'. |
| 22069 | Plato has no system. Philosophy is the progression of a mind and development of thoughts [Schlegel,F] |
| Full Idea: Plato had no system, but only a philosophy. The philosophy of a human being is the history, the becoming, the progression of his mind, the gradual formation and development of his thoughts. | |
| From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol.11 p.118), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism | |
| A reaction: [1804] Looks like the first sign of rebellion against the idea of having a 'system' in philosophy, making it a key idea of romanticism. Systems are classical? This looks like an early opposition of a historical dimension to static systems. Big idea. |
| 5433 | For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature [Hegel, by Russell] |
| Full Idea: The basis of Hegel's system is that what is incomplete must not be self-subsistent, and needs the support of other things; whatever has relations to things outside itself must contain some reference to those outside things in its own nature. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Bertrand Russell - Problems of Philosophy Ch.14 | |
| A reaction: This leads to the idealist doctrine of 'internal relations'. It has some plausibility if you think about the physicist's definition of mass, which has to refer to forces etc. Presumably there is one essence for all of reality, instead of separate ones. |
| 6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15) | |
| A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs. |
| 21489 | Super-ordinate disciplines give laws or principles; subordinate disciplines give concrete cases [Peirce, by Atkin] |
| Full Idea: In Peirce's system, a super-ordinate discipline provides general laws or principles for subordinate disciplines, which in turn provide concrete examples of those general laws. | |
| From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Albert Atkin - Peirce 1 'System' | |
| A reaction: Does he really mean that subordinate disciplines have no principles or laws? That can't be right. |
| 20265 | The desire for a complete system requires making the weak parts look equal to the rest [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There is playacting going on among systematisers: inasmuch as they want to make the system whole and round off the horizon around it, they must attempt to have their weaker qualities appear in the same style as their strong ones. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 318) | |
| A reaction: Filed under 'rationalism', because they are the notorious system builders, but the same tendency and problem can be seen to some extent among empiricsts who seek completeness. David Lewis, perhaps. |
| 24125 | Aristotle enjoyed the sham generalities of a system, as the peak of happiness! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle probably had his best moments when he coldly and clearly (and joyfully) enjoyed the sensual sham of the highest generalities. To perceive the world as a system, and as the pinnacle of human happiness: how the schematic mind betrays itself then! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[017]) | |
| A reaction: Painful, this. One of my heroes laughing at the other one. I love systems, and love John Richardson's suggestion that Nietzsche was very systematice, despite his protestations. |
| 23183 | Different abilities are needed for living in an incomplete and undogmatic system [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There is an entirely different strength and mobility to maintaning oneself in an incomplete system, with free, open vistas, than in a dogmatic world. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86 [1886], 34[025]) | |
| A reaction: This is like Keats's 'negative capability' - the ability to live in a state of uncertainty. I'm a fan of attempts to create a philosophical system, but dogmatism would seem to be the death of such a project. How would you live with your system? Nice. |
| 2892 | Wanting a system in philosophy is a lack of integrity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to system is a lack of integrity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 26) |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| Full Idea: A completed theoretic philosophy can never be anything more than a completed classification of the world's ingredients. | |
| From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.23) | |
| A reaction: I assume this is not just the physical ingredients, but must also include our conceptual scheme - but then we must first decide which is the best conceptual scheme to classify, and that's where the real action is. [He scorns such classifation later]. |
| 21571 | Philosophical systems are interesting, but we now need a more objective scientific philosophy [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The great systems of the past serve a very useful purpose, and are abundantly worthy of study. But something different is required if philosophy is to become a science, and to aim at results independent of the tastes of the philosophers who advocate them. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], Pref) | |
| A reaction: An interesting product of this move in philosophy is (about sixty years later) the work of David Lewis, who set out to be precise and scientific, and ended up creating a very personal system. Why not a collaborative system? |
| 21574 | Hegel's confusions over 'is' show how vast systems can be built on simple errors [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Hegel's confusion of the 'is' of predication with the 'is' of identity ...is an example of how, for want of care at the start, vast and imposing systems of philosophy are built upon stupid and trivial confusions. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 2 n1) | |
| A reaction: [He explains the confusion in more detail in the note] Russell cites an English translation, and I am wondering how this occurs in the German. Plato has been accused of similar elementary blunders about properties. Russell treats Berkeley similarly. |
| 21587 | Philosophers sometimes neglect truth and distort facts to attain a nice system [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The desire for unadulterated truth is often obscured, in professional philosophers, by love of system: the one little fact which will not come inside the philosophical edifice has to be pushed and tortured until it seems to consent. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 8) | |
| A reaction: Bit of hypocrisy here. Russell was continually trying to find a system, grounded in physics and logic. Presumably his shifting views are indications of integrity, because he changes the system rather than the facts. |
| 23886 | Systems are not unique to each philosopher. The platonist tradition is old and continuous [Weil] |
| Full Idea: People believe that every philosopher has a system that contradicts all the others! But there is a tradition, genuinely philosophical, that is as old as humanity itself. …Plato is the most perfect representative of this tradition. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I see roughly two traditions. If you believe in transcendence you follow Plato, like Simone. If you are a naturalist (like me) you follow Aristotle. A third tradition might be much more sceptical. |
| 19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: The great philosophical systems are no more than brilliant tautologies. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (A Short History of Decay [1949], 1 'Farewell') | |
| A reaction: This makes them sound pointless, but the terms used in the system all have some kind of reference, so the systems are in some way about the world, and not mere private games. At the very least, they are a wonderful branch of poetry. |
| 23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel - three enslavers of the mind. The worst form of despotism is the system, in philosophy and in everything. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 07) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite clear why intellectual 'despotism' is a dreadful crime. I revere Aristotle, partly because he is systematic, but I reject about 30% of what he says. Still, many people agree with this idea. |
| 22140 | The greatest philosophers are methodical; it is what makes them great [Grice] |
| Full Idea: The greatest philosophers have been the greatest, and most self-conscious, methodologists; indeed, I am tempted to regard the fact as primarily accounting for their greatness as philosophers. | |
| From: H. Paul Grice (Reply to Richards [1986], p.66), quoted by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 3 | |
| A reaction: I agree. Philosophy is nothing if it is not devoted to the attempt to be fully rational, and that implies consistency and coherence. If a thinker doesn't even try to be systematic, I would not consider them to be a philosopher. |
| 1627 | Any statement can be held true if we make enough adjustment to the rest of the system [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.43) |
| 23563 | Philosophy moves continually between elaborate theories and the obvious facts [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: There is a two-way movement in philosophy, a movement towards the building of elaborate theories, and a move back again towards the consideration of simple and obvious facts. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sovereignty of Good [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Without the theories there is no philosophy, but without continual reference back to the obvious facts the theories are worthless. |
| 23942 | Philosophy is creating an intellectual conceptual structure for life [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is conceptual sculpture, the shaping and developing of the intellectual structures within which we live our lives. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Intro.1) | |
| A reaction: Nice. I tend to see philosophy as conceptual analysis (though creating new concepts doesn't quite fit that), but the vision of creating a huge conceptual sculpture sounds good. I would call it a system. (See my book, 'Natural Ideas'!). |
| 8558 | One system has properties, powers, events, similarity and substance [Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: There is a system of internally related concepts containing the notion of a property, the notion of a causal power, the concept of an event, the concept of similarity, and the concept of a persisting substance. | |
| From: Sydney Shoemaker (Causality and Properties [1980], §07) | |
| A reaction: A nice example of a modern metaphysical system, one which I find fairly congenial. His notion of events is Kim's, which involves his properties. The persisting substance is the one I am least clear about. |
| 2319 | Metaphysics is the clarification of the ontological relationships between different areas of thought [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the domain where different languages, theories, explanations, and conceptual systems come together and have their mutual ontological relationships sorted out and clarified. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §3 p.066) |
| 21461 | I tried to be unsystematic and piecemeal, but failed; my papers presuppose my other views [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I should have like to be a piecemeal, unsystematic philosopher, offering independent proposals on a variety of topics. It was not be. I succumbed too often to the temptation to presuppose my views on one topic when writing on another. | |
| From: David Lewis (Introduction to Philosophical Papers I [1983], p.1) | |
| A reaction: He particularly mentions his possible worlds realism as a doctrine which coloured all his other work. A charming insight into the mind of a systematic thinker (called by someone 'the most systematic metaphysician since Leibniz'). |
| 2797 | As coherence expands its interrelations become steadily tighter, culminating only in necessary truth [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: As our system grows in coherence, the interrelations between its parts becomes tighter and tighter;… at the limit contingent truth vanishes, leaving only necessary truth. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 14.7) |
| 18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
| Full Idea: A capacity for abstraction is central to our capacity to think about the universe systematically. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 09.7) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as obvious. We pick out the similarities, and then discuss them, as separate from their bearers. We explain why things have features in common. Some would just say systematic thinking needs universals, but that's less good. |
| 13917 | Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The central task of metaphysics is to chart the possibilities of existence by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency in which beings of different categories stand to one another. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I am beginning to think that he is right about the second one, and that dependency and grounding relations are the name of the game. I don't have Lowe's confidence that philosophers can parcel up reality in neat and true ways. |
| 21460 | Only Kant and Hegel have united nature, morals, politics, aesthetics and religion [Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Apart from Hegel, no later philosophical system equals in stature Kant's attempt to weld together the diverse fields of natural science, morality, politics, aesthetics and religion into a systematic overarching epistemological and metaphysical unity. | |
| From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10) | |
| A reaction: Earlier candidate are Plato and Aristotle. Earlier Enlightenment figures say little about morality or aesthetics. Hobbes ranges widely. Aquinas covered most things. |
| 20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The core of metaphysics is an account of the 'essence' or 'being' of things. ...And metaphysics needs system, to show how these primary truths reach out into all the other truths, to help us see that, and how, they are true. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I like the phrase 'the essential nature' of things, because it doesn't invoke rather dodgy entities called 'essences', but everyone understands the idea of focusing on what is essential, and on things having a distinct 'nature'. |
| 20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics makes system a virtue, contrary to the tendency of analysis, which breaks a problem into ever finer parts and then absorbs itself in these. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I disagree, because it seems to rule out analytic metaphysics. I prefer Bertrand Russell's view. Admittedly analysis oftens gets stuck in the bog, especially if it hopes for salvation in logic, only to discover its certainties endlessly receding. |
| 20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The evidence lies at the periphery of the [metaphysical] system and runs in from there, through decreasingly specific accounts of the data, to the central ontology. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Philosophy is the study of high level generalisations, IMHO. Studying them means studying the reasons for asserting them. Richardson puts it very nicely. |
| 15390 | Metaphysics attempts to give an account of everything, in terms of categories and principles [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics, the noblest of philosophic enterprises, is an attempt to give an account of everything. ...Its job is to provide a universal framework (of categories and principles) within which anything whatever can take its place. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Whitehead: process and cosmology [2009], 'Speculative') | |
| A reaction: Bravo! I take metaphysics to be entirely continuous with science, but operating entirely at the highest level of generality. See Westerhoff on categories, though. The enterprise may not be going too well. |
| 13751 | If you tore the metaphysics out of philosophy, the whole enterprise would collapse [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Traditional metaphysics is so tightly woven into the fabric of philosophy that it cannot be torn out without the whole tapestry unravelling. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: I often wonder why the opponents of metaphysics still continue to do philosophy. I don't see how you address questions of ethics, or philosophy of mathematics (etc) without coming up against highly general and abstract over-questions. |
| 22820 | Early Romantics sought a plurality of systems, in a quest for freedom [Hösle] |
| Full Idea: It was an early Romantic idea that there is necessarily a plurality of systems in which individuality is expressed; for a complete system would destroy freedom. | |
| From: Vittorio Hösle (A Short History of German Philosophy [2013], 7) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear why you are free because you are locked into system that differs from that of other people. True freedom seems to be either no system, or continually remaking one's own system. Why is such freedom valuable? Freedom v truth? |