display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 23881 | All thought about values is philosophical, and thought about anything else is not philosophy [Weil] |
| Full Idea: All reflections bearing on the notion of value and on the hierarchy of values is philosophical; all efforts of thought bearing on anything other than value are, if one examines them closely, foreign to philosophy. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.30) | |
| A reaction: If nothing else proves that Weil is a platonist, this does. She, of course, has a transcendent and religious view of values, whereas I just see them as concepts which embody what is important. That said, I'm not far off agreeing with this. |
| 16281 | Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The maxim of honesty: never put forward a philosophical theory that you yourself cannot believe in your least philosophical and most commonsensical moments. | |
| From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 2.8) | |
| A reaction: I take it as important that this test is according to the philosopher's commonsense, and not according to some populist idea. This would allow, for example, for commonsense to be sensitive to scientific knowledge, or awareness of the logic. |
| 23885 | Philosophy aims to change the soul, not to accumulate knowledge [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy does not consist in accumulating knowledge, as science does, but in changing the whole soul. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I agree, roughly. In the sense that philosophy is a much more personal matter than any pure pursuit of knowledge, such as geology. Though a life in geology could change your soul. Not just any old change, of course…. |