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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Briefings on Existence' and 'Nietzsche's System'

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9 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom

9199	Wisdom for one instant is as good as wisdom for eternity [Chrysippus]
	Full Idea: If a person has wisdom for one instant, he is no less happy than he who possesses it for eternity.
	From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Pierre Hadot - Philosophy as a way of life 8
	A reaction: [Hadot quotes Plutarch 'On Common Conceptions' 8,1062a] This makes it sound awfully like some sort of Buddhist 'enlightenment', which strikes like lightning. He does wisdom recognise itself - by a warm glow, or by the cautious thought that got you there?

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 2. Wise People

20853	Wise men should try to participate in politics, since they are a good influence [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: The wise man will participate in politics unless something prevents him, for he will restrain vice and promote virtue.
	From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.121
	A reaction: [from lost On Ways of Life Bk 1] We have made modern politics so hostile for its participants, thanks to cruel media pressure, that the best people now run a mile from it. Disastrous.

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 5. Modern Philosophy / c. Modern philosophy mid-period

12330	In ontology, logic dominated language, until logic was mathematized [Badiou]
	Full Idea: From Aristotle to Hegel, logic was the philosophical category of ontology's dominion over language. The mathematization of logic has authorized language to become that which seizes philosophy for itself.
	From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 8)

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 4. Divisions of Philosophy

20772	Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus]
	Full Idea: There are three kinds of philosophical theorems, logical, ethical, and physical; of these the logic should be placed first, ethics second, and physics third (and theology is the final topic in physics).
	From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035a
	A reaction: [in his lost 'On Lives' Bk 4] 'Theology is the final topic in physics'! That should create a stir in theology departments. Is this an order of study, or of importance? You come to theology right at the end of your studies.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour

12318	The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself [Badiou]
	Full Idea: The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself.
	From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998])
	A reaction: Too good to pass over, too crazy to file sensibly, too creepy to have been filed under humour, my candidate for the weirdest remark I have ever read in a serious philosopher, but no doubt if you read Lacan etc for long enough it looks deeply wise.

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems

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.

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics

12325	Philosophy has been relieved of physics, cosmology, politics, and now must give up ontology [Badiou]
	Full Idea: Philosophy has been released from, even relieved of, physics, cosmology, and politics, as well as many other things. It is important for it to be released from ontology per se.
	From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 3)
	A reaction: A startling proposal, for anyone who thought that ontology was First Philosophy. Badiou wants to hand ontology over to mathematicians, but I am unclear what remains for the philosophers to do.