Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Theodicy' and 'Being and Time'

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
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
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 / D. Nature of Philosophy / 4. Divisions of Philosophy
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 / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
Being-in-the-world is projection to possibilities, thrownness among them, and fallenness within them [Heidegger, by Caputo]
     Full Idea: Being-in-the-world is a phenomenon of 'care' with a tripartite structure: a) projection towards its possibilities, b) thrownness among those possibilities, so Dasein is not free, and c) fallenness among worldly possibilities, to neglect of its own.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by John D. Caputo - Heidegger p.227
     A reaction: Sounds a bit Californian to me. Just living among the world's possibilities is evidently a bad thing, because you could be concentrating on yourself and your own development instead?
Pheomenology seeks things themselves, without empty theories, problems and concepts [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: 'Phenomenology' can be formulated as 'To the things themselves!' It is opposed to all free-floating constructions and accidental findings, and to conceptions which only seem to have been demonstrated. It is opposed to traditiona' pseudo-problems.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], Intro II.07)
     A reaction: It sounds as if we are invited to look at the world the way a dog might look at it. I am not at all clear what it to be gained from this approach.