Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Semantic Necessity' and 'Reflections on Value'

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
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.
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 / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
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….