Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Antoine Arnauld' and 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


3 ideas

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 / d. Philosophy as puzzles
I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Author')
     A reaction: Nice. It is like Socrates's image of himself as the 'gadfly' of Athens. The interesting question is always to see what the rest of society makes of having someone in their midst who sees it as their social role to 'create difficulties'.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour
Wherever there is painless contradiction there is also comedy [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Wherever there is contradiction, the comical is also present. ...The tragic is the suffering contradiction, the comical is the painless contradiction.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.459), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 13
     A reaction: He is not saying that this is the only source of comedy. I once heard an adult say that there is one thing that is always funny, and that is a fart.