Combining Texts

Ideas for 'After Finitude', 'Principles of Philosophy of the Future' and 'The Consolations of Philosophy'

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4 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji]
     Full Idea: Boethius says that reasoning [ratiocinatio] is related to intellectual understanding [intellectus] as time to eternity, involving as it does movement from one stage to another.
     From: report of Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], 4, prose 6) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Shifting'
     A reaction: This gives true understanding a quasi-religious aura, as befits a subject which is truly consoling.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
Consciousness is absolute reality, and everything exists through consciousness [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: Consciousness is the absolute reality, the measure of all existence; all that exists, exists only as being for consciousness, as comprehended in consciousness; for consciousness is first and foremost being.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §17)
     A reaction: This is Feuerbach declaring himself in favour of idealism even as he was trying to rebel against it, and move towards a more sensuous and human view of the world. I just see idealists as confusing ontology and epistemology.
Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied [Meillassoux]
     Full Idea: What distinguishes transcendental idealism from speculative idealism is the fact that the former does not posit the existence of the transcendental subject apart from its bodily individuation.
     From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1)
     A reaction: These modern French philosophers explain things so much more clearly than the English! The 'speculative' version is seen in Berkeley. On p.17 he says transcendental idealism is 'civilised', and speculative idealism is 'uncouth'.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 4. Solipsism
Ideas arise through communication, and reason is reached through community [Feuerbach]
     Full Idea: Only through communication and conversation between man and man do ideas arise; not alone, but only with others, does one reach notions and reason in general.
     From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §41)
     A reaction: This is a strikingly modern view of the solipsism problem, and is close in spirit to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument (Ideas 4143 +4158). Feuerbach is interested in universals rather than rules. I prefer Feuerbach.