Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Every Thing Must Go' and 'The World as Will and Idea'

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3 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
A consciousness without an object is no consciousness [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: A consciousness without an object is no consciousness.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp)
     A reaction: This hints at Hume's observations about the self. Certainly totally vacant consciousness seems inconceivable, but is that a necessary or a contingent truth?
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind
We have hidden and unadmitted desires and fears, suppressed because of vanity [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: We often do not know what we desire or fear. For years we can have a desire without admitting it to ourselves ....because the intellect is not to know anything about it, since the good opinion we have of ourselves would inevitably suffer thereby.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 210), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 5 'Will'
     A reaction: The idea of unconscious thought crept up well before Freud. It is in La Rochefoucauld, and important in Nietzsche. Neuroscience seems to give it a strong priority over the conscious mind, which is a revolutionary idea.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 4. Objectification
Maybe the only way we can think about a domain is by dividing it up into objects [Ladyman/Ross]
     Full Idea: Speculating cautiously about psychology, it is possible that dividing a domain up into objects is the only way we can think about it.
     From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5)
     A reaction: Typical physicists - they speculate about psychology instead of studying it. Have they no respect for science? Neverthless my speculative psychology agrees with theirs. This fact may well be the key to all of metaphysics.