Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Protagoras', 'Ethics and Language' and 'The Elements of Law'

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2 ideas

20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 1. Acting on Desires
7408 It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck]
     Full Idea: Hobbes (and Descartes, and many contemporaries) argued that the traditional idea that reason should control the passions was an error, and that (properly understood) our emotions would guide us in the right direction.
     From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2
     A reaction: I'm an intellectualist on this one. It strikes me as rather naïve and romantic to think that unthinking emotion could ever consistently approach what is right. A recipe for disaster.
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
203 Courage is knowing what should or shouldn't be feared [Plato]
     Full Idea: Knowledge of what is and is not to be feared is courage.
     From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 360d)