display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
2943 | Ethics cannot be put into words [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Ethics cannot be put into words. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 6.421) | |
A reaction: Nonsense. There is lots of good writing about ethics. This is evasive mysticism. |
6924 | Plotinus was ashamed to have a body [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Plotinus, according to his biographers, was ashamed to have a body. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §29) | |
A reaction: When Feuerbach draws our attention to this, we see what an astonishing state it is for a human being to have got into. Modern thought is appalled by it, but it also has something heroic about it, like swimming all the time because you want to be a fish. |
2942 | The sense of the world must lie outside the world [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The sense of the world must lie outside the world. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 6.41) | |
A reaction: Since I don't believe that anything 'lies outside the world' I can't make sense of this. He implies that the Self lies outside of the world (to the point of solipsism), so I suppose that's it. |
6927 | If you love nothing, it doesn't matter whether something exists or not [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: To him who loves nothing it is all the same whether something does or does not exist. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §33) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be quite a good motto for the aim of education - just get them to love something, no matter what (well, almost!). Loving something, even if it is train-spotting, seems a good route to human happiness. |