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Ideas for 'works', 'The World as Will and Idea' and 'works'

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5 ideas

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
9274 Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray]
     Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True.
     From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8
     A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / f. Good as pleasure
94 Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good.
     From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27
     A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / a. Nature of happiness
4172 Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: We are fortunate if we keep up the game whereby desire passes into satisfaction, and satisfaction into new desire - if the pace of this is swift, it is called happiness, and if it is slow, sorrow.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 029)
     A reaction: This seems to be the dream of the addict, as Socrates points out with his example of the leaky jar in 'Gorgias'. Should we want more desires?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
17947 Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas]
     Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself.
     From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117
     A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought.
21371 We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: So long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never attain lasting happiness or peace.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 196), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic'
     A reaction: I hate this idea. It obviously leads to his Buddhism, and the eastern idea that life is generally a bad idea and to be avoided. I think Nietzsche rebelled strongly against this attitude of Schopenhauer's.