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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety)' and 'The Art of the Infinite'

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6 ideas

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean
The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: The chief good is to live in perfect indifference to all those things which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice.
     From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.2.1
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 1. Deontology
Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas]
     Full Idea: Ariston says that rules are useless if you are virtuous, and useless if you are not.
     From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 2.4
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 3. Angst
Anxiety is not a passing mood, but a response to human freedom [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
     Full Idea: For Kierkegaard anxiety is not simply a mood or an emotion that certain people experience at certain times, but a basic response to freedom that is part of the human condition.
     From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5
     A reaction: Outside of Christianity, this may be Kierkegaard's most influential idea - since existential individualism is floating around in the romantic movement. But the Byronic hero experiences a sort of anxiety. If you can't face anxiety, become a monk or nun.
The ultimate in life is learning to be anxious in the right way [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Every human being must learn to be anxious in order that he might not perish either by never having been in anxiety or by succumbing in anxiety. Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learnt the ultimate.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.154), quoted by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5
     A reaction: I think this is the most existentialist quotation I have found in Kierkegaard. It sounds circular. You must be in anxiety because otherwise you won't be able to cope with anxiety? I suppose anxiety is facing up to his concept of truth.
Ultimate knowledge is being anxious in the right way [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Whoever learns to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.187), quoted by Alastair Hannay - Kierkegaard 06
     A reaction: This shows us that Kierkegaard had a rather bizarre mental life which the rest of us have little chance of penetrating. I'll have a go at cataloguing my types of anxiety, but I'm not hopeful.
Anxiety is staring into the yawning abyss of freedom [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: One may liken anxiety to dizziness. He whose eyes chance to look down into a yawning abyss becomes dizzy. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom which is when freedom gazes down into its own possibility, grasping at finiteness to sustain itself.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.55), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Moods'
     A reaction: Most of us rapidly retreat from the thought of the infinity of things we might choose. Choosing bizarrely merely to assert one's freedom is simple stupidity.