display all the ideas for this combination of texts
11 ideas
| 5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus praises ad nauseam the lines "For what need mortals save two things alone,/ Demeter's grain and draughts of water clear". | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1043e | |
| A reaction: "Oh, reason not the need!" says King Lear. The remark shows the close affinity of stoicism and cynicism, as the famous story of Diogenes is that he threw away his drinking cup when he realised you could drink with your hands. |
| 5966 | All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Although deeds done in accordance with virtue are congenial, not all are cited as examples, such as courageously extending one's finger, or continently abstaining from a half-dead old woman, or not immediately agreeing that three is four. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 211), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1038f | |
| A reaction: Presumably the point (so elegantly expressed - what a shame we have lost most of Chrysippus) is that virtue comes in degrees, even though its value is an absolute. The same has been said (by Russell and Bonjour) about self-evidence. |
| 20855 | Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says that virtue can be lost, owing to drunkenness and excess of black bile, whereas Cleanthes says it cannot, because it consists in secure intellectual grasps, and it is worth choosing for its own sake. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.127 | |
| A reaction: Succumbing to drunkenness looks like evidence that you were not truly virtuous. Mental illness is something else. On the whole I agree the Cleanthes. |
| 5970 | Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus has often written on the theme that there is nothing reprehensible or blameworthy in the universe since all things are accomplished in conformity with the best nature. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1051b | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds", but deriving the idea from the rightness of nature rather than the perfection of God. Chrysippus has a more plausible ground than Leibniz, as for him nasty things follow from conscious choice. |
| 20318 | My helplessness in philosophising reveals my being, and begins its upsurge [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Philosophising, not knowing, brings me to myself. The helplessness to which philosophising reduces me when I doubt its origin is an expressions of the helplessness of my self-being, and the reality of philosophising is the incipient upsurge of that being. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: I like the sound of 'philosophy as a way of life', and loosely aspire to it, but I'm still not sure what it means, other than a good way to pass the time. The idea that it leads to higher modes of being sounds a bit arrogant. But it is a good thing! |
| 20321 | The struggle for Existenz is between people who are equals, and are utterly honest [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: The struggle for Existenz has to do with ...with utter candour, with the elimination of all kinds of power and superiority, with the other's self-being as well as with my own. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This is reminiscent of Aristotle's conclusion that democracy is the society which is most conducive to true friendship. I like Jaspers's idea that existential enquiry is a team game. |
| 20325 | Once we grasp freedom 'from' things, then freedom 'for' things becomes urgent [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Once the question of 'freedom from what?' has been answered by shattering all objectivities, the question of 'freedom for what?' becomes all the more urgent. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: A quintessential existentialist idea, and its most appealing aspect. Message to all teenagers: don't get bogged down in what you are prevented from doing, but focus on what you can do. The first problem will melt away. (Unless you are in handcuffs....). |
| 20317 | Mundane existence is general, falling under universals, but Existens is unique to individuals [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: Mundane being, the being we know, is general because it is generally valid for everyone. ...Existenz is never general, and thus not a case that might be subsumed as particular under a universal. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm trying to visualise a mode of existence which would fulfil only me, answering to my unique nature, but it looks like a vain delusion. I may be a one-off combination, but I see all of my ingredients in various other people. |
| 20315 | 'Existenz' is the potential being, which I could have, and ought to have [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: There is the being which in the phenomenality of existence is not but can be, ought to be, and therefore decides in time whether it is in eternity. This being is myself as 'Existenz'. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This is quintessentially existentialist, in its claim that my mode of being could be quite other than it is. Personally I aim to fulfil the being I've got. Play the cards you have been dealt. |
| 20319 | We want the correct grasp on being that is neither solipsism nor absorption in the crowd [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: We want our philosophising to illuminate the free, original, communicative grasp on being that will let us meet the constant threat of solipsism or universalism in existence. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the political wing of existentialism: the aim to get the right relationship between citizens - not too withdrawn, and not swallowed in the crowd. Liberal democracy, I should think. |
| 20316 | Every decision I make moves towards or away from fulfilled Existenz [Jaspers] |
| Full Idea: My Existenz, as a possibility, takes a step toward being or away from being, toward nothingness, in every choice or decision I make. | |
| From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2) | |
| A reaction: The existential idea of action involves what you are, as well as what you do. There seems to be a paradox. My being is plastic, and can change enormously, so I should take responsibility for the change. But who is in charge of the changes? |