display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: The rational animal is corrupted, sometimes because of the persuasiveness of external activities and sometimes because of the influence of companions. For the starting points provided by nature are uncorrupted. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.89 | |
A reaction: If companions corrupt us, what corrupted the companions? Aren't we all in this together? And where do the 'external activities' originate? |
21485 | The state only exists to defend citizens, from exterior threats, and from one another [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The state is essentially no more than an institution for the protection of the whole against attacks from without, and the protection of its individual members from attacks by one another. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:123) | |
A reaction: He then has a swipe at Hegel for his inflated idea of the importance of the state. Schopenhauer is close to Hobbes on this one. |