5 ideas
| 22026 | Philosophy is homesickness - the urge to be at home everywhere [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is actually homesickness - the urge to be everywhere at home. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 45) | |
| A reaction: The idea of home [heimat] is powerful in German culture. The point of romanticism was seen as largely concerning restless souls like Byron and his heroes, who do not feel at home. Hence ironic detachment. |
| 21513 | We can no more expect a precise definition of coherence than we can of the moral ideal [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: I think it is wrong to tie down the advocates of the coherence theory to a precise definition. ...It would be altogether unreasonable to demand that the moral ideal should be exhaustively defined, and the same may be true of the ideal of thought. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.231), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 7.6 | |
| A reaction: I strongly agree. It is not a council of despair. I think the criteria of coherence can be articulated quite well (e.g by Thagard), and the virtues of enquiry can also be quite well specified (e.g. by Zagzebski). Very dissimilar evidence must cohere. |
| 21497 | If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2 | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues. |
| 19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: An absolute drive toward perfection and completeness is an illness, as soon as it shows itself to be destructive and averse toward the imperfect, the incomplete. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 33) | |
| A reaction: Deep and true! Novalis seems to be a particularist - hanging on to the fine detail of life, rather than being immersed in the theory. These are the philosophers who also turn to literature. |
| 20746 | One is not born, but rather becomes a woman [Beauvoir] |
| Full Idea: One is not born, but rather becomes a woman. | |
| From: Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex [1952], p.301 (or 267)), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology' | |
| A reaction: This has become the principle idea in modern discussions of gender. It divides gender from sex, rather as Locke divided person from human being. It is an abstraction. It is part of the Hegelian-Marxist idea that persons are moulded by culture. |