Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Positions' and 'The Power of Words'

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7 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 6. Deconstruction

8216	Deconstruction is not neutral; it intervenes [Derrida]
	Full Idea: Deconstruction, I have insisted, is not neutral. It intervenes.
	From: Jacques Derrida (Positions [1971], p.76)
	A reaction: This, I think, is because there is in Derrida, as in most French philosophers, a strong streak of Marxism, and a desire to change the world, rather than merely understanding it. Idea 8213 shows the sort of thing he wants to change.

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic

8213	I try to analyse certain verbal concepts which block and confuse the dialectical process [Derrida]
	Full Idea: I have tried to analyse certain marks in writing which are undecidables, false verbal properties, which inhabit philosophical opposition, resisting and disorganising it, without ever constituting a third term, withour ever leaving room for a solution.
	From: Jacques Derrida (Positions [1971], p.40)
	A reaction: [I have simplified his sentence!] Much of Derrida seems to be a commentary on the Hegelian dialectic, and the project is presumably to figure out why philosophy is not advancing in the way we would like. Interesting...

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / d. Location of mind

5987	Alcmaeon was the first to say the brain is central to thinking [Alcmaeon, by Staden, von]
	Full Idea: Alcmaeon apparently was the first Greek to assign central cognitive and biological functions to the brain.
	From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE]) by Heinrich von Staden - Alcmaeon
	A reaction: The name of Alcmaeon should be remembered with honour. This was 200 years before Aristotle, who still hadn't worked it out. I presume Alcmaeon inferred the truth from head injuries, which is overwhelming evidence, if you notice it.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism

23829	National leaders want to preserve necessary order - but always the existing order [Weil]
	Full Idea: Those in command see their duty as defending order, without which no social life can survive; and the only order they conceive is the existing one.
	From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.249)
	A reaction: She sympathises with them, because a new order is such an unknown. But it always struck me as weird that traditions are preserved because they are traditions, and not because they are good. (My old school, for example!).

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 14. Nationalism

23828	National prestige consists of behaving as if you could beat the others in a war [Weil]
	Full Idea: What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralise other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them.
	From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.244)
	A reaction: It's true. No nation gains prestige because of the happy lives of its citizens, or the creativity of its culture.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / a. Just wars

23827	Modern wars are fought in the name of empty words which are given capital letters [Weil]
	Full Idea: For our contemporaries the role of Helen in the Trojan War is is played by words with capital letters. …When empty words are given capital letters, then, on the slightest pretext, men will begin shedding blood for them and piling up ruin in their name.
	From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.241)
	A reaction: This seems particularly true of the 1930s, where specific dogmatic ideologies seemed to grip and divide people. Simple aggressive nationalism seems to be the cause of current wars, now the fear of Communism has diminished.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul

24043	Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Alcmaeon says that the soul is immortal because it resembles immortal things and that this affection belongs to it because it is always in movement, like divine things, such the moon, the sun, the stars and the whole heaven.
	From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE], DK 24) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a30
	A reaction: Hm. Fish and rivers seem to be continually moving too. Presumably we are like gods, but then Greek gods seem awfully like humans. I don't know the history of belief in immortality; an interesting topic.