8 ideas
23877 | Most people won't question an idea's truth if they depend on it [Weil] |
Full Idea: The majority of human beings do not question the truth of an idea without which they would literally be unable to live. | |
From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.163) | |
A reaction: I assume that this inability grows stronger with age, as the dependence on the idea runs deeper. Hence for most people the beliefs which sustain them have a higher value than truth. Obviously we should all make love of truth our guiding idea! |
17945 | Forms are not a theory of universals, but an attempt to explain how predication is possible [Nehamas] |
Full Idea: The theory of Forms is not a theory of universals but a first attempt to explain how predication, the application of a single term to many objects - now considered one of the most elementary operations of language - is possible. | |
From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xxvii) |
17946 | Only Tallness really is tall, and other inferior tall things merely participate in the tallness [Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Only Tallness and nothing else really is tall; everything else merely participates in the Forms and, being excluded from the realm of Being, belongs to the inferior world of Becoming. | |
From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xxviii) | |
A reaction: This is just as weird as the normal view (and puzzle of participation), but at least it makes more sense of 'metachein' (partaking). |
17944 | 'Episteme' is better translated as 'understanding' than as 'knowledge' [Nehamas] |
Full Idea: The Greek 'episteme' is usually translated as 'knowledge' but, I argue, closer to our notion of understanding. | |
From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xvi) | |
A reaction: He agrees with Julia Annas on this. I take it to be crucial. See the first sentence of Aristotle's 'Metaphysics'. It is explanation which leads to understanding. |
5958 | The sun is always bright; it doesn't become bright when it emerges [Plutarch] |
Full Idea: The sun doesn't become bright when it emerges from the clouds; it always is bright. | |
From: Plutarch (26: Oracles in Decline [c.85], §39) | |
A reaction: Not an argument, but a nice appeal to common sense, like Russell's example of the cat that disappears behind the furniture and then reappears. To disagree with Plutarch here strikes me as the road to philosophical absurdity. |
23878 | Weakness of will is the inadequacy of the original impetus to carry through the action [Weil] |
Full Idea: It is naïve to be astonished when we do not stick to firm resolutions. Something stimulated the resolution, but that something was not powerful enough to bring us to the point of carrying it out. Making the resolution may even have exhausted the stimulus. | |
From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.169) | |
A reaction: Socrates says it is a change of belief. Aristotle says it is a desire overcoming a belief. Weil gives a third way: that it is a fading in the strength of the original belief/desire impetus. |
23879 | In a violent moral disagreement, it can't be that both sides are just following social morality [Weil] |
Full Idea: If two men are in violent disagreement about good and evil, it is hard to believe that both of them are blindly subject to the opinion of the society around them. | |
From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.171) | |
A reaction: What a beautifully simple observation. Simone would have become a major figure if she had lived longer. No philosopher has ever written better prose. |
23880 | When war was a profession, customary morality justified any act of war [Weil] |
Full Idea: At the time when war was a profession, fighting men had a morality whereby any act of war, in accordance with the customs of war, and contributing to victory, was legitimate and right. | |
From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.173) | |
A reaction: Note the caveat about 'customs', which were largely moral. See the discussion of killing the non-combatant prisoners in Shakespeare's 'Henry V'. |