16 ideas
| 19440 | How do you know you have conceived a thing deeply enough to assess its possibility? [Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: The main issue with learning possibility from conceivability concerns how we can be confident that we have conceived things to the relevant level of depth required for the scenario to actually be a presentation or manifestation of a genuine possibility. | |
| From: Anand Vaidya (The Epistemology of Modality [2015], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Van Inwagen 1998 for this idea] The point is that ignorant imagination can conceive of all sorts of absurd things which are seen to be impossible when enough information is available. We can hardly demand a criterion for this. |
| 2181 | It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a deluded Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom will totally coincide. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], VI - p.158) |
| 2176 | There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a problem of free will only for those who think that the notion of voluntary can be metaphysically deepened. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.68) | |
| A reaction: Years later, I now see that his refers to a pet hate of mine in discussions of free will, which is the idea that a person can have something called 'ultimate' responsibility for an action (which is the 'deep' version of 'you did it'). |
| 4317 | We judge weakness of will by an assessment after the event is concluded [Williams,B, by Cottingham] |
| Full Idea: Williams has shown that whether an action was weakness of will depends on an evaluation after the event, as in the question of whether Gauguin was right to abandon his family to pursue his art. | |
| From: report of Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993]) by John Cottingham - Reason, Emotions and Good Life p.1 | |
| A reaction: The 'Gauguin Problem' is that Gauguin's actions only become weakness of will if the pictures are no good, and he can't know that till he's painted them. Good point. |
| 2174 | Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The four elements of any conception of responsibility are cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.53) |
| 2178 | In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: In what I have done, the guilt points in one direction towards what has happened to others, and the shame in another direction to what I am. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.92) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced. I think shame has the fear of being observed as an inescapable component. Even when alone shame involves imagining what others might think. |
| 2169 | Greek moral progress came when 'virtue' was freed from social status [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There was moral progress in the ancient Greek world, notably to the extent that the idea of areté, human excellence, was freed to some extent from determination by social position. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], I - p.7) |
| 2172 | The modern idea of duty is unknown in archaic Greece [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Duty in some abstract modern sense is largely unknown to the Greeks, in particular to archaic Greeks. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], II - p.41) |
| 2179 | If the moral self is seen as characterless, then other people have a very limited role in our moral lives [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The conception of the moral self as characterless leaves only a limited positive role to other people in one's moral life. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.95) |
| 2180 | If reason cannot lead people to good, we must hope they have an internal voice [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: If we think the power of reason is not enough by itself to distinguish good and bad, then we would hope that people have limited autonomy, that there is an internalised other in them that carries some social weight. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.100) |
| 24073 | Capitalists use their exceptional power to impose their own rules, and make the state their ally [Davies,W] |
| Full Idea: Capitalists exploit their unrivalled control over time and space in order to impose their rules on everyone else. …It triumphed late, only becoming dominant in the 19th century, when it had conscripted the state as its ally. | |
| From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04) | |
| A reaction: This so very much makes sense of the modern world. Nowadays capitalists are so wealthy that the state has largely become their pawn, rather than their ally. Populist leaders are their puppets (and are well rewarded). |
| 24070 | Economies have material, economic and capitalist layers [Davies,W] |
| Full Idea: Braudel's economic history has three layers. At the bottom is material life of consumption, production, reproduction. Next is economic life of markets, of equals in exchange and competition. Top is capitalism, of opacity, monopoly, power, high profits. | |
| From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04) | |
| A reaction: The point Davies emphasises here is the sharp distinction between the market economy and capitalism. |
| 24074 | Capitalism must mainly rely either on the labour market, or on the financial markets [Davies,W] |
| Full Idea: According to Marxists, the one market capitalism cannot do without is the labour market, which creates saleable things. Others, influenced by Keynes, emphasise financial markets, where pieces of paper change hands on expectation of their value. | |
| From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04) | |
| A reaction: Modern Britain fits the Keynesian account much better, given its low production, and very active (until recently) London financial market. |
| 24072 | Capitalism is the anti-market, with opacity, monopolies, powers, exceptional profits and wealth [Davies,W] |
| Full Idea: Braudel sees capitalism as the 'anti-market': a world of opacity, monopoly, concentration of power and wealth, and the exceptional profits that can be achieved only by escaping the norms of 'economic life'. | |
| From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04) | |
| A reaction: Given all the talk about the wonders of the 'free market' from right-wingers, this passage came as a revelation to me. Capitalists all dream of a monopoly, which is precisely the destruction of a market. |
| 24071 | Markets are transparent, with known prices and activity, and minimal profits [Davies,W] |
| Full Idea: Markets are characterised by transparency. Prices are public, and all relevant activity is visible to everyone. And because of competition, profits are minimal, little more than a 'wage' for the seller. | |
| From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04) | |
| A reaction: This account, from Braudel, is to distinguish markets from capitalism. |
| 2175 | There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a "problem of evil" only for those who expect the world to be good. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.68) |