12 ideas
| 22049 | Transcendental idealism aims to explain objectivity through subjectivity [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The aim of transcendental idealism is to give a basis for objectivity in terms of subjectivity. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 1) | |
| A reaction: Hume used subjectivity to undermine the findings of objectivity. There was then no return to naive objectivity. Kant's aim then was to thwart global scepticism. Post-Kantians feared that he had failed. |
| 22055 | The Idealists saw the same unexplained spontaneity in Kant's judgements and choices [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The Idealist saw in Kant that knowledge, which depends on the spontaneity of judgement, and self-determined spontaneous action, can be seen as sharing the same source, which is not accessible to scientific investigation. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010]) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'spontaneity' of judgements and choices which was seen as the main idea in Kant. It inspired romantic individualism. The judgements are the rule-based application of concepts. |
| 22054 | German Idealism tried to stop oppositions of appearances/things and receptivity/spontaneity [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: A central aim of German Idealism is to overcome Kant's oppositions between appearances and thing in themselves, and between receptivity and spontaneity. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that there were two strategies: break down the opposition within the self (Fichte), or break down the opposition in the world (Spinozism). |
| 22056 | Crucial to Idealism is the idea of continuity between receptivity and spontaneous judgement [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: A crucial idea for German Idealism (from Hamann) is that apparently passive receptivity and active spontaneity are in fact different degrees of the same 'activity, and the gap between subject and world can be closed. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (German Philosophy: a very short introduction [2010], 3) | |
| A reaction: The 'passive' bit seems to be Hume's 'impressions', which are Kant's 'intuitions', which need 'spontaneous' interpretation to become experiences. Critics of Kant said this implied a dualism. |
| 20440 | Art is a referential activity, hence indefinable, but it has a set of symptoms [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: No definition of art is possible (since it is a referential activity), …but the symptoms of art are syntactic density, semantic density, syntactic repleteness, exemplificationality, and multiple and complex reference. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968], p.22-255), quoted by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) 4 | |
| A reaction: I wish these labels were more self-explanatory. Goodman seems to want to assimilate art to his earlier interests in linguistic anti-realism and mereology. I wouldn't have thought he now had many followers. |
| 20439 | Artistic symbols are judged by the fruitfulness of their classifications [Goodman, by Giovannelli] |
| Full Idea: Artistic symbols are to be judged for the classifications they bring about, for how novel and insightful those classifications are, for how they change our world perceptions and relations. | |
| From: report of Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968]) by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) 4 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be an awfully long way from our normal experience of art. I understand 'symbols' in early Flemish art, but not in Mondriaan, or even Rembrandt. |
| 20438 | A performance is only an instance of a work if there is not a single error [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: The most miserable performance without actual mistakes does count as an instance of a work, …but the most brilliant performance with a single wrong note does not. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968], p.186), quoted by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) | |
| A reaction: Mereological essentialism applied to art! You need to be a highly theoretical and technical philosopher (which Goodman was) to maintain such a weird and contrary-usage proposal. |
| 20437 | A copy only becomes an 'instance' of an artwork if there is a system of notation [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Paintings and sculptures do not work within a notation; hence, there is no copying of an original that would preserve its originality. A copy of a painting is a copy, not an instance of the original. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968], p.212), quoted by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics) 2 | |
| A reaction: Sounds conclusive, but isn't. Is a poetry manuscript a 'notation' or an original? Why is an etching plate a notation, but painting on canvas is an original? Can I create a painting specifically so that it can be copied (by my students)? Intention matters. |
| 3236 | Equality of opportunity without equality of respect would create a very inhuman society [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: A highly rational, efficient and unmitigated application of the idea of equality of opportunity, while abandoning the idea of equality of respect as vague and nostalgic, would lead to a quite inhuman society. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §3) |
| 3233 | Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Supporters of equality have asserted that people are alike in certain things they could do or achieve, as well as in the things that they need and could suffer. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
| 3234 | Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Equality seems to require that each person is owed an effort at identification; they should not be seen as a surface to which a label can be applied, but one should try to see the world (including the label) from their point of view. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
| 3235 | It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: It is a mark of extreme exploitation or degradation that those who suffer it do NOT see themselves differently from the way they are seen by the exploiters. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |