7 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. |
| 22109 | The fullest knowledge places a conclusion within an accurate theory [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
| Full Idea: Having 'scientia' is the fullest possible human cognition, by which one situates the fact expressed by a conclusion in an explanatory theory that accurately maps metaphysical or physical reality. | |
| From: report of Thomas Aquinas (Sententia on 'Posterior Analytics' [1269], 1.2.9, 1.5.7) by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 11 | |
| A reaction: That is a perfect statement of my concept of knowledge. Explanatory theories must specify the essential natures of the entities involved. We don't aim for 'knowledge', we aim for the 'fullest possible cognition'. This account extend's Aristotle's. |
| 22481 | There is no restitution after a dilemma, if it only involved the agent, or just needed an explanation [Foot, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The 'remainder' after a dilemma can't be a matter of apology and restitution, because the dilemma may only involve the agent's own life, and in the case of broken promises we only owe an explanation, if the breaking is justifiable. | |
| From: report of Philippa Foot (Moral Dilemmas Revisited [1995], p.183) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: But what if someone has been financially ruined by it? If the agent feels guilty about that, is getting over it the rational thing to do? (Foot says that is an new obligation, and not part of the original dilemma). |
| 22482 | I can't understand how someone can be necessarily wrong whatever he does [Foot] |
| Full Idea: I do not see how …we can know how to interpret the idea of a situation in which someone will necessarily be wrong whatever he does. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Moral Dilemmas Revisited [1995], p.188) | |
| A reaction: Seems right. If you think of hideous dilemmas (frequent in wartime), there must always be a right thing to do (or two equally right things to do), even if the outcome is fairly hideous. Just distinguish the right from the good. |