34 ideas
| 7990 | Serene wisdom is freedom from ties, and indifference to fortune [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Who everywhere is free from all ties, who neither rejoices nor sorrows if fortune is good or is ill, his is a serene wisdom. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 2.57) | |
| A reaction: This is very similar to the 'apatheia' of the Stoics, though they are always more committed to rationality. This is quite a good strategy when times are hard, but as a general rule it offers a bogus state of 'wisdom' which is really half way to death. |
| 7989 | Seek salvation in the wisdom of reason [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Seek salvation in the wisdom of reason. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 2.49) | |
| A reaction: Quotations like this can usually be counterbalanced in eastern philosophy by wild irrationality, but they certainly felt to tug of reason. Only the Dhaoists seem really opposed to reason (e.g. Idea 7289). |
| 23853 | Truth is not a object we love - it is the radiant manifestation of reality [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Love of truth is not a correct form of expression. Truth is not an object of love. It is not an object at all. …Truth is the radiant manifestation of reality. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
| A reaction: Wow! Love that one! |
| 23855 | Creation produced a network or web of determinations [Weil] |
| Full Idea: What is sovereign in this world is determinateness, limit. Eternal Wisdom imprisons this universe in a network, a web of determinations. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growth') | |
| A reaction: Love this, because I take 'determination' to be the defining relationship in ontology. It covers both physical causation and abstract necessities. |
| 7996 | I am all the beauty and goodness of things, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: I am the beauty of all things beautiful; ...I am the goodness of those who are good, says Krishna. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 10.36) | |
| A reaction: Another attempt to annexe everything which is admirable to the nature of God. This sounds strikingly Platonic (c.f. Idea 7992, which seems Aristotelian). One scholar dates the text to 150 BCE. I think there is influence, one way or the other. |
| 7995 | In all living beings I am the light of consciousness, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: In all living beings I am the light of consciousness, says Krishna. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 10.22) | |
| A reaction: Everything grand seems to be claimed for God at this stage of culture, but I am not sure how coherent this view is, unless this is pantheism. In what sense could we possibly be Krishna, when none of us (except Arjuna) is aware of it? |
| 7999 | All actions come from: body, lower self, perception, means of action, or Fate [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Whatever a man does, good or bad, in thought, word or deed, has these five sources of action: the body, the lower 'I am', the means of perception, the means of action, and Fate. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 18.14/15) | |
| A reaction: The 'means of action' will presumably take care of anything we haven't thought of! Nothing quite matches the idea of 'the will' here. A twitch from the first, eating from the second, a startled jump from the third, struck by lightning from the fifth. |
| 23848 | The aesthete's treatment of beauty as amusement is sacreligious; beauty should nourish [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The aesthete's point of view is sacreligious, not only in matters of religion but even in those of art. It consists in amusing oneself with beauty by handling it and looking at it. Beauty is something to be eaten: it is a food. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Country') | |
| A reaction: She is endorsing the 'food' view against the 'handling' view. Beauty should nourish, she says. |
| 20444 | If paintings could be perfectly duplicated, it would be a multiple art form [Currie, by Bacharach] |
| Full Idea: Currie claims that, in principle, all art forms are multiple. A superxerox machine, duplicating a painting molecule by molecule, would show that paintings are singular only contingently. | |
| From: report of Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art [1988]) by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto 3 | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as correct. An original painting would then have the same status as the manuscript of a poem, giving it an authority, and being moving by its personal contact with the artist. But worth far less than current original paintings. |
| 23854 | Beauty is the proof of what is good [Weil] |
| Full Idea: When the subject in question is the good, beauty is a rigorous and positive proof. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
| A reaction: Purest platonism! It is incomprehensible to say 'this thing is evil, but it is beautiful'. But there are plenty of things which strike me as beautiful, without connecting that in any way to moral goodness. |
| 7991 | Hate and lust have their roots in man's lower nature [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Hate and lust for things of nature have their roots in man's lower nature. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 3.34) | |
| A reaction: It seems outmoded now (since Freud) to label parts of human nature as 'higher' and 'lower'. I would defend the distinction, but it is not self-evident. The basis of morality is good citizenship, and parts of our nature are detrimental to that. |
| 23837 | Respect is our only obligation, which can only be expressed through deeds, not words [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Humans have only one obligation: respect. The obligation is only performed if the respect is effectively expressed in a real, not a fictitious, way; and this can only be done through the medium of Man's earthly needs. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
| A reaction: She says man's 'eternal destiny' imposes this obligation. I read this as saying that you should not imagine that you treat people respectfully if you are merely polite to them. Col. Pickering and Eliza Doolittle! Respect is the supreme virtue. |
| 23844 | The most important human need is to have multiple roots [Weil] |
| Full Idea: To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul. …Every human being needs to have multiple roots. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Uprootedness') | |
| A reaction: Agree. I think we are just like trees, in that we need roots to grow well, and plenty of space to fully flourish. Identifying those roots is the main task of parents and teachers. |
| 23838 | The need for order stands above all others, and is understood via the other needs [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Order is the first need of all; it evens stands above all needs properly so-called. To be able to conceive it we must know what the other needs are. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Order') | |
| A reaction: This may be music to conservative ears, but you should examine Weil's other ideas to see what she has in mind. |
| 23836 | Obligations only bind individuals, not collectives [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Obligations are only binding on human beings. There are no obligations for collectivities, as such. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
| A reaction: I take it that 'as such' excludes the institutions created by collectivities, such as parliaments and courts. A nomadic tribe seems to have no duties, as a tribe, apart from mutual obligations among its members. Does this excuse crimes by the tribe? |
| 23840 | A citizen should be able to understand the whole of society [Weil] |
| Full Idea: A man needs to be able to encompass in thought the entire range of activity of the social organism to which he belongs. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Responsibility') | |
| A reaction: She is urging the active involvement of citizens in decision making - for which they need appropriate knowledge. |
| 23843 | Even the poorest should feel collective ownership, and participation in grand display [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Participation in collective possessions is important. Where real civic life exists, each feels he has a personal ownership in the public monuments, gardens, ceremonial pomp and circumstances; sumptuousness is thus place within the reach of the poorest. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Collective') | |
| A reaction: OK with gardens. Dubious about fobbing the poor off with pomp. Monuments are a modern controversy, when they turn out to commemorate slavery and colonial conquest. I agree with her basic thought. |
| 23846 | Culture is an instrument for creating an ongoing succession of teachers [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Culture - as we know it - is an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
| A reaction: Lot of truth in this. We tend to view our greatest successes in students who become academics and teachers. Culture is very much seen as something which must be 'transmitted' to each new generation. |
| 23839 | A lifelong head of society should only be a symbol, not a ruler [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Wherever a man is placed for life at the head of a social organism, he ought to be a symbol and not a ruler, as is the case with the King of England. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Obedience') | |
| A reaction: Nice to hear a radical French thinker endorsing an ancient British tradition! She may not be endorsing a lifelong head of state. Lifelong rulers are the main agents of totalitarianism. |
| 23842 | Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil] |
| Full Idea: A democracy where public life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable of preventing the formation of a party whose avowed aim is the overthrow of that democracy. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Opinion') | |
| A reaction: We have seen this around 2020 in the USA and the UK. Freedom is compulsory? Weil hates political parties (as did Rousseau). |
| 23847 | Socialism tends to make a proletariat of the whole population [Weil] |
| Full Idea: What is called Socialism tends to force everybody without distinction into the proletarian condition. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
| A reaction: For example, Weil favours maximising private house ownership, rather than communally owned housing. She is describing wholesale nationalisation. I would incline towards nationalisation only of all basic central services. |
| 23845 | The capitalists neglect the people and the nation, and even their own interests [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The capitalists have betrayed their calling by criminally neglecting not only the interests of the people, not only those of the nation, but even their own. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
| A reaction: It is certainly true that the dedicated capitalist has little loyalty either to the people or to the nation. She doesn't spell out their failure of self-interest. I guess it produces a way of life they don't really want, deep down. |
| 23841 | By making money the sole human measure, inequality has become universal [Weil] |
| Full Idea: By making money the sole, or almost the sole, motive of all actions, the sole, or almost the sole, measure of all things, the poison of inequality has been introduced everywhere. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Equality') | |
| A reaction: Presumably this dates right back to the invention of money, and then increases with the endless rise of capitalism. |
| 23835 | People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them [Weil] |
| Full Idea: A right is effectual only in relation to its corresponding obligation, springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from others who consider themselves under an obligation to him. In isolation a man only has duties, and only others have rights. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
| A reaction: This seems correct, and obviously refutes the idea that people have intrinsic natural rights. However, it may be our sense of what nature requires which gives rise to the obligations we feel towards others. |
| 23852 | To punish people we must ourselves be innocent - but that undermines the desire to punish [Weil] |
| Full Idea: In order to have the right to punish the guilty, we ought first of all to purify ourselves of their crimes. …But once this is accomplished we shall no longer feel the least desire to punish, or as little as possible and with extreme sorrow. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere she endorses punishment, as a social necessity, and a redemption for the wicked. This idea looks like a bit of a change of heart. She may be thinking of Jesus on the mote in someone's eye. |
| 7988 | There is no greater good for a warrior than to fight in a just war [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: There is no greater good for a warrior than to fight in righteous war. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 2.31) | |
| A reaction: What worries me now is not the urging to fight, as long as a good cause can be found, but the idea that someone should see his social role as 'warrior'. The modern 'soldier' is ready to fight, but a traditional 'warrior' is obliged to fight. |
| 23850 | The soldier-civilian distinction should be abolished; every citizen is committed to a war [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between soldiers and civilians, which the pressure of circumstances has already almost obliterated, should be entirely abolished. Every individual in the population owes his country the whole of his strength, resources and life itself. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Nation') | |
| A reaction: Written in London in 1943. The year carpet bombing seriously escalated. The facts of warfare can change the ethics. |
| 23851 | Education is essentially motivation [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Education - whether its object be children or adults, individuals or an entire people, or even oneself - consists in creating motives. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
| A reaction: I can't disagree. Intellectual motivation is simply what we find interesting, and there is no formula for that. A teacher can teach a good session, and only 5% of the pupils find it interesting. A bad session could be life-changing for one student. |
| 7992 | The visible forms of nature are earth, water, fire, air, ether; mind, reason, and the sense of 'I' [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: The visible forms of nature are eight: earth, water, fire, air, ether; the mind, reason, and the sense of 'I'. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there is an implication that there are also invisible forms. The Bhuddists launched an attack on 'I' as one of the categories. The first five appear to be Aristotle's, which must be of scholarly (and chronological) interest. |
| 7994 | Everything, including the gods, comes from me, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: All the gods come from me, says Krishna. ...I am the one source of all | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 10.2/8) | |
| A reaction: This seems very close to monotheism, and sounds very similar to the position that Zeus seems to occupy in later Greek religion, where he is shading off into a supreme and spiritual entity. |
| 7993 | Brahman is supreme, Atman his spirit in man, and Karma is the force of creation [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Brahman is supreme, the Eternal. Atman is his Spirit in man. Karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: I can't help wondering how they know all this stuff, but then I'm just a typical product of my culture. We seem to have a trinity here. Who's in charge? Is Atman just a servant? Is Karma totally under the control of Brahman? |
| 23849 | Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The proper function of religion is to suffuse with its light all secular life, public or private, without in any way dominating it. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Nation') | |
| A reaction: Even for the non-religious there is something attractive about some view of the world which 'suffuses our lives with light'. It probably describes medieval Christendom, but that contained an awful lot of darkness. |
| 7997 | Only by love can men see me, know me, and come to me, says Krishna [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Only by love can men see me, and know me, and come unto me, says Krishna | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 11.54) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a paradox here, as it is unclear how you can love Krishna, if you have not already seen him in some way. This is another paradox of fideism - that faith cannot possibly be the first step in a religion, as faith needs a target. |
| 7998 | The three gates of hell are lust, anger and greed [Anon (Bhag)] |
| Full Idea: Three are the gates of this hell, the death of the soul: the gate of lust, the gate of wrath, and the gate of greed. Let a man shun the three. | |
| From: Anon (Bhag) (The Bhagavad Gita [c.500 BCE], 16.21) | |
| A reaction: Anyone who wishes to procreate, champion justice, and make a living, has to pursue all three. Wisdom consists of pursuing the three appropriately, not in shunning them. How did this bizarre puritanism ever come to grip the human race? |