23 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. |
| 19306 | It is a principle of reasoning not to clutter your mind with trivialities [Harman] |
| Full Idea: I am assuming the following principle: Clutter Avoidance - in reasoning, one should not clutter one's mind with trivialities. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: I like Harman's interest in the psychology of reasoning. In the world of Frege, it is taboo to talk about psychology. |
| 19304 | The rules of reasoning are not the rules of logic [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Rules of deduction are rules of deductive argument; they are not rules of inference or reasoning. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 1) | |
| A reaction: And I have often noticed that good philosophing reasoners and good logicians are frequently not the same people. |
| 19307 | If there is a great cost to avoiding inconsistency, we learn to reason our way around it [Harman] |
| Full Idea: We sometimes discover our views are inconsistent and do not know how to revise them in order to avoid inconsistency without great cost. The best response may be to keep the inconsistency and try to avoid inferences that exploit it. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: Any decent philosopher should face this dilemma regularly. I assume non-philosophers don't compare the different compartments of their beliefs very much. Students of non-monotonic logics are trying to formalise such thinking. |
| 19309 | Logic has little relevance to reasoning, except when logical conclusions are immediate [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Although logic does not seem specially relevant to reasoning, immediate implication and immediate inconsistency do seem important for reasoning. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: Ordinary thinkers can't possibly track complex logical implications, so we have obviously developed strategies for coping. I assume formal logic is contructed from the basic ingredients of the immediate and obvious implications, such as modus ponens. |
| 19303 | Implication just accumulates conclusions, but inference may also revise our views [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Implication is cumulative, in a way that inference may not be. In argument one accumulates conclusions; things are always added, never subtracted. Reasoned revision, however, can subtract from one's view as well as add. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 1) | |
| A reaction: This has caught Harman's attention, I think (?), because he is looking for non-monotonic reasoning (i.e. revisable reasoning) within a classical framework. If revision is responding to evidence, the logic can remain conventional. |
| 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). |
| 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. |
| 19305 | The Gambler's Fallacy (ten blacks, so red is due) overemphasises the early part of a sequence [Harman] |
| Full Idea: The Gambler's Fallacy says if black has come up ten times in a row, red must be highly probable next time. It overlooks how the impact of an initial run of one color can become more and more insignificant as the sequence gets longer. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 1) | |
| A reaction: At what point do you decide that the roulette wheel is fixed, rather than that you have fallen for the Gambler's Fallacy? Interestingly, standard induction points to the opposite conclusion. But then you have prior knowledge of the wheel. |
| 19310 | High probability premises need not imply high probability conclusions [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Propositions that are individually highly probable can have an immediate implication that is not. The fact that one can assign a high probability to P and also to 'if P then Q' is not sufficient reason to assign high probability to Q. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 3) | |
| A reaction: He cites Kyburg's Lottery Paradox. It is probable that there is a winning ticket, and that this ticket is not it. Thus it is NOT probable that I will win. |
| 19308 | We strongly desire to believe what is true, even though logic does not require it [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Moore's Paradox: one is strongly disposed not to believe both P and that one does not believe that P, while realising that these propositions are perfectly consistent with one another. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: [Where in Moore?] A very nice example of a powerful principle of reasoning which can never be captured in logic. |
| 19311 | In revision of belief, we need to keep track of justifications for foundations, but not for coherence [Harman] |
| Full Idea: The key issue in belief revision is whether one needs to keep track of one's original justifications for beliefs. What I am calling the 'foundations' theory says yes; what I am calling the 'coherence' theory says no. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 4) | |
| A reaction: I favour coherence in all things epistemological, and this idea seems to match real life, where I am very confident of many beliefs of which I have forgotten the justification. Harman says coherentists need the justification only when they doubt a belief. |
| 19312 | Coherence is intelligible connections, especially one element explaining another [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Coherence in a view consists in connections of intelligibility among the elements of the view. Among other things these included explanatory connections, which hold when part of one's view makes it intelligible why some other part should be true. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Change in View: Principles of Reasoning [1986], 7) | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears. I call myself an 'explanatory empiricist', and embrace a coherence theory of justification. This is the framework within which philosophy should be practised. Harman is our founder, and Paul Thagard our guru. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 20767 | Culture is now dominated by boredom, so universal it is unnoticed [Heidegger, by Aho] |
| Full Idea: Heidegger came to say that the cultural mood had changed from 'anxiety' to 'boredom'. The danger is that our boredom has become so ubiquitous and all-encompassing that it is now hidden. | |
| From: report of Martin Heidegger (Contributions to Philosophy [1938]) by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 9 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what the danger of boredom is if it is 'hidden'. It rather depends what else is hidden with it. |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| 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? |