22 ideas
9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
Full Idea: To say that a class is natural is to say that when some of its members are shown to people they pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: He concedes a number of problems with his view, but I admire his attempt to at least begin to distinguish the natural (real!) classes from the ersatz ones. A mention of causal powers would greatly improve his story. |
15730 | Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton] |
Full Idea: Pure, extreme nominalism sees all classification as the product of arbitrary convention. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: I'm not sure what the word 'arbitrary' is doing there. Nominalists are not daft, and if they can classify any way they like, they are not likely to choose an 'arbitrary' system. Pragmatism tells the right story here. |
15728 | The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton] |
Full Idea: The naturalness of a class depends as essentially on the nature of the observers who classify as it does on the nature of the objects that they classify. ...It depends on our perceptual apparatus, and on our relatively mutable needs and interests. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: This seems to translate 'natural' as 'natural for us', which is not much use to scientists, who spend quite a lot of effort combating folk wisdom. Do desirable sports cars constitute a natural class? |
9407 | Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton] |
Full Idea: To say there are properties is to say there are natural classes, classes introduction to some of whose members enables people to pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: Aristotle would like this approach, but it doesn't find many friends among modern logician/philosophers. We should go on to ask why people agree on these things. Causal powers will then come into it. |
15729 | Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton] |
Full Idea: Properties that have no concrete instances must be defined in terms of those that have. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: I wonder what the dodo used to smell like? |
8520 | An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: Quinton proposes that an individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position. | |
From: report of Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], Pt I) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §5 | |
A reaction: This seems the obvious defence of a bundle account of objects against the charge that indiscernibles would have to be identical. It introduces, however, 'positions' into the ontology, but maybe that price must be paid. Materialism needs space. |
24016 | Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre] |
Full Idea: It is of the essence of consciousness to transcend itself | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
A reaction: As usual, I am a bit baffled by these sorts of pronouncement. Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Maybe it is a development of Schopenhauer's thought. |
24013 | An emotion and its object form a unity, so emotion is a mode of apprehension [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Emotion returns to its object every moment, and feeds upon it. …The emotional subject and the object of the emotion are united in an indissoluble synthesis. Emotion is a specific manner of apprehending the world. …[39] It is a transformation of the world. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
A reaction: The last sentence is the essence (or existence?) of Sartre's core theory of the emotions. They are, it seems, a mode of perception, like a colour filter added to a camera. I don't think I agree. I see them as a response to perceptions, not part of them. |
24017 | Emotion is one of our modes of understanding our Being-in-the-World [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Emotion is not an accident, it is a mode of our conscious existence, one of the ways in which consciousness understands (in Heidegger's sense of verstehen) its Being-in-the-World. …It has a meaning. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
A reaction: Calling emotions a 'mode' suggests that this way of understanding is intermittent, which seems wrong. Even performing arithmetical calculations is coloured by emotions, so they go deeper than a 'mode'. |
24014 | Emotions are a sort of bodily incantation which brings a magic to the world [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Joy is the magical behaviour which tries, by incantation, to realise the possession of the desired object as an instantaneous totality. [47] Emotions are all reducible to the constitution of a magic world by using our bodies as instruments of incantation. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
A reaction: I can't pretend to understand this, but I am reminded of the fact that the so-called primary qualities of perception are innately boring, and it is only the secondary qualities (like colour and smell) which make the world interesting. |
24015 | Emotions makes us believe in and live in a new world [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Emotion is a phenomenon of belief. Consciousness does not limit itself to the projection of affective meanings upon the world around it; it lives the new world it has thereby constituted. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
A reaction: There seems to be an implied anti-realism in this, since the emotions prevent us from relating more objectively to the world. The 'magic' seems to be compulsory. |
20491 | States have a monopoly of legitimate violence [Sartre, by Wolff,J] |
Full Idea: Max Weber observed that states possess a monopoly of legitimate violence. | |
From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 2 'State' | |
A reaction: This sounds rather hair-raising, and often is, but it sounds quite good if we describe it as a denial of legitimate violence to individual citizens. Hobbes would like it, since individual violence breaches some sort of natural contract. Guns in USA. |
20086 | Nowadays sovereignty (once the basis of a state) has become relative [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: In the twenty-first century, sovereignty, once the basis of the nation state, has become a relative concept. ...Powerlessness is the key word of our time. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 1 'Crisis') | |
A reaction: The point is that nation states now have limited power, in the face of larger unions, multinational companies, and global problems. |
20090 | Today it seems almost impossible to learn the will of the people [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Imagine having to develop a system today that would express the will of the people. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'electoral') | |
A reaction: Our recent Brexit referendum didn't do the job, because it was confined to a single question. Van Reybrouck laughs at the idea of expressing it through a polling both. How about a council of 500, drawn by lots? Meet for three months. |
20087 | There are no united monolothic 'peoples', and no 'national gut feelings' [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: There is no such thing as one monolithic 'people' (every society has its diversity), nor is there anything that could be described as a 'national gut feeling'. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'populism') | |
A reaction: Rousseau yearned for a republic no bigger than Geneva. I don't see why we should give up on the general will in huge modern societies. It is likely, though, to be an anodyne lowest common denominator. No bad thing, perhaps. |
20089 | Technocrats may be efficient, but they lose legitimacy as soon as they do unpopular things [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Efficiency does not automatically generate legitimacy, and faith in the technocrat melts away as soon as spending cuts are implemented. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'democracy') | |
A reaction: They can hang on to legitimacy if they can come up with some technical mumbo-jumbo like 'monetarism' which the people will swallow. |
20088 | Technocrats are expert managers, who replace politicians, and can be long-term and unpopular [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Technocracy is a system where experts are charged with looking after the public interest. ...Technocrats are managers who replace politicians, so they can concentrate on long-term solutions and announce unpopular measures. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'technocracy') | |
A reaction: I like technocrats. They just need to be accountable. In the UK we have far more respect for the governor of the Bank of England than for any politician. |
20085 | Democracy is the best compromise between legitimacy and efficiency [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Democracy is the least bad form of all governments precisely because it attempts to find a healthy balance between legitimacy and efficiency. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 1 'Crisis') | |
A reaction: There seems to be a widespread feeling that democracy is declining in efficiency, and that may be because our remoteness from government decreases legitimacy, so we have less commitment to getting things done. |
20095 | A referendum result arises largely from ignorance [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: In a referendum you ask everyone to vote on a subject that usually only a few know anything about. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 4 'remedies') | |
A reaction: Tell me about it! I was forced to vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and felt thoroughly out of my depth on such a complex economic question. |
20094 | You don't really govern people if you don't involve them [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Even with the best of intentions, those who govern the people without involving them, govern them only in a limited sense. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 4 intro) | |
A reaction: But if they are highly involved, who is governing who? Do we want the people to become happier about being governed, or do we want them more involved in doing the governing? |
20093 | In the 18th century democratic lots lost out to elections, that gave us a non-hereditary aristocracy [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: The drawing of lots, the most democratic of all political instruments, lost out in the eighteenth century to elections, a procedure that was not invented as a democratic instrument, but as a means of bringing a new non-hereditary aristocracy to power. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 3 'democratisation') | |
A reaction: This is the basic thesis of Van Reybrouck's book. He argues for the extensive use of lots ('sortition') for getting people involved in modern democracies. I love the idea that in a good democracy you get an occasional chance to rule. |
20091 | Representative elections were developed in order to avoid democracy [Reybrouck] |
Full Idea: Bernard Manin (1995) revealed how, immediately after the American and French revolutions, the electoral-representative system was chosen with the intention of keeping at bay the tumult of democracy. | |
From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 3 'procedure') | |
A reaction: At the time America and France were two of the largest countries in the world, and communication and transport were slow. That has changed. |