16 ideas
| 9307 | Modern Western culture suddenly appeared in Jena in the 1790s [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Foucault was right to say that Jena in the 1790s was the arena where the fundamental interests in modern Western culture suddenly had their breakthrough. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: [Hölderlin, Novalis, Tieck, Schlegel, based on Kant and Fichte] Romanticism seems to have been born then. Is that the essence of modernism? Foucault and his pals are hoping to destroy the Enlightenment by ignoring it, but that is modern too. |
| 9297 | You can't understand love in terms of 'if and only if...' [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: I once began reading a philosophical article on love. The following statement soon came up: 'Bob loves Kate if and only if...' At that point I stopped reading. Such a formalized approach was unsuitable, because the actual phenomenon would be lost. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Pref) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree! However, if your best friend comes to you and says, 'I can't decide whether I am really in love with Kate; what do you think?', how are you going to respond. You offer 'if and only if..', but in a warm and sympathetic way! |
| 18192 | Do the Replacement Axioms exceed the iterative conception of sets? [Boolos, by Maddy] |
| Full Idea: For Boolos, the Replacement Axioms go beyond the iterative conception. | |
| From: report of George Boolos (The iterative conception of Set [1971]) by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics I.3 |
| 15645 | Nominal essence are the observable properties of things [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: It is clear the nominal essences really are the properties of the things which have them: they are (a subset of) the observable properties of the things. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
| A reaction: I think this is wrong. The surface characteristics are all that is available to us, so our classifications must be based on those, but it is on the ideas of them, not their intrinsic natures. That is empiricsm! What makes the properties 'essential'? |
| 15642 | If kinds depend only on what can be observed, many underlying essences might produce the same kind [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: If the kinds there are depend not on the essences of the objects but on their observed distinguishing particulars, ...then for any kind that we think there is, it is possible that there are many underlying essences which are observably indistinguishable. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
| A reaction: Eagle is commenting on Locke's reliance on nominal essences. This seems to be the genuine problem with jadeite and nephrite (both taken to be 'jade'), or with 'fool's gold'. This isn't an objection to Locke; it just explains the role of science. |
| 15643 | Nominal essence mistakenly gives equal weight to all underlying properties that produce appearances [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: Nominal essence does not allow for gradations in significance for the underlying properties. Those are all essential for the object behaving as it observably does, and they must all be given equal weight when deciding what the object does. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
| A reaction: This is where 'scientific' essentialism comes in. If we take one object, or one kind of object, in isolation, Eagle is right. When we start to compare, and to set up controlled conditions tests, we can dig into the 'gradations' he cares about. |
| 9308 | If subjective and objective begin to merge, then so do primary and secondary qualities [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: It is doubtful whether the traditional dichotomy between the strictly subjective and the strictly objective can still be maintained; if not, we must also revise the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Very perceptive. The reason why I am so keen to hang onto the primary/secondary distinction is because I want to preserve objectivity (and realism). I much prefer Locke to Hume, as empiricist spokesmen. |
| 9309 | Emotions have intentional objects, while a mood is objectless [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: An emotion normally has an intentional object, while a mood is objectless. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: It doesn't follow that the object of the emotion is clearly understood, or even that it is conscious. One may experience rising anger while struggling to see what its object is. Artistic symbolism seems to involve objects that create moods. |
| 9304 | Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: [He credits Adorno with this] A good thought, which should be immediately emailed to Epicurus for comment. Which is worse - to die when you have barely started your great work (Ramsey), or dying in full flow (Schubert)? |
| 9301 | Boredom is so radical that suicide could not overcome it; only never having existed would do it [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Boredom is so radical that it cannot even be overcome by suicide, only by something completely impossible - not to have existed at all. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: [he cites Fernando Pessoa for this] The actor George Sanders left a suicide note saying that he was just bored. A cloud of boredom is left hanging in the air where he was. |
| 9302 | We are bored because everything comes to us fully encoded, and we want personal meaning [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: Boredom results from a lack of personal meaning, which is due to the fact that all objects and actions come to us fully encoded, while we (as descendants of Romanticism) insist on a personal meaning. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This idea justifies me categorising Boredom under Existentialism. This is an excellent idea, and perfectly captures the experience of most teenagers, for whom it is impossible to impose a personal meaning on such a vast cultural reality. |
| 9310 | The profoundest boredom is boredom with boredom [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: In the profound form of boredom, I am bored by boredom itself. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Boredom is boring, which is why I try to avoid it. Third-level boredom is a rather enchanting idea. It sounds remarkably similar to the Buddha experiencing enlightenment. |
| 9298 | We can be unaware that we are bored [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: It is perfectly possible to be bored without being aware of the fact. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: True. Also, I sometimes mistake indecision for boredom. It becomes very hard to say for certain whether you are bored. I am certain that I am bored if I am forced to do something which has no interest for me. The big one is free-but-bored. |
| 9311 | We have achieved a sort of utopia, and it is boring, so that is the end of utopias [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: There can hardly be any new utopias. To the extent that we can imagine a utopia, it must already have been realised. A utopia cannot, by definition, include boredom, but the 'utopia' we are living in is boring. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 8989. Lots of people (including me) think that we have achieved a kind of liberal, democratic, individualistic 'utopia', but the community needs of people are not being met, so we still have a way to go. |
| 9303 | The concept of 'alienation' seems no longer applicable [Svendsen] |
| Full Idea: I do not believe that the concept of 'alienation' is all that applicable any more. | |
| From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting but puzzling. If alienation is the key existential phenomenon of a capitalist society, why should it fade away if we remain capitalist? He is proposing that it has metamorphosed into boredom, which may be a different sort of alienation. |
| 15641 | Kinds are fixed by the essential properties of things - the properties that make it that kind of thing [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: The natural thought is to think that real kinds are given only by classification on the basis of essential properties: properties that make an object the kind of thing that it is. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], II) | |
| A reaction: Circularity alert! Circularity alert! Essence gives a thing its kind - and hence we can see what the kind is? Test for a trivial property! Eagle is not unaware of these issues. Does he mean 'necessary' rather than 'essential'? |