15 ideas
18383 | Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set). | |
From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2 | |
A reaction: To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions. |
11891 | Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties. | |
From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1 | |
A reaction: This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different. |
23865 | Morality would improve if people could pursue private interests [Weil] |
Full Idea: The common run of moralists complain that man is moved by his private interest: would to heaven it were so! | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.65) | |
A reaction: Her point is that currently people have to sacrifice their own interests to communal activities which offer dubious benefits. |
23866 | In oppressive societies the scope of actual control is extended by a religion of power [Weil] |
Full Idea: Every oppressive society is cemented by a religion of power, which falsifies all social relations by enabling the powerful to command over and above what they are able to impose. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.69) | |
A reaction: A rather acute and accurate observation, I think. Flashy cars, grand uniforms, lots of medals, rituals of deference….. Sometimes I like the order and security this brings, but Simone Weil could quickly change my view. |
23871 | No central authority can initiate decentralisation [Weil] |
Full Idea: It is quite patently impossible for decentralisation to be initiated by the central authority. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.113) | |
A reaction: This is contradicted by the creation of regional parliaments and mayors, but we see nothing beyond that. A state could crumble into small parts if there were'lots of autonomous regional groups. Easier for weird minorities to take control. |
23867 | After a bloody revolution the group which already had the power comes to the fore [Weil] |
Full Idea: There is no real break in continuity after a bloody struggle for regime change; for the victory just sanctions forces that before the struggle were the decisive factor in community life, patterns which were replacing those of the declining regime. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.73) | |
A reaction: [from Marx] I assume she has in mind the French Revolution, and perhaps the Russian Revolution, though in the latter the new bourgeois leaders also got swept away. So revolutions are not nearly as dramatic as they appear to be. |
23870 | Decentralisation is only possible by co-operation between strong and weak - which is absurd [Weil] |
Full Idea: The only possibility of salvation would lie in a co-operation between weak and strong, with a view to accomplishing a progressive decentralisation of social life; but the absurdity of such an idea strikes one immediately. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.113) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a judgement on the anarchist ideal, rather than a bit of modest devolution. The UK government set up regional parliaments. She says centralisation is remorseless. |
23863 | Only individual people of good will can achieve social progress [Weil] |
Full Idea: The enlightened goodwill of men acting in an individual capacity is the only possible principle of social progress. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.57) | |
A reaction: I identify with this. Virtually every admirable institution in a society can be traced back to the initiative of a few individuals. Every helpful technology was someone's brainwave. |
23869 | In the least evil societies people can think, control community life, and be autonomous [Weil] |
Full Idea: The least evil society is that in which the general run of men are most often obliged to think while acting, have the most opportunities for exercising control over collective life as a whole, and enjoy the greatest amount of independence. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.97) | |
A reaction: So Simone Weil was a liberal. How do you stop the most dynamic thinkers, social controllers, and exercisers of their own independence from coming to dominate the others? Only liberal institutions, such as the law and education, can do this. |
23861 | Marx showed that capitalist oppression, because of competition, is unstoppable [Weil] |
Full Idea: Marx gives a first-rate account of the mechanism of capitalist oppression; but so good is it that one finds it hard to visualise how this mechanism could cease to function. …The exploitation is the competitive need to expand as rapidly as possible. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.39) | |
A reaction: [Last bit compressed] This pinpoints the main motivation for desiring to overthrow capitalism. Resistance to that view is presumably the fear that an even worse oppression might replace it. |
23868 | The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery [Weil] |
Full Idea: The sight of the unfinished task attracts the free man as powerfully as the over-seer's whip stimulates the slave. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.94) | |
A reaction: This is Weil's key social idea - that freely performed productive work can be, and should be, a joy, as long as it is accompanied by respect and friendship, rather than oppression. Did this idea ever occur to a slave owner? |
23864 | Inequality could easily be mitigated, if it were not for the struggle for power [Weil] |
Full Idea: Inequality could easily be mitigated by the resistance of the weak and the feeling for justice of the strong, …were it not for the intervention of a further factor, namely, the struggle for power. | |
From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.62) | |
A reaction: The implication is that many of 'the strong' are inclined to diminish inequality, but find themselves trapped and unable to do so, because of irresistable capitalist forces. Sounds plausible. |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |
20704 | A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B] |
Full Idea: Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world. | |
From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes' | |
A reaction: This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary. |