8 ideas
| 18552 | Forget about beauty; just concentrate on the virtues of delicacy and discernment admired in critics [Hume, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Hume suggest we get away from the fruitless discussion of beauty, and simply concentrate on the qualities we admire, and ought to admire, in a critic - qualities such as delicacy and discernment. | |
| From: report of David Hume (Of the standard of taste [1757]) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction 6 | |
| A reaction: We might wonder how you can admire 'discernment' without some view of the thing being discern, which is in danger of being beauty. How do you judge delicacy and discernment without judging the objects of the critic's taste? Mere authority? |
| 6608 | Strong sense, delicate sentiment, practice, comparisons, and lack of prejudice, are all needed for good taste [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to the valuable character of having 'taste'. | |
| From: David Hume (Of the standard of taste [1757]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: I agree entirely with this, but then I am a very politically incorrect elitist when it comes to taste. It just seems screamingly obvious that professional wine-tasters have a better appreciation of wine than me, and so on for the rest of the arts. |
| 20582 | World government needs a shared global identity [Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Critics have argued that a global 'demos' would require a shared global identity. | |
| From: Johanna Oksala (Political Philosophy: all that matters [2013], Ch.9 'Epi') | |
| A reaction: The great divisions are religion and language. The great unifiers are sport, arts and entertainment, plus basic human needs like food, health and housing. The reply is that there cannot be identity without differences, so global democracy is out. |
| 20568 | The principles Rawls arrives at do not just conform to benevolence, but also result from choices [Oksala] |
| Full Idea: The advantage of Rawls's method is that the principles the individual chooses are not only fair according to some abstract principle of benevolence, but also the result of rational choice. | |
| From: Johanna Oksala (Political Philosophy: all that matters [2013], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: That is a very nice way of putting the beauty of Rawls's idea. In modern political philosophy you hear far more criticisms of Rawls than praise. If a philosopher is criticised a lot, it is probably because they have stated their views clearly. |
| 20578 | Anarchists prefer local and communal government [Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Anarchists advocate forms of governance such as communes and associations that are as local and close to the direct control of the people as possible. | |
| From: Johanna Oksala (Political Philosophy: all that matters [2013], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: Which might explain why recent conservative governments have steadily eliminated local government in Britain. |
| 20574 | Utilitarianism neglects responsibility, duties and rights [Oksala] |
| Full Idea: A focus solely on utility excludes considerations of personal responsibility and duty, as well as considerations of the basic rights of individuals. | |
| From: Johanna Oksala (Political Philosophy: all that matters [2013], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: [He cites these as the common modern criticisms] The defence is to explain the value of each of these in utilitarian terms. There is a general problem (conceded by Mill) of motivation in utilitarianism. There's not much in it for me! |
| 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. |