4 ideas
16002 | The self is a combination of pairs of attributes: freedom/necessity, infinite/finite, temporal/eternal [Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: A human being is essentially spirit, but what is spirit? Spirit is to be a self. But what is the Self? In short, it is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. | |
From: Søren Kierkegaard (Sickness unto Death [1849], p.59) | |
A reaction: The dense language of his first paragraph was to poke fun at fashionable Hegelian writing. The book gets very lucid afterwards! [SY] |
8066 | Butler exalts conscience, but it may be horribly misleading [Anscombe on Butler] |
Full Idea: Butler exalts conscience, but appears ignorant that a man's conscience may tell him to do the vilest things. | |
From: comment on Joseph Butler (Fifteen Sermons [1726]) by G.E.M. Anscombe - Modern Moral Philosophy p.176 | |
A reaction: That would appear to be the end of conscience. To make conscience work, it must have a huge authority to back it, and also a fairly infallible means of knowing what it truly says, and that an impostor hasn't replaced it (e.g. via a bad upbringing). |
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. |