23 ideas
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: That knowledge is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be metaphysic | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
| A reaction: A surprising view, coming from the father of modern science, but essentially correct. Obviously metaphysics aspires to avoid multiplicity, but it is riddled not only with complexity in its researches, but massive uncertainties. |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Knowledges are as pyramides, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history, the stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
| A reaction: The father of modern science keeps a place for metaphysics, as the most abstract level above the physical sciences. I would say he is right. It leads to my own slogan: science is the servant of philosophy. |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: He cites the ancients for this view, with which he agrees. One could do worse than hang onto metaphysics as the study of necessities, but must then face the attacks of the Quineans - that knowledge of necessities is beyond us. |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Physic inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and metaphysic handleth the formal and final causes. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 12119. This divides up Aristotle's famous Four Causes (or Explanations), outlined in 'Physics' II.3. The concept of 'matter', and the nature of 'cause' seem to me to fall with the purview of metaphysics. Interesting, though. |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.5) | |
| A reaction: Just the sort of pithy remark for which Bacon is famous. It is an obvious point, but a nice corrective to anyone who wants to apply empirical principles in a rather gormless way. |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: All true and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and descendent, ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and descending from causes to the invention of new experiments. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.1) | |
| A reaction: After several hundred years, I doubt whether anyone can come up with a better account of scientific method than Bacon's. |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: The ordinary face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several theories and philosophies. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.5) | |
| A reaction: He gives as his example that the Copernican system and the Ptolemaic system both seem to satisfy all the facts. He wrote in 1605, just before Galileo's telescope. His point is regularly made in modern discussions. In this case, he was wrong! |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: It is the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of particularity. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.1) | |
| A reaction: I have to plead guilty to this myself. He may have pinpointed the key motivation behind philosophy. We all want to know things, as Aristotle said, but some of us want the broad brush, and others want the fine detail. |
| 23874 | Armies and businesses create moralities in which their activity can do no wrong [Marx, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: Marx saw that social groups manufacture moralities for their own use, so their activity is placed outside the reach of evil. Thus the first articles of soldiers and businessmen is to deny that it is possible to do evil while waging war or doing business. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Fragments: London 1943 p.146 | |
| A reaction: This is especially true of the modern reverence for 'market forces'. It is a key debate in the ethics of warfare - compare Walzer and McMahon. A striking thought, obviously containing a lot of truth. |
| 18662 | Liberal freedom is the right to be separate, and ignores the union of man with man [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The liberal right of man to freedom is not based on the union of man with man, but on the separation of man from man; it is the right to this separation. | |
| From: Karl Marx (works [1860]), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 7.2.a | |
| A reaction: [quoted from an anthology] It is interesting that liberal freedom is the right NOT to be involved in politics, and even not to vote in elections. Home counties England (high hedges etc) is the embodiment of the freedom not to be involved in society. |
| 23372 | Liberals want the right to be separate, rather than for people to be united [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The [liberal] right of man to freedom is not based on the union of man with man, but on the separation of man from man. It is the right to this separation. | |
| From: Karl Marx (works [1860], p.53), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) 7 | |
| A reaction: [in collection ed.McLelland p.53] That nicely encapsulates the debate. Modern liberal thinkers regret the loss of community, but people in authoritarian communities yearn for separation. You can have too much 'union'! |
| 20576 | Early Marx anticipates communitarian objections to liberalism [Marx, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: The early writings of Marx anticipate the communitarian critique of liberalism. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: [Oksala says modern writers seem to prefer this to the hardcore later Marx, which is presumably too 'scientific'. He says 'Capital Vol 1' is Marx's most important work] |
| 23862 | By saying the material dialectic of history aspires to the best, Marx agreed with capitalism [Weil on Marx] |
| Full Idea: When Marx inverted Hegel's dialectic of history, by substituting matter for mind as the motive, he attributed to matter the essence of mind, an unceasing aspiration towards the best - which was in keeping with the general current of capitalist thought. | |
| From: comment on Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression p.43 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] A rather nice debating point! Marx seems to share the universal nineteenth century belief in unremitting progress. Without that, it is impossible to believe that a revolution will necessarily improve anything. |
| 21999 | False consciousness results from concealment by the superstructure [Marx, by Singer] |
| Full Idea: False consciousness involves failing to see things as they really are. It comes about because a society's superstructure can conceal the real basis of the society. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: That seems a poor label, probably revealing a Hegelian background. It seems a matter of knowledge rather than consciousness. Can a whole mind be in a state of error? |
| 23875 | Marx says force is everything, and that the weak will become strong, while remaining the weak [Weil on Marx] |
| Full Idea: Marx posits on the one hand that force alone governs social relations to the exclusion of anything else, and on the other hand that one day the weak, while remaining weak, will nevertheless be stronger. He believed in miracles. | |
| From: comment on Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Fragments: London 1943 p.149 | |
| A reaction: This is close to the obvious contradiction if the working classes despise the middle classes (the dreaded 'bourgeoisie') while their only aspiration is to be like them. It is hard to custom design a new class to which they could both aspire. |
| 18653 | Marx rejected equal rights because they never actually treat people as equals [Marx, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Marx rejected the idea of equal rights, not because he was not a friend to the idea of treating people as equals, but precisely because he thought rights failed to live up to that ideal. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 5.1 | |
| A reaction: Presumably because the power to award 'rights' goes to the highest bidder. If equality is to be enshrined in law, it is a bit difficult to see how else to manage it. |
| 20958 | Capitalism changes the world, by socialising the idea of a commodity [Marx, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: In Marx's view the essential factor in capitalism is that the encroachment of the commodity form into society fundamentally changes the world. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 6 'Historical' | |
| A reaction: The main point is that people and their labour become commodities. Haven't animals always been treated as commodities? Clearly slave were commodities, long before capitalism. Capitalism universalises it? |
| 23876 | The essence of capitalism is the subordination of people to things [Marx, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: Marx discovered a formula impossible to surpass when he said that the essence of capitalism lies in the subordination of subject to object, of man to thing. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Simone Weil - Fragments: London 1943 p,155 | |
| A reaction: I find this rather too vague to be a penetrating observation. I would suggest the obliteration of cooperation and community, in favour of competition. Winners and losers. |
| 20960 | Marx thought capitalism was partly liberating, and could make labour and ownership more humane [Marx, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Marx did not disapprove per se of capitalism. New divisions of labour and forms of ownership could transform individuals in modern societies, creating a more humane world with the means capitalism had liberated from feudalism. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (works [1860]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 11 'Metaphysics' | |
| A reaction: I'm guessing this might be early Marx, which has less to say about the 'scientific' inevitably of deep change, and the necessity for revolution. Nowadays we tinker with humane changes at the poorer end, while the rich run rampant. |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: To say 'leaves are for protecting of fruit', or that 'clouds are for watering the earth', is well inquired and collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent. They are hindrances, and the search of the physical causes hath been neglected. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.7) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard rebellion against Aristotle which gave rise to the birth of modern science. The story has been complicated by natural selection, which bestows a sort of purpose on living things. Nowadays we pursue both paths. |
| 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 |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: I assign to summary philosophy the operation of essences (as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility), with this distinction - that they be handled as they have efficacy in nature, and not logically. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a splendid motto for scientific essentialism, in a climate where modal logicians appear to have taken over the driving seat in our understanding of essences. |
| 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. |