4 ideas
| 22063 | Effective individuals must posit a specific material body for themselves [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Rational beings cannot posit themselves as effective individuals without ascribing to themselves a material body and determining it in doing so. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Rights [1797], p.87), quoted by Ludwig Siep - Fichte | |
| A reaction: To be free entails a belief that one is 'effective', and a body is our only concept for that. This seems to be a transcendental proof that the body must exist, which is a neat inverted move! The Self sustains the body, for Fichte. |
| 20486 | Only liberty, equality and sympathy can stand up to anti-social people [Kropotkin] |
| Full Idea: Liberty, equality and practical human sympathy are the only effective barriers we can oppose to the anti-social instincts of certain among us. | |
| From: Peter (Pyotr) Kropotkin (Law and Authority [1886], 1 'Anarchism'), quoted by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) | |
| A reaction: One might state it more succinctly as 'only the social can oppose the anti-social'. The dominance in society of essentially anti-social people seems to have become a major political fact in 2017, in the UK and the USA. |
| 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. |