36 ideas
| 6848 | Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Humour, for me, is practically enacted philosophy. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
| A reaction: This may be overstating it, as the funniest jokes may be the least philosophical, and remarks may be faintly amusing but very profound. Lear and his Fool make up a single worldview together. |
| 6847 | Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Humour provides an oblique phenomenology of ordinary life; it is a way of describing the situation of our existence, and, at its best, it indicates how we might change that situation. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
| A reaction: The trouble is that this leads us to relentlessly political standup comedians who aren't very funny. Critichley may have a problem with remarks which are very funny precisely because they are so politically incorrect. I sympathise, though. |
| 21474 | Metaphysics studies the inexplicable ends of explanation [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The plummet touches the bottom of the sea now at a greater depth, now at a less, but is bound to reach it somewhere sooner or later; the study of this inexplicable devolves upon metaphysics. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:1) | |
| A reaction: This definition of metapysics contains the germ of despair about the subject. Does he hope that metaphysicians can explain what nobody else can? |
| 6844 | Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Scientism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained through the methodology of the natural sciences, and the belief that, therefore, all phenomena are capable of a causal explanation. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.196) | |
| A reaction: He links two ideas together, but I tend to subscribe fully to the second idea, but less fully to the first. Scientific method, if there is such a thing (Idea 6804), may not be the best way to lay bare the causal network of reality. |
| 6835 | German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: In his Third Critique Kant established a series of dualisms (pure/practical reason, nature/freedom, epistemology/ethics) but failed to provide a unifying principle; German idealism can be seen as an attempt to provide this principle. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.187) | |
| A reaction: He cites 'subject', 'spirit', 'art', 'will to power', 'praxis' and 'being' as candidates. This is a helpful overview for someone struggling to get to grips with that tradition. |
| 6837 | Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: In continental philosophy from Hegel onwards, systematic philosophical questions have to be linked to socio-historical enquiry, and the distinctions between philosophy, history and society begin to fall apart. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
| A reaction: I have a strong sales resistance to this view of philosophy, just as I would if it was said about mathematics. It seems to imply a bogus view that history exhibits direction and purpose (the 'Whig' view). There are pure reasons among the prejudices. |
| 6836 | Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: If reason must criticise itself (in Kant) how does one avoid total scepticism? In my view, the problem that has animated the continental tradition since Jacobi (early 19th cent) is the threat of nihilism. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
| A reaction: As an outsider to 'continental' philosophy, this is the most illuminating remark I have read about it. It is not only a plausible account of the movement, but also a very worth aim, which should be taken seriously by analytical philosophers. |
| 6838 | Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: The basic map of the continental tradition can be summarised in three terms: critique, praxis and emancipation. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.189) | |
| A reaction: I wince at 'emancipation', which seems to take freedom as of unquestionably high value, instead of being one of the principles up for question in social philosophy. There are more presuppositions in Marxist than in analytical philosophy. |
| 6845 | Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: In continental philosophy there is a pernicious tendency to explain everything in terms of 'one big thing', such as the 'death drive' (Freud), 'being' (Heidegger), 'the real' (Lacan), 'power' (Foucault), 'the other' (Levinas), or 'différance' (Derrida). | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.197) | |
| A reaction: From a fan of this type of philosophy, this is a refreshing remark, because if pinpoints a very off-putting feature. Each of these 'big things' should be up for question, not offered as axiomatic assumptions that explain everything else. |
| 6846 | Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenology (as in the later Husserl) is for me a way of assembling reminders which clarify the social world in which we exist; it is a technique of redescription. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure if I can identify with this as a target for philosophy, but it is interesting and sound worthy of effort. Critchley offers this as the best strand in 'continental' philosophy, rather than the big explanatory ideas. |
| 21470 | For me the objective thing-in-itself is the will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Thing in itself signifies that which exists independently of our perception, that which actually is; …to Kant it was '= x'; to me it is will. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IV:61) | |
| A reaction: Does he mean his own will, which is plausible since he has direct experience of it, or is he referring will in general - whatever that is? |
| 21479 | Knowledge is not power! Ignorant people possess supreme authority [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge is power. The devil it is! One man can have a great deal of knowledge without its giving him the least power, while another possesses supreme authority but next to no knowledge. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:43) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to Bacon's famous adage. Bacon may be right about military affairs, but not about politics. |
| 21476 | A priori propositions are those we could never be seriously motivated to challenge [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: A dictate of reason is the name we give to certain propositions which we hold to be true without investigation, and of which we think ourselves so firmly convinced we should be incapable of seriously testing them even if we wanted to. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:12) | |
| A reaction: This is closer to the cautious way modern thinkers are inclined to express the idea. Even Quine would be reasonably happy with this. |
| 21473 | All knowledge and explanation rests on the inexplicable [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable. It is to this that every explanation, through few or many intermediary stages, leads. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:1) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously true, and the only question is whether it is a necessary or a contingent truth. |
| 21478 | Half our thinking is unconscious, and we reach conclusions while unaware of premises [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: One might almost believe that half our thinking takes place unconsciously.. Usually we arrive at a conclusion without having clearly thought about the premises which lead to it. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:40) | |
| A reaction: Schopenhauer was a major pioneer of this crucial idea. I'm beginning to think it is much greater than a half. |
| 21477 | We don't control our own thinking [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Thoughts come not when we want but when they want. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:37) | |
| A reaction: One of my favourite Nietzsche ideas originated in Schopenhauer! |
| 21475 | All of our concepts are borrowed from perceptual knowledge [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The entire property of a concept consists in nothing more than what has been begged and borrowed from perceptual knowledge, which is the true and inexhaustible source of all insight. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:9) | |
| A reaction: Schopenhauer is usually seen as a sort of idealist, but this is a full endorsement of the empirical view of concepts, to which I largely subscribe. Note that he talks of 'knowledge', rather than of 'experience'. |
| 21372 | Aesthetics concerns how we can take pleasure in an object, with no reference to the will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The central problem of aesthetics is how satisfaction with and pleasure in an object are possible without any reference thereof to our willing. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], II:415), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
| A reaction: This does seem a good distinction. We can divide pleasures into willed and unwilled. Compare thinking that some remote stranger (in a photograph) is very beautiful, with falling in love with someone. |
| 21488 | The beautiful is a perception of Plato's Forms, which eliminates the will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: In the beautiful we always perceive the intrinsic and primary form of animate and inanimate nature, that is to say Plato's Ideas thereof. …When an aesthetic perception occurs the will completely vanishes from consciousness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XIX:205) | |
| A reaction: An essential Schopenauer idea. Iris Murdoch said something similar. |
| 21483 | Man is essentially a dreadful wild animal [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Man is at bottom a dreadful wild animal. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:114) | |
| A reaction: As an example he cites the slave owners in the United States. |
| 21466 | Pleasure is weaker, and pain stronger, than we expect [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: As a rule we find pleasure much less pleasurable, pain much more painful than we expected. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:149) | |
| A reaction: Never go on holiday with Schopenhauer. This is more accurate about pain, I think. |
| 21484 | A man's character can be learned from a single characteristic action [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: As a botanist can recognise the whole plant from one leaf, …so an accurate knowledge of a man's character can be arrived at from a single characteristic action. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:118) | |
| A reaction: Very true. Great novelists specialise in such observations. One word can reveal a character, as well as one action. |
| 21482 | The five Chinese virtues: pity, justice, politeness, wisdom, honesty [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The Chinese name five cardinal virtues: pity, justice, politeness, wisdom and honesty. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:110) | |
| A reaction: I like politeness being on the list, though it seems rather superficial to be a virtue of character. Respect would be better. |
| 21481 | Buddhists wisely start with the cardinal vices [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Because of their profounder ethical and metaphysical insight, the Buddhists start not with the cardinal virtues but with cardinal vices, …which are lust, sloth, wrath and avarice (and maybe hatred). | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:110) | |
| A reaction: This may be right. Our lives are affected much more by the vices of others than by their virtues, and most virtuous behaviour aims at rectifying the bad effects of other people's vices. |
| 6843 | Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: If nihilism is the threat of the collapse of meaning, then my position is that one has to accept meaninglessness as an achievement, as an accomplishment that permits a transformed relation to everyday life. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.193) | |
| A reaction: This sounds cheerfully upbeat and life-enhancing, but I don't quite see how it works. One could easily end up laughing at the most appalling tragedies, and that seems to me to be an inappropriate (Aristotelian word) way to respond to tragedy. |
| 21480 | Boredom is only felt by those clever enough to need activity [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Only in the cleverest animals such as dogs and apes does the need for activity, and with that boredom, make itself felt. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:50) | |
| A reaction: But it is much more frequently young creatures, of almost any kind, that seek constant activity, and get continually restless. The most active adults need not be the cleverest. |
| 21469 | Human life is a mistake, shown by boredom, which is direct awareness of the fact [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Human life must be some kind of mistake. ...Boredom is a direct proof that existence is in itself valueless, for boredom is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XI:146) | |
| A reaction: I think it is a good advertisement for existentialism that it makes something more out of boredom than Schopenhauer does. |
| 21485 | The state only exists to defend citizens, from exterior threats, and from one another [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The state is essentially no more than an institution for the protection of the whole against attacks from without, and the protection of its individual members from attacks by one another. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:123) | |
| A reaction: He then has a swipe at Hegel for his inflated idea of the importance of the state. Schopenhauer is close to Hobbes on this one. |
| 21486 | Poverty and slavery are virtually two words for the same thing [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Poverty and slavery are only two forms - on might almost say two words for - the same thing, the essence of which is that a man's energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:125) | |
| A reaction: The modern world is full of people who righteously despise slavery, but think only of the poor that it serves them right. |
| 21487 | The freedom of the press to sell poison outweighs its usefulness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Freedom of the press must be regarded as a permit to sell poison. …I very much fear, therefore, that the dangers of press freedom outweigh its usefulness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:127) | |
| A reaction: On the whole the modern world disagrees with this view, but watching the popular press in Britain in the last twenty years has made me sympathise with Schopenhauer. |
| 21471 | If suicide was quick and easy, most people would have done it by now [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps there is no one alive who would not already have put an end to his life if this end were something purely negative, a sudden cessation of existence. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XIII:158) | |
| A reaction: Nonsense, on the whole, but it is a nice question how many people would do it if it only took a painless instant. |
| 21467 | Would humanity still exist if sex wasn't both desired and pleasurable? [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: If the act of procreation were neither the outcome of a desire nor accompanied by feelings of pleasure, but a matter to be decided on the basis of purely rational considerations, is it likely the human race would still exist? | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:156) | |
| A reaction: This is almost certainly correct in the modern world. In tougher economic circumstances people seem desperate to have children who will help them survive. |
| 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. |
| 21472 | Only religion introduces serious issues to uneducated people [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Religion is the only means of introducing some notion of the high significance of life into the uncultivated heads of the masses. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XV:174) | |
| A reaction: Cf Philip Larkin's poem 'Church Going'. On the whole Schopenhauer didn't actually believe that our lives had any 'high significance'. |
| 21468 | The Creator created the possibilities for worlds, so should have made a better one than this possible [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The Creator created not only the world, but also created possibility itself; therefore he should have created the possibility of a better world than this one. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:156) | |
| A reaction: This is explicitly a response to Leibniz's claim that the Creator selected the best of all possible worlds from the available options. The Euthyphro Question hovers here: must the Creator accept what is possible (the platonic view), or create possibility? |