7 ideas
19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
Full Idea: A proposition about an item exists only if that item exists... how could something be the proposition that that dog is barking in circumstances in which that dog does not exist? | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Necessary Existents [2002], p.240), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Propositions | |
A reaction: This is a view of propositions I can't make sense of. If I'm under an illusion that there is a dog barking nearby, when there isn't one, can I not say 'that dog is barking'? If I haven't expressed a proposition, what have I done? |
23903 | When we admire a work, we see ourselves as its creator [Weil] |
Full Idea: It is impossible to admire a work of art without thinking oneself, in a way, its creator and without, in a sense, becoming so. | |
From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1940-03c) | |
A reaction: This rings true for me. You almost see yourself making the brush strokes, or writing the phrase, or penning the chords. It is engagment which is essential for artistic experience. So all art lovers want to be artists? |
23901 | Relationships depend on equality, so unequal treatment kills them [Weil] |
Full Idea: I conceive human relations solely on the plane of equality; therefore, so soon as someone begins to treat me as an inferior, human relations between us become impossible in my eyes. | |
From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1936-03) | |
A reaction: Love that. This is precisely where equality starts. I fear that the problem is that people who don't treat others as equals don't want relationships with them, which particularly occurs in a competitive or hierarchical culture. |
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. |
23904 | The cruelty of the Old Testament put me off Christianity [Weil] |
Full Idea: I have always been kept away from Christianity by its ranking the Old Testament stories, so full of pitiless cruelty, as sacred texts. | |
From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1941-01) | |
A reaction: After 1938 she was a devout and intense Christian, but of a highly individual and platonist kind. Her religion is dominated by love and beauty. |
23902 | I attach little importance to immortality, which is an undecidable fact, and irrelevant to us [Weil] |
Full Idea: You attach great importance to the reasoning about immortality. I myself attach little. It is a factual question, which cannot be decided in advance by any reasoning. And what does it matter to us? | |
From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1937-04c) | |
A reaction: I love 'what does it matter to us?'. The idea that our future bliss or misery depends on how we live now is an utterly wicked fiction, which derails attempts to live a proper life. |