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All the ideas for 'works (all lost)', 'Reflections on Value' and 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

23881	All thought about values is philosophical, and thought about anything else is not philosophy [Weil]
	Full Idea: All reflections bearing on the notion of value and on the hierarchy of values is philosophical; all efforts of thought bearing on anything other than value are, if one examines them closely, foreign to philosophy.
	From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.30)
	A reaction: If nothing else proves that Weil is a platonist, this does. She, of course, has a transcendent and religious view of values, whereas I just see them as concepts which embody what is important. That said, I'm not far off agreeing with this.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent

23885	Philosophy aims to change the soul, not to accumulate knowledge [Weil]
	Full Idea: Philosophy does not consist in accumulating knowledge, as science does, but in changing the whole soul.
	From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33)
	A reaction: I agree, roughly. In the sense that philosophy is a much more personal matter than any pure pursuit of knowledge, such as geology. Though a life in geology could change your soul. Not just any old change, of course….

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems

23886	Systems are not unique to each philosopher. The platonist tradition is old and continuous [Weil]
	Full Idea: People believe that every philosopher has a system that contradicts all the others! But there is a tradition, genuinely philosophical, that is as old as humanity itself. …Plato is the most perfect representative of this tradition.
	From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.33)
	A reaction: I see roughly two traditions. If you believe in transcendence you follow Plato, like Simone. If you are a naturalist (like me) you follow Aristotle. A third tradition might be much more sceptical.

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 1. Truth

23884	Truth is a value of thought [Weil]
	Full Idea: Truth is a value of thought. The word 'truth' cannot have any other meaning.
	From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.32)
	A reaction: This makes a nice change from truth being a mere predicate. I would call truth the criterion of success in thought, and that counts as a value, so she is right.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / e. Means and ends

23882	Ends, unlike means, cannot be defined, which is why people tend to pursue means [Weil]
	Full Idea: Everything that can be taken as an end cannot be defined. Means, such as power and money, are easily defined, and that is why people orient themselves exclusively towards the acquisition of means.
	From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.31)
	A reaction: Nice, but too neat, because so many activities can be treated either as means or as ends, and often as both. It makes sense that people pursue what is clear to them.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / a. Normativity

23883	Minds essentially and always strive towards value [Weil]
	Full Idea: For the mind essentially and always, in whatever manner it is disposed, strives towards value.
	From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Value [1941], p.31)
	A reaction: A typically platonist thought. If you accept my view that values identify what is important, the thought is plausible. We might distinguish between what the mind pointlessly entertains, and what it 'strives' for.