95 ideas
| 19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro | |
| A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea. |
| 21955 | My dogmatic slumber was first interrupted by David Hume [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I freely admit that remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 4:260), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 5.2 | |
| A reaction: A famous declaration. He realised that he had the answer the many scepticisms of Hume, and accept his emphasis on the need for experience. |
| 4171 | Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 027) | |
| A reaction: I think what draws people to philosophy is an interest in whatever is timeless. Contingent reality is so frustrating and exhausting. Hence I agree. |
| 4186 | Everyone is conscious of all philosophical truths, but philosophers bring them to conceptual awareness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every person is conscious of all philosophical truths, but to bring them to conceptual awareness, to reflection, is the business of the philosopher. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.68) | |
| A reaction: I like this. All human beings are philosophical. It seems unlikely, though, that we are all pre-conceptually conscious of the higher levels of philosophical logic. |
| 12171 | Absurdity is incongruity between correct and false points of view [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The more correct the subsumption of objects from one point of view, and the greater and more glaring the incongruity from another point of view, the greater is the ludicrous effect which is produced by this contrast. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 013), quoted by Roger Scruton - Laughter §5 | |
| A reaction: This accounts for ludicrous humour, but there seem to be plenty of other types. Exceptional stupidity is usually amusing without necessarily being incongruous. Though it is a departure from the sensible norm. |
| 16931 | Metaphysics is generating a priori knowledge by intuition and concepts, leading to the synthetic [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The generation of knowledge a priori, both according to intuition and according to concepts, and finally the generation of synthetic propositions a priori in philosophical knowledge, constitutes the essential content of metaphysics. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 274) | |
| A reaction: By 'concepts' he implies mere analytic thought, so 'intuition' is where the exciting bit is, and that is rather vague. |
| 21366 | Metaphysics must understand the world thoroughly, as a principal source of knowledge [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The task of metaphysics is not to pass over experience in which the world exists, but to understand it thoroughly, since inner and outer experience are certainly the principal source of all knowledge. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 428), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: I wonder to what extent he meant ordinary experience, and to what extent he was advocating the study if science? |
| 1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26 |
| 1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95 |
| 8200 | Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine] |
| Full Idea: A real definition, according to the Aristotelian tradition, gives the essence of the kind of thing defined. Man is defined as a rational animal, and thus rationality and animality are of the essence of each of us. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Vagaries of Definition p.51 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 4385. Personally I prefer the Aristotelian approach, but we may have to say 'We cannot identify the essence of x, and so x cannot be defined'. Compare 'his mood was hard to define' with 'his mood was hostile'. |
| 4385 | Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, to give a definition one must first state the genus and then the differentia of the kind of thing to be defined. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.157 | |
| A reaction: Presumably a modern definition would just be a list of properties, but Aristotle seeks the substance. How does he define a genus? - by placing it in a further genus? |
| 13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12 | |
| A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit. |
| 4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional. |
| 16918 | Mathematics cannot proceed just by the analysis of concepts [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics cannot proceed analytically, namely by analysis of concepts, but only synthetically. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284) | |
| A reaction: I'm with Kant insofar as I take mathematics to be about the world, no matter how rarefied and 'abstract' it may become. |
| 16930 | Geometry is not analytic, because a line's being 'straight' is a quality [Kant] |
| Full Idea: No principle of pure geometry is analytic. That the straight line beween two points is the shortest is a synthetic proposition. For my concept of straight contains nothing of quantity but only of quality. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 269) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what his authority is for calling straightness a quality rather than a quantity, given that it can be expressed quantitatively. It is a very nice example for focusing our questions about the nature of geometry. I can't decide. |
| 16919 | Geometry rests on our intuition of space [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Geometry is grounded on the pure intuition of space. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284) | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that recent thinkers are coming round to this idea, having attempted purely algebraic or logical accounts of geometry. |
| 16920 | Numbers are formed by addition of units in time [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Arithmetic forms its own concepts of numbers by successive addition of units in time. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to imagine any modern philosopher of mathematics embracing this idea. It sounds as if Kant thinks counting is the foundation of arithmetic, which I quite like. |
| 16929 | 7+5 = 12 is not analytic, because no analysis of 7+5 will reveal the concept of 12 [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The concept of twelve is in no way already thought by merely thinking the unification of seven and five, and though I analyse my concept of such a possible sum as long as I please, I shall never find twelve in it. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 269) | |
| A reaction: It might be more plausible to claim that an analysis of 12 would reveal the concept of 7+5. Doesn't the concept of two collections of objects contain the concept of their combined cardinality? |
| 16910 | Mathematics can only start from an a priori intuition which is not empirical but pure [Kant] |
| Full Idea: We find that all mathematical knowledge has this peculiarity, that it must first exhibit its concept in intuition, and do so a priori, in an intuition that is not empirical but pure. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 281) | |
| A reaction: Later thinkers had grave doubts about this Kantian 'intuition', even if they though maths was known a priori. Personally I am increasing fan of rational intuition, even if I am not sure how to discern whether it is rational on any occasion. |
| 16917 | All necessary mathematical judgements are based on intuitions of space and time [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Space and time are the two intuitions on which pure mathematics grounds all its cognitions and judgements that present themselves as at once apodictic and necessary. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284) | |
| A reaction: This unlikely proposal seems to be based on the idea that mathematics must arise from the basic categories of our intuition, and these two are the best candidates he can find. I would say that high-level generality is the basis of mathematics. |
| 16928 | Mathematics cannot be empirical because it is necessary, and that has to be a priori [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Mathematical propositions are always judgements a priori, and not empirical, because they carry with them necessity, which cannot be taken from experience. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 268) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there are necessities in the physical world, and we might discern them by generalising about that world, so that mathematics is (by a tortuous abstract route) a posteriori necessary? Just a thought… |
| 4168 | Matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which only exist relatively, and for each other [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: In my system matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which exist only for each other, and so exist only relatively. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I.Supp) | |
| A reaction: A plausible picture, but built from dualist presuppositions. Personally I think intellect is built out of matter, so I am not going down Schopenhauer's road. |
| 21926 | Schopenhauer, unlike other idealists, says reality is irrational [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer radically departs from his fellow idealists in his assertion of the irrational character of reality. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: This is the rejection of the original confidence about rationality of the stoics. And yet Schopenauer saw the principle of sufficient reason as axiomatic. Not sure how to reconcile those. Lewis identifies this idea as 'Romantic'. |
| 4167 | The knowing subject and the crude matter of the world are both in themselves unknowable [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The world has two poles - the knowing subject and crude matter, which are both completely unknowable, the former because it is the knower, the latter because without form and quality it cannot be perceived. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: A nice concept, that all of reality comes from their relationship, but the two components are intrinsically unknowable. Does God the Knower know his own mind? |
| 11833 | The substance, once the predicates are removed, remains unknown to us [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It has long since been noticed that in all substances the subject proper, namely what is left over after all the accidents (as predicates) have been taken away and hence the 'substantial' itself, is unknown to us. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 333) | |
| A reaction: This is the terminus of the process of abstraction (though Wiggins says such removal of predicates is a myth). Kant is facing the problem of the bare substratum, or haecceity. |
| 13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
| 13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
| A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
| 5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle | |
| A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap. |
| 21957 | 'Transcendental' concerns how we know, rather than what we know [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The word 'transcendental' signifies not a relation of our cognition to things, but only to the faculty of cognition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 4:293), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 5.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the annoying abduction of a word which is very useful in metaphysical contexts. |
| 4165 | Descartes found the true beginning of philosophy with the Cogito, in the consciousness of the individual [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: By taking Cogito Ergo Sum as the only certainty, and by his provisionally regarding the existence of the world as problematical, the essential starting point of all philosophy was found, and its true focus in the subjective, the individual consciousness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: Some people think this was a disaster, not a triumph. Descartes could have doubted himself and accepted the world as his starting point. |
| 21923 | Schopenhauer can't use force/energy instead of 'will', because he is not a materialist [Lewis,PB on Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Some say Schopenhauer would be less misunderstood if he had used 'force' or 'energy' rather than 'will' to characterise inner natures. But this would have steered his idealism towards materialism, of which he was an avowed opponent. | |
| From: comment on Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: I presume therefore that Nietzsche's will to power is a commitment to materialism, since it occurs in material objects as well as minds. |
| 4162 | The world only exists in relation to something else, as an idea of the one who conceives it [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The world which surrounds man exists only as idea - that is, only in relation to something else, the one who conceives the idea, which is himself. If any truth can be enunciated a priori, it is this. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 001) | |
| A reaction: Yes, but the idea we have is of a real world. It is definitely not part of the idea that it is an idea (unlike my idea for a Christmas present). |
| 21922 | We know reality because we know our own bodies and actions [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The double knowledge of the nature and action of our own body is the key to the inner being of every phenomenon in nature. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 105), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: Lewis calls this 'the heart of his philosophy'. Bodily awareness comes from acts of willing. So Lewis says 'the thing-in-itself is revealed to us in willing'. We experience Being and causation. Is he trying to combine idealism with the thing-in-itself? |
| 16923 | I admit there are bodies outside us [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I do indeed admit that there are bodies outside us. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 289 n.II) | |
| A reaction: This is the end of a passage in which Kant very explicitly denies being an idealist. Of course, he says we can only know the representations of things, and not how they are in themselves. |
| 21441 | 'Transcendental' is not beyond experience, but a prerequisite of experience [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The word 'transcendental' does not mean something that goes beyond all experience, but something which, though it precedes (a priori) all experience, is destined only to make knowledge by experience possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 373 n) | |
| A reaction: One of two explanations by Kant of 'transcendental', picked out by Sebastian Gardner. I think the word 'prerequisite' covers the idea nicely, using a normal English word. Or am I missing something? |
| 21913 | Kant rightly separates appearance and thing-in-itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Kant's greatest merit is the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 417 App), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 3 | |
| A reaction: This is Schopenhauer firmly opposing the Absolute Idealism of Kant's successors, who dismissed the 'thing-in-itsef'. |
| 11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
| 16916 | A priori synthetic knowledge is only of appearances, not of things in themselves [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Through intuition we can only know objects as they appear to us (to our senses), not as they may be in themselves; and this presupposition is absolutely necessary if synthetic propositions a priori are to be granted as possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283) | |
| A reaction: This idea is basic to understanding Kant, and especially his claim that arithmetic is a priori synthetic. |
| 16915 | A priori intuitions can only concern the objects of our senses [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Intuitions which are possible a priori can never concern any other things than objects of our senses. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283) | |
| A reaction: Given the Kantian idea that what is known a priori will also be necessary, we might have had great hopes for big-time metaphysics, but this idea cuts it down to size. Personally, I don't think we are totally imprisoned in the phenomena. |
| 16914 | A priori intuition of objects is only possible by containing the form of my sensibility [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The only way for my intuition to precede the reality of the object and take place as knowledge a priori is if it contains nothing else than the form of sensibility which in me as subject precedes all real impressions through which I'm affected by objects. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283) | |
| A reaction: This may be the single most famous idea in Kant. I'm not really a Kantian, but this is a powerful idea, the culmination of Descartes' proposal to start philosophy by looking at ourselves. No subsequent thinking can ignore the idea. |
| 21447 | I can make no sense of the red experience being similar to the quality in the object [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I can make little sense of the assertion that the sensation of red is similar to the property of the vermilion [cinnabar] which excites this sensation in me. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 290) | |
| A reaction: A sensible remark. In Kant's case it is probably a part of his scepticism that his intuitions reveal anything directly about reality. Locke seems to have thought (reasonably enough) that the experience contains some sort of valid information. |
| 16924 | I count the primary features of things (as well as the secondary ones) as mere appearances [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I also count as mere appearances, in addition to [heat, colour, taste], the remaining qualities of bodies which are called primariae, extension, place, and space in general, with all that depends on it (impenetrability or materiality, shape etc.). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 289 n.II) | |
| A reaction: He sides with Berkeley and Hume against Locke and Boyle. He denies being an idealist (Idea 16923), so it seems to me that Kant might be described as a 'phenomenalist'. |
| 16913 | I can't intuit a present thing in itself, because the properties can't enter my representations [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It seems inconceivable how the intuition of a thing that is present should make me know it as it is in itself, for its properties cannot migrate into my faculty of representation. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282) | |
| A reaction: One might compare this with Locke's distinction of primary and secondary, where the primary properties seem to 'migrate into my faculty of representation', but the secondary ones fail to do so. I think I prefer Locke. This idea threatens idealism. |
| 4164 | Direct feeling of the senses are merely data; perception of the world comes with understanding causes [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: What the eye, the ear, or the hand feels, is not perception, it is merely data. Only when the understanding passes from the effect to the cause does the world lie before us as perception extended in space. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 004) | |
| A reaction: These certainly seems to be a sense-data theory. Philosophers are much more ready to separate the data from the understanding than neuroscientists are. |
| 4163 | All perception is intellectual [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: All perception is intellectual. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 004) | |
| A reaction: Even in slugs? I suspect that this is a tautology. Schopenhauer will only allow my vision or hearing to become 'perception' when an intellectual element enters into it. |
| 23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
| A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
| 16925 | Appearance gives truth, as long as it is only used within experience [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Appearance brings forth truth so long as it is used in experience, but as soon as it goes beyond the boundary of experience and becomes transcendent, it brings forth nothing but illusion. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 292 n.III) | |
| A reaction: This is the nearest I have found to Kant declaring for empiricism. It sounds something like direct realism, if experience itself can bring forth truth. |
| 16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
| 16911 | Intuition is a representation that depends on the presence of the object [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Intuition is a representation, such as would depend on the presence of the object. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282) | |
| A reaction: This is a distinctively Kantian view of intuition, which arises through particulars, rather than the direct apprehension of generalities. |
| 16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
| Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
| 11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
| A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
| 3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
| 12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
| A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
| 4166 | A consciousness without an object is no consciousness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: A consciousness without an object is no consciousness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: This hints at Hume's observations about the self. Certainly totally vacant consciousness seems inconceivable, but is that a necessary or a contingent truth? |
| 21369 | We have hidden and unadmitted desires and fears, suppressed because of vanity [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We often do not know what we desire or fear. For years we can have a desire without admitting it to ourselves ....because the intellect is not to know anything about it, since the good opinion we have of ourselves would inevitably suffer thereby. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 210), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 5 'Will' | |
| A reaction: The idea of unconscious thought crept up well before Freud. It is in La Rochefoucauld, and important in Nietzsche. Neuroscience seems to give it a strong priority over the conscious mind, which is a revolutionary idea. |
| 21367 | I know both aspects of my body, as representation, and as will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: My body is the only object of which I know not merely the one side, that of the representation, but also the other, that is called 'will'. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 125), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that knowledge of the body through the will (and action, presumably) constitutes a different sort of knowledge. Philosophers are always trying to split the world in two (but not Nietzsche!). |
| 4175 | It is as perverse to resent our individuality being replaced by others, as to resent the body renewing itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: It is as perverse to desire the continuity of one's individuality which is being replaced by other individuals, as to desire the permanence of the body's substance which is always being replaced by new substance. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.54) | |
| A reaction: If I let that go, what am I supposed to hang on to? Nothing? Non-existence is not an attractive condition to aspire to. |
| 4176 | We all regard ourselves a priori as free, but see from experience that character and motive compel us [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Everyone regards himself a priori as free in his individual actions, and only a posteriori sees that necessarily his actions follow from the coincidence of character with motives. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.55) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what experience shows. Necessity seems more obvious when observing other people. Samuel Johnson said experience showed freedom, not necessity. |
| 4170 | Man's actions are not free, because they follow strictly from impact of motive on character [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Man's action have been interpreted as free, which they are not, for every individual action follows with strict necessity from the impact of motive on character. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 023) | |
| A reaction: If 'character is fate' (Heraclitus) then presumably motive must also be fate to complete the determinist picture. I shall spend the next year redesigning my motivation. |
| 23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
| A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
| 16912 | Some concepts can be made a priori, which are general thoughts of objects, like quantity or cause [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Concepts are of such a nature that we can make some of them ourselves a priori, without standing in any immediate relation to the object; namely concepts that contain the thought of an object in general, such as quantity or cause. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282) | |
| A reaction: 'Quantity' seems to be the scholastic idea, of something having a magnitude (a big pebble, not six pebbles). |
| 16926 | Analytic judgements say clearly what was in the concept of the subject [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Analytic judgements say nothing in the predicate that was not already thought in the concept of the subject, though not so clearly and with the same consciousness. If I say all bodies are extended, I have not amplified my concept of body in the least. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 266) | |
| A reaction: If I say all bodies are made of atoms, have I extended my concept of 'body'? It would come as a sensational revelation for Aristotle, but it now seems analytic. |
| 16927 | Analytic judgement rests on contradiction, since the predicate cannot be denied of the subject [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Analytic judgements rest wholly on the principle of contradiction, …because the predicate cannot be denied of the subject without contradiction. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 267) | |
| A reaction: So if I say 'gold has atomic number 79', that is a (Kantian) analytic statement? This is the view of sceptics about Kripke's a posteriori necessity. …a few lines later Kant gives 'gold is a yellow metal' as an example. |
| 11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
| 4169 | Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 018) | |
| A reaction: The word 'act' seems to beg the question (as does 'true'!). I am no longer sure that I know what an act of will is. Hobbes says there is no such thing. |
| 7187 | Schopenhauer was caught in Christian ideals, because he didn't deify his 'will' [Nietzsche on Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer's interpretation of the in-itself as will was an essential step: but he didn't know how to deify the will, and remained caught in the moral, Christian ideal | |
| From: comment on Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 9[42] | |
| A reaction: Intriguingly, this seems to suggest that Nietzsche consciously sought to replace the absence of God with the human will, which strikes me as an odd, and very nineteenth century, idea. Loss of religion bothered them a lot. |
| 21365 | Only the will is thing-in-itself, seen both in blind nature and in human action [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Only the will is thing-in-itself. ...It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man, and the great difference between the two concerns only the degree of the manifestation. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 110), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: If will acts 'blindly' in forces of nature, then these seems to be the same concept as Nietzsche's 'will to power'. This seems to be heading towards Heidegger's Dasein, as a central and distinctive mode of being. |
| 4173 | If we were essentially intellect rather than will, our moral worth would depend on imagined motives [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: If, as all philosophers imagine, the intellect is our actual nature and the will is arrived at through knowledge, then only the motive from which we imagined we were acting would decide our moral worth. Imagined and true motive would be indistinguishable. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II Supp) | |
| A reaction: A nice argument. If motive is morally decisive, it is certainly crucial to decide between real and imagined motive (especially since Freud). But uncontrollable motive seems morally irrelevant. |
| 21370 | Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer belongs to a tradition which equates aesthetic experience with a 'disinterested' attitude towards its object, and is often cited as one of the chief proponents of such a view. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
| A reaction: 'Disinterested' is quite a nice word for one's attitude to art, though you then have to capture why you are also involved in it. |
| 4182 | A principal pleasure of the beautiful is that it momentarily silences the will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The momentary silencing of all volition …is one of the principal elements in our pleasure in the beautiful. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.65) | |
| A reaction: Iris Murdoch sees moral value in beauty, because it overrides selfishness. The perception of beauty is certainly something deeper than just another nice feeling. There is a cognitive element to it. |
| 21928 | The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Exaltation of the Sublime is the struggle to maintain will-less knowing in the face of a threat to the human will. The Sublime contains an awful beauty and a delightful terror because it includes a threat to human existence. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 201-7) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 5 | |
| A reaction: Can you experience the Sublime when looking down a microscope? Can a mere theory in cosmology be sublime? Can a supposed perception of the Sublime ever be incorrect? We no longer worry about these questions, it seems. |
| 21927 | Schopenhauer emphasises Ideas in art, unlike most romantics [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: The emphasis on the presentation of Platonic Ideas distinguishes Schopenhauer's theory of art from standard Romantic theories, which emphasize the expression of emotion and feeling. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 5 | |
| A reaction: Theories of art that neglect ideas, even if subliminally expressed, have gone badly wrong. |
| 8116 | The will-less contemplation of art brings a liberation from selfhood [Schopenhauer, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: For Schopenhauer, the point of art lies in the metaphysical liberation from selfhood that will-less aesthetic contemplation induces. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.6.3 | |
| A reaction: I've never understood why anyone (Buddhists included) would want 'liberation from selfhood'. Certainly art can make us forget ourselves in a more objective view of things, but science can do that too. |
| 4174 | Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], III 41) | |
| A reaction: A bit of a shock, because it implies human vanity, but it fits the best works of art rather well. What else reveals humanity's beauty? Beautiful deeds must be recorded. |
| 21380 | The only aim of our existence is to grasp that non-existence would be better [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Nothing else can be stated as the aim of our existence except the knowledge that it would be better for us not to exist. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 605), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 8 'Denial' | |
| A reaction: Nonsense on stilts. Nietzsche rebelled against this. If there is such 'knowledge' then it obviously has nothing to do with the aim of our existence. It is just a rejection of aims. The aim is making the best of existence, not spurning it. |
| 21374 | We should no more expect ethical theory to produce good people than aesthetics to produce artists [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We should be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics would create virtuous, noble and hold men, as that our aesthetics would produce poets, painterd and musicians. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 271), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 7 'Against' | |
| A reaction: Presumably the aim of ethical theory is to understand the truths about ethics. That can't do any harm, can it? In every other area of life we think that understanding leads to improvement. Unless, of course, there are no truths of ethics.... |
| 6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586! |
| 4181 | Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.65) | |
| A reaction: A nice way of stating the core of moral relativism. To me, though, it just seems a rejection of morality. Conflicting wills bring moral paralysis. Might is right. |
| 5649 | Will casts aside each of its temporary fulfilments, so human life has no ultimate aim [Schopenhauer, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Since for Schopenhauer will has no intrinsic end, but breaks through all its temporary fulfilments and casts them aside as irrelevant once attained, it becomes impossible to assert that there is any ultimate aim to human activity. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |
| A reaction: This sums up part of the modern anti-teleological view of life, with its notion of purposes which can only arise out of consciousnesses. Such a view leaves untouched the key question, which is "What should I will?" |
| 4177 | Most people would probably choose non-existence at the end of their life, rather than relive the whole thing [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps no one at the end of his life, if he gives the matter sober consideration and is, at the same time, frank, ever wishes to live it over again; he more readily chooses non-existence. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.59) | |
| A reaction: Hence Nietzsche's doctrine of 'eternal return' (Gay Science §341, idea 2936). From Schopenhauer it is just bleak pessimism, but from Nietzsche it is a wonderful challenge to live, perhaps the best ever. |
| 4185 | Altruistic people make less distinction than usual between themselves and others [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: If we observe an altruistic action the simplest explanation and the essential character of the person's conduct is that they make less distinction than is usually made between themselves and others. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: Obvious, really, but Schopenhauer is talking about the will. Is the effacement of the Self desirable, apart from the benefit it might bring to other people. I don't find it appealing. |
| 4183 | Only self-love can motivate morality, but that also makes it worthless [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: A theory of morals which motivates can only do so by working on self-love, but what springs from this latter has no moral worth. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: I just don't believe this pessimism. Schopenhauer was an incipient social darwinist who needed a course in modern game theory. Or he just needed to be a nicer man. |
| 4172 | Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We are fortunate if we keep up the game whereby desire passes into satisfaction, and satisfaction into new desire - if the pace of this is swift, it is called happiness, and if it is slow, sorrow. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 029) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the dream of the addict, as Socrates points out with his example of the leaky jar in 'Gorgias'. Should we want more desires? |
| 21371 | We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: So long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never attain lasting happiness or peace. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 196), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
| A reaction: I hate this idea. It obviously leads to his Buddhism, and the eastern idea that life is generally a bad idea and to be avoided. I think Nietzsche rebelled strongly against this attitude of Schopenhauer's. |
| 4184 | Virtue must spring from an intuitive recognition that other people are essentially like us [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Virtue must spring from that intuitive knowledge which recognises in the individuality of others the same essence as in our own. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: After all his pessimism, he arrives at a view similar to Hume's, that morality is built on natural empathy. But why built a moral theory on one base. Everything points us towards morality! Moral actions are more beautiful. |
| 11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. | |
| From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance. |
| 3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead." | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11 |
| 4179 | The essence of nature is the will to life itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The essence of nature is the will to life itself. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.60) | |
| A reaction: How would he have responded to Darwin? The will to life is the product, there, of a different and more remote force, such as the 'energy' of the physicist (whatever that is!). |
| 8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
| 12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
| A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
| 16922 | Space must have three dimensions, because only three lines can meet at right angles [Kant] |
| Full Idea: That complete space …has three dimensions, and that space in general cannot have more, is built on the proposition that not more than three lines can intersect at right angles in a point. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 285) | |
| A reaction: Modern geometry seems to move, via the algebra, to more than three dimensions, and then battles for an intuition of how that can be. I don't know how they would respond to Kant's challenge here. |
| 16921 | If all empirical sensation of bodies is removed, space and time are still left [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If everything empirical, namely what belongs to sensation, is taken away from the empirical intuition of bodies and their changes (motion), space and time are still left. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284) | |
| A reaction: This is an exercise in psychological abstraction, which doesn't sound like good evidence, though it is an interesting claim. Physicists want to hijack this debate, but I like Kant's idea. |
| 22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20 | |
| A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul). |
| 4178 | Christianity is a pessimistic religion, in which the world is equated with evil [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Let no one think that Christianity is conducive to optimism; on the contrary, in the Gospels 'world' and 'evil' are used almost synonymously. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.59) | |
| A reaction: The source of Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil'. Do any religions throw you vigorously back into the middle of life, with its conflict and creativity? |
| 4180 | Religion is the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: All systems of religion are the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.63) | |
| A reaction: Is this a compliment? It seems to be, because at least the mysteries are identified and given an outward form. A nice thought. |