59 ideas
12274 | Begin examination with basics, and subdivide till you can go no further [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The examination must be carried on and begin from the primary classes and then go on step by step until further division is impossible. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 109b17) | |
A reaction: This is a good slogan for the analytic approach to thought. I take Aristotle (or possibly Socrates) to be the father of analysis, not Frege (though see Idea 9840). (He may be thinking of the tableau method of proof). |
17729 | Examining concepts can recover information obtained through the senses [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: My idea is that conceptual examination might be a way of recovering information previously obtained through the senses. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.8) | |
A reaction: Now you're talking! This is really interesting conceptual analysis, rather than the sort of stamp-collecting approach to analsis practised by the duller sort of philosopher. But why bother with conceptual examination, when you have senses? |
20744 | Phenomenologists say all experience is about something and is directed [Aho] |
Full Idea: Phenomenologists agree that all experience has an intentional structure, that is, my experience is always about or of something; it is always directed towards an object. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], 2 'Phenomenology') | |
A reaction: I am just beginning to grasp that the analytic debates about perception are a re-enactment of the Kantian debates about the thing-in-itself. This is the sort of idea you find in McDowell. Presumably the idea denies the Given, and raw sense-data. |
12260 | Dialectic starts from generally accepted opinions [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Reasoning is dialectical which reasons from generally accepted opinions. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 100a30) | |
A reaction: This is right at the heart of Aristotle's philosophical method, and Greek thinking generally. There are nice modern debates about 'folk' understanding, derived from science (e.g. quantum theory) which suggest that starting from normal views is a bad idea. |
12291 | There can't be one definition of two things, or two definitions of the same thing [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There cannot possibly be one definition of two things, or two definitions of the same thing. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 154a11) | |
A reaction: The second half of this is much bolder and more controversial, and plenty of modern thinkers would flatly reject it. Are definitions contextual, that is, designed for some specific human purpose. Must definitions be of causes? |
12292 | Definitions are easily destroyed, since they can contain very many assertions [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A definition is the easiest of all things to destroy; for, since it contains many assertions, the opportunities which it offers are very numerous, and the more abundant the material, the more quickly the reasoning can set to work. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 155a03) | |
A reaction: I quote this to show that Aristotle expected many definitions to be very long affairs (maybe even of book length?) |
12261 | Differentia are generic, and belong with genus [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The differentia, being generic in character, should be ranged with the genus. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 101b18) | |
A reaction: This does not mean that naming the differentia amounts to mere classification. I presume we can only state individual differences by using a language which is crammed full of universals. |
12263 | 'Genus' is part of the essence shared among several things [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A 'genus' is that which is predicated in the category of essence of several things which differ in kind. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102a32) | |
A reaction: Hence a genus is likely to be expressed by a universal, a one-over-many. A particular will be a highly individual collection of various genera, but what ensures the uniqueness of each thing, if they are indiscernible? |
12272 | We describe the essence of a particular thing by means of its differentiae [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: We usually isolate the appropriate description of the essence of a particular thing by means of the differentiae which are peculiar to it. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 108b05) | |
A reaction: I take this to be important for showing the definition is more than mere categorisation. A good definition homes in the particular, by gradually narrowing down the differentiae. |
12279 | The differentia indicate the qualities, but not the essence [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: No differentia indicates the essence [ti estin], but rather some quality, such as 'pedestrian' or 'biped'. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 122b17) | |
A reaction: We must disentangle this, since essence is what is definable, and definition seems to give us the essence, and yet it appears that definition only requires genus and differentia. Differentiae seem to be both generic and fine-grained. See Idea 12280! |
12283 | In definitions the first term to be assigned ought to be the genus [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: In definitions the first term to be assigned ought to be the genus. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 132a12) | |
A reaction: We mustn't be deluded into thinking that nothing else is required. I take the increasing refinement of differentiae to be where the real action is. The genus gives you 70% of the explanation. |
12289 | The genera and the differentiae are part of the essence [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The genera and the differentiae are predicated in the category of essence. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 153a19) | |
A reaction: The definition is words, and the essence is real, so our best definition might not fully attain to the essence. Aristotle has us reaching out to the world through our definitions. |
12285 | The definition is peculiar to one thing, not common to many [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The definition ought to be peculiar to one thing, not common to many. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 149b24) | |
A reaction: I take this to be very important, against those who think that definition is no more than mere categorisation. To explain, you must get down to the level of the individual. We must explain that uniquely docile tiger. |
17740 | Instead of correspondence of proposition to fact, look at correspondence of its parts [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Instead of considering only a proposition's 'correspondence to the facts', we should also consider the correspondence between parts of the proposition and parts of the world (a 'correspondence-as-congruence' view). | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Final - Branching) | |
A reaction: This is something like Russell's Othello example (1912), except that the parts there, with relations seemed to add up to the whole proposition. For Jenkins, presumably parts might correspond, but the whole proposition fail to. |
11261 | Puzzles arise when reasoning seems equal on both sides [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The equality of opposite reasonings is the cause of aporia; for it is when we reason on both [sides of a question] and it appears to us that everything can come about either way, that we are in a state of aporia about which of the two ways to take up. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 145b17), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.1 | |
A reaction: Other philosophers give up on the subject in this situation, but I love Aristotle because he takes this to be the place where philosophy begins. |
12273 | Unit is the starting point of number [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: They say that the unit [monada] is the starting point of number (and the point the starting-point of a line). | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 108b30) | |
A reaction: Yes, despite Frege's objections in the early part of the 'Grundlagen' (1884). I take arithmetic to be rooted in counting, despite all abstract definitions of number by Frege and Dedekind. Identity gives the unit, which is countable. See also Topics 141b9 |
17730 | Combining the concepts of negation and finiteness gives the concept of infinity [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: We might arrive to the concept of infinity by composing concepts of negation and finiteness. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Presumably lots of concepts can be arrived at by negating prior concepts (such as not-wet, not-tall, not-loud, not-straight). So not-infinite is perfectly plausible, and is a far better account than some a priori intuition of pure infinity. Love it. |
17719 | Arithmetic concepts are indispensable because they accurately map the world [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: The indispensability of arithmetical concepts is evidence that they do in fact accurately represent features of the independent world. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Intro) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be by far the best account of the matter. So why is the world so arithmetical? Dunno, mate; ask someone else. |
17717 | Senses produce concepts that map the world, and arithmetic is known through these concepts [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I propose that arithmetical truths are known through an examination of our own arithmetical concepts; that basic arithmetical concepts map the arithmetical structure of the world; that the map obtains in virtue of our normal sensory apparatus. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Pref) | |
A reaction: She defends the nice but unusual position that arithmetical knowledge is both a priori and empirical (so that those two notions are not, as usually thought, opposed). I am a big Carrie Jenkins fan. |
17724 | It is not easy to show that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: A problem for the neo-Fregeans is that it has not proved easy to establish that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.3) | |
A reaction: It is also asked how we would know the principle, if it is indeed analytic or definitional (Jenkins p.119). |
17727 | We can learn about the world by studying the grounding of our concepts [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: What concept grounding does for us is ensure that our concepts, like the results of our empirical tests, can be treated as a source of information about the independent world. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.4) | |
A reaction: Presumably we learn our concepts hand-in-hand with experience, so learning our concepts is itself learning about the world. Later checking of concepts and their relations largely confirms what we already knew? |
17720 | There's essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive dependence [Jenkins, by PG] |
Full Idea: Dependence comes in essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive forms. | |
From: report of Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 1.2) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: You'll have to look up Jenkins for the details. |
12267 | There are ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The four main types of predicates fall into ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103b20) | |
A reaction: These are the standard ten categories of Aristotle. He is notable for the divisions not being sharp, and ten being a rough total. He is well aware of the limits of precision in such matters. |
17728 | The concepts we have to use for categorising are ones which map the real world well [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Concepts which are indispensably useful for categorising, understanding, explaining, and predicting our sensory input are likely to be ones which map the structure of that input well. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.6) | |
A reaction: Anti-realists about classification seem to think that we just invent an array of concepts, and then start classifying with them. The truth seems to be that the actual classes of worldly thing have generated our concepts. |
12282 | An individual property has to exist (in past, present or future) [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: If it does not at present exist, or, if it has not existed in the past, or if it is not going to exist in the future, it will not be a property [idion] at all. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 129a27) | |
A reaction: This seems to cramp our style in counterfactual discussion. Can't we even mention an individual property if we believe that it will never exist. Utopian political discussion will have to cease! |
12264 | An 'accident' is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to a thing [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: An 'accident' [sumbebekos] is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to any one and the self-same thing, such as 'sitting posture' or 'whiteness'. This is the best definition, because it tells us the essential meaning of the term itself. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102b07) | |
A reaction: Thus a car could be red, or not red. Accidents are contingent. It does not follow that necessary properties are essential (see Idea 12262). There are accidents [sumbebekos], propria [idion] and essences [to ti en einai]. |
12280 | Genus gives the essence better than the differentiae do [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: In assigning the essence [ti estin], it is more appropriate to state the genus than the differentiae; for he who describes 'man' as an 'animal' indicates his essence better than he who describes him as 'pedestrian'. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 128a24) | |
A reaction: See Idea 12279. This idea is only part of the story. My reading of this is simply that assigning a genus gives more information. We learn more about him when we say he is a man than when we say he is Socrates. |
13269 | In the case of a house the parts can exist without the whole, so parts are not the whole [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: In the case of a house, where the process of compounding the parts is obvious, though the parts exist, there is no reason why the whole should not be non-existent, and so the parts are not the same as the whole. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 150a19) | |
A reaction: Compare buying a piece of furniture, and being surprised to discover, when it is delivered, that it is self-assembly. This idea is a simple refutation of the claims of classical mereology, that wholes are just some parts. Aristotle uses modal claims. |
12284 | Everything that is has one single essence [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Everything that is has one single essence [en esti to einai]. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 141a36) | |
A reaction: Does this include vague objects, and abstract 'objects'? Sceptics might ask what grounds this claim. Does Dr Jeckyll have two essences? |
12262 | An 'idion' belongs uniquely to a thing, but is not part of its essence [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A property [idion] is something which does not show the essence of a thing but belongs to it alone. ...No one calls anything a property which can possibly belong to something else. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102a18) | |
A reaction: [See Charlotte Witt 106 on this] 'Property' is clearly a bad translation for such an individual item. Witt uses 'proprium', which is a necessary but nonessential property of something. Necessity is NOT the hallmark of essence. See Idea 12266. |
12290 | Destruction is dissolution of essence [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Destruction is a dissolution of essence. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 153b30) | |
A reaction: [plucked from context!] I can't think of a better way to define destruction, in order to distinguish it from damage. A vase is destroyed when its essential function cannot be recovered. |
12286 | If two things are the same, they must have the same source and origin [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: When things are absolutely the same, their coming-into-being and destruction are also the same and so are the agents of their production and destruction. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152a02) | |
A reaction: Thus Queen Elizabeth II has to be the result of that particular birth, and from those particular parents, as Kripke says? The inverse may not be true. Do twins have a single origin? Things that fission and then re-fuse differently? etc |
12266 | 'Same' is mainly for names or definitions, but also for propria, and for accidents [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: 'The same' is employed in several senses: its principal sense is for same name or same definition; a second sense occurs when sameness is applied to a property [idiu]; a third sense is applied to an accident. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103a24-33) | |
A reaction: [compressed] 'Property' is better translated as 'proprium' - a property unique to a particular thing, but not essential - see Idea 12262. Things are made up of essence, propria and accidents, and three ways of being 'the same' are the result. |
12287 | Two identical things have the same accidents, they are the same; if the accidents differ, they're different [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: If two things are the same then any accident of one must also be an accident of the other, and, if one of them is an accident of something else, so must the other be also. For, if there is any discrepancy on these points, obviously they are not the same. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152a36) | |
A reaction: So what is always called 'Leibniz's Law' should actually be 'Aristotle's Law'! I can't see anything missing from the Aristotle version, but then, since most people think it is pretty obvious, you would expect the great stater of the obvious to get it. |
12288 | Numerical sameness and generic sameness are not the same [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Things which are the same specifically or generically are not necessarily the same or cannot possibly be the same numerically. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152b32) | |
A reaction: See also Idea 12266. This looks to me to be a pretty precise anticipation of Peirce's type/token distinction, but without the terminology. It is reassuring that Aristotle spotted it, as that makes it more likely to be a genuine distinction. |
12259 | Reasoning is when some results follow necessarily from certain claims [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Reasoning [sullogismos] is a discussion in which, certain things having been laid down, something other than these things necessarily results through them. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 100a25) | |
A reaction: This is cited as the standard statement of the nature of logical necessity. One might challenge either the very word 'necessary', or the exact sense of the word employed here. Is it, in fact, metaphysical, or merely analytic? |
17726 | Examining accurate, justified or grounded concepts brings understanding of the world [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Examining accurate concepts can help us acquire true beliefs about the world, examining justified concepts can help us acquire justified beliefs about the world, and examining grounded concepts can help us acquire knowledge of it. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.4) | |
A reaction: This summarises Jenkins's empirical account of concepts, and I love it all to bits. I feel that contemporary philosophy is beginning to produce a coherent naturalistic worldview which can replace religion. Bar the rituals. We can have priests... |
17734 | It is not enough that intuition be reliable - we need to know why it is reliable [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: The mere reliability of intuition is not a satisfactory ground for saying it is a source of knowledge - we need to know why it is reliable to understand whether it can be a source of knowledge. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 6.5) | |
A reaction: My theory is that intuition is simply believing things for reasons which we have either forgotten, or (more likely) reasons which are too complex or subtle to be articulated. Intuition feels rational, because it is rational. Updated view of mind needed. |
17723 | Knowledge is true belief which can be explained just by citing the proposition believed [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I propose that knowledge is true belief which can be well explained .....just by citing the proposition believed. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 3.1) | |
A reaction: I don't find this appealing, and my reservation about Jenkins's book is her reliabilist, externalist epistemology. I would add an internalist coherentist epistemology to her very nice theory. 'I believe there are fairies at the bottom of my garden'? |
20736 | Science has to abstract out the subjective attributes of things, focusing on what is objective [Aho] |
Full Idea: Crucial to the scientific method is the ability to abstract out the subjective qualities that we give to things - such as beauty, meaning, purpose, and value - and focus only on the objective qualities of things, which can be measured and quantified. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], 1 'Emergence') | |
A reaction: This seems to me exactly right. People who deny the primary/secondary distinction, like Hume, are usually correspondingly pessimistic about science. And Hume was wrong about that. |
12271 | Induction is the progress from particulars to universals [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Induction is the progress from particulars to universals; if the skilled pilot is the best pilot and the skilled charioteer the best charioteer, then, in general, the skilled man is the best man in any particular sphere. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 105a15) | |
A reaction: It is a bit unclear whether we are deriving universal concepts, or merely general truths. Need general truths be absolute or necessary truths? Presumably occasionally the best person is not the most skilled, as in playing a musical instrument. |
12293 | We say 'so in cases of this kind', but how do you decide what is 'of this kind'? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: When it is necessary to establish the universal, people use the expression 'So in all cases of this kind'; but it is one of the most difficult tasks to define which of the terms proposed are 'of this kind' and which are not. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 157a25) | |
A reaction: It is particularly hard if induction is expressed as the search for universals, since the kind presumably is the universal, so the universal must be known before the induction can apply, which really is the most frightful nuisance for truth-seekers. |
17739 | The physical effect of world on brain explains the concepts we possess [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I think the physical effects of the world on the brain explain our possessing the concepts we do. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 8.2) | |
A reaction: A nice slogan for a thought which strikes me as exactly right. |
17718 | Grounded concepts are trustworthy maps of the world [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Grounded concepts are like trustworthy on-board maps of the independent world. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Intro) | |
A reaction: You'll probably need more than one concept for it to qualify as a 'map', but I like this idea a lot. The world, rather than we ourselves, creates our concepts. The opposite of the view of Geach in 'Mental Acts'. |
17731 | Verificationism is better if it says meaningfulness needs concepts grounded in the senses [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: I find an updated verificationism plausible, in which we say something meaningful just in case we employ only concepts whose possession could be justified or disjustified by sensory input. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 5.6) | |
A reaction: Wow! This is the first time I have ever had the slightest sympathy for verificationism. It saves my favourite problem case - of wild but meaningful speculation, for example about the contents of another universe. A very nice idea. |
17732 | Success semantics explains representation in terms of success in action [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: Success semantics is the attempt to understand mental representation by thinking about the ways in which representing the world can lead to success in action. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 6.3) | |
A reaction: I take this to be what is also known as 'teleological semantics'. It sounds to me as if this might help to explain success in action, but isn't going to explain the representations that result in the success. |
17725 | 'Analytic' can be conceptual, or by meaning, or predicate inclusion, or definition... [Jenkins] |
Full Idea: 'Analytic' might mean conceptually true, or true in virtue of meaning, or where the predicate is contained in the subject, or for sentences which define something, or where meaning is sufficient for the truth. | |
From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.3) | |
A reaction: The second one says meaning grounds the truth, where the last one says meaning entails the truth. |
12276 | Justice and self-control are better than courage, because they are always useful [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Justice [dikaiosune] and self-control [sophrosune] are preferable to courage, for the first two are always useful, but courage only sometimes. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 117a36) | |
A reaction: One could challenge his criterion. What of something which is absolutely vital on occasions, against something which is very mildly useful all the time? You may survive without justice, but not without courage. Compare Idea 12277. |
12277 | Friendship is preferable to money, since its excess is preferable [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Friendship is preferable to money; for excess of friendship is preferable to excess of money. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 118b07) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 12276, which gives a different criterion for choosing between virtues. This idea is an interesting qualification of the doctrine of the mean. |
12275 | We value friendship just for its own sake [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: We value friendship for its own sake, even if we are not likely to get anything else from it. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 117a03) | |
A reaction: In 'Ethics' he distinguishes some friendships which don't meet this requirement. Presumably true friendships survive all vicissitudes (except betrayal), but that makes such things fairly rare. |
20734 | Anxiety, nausea, guilt and absurdity shake us up, revealing our freedom and limits [Aho] |
Full Idea: Some moods, such as 'anxiety' (Heidegger), 'nausea' (Sartre), 'guilt' (Kierkegaard), and 'absurdity' (Camus) are important because they have the capacity to shake us out of complacency and self-deception, disclosing our freedom and finitude. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], Pref 'What?) | |
A reaction: [bit compressed] Problem: if I fail to feel such things, and deliberately induce them in myself, am I being inauthentic? Making a huge and unnatural effort to be an existentialist seems all wrong. And who wants the permanent grip of such feelings? |
20733 | Our 'existence' is how we create ourselves, unconstrained by any prior 'essence' [Aho] |
Full Idea: 'Existence precedes essence' means there is no pre-given 'essence' that determines who and what we are. We are self-making beings. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], Pref 'What?) | |
A reaction: This not a yes/no dilemma. Personally I believe (with Aristotle, and Steven Pinker) that there is a fairly comprehensive 'human nature' which we all share, and is the basis of ethics. On top of that, though, a fair bit of 'self-making' can go on. |
20753 | The self is constituted by its choices made within a social context [Aho] |
Full Idea: The [existential] self is constituted by the continuous, open-ended process of choosing and pulling together the social interpretations that we care about and that are made available by the situation we grow into. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], 4 'Self') | |
A reaction: These kind of explanations always seem wrong. That the self is influenced and moulded strongly by the choices it makes sounds right. But that the choices 'constitute' the chooser sounds like a bit of a muddle. |
12281 | Man is intrinsically a civilized animal [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is an essential [kath' auto] property of man to be 'by nature a civilized animal'. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 128b17) | |
A reaction: I take this, along with man being intrinsically rational, to be the foundation of Aristotelian ethics. Given that we are civilized, self-evident criteria emerge for how to be good at it. A good person is, above all, a good citizen. |
20738 | Social contracts and markets have made society seem disconnected and artificial [Aho] |
Full Idea: Modern society has come to be viewed as something artificial, an aggregate of disconnected individuals that is held together by instrumental social contracts and monetary exchanges. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], 1 'Emergence') | |
A reaction: This is all long of you, Thomas Hobbes! Aho is explaining the rebellion of existentialists against this - though existentialism strikes me as another variant of liberal individualism. |
12265 | All water is the same, because of a certain similarity [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Any water is said to be specifically the same as any other water because it has a certain similarity to it. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103a20) | |
A reaction: (Cf. Idea 8153) It take this to be the hallmark of a natural kind, and we should not lose sight of it in the midst of discussions about rigid designation and essential identity. Tigers are only a natural kind insofar as they are indistinguishable. |
12278 | 'Being' and 'oneness' are predicated of everything which exists [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: 'Being' and 'oneness' are predicated of everything which exists. | |
From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 121a18) | |
A reaction: Is 'oneness' predicated of water? So existence always was a predicate, it seems, until Kant told us it wasn't. That existence is a quantifier, not a predicate, seems to be up for question again these days. |
20737 | Protestantism brought the modern emphasis on inner states of the soul [Aho] |
Full Idea: An important development in the formation of the modern worldview was the emergence of Protestantism, that reconfigured the self by privileging the inner states of the soul. Salvation concerns inner feelings, thoughts and desires, which can be genuine. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], 1 'Emergence') | |
A reaction: [bit compressed] He is preparing the historical background for the existentialist concept of authenticity. We can link this Protestant idea with Descartes's Cogito, which grounds knowledge in the inner self. |
20766 | Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, caused by attachment, it is avoidable, there is a path [Aho] |
Full Idea: The teachings of the Buddha are summarised in 'four noble truths': 1) life means suffering, 2) the origin of suffering is attachment, 3) the end of suffering is attainable, and 4) the path to the end of suffering. | |
From: Kevin Aho (Existentialism: an introduction [2014], 9 'dukkha') | |
A reaction: 1) and 2) summarise everything I dislike about most eastern philosophy. In the modern world life does not have to be suffering. To break off attachments in order to avoid suffering is a hideous injunction. |