49 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. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 19335 | Reasonings have a natural ordering in God's understanding, but only a temporal order in ours [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: All reasonings are eminent in God, and they preserve an order among themselves in his understanding as well as in ours; but for him this is just an order and a priority of nature, whereas for us there is a priority of time. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.192), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III | |
| A reaction: This view is found in Frege, and seems to be the hallmark of rationalist philosophy. There is an apriori assumption that reality has a rational order, so that pure reason is a tool for grasping it. Lewis's 'mosaic' of experiences has no order. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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). |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 19367 | Saying we must will whatever we decide to will leads to an infinite regress [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: As for volition itself, to say that it is the object of free will is incorrect. We will to act, strictly speaking, and we do not will to will, else we should still say we will to have the will to will, and that would go on to infinity. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.151), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.IV | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as an elementary difficulty which most fans of free will appear to evade. Thoughts just arise in us, and some of them are volitions. We can say there is then a 'gap' (Searle) where we choose, but what happens in the gap? |
| 19351 | Perfections of soul subordinate the body, but imperfections of soul submit to the body [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Insofar as the soul has perfection ...God has accommodated the body to the soul, and has arranged beforehand that the body is impelled to execute its orders. Insofar as it is imperfect and confused, God accommodates soul to body, swayed by passions. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.159), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 3.IV | |
| A reaction: Perkins says this is the nearest Leibniz gets to the idea of interaction between body and soul. Perfection and confusion are on a continuum for Leibniz. With such speculations I always wonder how these things can be known. How perfect is my mind? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 19331 | Will is an inclination to pursue something good [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: One may say that 'will' consists in the inclination to do something in proportion to the good it contains. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.136), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III | |
| A reaction: This emphasises that the will is faced with options, rather than generating the options. The context is a discussion of the nature of God's will. I think 'will' is a really useful concept, and dislike the Hobbesian rejection of will. |
| 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! |
| 19346 | Most people facing death would happily re-live a similar life, with just a bit of variety [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I believe there would be few persons who, being at the point of death, were not content to take up life again, on condition of passing through the same amount of good and evil, provided that it were not the same kind. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.130), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.IV | |
| A reaction: Nice challenge. People who refuse the offer are not necessarily suicidal. He's probably right, but Leibniz doesn't recognise the factor of boredom. Look up the suicide note of the actor George Sanders! One life may be enough. |
| 19340 | Metaphysical evil is imperfection; physical evil is suffering; moral evil is sin [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Evil may be taken metaphysically, physically, and morally. Metaphysical evil consists in mere imperfection, physical evil is suffering, and moral evil is sin. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.136), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.IV | |
| A reaction: There seem to be plenty of imperfections in the world which don't look like evil. Or do you only declare it to be an imperfection because it seems to be evil (by some other standard)? Human evil comes from ignorance, so metaphysical explains moral. |
| 19366 | You can't assess moral actions without referring to the qualities of character that produce them [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: One is more worthy of praise when one owes the action to one's good qualities, and more culpable in proportion as one has been impelled by one's evil qualities; assessing actions without weighing the qualities whence they spring is to talk at random. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.426), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.IV | |
| A reaction: Mill tries to separate judgement of the agent from judgement of the consequences of the action, but I think Leibniz has spotted that just judging outcomes ceases to be a 'moral' judgement. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 19326 | God must be intelligible, to select the actual world from the possibilities [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The cause of the world must be intelligent: for this existing world being contingent and an infinity of worlds being equally possible, with equal claim to existence, the cause of the world must have regarded all of these worlds to fix on one of them. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.127), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II | |
| A reaction: A wonderfully Leibnizian way of putting what looks like the design argument. |
| 19327 | The intelligent cause must be unique and all-perfect, to handle all the interconnected possibilities [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The intelligent cause ought to be infinite in all ways, and absolutely perfect in power, in wisdom, and in goodness, since it relates to all that which is possible. Also, since all is connected together, there is no ground for admitting more than one. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.128), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II | |
| A reaction: Notice that Leibniz's possible worlds seem to be all connected together, unlike David Lewis's worlds, which are discrete. Personally I suspect that all perfections will lead to contradiction, though Leibniz strongly argues against it. |
| 19344 | God prefers men to lions, but might not exterminate lions to save one man [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is certain that God sets greater store by a man than a lion; nevertheless it can hardly be said with certainty that God prefers a single man in all respects to the whole of lion-kind. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.189), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.IV | |
| A reaction: Lovely problems arise when you guess at God's values! We have the same problem. Would you kill a poacher who was wiping out the last remaining lions? How many lions would you kill to save a human? |
| 19330 | If justice is arbitrary, or fixed but not observed, or not human justice, this undermines God [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The three dogmas (1) that the nature of justice is arbitrary, (2) it is fixed, but not certain God will observe it, or (3) the justice we know is not that which God observes, destroy our confidence in the love of God. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.237), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III | |
| A reaction: Leibniz proceeds to carefully refute these three responses to the dilemma about how justice relates to God. |
| 19325 | God is the first reason of things; our experiences are contingent, and contain no necessity [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: God is the first reason of things: all that we see and experience is contingent and nothing in them renders their existence necessary. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.127), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II | |
| A reaction: Perkins presents this as the first step in one of Leibniz's arguments for God. They all seem to be variants of the ontological argument. [His 'Theodicy' is the Huggard translation, 1985] This resembles Aquinas's Third Way. |
| 19329 | The laws of physics are wonderful evidence of an intelligent and free being [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: These admirable laws [of physics] are wonderful evidence of an intelligent and free being, as opposed to the system of absolute and brute necessity, advocated by Strato and Spinoza. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.332), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II | |
| A reaction: Note the swipe at Spinoza. Leibniz defends the absolute necessities residing in God, but is too polite to call those 'brute', though personally I can't see the difference. But he says the laws arise from 'perfection and order', not from God's necessity. |
| 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). |
| 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. |
| 19437 | Prayers are useful, because God foresaw them in his great plan [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Not only cares and labours but also prayers are useful; God having had these prayers in view before he regulated things. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], Abridge III) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I'm struggling with this one. So I can't skip prayers today, because God has foreseen them and included them in his great plan? Hard to motivate yourself, like starting a game of chess after you've already been declared the winner. |
| 19337 | How can an all-good, wise and powerful being allow evil, sin and apparent injustice? [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is this question of natural theology, how a sole Principle, all-good, all-wise and all-powerful, has been able to admit evil, and especially to permit sin, and how it could resolve to make the wicked often happy and the good unhappy? | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.098), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.IV | |
| A reaction: His answer is, roughly, that there is an unavoidable trade-off, which humans cannot fully understand. Personally I would say that if there is a God, the evidence for his benevolence towards humanity is not encouraging. |
| 19345 | Being confident of God's goodness, we disregard the apparent local evils in the visible world [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Being made confident by demonstrations of the goodness and the justice of God, we disregard the appearances of harshness and justice which we see in this small portion of his Kingdom that is exposed to our gaze. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.120), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.IV | |
| A reaction: Hm. If this locality is full of evils, and the rest of it is much better, how come we are stuck in this miserable corner of things? God is obliged to compromise, but did he select us to get the worst of it? |