114 ideas
| 14857 | The highest wisdom has the guise of simplicity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Truth tends to reveal its highest wisdom in the guise of simplicity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 609) |
| 20186 | Unlike knowledge, wisdom cannot be misused [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A distinctive mark of wisdom is that it cannot be misused, whereas knowledge surely can be misused. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 1.2) | |
| A reaction: She will argue, with Aristotle, that this is because wisdom (and maybe 'true' knowledge) must include 'phronesis' (practical wisdom), which is the key to all the virtues, intellectual and moral. This idea is striking, and obviously correct. |
| 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. |
| 19694 | Wisdom is the property of a person, not of their cognitive state [Zagzebski, by Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: Zagzebski takes wisdom as literally properties of persons, not persons' cognitive states. | |
| From: report of Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], p.59-60) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom 'Twofold' | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. Zagzebski uses this idea to endorse epistemic virtue. But knowledge and ignorance are properties of persons too. There can be, though, a precise mental state involved in knowledge, but not in wisdom. |
| 14854 | Deep thinkers know that they are always wrong [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Whoever thinks more deeply knows that he is always wrong, whatever his acts and judgments. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 518) |
| 14833 | Comedy is a transition from fear to exuberance [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The transition from momentary fear to short-lived exuberance is called the 'comic'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 169) |
| 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 |
| 20221 | Precision is only one of the virtues of a good definition [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Precision is but one virtue of a definition, one that must be balanced against simplicity, elegance, conciseness, theoretical illumination, and practical usefulness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Illumination looks like the dream virtue for a good definition. Otherwise it is just ticked as accurate and stowed away. 'True justified belief' is a very illuminating definition of knowledge - if it is right. But it's not very precise. |
| 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? |
| 20220 | Objection by counterexample is weak, because it only reveals inaccuracies in one theory [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Objection by counterexample is the weakest sort of attack a theory can undergo. Even when the objection succeeds, it shows only that a theory fails to achieve complete accuracy. It does not distinguish among the various rival theories. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Typically counterexamples are used to refute universal generalisations (i.e. by 'falsification'), but canny theorists avoid those, or slip in a qualifying clause. Counterexamples are good for exploring a theory's coverage. |
| 14853 | Truth finds fewest champions not when it is dangerous, but when it is boring [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The champions of truth are hardest to find, not when it is dangerous to tell it, but rather when it is boring. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 506) |
| 24075 | Convictions, more than lies, are the great enemy of truth [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 483) | |
| A reaction: Love this one. Especially in western democracies in the 2020s. If we value truth, we must be fallibilists. |
| 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. |
| 20188 | Modern epistemology is too atomistic, and neglects understanding [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: There are complaints that contemporary epistemology is too atomistic, and that the value of understanding has been neglected. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 2) | |
| A reaction: This is because of the excessive influence of logic in contemporary analytic philosophy, which has to reduce knowledge to K(Fa), rather than placing it in a human context. |
| 20223 | Epistemology is excessively atomic, by focusing on justification instead of understanding [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: The present obsession with justification and the neglect of understanding has resulted in a feature of epistemology already criticised by several epistemologists: its atomism. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.2) | |
| A reaction: All analytic philosophy has become excessively atomic, because it relies too heavily on logic for its grounding and rigour. There are other sorts of rigour, such as AI, peer review, programming. Or rigour is an idle dream. |
| 20217 | Truth is valuable, but someone knowing the truth is more valuable [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Of course we value the truth, but the value we place on knowledge is more than the value of the truth we thereby acquire. …It also involves a valuabe relation between the knower and the truth. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 1) | |
| A reaction: Hard to assess this. I take truth to be a successful relationship between a mind and a fact. Knowledge needs something extra, to avoid lucky true beliefs. Does a truth acquire greater and greater value as more people come to know it? Doubtful. |
| 20191 | Some beliefs are fairly voluntary, and others are not at all so [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: My position is that beliefs, like acts, arrange themselves on a continuum of degrees of voluntariness, ranging from quite a bit to none at all. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 4.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm sure we have no idea how we came to hold many of our beliefs, and if we see a cat, nothing seems to intervene between the seeing and the believing. But if you adopt a religion, believing its full creed is a big subsequent effort. |
| 20222 | Knowledge either aims at a quantity of truths, or a quality of understanding of truths [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Getting knowledge can be a matter either of reaching more truths or of gaining understanding of truths already believed. So it may be a way of increasing either the quality of true belief (cognitive contact with reality) or the quantity. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how one would increase understanding of currently believed truths if it didn't involve adding some new truths to the collection. There is only the discovery of connections or structures, but those are new facts. |
| 14858 | Being certain presumes that there are absolute truths, and means of arriving at them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Conviction is the belief that in some point of knowledge one possesses absolute truth. Such a belief presumes, then, that absolute truths exists; likewise, that the perfect methods for arriving at them have been found. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 630) |
| 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). |
| 14830 | Intuition only recognises what is possible, not what exists or is certain [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'To intuit' does not mean to recognise the existence of a thing to any extent, but rather to hold it to be possible, in that one wishes or fears it. 'Intuition' takes us not one step farther into the land of certainty. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 131) | |
| A reaction: I like this remark. I am sympathetic to the view that the actual world has modal properties (in opposition to Sider, for example). To apprehend dispositions is precisely to apprehend possibilities. Intuition is a thousand interwoven inductions. |
| 20225 | For internalists Gettier situations are where internally it is fine, but there is an external mishap [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: In internalist theories the grounds for justification are accessible to the believer, and Gettier problems arise when there is nothing wrong with the internally accessible aspects of the situation, but there is a mishap inaccessible to the believer. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm sure we could construct an internal mishap which the believer was unaware of, such as two confusions of the meanings of words cancelling one another out. |
| 20226 | Gettier problems are always possible if justification and truth are not closely linked [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: As long as the concept of knowledge closely connects the justification component and the truth component but permits some degree of independence between them, justified true belief will never be sufficient for knowledge. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Out of context this sounds like an advertisement for externalism. Or maybe it just says we have to live with Gettier threats. Zagzebski has other strategies. |
| 20228 | We avoid the Gettier problem if the support for the belief entails its truth [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: The way to avoid the Gettier problem is to define knowledge in such a way that truth is entailed by the other component(s) of the definition. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Thus she defines virtuous justification as being successful, as virtues tend to be. This smacks of cheating. Surely we can be defeated in a virtuous way? If the truth is entailed then of course Gettier can be sent packing. |
| 20227 | Gettier cases arise when good luck cancels out bad luck [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: The procedure for generating Gettier cases involves 'double luck': an instance of good luck cancels out an instance of bad luck. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.2) | |
| A reaction: You can end up with the right answer in arithmetic if you make two mistakes rather than one. I'm picturing a life of one blundering error after another, which to an outsider seems to be going serenely well. |
| 20194 | Intellectual virtues are forms of moral virtue [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: I argue that intellectual virtues are forms of moral virtue. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II Intro) | |
| A reaction: This contrasts with Sosa, who seems to think intellectual virtues are just the most efficient ways of reaching the truth. I like Zabzebski's approach a lot, though we are in a very small minority. I love her book. We have epistemic and moral duties. |
| 20206 | Intellectual and moral prejudice are the same vice (and there are other examples) [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the intellectual and the moral forms of prejudice are the same vice, and this may also be true of other traits with shared names, such as humility, autonomy, integrity, perseverance, courage and trustworthiness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: I find this claim very persuasive. The virtue of 'integrity' rather obviously embraces groups of both intellectually and morally desirable traits. |
| 20208 | We can name at least thirteen intellectual vices [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Some examples of intellectual vices: pride, negligence, idleness, cowardice, conformity, carelessness, rigidity, prejudice, wishful thinking, closed-mindedness, insensitivity to detail, obtuseness (in seeing relevance), and lack of thoroughness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: There are thousands of vices for which we don't have names, like thinking about football when you should be doing metaphysics. The other way round is also a vice too, because football needs concentration. Discontent with your chair is bad too. |
| 20215 | A justified belief emulates the understanding and beliefs of an intellectually virtuous person [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A justified belief is what a person who is motivated by intellectual virtue, and who has the understanding of his cognitive situation a virtuous person would have, might believe in like circumstances. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a whole-hearted definition of justification in terms of a theory of intellectual virtues. Presumably this would allow robots to have justified beliefs, if they managed to behave the way intellectually virtuous persons would behave. |
| 20210 | A reliable process is no use without the virtues to make use of them [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough that a process is reliable; a person will not reliably use such a process without certain virtues. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 4.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a point against Sosa's reliabilist account of virtues. Of course, all theories of epistemic justification (or of morality) will fail if people can't be bothered to implement them. |
| 20187 | Epistemic perfection for reliabilism is a truth-producing machine [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Just as a utility-calculating machine would be the ideal moral agent according to utilitarianism, a truth-producing machine would be the ideal epistemic agent according to reliabilism, | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Love this one! For consequentialists a successful robot is morally superior to an average human being. The reliabilist dream is just something that churns out truths. But what is the role of these truths in subsequent life? |
| 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. |
| 20378 | Just as skin hides the horrors of the body, vanity conceals the passions of the soul [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Just as the bones, flesh, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed with skin, which makes the sight of a man bearable, so the stirrings and passions of the soul are covered up by vanity: it is the skin of the soul. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 082) | |
| A reaction: What a glorious analogy! None of us should underestimate our vanity. The least vain people you ever meet can reveal their vanity if you challenge them close to home. Try accusing them of vanity! Attack their essential character! (No, don't do that). |
| 20218 | The self is known as much by its knowledge as by its action [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that the concept of the self is constituted as much by what we know as by what we do. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 1) | |
| A reaction: People take pride in what they know, which indicates that it is of central importance to a person's nature. Hard to evaluate ideas such as this. |
| 20205 | The feeling accompanying curiosity is neither pleasant nor painful [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Most feelings are experienced as pleasant or painful, but it is not evident that they all are; curiosity may be one that is not. [note: 'curiosity' may not be the name of a feeling, but a feeling typically accompanies it] | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: If a machine generates a sliding scale from pain to pleasure, is there a neutral feeling at the midpoint, or does all feeling briefly vanish there? Not sure. |
| 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. |
| 20202 | Motives involve desires, but also how the desires connect to our aims [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A motive does have an aspect of desire, but it includes something about why a state of affairs is desired, and that includes something about the way my emotions are tied to my aim. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.6) | |
| A reaction: It is standard usage that a 'motive' involves some movement towards achieving the desire, and not merely having the desire. I'd quite like to stand on top of Everest, but have absolutely no motivation to try to achieve it. |
| 14820 | People always do what they think is right, according to the degree of their intellect [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Socrates and Plato are right: whatever man does, he always acts for the good; that is, in a way that seems to him good (useful) according to the degree of his intellect, the prevailing measure of his rationality. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 102) | |
| A reaction: I associate this doctrine much more with Socrates than with Plato - but Nietzsche was a great classical scholar. |
| 14856 | Our judgment seems to cause our nature, but actually judgment arises from our nature [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It seems that our thinking and judging are to be made the cause of our nature after the fact, but actually our nature causes us to think and judge one way or the other. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 608) |
| 14842 | Why are the strong tastes of other people so contagious? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why are likes and dislikes so contagious that one can scarcely live in proximity to a person of strong sensibilities without being filled like a vessel with pros and cons? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 371) | |
| A reaction: I was on the receiving end of this when young, and I think it influenced me to propound stronger views about things than I could ever justify, since my natural disposition is to be cautious about all views. Nice question. Why? |
| 14835 | Artists are not especially passionate, but they pretend to be [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Artists are by no means people of great passion, but they often pretend to be. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 211) | |
| A reaction: Presumably people can gradually become what they consistently pretend to be. |
| 20216 | Modern moral theory concerns settling conflicts, rather than human fulfilment [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Modern ethics generally considers morality much less a system for fulfilling human nature than a set of principles for dealing with individuals in conflict. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 7) | |
| A reaction: Historically I associate this move with Hugo Grotius around 1620. He was a great legalist, and eudaimonist virtue ethics gradually turned into jurisprudence. The Enlightenment sought rules for resolving dilemmas. Liberalism makes fulfilment private. |
| 14807 | The history of morality rests on an error called 'responsibility', which rests on an error called 'free will' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The history of moral feelings is the history of an error, an error called 'responsibility', which in turn rests on an error called 'freedom of the will'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 039) | |
| A reaction: I totally agree with this, though I think the term 'responsible' is useful in ethics, though only in the sense that the lightning was responsible for the thunder. Nietzsche appears to have anticipated Mackie's error theory about morality. |
| 14823 | Ceasing to believe in human responsibility is bitter, if you had based the nobility of humanity on it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Man's complete lack of responsibility, for his behaviour and for his nature, is the bitterest drop which the man of knowledge must swallow, if he had been in the habit of seeing responsibility and duty as humanity's claim to nobility. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) | |
| A reaction: If you were seeing humanity as little transient angels, living a moral life that was an echo of God's, then you needed cutting down to size. But if you ask if there is anything 'noble' in the universe, it will still be the fine deeds of humanity. |
| 14824 | It is absurd to blame nature and necessity; we should no more praise actions than we praise plants or artworks [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Man may no longer praise, no longer blame, for it is nonsensical to praise and blame nature and necessity. Just as he loves a work of art (or a plant) but does not praise it, because it can do nothing about itself, so he must regard human actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) | |
| A reaction: But humans can 'do something about themselves'. They can read the works of Nietzsche. He overestimates the importance of the loss of free will, when we grasp that there is no such thing. |
| 22473 | Nietzsche said the will doesn't exist, so it can't ground moral responsibility [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche challenged belief in free will, on the ground that will itself …is non-existent. The will is in truth nothing but a complex of sensations, as of power and resistance, and it is illusion to think of it as a basis for 'moral responsibility'. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 107) by Philippa Foot - Nietzsche's Immoralism p.153 | |
| A reaction: Modern neuroscience seems to support Nietzsche on this, though I will continue to use the concept of 'will' in philosophy, to mean the main brain events which normally combine in decision-making. That makes the will a process, not a entity. |
| 14812 | Intellect is tied to morality, because it requires good memory and powerful imagination [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one has given. One must have strong powers of imagination to be able to have pity. So closely is morality bound to the quality of the intellect. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 059) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see him say that strong powers of imagination are an 'intellectual' quality, which I think is not properly understood by the more geeky sort of intellectual. |
| 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! |
| 14810 | Originally it was the rulers who requited good for good and evil for evil who were called 'good' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In the soul of the original ruling clans and castes, the man who has the power to requite goodness with goodness, evil with evil, and really does practice requital by being grateful and vengeful, is called 'good'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 045) | |
| A reaction: The idea that evil should indeed repay evil was very much a feature of goodness until the philosophers came in on the act. In those days no one else had any power, so they had no scope for goodness. |
| 14831 | No one has ever done anything that was entirely for other people [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Never has a man done anything that was only for others and without any personal motivation. …How could the ego act without ego? | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 133) | |
| A reaction: This is only a denial of the purest of 'pure' altruism. It is hard to imagine anyone performing an altruistic action which permanently shamed the reputationof its performer - though it might be possible in a nicely contrived fiction. |
| 14855 | Simultaneous love and respect are impossible; love has no separation or rank, but respect admits power [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to be loved and respected by the same person. For the man who respects another acknowledges his power; his condition is one of awe. But love acknowledges no power, nothing that separates, differentiates, ranks higher or subordinates. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 603) | |
| A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'respect', but this looks like nonsense. Do we 'respect' someone because they point a gun at us? I would say love and respect are inseparable. |
| 14815 | We get enormous pleasure from tales of noble actions [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: How much pleasure we get from morality! Just think what a river of agreeable tears has flowed at tales of noble, generous actions. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 091) | |
| A reaction: How can anyone not adore Nietzsche? The pleasure of a noble deed is the most piercing and the deepest pleasure known to us. It isn't 'just' a pleasure. |
| 20193 | Moral luck means our praise and blame may exceed our control or awareness [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Because of moral luck, the realm of the morally praiseworthy / blameworthy is not indisputably within one's voluntary control or accessible to one's consciousness. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 4.2) | |
| A reaction: [She particularly cites Thomas Nagel for this] It is a fact that we will be blamed (more strongly) when we have moral bad luck, but the question is whether we should be. It seems harsh, but you can't punish someone as if they had had bad luck. |
| 20199 | Nowadays we doubt the Greek view that the flourishing of individuals and communities are linked [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Modern moral philosophers have been considerably more skeptical than were the ancient Greeks about the close association between the flourishing of the individual and that of the community. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I presume this is not just a change in fashion, but a reflection of how different the two societies are. In a close community with almost no privacy, flourishing individuals are good citizens. In the isolations of modern liberalism they may be irrelevant. |
| 14849 | We can only achieve happy moments, not happy eras [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The destiny of men is designed for happy moments (every life has those), but not for happy eras. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 471) | |
| A reaction: The vicissitudes of life (my favourite word!) are such that even the most serene and well-adjusted person is going to be perturbed on several days of the week, even if only by the unhappiness of the people around them. |
| 20196 | Virtue theory is hopeless if there is no core of agreed universal virtues [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: An analysis of virtue is hopeless unless we can assume that most of a selected list of traits count as virtues, in a way not strictly culture. ...These would include wisdom, courage, benevolence, justice, honesty, loyalty, integrity, and generosity. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This requirement needs there to be a single core to human nature, right across the species. If we are infinitely flexible (as existentialists imply) then the virtues will have matching flexibility, and so will be parochial and excessively relative. |
| 20200 | A virtue must always have a corresponding vice [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It is important for the nature of virtue that it have a corresponding vice (or two, in the doctrine of the mean). Claustrophobia is not a vice not only because it is involuntary, but also because there is no corresponding virtue. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably attaining a virtue is an achievement, so we would expect a label for failure in the same field of endeavour. The failure is not purely negative, because bad things ensue if the virtue is not present. |
| 20201 | Eight marks distingush skills from virtues [Zagzebski, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The difference between skills and virtues is that virtues must be enacted, are always desirable, can't be forgotten, and can be simulated, whereas skills are very specific, involve a technique, lack contraries, and lack intrinsic value. | |
| From: report of Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of her II 2.4 discussion of the differences] She observes that Aristotle made insufficient effort to distinguish the two. It may be obscure to say that virtues go 'deeper' than skills, but we all know what is meant. 'Skills serve virtues'. |
| 20203 | Virtues are deep acquired excellences of persons, which successfully attain desire ends [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A virtue can be defined as 'a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end'. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.7) | |
| A reaction: She puts this in bold, and it is the culminating definition of a long discussion. It rather obviously fails to say anything about the nature of the end that is desired. Learning the telephone book off by heart seems to fit the definition. |
| 20207 | Every moral virtue requires a degree of intelligence [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Being reasonably intelligent within a certain area of life is part of having almost any moral virtue. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
| A reaction: The fact that this bars persons of very limited intelligence from acquiring the Aristotelian virtues is one of the attractions of the Christian enjoinder to merely achieve 'love'. Anyone can have a warm heart. So is virtue elitist? |
| 14818 | First morality is force, then custom, then acceptance, then instinct, then a pleasure - and finally 'virtue' [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Force precedes morality; for a time morality itself is force, to which others acquiesce. Later it becomes custom, and then free obedience, and finally almost instinct; then it is coupled to pleasure, like all habitual things, and is now called 'virtue'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 099) | |
| A reaction: How few philosophers delve into the history of the concepts they work with, and yet how revealing it can be. Richard Taylor was wonderful on 'duty'. You will never grasp the 'problem of free will' if you don't examine its history. |
| 20214 | Virtue theory can have lots of rules, as long as they are grounded in virtues and in facts [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: A pure virtue theory can have as many rules as you like as long as they are understood as grounded in the virtuous motivations and understanding of the nonmoral facts that virtuous agents possess. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 6.1) | |
| A reaction: It is important, I think, to see that a virtue theorist does not have to be a particularist. |
| 20103 | You are mastered by your own virtues, but you must master them, and turn them into tools [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: You had to become your own master, and also the master of your own virtues. Previously, your virtues were your master; but they must be nothing more than your tools. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 006) | |
| A reaction: What on earth would Aristotle make of that? Nietzsche offers a sort of metatheory for virtues. I take this to be a form of particularism - that you live by your virtues, but occasionally you can discard a virtue if it seems right. Lie, steal... |
| 14817 | The 'good' man does the moral thing as if by nature, easily and gladly, after a long inheritance [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We call 'good' the man who does the moral thing as if by nature, after a long history of inheritance - that is, easily, and gladly, whatever it is. …He is called 'good' because he is good 'for' something. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 096) | |
| A reaction: I am amazed at the brief and rather disrespectful remarks that Nietzsche makes about Aristotle's ethics, given how close this idea is to the ideal of Aristotle (though the latter who not emphasise 'inheritance'!). |
| 20213 | We need phronesis to coordinate our virtues [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: We need phronesis (practical wisdom) to coordinate the various virtues into a single line of action or line of thought leading up to an act or to a belief. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 5.2) | |
| A reaction: If I have a conflicting virtue and vice in a single situation, something must make sure that the virtue dominates. That sounds more like Kant's 'good will' than like phronesis. |
| 20209 | For the virtue of honesty you must be careful with the truth, and not just speak truly [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: It is not sufficient for honesty that a person tells whatever she happens to believe is the truth. An honest person is careful with the truth. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about that. It matches what Aristotle says about courage, which also needs practical reason [phronesis]. But being sensitive and careful with truth seems to need other virtues. If total honesty is not a virtue, then is honesty a virtue at all? |
| 14809 | All societies of good men give a priority to gratitude [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every society of good men (that is, originally, of powerful men) places gratitude among its first duties. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 044) | |
| A reaction: His reason here is that gratitude is a way of displaying the power of the powerful! |
| 14816 | Justice (fairness) originates among roughly equal powers (as the Melian dialogues show) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Justice (fairness) originates among approximately equal powers, as Thucydides (in the horrifying conversation between the Athenian and Melian envoys) rightly understood. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 092) | |
| A reaction: The moral position of the powerless is a notorious problem for social contract theories of morality. They have nothing to offer in a mere contract. |
| 20197 | The courage of an evil person is still a quality worth having [Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a courageous Nazi soldier, my position is that a virtue is worth having even in those cases in which it makes a person worse overall. | |
| From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.2) | |
| A reaction: A brave claim, which seems right. If a nasty Nazi reforms, they will at least have one good quality which can be put to constructive use. |
| 14821 | Apart from philosophers, most people rightly have a low estimate of pity [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Aside from a few philosophers, men have always placed pity rather low in the hierarchy of moral feelings - and rightly so. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 103) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this includes Jesus among the 'philosophers'. |
| 20112 | Pity consoles those who suffer, because they see that they still have the power to hurt [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The pity that the spectators express consoles the weak and suffering, inasmuch as they see that , despite all their weakness, they still have at least one power: the power to hurt. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 050) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints how the will to power led to the inversion of values. |
| 14841 | Many people are better at having good friends than being a good friend [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In many people the gift of having good friends is much greater than the gift of being a good friend. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 368) |
| 14843 | Women can be friends with men, but only some physical antipathy will maintain it [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Women can very well enter into a friendship with a man, but to maintain it - a little physical antipathy must help out. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 390) |
| 14811 | In Homer it is the contemptible person, not the harmful person, who is bad [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In Homer, both the Trojan and the Greek are good. Not the man who inflicts harm on us, but the man who is contemptible, is bad. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 045) |
| 20111 | We could live more naturally, relishing the spectacle, and not thinking we are special [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I can imagine a life much more simple...than the present one. ...One would live among men and with oneself as in nature, without praise, reproach, overzealousness, delighting in things as in a spectacle. One would no longer feel one was more than nature. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 034) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Safranski says this passage is a big turning point for Nietzsche, replacing his earlier idea that art could be salvation. Eternal Recurrence puts a seal on this new view. Nietzsche adds that this life needs to be 'cheerful'. |
| 14844 | People do not experience boredom if they have never learned to work properly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Many people, especially women, do not experience boredom, because they have never learned to work properly. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 391) | |
| A reaction: It certainly seems right that boredom is a response to expectations and past habits. Life in a medieval village looks like boredom verging on torture for your busy modern urban sophisticate, but I daresay it was quite absorbing. |
| 14808 | Over huge periods of time human character would change endlessly [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If a man eighty thousand years old were conceivable, his character would in fact be absolutely variable. …The brevity of human life misleads us… | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 041) | |
| A reaction: This would be one of my many exhibits for claiming Nietzsche as an existentialist. I think he is largely right, and we do detect slow shifts in our characters over long periods of time. They may be as much a response to culture as a personal matter. |
| 14822 | If self-defence is moral, then so are most expressions of 'immoral' egoism [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If we accept self-defense as moral, then we must also accept nearly all expressions of so-called immoral egoism. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 104) | |
| A reaction: I find this idea rather disconcerting, because I have always thought that the clearest possible 'natural right' was that of self-defence - but this implication (if it be so) had never struck me. Hm. |
| 14838 | The state aims to protect individuals from one another [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The state is a clever institution for protecting individuals from one another. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 235) | |
| A reaction: This is Nietzsche allying with Hobbes, and presumably aiming this remark at Hegel. |
| 14852 | Culture cannot do without passions and vices [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Culture absolutely cannot do without passions, vices and acts of malice. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 477) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how you test the truth of that aphorism, given that humanity is perpetually doomed to live with such things. If those qualities disappeared, I suppose we would drift apart. We are 'dependent' beings, as MacIntyre says. |
| 14846 | If we want the good life for the greatest number, we must let them decide on the good life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: If the business of politics is to make life tolerable for the greatest number, this greatest number may also determine what they understand by a tolerable life. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 438) |
| 14819 | Slavery cannot be judged by our standards, because the sense of justice was then less developed [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The injustice of slavery, the cruelty in subjugating persons and peoples, cannot be measured by our standards. For the instinct for justice was not so widely developed then. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 101) | |
| A reaction: Why do we value the instinct for justic which we have subsequently developed? Why do we think it is important, and battle to preserve it? This is the sort of creepy relativism that Nietzsche drifted into, and for the worse. |
| 14847 | Laws that are well thought out, or laws that are easy to understand? [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Lawyers argue whether that law which is most thoroughly thought out, or that which is easiest to understand, should prevail in a people. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 459) | |
| A reaction: Our system of speed limits is radically simplified, to save money on road signs, and facilitate enforcement. But then its inflexibility brings it into disrepute. |
| 14814 | Execution is worse than murder, because we are using the victim, and really we are the guilty [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Why does execution offend us more than murder? It is the coldness of the judges, the painful preparation, the use of a man to deter others. For guilt is not being punished, which lies in the educators, parents, environment, in us, not in the murderer. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 070) | |
| A reaction: Someone was stabbed to death in Oxford Street yesterday (26 Dec 11), and we all feel horribly that London is responsible for producing this event, even if we try and load all the blame onto one youth with a knife. Oscar Wilde endorsed this idea. |
| 14836 | People will enthusiastically pursue an unwanted war, once sacrifices have been made [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All things for which we have made sacrifices are in the right. This explains why, just as soon as sacrifices are made, people continue with enthusiasm a war that was begun against their wishes. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 229) |
| 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. |
| 14845 | Don't crush girls with dull Gymnasium education, the way we have crushed boys! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: For heaven's sake, do not pass our Gymnasium education on to girls too! For it often turns witty, inquisitive, fiery youths - into copies of their teachers! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 409) |
| 14848 | Education in large states is mediocre, like cooking in large kitchens [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The educational system in large states will always be mediocre at best, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens is at best mediocre. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 467) | |
| A reaction: I wish he had said what that 'same reason' is. Something to do with too many cooks, I suppose. Nothing seems harder than reaching a wide concensus on how the young should be educated. Like interior design by a committee. |
| 14839 | Interest in education gains strength when we lose interest in God [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Interest in education will gain great strength only at the moment when belief in a God and his loving care is given up. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 242) | |
| A reaction: This remark may well sum up the motivation of my entire life. What effect would it have had if I had read it when I was twenty? |
| 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 |
| 14834 | Teachers only gather knowledge for their pupils, and can't be serious about themselves [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A teacher is incapable of doing anything of his own for his own good. He always thinks of the good of his pupils, and all new knowledge gladdens him only to the extent that he can teach it. He is a thoroughfare for learning, and has lost seriousness. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 200) | |
| A reaction: Oh dear. I look in the mirror. Do I only delight in finding all these quotations so that I can stick them in the database and pass them on to someone else? Are they actually impingeing on my life? Could I meet an idea that made me abandon this project? |
| 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. |
| 14825 | In religious thought nature is a complex of arbitrary acts by conscious beings [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In the mind of religious men, all nature is the sum of actions of conscious and intentioned beings, an enormous complex of arbitrary acts. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 111) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginning of the process, I think, which then sees the gods as dictating through laws, and then the laws themselves doing the dictating, then seeing the laws as inhering in nature - and finally realising there aren't any laws! |
| 14826 | Modern man wants laws of nature in order to submit to them [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In present times, man wishes to understand the lawfulness of nature in order to submit to it. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 111) | |
| A reaction: They don't make philosophers like Nietzsche any more (or at least, in the analytic tradition I am following!). No one who is trying to give an analysis of the laws of nature has any interest in why we are so keen to find them. Stoics 'live by nature'. |
| 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). |
| 14827 | The Greeks saw the gods not as their masters, but as idealised versions of themselves [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The Greeks did not see the Homeric gods above them as masters and themselves below them as servants, as did the Jews. They saw, as it were, only the reflection of the most successful specimens of their own caste - an ideal, not a contrast. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 114) |
| 14813 | Science rejecting the teaching of Christianity in favour of Epicurus shows the superiority of the latter [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We can determine whether Christianity or Greek philosophy has the greater truth by noting that the awakening sciences have carried on point for point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but have rejected Christianity point for point. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 068) |
| 14832 | The Sermon on the Mount is vanity - praying to one part of oneself, and demonising the rest [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: This shattering of oneself, this scorn of one's own nature, is actually a high degree of vanity. The whole morality of the Sermon on the Mount belongs here; in ascetic morality man prays to one part of himself as a god, and has to diabolify the rest. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 137) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core of Nietzsche's objection to Christian teaching - that it doesn't provide a direction of life for the whole human being. The modern rejection of religions agrees with Nietzsche, especially in disputes over the place of sex. |
| 14850 | Christ was the noblest human being [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christ was the noblest human being. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 475) | |
| A reaction: That one will come as a surprise to those who only know of Nietzsche's religion that 'God is dead'! |
| 14837 | Christ seems warm hearted, and suppressed intellect in favour of the intellectually weak [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Christ, whom we like to imagine as having the warmest of hearts, furthered men's stupidity, took the side of the intellectually weak, and kept the greatest intellect from being produced: and this was consistent. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 235) | |
| A reaction: Thomas Aquinas was a stupendous intellect. The surest way to be swept forward on a wave of popularity is to find some reason why the uneducated are superior to the educated. |
| 14828 | Religion is tempting if your life is boring, but you can't therefore impose it on the busy people [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: People who think their daily lives too empty and monotonous easily become religious: this is understandable and forgivable; however, they have no right to demand religiosity from those whose daily life does not pass in emptiness and monotony. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 115) | |
| A reaction: Well wicked, that Nietzsche. Richard Dawkins and the hated new atheists are a right bunch of wimps in comparison. |