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). |
| 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. |
| 23755 | Genius and love of truth are always accompanied by great humility [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Love of truth is always accompanied by humility, and real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.87) | |
| A reaction: A striking and attractive thought, true of all the lovers of truth I have ever encountered. Socrates is the role model. She likens truth to an inarticulate plaintiff stammering before a judge who fluently manipulates opinions. |
| 13338 | '"It is snowing" is true if and only if it is snowing' is a partial definition of the concept of truth [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Statements of the form '"it is snowing" is true if and only if it is snowing' and '"the world war will begin in 1963" is true if and only if the world war will being in 1963' can be regarded as partial definitions of the concept of truth. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Establishment of Scientific Semantics [1936], p.404) | |
| A reaction: The key word here is 'partial'. Truth is defined, presumably, when every such translation from the object language has been articulated, which is presumably impossible, given the infinity of concatenated phrases possible in a sentence. |
| 13337 | A language: primitive terms, then definition rules, then sentences, then axioms, and finally inference rules [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: For a language, we must enumerate the primitive terms, and the rules of definition for new terms. Then we must distinguish the sentences, and separate out the axioms from amng them, and finally add rules of inference. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Establishment of Scientific Semantics [1936], p.402) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This lays down the standard modern procedure for defining a logical language. Once all of this is in place, we then add a semantics and we are in business. Natural deduction tries to do without the axioms. |
| 13335 | Semantics is the concepts of connections of language to reality, such as denotation, definition and truth [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Semantics is the totality of considerations concerning concepts which express connections between expressions of a language and objects and states of affairs referred to by these expressions. Examples are denotation, satisfaction, definition and truth. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Establishment of Scientific Semantics [1936], p.401) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, he notes that it 'is not commonly recognised' that truth is part of semantics. Nowadays truth seems to be the central concept in most semantics. |
| 13336 | A language containing its own semantics is inconsistent - but we can use a second language [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: People have not been aware that the language about which we speak need by no means coincide with the language in which we speak. ..But the language which contains its own semantics must inevitably be inconsistent. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Establishment of Scientific Semantics [1936], p.402) | |
| A reaction: It seems that Tarski was driven to propose the metalanguage approach mainly by the Liar Paradox. |
| 13339 | A sentence is satisfied when we can assert the sentence when the variables are assigned [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Here is a partial definition of the concept of satisfaction: John and Peter satisfy the sentential function 'X and Y are brothers' if and only if John and Peter are brothers. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Establishment of Scientific Semantics [1936], p.405) | |
| A reaction: Satisfaction applies to open sentences and truth to closed sentences (with named objects). He uses the notion of total satisfaction to define truth. The example is a partial definition, not just an illustration. |
| 13340 | Satisfaction is the easiest semantical concept to define, and the others will reduce to it [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: It has been found useful in defining semantical concepts to deal first with the concept of satisfaction; both because the definition of this concept presents relatively few difficulties, and because the other semantical concepts are easily reduced to it. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Establishment of Scientific Semantics [1936], p.406) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 13339 for his explanation of satisfaction. We just say that a open sentence is 'acceptable' or 'assertible' (or even 'true') when particular values are assigned to the variables. Then sentence is then 'satisfied'. |
| 13341 | Using the definition of truth, we can prove theories consistent within sound logics [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Using the definition of truth we are in a position to carry out the proof of consistency for deductive theories in which only (materially) true sentences are (formally) provable. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Establishment of Scientific Semantics [1936], p.407) | |
| A reaction: This is evidently what Tarski saw as the most important first fruit of his new semantic theory of truth. |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 23747 | What is sacred is not a person, but the whole physical human being [Weil] |
| Full Idea: There is something sacred in every man, but it is not his person. Nor yet is it the human personality. It is this man; no more and no less. …It is he. The whole of him. The arms, they eyes, the thoughts, everything. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p,70) | |
| A reaction: I take her to be referring to exactly the concept of a 'person' which Locke introduced. It is important to remember that his concept is mainly forensic - as a concept of ownership and contracts. A person is an abstraction. Even a corpse is a human. |
| 23756 | The mind is imprisoned and limited by language, restricting our awareness of wider thoughts [Weil] |
| Full Idea: At the very best, a mind is enclosed in language as in a prison. It is limited to the number of relations which words can make simultaneously present to it; and remains in ignorance of thoughts which involve the combination of a greater number. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.89) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a germ of the type of view of language which blossoms in Derrida. But she is on to something. None of us grasp fully, I think, the non-linguistic nature of good thinking. |
| 23758 | Beauty is an attractive mystery, leaving nothing to be desired [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Beauty is the supreme mystery of the world. It is a gleam which attracts the attention and yet does nothing to sustain it. …While exciting desire, it makes clear that there is nothing in it to be desired, because what we want is that it should not change. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.92) | |
| A reaction: She attributes beauty to a supernatural source. I catalogue this idea under 'the sublime', rather than 'beauty'. It may be better to say that beauty inspires love, rather than desire. |
| 23760 | All we need are the unity of justice, truth and beauty [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Justice, truth, and beauty are sisters and comrades. With three such beautiful words we have no need to look for any others. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.93) | |
| A reaction: The embodiment of platonist values. Without the platonist ontology, I like the identification of a few core values, and have always thought that Beauty, Goodness and Truth were a well chosen trio. Swapping 'justice' for 'goodness' is interesting. |
| 23748 | The sacred in every human is their expectation of good rather than evil [Weil] |
| Full Idea: At the bottom of every human heart …there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all crimes committed, suffered and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.71) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that this expectation may come from having at least one loving parent, and failing that there are people who have no such expectation as adults. Simone obviously thinks the hope runs deeper than that. |
| 23759 | Everything which originates in love is beautiful [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Everything which originates from pure love is lit with the radiance of beauty. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.93) | |
| A reaction: I suppose if I found a counterexample, she would say that is not 'pure' love. This sentence leaves open the possibility of beauty in the absence of love (such as a beautiful face noticed in the street). In her case, can beauty and love be separated? |
| 23762 | Evil is transmitted by comforts and pleasures, but mostly by doing harm to people [Weil] |
| Full Idea: One may transmit evil to a human being by flattering him or giving him comforts and pleasures; but most often men transmit evil to other men by doing them harm. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.94) | |
| A reaction: Some people receive harm very passively, especially if it is normal. What of tough love, which is erroneously seen as harm? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 23750 | It is not more money which the wretched members of society need [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Suppose the devil were bargaining for the soul of some wretch, and some pitying person said to the devil 'Shame on you, that commodity is worth twice as much'. Such is the sinister farce played by the working class unions, parties and intellectuals. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.80) | |
| A reaction: A striking thought. It is paradoxical when the working classes despise the middle classes, and yet aspire to be like them. It's hard to know what a mystic like Weil has in mind. An obvious thought is that the aspiration should be freedom, not money. |
| 23749 | The problem of the collective is not suppression of persons, but persons erasing themselves [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The chief danger does not lie in the collectivity's tendency to circumscribe the person, but in the person's tendency to immolate himself in the collective. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.78) | |
| A reaction: I'm guessing that in 1943 she had in mind both Nazis and Communists. She seems to articulate a strong form of liberalism in an interesting way. It sounds like a form of Bad Faith. |
| 23753 | People absurdly claim an equal share of things which are essentially privileged [Weil] |
| Full Idea: To the dimmed understanding of our age there seems nothing odd in claiming an equal share of privilege for everybody - an equal share in things whose essence is privilege. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.84) | |
| A reaction: Not sure what she has in mind. Probably not the finest food and drink. I suppose she is attacking the modern egalitarian view of democratic society. What things have privilege as their 'essence'? Being a 'winner'? Interesting, though. |
| 23751 | Rights are asserted contentiously, and need the backing of force [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.81) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of observation which leads on to Foucault's account of all-pervasive power. Her observation may not be so sinister. It is obvious that introductions of new rights go against the grain of a conservative society - and so need a push. |
| 23752 | Giving centrality to rights stifles all impulses of charity [Weil] |
| Full Idea: To place the notion of rights at the centre of social conflicts is to inhibit any possible impulse of charity on both sides. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.83) | |
| A reaction: I think she exaggerates. To place personal charity at the centre of social conflicts strikes me as extremely conservative, and unlikely to improve the situation very much. I'm unsure how to reconcile this with Idea 23750. What sort of charity? |
| 23757 | The spirit of justice needs the full attention of truth, and that attention is love [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Because affliction and truth need the same kind of attention …the spirit of justice and the spirit of truth are one. The spirit of justice and truth is nothing else be a certain kind of attention, which is pure love. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.92) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about this as an observation, but as an inspiration it is very appealing, and (as so often with Weil) strikingly and attractively independent. I prefer love to arise naturally, rather than be a product of exhortation. |
| 23761 | Justice (concerning harm) is distinct from rights (concerning inequality) [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Justice is seeing that no harm is done to men. When a man cries inwardly 'Why am I being hurt?' he is being harmed. The other cry of 'Why have others got more than me?' refers to rights. We must distinguish them, and hush the second with law. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.93) | |
| A reaction: Her great passion is for justice, and so she downplays rights. The simple 'why am I being hurt?' has a horrible resonance in 1943. What of the hurts of disease? Are they unjust? |
| 23764 | The only thing in society worse than crime is repressive justice [Weil] |
| Full Idea: There is one, and only one, thing in society more hideous than crime - namely, repressive justice. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.95) | |
| A reaction: Presumably fans of 'repressive' justice would describe it as 'reformative' justice. In general, one of the most hideous parts of historical human societies has been the punishments they dished out (simply because they had the power to do it). |
| 23763 | Punishment aims at the good for men who don't desire it [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Punishment is solely a method of procuring pure good for men who do not desire it. The art of punishing is the art of awakening in a criminal, by pain or even death, the desire for pure good. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.95) | |
| A reaction: I know Weil is seen as some sort of saint, but this remark could have come from the Inquisition. I'm always alarmed by talk of 'pure' good and 'pure' evil, which seem to need a superior insight the rest of us lack. But see Idea 23764. |
| 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. |
| 23754 | The only choice is between supernatural good, or evil [Weil] |
| Full Idea: In all the crucial problems of human existence the only choice is between supernatural good on the one hand and evil on the other. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.86) | |
| A reaction: This idea strikes me as absurd, but I include it for a fuller picture of Simone Weil. Aristotle (my hero) is referred to, and labelled as more stupid than a village idiot. |
| 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. |