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20189
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Belief is a feeling, independent of the will, which arises from uncontrolled and unknown causes [Hume]
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Full Idea:
Belief consists merely in a certain feeling or sentiment; in something, that depends not on the will, but must arise from certain determinate causes and principles, of which we are not master.
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From:
David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appen p.2)
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A reaction:
This is the opposite of Descartes' 'doxastic voluntarism' (i.e. we choose what to believe). If you want to become a Christian, steep yourself in religious literature, and the company of religious people. It will probably work.
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5323
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Experiences are logically separate, but factually linked by simultaneity or a feeling of continuousness [Ayer on Hume]
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Full Idea:
Our experiences are logically independent, but they may be factually connected. What unites them is that either they are experienced together, or (if at separate times) they are separated by a stream of experience which is felt to be continuous.
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From:
comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Bk 3 App.) by A.J. Ayer - The Central Questions of Philosophy §VI.A
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A reaction:
A strict empiricist cannot deny that the feeling of continuity could be false, though that invites the Cartesian question of what exactly is experiencing the delusion. Hume denies that we experience any link between simultaneous experiences.
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21311
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Are self and substance the same? Then how can self remain if substance changes? [Hume]
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Full Idea:
Is the self the same with substance? If it be, how can that question have place concerning the subsistence of self, under a change of substance? If they be distinct, what is the difference between them?
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From:
David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appendix)
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A reaction:
Locke seems to think there is a characterless substance which supports momories, and the latter constitute the self. So if my substance acquires Nestor's memories, I become Nestor. Hume, the stricter empiricist, cares nothing for characterless things.
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23115
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We have no natural love of mankind, other than through various relationships [Hume]
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Full Idea:
It may be affirm'd, that there is no such passion in human minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to ourself.
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From:
David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], p.481), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 9.4
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A reaction:
Hume says this is for the best. I can't imagine spontaneous love of human beings we have never met. It takes the teachings of some sort of doctrine - religious or political - to produce such an attitude. I see it as a distortion of love. A hijacking.
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7675
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Schiller speaks obsessively of freedom throughout his works [Schiller, by Berlin]
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Full Idea:
Schiller constantly speaks of spiritual freedom: freedom of reason, the kingdom of freedom, our free self, inner freedom, freedom of mind, moral freedom, the free intelligence - a very favourite phrase - holy freedom, the impregnable citadel of freedom.
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From:
report of Friedrich Schiller (works [1794]) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism
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A reaction:
Kant's philosophy and his Kingdom of Ends are an obvious source for this, but I trace the sentiment back to 'Freeborn John' Lilburne during the English Civil War. The English, thanks to Voltaire, embodied freedom in the Enlightenment.
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15250
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If impressions, memories and ideas only differ in vivacity, nothing says it is memory, or repetition [Whitehead on Hume]
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Full Idea:
Hume confuses 'repetition of impressions' with 'impression of repetitions of impressions'. ...In order of 'force and vivacity' we have: impressions, memories, ideas. This omits the vital fact that memory is memory; the notion of repetition is lost.
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From:
comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality V.II
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A reaction:
[compressed; Harré and Madden spotted this idea] This seems to pinpoint rather nicely the hopeless thinness of Hume's account. He is so desperate to get it down to minimal empirical experience that his explanations are too thin. One big idea....
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7909
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The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha]
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Full Idea:
The Eightfold Path has three steps concerning morality - right speech, right bodily action, and right livelihood; three of wisdom - right views, right intentions, and right effort; and two of tranquillity - right mindfulness and right concentration.
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From:
Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
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A reaction:
Most of this translates quite comfortably into the aspirations of western philosophy. For example, 'right effort' sounds like Kant's claim that only a good will is truly good (Idea 3710). The Buddhist division is interesting for action theory.
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7908
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At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha]
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Full Idea:
When an accomplished saint comes to the end, he does not go anywhere down in the earth or up in the sky, nor into any of the directions of space, but because his defilements have become extinct he simply ceases to be disturbed.
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From:
Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
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A reaction:
To 'cease to be disturbed' is the most attractive account of heaven I have encountered. It all sounds a bit dull though. I wonder, as usual, how they know all this stuff.
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