20 ideas
| 5893 | A wise man has integrity, firmness of will, nobility, consistency, sobriety, patience [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The wise man does nothing of which he can repent, nothing against his will, does everything nobly, consistently, soberly, rightly, not looking forward to anything as bound to come, is not astonished at any novel occurrence, abides by his own decisions. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], V.xxviii) | |
| A reaction: Notice that the wise man never exhibits weakness of will (an Aristotelian virtue), and is consistent (as Kant proposed), and is patient (as the Stoics proposed). But Cicero doesn't think he should busy himself maximising happiness. |
| 20962 | Habermas seems to make philosophy more democratic [Habermas, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Habermas is concerned to avoid the traumas of modern German history by making democracy an integral part of philosophy. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy Conc 'Habermas' | |
| A reaction: Hence Habermas's emphasis on communication as central to language, which is central to philosophy. Modern philosophy departments are amazingly hierarchical. |
| 5891 | Philosophy is the collection of rational arguments [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy consists in the collection of rational arguments. [Philosophia ex rationum collatione constet] | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], IV.xxxviii.84) | |
| A reaction: A nice epigraph for this database. Philosophy is, I trust, a little more than that, because you don't just hide them away in a drawer. But if you arrange them nicely in a museum (a website, for example), not a lot more can be done. |
| 15670 | The aim of 'post-metaphysical' philosophy is to interpret the sciences [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: For Habermas, the task of what he calls 'post-metaphysical' philosophy is to be a stand-in and interpreter for the specialized sciences. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.5:65 |
| 15665 | We can do social philosophy by studying coordinated action through language use [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: Habermas claims to have embarked upon a new way of doing social philosophy, one that begins from an analysis of language use and that locates the rational basis of the coordination of action in speech. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:28 |
| 20573 | Rather than instrumental reason, Habermas emphasises its communicative role [Habermas, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Instead of Enlightenment instrumental rationality (criticised by Adorno and Horkheimer), Habermas emphasizes 'communicative rationality', which makes critical discussion and mutual understanding possible. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: There was a good reason not to smoke cigarettes, before we found out what it is. In one sense, reasons are in the world. This is interesting, but I feel analytic vertigo, as the lovely concept of 'rationality' becomes blurred and diffused. |
| 20961 | What is considered a priori changes as language changes [Habermas, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Habermas claims that what is regarded as a priori changes with history. This is because the linguistic structures on which judgements depend are themselves part of history, not prior to it. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy Conc 'Habermas' | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting style of argument generally only found in continental philosophers, because they see the problem as historical rather than timeless. Compare Idea 20595, which sees analyticity historically. |
| 5879 | The soul is the heart, or blood in the heart, or part of the brain, of something living in heart or brain, or breath [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Some think the soul is the heart; Empedocles holds that the soul is blood in the heart; others said one part of the brain claimed the primacy of soul; others say the heart or brain are habitations of the soul; while others identify soul and breath. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.ix.17-19) | |
| A reaction: A nice survey of views. Note that many of them identify the psuché/anima with physical parts of the body; only the fourth option seems to be dualist. This is despite the contemptuous response to Democritus' atomist theory of soul. |
| 5884 | How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Why is it that, using the same mind, we have perception of things so utterly unlike as colour, taste, heat, smell and sound? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xx.47) | |
| A reaction: This leaves us with the 'binding problem', of how the dissimilar sensations are pulled together into one field of experience. It is a nice simple objection, though, to anyone who simplistically claims that the mind is self-evidently unified. |
| 5887 | The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: In souls there is no mingling of ingredients, nothing of two-fold nature, so it is impossible for the soul to be divided; impossible, therefore, for it to perish either; for perishing is like the separation of parts which were maintained in union. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxix.71) | |
| A reaction: Cicero knows he is pushing his luck in asserting that perishing is a sort of division. Why can't something be there one moment and gone the next? He appears to be in close agreement with Descartes about being a 'thinking thing'. |
| 5886 | Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The soul has not the power of itself to see itself, but, like the eye, the soul, though it does not see itself, yet discerns other things. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxvii) | |
| A reaction: The soul is a complex item which contributes many layers of interpretation to what it sees, so there is scope for parts of the soul seeing other parts. Somewhere in the middle Cicero seems to be right - there is an elusive something we can't get at. |
| 4871 | A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: I say that a thing is free, which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letter to G.H. Schaller [1674], 1674.10) | |
| A reaction: Of course, this isn't 'freedom' at all, but it seems to exactly right as an account of so-called freedom. In the case of a human being the 'necessity of our own nature' is character, and virtue and vice are the expressions of the necessities of character. |
| 5885 | Souls contain no properties of elements, and elements contain no properties of souls [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: No beginnings of souls can be found on earth; there is no combination in souls that could be born from earth, nothing that partakes of moist or airy or fiery; for in those elements there is nothing to possess the power of memory, thought, or reflection. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxvi.66) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, but I think magnetism is an instructive analogy, which has weird properties which we never perceive in elements (though it is there, buried deep - suggesting panpsychism). Cicero would be disconcerted to find that fire isn't an element. |
| 15667 | To understand a statement is to know what would make it acceptable [Habermas] |
| Full Idea: We understand the meaning of a speech act when we know what would make it acceptable. | |
| From: Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981], I:297), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:37 | |
| A reaction: Finlayson glosses this as requiring the reasons which would justify the speech act. |
| 15668 | Meaning is not fixed by a relation to the external world, but a relation to other speakers [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: On Habermas's view, meanings are not determined by the speaker's relation to the external world, but by his relation to his interlocutors; meaning is essentially intersubjective. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.3:38 | |
| A reaction: This view is not the same as Grice's, but it is clearly much closer to Grice than to (say) the Frege/Davidson emphasis on truth-conditions. I'm not sure if I would know how to begin arbitrating between the two views! |
| 5890 | We should not share the distress of others, but simply try to relieve it [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We ought not to share distresses ourselves for the sake of others, but we ought to relieve others of their distress if we can. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], IV.xxvi.56) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a sensible and balanced attitude. Some people, particularly in a Christian culture, urge that feeling strong and painful compassion for others is an intrinsic good, but the commonsense view is that that just increases human suffering. |
| 5894 | All men except philosophers fear poverty [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: All men are afraid of poverty, but not a single philosopher is so. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], V.xxxi.88) | |
| A reaction: Not a thought which is encountered very often in modern philosophy journals. If a person is to be 'philosophical' in the way they live, calm endurance of the vicissitudes and hardships of life has to be a key prerequisite. |
| 5895 | If one despises illiterate mechanics individually, they are not worth more collectively [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Can anything be more foolish than to suppose that those, whom individually one despises as illiterate mechanics, are worth anything collectively? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], V.xxxvi.104) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle disagrees (Idea 2823). In 1906 a huge number of people guessed the weight of a cow at a fair, and the average was within one pound of the truth. In our world the healthy workings of the group are warped by the mass media. |
| 15669 | People endorse equality, universality and inclusiveness, just by their communicative practices [Habermas, by Finlayson] |
| Full Idea: The ideal of equality, universality, and inclusiveness are inscribed in the communicative practices of the lifeworld, and agents, merely by virtue of communicating, conform to them. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.4:60 | |
| A reaction: This summary of Habermas's social views strikes me as thoroughly Kantian. It is something like the ideals of the Kingdom of Ends, necessarily implemented in a liberal society. Habermas emphasises the social, where Kant starts from the liberal. |
| 23416 | Political involvement is needed, to challenge existing practices [Habermas, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Habermas thinks political deliberation is required precisely because in its absence people will tend to accept existing practices as given, and thereby perpetuate false needs. | |
| From: report of Jürgen Habermas (The Theory of Communicative Action [1981]) by Will Kymlicka - Community 'need' | |
| A reaction: If the dream is healthy and intelligent progress, it is not clear where that should come from. The problem with state involvement in the authority and power of the state. Locals are often prejudiced, so the intermediate level may be best. |