10 ideas
3653 | My Meditations are the complete foundation of my physics [Descartes] |
Full Idea: My six Meditations contain all the foundations of my physics, …and their principles destroy those of Aristotle. | |
From: René Descartes (Letters to Mersenne [1640], 1641.01.28) |
21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
Full Idea: In early work Foucault writes in opposition to the Enlightenment. ..The reason that was supposed to liberate us has itself become the primary instrument of our domination. ..His heroisation of the mad aims to set up an alternative to the regime of reason. | |
From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 7 | |
A reaction: Adorno and Horkheimer are cited as background. I hear Spinoza turning in his grave, because right reason could never be an instrument of domination. |
4736 | Truth is such a transcendentally clear notion that it cannot be further defined [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Truth is such a transcendentally clear notion that it cannot be further defined. | |
From: René Descartes (Letters to Mersenne [1640], 1642), quoted by Pascal Engel - Truth Intro | |
A reaction: This is the view endorsed by Davidson. It is tempting to take basic concepts as axiomatic, but philosophers can't make that move every time they are in trouble. I have to say, though, that truth is a good candidate. |
21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
Full Idea: Foucault's project is to question quite specific claims to cognitive authority, made by many psychologists and social scientists. He has not problems with other domains, such as mathematics and the basic sciences. | |
From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 5 | |
A reaction: Nowadays we describe his target as Epistemic Injustice (see book of that title by Miranda Fricker). |
21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
Full Idea: Unlike Marxists, Foucault's project is to offer an internal account of human thinking, without assuming a privileged status for the conscious content of that thought. | |
From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 4 | |
A reaction: His project is historical. Personally I resent anyone who claims to understand my thought better than I do. I suppose my intellectual duty is to read Foucault, and see (honestly) whether his project applies to me. |
17722 | The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: The possession conditions for the concept 'red' of the colour red are tied to those very conditions which individuate the colour red. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (Explaining the A Priori [2000], p.267), quoted by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 2.5 | |
A reaction: Jenkins reports that he therefore argues that we can learn something about the word 'red' from thinking about the concept 'red', which is his new theory of the a priori. I find 'possession conditions' and 'individuation' to be very woolly concepts. |
21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
Full Idea: Foucault maintains that for any 'authored' text a plurality of selves fulfils the author function. | |
From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 2 | |
A reaction: This is a completely different concept of a 'self' from the one normally found in this database. I would call it the sociological concept of self, as something changing with context. So how many selves is 'Jane Austen'? |
21940 | Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault] |
Full Idea: The decision 'to prefer the risk of death to the certainty of having to obey' is the 'last anchor point' for any assertion of rights, 'one more solid and closer to the experience than "natural rights"'. | |
From: Michel Foucault (works [1978], EW III:449) | |
A reaction: I recall a group of Afrikaan men going to face certain death, rather than give up apartheid. |
21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
Full Idea: For Foucault power is less about repressing people or issuing commands, and more about producing identities and ways of living. | |
From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 01 | |
A reaction: I take this to be the culmination of the Hegelian view of a person, as largely created by social circumstances rather than by biology. I'm beginning to think that Foucault may be a very important philosopher - although elusive. |
3652 | I can't prove the soul is indestructible, only that it is separate from the mortal body [Descartes] |
Full Idea: I don't know how to demonstrate that God cannot annihilate the soul, but only that it is entirely distinct from the body, and consequently that it is not naturally subject to die with it, which is all that is required to establish religion. | |
From: René Descartes (Letters to Mersenne [1640], 1640.02.24) |