|
5651
|
Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
|
|
Full Idea:
Kierkegaard developed the idea of 'truth as subjectivity'; the traditional conceptions of truth - correspondence or coherence - he regarded as equally empty, not because false, but because tautologous; truth ceases to be empty when related to a subject.
|
|
From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
|
|
A reaction:
It strikes me that the correspondence theory of truth also involves a subject. If you become too obsessed with the subject, you lose the concept of truth. You need a concept of the non-subject too. Truth concerns the contents of thought.
|
|
16766
|
One thing needs a single thing to unite it; if there were two forms, something must unite them [Aquinas]
|
|
Full Idea:
One thing simpliciter is produced out of many actually existing things only if there is something uniting and tying them to each other. If Socrates were animal and rational by different forms, then to be united they would need something to make them one.
|
|
From:
Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de anima [1269], 11c), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.2
|
|
A reaction:
This is the reply to the idea that a single thing is just an interesting of many sortal essences. It presumes, of course, that a thing like a horse has something called 'unity'.
|
|
22090
|
For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
|
|
Full Idea:
Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it.
|
|
From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], I:26) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3
|
|
A reaction:
This is from the spokesman for the aesthetic option in life, which is largely pleasure-seeking. No real choices ever occur.
|
|
5650
|
Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
|
|
Full Idea:
For Kierkegaard, reason, which produces only abstractions, negates our individual essence; this essence is subjectivity, and subjectivity exists only in the 'leap of faith', whereby the individual casts in his lot with eternity.
|
|
From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
|
|
A reaction:
Interesting, but this strikes me as a confusion of reason and logic. A logical life would indeed be a sort of death, and need faith as an escape, but a broad view of the rational life includes emotion, imagination and laughter. Blind faith is disaster.
|
|
22095
|
There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
|
|
Full Idea:
Kierkegaard distinguishes three main types of subjectivity: aesthetic, ethical and religious. But are these types of people, or different phases of one person's life?
|
|
From:
report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4
|
|
A reaction:
His picture of the religious mode holds no appeal for me. I also can't accept that the aesthetic and the moral are somewho distinct. People may discover they have slipped into one of these modes, but no one chooses them, do they?
|
|
20747
|
What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard]
|
|
Full Idea:
In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses.
|
|
From:
Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology'
|
|
A reaction:
I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')?
|