16 ideas
| 291 | Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age. | |
| From: Plato (Laches [c.381 BCE], 188b) | |
| A reaction: I have taught teenagers who seemed to me wiser than nearly all the adults I have ever met. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 7357 | People who control others with fluent language often end up being hated [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Of what use is eloquence? He who engages in fluency of words to control men often finds himself hated by them. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], V.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't recall Socrates making this very good point to any of the sophists (such as Gorgias). The idea that if you battle or connive your way to dominance over others then you are successful is false. Life is a much longer game than that. |
| 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'? |
| 7358 | All men prefer outward appearance to true excellence [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: I have yet to meet a man as fond of excellence as he is of outward appearances. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], IX.18) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, this cynical view of the love of virtue is put by Plato into the mouths of Glaucon and Adeimantus (in Bk II of 'Republic', e.g. Idea 12), and not into the mouth of Socrates, who goes on to defend the possibility of true virtue. |
| 7362 | Humans are similar, but social conventions drive us apart (sages and idiots being the exceptions) [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: In our natures we approximate one another; habits put us further and further apart. The only ones who do not change are sages and idiots. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.2) | |
| A reaction: I find most of Confucius rather uninteresting, but this is a splendid remark about the influence of social conventions on human nature. Sages can achieve universal morality if they rise above social convention, and seek the true virtues of human nature. |
| 7360 | Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself. Then you will have no enemies, either in the state or in your home. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XII.2) | |
| A reaction: The Golden Rule, but note the second sentence. Logically, it leads to the absurdity of not giving someone an Elvis record for Christmas because you yourself don't like Elvis. Kant (Idea 3733) and Nietzsche (Idea 4560) offer good criticisms. |
| 7359 | Excess and deficiency are equally at fault [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Excess and deficiency are equally at fault. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XI.16) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of wisdom we admire in Aristotle (and in any sensible person), but it may also be the deepest motto of conservatism, and it is a long way from romantic philosophy, and the clarion call of Nietzsche to greater excitement in life. |
| 7363 | The virtues of the best people are humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: He who in this world can practise five things may indeed be considered Man-at-his-best: humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.5) | |
| A reaction: A very nice list. Who could resist working with a colleague who had such virtues? Who could go wrong if they married a person who had them? I can't think of anything important that is missing. |
| 293 | Being unafraid (perhaps through ignorance) and being brave are two different things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To be unafraid (like a small child who doesn't understand the danger) and to be brave are two quite different things. | |
| From: Plato (Laches [c.381 BCE], 197b) |
| 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. |
| 7361 | Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XIV.37) | |
| A reaction: Plato notes that such people tend to avoid political life (and a left sheltering, as if from a wild storm!), but he thinks they should be dragged into the political arena for the common good. Confucius seems to approve of the avoidance. Plato is right. |
| 23393 | Confucianism assumes that all good developments have happened, and there is only one Way [Norden on Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: The two major limitations of Confucianism are that it assumes that all worthwhile cultural, social and ethical innovation has already occurred, and that it does not recognise the plurality of worthwhile ways of life. | |
| From: comment on Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE]) by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 3.III | |
| A reaction: In modern liberal terms that is about as conservative as it is possible to get. We think of it as the state of mind of an old person who can only long for the way things were when they were young. But 'hold fast to that which is good'! |
| 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. |