9 ideas
| 8063 | Baumgarten founded aesthetics in 1750 [Baumgarten, by Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Baumgarten founded aesthetics in the year 1750. | |
| From: report of Alexander Baumgarten (Aesthetica [1739]) by Leo Tolstoy - What is Art? Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: He gave it a label, separated it off from the rest of philosophy, and made taste the main focus. The philosophy of art goes back to at least Plato's 'Republic' and 'Symposium'. |
| 8118 | Beauty is an order between parts, and in relation to the whole [Baumgarten, by Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Beauty is defined by Baumgarten as a correspondence, that is, an order of parts in their mutual relations to each other and in their relation to the whole. | |
| From: report of Alexander Baumgarten (Aesthetica [1739]) by Leo Tolstoy - What is Art? Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: This may be one aspect of what is beautiful, but rather more than a nice arrangement is probably needed for art. We must distinguish flower arranging from poetic drama. Some masterpieces are rather messily arranged. |
| 8117 | Perfection comes through the senses (Beauty), through reason (Truth), and through moral will (Good) [Baumgarten, by Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: For Baumgarten, Beauty is the Perfect (the Absolute), recognised through the senses; Truth is the Perfect perceived through reason; Goodness is the Perfect reached by moral will. | |
| From: report of Alexander Baumgarten (Aesthetica [1739]) by Leo Tolstoy - What is Art? Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: At last, after many years of searching, I have found the origin of that great trio of ideals: Beauty, Goodness and Truth. Tolstoy sneers at them, but a person could do a lot worse than spending their lives trying to promote them. |
| 541 | Virtue comes more from habit than character [Critias] |
| Full Idea: More men are good through habit than through character. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B09), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.29.41 |
| 3236 | Equality of opportunity without equality of respect would create a very inhuman society [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: A highly rational, efficient and unmitigated application of the idea of equality of opportunity, while abandoning the idea of equality of respect as vague and nostalgic, would lead to a quite inhuman society. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §3) |
| 3234 | Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Equality seems to require that each person is owed an effort at identification; they should not be seen as a surface to which a label can be applied, but one should try to see the world (including the label) from their point of view. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
| 3233 | Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Supporters of equality have asserted that people are alike in certain things they could do or achieve, as well as in the things that they need and could suffer. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
| 3235 | It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: It is a mark of extreme exploitation or degradation that those who suffer it do NOT see themselves differently from the way they are seen by the exploiters. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
| 542 | Fear of the gods was invented to discourage secret sin [Critias] |
| Full Idea: When the laws forbade men to commit open crimes of violence, and they began to do them in secret, a wise and clever man invented fear of the gods for mortals, to frighten the wicked, even if they sin in secret. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B25), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 9.54 |