11 ideas
| 20955 | Art can make reason more all-inclusive, by articulating what seemed inexpressible [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The early German Romantics argued that art pointed to a more all-inclusive conception of reason, which can offer ways of articulating what is not conceptually accessible. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 5 'Reason') | |
| A reaction: [This is Novalis, F.Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and Hölderlin] I'm in favour of expanding reason, to include assessment of situations and coherence, rather than just stepwise reasoning. Not sure that art 'articulates' something new. |
| 20950 | German Idealism says our thinking and nature have the same rational structure [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: German Idealism aims to demonstrate that our thinking relates to a nature which is intelligibly structured in the same way as our thinking is structured. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 3 'Limits') | |
| A reaction: Now that's an idealism I might buy into. Frege thought his logic was mapping rational reality. My angle is that we are a product of this 'reality', so we should expect our thinking to be similarly structured. Reason is derived from nature. |
| 5673 | If we have a pain, we are strongly aware of the bodily self [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: Since sensations such as pain generally present themselves as in some part of one's body, the bodily self seems to be anything but elusive in sensory awareness. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really good observation. Whenever we do Hume's experiment in introspection, we tend to examine either pure sense experiences or abstract ideas. If we introspect a pain, we actually find the body at the centre of activity. |
| 5670 | Knowledge of thoughts covers both their existence and their contents [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: Our knowledge of our thoughts includes both our knowledge that we think and our knowledge of the contents of our thought. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a simple, self-evident and true distinction. We might question the first part, though. Knowledge involves the contents, but the fact that we think may be an inference from the contents, or even a fictional abstraction. Contents alone? |
| 5671 | Outer senses are as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: It would be quite legitimate to claim that the outer senses are at least as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting to speculate about the extent to which a 'mind in a void' could have a personal identity. Experiences tend to be 'mine' because of my body, which has a history and a space-time location. But this doesn't make identity entirely cultural. |
| 5672 | Is there a mode of self-awareness that isn't perception, and could it give self-knowledge? [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: The key questions are: can one be introspectively aware of oneself other than through an inner sense, and, if there is a non-perceptual mode of introspective self-awareness, can it be the ground or basis of one's self-knowledge? | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: Perception would involve a controlled attempt to experience a separate object. The other mode would presumably be more direct. The question boils down to 'is there an object which introspection can attempt to perceive?' Good question. |
| 5675 | Neither self-consciousness nor self-reference require self-knowledge [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: According to Kant, self-consciousness does not require self-knowledge, and it also appears that self-reference does not require self-knowledge. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §II) | |
| A reaction: Kant's point is that knowledge requires a stage of conceptualisation, which simple self-consciousness might not involve. The second point is that self-reference require no knowledge because error is impossible. Two nice points, and useful distinctions. |
| 5674 | We can't introspect ourselves as objects, because that would involve possible error [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: One can identify an object in a mirror as oneself, but that brings with it the possibility of misidentification, so since introspective awareness statements are immune to error, one is not introspectively aware of oneself as an object. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: As a pure argument this looks weak. There could be two sorts of knowledge of objects, one admitting possible error, the other not. Introspecting pain appears to be awareness of oneself as an object. Planning my future needs my body. |
| 20942 | Nazis think race predetermines the self [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The Nazi idea is that the self is predetermined primarily by its race. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that I occasionally encounter this view, in very patriotic people. But then you meet people who feeling that their self is mainly determined by support of a football team. Note, though, 'pre-'determined. Hegel makes this idea possible? |
| 20946 | Rhetoric is built into language, so it cannot be stripped from philosophy [Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The attempt to rid philosophy of rhetoric falls prey precisely to that fact that what is involved in rhetoric is inherent in what is built into all natural languages by their genesis in the real historical world. | |
| From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 2 'Hamann') | |
| A reaction: Rhetoric can range from charming to bullying, and it is the latter which is the problem. The underlying issue is dogma versus dialectic. Some analytic philosophers have a good shot at being non-rhetorical. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |