Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Courtier and the Heretic' and 'works'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


3 ideas

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
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?
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Williams,B, by Hursthouse]
     Full Idea: Williams has expressed pessimism about the project of Aristotelian naturalism on the grounds that his conception of nature, and thereby of human nature, was normative, and that, in a scientific age, this is not a conception that we can take on board.
     From: report of Bernard Williams (works [1971]) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.11
     A reaction: I think there is a compromise here. The existentialist denial of intrinsic human nature seems daft, but Aristotelians must grasp the enormous flexibility that is possible to human behaviour because of the open nature of rationality.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 10. Theocracy
The politics of Leibniz was the reunification of Christianity [Stewart,M]
     Full Idea: The politics of Leibniz may be summed up in one word: theocracy. The specific agenda motivating much of his work was to reunite the Protestant and Catholic churches
     From: Matthew Stewart (The Courtier and the Heretic [2007], Ch. 5)
     A reaction: This would be a typical project for a rationalist philosopher, who thinks that good reasoning will gradually converge on the one truth.