15 ideas
19574 | If man sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself, by acting against his own convictions [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Man has his being in truth - if he sacrifices truth he sacrifices himself. Whoever betrays truth betrays himself. It is not a question of lying - but of acting against one's conviction. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 038) | |
A reaction: Does he condone lying here, as long as you don't believe the lie? We would call it loss of integrity. |
19571 | Delusion and truth differ in their life functions [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The distinction between delusion and truth lies in the difference in their life functions. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 008) | |
A reaction: Pure pragmatism, it seems. We might expect doubts about objective truth from a leading light of the Romantic movement. |
19575 | Refinement of senses increasingly distinguishes individuals [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The more our senses are refined, the more capable they become of distinguishing between individuals. The highest sense would be the highest receptivity to particularity in human nature. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 072) | |
A reaction: I adore this idea!! It goes into the collection of support I am building for individual essences, against the absurd idea of kinds as essences (when they are actually categorisations). It also accompanies particularism in ethics. |
19572 | Experiences tests reason, and reason tests experience [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Experience is the test of the rational - and vice versa. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 010) | |
A reaction: A wonderful remark. Surely we can't ignore our need to test claims of pure logic by filling in the variables with concrete instances, to assess validity? And philosophy without examples is doomed to be abstract waffle. Coherence is the combined aim. |
411 | If we succeed in speaking the truth, we cannot know we have done it [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: No man has seen certain truth, and no man will ever know about the gods and other things I mentioned; for if he succeeds in saying what is fully true, he himself is unaware of it; opinion is fixed by fate on all things. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B34), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.49.4 |
412 | If God had not created honey, men would say figs are sweeter [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: If God had not created yellow honey, men would say that figs were sweeter. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B38), quoted by Herodian - On Peculiar Speech 41.5 |
19573 | The seat of the soul is where our inner and outer worlds interpenetrate [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The seat of the soul is the point where the inner and the outer worlds touch. Wherever they penetrate each other - it is there at every point of penetration. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 020) | |
A reaction: I surmise that Spinoza's dual-aspect monism is behind this interesting remark. See the related idea from Schopenhauer. |
19577 | Everything is a chaotic unity, then we abstract, then we reunify the world into a free alliance [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Before abstraction everything is one - but one as chaos is - after abstraction everything is again unified - but in a free alliance of independent, self-determined beings. A crowd has become a society - a chaos is transformed into a manifold world. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 094) | |
A reaction: Personally I take (unfashionably) psychological abstraction to one of the key foundations of human thought, so I love this idea, which gives a huge picture of how the abstracting mind relates to reality. |
19578 | Only self-illuminated perfect individuals are beautiful [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Everything beautiful is a self-illuminated, perfect individual. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 101) | |
A reaction: It is a commonplace to describe something beautiful as being 'perfect'. Unfinished masterpieces are interesting exceptions. Are only 'individuals' beautiful? Is unity a necessary condition of beauty? Bad art fails to be self-illuminated. |
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? |
1640 | The basic Eleatic belief was that all things are one [Xenophanes, by Plato] |
Full Idea: The Eleatic tribe, which had its beginnings from Xenophanes and still earlier, proceed on the grounds that all things so-called are one. | |
From: report of Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE]) by Plato - The Sophist 242d |
3055 | Xenophanes said the essence of God was spherical and utterly inhuman [Xenophanes, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Xenophanes taught that the essence of God was of a spherical form, in no respect resembling man. | |
From: report of Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.2.3 |
408 | Ethiopian gods have black hair, and Thracian gods have red hair [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: Ethiopians have gods with snub noses and black hair, Thracians have gods with grey eyes and red hair. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B16), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 7.22.1 |
407 | Mortals believe gods are born, and have voices and clothes just like mortals [Xenophanes] |
Full Idea: Mortals believe the gods to be created by birth, and to have raiment, voice and body like mortals'. | |
From: Xenophanes (fragments/reports [c.530 BCE], B14), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.109.2 |
19576 | Religion needs an intermediary, because none of us can connect directly to a godhead [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Nothing is more indispensable for true religious feeling than an intermediary - which connects us to the godhead. The human being is absolutely incapable of sustaining an immediate relation with this. | |
From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 073) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a defence of priests and organised religion, and an implied attack on protestants who give centrality to private prayer and conscience. |