5 ideas
3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
Full Idea: Those seeking to give their lives meaning usually envision a role in something larger than themselves, …but such a role can't confer significance unless that enterprise is itself significant. | |
From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
A reaction: Which correctly implies that this way of finding meaning for one's life is doomed. |
15034 | Are genera and species real or conceptual? bodies or incorporeal? in sensibles or separate from them? [Porphyry] |
Full Idea: I shall beg off talking of a) whether genera and species are real or situated in bare thoughts alone, b) whether as real they are bodies or incorporeals, and c) whether they are separated or in sensibles and have their reality in connection with them. | |
From: Porphyry (Isagoge ('Introduction') [c.295], (2)) | |
A reaction: This passage, picking up on Aristotle, seems to be the original source that grew into the medievel debate about universals. It seems to rather neatly lay out the agenda for the universals debate which is still with us. |
3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
Full Idea: Justifications come to an end when we are content to have them end. | |
From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
A reaction: This is the correct account, with the vital proviso that where justification comes to an end is usually a social matter. Robinson Crusoe doesn't care whether he 'knows' - he just acts on his beliefs. |
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? |
3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
Full Idea: If life is absurd because it only lasts seventy years, wouldn't it be infinitely absurd if it lasted for eternity? And if we are absurd because we are small, would we be any less absurd if we filled the universe? | |
From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §1) |