6 ideas
| 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? |
| 23035 | The good life aims at perfections, or absolute laws, or what is absolutely desirable [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The differentia of the good life …is controlled by the consciousness of there being some perfection which has to be fulfilled, some law which has to be obeyed, something absolutely desirable whatever the individual may for the time desire. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.134), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: The 'perfection' suggests Plato, and the 'law' suggests Kant. The idea that something is 'absolutely desirable' is, I suspect, aimed at the utilitarians, who don't care what is desired. I'm no idealist, but have some sympathy with this idea. |
| 23037 | People are improved by egalitarian institutions and habits [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Man has bettered himself through institutions and habits which tend to make the welfare of all the welfare of each. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.180), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot. We underestimate how the best social values are promoted by the existence of enlightened institutions, rather than by preaching and teaching. Schools, law courts and churche embody their values. |
| 23043 | All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Our ultimate standard of worth is an ideal of personal worth. All other values are relative to personal values. To speak of any progress of a nation or society or mankind except as relative to some greater worth of persons is to use words without meaning. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics [1882], p.193), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: Note that, pre-verificationism, a Victorian talks of plausible words actually being meaningless. This is a good statement of the core doctrine of liberalism. |
| 9111 | God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
| A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God. |
| 9112 | We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism. |