47 ideas
| 6095 | The business of metaphysics is to describe the world [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that the business of metaphysics is to describe the world. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §III) | |
| A reaction: At least he believed in metaphysics. Presumably he intends to describe the world in terms of its categories, rather than cataloguing every blade of grass. |
| 6106 | Reducing entities and premisses makes error less likely [Russell] |
| Full Idea: You diminish the risk of error with every diminution of entities and premisses. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VIII) | |
| A reaction: If there are actually lots of entities, you would increase error if you reduced them too much. Ockham's Razor seems more to do with the limited capacity of the human mind than with the simplicity or complexity of reality. See Idea 4456. |
| 6090 | Facts make propositions true or false, and are expressed by whole sentences [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A fact is the kind of thing that makes a proposition true or false, …and it is the sort of thing that is expressed by a whole sentence, not by a single name like 'Socrates'. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §I) | |
| A reaction: It is important to note a point here which I consider vital - that Russell keeps the idea of a fact quite distinct from the language in which it is expressed. Facts are a 'sort of thing', of the kind which are now referred to as 'truth-makers'. |
| 18348 | Not only atomic truths, but also general and negative truths, have truth-makers [Russell, by Rami] |
| Full Idea: In 1918 Russell held that beside atomic truths, also general and negative truths have truth-makers. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Adolph Rami - Introduction: Truth and Truth-Making note 04 |
| 6103 | Normally a class with only one member is a problem, because the class and the member are identical [Russell] |
| Full Idea: With the ordinary view of classes you would say that a class that has only one member was the same as that one member; that will land you in terrible difficulties, because in that case that one member is a member of that class, namely, itself. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VII) | |
| A reaction: The problem (I think) is that classes (sets) were defined by Frege as being identical with their members (their extension). With hindsight this may have been a mistake. The question is always 'why is that particular a member of that set?' |
| 6092 | In a logically perfect language, there will be just one word for every simple object [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §II) | |
| A reaction: In other words, there would be no universals, only names? All that matters is that a language can successfully refer (unambiguously) to anything it wishes to. There must be better ways than Russell's lexical explosion. |
| 6101 | Romulus does not occur in the proposition 'Romulus did not exist' [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Romulus does not occur in the proposition 'Romulus did not exist'. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VI) | |
| A reaction: A very nice paradoxical assertion, which captures the problem of finding the logical form for negative existential statements. Presumably the proposition refers to the mythical founder of Rome, though. He is not, I suppose, rigidly designated. |
| 6102 | You can understand 'author of Waverley', but to understand 'Scott' you must know who it applies to [Russell] |
| Full Idea: If you understand English you would understand the phrase 'the author of Waverley' if you had not heard it before, whereas you would not understand the meaning of 'Scott', because to know the meaning of a name is to know who it is applied to. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VI) | |
| A reaction: Actually, you would find 'Waverley' a bit baffling too. Would you understand "he was the author of his own destruction"? You can understand "Homer was the author of this" without knowing quite who 'Homer' applies to. All very tricky. |
| 10423 | There are a set of criteria for pinning down a logically proper name [Russell, by Sainsbury] |
| Full Idea: A logically proper name must be semantically simple, have just one referent, be understood by the user, be scopeless, is not a definite description, and rigidly designates. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], 24th pg) by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference Intro | |
| A reaction: Famously, Russell's hopes of achieving this logically desirable end got narrower and narrower, and ended with 'this' or 'that'. Maybe pure language can't do the job. |
| 7744 | Treat description using quantifiers, and treat proper names as descriptions [Russell, by McCullogh] |
| Full Idea: Having proposed that descriptions should be treated in quantificational terms, Russell then went on to introduce the subsidiary injunction that proper names should be treated as descriptions. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Gregory McCullogh - The Game of the Name 2.18 | |
| A reaction: McCulloch says Russell 'has a lot to answer for' here. It became a hot topic with Kripke. Personally I find Lewis's notion of counterparts the most promising line of enquiry. |
| 10426 | A name has got to name something or it is not a name [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A name has got to name something or it is not a name. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], 66th pg), quoted by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be stipulative, since most people would say that a list of potential names for a baby counted as names. It may be wrong. There are fictional names, or mistakes. |
| 6104 | Numbers are classes of classes, and hence fictions of fictions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Numbers are classes of classes, and classes are logical fictions, so that numbers are, as it were, fictions at two removes, fictions of fictions. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VIII) | |
| A reaction: This summarises the findings of Russell and Whitehead's researches into logicism. Gödel may have proved that project impossible, but there is now debate about that. Personally I think of numbers as names of patterns. |
| 21708 | Russell's new logical atomist was of particulars, universals and facts (not platonic propositions) [Russell, by Linsky,B] |
| Full Idea: Russell's new logical atomist ontology was of particulars, universals and facts, replacing the ontology of 'platonic atomism' consisting just of propositions. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 1 | |
| A reaction: Linsky cites Peter Hylton as saying that the earlier view was never replaced. The earlier view required propositions to be 'unified'. I surmise that the formula 'Fa' combines a universal and a particular, to form an atomic fact. [...but Idea 6111!] |
| 19051 | Russell's atomic facts are actually compounds, and his true logical atoms are sense data [Russell, by Quine] |
| Full Idea: In 1918 Russell does not admit facts as fundamental; atomic facts are atomic as facts go, but they are compound objects. The atoms of Russell's logical atomism are not atomic facts but sense data. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Willard Quine - Russell's Ontological Development p.83 | |
| A reaction: By about 1921 Russell had totally given up sense-data, because he had been reading behaviourist psychology. |
| 6089 | Logical atomism aims at logical atoms as the last residue of analysis [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I call my doctrine logical atomism because, as the last residue of analysis, I wish to arrive at logical atoms and not physical atoms; some of them will be particulars, and others will be predicates and relations and so on. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §I) | |
| A reaction: However we judge it, logical atomism is a vital landmark in the history of 'analytical' philosophy, because it lays out the ideal for our assessment. It is fashionable to denigrate analysis, but I think it is simply the nearest to wisdom we will ever get. |
| 6100 | Once you have enumerated all the atomic facts, there is a further fact that those are all the facts [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When you have enumerated all the atomic facts in the world, it is a further fact about the world that those are all the atomic facts there are about the world. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §V) | |
| A reaction: There is obviously a potential regress of facts about facts here. This looks like one of the reasons why the original logical atomism had a short shelf-life. Personally I see this as an argument in favour of rationalism, in the way Bonjour argues for it. |
| 6105 | Logical atoms aims to get down to ultimate simples, with their own unique reality [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Logical atomism is the view that you can get down in theory, if not in practice, to ultimate simples, out of which the world is built, and that those simples have a kind of reality not belonging to anything else. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VIII) | |
| A reaction: This dream is to empiricists what the Absolute is to rationalists - a bit silly, but an embodiment of the motivating dream. |
| 21709 | You can't name all the facts, so they are not real, but are what propositions assert [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Facts are the sort of things that are asserted or denied by propositions, and are not properly entities at all in the same sense in which their constituents are. That is shown by the fact that you cannot name them. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], p.235), quoted by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 2.2 | |
| A reaction: [ref to Papers vol.8] It is customary to specify a proposition by its capacity for T and F. So is a fact just 'a truth'? This contains the Fregean idea that things are only real if they can be picked out. I think of facts as independent of minds. |
| 18376 | Russell asserts atomic, existential, negative and general facts [Russell, by Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Russell argues for atomic facts, and also for existential facts, negative facts and general facts. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 05.1 | |
| A reaction: Armstrong says he overdoes it. I would even add disjunctive facts, which Russell rejects. 'Rain or snow will ruin the cricket match'. Rain can make that true, but it is a disjunctive fact about the match. |
| 5465 | Modern trope theory tries, like logical atomism, to reduce things to elementary states [Russell, by Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Russell and Wittgenstein sought to reduce everything to singular facts or states of affairs, and Armstrong and Keith Campbell have more recently advocated ontologies of tropes or elementary states of affairs. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Brian Ellis - The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism Ch.3 n 11 | |
| A reaction: A very interesting historical link. Logical atomism strikes me as a key landmark in the history of philosophy, and not an eccentric cul-de-sac. It is always worth trying to get your ontology down to minimal small units, to see what happens. |
| 6060 | 'Existence' means that a propositional function is sometimes true [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When you take any propositional function and assert of it that it is possible, that it is sometimes true, that gives you the fundamental meaning of 'existence'. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]), quoted by Colin McGinn - Logical Properties Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Functions depend on variables, so this leads to Quine's slogan "to be is to be the value of a variable". Assertions of non-existence are an obvious problem, but Russell thought of all that. All of this makes existence too dependent on language. |
| 6099 | Modal terms are properties of propositional functions, not of propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Traditional philosophy discusses 'necessary', 'possible' and 'impossible' as properties of propositions, whereas in fact they are properties of propositional functions; propositions are only true or false. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §V) | |
| A reaction: I am unclear how a truth could be known to be necessary if it is full of variables. 'x is human' seems to have no modality, but 'Socrates is human' could well be necessary. I like McGinn's rather adverbial account of modality. |
| 6098 | Perception goes straight to the fact, and not through the proposition [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I am inclined to think that perception, as opposed to belief, does go straight to the fact and not through the proposition. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §IV.4) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a question of an intermediate stage, which is the formulation of concepts. Is full 'perception' (backed by attention and intellect) laden with concepts, which point to facts? Where are the facts in sensation without recognition? |
| 6685 | 'Subjectivism' is an extension of relativism from the social group to the individual [Graham] |
| Full Idea: What is called 'subjectivism' is really just an extension of relativism from the level of the social group to the level of the individual. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Personally I prefer to stick with 'relativism', at any level. 'Relative' is a two-place predicate, so we should always specify what is relative to what, unless it is obvious from context. Morality might be relative to God, for example. |
| 6097 | The theory of error seems to need the existence of the non-existent [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is very difficult to deal with the theory of error without assuming the existence of the non-existent. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §IV.3) | |
| A reaction: This problem really bothered Russell (and Plato). I suspect that it was a self-inflicted problem because at this point Russell had ceased to believe in propositions. If we accept propositions as intentional objects, they can be as silly as you like. |
| 14080 | Are causal descriptions part of the causal theory of reference, or are they just metasemantic? [Kaplan, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Kaplan notes that the causal theory of reference can be understood in two quite different ways, as part of the semantics (involving descriptions of causal processes), or as metasemantics, explaining why a term has the referent it does. | |
| From: report of David Kaplan (Dthat [1970]) by Jonathan Schaffer - Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson 1 | |
| A reaction: [Kaplan 'Afterthought' 1989] The theory tends to be labelled as 'direct' rather than as 'causal' these days, but causal chains are still at the heart of the story (even if more diffused socially). Nice question. Kaplan takes the meta- version as orthodox. |
| 9022 | Russell uses 'propositional function' to refer to both predicates and to attributes [Quine on Russell] |
| Full Idea: Russell used the phrase 'propositional function' (adapted from Frege) to refer sometimes to predicates and sometimes to attributes. | |
| From: comment on Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Willard Quine - Philosophy of Logic Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: He calls Russell 'confused' on this, and he would indeed be guilty of what now looks like a classic confusion, between the properties and the predicates that express them. Only a verificationist would hold such a daft view. |
| 6091 | Propositions don't name facts, because each fact corresponds to a proposition and its negation [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is obvious that a proposition is not the name for a fact, from the mere circumstance that there are two propositions corresponding to each fact, one the negation of the other. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §I) | |
| A reaction: Russell attributes this point to Wittgenstein. Evidently you must add that the proposition is true before it will name a fact - which is bad news for the redundancy view of truth. Couldn't lots of propositions correspond to one fact? |
| 21702 | In 1918 still believes in nonlinguistic analogues of sentences, but he now calls them 'facts' [Russell, by Quine] |
| Full Idea: In 1918 Russell insists that the world does contain nonlinguistic things that are akin to sentences and are asserted by them; he merely does not call them propositions. He calls them facts. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Willard Quine - Russell's Ontological Development p.81 | |
| A reaction: Clarification! I have always been bewildered by the early Russell view of propositions as actual ingredients of the world. If we say that sentences assert facts, that makes more sense. Russell never believed in the mental entities I call 'propositions'. |
| 6094 | An inventory of the world does not need to include propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is quite clear that propositions are not what you might call 'real'; if you were making an inventory of the world, propositions would not come in. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §III) | |
| A reaction: I am not clear why this is "quite clear". Propositions might even turn up in our ontology as physical objects (brain states). He says beliefs are real, but if you can't have a belief without a proposition, and they aren't real, you are in trouble. |
| 6096 | I no longer believe in propositions, especially concerning falsehoods [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Time was when I thought there were propositions, but it does not seem to me very plausible to say that in addition to facts there are also these curious shadowy things going about as 'That today is Wednesday' when in fact it is Tuesday. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §IV.2) | |
| A reaction: You need to give some account of someone who thinks 'Today is Wednesday' when it is Tuesday. We can hardly avoid talking about something like an 'intentional object', which can be expressed in a sentence. Are there not possible (formulable) propositions? |
| 21712 | I know longer believe in shadowy things like 'that today is Wednesday' when it is actually Tuesday [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Time was when I thought there were propositions, but it does not seem to me very plausible to say that in addition to facts there are also these curious shadowy things going about such 'That today is Wednesday' when it is in fact Tuesday. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], p.197), quoted by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 3.1 | |
| A reaction: [Ref to Papers v8] I take Russell to have abandoned his propositions because his conception of them was mistaken. Presumably my thinking 'Today is Wednesay' conjures up a false proposition, which had not previously existed. |
| 6093 | The names in a logically perfect language would be private, and could not be shared [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A logically perfect language, if it could be constructed, would be, as regards its vocabulary, very largely private to one speaker; that is, all the names in it would be private to that speaker and could not enter into the language of another speaker. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §II) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein obviously thought there was something not quite right about this… See Idea 4147, for example. I presume Russell's thought is that you would have no means of explaining the 'meanings' of the names in the language. |
| 6699 | The chain of consequences may not be the same as the chain of responsibility [Graham] |
| Full Idea: From a utilitarian point of view, the error of Archduke Ferdinand's driver (he turned up a cul-de-sac) was the worst in history, ...but the chain of consequences may not be the same as the chain of responsibility. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Can you cause something, and yet not be responsible for it? The driver was presumably fully conscious, rational and deliberate. He must share the responsibility for catastrophe, just as he shares in the causing of all the consequences. |
| 6698 | Negative consequences are very hard (and possibly impossible) to assess [Graham] |
| Full Idea: Negative consequences make the extension of the consequences of our actions indefinite, and this means that it is difficult to assess them; it may make it impossible, since there is now no clear sense to the idea of THE consequences of an action at all. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The general slogan of 'Do your best' covers most objections to the calculation of consequences. It is no excuse for stealing a wallet that 'at least I wasn't committing genocide'. How easy were the alternative actions to do? |
| 6700 | We can't criticise people because of unforeseeable consequences [Graham] |
| Full Idea: It is unreasonable to say that people have acted badly because of consequences which were not merely unforeseen but unforeseeable. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, and it sounds right. A key question in moral philosophy is how much effort people should make to assess the consequences of their actions. We must surely absolve them of the truly 'unforeseeable' consequence. |
| 6704 | Egoism submits to desires, but cannot help form them [Graham] |
| Full Idea: Egoism is inadequate as a guide to good living. Though it tells us what to do, given pre-existent desires, it cannot help us critically form those desires. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: A crucial point in morality. It also applies to utilitarianism (should I change my capacity for pleasure?), and virtue theory (how should I genetically engineer 'human nature'?). I think these problems push us towards Platonism. See Idea 4840. |
| 6701 | Rescue operations need spontaneous benevolence, not careful thought [Graham] |
| Full Idea: If more lives are to be saved in natural disasters, what is needed is spontaneity on the part of the rescuers, a willingness not to stop and think but to act spontaneously. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, but must obviously be applied with caution, as when people are drowned attempting hopeless rescues. The most valuable person in an earthquake may be the thinker, not the digger. |
| 6693 | 'What if everybody did that?' rather misses the point as an objection to cheating [Graham] |
| Full Idea: I can object to your walking on the grass by asking 'What if everybody did that?', but the advantages of cheating depend upon the fact that most people don't cheat, so justifying my own cheating must involve special pleading. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: It is, of course, reasonable to ask 'What if everybody cheated?', but it is also reasonable to reply that 'the whole point of cheating is that it exploits the honesty of others'. This shows that Kant cannot simply demolish the 'free rider'. |
| 6691 | It is more plausible to say people can choose between values, than that they can create them [Graham] |
| Full Idea: To say that individuals are free to choose their own values is more naturally interpreted as meaning that they are free to choose between pre-existent values. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Existentialism seems absurdly individualistic in its morality. Nietzsche was the best existentialist, who saw that most people have to be sheep. Strong personalities can promote or demote the old values on the great scale of what is good. |
| 6688 | Life is only absurd if you expected an explanation and none turns up [Graham] |
| Full Idea: If 'life is absurd' just means 'there is no logical explanation for human existence', we have no reason for anguish, unless we think there should be such an explanation. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This is aimed at Kierkegaard and Camus. 'Absurd' certainly seems to be a relative notion, and we have nothing to compare life with. However, life does strike us as a bit odd sometimes, don't you think? |
| 6705 | Existentialism may transcend our nature, unlike eudaimonism [Graham] |
| Full Idea: It is the freedom to transcend our nature which eudaimonism seems to ignore and existentialism brings to the fore. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: It is wildly exciting to 'transcend our nature', and very dreary to polish up the nature which is given to us. In this I am a bit conservative. We should not go against the grain, but we shouldn't assume current living is the correct line of the grain. |
| 6690 | A standard problem for existentialism is the 'sincere Nazi' [Graham] |
| Full Idea: A standard problem for existentialism is the 'sincere Nazi'; there were undoubtedly some true believers, who saw in Nazism a creed that they wanted to believe, and who freely chose to endorse it. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: The failing of Nazis was that they were not good citizens. They might have been good members of a faction, but they were (in my opinion) poor citizens of Germany, and (obviously) appalling citizens of Europe. The objection to existentialism is good. |
| 6689 | The key to existentialism: the way you make choices is more important than what you choose [Graham] |
| Full Idea: The chief implication of existentialism is this: what you choose to do, how you choose to spend your life, is not as important as the way you choose it. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: While existentialists place emphasis on some notion of 'pure' choice, this is very close to the virtue theory idea that in a dilemma there may be several different choices which could all be rightly made by virtuous people. Integrity is a central virtue. |
| 6119 | You can discuss 'God exists', so 'God' is a description, not a name [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The fact that you can discuss the proposition 'God exists' is a proof that 'God', as used in that proposition, is a description and not a name. If 'God' were a name, no question as to its existence could arise. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VI) | |
| A reaction: Presumably 'a being than which none greater can be conceived' (Anselm's definition) is self-evidently a description, and doesn't claim to be a name. Aquinas caps each argument with a triumphant naming of the being he has proved. |
| 6706 | The great religions are much more concerned with the religious life than with ethics [Graham] |
| Full Idea: The fact is that the great religions of the world are not principally concerned with ethics at all, but with the religious life for its own sake. ..The Sermon on the Mount, for example, is mainly concerned with how to pray and worship. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a highly significant point, given that most people nowadays seem to endorse religion precisely because they wish to endorse morality, and think religion is its essential underpinning. See Idea 336 for the core problem ('Euthyphro'). |
| 6709 | Western religion saves us from death; Eastern religion saves us from immortality [Graham] |
| Full Idea: For Western minds, religion entails the belief and hope that we will be saved from death and live forever, but the belief of Eastern religions is that we do live forever, and it is from this dreadful fate that we must look to spirituality to save us. | |
| From: Gordon Graham (Eight Theories of Ethics [2004], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: Nice. I have certainly come to prefer the Eastern view, simply on the grounds that human beings have a limited capacity. I quite fancy three hundred years of healthy life, but after that I am sure that any potential I have will be used up. |