4 ideas
| 13128 | 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: 'Ultimate sortals' are said to be non-subordinated, disjoint from one another, and uniquely paired with each object. Because of this, the ultimate sortal cannot be a satisfactory explication of the notion of an ontological category. | |
| From: comment on David Wiggins (Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity [1971], p.75) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §26 | |
| A reaction: My strong intuitions are that Wiggins is plain wrong, and Westerhoff gives the most promising reasons for my intuition. The simplest point is that objects can obviously belong to more than one category. |
| 20579 | Modern totalitarianism results from lack of social ties or shared goals [Arendt, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Arendt claims that modern totalitarianism's primary condition is an atomised mass society: isolated individuals who have no strong ties to communities and who are indifferent to shared political goals. | |
| From: report of Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism [1968]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: I think the lack of ties simply describes large modern cities. Not sure about the lack of shared goals. Hitler and Stalin rode on the back of apparent shared goals. Working classes strike me as sharing more goals than middle classes. |
| 20580 | The ideal subject for dictators is not a fanatic, but someone who can't distinguish true from false [Arendt, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: The ideal subject of totalitarianism is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but anyone who has lost the ability to make distinctions between fact and fiction and between true and false. | |
| From: report of Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism [1968]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: We are currently living with an apparent attempt by Donald Trump to become a totalitarian President of the U.S.A., by constantly disseminating lies, and labelling all of his critics as 'fake news'. |
| 8141 | He that does evil has not seen God [John] |
| Full Idea: He that doeth evil hath not seen God. | |
| From: St John (25: Third Epistle of John [c.90], 11) | |
| A reaction: This gives God a role striking similar to Plato's Form of the Good. Plato thought the Good was prior to the gods, but he gives the good a quasi-religious role. I say we would only be inspired by the sight of God if we already had a moral sense. |