13 ideas
| 22070 | Irony is consciousness of abundant chaos [Schlegel,F] |
| Full Idea: Irony is the clear conscousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely abundant chaos. | |
| From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol 2 p.263), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism p.81 | |
| A reaction: [1800, in Athenaum] The interest here is irony as a reaction to chaos, which has made systematic thought impossible. Do romantics necessarily see reality as beyond our grasp, even if not chaotic? This must be situational, not verbal irony. |
| 22069 | Plato has no system. Philosophy is the progression of a mind and development of thoughts [Schlegel,F] |
| Full Idea: Plato had no system, but only a philosophy. The philosophy of a human being is the history, the becoming, the progression of his mind, the gradual formation and development of his thoughts. | |
| From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol.11 p.118), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism | |
| A reaction: [1804] Looks like the first sign of rebellion against the idea of having a 'system' in philosophy, making it a key idea of romanticism. Systems are classical? This looks like an early opposition of a historical dimension to static systems. Big idea. |
| 22068 | Poetry is transcendental when it connects the ideal to the real [Schlegel,F] |
| Full Idea: There is a kind of poetry whose essence lies in the relation between the ideal and the real, and which therefore, by analogy with philosophical jargon, should be called transcendental poetry. | |
| From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol 2 p.204), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism p.78 | |
| A reaction: I think the basic idea is that the imaginative creation of poetry has the power to bridge the gap between the transcendental (presupposed) ideal in Fichte, and nature (which Fichte seems to have excluded from his system). |
| 23146 | Motives produce intentions, which lead to actions [Driver] |
| Full Idea: Motives will cause persons for form intentions; it is intentions which more directly guide actions. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is invites the question of whether there is a sharp distinction between the motive and the action. Detectives look for motives, but law courts look for intentions. |
| 22030 | For poets free choice is supreme [Schlegel,F] |
| Full Idea: Romantic poetry recognises as its first commandment that the free choice [Wilkür] of the poet can tolerate no law above itself. | |
| From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Frag 116 p.32), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: This leads to Shelley's 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the race'. We should also take it as a response to Kant's categorical imperative, which leads to the Gauguin Problem (wickedness justified by the art it leads to). |
| 7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
| Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius. | |
| From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism | |
| A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny. |
| 22071 | True love is ironic, in the contrast between finite limitations and the infinity of love [Schlegel,F] |
| Full Idea: True irony is the irony of love. It arises from the feeling of finitude and one's own limitation, and the apparent contradiction of these feelings with the concept of infinity inherent in all true love. | |
| From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol.10 p.357), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism | |
| A reaction: [c.1827] This is more about idealist philosophy and its yearning for the Absolute than it is about the actual nature of love. Love is the door to the Absolute. The irony is our inability to pass through it. |
| 23147 | Good intentions are not necessary for virtue [Driver] |
| Full Idea: I deny the claim that good intentions are necessary for virtue. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably one could continually do the right thing, because it was your duty or your job, without actually being well motivated for it. |
| 23144 | Virtue should be defined by consequences, not by states of mind [Driver] |
| Full Idea: The behavioural aspects of virtue are more important than its phenomenology, because virtue is best defined along consequentialist lines. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the thesis of her paper. Quite persuasive. Consequences are, of course, important in all moral theories (even Kant's). She doesn't rely on human nature. The social virtues vary according to the circumstances, such as gossiping in wartime. |
| 23148 | Virtues are character traits or dispositions which produce good consequences for others [Driver] |
| Full Idea: A moral virtue is a character trait (a disposition or cluster of dispositions) which, generally speaking, produces good consequences for others. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 3) | |
| A reaction: There are self-directed virtues, such as keeping fit and healthy. There are virtues for ways to receive the kindness of others. That said, I like this idea. |
| 23150 | Control of pregnancy and knowledge of paternity have downgraded chastity [Driver] |
| Full Idea: Women now have more control over becoming pregnant. Men can now be more certain of paternity, without the constraint of female chastity. Hence chastity is no longer considered a moral virtue. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 5) | |
| A reaction: A persuasive argument that virtues are defined by their consequences (to which I add my example of gossiping in wartime). Different social situations and crises promote or relegate the status of certain virtues (such as food hoarding). |
| 23149 | If generosity systematically turned recipients into parasites, it wouldn't be a virtue [Driver] |
| Full Idea: If generosity towards the needy in the long run produced [social] parasites, and if generosity did this systematically, then it would not be a moral virtue. | |
| From: Julia Driver (The Virtues and Human Nature [1996], 5) | |
| A reaction: A very persuasive example. Hume has similar views - that we encourage those emotions which have good social outcomes. |
| 22029 | Irony is the response to conflicts of involvement and attachment [Schlegel,F, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Irony is thus the appropriate stance to feeling that is both inescapably committed and inescapably detached at the same time. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: This is the epitome of romanticism, which carries over into the dilemmas of existentialism. Striking the right balance between caring and not caring seems to me to be the main focus of modern British people. |