13 ideas
7647 | The imagination alone perceives all objects; it is the soul, playing all its roles [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The imagination alone perceives; it forms an idea of all objects, with the words and figures that characterise them; thus the imagination is the soul, because it plays all its roles. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.15) | |
A reaction: This is not just a big claim for the importance of imagination, in strong opposition to Descartes's rather dismissive view (Idea 1399), but also appears to be the germ of an interesting theory about the nature of personal identity. |
7645 | When falling asleep, the soul becomes paralysed and weak, just like the body [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The soul and body fall asleep together. The soul slowly becomes paralysed, together with all the body's muscles. They can no longer hold up the weight of the head, while the soul can no longer bear the burden of thought. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.6) | |
A reaction: A very nice observation, to place alongside other evidence such as drunkenness and blushing. Personally I find it hard to see why anyone ever believed dualism. You don't need modern brain scans and brain lesion research to see the problem. |
23225 | The soul's faculties depend on the brain, and are simply the brain's organisation [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: All the soul's faculties depend so much on the specific organisation of the brain and of the whole body that they are clearly nothing but that organisation. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.26) | |
A reaction: An interesting idea because it suggests that La Mettrie is a functionalist, rather than simply a reductive physicalist. |
7652 | Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: Let us conclude boldly that man is a machine and that there is in the whole universe only one diversely modified substance. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.39) | |
A reaction: What courage it must have taken to write what now seems a perfectly acceptable and normal view. One day there should be a collective monument to Hobbes, Gassendi, Spinoza, La Mettrie and Hume, who thought so boldly. |
7650 | All thought is feeling, and rationality is the sensitive soul contemplating reasoning [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: Thought is only a capacity to feel, and the rational soul is only the sensitive soul applied to the contemplation of ideas and to reasoning. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.33) | |
A reaction: What a very nice idea. La Mettrie wants to bring us closer to animals. Because we can pursue a train of rational thought, it does not follow that we have a faculty called 'rationality'. A dog can follow a clever series of clues that lead to food. |
7651 | With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: If wonderful machines like Huygens's planetary clock can be made, it would take even more cogs and springs to make a speaking machine, which can no longer be considered impossible, particularly at the hands of a new Prometheus. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.34) | |
A reaction: Compare Descartes in Idea 3614. The idea of artificial intelligence does not arise with the advent of computers; it follows naturally from the materialist view of the mind, along with a bit of ambition to build complex machines. |
6000 | The goal is rationality in the selection of things according to nature [Diogenes of Babylon, by Blank] |
Full Idea: Diogenes of Babylon defined the goal to be rationality in the selection and rejection of the things according to nature. | |
From: report of Diogenes (Bab) (fragments/reports [c.180 BCE]) by D.L. Blank - Diogenes of Babylon | |
A reaction: This captures the central Stoic idea quite nicely. 'Live according to nature', but this always meant 'live according to reason', because that is (as Aristotle had taught) the essence of our nature. This only makes sense if reason and nature coincide. |
5999 | The good is what is perfect by nature [Diogenes of Babylon, by Blank] |
Full Idea: Diogenes of Babylon defined the good as what is perfect by nature. | |
From: report of Diogenes (Bab) (fragments/reports [c.180 BCE]) by D.L. Blank - Diogenes of Babylon | |
A reaction: This might come close to G.E. Moore's Ideal Utilitarianism, but its dependence on the rather uneasy of concept of 'perfection' makes it questionable. Personally I find it appealing. I wish we had Diogenes' explanation. |
6001 | Justice is a disposition to distribute according to desert [Diogenes of Babylon, by Blank] |
Full Idea: Diogenes of Babylon defined justice as the disposition which distributes to everyone what he deserves. | |
From: report of Diogenes (Bab) (fragments/reports [c.180 BCE]) by D.L. Blank - Diogenes of Babylon | |
A reaction: The questions that arise would be 'what does a new-born baby deserve?', and 'what do animals deserve?', and 'does the lowest and worst of criminals deserve anything at all?' |
21058 | Enlightenment requires the free use of reason in the public realm [Kant] |
Full Idea: The public use of man's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted (…in a particular civil post or office). | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Answer to 'What is Enlightenment?' [1784], p.55) | |
A reaction: The private aspect seems to be the common restriction on speech by employees of the state. Does free speech have only instrumental value? Is the life of virtue possible without it? |
7648 | The sun and rain weren't made for us; they sometimes burn us, or spoil our seeds [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The sun was not made in order to heat the earth and all its inhabitants - whom it sometimes burns - any more than the rain was created in order to grow seeds - which it often spoils. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747]) | |
A reaction: This denial of Aristotelian (and divine) teleology is as much part of the movement against religion, as are concerns about natural evil, and about the weakness of arguments for God's existence. These facts were obvious long before La Mettrie. |
7646 | There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: From animals to man there is no abrupt transition. What was man before he invented words and learnt languages? An animal of a particular species, with much less natural instinct than the others. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.13) | |
A reaction: This shows how strongly the evolutionary idea was in the air, a century before Darwin proposed a mechanism for it. This thought is the beginning of a very new view of man, and also of a very new view of animals. |
7649 | There is no clear idea of the soul, which should only refer to our thinking part [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The soul is merely a vain term of which we have no idea and which a good mind should use only to refer to that part of us which thinks. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747]) | |
A reaction: I have always found the concept of the soul particularly baffling. It seems that it is only believed in to make immortality possible, with no other purpose to the belief, let alone evidence. I suspect that Descartes agreed with La Mettrie on this. |