17 ideas
| 22087 | Philosophy fails to articulate the continual becoming of existence [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard criticise philosophy for its inability to grasp and to articulate the movement, the continual becoming, that characterises existence. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 2 | |
| A reaction: Heraclitus had a go, and Hegel's historicism focuses on dynamic thought, but this idea concerns the immediacy of individual life. |
| 8868 | Objective truth arises from interpersonal communication [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The source of the concept of objective truth is interpersonal communication. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209) | |
| A reaction: This is a distinctively Davidsonian idea, arising out of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. We could go a step further, and just say that 'objectivity is a social concept'. Davidson more or less pleads guilty to pragmatism in this essay. |
| 5651 | Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard developed the idea of 'truth as subjectivity'; the traditional conceptions of truth - correspondence or coherence - he regarded as equally empty, not because false, but because tautologous; truth ceases to be empty when related to a subject. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that the correspondence theory of truth also involves a subject. If you become too obsessed with the subject, you lose the concept of truth. You need a concept of the non-subject too. Truth concerns the contents of thought. |
| 8867 | A belief requires understanding the distinctions of true-and-false, and appearance-and-reality [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Having a belief demands in addition appreciating the contrast between true belief and false, between appearance and reality, mere seeming and being. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209) | |
| A reaction: This sets the bar very high for belief (never mind knowledge), and seems to imply that animals don't have beliefs. How should we describe their cognitive states then? I would say these criteria only apply to actual knowledge. |
| 10347 | Objectivity is intersubjectivity [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: An entity is objective in so far as it is intersubjective. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]), quoted by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: This thought baffled me until I saw it in the context of socialised epistemology. Effectively objectivity is subsumed under justification, which in turn is seen in a social context, not private to individuals. |
| 8866 | If we know other minds through behaviour, but not our own, we should assume they aren't like me [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If the mental states of others are known only through their behavioral and other outward manifestations, while this is not true of our own mental states, why should we think our own mental states are anything like those of others? | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.207) | |
| A reaction: His point is that if you seriously doubt other minds, you should follow through on the implications. But that is to treat it as a theory about other minds, rather an a sceptical worry. Descartes didn't walk into walls while writing Meditation 1. |
| 10346 | Knowing other minds rests on knowing both one's own mind and the external world [Davidson, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argues that knowledge of other minds presupposes knowledge of one's own mind, and that there is no knowledge of other minds without knowledge of the external world. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]) by Michael Dummett - Common Sense and Physics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: Davidson't argument is actually hard to swallow because it is so long and complex. Compressing the point makes it begin to sound like a variant of the argument from analogy. |
| 8870 | Content of thought is established through communication, so knowledge needs other minds [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Until a baseline has been established by communication with someone else, there is no point is saying one's own thoughts have a propositional content. Hence knowledge of another mind is essential all thought and all knowledge. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.213) | |
| A reaction: This really is building a skyscraper on the slightly shaky claims of the Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4158). Animals are so important in discussions of this kind. Is an albatross more or less devoid of thought and belief? |
| 8869 | The principle of charity attributes largely consistent logic and largely true beliefs to speakers [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Concerning charity, the Principle of Coherence seeks logical consistency in the thought of the speaker, and the Principle of Correspondence seeks a similar response to features of the world to that of an interpreter. The speaker has logic and true belief. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.211) | |
| A reaction: Davidson adds a Kantian commitment to pure and universal reason to the very sceptical framework created by Quine. I agree with Davidson, but it seems more like faith than like an argument or an empirical observation. |
| 22090 | For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], I:26) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3 | |
| A reaction: This is from the spokesman for the aesthetic option in life, which is largely pleasure-seeking. No real choices ever occur. |
| 9305 | The plebeians bore others; only the nobility bore themselves [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Those who bore others are the plebeians, the crowd, the endless train of humanity in general; those who bore themselves are the chosen ones, the nobility. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], Pt.1), quoted by Lars Svendsen - A Philosophy of Boredom Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: [p.288 in Princeton Edn] Stunningly elitist, but ask where boredom is most overtly found. "Boring" was once a very fashionable word among the English upper classes. Education and wealth seem to intensify boredom. |
| 5650 | Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: For Kierkegaard, reason, which produces only abstractions, negates our individual essence; this essence is subjectivity, and subjectivity exists only in the 'leap of faith', whereby the individual casts in his lot with eternity. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |
| A reaction: Interesting, but this strikes me as a confusion of reason and logic. A logical life would indeed be a sort of death, and need faith as an escape, but a broad view of the rational life includes emotion, imagination and laughter. Blind faith is disaster. |
| 22095 | There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard distinguishes three main types of subjectivity: aesthetic, ethical and religious. But are these types of people, or different phases of one person's life? | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4 | |
| A reaction: His picture of the religious mode holds no appeal for me. I also can't accept that the aesthetic and the moral are somewho distinct. People may discover they have slipped into one of these modes, but no one chooses them, do they? |
| 20747 | What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology' | |
| A reaction: I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')? |
| 22091 | Kierkegaard prioritises the inward individual, rather than community [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Whereas Hegel argues that individuals find fulfilment through participation in their community, Kierkegaard prioritises the inwardness of each person, which is shared only with God. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3 | |
| A reaction: Sounds like the protestant religion opposing the catholic religion (although Hegel was a protestant). Individual v community is the great debate of the last two centuries in Europe. |
| 22088 | Faith is like a dancer's leap, going up to God, but also back to earth [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: Kierkegaard doesn't use the phrase 'leap of faith'. His metaphor of a dancer's leap expresses the way faith goes 'up' towards God, but also comes back down to earth, and is a way of living in the world. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 2 | |
| A reaction: This entirely contradicts what I was taught about this idea many years ago. Memes turn into Chinese whispers. |
| 20698 | Irenaeus says evil is necessary for perfect human development [Irenaeus, by Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Echoing Irenaeus, John Hick argues that the existence of evil is necessary for the perfect development of human beings. Hick understands evil in the light of God's desire not to coerce people into accepting him. | |
| From: report of Irenaeus (works [c.190]) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 3 'Notable' | |
| A reaction: I don't suppose I could opt out of perfect development? If I endure the evil, can I be guaranteed that my development will be 'perfect'. Oh, and could I just check what is meant by 'development'? |