58 ideas
| 6928 | Only that which can be an object of religion is an object of philosophy [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Only that which can be an object of religion is an object of philosophy. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §35) | |
| A reaction: The temple of Pythagoras at Solon sounds like an embodiment of this idea. The obvious candidate would be truth, to which philosophers must show almost religious respect. Some what motivates the philosophy of a minimalist (Idea 3750)? |
| 6918 | Philosophy should not focus on names, but on the determined nature of things [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy need not care about the conceptions that common usage or misuse attaches to a name; philosophy, however, has to bind itself to the determined nature of things, whose signs are names. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §23) | |
| A reaction: I like this attempt to nip ordinary language philosophy in the bud. Indeed I like the notion of philosophy binding itself to the 'determined nature of things' (which sound like essences to me), rather than to their names or descriptions. |
| 6904 | Modern philosophy begins with Descartes' abstraction from sensation and matter [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The beginning of Descartes' philosophy, namely, the abstraction from sensation and matter, is the beginning of modern speculative philosophy. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §10) | |
| A reaction: In Britain it might be said that modern philosophy begins with a rebellion against Descartes' move. Feuerbach is charting the movement towards idealism. |
| 6931 | Empiricism is right about ideas, but forgets man himself as one of our objects [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Empiricism rightly derives the origin of our ideas from the senses; only it forgets that the most important and essential object of man is man himself. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §41) | |
| A reaction: This seems to nicely pinpoint the objection of most 'continental' philosophy to British empiricism and analytic philosophy. It seems to point towards Husserl's phenomenology as the next step. It is true that empiricists divided person from world. |
| 6933 | The laws of reality are also the laws of thought [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The laws of reality are also the laws of thought. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §45) | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot, though it runs contrary to a lot of conventionalist thinking in the twentieth century. Russell, though, agrees with Feuerbach (Idea 5405). There is not much point to thought if it doesn't plug into reality at the roots. |
| 10170 | While true-in-a-model seems relative, true-in-all-models seems not to be [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: While truth can be defined in a relative way, as truth in one particular model, a non-relative notion of truth is implied, as truth in all models. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §4) | |
| A reaction: [The article is actually discussing arithmetic] This idea strikes me as extremely important. True-in-all-models is usually taken to be tautological, but it does seem to give a more universal notion of truth. See semantic truth, Tarski, Davidson etc etc. |
| 10166 | ZFC set theory has only 'pure' sets, without 'urelements' [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: In standard ZFC ('Zermelo-Fraenkel with Choice') set theory we deal merely with pure sets, not with additional urelements. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §2) | |
| A reaction: The 'urelements' would the actual objects that are members of the sets, be they physical or abstract. This idea is crucial to understanding philosophy of mathematics, and especially logicism. Must the sets exist, just as the urelements do? |
| 10175 | Three types of variable in second-order logic, for objects, functions, and predicates/sets [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: In second-order logic there are three kinds of variables, for objects, for functions, and for predicates or sets. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §5) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that a predicate seems to be the same as a set, which begs rather a lot of questions. For those who dislike second-order logic, there seems nothing instrinsically wicked in having variables ranging over innumerable multi-order types. |
| 10165 | 'Analysis' is the theory of the real numbers [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: 'Analysis' is the theory of the real numbers. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §2) | |
| A reaction: 'Analysis' began with the infinitesimal calculus, which later built on the concept of 'limit'. A continuum of numbers seems to be required to make that work. |
| 10174 | Mereological arithmetic needs infinite objects, and function definitions [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: The difficulties for a nominalistic mereological approach to arithmetic is that an infinity of physical objects are needed (space-time points? strokes?), and it must define functions, such as 'successor'. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §4) | |
| A reaction: Many ontologically austere accounts of arithmetic are faced with the problem of infinity. The obvious non-platonist response seems to be a modal or if-then approach. To postulate infinite abstract or physical entities so that we can add 3 and 2 is mad. |
| 10164 | Peano Arithmetic can have three second-order axioms, plus '1' and 'successor' [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: A common formulation of Peano Arithmetic uses 2nd-order logic, the constant '1', and a one-place function 's' ('successor'). Three axioms then give '1 is not a successor', 'different numbers have different successors', and induction. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is 'second-order' Peano Arithmetic, though it is at least as common to formulate in first-order terms (only quantifying over objects, not over properties - as is done here in the induction axiom). I like the use of '1' as basic instead of '0'! |
| 10172 | Set-theory gives a unified and an explicit basis for mathematics [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: The merits of basing an account of mathematics on set theory are that it allows for a comprehensive unified treatment of many otherwise separate branches of mathematics, and that all assumption, including existence, are explicit in the axioms. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §4) | |
| A reaction: I am forming the impression that set-theory provides one rather good model (maybe the best available) for mathematics, but that doesn't mean that mathematics is set-theory. The best map of a landscape isn't a landscape. |
| 10167 | Structuralism emerged from abstract algebra, axioms, and set theory and its structures [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: Structuralism has emerged from the development of abstract algebra (such as group theory), the creation of axiom systems, the introduction of set theory, and Bourbaki's encyclopaedic survey of set theoretic structures. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §2) | |
| A reaction: In other words, mathematics has gradually risen from one level of abstraction to the next, so that mathematical entities like points and numbers receive less and less attention, with relationships becoming more prominent. |
| 10169 | Relativist Structuralism just stipulates one successful model as its arithmetic [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: Relativist Structuralism simply picks one particular model of axiomatised arithmetic (i.e. one particular interpretation that satisfies the axioms), and then stipulates what the elements, functions and quantifiers refer to. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §4) | |
| A reaction: The point is that a successful model can be offered, and it doesn't matter which one, like having any sort of aeroplane, as long as it flies. I don't find this approach congenial, though having a model is good. What is the essence of flight? |
| 10179 | There are 'particular' structures, and 'universal' structures (what the former have in common) [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: The term 'structure' has two uses in the literature, what can be called 'particular structures' (which are particular relational systems), but also what can be called 'universal structures' - what particular systems share, or what they instantiate. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §6) | |
| A reaction: This is a very helpful distinction, because it clarifies why (rather to my surprise) some structuralists turn out to be platonists in a new guise. Personal my interest in structuralism has been anti-platonist from the start. |
| 10181 | Pattern Structuralism studies what isomorphic arithmetic models have in common [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: According to 'pattern' structuralism, what we study are not the various particular isomorphic models of arithmetic, but something in addition to them: a corresponding pattern. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §7) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, we have to feel a temptation to wield Ockham's Razor. It's bad enough trying to give the structure of all the isomorphic models, without seeking an even more abstract account of underlying patterns. But patterns connect to minds.. |
| 10182 | There are Formalist, Relativist, Universalist and Pattern structuralism [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: There are four main variants of structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics - formalist structuralism, relativist structuralism, universalist structuralism (with modal variants), and pattern structuralism. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §9) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure where Chihara's later book fits into this, though it is at the nominalist end of the spectrum. Shapiro and Resnik do patterns (the latter more loosely); Hellman does modal universalism; Quine does the relativist version. Dedekind? |
| 10168 | Formalist Structuralism says the ontology is vacuous, or formal, or inference relations [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: Formalist Structuralism endorses structural methodology in mathematics, but rejects semantic and metaphysical problems as either meaningless, or purely formal, or as inference relations. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §3) | |
| A reaction: [very compressed] I find the third option fairly congenial, certainly in preference to rather platonist accounts of structuralism. One still needs to distinguish the mathematical from the non-mathematical in the inference relations. |
| 10178 | Maybe we should talk of an infinity of 'possible' objects, to avoid arithmetic being vacuous [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: It is tempting to take a modal turn, and quantify over all possible objects, because if there are only a finite number of actual objects, then there are no models (of the right sort) for Peano Arithmetic, and arithmetic is vacuously true. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed; Geoffrey Hellman is the chief champion of this view] The article asks whether we are not still left with the puzzle of whether infinitely many objects are possible, instead of existent. |
| 10176 | Universalist Structuralism is based on generalised if-then claims, not one particular model [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: Universalist Structuralism is a semantic thesis, that an arithmetical statement asserts a universal if-then statement. We build an if-then statement (using quantifiers) into the structure, and we generalise away from any one particular model. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §5) | |
| A reaction: There remains the question of what is distinctively mathematical about the highly generalised network of inferences that is being described. Presumable the axioms capture that, but why those particular axioms? Russell is cited as an originator. |
| 10177 | Universalist Structuralism eliminates the base element, as a variable, which is then quantified out [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: Universalist Structuralism is eliminativist about abstract objects, in a distinctive form. Instead of treating the base element (say '1') as an ambiguous referring expression (the Relativist approach), it is a variable which is quantified out. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §5) | |
| A reaction: I am a temperamental eliminativist on this front (and most others) so this is tempting. I am also in love with the concept of a 'variable', which I take to be utterly fundamental to all conceptual thought, even in animals, and not just a trick of algebra. |
| 10171 | The existence of an infinite set is assumed by Relativist Structuralism [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: Relativist Structuralism must first assume the existence of an infinite set, otherwise there would be no model to pick, and arithmetical terms would have no reference. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §4) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 10169 for Relativist Structuralism. They point out that ZFC has an Axiom of Infinity. |
| 6919 | Absolute thought remains in another world from being [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Absolute thought never extricates itself from itself to become being. Being remains in another world. …If being is to be added to an object of thought, so must something distinct from thought be added to thought itself. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §24/5) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit like a child wishing for the moon. Is he saying he doesn't just want to think about reality - he wants his mental states to BE external reality? The distinction between a thought and its content or intentionality would help here. |
| 19457 | Being is what is undetermined, and hence indistinguishable [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Being in the sense in which it is an object of speculative thought is that which is purely and simply unmediated, that is, undetermined; in other words, there is nothing to distinguish and nothing to think of in being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], 26) | |
| A reaction: This sounds remarkably like the idea of 'prime matter' used in scholastic Aristotelian philosophy. Matter existing without form is somehow ungraspable, but presented from Hegel onwards as the ultimate mystery. |
| 6920 | Being posits essence, and my essence is my being [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Being is the positing of essence. That which is my essence is my being. The fish exists in water; you cannot, however, separate its essence from this being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §27) | |
| A reaction: This throws a different light on later (e.g. Heidegger) discussions of 'being', which may map onto Aristotelian discussions of essences. |
| 6921 | Particularity belongs to being, whereas generality belongs to thought [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Particularity and individuality belong to being, whereas generality belongs to thought. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §29) | |
| A reaction: This agrees with Russell's view that every sentence (and proposition) must contain a universal (i.e a generality). The very notion of thinking 'about' a horse seems to require a move to the universal concept of a horse. |
| 6926 | The only true being is of the senses, perception, feeling and love [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Being as an object of being - and only this being is being and deserves the name of being - is the being of the senses, perception, feeling, and love. …Only passion is the hallmark of existence. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §33) | |
| A reaction: This remark seems to make Feuerbach a romantic and anti-Enlightenment figure. I don't see why there shouldn't be just as much 'being' in doing maths as in admiring a landscape. The mention of love links him to Empedocles (Ideas 459 + 630). |
| 10173 | A nominalist might avoid abstract objects by just appealing to mereological sums [Reck/Price] |
| Full Idea: One way for a nominalist to reject appeal to all abstract objects, including sets, is to only appeal to nominalistically acceptable objects, including mereological sums. | |
| From: E Reck / M Price (Structures and Structuralism in Phil of Maths [2000], §4) | |
| A reaction: I'm suddenly thinking that this looks very interesting and might be the way to go. The issue seems to be whether mereological sums should be seen as constrained by nature, or whether they are unrestricted. See Mereology in Ontology...|Intrinsic Identity. |
| 9240 | Love creates a necessity concerning what to care about [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: The necessity with which love binds the will puts an end to indecisiveness concerning what to care about. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.13) | |
| A reaction: I put this here as a reminder that there may be more to necessity than the dry concept of metaphysicians and logicians. 'Why did you rescue that man first?' 'Because I love him'. Kit Fine recognises many sorts of necessity. |
| 6908 | Consciousness is absolute reality, and everything exists through consciousness [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is the absolute reality, the measure of all existence; all that exists, exists only as being for consciousness, as comprehended in consciousness; for consciousness is first and foremost being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §17) | |
| A reaction: This is Feuerbach declaring himself in favour of idealism even as he was trying to rebel against it, and move towards a more sensuous and human view of the world. I just see idealists as confusing ontology and epistemology. |
| 6932 | Ideas arise through communication, and reason is reached through community [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Only through communication and conversation between man and man do ideas arise; not alone, but only with others, does one reach notions and reason in general. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §41) | |
| A reaction: This is a strikingly modern view of the solipsism problem, and is close in spirit to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument (Ideas 4143 +4158). Feuerbach is interested in universals rather than rules. I prefer Feuerbach. |
| 6935 | In man the lowest senses of smell and taste elevate themselves to intellectual acts [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Even the lowest senses, smell and taste, elevate themselves in man to intellectual and scientific acts. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §53) | |
| A reaction: Since Darwin we have, I am glad to say, lost this need to distinguish what is 'low' or 'high', and to try to show that even our 'lowest' functions are on the 'high' side. Personally, though, I still need the low/high distinction in moral thinking. |
| 6925 | The new philosophy thinks of the concrete in a concrete (not a abstract) manner [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The new philosophy is the philosophy that thinks of the concrete not in an abstract, but in a concrete manner. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §31) | |
| A reaction: This leads to placing a high value on art, and on virtuous action through particulars rather than principles, and on empirical science. The only problem is that what he proposes is impossible. To think 'about' is to abstract from the particulars. |
| 9228 | Ranking order of desires reveals nothing, because none of them may be considered important [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: Ranking desires in order of preference is no help, because a person who wants one thing more than another may not regard the former as any more important to him than the latter. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: A salutary warning. Someone may pursue something with incredible intensity, but only to stave off a boring and empty existence. The only way I can think of to assess what really matters to people is - to ask them! |
| 9238 | Morality isn't based on reason; moral indignation is quite unlike disapproval of irrationality [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: The ultimate warrant for moral principles cannot be found in reason. The sort of opprobrium that attaches to moral transgressions is quite unlike the sort of opprobrium that attaches to the requirements of reason. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.5 n6) | |
| A reaction: More like a piece of evidence than a proper argument. We may not feel indignant if someone fails a maths exam, but we might if they mess up the arithmetic of our bank account, even though they meant well. |
| 6924 | Plotinus was ashamed to have a body [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Plotinus, according to his biographers, was ashamed to have a body. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §29) | |
| A reaction: When Feuerbach draws our attention to this, we see what an astonishing state it is for a human being to have got into. Modern thought is appalled by it, but it also has something heroic about it, like swimming all the time because you want to be a fish. |
| 9232 | It is by caring about things that we infuse the world with importance [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: It is by caring about things that we infuse the world with importance. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: This book is a lovely attempt at getting to the heart of where values come from. 'Football isn't a matter of life and death; it's more important than that' - Bill Shankly (manager of Liverpool). Frankfurt is right. |
| 9234 | If you don't care about at least one thing, you can't find reasons to care about anything [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible for a person who does not already care at least about something to discover reasons for caring about anything. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.11) | |
| A reaction: This is the key idea of this lovely book. Without a glimmer of love somewhere, it is not possible to bootstrap a meaningful life. The glimmer of caring about one thing is transferable. See the Ancient Mariner and the watersnake. |
| 9229 | What is worthwhile for its own sake alone may be worth very little [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: What is worth having or worth doing for its own sake alone may nonetheless be worth very little. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: That is one of my cherished notions sunk without trace! Aristotle's idea that ends are what matter, not means, always struck me as crucial. But Frankfurt is right. Collecting trivia is done for its own sake. Great tasks are performed as a means. |
| 9233 | Our criteria for evaluating how to live offer an answer to the problem [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: Identifying the criteria to be employed in evaluating various ways of living is also tantamount to providing an answer to the question of how to live. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: Presumably critical reflection is still possible about those criteria, even though he implies that they just arise out of you (in a rather Nietzschean way). The fear is that critical reflection on basic criteria kills in infant in its cradle. |
| 9235 | Rather than loving things because we value them, I think we value things because we love them [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: It is often understood that we begin loving things because we are struck by their value. ..However, what I have in mind is rather that what we love necessarily acquires value for us because we love it. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: The uneasy thought here is that this makes value much less rational. If you love because you value, you could probably give reasons for the value. If love comes first it must be instinctive. He says he loved his children before they were born. |
| 9236 | Love can be cool, and it may not involve liking its object [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: It is not among the defining features of love that it must be hot rather than cool, ..and nor is it essential that a person like what he loves. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: An interesting pair of observations. The greatness of love would probably be measured by length, or by sacrifice. Extreme heat makes us a little suspicious. It would be hard to love something that was actually disliked. |
| 9237 | The paradigm case of pure love is not romantic, but that between parents and infants [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: Relationships that are primarily romantic or sexual do not provide very authentic or illuminating paradigms of love. ...The love of parents for their small children comes closest to offering recognizably pure instances of love. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: Excellent. Though perhaps a relationships which began romantically might settle into something like the more 'pure' love that he has in mind. Such a relationship must, I trust, be possible between adults. |
| 9239 | I value my children for their sake, but I also value my love for them for its own sake [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: Beside the fact that my children are important to me for their own sakes, there is the additional fact that loving my children is important to me for its own sake. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: This is at the heart of Frankfurt's thesis, that love is the bedrock of our values in life, and we therefore all need to love in order to generate any values in our life, quite apart from what our love is directed at. Nice thought. |
| 6927 | If you love nothing, it doesn't matter whether something exists or not [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: To him who loves nothing it is all the same whether something does or does not exist. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §33) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be quite a good motto for the aim of education - just get them to love something, no matter what (well, almost!). Loving something, even if it is train-spotting, seems a good route to human happiness. |
| 9227 | We might not choose a very moral life, if the character or constitution was deficient [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: People who are scrupulously moral may nonetheless be destined by deficiencies of character or of constitution to lead lives that no reasonable person would freely choose. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This fairly firmly refutes any Greek dream that all there is to happiness is leading a virtuous life. Frankfurt is with Aristotle more than with the Stoics. It would be tempting to sacrifice virtue to get a sunny character and good health. |
| 9230 | People want to fulfill their desires, but also for their desires to be sustained [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: Besides wanting to fulfil his desire, the person who cares about what he desires wants something else as well: he wants the desire to be sustained. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: Plato, in 'Gorgias', makes this fact sound like a nightmare, resembling drug addiction, but in Frankfurt's formulation it looks like a good thing. If you want to make your family happy because you love them, you would dread finding your love had died. |
| 9241 | Loving oneself is not a failing, but is essential to a successful life [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: Far from demonstrating a flaw in character or being a sign of weakness, coming to love oneself is the deepest and most essential - and by no means the most readily attainable - achievement of a serious and successful life. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.14) | |
| A reaction: Obviously it will be necessary to dilineate the healthy form of self-love, which Frankfurt attempts to do. Ruthless vanity and self-seeking certainly look like the worst possible weaknesses of character. With that proviso, he is right. |
| 9300 | Boredom is serious, not just uncomfortable; it threatens our psychic survival [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: Boredom is a serious matter. It is not a condition that we seek to avoid just because we do not find it enjoyable. ..It threatens the very continuation of conscious mental life. ..Avoiding bored is a primitive urge for psychic survival. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 2.8) | |
| A reaction: Presumably nihilism will flood into the emptiness created by boredom. Frankfurt will see it as a lack of love for anything in your life, and hence an absence of value. Frankfurt is very good. |
| 6934 | Man is not a particular being, like animals, but a universal being [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Man is not a particular being, like the animals, but a universal being. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §53) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit extravagent. The capacity of man to use universals in thought seems crucial to Feuerbach (though he doesn't directly address the problem). 'We are particulars with access to universals' sounds better. |
| 6936 | The essence of man is in community, but with distinct individuals [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: The essence of man is contained only in the community and unity of man and man; it is a unity, however, which rests only on the reality of the distinction between I and thou. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §59) | |
| A reaction: In English provincial suburbs (where I live) it is astonishing how little interest in and need for their neighbours people seem to have. People seem to survive without community. Most of us, though, think full human happiness needs community. |
| 9231 | Freedom needs autonomy (rather than causal independence) - embracing our own desires and choices [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: What counts as far as freedom goes is not causal independence, but autonomy. It is a matter of whether we are active rather than passive in our motives and choices, whether those are what we really want, and not alien to us. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (The Reasons of Love [2005], 1.8) | |
| A reaction: This is why setting your own targets is excellent, but having targets set for you by authorities is pernicious. These kind of principles need to be clear before any plausible theory of liberalism can be developed. |
| 6913 | God's existence cannot be separated from essence and concept, which can only be thought as existing [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: God is the being in which existence cannot be separated from essence and concept and which cannot be thought except as existing. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §18) | |
| A reaction: This shows how faith in God endured through the Idealist movement by means of the Ontological Argument, despite the criticisms of Hume and Kant. To me this now appears as an odd abberation in the history of human thought. |
| 6903 | If God is only an object for man, then only the essence of man is revealed in God [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: If God is only an object of man, what is revealed to us in his essence? Nothing but the essence of man. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §07) | |
| A reaction: It is important to distinguish here between what we could know about God, and what we think God might actually be like. We may well only be able to read the essence of man into God, but we might speculate that God is more than that. |
| 6923 | God is what man would like to be [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: God is what man would like to be. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §29) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to see how even the most devout person could deny the truth of this. Perhaps the essential hallmark of humanity is a desire to be different from the way we are. |
| 6911 | God is for us a mere empty idea, which we fill with our own ego and essence [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: God exists, but he is for us a tabula rasa, an empty being, a mere idea; God, as we conceive and think of him, is our ego, our mind, and our essence. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §17) | |
| A reaction: He accepted God's existence because of the Ontological Argument. This is a little stronger than Hume's view (Idea 2185), because Hume seems to be talking about imagining God, but Feuerbach says this is our understanding of God. |
| 6902 | Catholicism concerns God in himself, Protestantism what God is for man [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Protestantism is no longer concerned, as Catholicism is, about what God is in himself, but about what he is for man. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §02) | |
| A reaction: It is certainly true that the major religions in their origins seem to be almost exclusively concerned with God alone, and have little interest in human life (or morality). |
| 6905 | Absolute idealism is the realized divine mind of Leibnizian theism [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Absolute idealism is nothing but the realized divine mind of Leibnizian theism. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Principles of Philosophy of the Future [1843], §10) | |
| A reaction: In general it seems an accurate commentary that during the eighteenth century philosophers on the continent were designing a religion without God. Kantian duty tries to replace the authority of God with pure reason. |