32 ideas
| 5893 | A wise man has integrity, firmness of will, nobility, consistency, sobriety, patience [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The wise man does nothing of which he can repent, nothing against his will, does everything nobly, consistently, soberly, rightly, not looking forward to anything as bound to come, is not astonished at any novel occurrence, abides by his own decisions. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], V.xxviii) | |
| A reaction: Notice that the wise man never exhibits weakness of will (an Aristotelian virtue), and is consistent (as Kant proposed), and is patient (as the Stoics proposed). But Cicero doesn't think he should busy himself maximising happiness. |
| 23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason. | |
| From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15) | |
| A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!). |
| 5891 | Philosophy is the collection of rational arguments [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy consists in the collection of rational arguments. [Philosophia ex rationum collatione constet] | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], IV.xxxviii.84) | |
| A reaction: A nice epigraph for this database. Philosophy is, I trust, a little more than that, because you don't just hide them away in a drawer. But if you arrange them nicely in a museum (a website, for example), not a lot more can be done. |
| 7113 | Phenomenology assumes that all consciousness is of something [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The essential principle of phenomenology is that 'all consciousness is consciousness of something'. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: This idea is found well before Husserl, in Schopenhauer (Idea 4166). It seems to contradict a thought such as Locke's (Idea 1202), that self-awareness is a separate and distinct criterion for personal identity. Sartre gives a nice account. |
| 7112 | The Cogito depends on a second-order experience, of being conscious of consciousness [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: We must remember that all authors who have described the Cogito have presented it as a reflective operation, i.e. as second-order. This Cogito is performed by a consciousness directed towards consciousness, which takes consciousness as its object. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: Sartre is raising the nice question of whether the Cogito still works for first-order consciousness, which attends totally to external objects. He claims that it doesn't. Contrast Russell, who says (Idea 5380) that it only works when it is first-order! |
| 7114 | The consciousness that says 'I think' is not the consciousness that thinks [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The consciousness that says 'I think' is precisely not the consciousness that thinks. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: All parties seem to be agreed that if we are going to introspect in search of our own ego, we must distinguish between the mental act of instrospection and the mental act of applying the mind to the world. Each gives a different result. |
| 7119 | Is the Cogito reporting an immediate experience of doubting, or the whole enterprise of doubting? [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: When Descartes says 'I doubt therefore I am', is he talking about the spontaneous doubt that reflective consciousness grasps in its instantaneous character, or is he talking of the enterprise of doubting? This ambiguity can lead to serious errors. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (B)) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. The obvious response is that it is about the immediate experience, but that leads to the problem of an instantaneous ego, which can't be justified over time. The 'enterprise' gives an enduring ego, but it is a more intellectual concept. |
| 5879 | The soul is the heart, or blood in the heart, or part of the brain, of something living in heart or brain, or breath [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Some think the soul is the heart; Empedocles holds that the soul is blood in the heart; others said one part of the brain claimed the primacy of soul; others say the heart or brain are habitations of the soul; while others identify soul and breath. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.ix.17-19) | |
| A reaction: A nice survey of views. Note that many of them identify the psuché/anima with physical parts of the body; only the fourth option seems to be dualist. This is despite the contemptuous response to Democritus' atomist theory of soul. |
| 7122 | We can never, even in principle, grasp other minds, because the Ego is self-conceiving [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The Ego can be conceived only through itself and this is why we cannot grasp the consciousness of another (for this reason alone, and not because bodies separate us). | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This makes telepathy a logical impossibility, and the body the only possible route for the communication between two minds. But, is Sartre is right, how do bodily events penetrate the inturned world of the Ego? |
| 7125 | A consciousness can conceive of no other consciousness than itself [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: A consciousness can conceive of no other consciousness than itself. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], Conc (1)) | |
| A reaction: This is why we don't know what it is like to be a bat. This seems right, though it looks like a contingent truth, and yet Sartre seems to offer it as a necessary truth. Can God conceive of my consciousness? |
| 5884 | How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Why is it that, using the same mind, we have perception of things so utterly unlike as colour, taste, heat, smell and sound? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xx.47) | |
| A reaction: This leaves us with the 'binding problem', of how the dissimilar sensations are pulled together into one field of experience. It is a nice simple objection, though, to anyone who simplistically claims that the mind is self-evidently unified. |
| 5887 | The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: In souls there is no mingling of ingredients, nothing of two-fold nature, so it is impossible for the soul to be divided; impossible, therefore, for it to perish either; for perishing is like the separation of parts which were maintained in union. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxix.71) | |
| A reaction: Cicero knows he is pushing his luck in asserting that perishing is a sort of division. Why can't something be there one moment and gone the next? He appears to be in close agreement with Descartes about being a 'thinking thing'. |
| 7108 | The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The unity of the thousand active consciousnesses through which I have added two and two to make four, is the transcendent object '2+2=4'. Without the permanence of this eternal truth, it would be impossible to conceive of a real unity of mind. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of externalism, here presented as a Platonic attitude to arithmetic, rather than being about water or gold. He claims that internalist attitudes to unity are fictions. I am inclined to think he is wrong, and that unity is biological. |
| 7111 | Consciousness exists as consciousness of itself [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The existence of consciousness is an absolute, because consciousness is consciousness of itself; the type of existence that consciousness has is that it is consciousness of itself. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: I find this unconvincing. Anyone analysis the nature of the mind should think as much about animal minds as human minds. It seems obvious to me that there is likely to be an animal consciousness which is entirely of environment and its body. |
| 22226 | Since we are a consciousness, Sartre entirely rejected the unconscious mind [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| Full Idea: Sartre refused, denied and fought against the unconscious. Since we are consciousness, there cannot be such a thing as unconsciousness. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.1 | |
| A reaction: The modern view is increasingly opposed to this, as neuroscience and psychology uncover hidden motives etc. Sartre's view is still legitimate, though. An unconscious motive is not more my motive than a law of the land is part of me? |
| 7107 | Intentionality defines, transcends and unites consciousness [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is defined by intentionality. Through intentionality it transcends itself, it unifies itself by going outside itself. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: The standard view for a hundred years was Brentano's idea that intentionality defines the mind. Qualia are the modern rival. If I had to choose I think I would go for intentionality, but they may be naturally and metaphysically inseparable. |
| 7109 | If you think of '2+2=4' as the content of thought, the self must be united transcendentally [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: It is possible that those who think that '2 and 2 make 4' is the content of my representations may be forced to resort to a transcendental and subjective principle of unification - in other words, the I. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that thoughts themselves unite the mind, externally. If you think of thoughts as internal, you must resort to a transcendental fiction to unify the mind. Personally I think the mind is inherently unified by brain structures. |
| 7106 | The Ego is not formally or materially part of consciousness, but is outside in the world [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: I should like to show here that the Ego is neither formally nor materially in consciousness; it is outside, in the world; it is a being in the world, like the Ego of another. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This idea is the germ of what has got modern externalists about the mind (see quotations from Mark Rowlands) interested in Sartre. Personally I think he is wrong, and the Ego is a part of consciousness. It doesn't, though, have sharp boundaries. |
| 7117 | How could two I's, the reflective and the reflected, communicate with each other? [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: If the 'I' is part of consciousness, there will be two I's: the reflective and the reflected. ...but it is unacceptable for any communication to be established between the reflective I and the reflected I, if they are real elements of consciousness. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: If we accept that there are two orders of consciousness (reflective, about itself, and reflected, about the world) it seems reasonable to say that there cannot be an 'I' in both of them. A nice, and intriguing, argument. |
| 7123 | Knowing yourself requires an exterior viewpoint, which is necessarily false [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: 'To know oneself well' is inevitably to look at oneself from the point of view of someone else, in other words from a point of view that is necessarily false. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: (This is because the Ego cannot be known from the outside). I agree with Russell that the self is most evident when we are engaged with the world, which implies that you can only acquire self-knowledge by studying those engagements. |
| 22225 | My ego is more intimate to me, but not more certain than other egos [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: My I, in efffect, is no more certain for consciousness than the I of other men. It is only more intimate. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], p.104), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.1 | |
| A reaction: Not sure how to assess this. Other people seem just as real as I do, when I encounter them, as friend or as foe. And in dealing with them we act as if dealing with their Self (rather than their legs, say). So this idea seems a good one. |
| 5886 | Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The soul has not the power of itself to see itself, but, like the eye, the soul, though it does not see itself, yet discerns other things. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxvii) | |
| A reaction: The soul is a complex item which contributes many layers of interpretation to what it sees, so there is scope for parts of the soul seeing other parts. Somewhere in the middle Cicero seems to be right - there is an elusive something we can't get at. |
| 7124 | The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: He denies that we know the Ego when engaged with the world, and agrees with Hume that the ego can't be directly known. All that is left is this, which seems to be introspection 'out of the corner of your eye'. Not persuasive. |
| 7116 | When we are unreflective (as when chasing a tram) there is no 'I' [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: There is no 'I' on the unreflected level. When I run after a tram, ...there is no I. There is a consciousness of the tram-needing-to-be-caught, and a non-positional consciousness of consciousness. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: Russell (Idea 5380) says exactly the opposite. My sympathies are more with Russell. I don't just focus on the tram, I focus on the relation between myself and the tram, and that includes my need to catch it, as well as my body. |
| 7120 | It is theoretically possible that the Ego consists entirely of false memories [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: One cannot rule out the metaphysical hypothesis that my Ego is not composed of elements that have existed in reality (ten years or one second ago), but is merely constituted by false memories. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: (He mentions the evil demon as a source). The problem that false memories (such as George IV 'remembering' he was at Waterloo, when he wasn't) is well known. But this raises the possibility of all memories being false, yet constituting the person. |
| 7110 | If the 'I' is transcendental, it unnecessarily splits consciousness in two [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The superfluous transcendental 'I' is actually a hindrance. If it existed, it would violently separate consciousness from itself, it would divide it, slicing through consciousness like an opaque blade. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A)) | |
| A reaction: I see no a priori reason why consciousness should not be split in two, if that's how it is. Personally I am happy with a fairly traditional Cartesian view, that the self is the will and understanding, and the rest of consciousness is its working material. |
| 7115 | Maybe it is the act of reflection that brings 'me' into existence [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Might it not be precisely the reflective act that brings the me into being in reflected consciousness? | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (B)) | |
| A reaction: He admits some sort of self a second-order entity, but this is 'transcendental', and essentially an illusion. This elimination of the first-order self clears the way for the existential view, that we can create whatever self we want. I disagree. |
| 7121 | The Ego only appears to reflection, so it is cut off from the World [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: The Ego is an object that appears only to reflection, and is thereby radically cut off from the World. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], II (D)) | |
| A reaction: This is the culmination of Sartre's attack (in 1937) on the Ego, paving the way for the freedom of existentialism. Personally I don't accept this picture of the Ego as a second-order fiction. My Ego is part of my relationship with the World. |
| 5885 | Souls contain no properties of elements, and elements contain no properties of souls [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: No beginnings of souls can be found on earth; there is no combination in souls that could be born from earth, nothing that partakes of moist or airy or fiery; for in those elements there is nothing to possess the power of memory, thought, or reflection. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxvi.66) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, but I think magnetism is an instructive analogy, which has weird properties which we never perceive in elements (though it is there, buried deep - suggesting panpsychism). Cicero would be disconcerted to find that fire isn't an element. |
| 5890 | We should not share the distress of others, but simply try to relieve it [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We ought not to share distresses ourselves for the sake of others, but we ought to relieve others of their distress if we can. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], IV.xxvi.56) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a sensible and balanced attitude. Some people, particularly in a Christian culture, urge that feeling strong and painful compassion for others is an intrinsic good, but the commonsense view is that that just increases human suffering. |
| 5894 | All men except philosophers fear poverty [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: All men are afraid of poverty, but not a single philosopher is so. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], V.xxxi.88) | |
| A reaction: Not a thought which is encountered very often in modern philosophy journals. If a person is to be 'philosophical' in the way they live, calm endurance of the vicissitudes and hardships of life has to be a key prerequisite. |
| 5895 | If one despises illiterate mechanics individually, they are not worth more collectively [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Can anything be more foolish than to suppose that those, whom individually one despises as illiterate mechanics, are worth anything collectively? | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], V.xxxvi.104) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle disagrees (Idea 2823). In 1906 a huge number of people guessed the weight of a cow at a fair, and the average was within one pound of the truth. In our world the healthy workings of the group are warped by the mass media. |