69 ideas
19635 | Hegel produced modern optimism; he failed to grasp that consciousness never progresses [Hegel, by Cioran] |
Full Idea: Hegel is chiefly responsible for modern optimism. How could he have failed to see that consciousness changes only its forms and modalities, but never progresses. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by E.M. Cioran - A Short History of Decay 5 |
8215 | Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book [Hegel, by Derrida] |
Full Idea: Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Jacques Derrida - Positions p.64 | |
A reaction: Reference to 'the Book' connects this to the great religions which rely on one holy text. The implication is that Hegel was proposing one big solution to all problems. It is doubtful if many philosophers before Hegel dreamt of that either. |
5278 | Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At best it is a summing up of general results, abstractions which arise from observation of the historical development of man. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense, based on a bogus Hegelian notion that history is following some sort of pattern, and that mental reality is fixed by physical conditions. The philosophy of mathematics, for one, won't fit into this definition. |
16011 | Hegel doesn't storm the heavens like the giants, but works his way up by syllogisms [Kierkegaard on Hegel] |
Full Idea: Hegel is a Johannes Climacus who does not storm the heavens, like the giants, by putting mountain upon mountain, but climbs aboard them by way of his syllogisms. | |
From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Søren Kierkegaard - The Journals of Kierkegaard 2A | |
A reaction: [Idea from SY] This appears to be an attempt at insulting Hegel for his timidity, but it seems to be describing the cautious approach which most modern philosophers take to be correct. [PG] |
12667 | Metaphysics aims at the simplest explanation, without regard to testability [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The methodology of metaphysics... is that of arguing to the simplest explanation, without regard to testability. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: I love that! I'd be a bit cautious about 'simplest', since 'everything is the output of an ineffable God' is beautifully simple, and brings the whole discussion to a halt. I certainly think metaphysics goes deeper than testing. String Theory? |
5433 | For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature [Hegel, by Russell] |
Full Idea: The basis of Hegel's system is that what is incomplete must not be self-subsistent, and needs the support of other things; whatever has relations to things outside itself must contain some reference to those outside things in its own nature. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Bertrand Russell - Problems of Philosophy Ch.14 | |
A reaction: This leads to the idealist doctrine of 'internal relations'. It has some plausibility if you think about the physicist's definition of mass, which has to refer to forces etc. Presumably there is one essence for all of reality, instead of separate ones. |
3301 | On the continent it is generally believed that metaphysics died with Hegel [Benardete,JA on Hegel] |
Full Idea: In continental Europe it is widely believed that the metaphysical game was played out in Hegel. | |
From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Intro |
19661 | Making sufficient reason an absolute devalues the principle of non-contradiction [Hegel, by Meillassoux] |
Full Idea: Hegel saw that the absolutization of the principle of sufficient reason (which marked the culmination of the belief in the necessity of what is) required the devaluation of the principle of non-contradiction. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812], 3) by Quentin Meillassoux - After Finitude; the necessity of contingency 3 | |
A reaction: I pass this on without understanding it, though a joint study of my collection of ideas on sufficient reason and non-contradiction might make it clear. [Let me know if you can explain it!] |
20952 | Rather than in three stages, Hegel presented his dialectic as 'negation of the negation' [Hegel, by Bowie] |
Full Idea: Hegel's 'dialectic' is often characterised in terms of the triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This is, however, not the way he presents it. The core of the dialectic is rather what Hegel terms the 'negation of the negation'. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy | |
A reaction: Interestingly, this connects it to debates about intuitionist logic, which denies that double-negation necessarily makes a positive. Presumably Marx emphasised the first reading. |
12666 | We can base logic on acceptability, and abandon the Fregean account by truth-preservation [Ellis] |
Full Idea: In logic, acceptability conditions can replace truth conditions, ..and the only price one has to pay for this is that one has to abandon the implausible Fregean idea that logic is the theory of truth preservation. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: This has always struck me as correct, given that if you assign T and F in a semantics, they don't have to mean 'true' and 'false', and that you can do very good logic with propositions which you think are entirely false. |
21777 | Negation of negation doubles back into a self-relationship [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
Full Idea: For Hegel, the 'negation of negation' is negation that, as it were, doubles back on itself and 'relates itself to itself'. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 6 'Space' | |
A reaction: [ref VNP 1823 p.108] Glad we've cleared that one up. |
12688 | Mathematics is the formal study of the categorical dimensions of things [Ellis] |
Full Idea: I wish to explore the idea that mathematics is the formal study of the categorical dimensions of things. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 6) | |
A reaction: Categorical dimensions are spatiotemporal relations and other non-causal properties. Ellis defends categorical properties as an aspect of science. The obvious connection seems to be with structuralism in mathematics. Shapiro is sympathetic. |
5645 | The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: The concept of being contains within itself it own negation - nothing - and the dialectical opposition between these two concepts is resolved only in the passage to a new concept, becoming, which contains the truth of the passage from nothing to being. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12 | |
A reaction: The idea that one concept 'contains' another, or that an opposition could be 'resolved' by a new concept, sounds doubtful to me. For most analytical philosophers, and for Aristotle, oppositions are contradictions, and cannot and should not be 'resolved'. |
5646 | Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything [Hegel, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: It would not be unfair to say that Hegel's metaphysics consists of an ontological proof of the existence of everything. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12 | |
A reaction: This is so gloriously far from David Hume that we must all find some appeal in it. The next question would be whether necessary existence has been proved. If so, given death, decay and entropy, what is it that has to exist? 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? |
12683 | Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The category of natural kinds of objects or substances should be regarded simply as a subcategory of the category of the natural kinds of processes. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: This is a new, and interesting, proposal from Ellis (which will be ignored by the philosophical community, as all new theories coming from elderly philosophers are ignored! Cf Idea 12652). A good knowledge of physics is behind Ellis's claim. |
12670 | A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis] |
Full Idea: We may define a physical event as any change of distribution of energy in any of its forms. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: This seems to result in an awful lot of events. My own (new this morning) definition is: 'An event is a process which can be individuated in time'. Now you just have to work out what a 'process' is, but that's easier than understanding an 'event'. |
5287 | Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Every profound philosophical problem is resolved quite simply into an empirical fact. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This shows that empirical accounts of metaphysics are not just a branch of British empiricism, but are a basic fact of any materialist view of the world. The influence of David Hume, however, hovers behind this Marxist doctrine. |
21755 | For Hegel, categories shift their form in the course of history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
Full Idea: For Hegel, the categories of thought are not fixed, eternal forms that remain unchanged throughout history, but are concepts that alter their meaning in history. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01 | |
A reaction: This results from a critique of Kant's rather rigid view of categories. This idea is very influential, and certainly counts among Hegel's better ideas. |
21754 | Our concepts and categories disclose the world, because we are part of the world [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
Full Idea: For Hegel, the structure of our concepts and categories is identical with, and thus discloses, the structure of the world itself, because we ourselves are born into and so share the character of the world we encounter. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01 | |
A reaction: This is a reasonable speculation, but it makes more sense in the context of natural selection, and an empiricist theory of concepts. |
22079 | Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
Full Idea: Hegel's disagreement with Kant is that categories are not unambiguously universal forms of human understanding, but are conceived in subtly different ways in different cultures and in different historical epochs. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95 | |
A reaction: This may be Hegel's most influential idea. Though he hoped that categories would contain truth, by arising untrammelled from reason, and thereby matching reality. His successors seem to have given up on that hope, and settled for relativism. |
12673 | Physical properties are those relevant to how a physical system might act [Ellis] |
Full Idea: We may define a physical property as one whose value is relevant, in some circumstances, to how a physical system is likely to act. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: Fair enough, but can we use the same 'word' property when we are discussing abstractions? Does 'The Enlightenment' have properties? Do very simple things have properties? Can 'red' act, if it isn't part of any physical system? |
12665 | I support categorical properties, although most people only want causal powers [Ellis] |
Full Idea: I want to insist on the existence of a class of categorical properties distinct from causal powers. This is contentious, for there is a growing body of opinion that all properties are causal powers. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], Intro) | |
A reaction: Alexander Bird makes a case against categorical properties. If what is meant is that 'being an electron' is the key property of an electron, then I disagree (quite strongly) with Ellis. Ellis says they are needed to explain causal powers. |
12682 | Essentialism needs categorical properties (spatiotemporal and numerical relations) and dispositions [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Essentialist metaphysics seem to require that there be at least two kinds of properties in nature: dispositional properties (causal powers, capacities and propensities), and categorical ones (spatiotemporal and numerical relations). | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: At last someone tells us what a 'categorical' property is! Couldn't find it in Stanford! Bird and Molnar reject the categorical ones as true properties. If there are six cats, which cat has the property of being six? Which cat is 'three metres apart'? |
12684 | Spatial, temporal and numerical relations have causal roles, without being causal [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Spatial, temporal and numerical relations can have various causal roles without themselves being instances of causal powers. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: He cites gaps, aggregates, orientations, approaching and receding, as examples of categorical properties which make a causal difference. I would have thought these could be incorporated in accounts of more basic causal powers. |
12672 | Properties and relations are discovered, so they can't be mere sets of individuals [Ellis] |
Full Idea: To regard properties as sets of individuals, and relations as sets of ordered individuals, is to make a nonsense of the whole idea of discovering a new property or relationship. Sets are defined or constructed, not discovered. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: This bizarre view of properties (as sets) drives me crazy, until it dawns on you that they are just using the word 'property' in a different way, probably coextensively with 'predicate', in order to make the logic work. |
12676 | Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis] |
Full Idea: A causal power can never be dependent on anything that does not have any causal powers. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: Sounds right, though you worry when philosophers make such bold assertions about such extreme generalities. But see Idea 12667. This is, of course, the key argument for saying that causal powers are the bedrock of reality, and of explanation. |
23781 | Categoricals exist to influence powers. Such as structures, orientations and magnitudes [Ellis, by Williams,NE] |
Full Idea: Ellis allows categoricals alongside powers, …to influence the sort of manifestations produced by powers. He lists structures, arrangements, distances, orientations, and magnitudes. | |
From: report of Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009]) by Neil E. Williams - The Powers Metaphysics 05.2 | |
A reaction: I would have thought that all of these could be understood as manifestations of powers. The odd one out is distances, but then space and time are commonly overlooked in every attempt to produce a complete ontology. [also Molnar 2003:164]. |
12686 | Causal powers are a proper subset of the dispositional properties [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The causal powers are just a proper subset of the dispositional properties. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 5) | |
A reaction: Sounds wrong. Causal powers have a physical reality, while a disposition sounds as if it can wholly described by a counterfactual claim. It seems better to say that things have dispositions because they have powers. |
12685 | Categorical properties depend only on the structures they represent [Ellis] |
Full Idea: I would define categorical properties as those whose identities depend only on the kinds of structures they represent. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3 n8) | |
A reaction: Aha. So categorical properties would be much more perspicaciously labelled as 'structural' properties. Why does philosophical terminology make it all more difficult than it needs to be? |
12679 | A real essence is a kind's distinctive properties [Ellis] |
Full Idea: A distinctive set of intrinsic properties for a given kind is called a 'real essence'. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: Note that he thinks essence is a set of properties (rather than what gives rise to the properties), and that it is kinds (and not individuals) which have real essences, and that one role of the properties is to be 'distinctive' of the kind. Cf. Oderberg. |
12668 | Metaphysical necessity holds between things in the world and things they make true [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Metaphysical necessitation is the relation that holds between things in the world and the things they make true. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 1) | |
A reaction: Not sure about that. It implies that it is sentences that have necessity, and he confirms it by calling it 'a semantic relation'. So there are no necessities if there are no sentences? Not the Brian Ellis we know and love. |
12687 | Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis] |
Full Idea: A metaphysically necessary proposition is one that is true in virtue of the essential nature of things. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 6) | |
A reaction: It take this to be what Kit Fine argues for, though it tracks back to Aristotle. I also take it to be correct, though one might ask whether there are any other metaphysical necessities, ones not depending on essences. |
9225 | Hegel reputedly claimed to know a priori that there are five planets [Hegel, by Field,H] |
Full Idea: Hegel is reputed to have claimed to have deduced on a priori grounds that the number of planets is exactly five. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Hartry Field - Recent Debates on the A Priori 1 | |
A reaction: Even if this is a wicked travesty of Hegel, it will do nicely to represent the extremes of claims to a priori synthetic knowledge. Field doesn't offer any evidence. I would love it to be true. |
12669 | Science aims to explain things, not just describe them [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The primary aim of science is to explain what happens, not just to describe it. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: This I take to be a good motto for scientific essentialism. Any scientist who is happy with anything less than explanation is a mere journeyman, a servant in the kitchens of the great house of science. |
23872 | 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In the Marxist formula 'social existence determines consciousness' there are more contradictions than words. Since 'social' can only exist in human minds, 'social existence' is already consciousness. It cannot determine consciousness, which is undefined. | |
From: comment on K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846]) by Simone Weil - Fragments p.126 | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced that society only exists in minds. Many children in Victorian London had never heard of 'London', but that didn't stop it existing. Our problems are often social substrata of which we are unaware. |
5277 | Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This slogan is the heart of Marxism. It begs the obvious question of what determines (social) life? Aristotle is at least partly right - that some activities and social organisation are 'unnatural', going against the grain of the human 'given'. |
5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: Dennett takes a similar view - that consciousness is more-or-less a consequence of the development of consciousness. This is understandable if you make intentional rather than phenomenal consciousness central. Otherwise ants may well have it. |
5276 | The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: As individuals express their life, so they are; what they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This appears to be contradicted by their subsequent idea that 'alienation' from the means of production is possible. Presumably intellectuals (in all ages) are to some extent exempt from this rule. It is, in fact, not true. |
5281 | Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Consciousness is from the very beginning a social product. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This slogan has produced the sociological view of truth which has stood opposed to philosophy for the last 150 years. It would be silly to deny that there is a good point here, but equally silly to think that all consciousness is explicable in this way. |
5289 | When aristocracy or the bourgeoisie dominate, certain values dominate with them [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: During the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty etc. were dominant, and during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts of freedom, equality etc. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This is a very anti-Aristotelian view, based on a very different idea of human nature. It must, to some extent, be true, but freedom and equality will be a value for the proletariat, and loyalty will be a key value if the family is central. |
21758 | Humans have no fixed identity, but produce and reveal their shifting identity in history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
Full Idea: For Hegel, the absolute truth of humanity is that human beings have no fixed, given identity, but rather determine and produce their own identity and their world in history, and that they gradually come to the recognition of this fact in history. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01 | |
A reaction: This quintessentially existentialist idea, most obvious in Sartre, seems to have originated with this view of Hegel's. |
5274 | Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus removing their limitations. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: It seems there are three views here: this one (that we can change our consciousness), the Aristotelian view (that consciousness is 'given'), and the Marxist view (that society determines consciousness). The truth is somewhere between them. |
5275 | Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This seems a rather external criterion. Presumably we can ask what biological or mental feature made it possible for men to produce their own means of subsistence, and why it evolved. Darwin puts a different perspective on this idea. |
5292 | Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
A reaction: Beneath the Marxist view that consciousness is a social creation lies a Hobbesian pessimism about basic human nature. This idea bodes ill for ultimate communism, because class struggle will have been abolished. What, then, can unite people? |
21992 | Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], p.160), quoted by Sydney Shoemaker - Some varieties of functionalism 6 | |
A reaction: At the very least, we must say that there had to be some intrinsic distinctiveness in place before men could do this. I like meta-thought. |
20414 | Hegel's Absolute Spirit is the union of human rational activity at a moment, and whatever that sustains [Hegel, by Eldridge] |
Full Idea: We may take Hegel's Absolute Spirit to be the union of collective, human rational activity at a historical moment with its proper object, the forms of social and individual life that the rational activity is devoted to understanding and sustaining. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics) 1 | |
A reaction: From this formulation it sounds as if the whole human race might have momentary union, but presumably it is more local 'peoples' that can exhibit this. |
3909 | Society isn’t founded on a contract, since contracts presuppose a society [Hegel, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: For Hegel, society cannot be founded on a contract, since contracts have no reality until society is in place. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 28.2 | |
A reaction: Interesting, and reminiscent of the private language argument, but contracts surely start as deals between individuals (on a desert island?). |
5293 | Only in community are people able to cultivate their gifts, and therefore be free [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
A reaction: This is where Aristotle and Marx agree, and I agree too. I think we could drop the word "free", which is to some degree a necessary right and precondition of human happiness, but is not the real target. |
5273 | Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men (just as the Old Hegelians declared them the true bonds of human society). | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: Marx and Engels will attack both views. The Young Hegelians seem potential existentialists, and the Old Hegelians followers of Aristotle. The correct view is somewhere in the middle. Self-criticism is an option given to us by our culture. |
5283 | In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates production, and I can hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and criticise after dinner. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a hopeless daydream, and Plato would be appalled. It now (2004) looks as if this aspiration is more likely to be met in a liberal capitalist democracy than it is under any state-controlled communism. |
5282 | If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: As long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: An isolated individual could feel 'alienated' doing menial tasks for themselves when they yearned to get on with their poetry. Alienation is not all-or-nothing. Compare working for a good employer with working for Nazi conquerors. |
5288 | The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This is mostly true, because the wealthy will control both the media and most of the educational institutions, but in a world of universal education and underground presses it doesn't seem to be a necessary truth. Wide dissemination of ideas needs money. |
5290 | The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a 'class', not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This appears to be the source of most of the troubles of the last 150 years. Aristotle thought a benevolent tyrant could represent all of society. It looks to me as if a representative democracy has the best chance, but control of the media is tricky. |
5294 | To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In order to assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
A reaction: By the 'State' is here meant the centralised power of the owners of the means of production. They are not aiming at anarchism, but at a more fluid 'society' or 'community'. Most of us have an Orwellian fear of violent 'overthrowing'. |
5285 | Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: In Britain and its colonies it does appear that the rise of factories and the abolition of slavery coincided. It is hard to see why this should be a necessity, though. Did the early Christians keep slaves? Some ancient Greeks objected to slavery. |
5284 | Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: It is empirically established that by the overthrow of the existing state of society by the communist revolution, and the abolition of private property, which is identical with it, the power of the world market will be dissolved. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: They later dropped the abolition of private property as an aim. They were very early in spotting the problem of global capitalism. As long as there are scarcities of anything (e.g. Rembrandts) it is hard to imagine the disappearance of the market. |
5291 | The law says private property is the result of the general will [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In civil law the existing property relations are declared to be the result of the general will. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.C) | |
A reaction: In other words, the 'general will' is open to endless abuse, because it is defined by the current power group, which nowadays is whoever controls the mass media. Even a 'free' election doesn't prove the general will, which is a cultural thing. |
5279 | Human history must always be studied in relation to industry and exchange [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The 'history of humanity' must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: There is a lot of truth in this, but why did the Greeks produce Pythagoras, or the Jews produce Jesus, or the British produce Sid Vicious? Two very similar industrial societies can produce very different cultures. Individuals can make a difference. |
5286 | Most historians are trapped in the illusions of their own epoch [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Most historians see in history just the political actions of princes and states, religious and all sorts of theoretical struggles, and in particular in each historical epoch have had to share the illusion of that epoch. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: Is it an illusion of our epoch that we share the illusions of our epoch? It seems unfair to say that Marx and Engels can see beyond the illusions of their epoch, but some historian writing about the Wars of the Roses can't. Princes were important. |
4347 | When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural [Hegel] |
Full Idea: When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural. | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]), quoted by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.4 | |
A reaction: Sounds good, though I'm not sure what it means. The application of the word 'natural' seems a bit arbitrary to me. No objective joint exists between the natural and unnatural. The default position has to be that everything is natural. |
12681 | There are natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
Full Idea: There are natural kinds of processes. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: Interesting. I am tempted by the view that processes are the most basic feature of reality, since I think of the mind as a process, and quantum reality seems more like processes than like objects. |
12680 | Natural kind structures go right down to the bottom level [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Natural kind structures go all the way down to the most basic levels of existence. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: Even the bottom level? Is there anything to explain why the bottom level is a kind, given that all the higher kinds presumably have an explanation? |
12675 | Laws of nature are just descriptions of how things are disposed to behave [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The laws of nature must be supposed to be just descriptions of the ways in which things are intrinsically disposed to behave: of how they would behave if they existed as closed and isolated systems. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: I agree with this, and therefore take 'laws of nature' to be eliminable from any plausible ontology (which just contains the things and their behaviour). Ellis tends to defend laws, when he doesn't need to. |
12671 | I deny forces as entities that intervene in causation, but are not themselves causal [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The classical conception of force is an entity that intervenes between a physical cause and its effect, but is not itself a physical cause. I see no reason to believe in forces of this kind. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: The difference of view between Leibniz and Newton is very illuminating on this one (coming this way soon!). Can you either have forces and drop causation, or have causation and drop forces? |
12674 | Energy is the key multi-valued property, vital to scientific realism [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Perhaps the most important of all multi-valued properties is energy itself. I think a scientific realist must believe that energy exists. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: It's odd that the existence of the most basic thing in physics needs a credo from a certain sort of believer. I have been bothered by notion of 'energy' for fifty years, and am still none the wiser. I'm sure I could be scientific realist without it. |
12689 | Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Cosmologists have a concept of objective simultaneity, which they take to mean something like 'temporally equidistant from the Big Bang'. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 6) | |
A reaction: I find this very appealing, when faced with all the relativity theory that tells me there is no such thing as global simultaneity, a claim which I find deeply counterintuitive, but seems to have the science on its side. Bravo. |
12690 | The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The global wavefront that collapses when a light signal from the Big Bang is observed is what most plausibly defines the frontier between past and future. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 6) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this, but it is clearly worth passing on. Of all the deep mysteries, the 'present' time may be the deepest. |
4188 | Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof [Schopenhauer on Hegel] |
Full Idea: Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof. | |
From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Arthur Schopenhauer - Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' Ch.II | |
A reaction: All massive a priori metaphysics is summed up in this argument, which is right at the core of philosophy. |
6686 | Hegel said he was offering an encyclopaedic rationalisation of Christianity [Hegel, by Graham] |
Full Idea: Hegel claimed that his philosophy was nothing less than an encyclopaedic rationalisation of the Christian religion. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Why did he pick Christianity to rationalise? How can you reason properly if you start with a dogma? |