8 ideas
| 19695 | The devil was wise as an angel, and lost no knowledge when he rebelled [Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: The devil is evil but nonetheless wise; he was a wise angel, and through no loss of knowledge, but, rather, through some sort of affective restructuring tried and failed to take over the throne. | |
| From: Dennis Whitcomb (Wisdom [2011], 'Argument') | |
| A reaction: ['affective restructuring' indeed! philosophers- don't you love 'em?] To fail at something you try to do suggests a flaw in the wisdom. And the new regime the devil wished to introduce doesn't look like a wise regime. Not convinced. |
| 9777 | Kant was the first philosopher [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: From today's perspective it is in a way clear that Kant was the first philosopher. Pre-Kantian philosophy cannot think in his transcendental aspect. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §1) | |
| A reaction: It is probably equally plausible to say that Kant was the last philosopher. More thought-provoking than true. |
| 9778 | There is no dialogue in philosophy [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: I think I truly became a philosopher when I realised that there is no dialogue in philosophy. Plato's dialogues are clearly fakes, with one guy talking most of the time. ...Philosophy as an interdisciplinary project is the ultimate nightmare. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §1) | |
| A reaction: This goes against all my prejudices in favour of teamwork and mutual criticism (e.g. Idea 1576), but I was a bit shaken by it, and have begun to wonder whether I must just face up to the solitary nature of the enterprise. |
| 9779 | Philosophy is transcendental questioning (not supporting science or constructing ontology) [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy can no longer play its traditional roles, giving foundations to science, or constructing general ontology. It should simply fulfil its task of transcendental questioning. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §2) | |
| A reaction: I remain unsure what is being recommended, unless it is for philosophy to start asking questions just at the point where everyone else gives up. |
| 9780 | Consciousness is a malfunction of evolution [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is a kind of mistake, a malfunction of evolution, and out of this mistake a miracle occurred. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §2) | |
| A reaction: Rather hard to prove, but actually quite an uplifting thought. If consciousness only evolved so that we could navigate and defend ourselves, our 'higher' activities seem irrelevant. But Zizek's view means we can make them central. Nice. |
| 22040 | Freedom is produced by the activity of the mind, and is not intrinsically given [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Actual freedom is not something immediately existent in mindedness, but is something to be produced by the mind's own activity. It is thus as the producer of its freedom that we have to consider mindedness in philosophy. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Mind (Encylopedia III) [1817], §382, Zusatz), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11 | |
| A reaction: Pinkard glosses this as an agent being free by being the centre of a group of social responsibilities. Hence I presume small children have no freedom. Presumably we could deprive citizens of all responsibility, and hence of metaphysical freedom. |
| 22039 | Geist is distinct from nature, not as a substance, but because of its normativity [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Hegel argued that it was the impossibility of a naturalistic account of normativity that distinguished Geist from nature, not Geist's being any kind of metaphysical substance. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Mind (Encylopedia III) [1817]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11 | |
| A reaction: Hegel always seems to want to have his cake and eat it. Without a mental substance, how can Geist not be part of nature? What is Geist made of? Is his view functionalist? But that is usually naturalistic. Is normativity magic? |
| 9781 | Tolerance and love are strategies to avoid encountering our neighbours [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: All this preaching about tolerance, love for one's neighbour and so on, are ultimately strategies to avoid encountering the neighbour. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §2) | |
| A reaction: I have begun to wonder whether some such motivation underlies the modern obsession with raising huge sums for charity. |