Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty', 'Martin Heidegger in conversation' and 'The Architecture of Theories'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / h. Dasein (being human)

15584	I say the manifestation of Being needs humans, and humans only exist as reflected in Being [Heidegger]
	Full Idea: The fundamental thought of my thinking is precisely that Being, or the manifestation of Being, needs human beings and that, vice versa, human beings are only human beings if they are standing in the manifestation of Being.
	From: Martin Heidegger (Martin Heidegger in conversation [1969], p.82), quoted by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 5 'Signs'
	A reaction: I don't think I understand the second half of this, but I sense some sort of intuition that the consciousness of humans 'enlarges' Being, or bestows an identity on it, or some such thing.

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism

14802	Physical and psychical laws of mind are either independent, or derived in one or other direction [Peirce]
	Full Idea: The question about minds is whether 1) physical and psychical laws are independent (monism, my neutralism), 2) the psychical laws derived and physical laws primordial (materialism), 3) physical law is derived, psychical law primordial (idealism).
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.321)
	A reaction: I think you are already in trouble when you start proposing that there are two quite distinct sets of laws, and then worry about how they are related. Assume unity, and only separate them when the science forces you to (which it won't).

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue

5121	Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman]
	Full Idea: Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing.
	From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2)
	A reaction: This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia

5120	What counts as 'flourishing' must be relative to various sets of values [Harman]
	Full Idea: If we base our ethics on human flourishing, one implication would seem to be moral relativism, since what counts as 'flourishing' seems inevitably relative to one or other set of values.
	From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.1)
	A reaction: This remark seems to make the relativist assumption that all value systems are equal. For Aristotle, flourishing is no more relative than health is. No one can assert that illness has an intrinsically high value in human life.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature

14800	The world is full of variety, but laws seem to produce uniformity [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Exact law obviously never can produce heterogeneity out of homogeneity; and arbitrary heterogeneity is the feature of the universe the most manifest and characteristic.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.319)
	A reaction: This is the view of laws of nature now associated with Nancy Cartwright, but presumably you can explain the apparent chaos in terms of the intersection of vast numbers of 'laws'. Or, better, there aren't any laws.

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

14801	Darwinian evolution is chance, with the destruction of bad results [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Darwinian evolution is evolution by the operation of chance, and the destruction of bad results.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Architecture of Theories [1891], p.320)
	A reaction: The 'destruction of bad results' is a much better slogan for Darwin that Spencer's 'survival of the fittest'. It is, of course, a rather unattractive God who makes progress by endlessly destroying huge quantities of failed (but living) experiments.