Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Résumé of Metaphysics', 'fragments/reports' and 'Anarchy,State, and Utopia'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


25 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 2. Ancient Philosophy / b. Pre-Socratic philosophy
Anaximander produced the first philosophy book (and maybe the first book) [Anaximander, by Bodnár]
     Full Idea: Anaximander was the first to produce a philosophical book (later conventionally titled 'On Nature'), if not the first to produce a book at all.
     From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by István Bodnár - Anaximander
     A reaction: Wow! Presumably there were Egyptian 'books', but this still sounds like a stupendous claim to fame.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
The earth is stationary, because it is in the centre, and has no more reason to move one way than another [Anaximander, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Something which is established in the centre and has equality in relation to the extremes has no more reason to move up than it has down or to the sides (so the earth is stationary)
     From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], A26) by Aristotle - On the Heavens 295b11
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence
Anaximander saw the contradiction in the world - that its own qualities destroy it [Anaximander, by Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Anaximander discovers the contradictory character of our world: it perishes from its own qualities.
     From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 19 [239]
     A reaction: A lovely gloss on Anaximander, though I am not sure that I understand what Nietzsche means.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
Freedom to live according to our own conception of the good is the ultimate value [Nozick, by Kymlicka]
     Full Idea: Nozick says that the freedom to lead our lives in accordance with our own conception of the good is the ultimate value, so important that it cannot be sacrificed for other social ideals (e.g. equality of opportunity).
     From: report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b.ii
     A reaction: Clearly this ultimate value will not apply to children, so this view needs a sharp dislocation between children and adults. But some adults need a lot of looking after. Maybe we ALL need looking after (by one another)?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / a. Nature of pleasure
Intelligent pleasure is the perception of beauty, order and perfection [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: An intelligent being's pleasure is simply the perception of beauty, order and perfection.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (A Résumé of Metaphysics [1697], §18)
     A reaction: Leibniz seems to have inherited this from the Greeks, especially Pythagoras and Plato. Buried in Leibniz's remark I see the Christian fear of physical pleasure. He should have got out more. Must an intelligent being always be intelligent?
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 2. Ideal of Pleasure
If an experience machine gives you any experience you want, should you hook up for life? [Nozick]
     Full Idea: Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired ...such as writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. ...Should you plug into this machine for life?
     From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], 3 'Experience')
     A reaction: A classic though experiment which crystalises a major problem with hedonistic utilitarianism. My addition is a machine which maximises the pleasure of my family and friends, to save me the bother of doing it.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
A minimal state should protect, but a state forcing us to do more is unjustified [Nozick]
     Full Idea: A minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified.
     From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref)
     A reaction: This has some plausibility for a huge modern state, where we don't know one another, but it would be a ridiculous attitude in a traditional village.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 2. Anarchism
Individual rights are so strong that the state and its officials must be very limited in power [Nozick]
     Full Idea: Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do.
     From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref)
     A reaction: This claim appears to be an axiom, but I'm not sure that the notion of 'rights' make any sense unless someone is granting the rights, where the someone is either a strong individual, or the community (perhaps represented by the state).
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / c. Liberal equality
States can't enforce mutual aid on citizens, or interfere for their own good [Nozick]
     Full Idea: A state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purposes of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection.
     From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], Pref)
     A reaction: You certainly can't apply these principles to children, so becoming an 'adult' seems to be a very profound step in Nozick's account. At what age must we stop interfering with people for their own good. If the state is prohibited, are neighbours also?
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / g. Liberalism critique
My Anarchy, State and Utopia neglected our formal social ties and concerns [Nozick on Nozick]
     Full Idea: The political philosophy represented in Anarchy, State and Utopia ignored the importance of joint and official symbolic statement and expression of our social ties and concern, and hence (I have written) is inadequate.
     From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.32) by Robert Nozick - The Nature of Rationality p.32
     A reaction: In other words, it was far too individualistic, and neglected community, even though it has become the sacred text for libertarian individualism. Do any Nozick fans care about this recantation?
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 4. Free market
If people hold things legitimately, just distribution is simply the result of free exchanges [Nozick, by Kymlicka]
     Full Idea: If we assume that everyone is entitled to the goods they currently possess (their 'holdings'), then a just distribution is simply whatever distribution results from people's free exchanges.
     From: report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.1.b
     A reaction: If people's current 'legitimate' holdings are hugely unequal, it seems very unlikely that the ensuing exchanges will be 'free' in the way that Nozick envisages.
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 4. Property rights
Property is legitimate by initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, or rectification of injustice [Nozick, by Swift]
     Full Idea: Nozick identified three ways in which people can acquire a legitimate property holding: initial acquisition, voluntary transfer, and rectification (of unjust transfers).
     From: report of Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 1 'Nozick'
     A reaction: I think it is a delusion to look for justice in the ownership of property. You can't claim justice for buying property if the money to do it was acquired unjustly. And what rights over those who live on the land come with the 'ownership'?
Nozick assumes initial holdings include property rights, but we can challenge that [Kymlicka on Nozick]
     Full Idea: Nozick assumes that the initial distribution of holdings includes full property-rights over them, ..but our preferred theory may not involve distributing such particular rights to particular people. ...The legitimacy of such rights is what is in question.
     From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.1.c
     A reaction: [somewhat compressed] All of these political philosophies seem to have questionable values (such as freedom or equality) built into their initial assumptions.
Can I come to own the sea, by mixing my private tomato juice with it? [Nozick]
     Full Idea: If I own a can of tomato juice and spill it in the sea so that its molecules mingle evenly throughout the sea, do I thereby come to own the sea?
     From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.175)
     A reaction: This is a reductio of Locke's claim that I can own land by 'mixing' my labour with it. At first glance, mixing something with something would seem to have nothing to do with ownership.
How did the private property get started? If violence was involved, we can redistribute it [Kymlicka on Nozick]
     Full Idea: How did these natural resources, which were not initially owned by anyone, come to be part of someone's private property? ...The fact that the initial acquisition often involved force means there is no moral objection to redistributing existing wealth.
     From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b
     A reaction: [He cites G.A. Cphen 1988 for the second point] Put like this, Nozick's theory just looks like the sort of propaganda which is typically put out by the winners. Is there an implicit threat of violent resistance in his advocacy of individual rights?
If property is only initially acquired by denying the rights of others, Nozick can't get started [Kymlicka on Nozick]
     Full Idea: If there is no way that people can appropriate unowned resources for themselves without denying other people's claim to equal consideration, then Nozick's right of transfer never gets off the ground.
     From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974]) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) 4.2.b.i
     A reaction: The actual history of these things is too complex to judge. Early peoples desperately wanted a lord to rule over them, and their lord's ownership of the land implied the people's right to live there. See Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Unowned things may be permanently acquired, if it doesn't worsen the position of other people [Nozick]
     Full Idea: One may acquire a permanent bequeathable property right in a previously unowned thing, as long as the position of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is not thereby worsened.
     From: Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.178), quoted by G.A. Cohen - Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? 2
     A reaction: Cohen attacks this vigorously. His main point is that Nozick has a very narrow view of what the acquisition should be compared with. There are many alternatives. Does being made unable to improve something 'worsen' a person's condition?
Maybe land was originally collectively owned, rather than unowned? [Cohen,GA on Nozick]
     Full Idea: Why should we not regard land as originally collectively owned rather than, as Nozick takes for granted, owned by no one?
     From: comment on Robert Nozick (Anarchy,State, and Utopia [1974], p.178) by G.A. Cohen - Are Freedom and Equality Compatible? 2
     A reaction: Did native Americans and Australians collectively own the land? Lots of peoples, I suspect, don't privately own anything, because the very concept has never occured to them (and they have no legal system).
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / d. The unlimited
The Boundless cannot exist on its own, and must have something contrary to it [Aristotle on Anaximander]
     Full Idea: Those thinkers are in error who postulate ...a single matter, for this cannot exist without some 'perceptible contrariety': this Boundless, which they identify with the 'original real', must be either light or heavy, either hot or cold.
     From: comment on Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 329a10
     A reaction: A dubious objection, I would say. If there has to be a contrasting cold thing to any hot thing, what happens when the cold thing is removed?
Things begin and end in the Unlimited, and are balanced over time according to justice [Anaximander]
     Full Idea: The non-limited is the original material of existing things; their source is also that to which they return after destruction, according to necessity; they give justice and make reparation to each other for injustice, according to the arrangement of Time.
     From: Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], B1), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 24.13-
     A reaction: Simplicius is quoting Theophrastus
Anaximander introduced the idea that the first principle and element of things was the Boundless [Anaximander, by Simplicius]
     Full Idea: Anaximander said that the first principle and element of existing things was the boundless; it was he who originally introduced this name for the first principle.
     From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], A09) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.24.14-
     A reaction: Simplicius is quoting Theophrastus
The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless [Anaximander]
     Full Idea: The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless.
     From: Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], B2), quoted by (who?) - where?
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 2. Eternal Universe
The parts of all things are susceptible to change, but the whole is unchangeable [Anaximander, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: The parts of all things are susceptible to change, but the whole is unchangeable.
     From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.An.2
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
Perfection is simply quantity of reality [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Perfection is simply quantity of reality.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (A Résumé of Metaphysics [1697], §11)
     A reaction: An interesting claim, but totally beyond my personal comprehension. I presume he inherited 'quantity of reality' from Plato, e.g. as you move up the Line from shadows to Forms you increase the degree of reality. I see 'real' as all-or-nothing.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / b. Human Evil
Evil serves a greater good, and pain is necessary for higher pleasure [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Evils themselves serve a greater good, and the fact that pains are found in minds is necessary if they are to reach greater pleasures.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (A Résumé of Metaphysics [1697], §23)
     A reaction: How much pain is needed to qualify for the 'greater pleasures'? Some people receive an awful lot. I am not sure exactly how an evil can 'serve' a greater good. Is he recommending evil?