17 ideas
| 19579 | The history of philosophy is just experiments in how to do philosophy [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: The history of philosophy up to now is nothing but a history of attempts to discover how to do philosophy. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 01) | |
| A reaction: I take post-Fregean analytic metaphysics to be another experiment in how to do philosophy. I suspect that the experiment of Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida etc has been a failure. |
| 19583 | Philosophy only begins when it studies itself [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: All philosophy begins where philosophizing philosophises itself. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 79) | |
| A reaction: The modern trend for doing metaphilosophy strikes me as wholly admirable, though I suspect that the enemies of philosophy (who are legion) see it as a decadence. |
| 19581 | A problem is a solid mass, which the mind must break up [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: A problem is a solid, synthetic mass which is broken up by means of the penetrating power of the mind. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 04) |
| 19584 | Whoever first counted to two must have seen the possibility of infinite counting [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Whoever first understood how to count to two, even if he still found it difficult to keep on counting, saw nonetheless the possibility of infinite counting according to the same laws. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 84) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it is the discerning of the 'law' which triggers this. Is the key concept 'addition' or 'successor' (or are those the same?). |
| 22025 | Novalis thought self-consciousness cannot disclose 'being', because we are temporal creatures [Novalis, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Novalis came to think that the kind of existence , or 'being', that is disclosed in self-consciousness remains, as it were, forever out of our reach because of the kind of temporal creatures we are. | |
| From: report of Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: It looks here as if Novalis kicked Heidegger's Dasein into the long grass before it even got started, but maybe they have different notions of 'being', with Novalis seeking timeless being, and Heidegger, influenced by Bergson, accepting temporality. |
| 18969 | How do you distinguish three beliefs from four beliefs or two beliefs? [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Suppose I say that I have given up precisely three beliefs since lunch. An over-coarse individuation could reduce the number to two, and an over-fine one could raise it to four. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.144) | |
| A reaction: Obviously if you ask how many beliefs I hold, it would be crazy to give a precise answer. But if I search for my cat, I give up my belief that it is in the kitchen, in the lounge and in the bathroom. That's precise enough to be three beliefs, I think. |
| 22067 | Poetry is true idealism, and the self-consciousness of the universe [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Poetry is true idealism - contemplation of the world as contemplation of a large mind - self-consciousness of the universe. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], vol 3 p.640), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism | |
| A reaction: It looks like the step from Fichte's idealism to the Absolute is poetry, which embraces the ultimate Spinozan substance through imagination. Or something... |
| 18967 | A 'proposition' is said to be the timeless cognitive part of the meaning of a sentence [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A 'proposition' is the meaning of a sentence. More precisely, since propositions are supposed to be true or false once and for all, it is the meaning of an eternal sentence. More precisely still, it is the 'cognitive' meaning, involving truth, not poetry. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.139) | |
| A reaction: Quine defines this in order to attack it. I equate a proposition with a thought, and take a sentence to be an attempt to express a proposition. I have no idea why they are supposed to be 'timeless'. Philosophers have some very odd ideas. |
| 18968 | The problem with propositions is their individuation. When do two sentences express one proposition? [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The trouble with propositions, as cognitive meanings of eternal sentences, is individuation. Given two eternal sentences, themselves visibly different linguistically, it is not sufficiently clear under when to say that they mean the same proposition. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.140) | |
| A reaction: If a group of people agree that two sentences mean the same thing, which happens all the time, I don't see what gives Quine the right to have a philosophical moan about some dubious activity called 'individuation'. |
| 19585 | Every person has his own language [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Every person has his own language. Language is the expression of the spirit. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 91) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see someone enthusiastically affirming what was later famously denied, and maybe even disproved. |
| 19582 | Morality and philosophy are mutually dependent [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Without philosophy there is no true morality, and without morality no philosophy. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 21) | |
| A reaction: Challenging! Maybe unthinking people drift in a sea of vague untethered morality, and people who seem to have a genuine moral strength are always rooted in some sort of philosophy. Maybe. Is the passion for philosophy a moral passion? |
| 5049 | 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? |
| 22027 | Life isn't given to us like a novel - we write the novel [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 99) | |
| A reaction: The roots of existentialism are in the Romantic movement. Sartre seems to have taken this idea literally. |
| 19580 | If the pupil really yearns for the truth, they only need a hint [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: If a pupil genuinely desires truth is requires only a hint to show him how to find what he is seeking. | |
| From: Novalis (Logological Fragments I [1798], 02) | |
| A reaction: The tricky job for the teacher or supervisor is assessing whether the pupil genuinely desires truth, or needs motivating. |
| 18970 | The concept of a 'point' makes no sense without the idea of absolute position [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Unless we are prepared to believe that absolute position makes sense, the very idea of a point as an entity in its own right must be rejected as not merely mysterious but absurd. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.149) | |
| A reaction: The fact that without absolute position we can only think of 'points' as relative to a conceptual grid doesn't stop the grid from picking out actual locations in space, as shown by latitude and longitude. |
| 5048 | 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. |
| 5050 | 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? |