6 ideas
| 527 | Everything exists which anyone perceives [Metrodorus of Chios] |
| Full Idea: Everything exists which anyone perceives. | |
| From: Metrodorus (Chi) (Natural Science (lost) [c.340 BCE], B2), quoted by (who?) - where? | |
| A reaction: cf Berkeley and Epicurus. This misses out the problem of perceptual error, such as a square tower looking round from a distance, or one person in a group thinking they have seen something. It is still a good criterion, though! |
| 23903 | When we admire a work, we see ourselves as its creator [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to admire a work of art without thinking oneself, in a way, its creator and without, in a sense, becoming so. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1940-03c) | |
| A reaction: This rings true for me. You almost see yourself making the brush strokes, or writing the phrase, or penning the chords. It is engagment which is essential for artistic experience. So all art lovers want to be artists? |
| 23901 | Relationships depend on equality, so unequal treatment kills them [Weil] |
| Full Idea: I conceive human relations solely on the plane of equality; therefore, so soon as someone begins to treat me as an inferior, human relations between us become impossible in my eyes. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1936-03) | |
| A reaction: Love that. This is precisely where equality starts. I fear that the problem is that people who don't treat others as equals don't want relationships with them, which particularly occurs in a competitive or hierarchical culture. |
| 12709 | Motion is not absolute, but consists in relation [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In reality motion is not something absolute, but consists in relation. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Motion [1677], A6.4.1968), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3 | |
| A reaction: It is often thought that motion being relative was invented by Einstein, but Leibniz wholeheartedly embraced 'Galilean relativity', and refused to even consider any absolute concept of motion. Acceleration is a bit trickier than velocity. |
| 23904 | The cruelty of the Old Testament put me off Christianity [Weil] |
| Full Idea: I have always been kept away from Christianity by its ranking the Old Testament stories, so full of pitiless cruelty, as sacred texts. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1941-01) | |
| A reaction: After 1938 she was a devout and intense Christian, but of a highly individual and platonist kind. Her religion is dominated by love and beauty. |
| 23902 | I attach little importance to immortality, which is an undecidable fact, and irrelevant to us [Weil] |
| Full Idea: You attach great importance to the reasoning about immortality. I myself attach little. It is a factual question, which cannot be decided in advance by any reasoning. And what does it matter to us? | |
| From: Simone Weil (Letters [1940], 1937-04c) | |
| A reaction: I love 'what does it matter to us?'. The idea that our future bliss or misery depends on how we live now is an utterly wicked fiction, which derails attempts to live a proper life. |