62 ideas
| 4171 | Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 027) | |
| A reaction: I think what draws people to philosophy is an interest in whatever is timeless. Contingent reality is so frustrating and exhausting. Hence I agree. |
| 4186 | Everyone is conscious of all philosophical truths, but philosophers bring them to conceptual awareness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every person is conscious of all philosophical truths, but to bring them to conceptual awareness, to reflection, is the business of the philosopher. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.68) | |
| A reaction: I like this. All human beings are philosophical. It seems unlikely, though, that we are all pre-conceptually conscious of the higher levels of philosophical logic. |
| 12171 | Absurdity is incongruity between correct and false points of view [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The more correct the subsumption of objects from one point of view, and the greater and more glaring the incongruity from another point of view, the greater is the ludicrous effect which is produced by this contrast. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 013), quoted by Roger Scruton - Laughter §5 | |
| A reaction: This accounts for ludicrous humour, but there seem to be plenty of other types. Exceptional stupidity is usually amusing without necessarily being incongruous. Though it is a departure from the sensible norm. |
| 21366 | Metaphysics must understand the world thoroughly, as a principal source of knowledge [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The task of metaphysics is not to pass over experience in which the world exists, but to understand it thoroughly, since inner and outer experience are certainly the principal source of all knowledge. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 428), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: I wonder to what extent he meant ordinary experience, and to what extent he was advocating the study if science? |
| 9123 | Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in. | |
| From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3 | |
| A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'? |
| 4168 | Matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which only exist relatively, and for each other [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: In my system matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which exist only for each other, and so exist only relatively. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I.Supp) | |
| A reaction: A plausible picture, but built from dualist presuppositions. Personally I think intellect is built out of matter, so I am not going down Schopenhauer's road. |
| 21926 | Schopenhauer, unlike other idealists, says reality is irrational [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer radically departs from his fellow idealists in his assertion of the irrational character of reality. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: This is the rejection of the original confidence about rationality of the stoics. And yet Schopenauer saw the principle of sufficient reason as axiomatic. Not sure how to reconcile those. Lewis identifies this idea as 'Romantic'. |
| 4167 | The knowing subject and the crude matter of the world are both in themselves unknowable [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The world has two poles - the knowing subject and crude matter, which are both completely unknowable, the former because it is the knower, the latter because without form and quality it cannot be perceived. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: A nice concept, that all of reality comes from their relationship, but the two components are intrinsically unknowable. Does God the Knower know his own mind? |
| 4165 | Descartes found the true beginning of philosophy with the Cogito, in the consciousness of the individual [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: By taking Cogito Ergo Sum as the only certainty, and by his provisionally regarding the existence of the world as problematical, the essential starting point of all philosophy was found, and its true focus in the subjective, the individual consciousness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: Some people think this was a disaster, not a triumph. Descartes could have doubted himself and accepted the world as his starting point. |
| 21923 | Schopenhauer can't use force/energy instead of 'will', because he is not a materialist [Lewis,PB on Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Some say Schopenhauer would be less misunderstood if he had used 'force' or 'energy' rather than 'will' to characterise inner natures. But this would have steered his idealism towards materialism, of which he was an avowed opponent. | |
| From: comment on Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: I presume therefore that Nietzsche's will to power is a commitment to materialism, since it occurs in material objects as well as minds. |
| 4162 | The world only exists in relation to something else, as an idea of the one who conceives it [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The world which surrounds man exists only as idea - that is, only in relation to something else, the one who conceives the idea, which is himself. If any truth can be enunciated a priori, it is this. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 001) | |
| A reaction: Yes, but the idea we have is of a real world. It is definitely not part of the idea that it is an idea (unlike my idea for a Christmas present). |
| 21922 | We know reality because we know our own bodies and actions [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The double knowledge of the nature and action of our own body is the key to the inner being of every phenomenon in nature. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 105), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: Lewis calls this 'the heart of his philosophy'. Bodily awareness comes from acts of willing. So Lewis says 'the thing-in-itself is revealed to us in willing'. We experience Being and causation. Is he trying to combine idealism with the thing-in-itself? |
| 21913 | Kant rightly separates appearance and thing-in-itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Kant's greatest merit is the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 417 App), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 3 | |
| A reaction: This is Schopenhauer firmly opposing the Absolute Idealism of Kant's successors, who dismissed the 'thing-in-itsef'. |
| 4164 | Direct feeling of the senses are merely data; perception of the world comes with understanding causes [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: What the eye, the ear, or the hand feels, is not perception, it is merely data. Only when the understanding passes from the effect to the cause does the world lie before us as perception extended in space. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 004) | |
| A reaction: These certainly seems to be a sense-data theory. Philosophers are much more ready to separate the data from the understanding than neuroscientists are. |
| 4163 | All perception is intellectual [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: All perception is intellectual. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 004) | |
| A reaction: Even in slugs? I suspect that this is a tautology. Schopenhauer will only allow my vision or hearing to become 'perception' when an intellectual element enters into it. |
| 4166 | A consciousness without an object is no consciousness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: A consciousness without an object is no consciousness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: This hints at Hume's observations about the self. Certainly totally vacant consciousness seems inconceivable, but is that a necessary or a contingent truth? |
| 21369 | We have hidden and unadmitted desires and fears, suppressed because of vanity [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We often do not know what we desire or fear. For years we can have a desire without admitting it to ourselves ....because the intellect is not to know anything about it, since the good opinion we have of ourselves would inevitably suffer thereby. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 210), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 5 'Will' | |
| A reaction: The idea of unconscious thought crept up well before Freud. It is in La Rochefoucauld, and important in Nietzsche. Neuroscience seems to give it a strong priority over the conscious mind, which is a revolutionary idea. |
| 21367 | I know both aspects of my body, as representation, and as will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: My body is the only object of which I know not merely the one side, that of the representation, but also the other, that is called 'will'. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 125), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that knowledge of the body through the will (and action, presumably) constitutes a different sort of knowledge. Philosophers are always trying to split the world in two (but not Nietzsche!). |
| 4175 | It is as perverse to resent our individuality being replaced by others, as to resent the body renewing itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: It is as perverse to desire the continuity of one's individuality which is being replaced by other individuals, as to desire the permanence of the body's substance which is always being replaced by new substance. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.54) | |
| A reaction: If I let that go, what am I supposed to hang on to? Nothing? Non-existence is not an attractive condition to aspire to. |
| 4176 | We all regard ourselves a priori as free, but see from experience that character and motive compel us [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Everyone regards himself a priori as free in his individual actions, and only a posteriori sees that necessarily his actions follow from the coincidence of character with motives. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.55) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what experience shows. Necessity seems more obvious when observing other people. Samuel Johnson said experience showed freedom, not necessity. |
| 4170 | Man's actions are not free, because they follow strictly from impact of motive on character [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Man's action have been interpreted as free, which they are not, for every individual action follows with strict necessity from the impact of motive on character. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 023) | |
| A reaction: If 'character is fate' (Heraclitus) then presumably motive must also be fate to complete the determinist picture. I shall spend the next year redesigning my motivation. |
| 4169 | Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 018) | |
| A reaction: The word 'act' seems to beg the question (as does 'true'!). I am no longer sure that I know what an act of will is. Hobbes says there is no such thing. |
| 7187 | Schopenhauer was caught in Christian ideals, because he didn't deify his 'will' [Nietzsche on Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer's interpretation of the in-itself as will was an essential step: but he didn't know how to deify the will, and remained caught in the moral, Christian ideal | |
| From: comment on Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 9[42] | |
| A reaction: Intriguingly, this seems to suggest that Nietzsche consciously sought to replace the absence of God with the human will, which strikes me as an odd, and very nineteenth century, idea. Loss of religion bothered them a lot. |
| 21365 | Only the will is thing-in-itself, seen both in blind nature and in human action [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Only the will is thing-in-itself. ...It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man, and the great difference between the two concerns only the degree of the manifestation. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 110), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: If will acts 'blindly' in forces of nature, then these seems to be the same concept as Nietzsche's 'will to power'. This seems to be heading towards Heidegger's Dasein, as a central and distinctive mode of being. |
| 4173 | If we were essentially intellect rather than will, our moral worth would depend on imagined motives [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: If, as all philosophers imagine, the intellect is our actual nature and the will is arrived at through knowledge, then only the motive from which we imagined we were acting would decide our moral worth. Imagined and true motive would be indistinguishable. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II Supp) | |
| A reaction: A nice argument. If motive is morally decisive, it is certainly crucial to decide between real and imagined motive (especially since Freud). But uncontrollable motive seems morally irrelevant. |
| 21370 | Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer belongs to a tradition which equates aesthetic experience with a 'disinterested' attitude towards its object, and is often cited as one of the chief proponents of such a view. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
| A reaction: 'Disinterested' is quite a nice word for one's attitude to art, though you then have to capture why you are also involved in it. |
| 4182 | A principal pleasure of the beautiful is that it momentarily silences the will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The momentary silencing of all volition …is one of the principal elements in our pleasure in the beautiful. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.65) | |
| A reaction: Iris Murdoch sees moral value in beauty, because it overrides selfishness. The perception of beauty is certainly something deeper than just another nice feeling. There is a cognitive element to it. |
| 21928 | The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Exaltation of the Sublime is the struggle to maintain will-less knowing in the face of a threat to the human will. The Sublime contains an awful beauty and a delightful terror because it includes a threat to human existence. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 201-7) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 5 | |
| A reaction: Can you experience the Sublime when looking down a microscope? Can a mere theory in cosmology be sublime? Can a supposed perception of the Sublime ever be incorrect? We no longer worry about these questions, it seems. |
| 21927 | Schopenhauer emphasises Ideas in art, unlike most romantics [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: The emphasis on the presentation of Platonic Ideas distinguishes Schopenhauer's theory of art from standard Romantic theories, which emphasize the expression of emotion and feeling. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 5 | |
| A reaction: Theories of art that neglect ideas, even if subliminally expressed, have gone badly wrong. |
| 8116 | The will-less contemplation of art brings a liberation from selfhood [Schopenhauer, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: For Schopenhauer, the point of art lies in the metaphysical liberation from selfhood that will-less aesthetic contemplation induces. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.6.3 | |
| A reaction: I've never understood why anyone (Buddhists included) would want 'liberation from selfhood'. Certainly art can make us forget ourselves in a more objective view of things, but science can do that too. |
| 4174 | Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], III 41) | |
| A reaction: A bit of a shock, because it implies human vanity, but it fits the best works of art rather well. What else reveals humanity's beauty? Beautiful deeds must be recorded. |
| 21380 | The only aim of our existence is to grasp that non-existence would be better [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Nothing else can be stated as the aim of our existence except the knowledge that it would be better for us not to exist. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 605), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 8 'Denial' | |
| A reaction: Nonsense on stilts. Nietzsche rebelled against this. If there is such 'knowledge' then it obviously has nothing to do with the aim of our existence. It is just a rejection of aims. The aim is making the best of existence, not spurning it. |
| 21374 | We should no more expect ethical theory to produce good people than aesthetics to produce artists [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We should be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics would create virtuous, noble and hold men, as that our aesthetics would produce poets, painterd and musicians. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 271), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 7 'Against' | |
| A reaction: Presumably the aim of ethical theory is to understand the truths about ethics. That can't do any harm, can it? In every other area of life we think that understanding leads to improvement. Unless, of course, there are no truths of ethics.... |
| 23154 | We divide mankind into friend and foe, and cooperate with one and compete with the other [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Instinctively we divide mankind into friends and foes - friends, towards whom we have a morality of co-operation; foes, towards whom we have that of competition. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, because I have though of cooperation and competition as intrinsic features of people, internal to their nature, but this idea observes that it is more external, as two responses to two sharply distinct aspects of experience. |
| 4181 | Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.65) | |
| A reaction: A nice way of stating the core of moral relativism. To me, though, it just seems a rejection of morality. Conflicting wills bring moral paralysis. Might is right. |
| 5649 | Will casts aside each of its temporary fulfilments, so human life has no ultimate aim [Schopenhauer, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Since for Schopenhauer will has no intrinsic end, but breaks through all its temporary fulfilments and casts them aside as irrelevant once attained, it becomes impossible to assert that there is any ultimate aim to human activity. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |
| A reaction: This sums up part of the modern anti-teleological view of life, with its notion of purposes which can only arise out of consciousnesses. Such a view leaves untouched the key question, which is "What should I will?" |
| 4177 | Most people would probably choose non-existence at the end of their life, rather than relive the whole thing [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps no one at the end of his life, if he gives the matter sober consideration and is, at the same time, frank, ever wishes to live it over again; he more readily chooses non-existence. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.59) | |
| A reaction: Hence Nietzsche's doctrine of 'eternal return' (Gay Science §341, idea 2936). From Schopenhauer it is just bleak pessimism, but from Nietzsche it is a wonderful challenge to live, perhaps the best ever. |
| 4185 | Altruistic people make less distinction than usual between themselves and others [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: If we observe an altruistic action the simplest explanation and the essential character of the person's conduct is that they make less distinction than is usually made between themselves and others. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: Obvious, really, but Schopenhauer is talking about the will. Is the effacement of the Self desirable, apart from the benefit it might bring to other people. I don't find it appealing. |
| 4183 | Only self-love can motivate morality, but that also makes it worthless [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: A theory of morals which motivates can only do so by working on self-love, but what springs from this latter has no moral worth. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: I just don't believe this pessimism. Schopenhauer was an incipient social darwinist who needed a course in modern game theory. Or he just needed to be a nicer man. |
| 4172 | Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We are fortunate if we keep up the game whereby desire passes into satisfaction, and satisfaction into new desire - if the pace of this is swift, it is called happiness, and if it is slow, sorrow. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 029) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the dream of the addict, as Socrates points out with his example of the leaky jar in 'Gorgias'. Should we want more desires? |
| 21371 | We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: So long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never attain lasting happiness or peace. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 196), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
| A reaction: I hate this idea. It obviously leads to his Buddhism, and the eastern idea that life is generally a bad idea and to be avoided. I think Nietzsche rebelled strongly against this attitude of Schopenhauer's. |
| 4184 | Virtue must spring from an intuitive recognition that other people are essentially like us [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Virtue must spring from that intuitive knowledge which recognises in the individuality of others the same essence as in our own. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: After all his pessimism, he arrives at a view similar to Hume's, that morality is built on natural empathy. But why built a moral theory on one base. Everything points us towards morality! Moral actions are more beautiful. |
| 23153 | Gradually loyalty to a creed increased, which could even outweigh nationality [Russell] |
| Full Idea: At a later stage in the development of civilization, a new kind of loyalty began to be developed, based on identity of creed. …Its military strength was displayed in Islam …and later loyalities of Catholics or Protestants could outweigh nationality. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The only examples of creed loyalty that come to mind are religious. With increased migration in the modern world the phenomenon of divided loyalties has grown. Can a political theory cope with divided loyalties? |
| 23152 | Increasingly war expands communities, and unifies them through fear [Russell] |
| Full Idea: From early days down to modern times war has been the chief engine in enlarging the size of communities, and fear has increasingly replaced tribal solidarity as a source of social cohesion. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: It is a feature of modern nationalism to try to generate fear of various outsiders, even in times of peace. Most of us despise such things, but the underlying desire for greater national unity is not unworthy. What enemies would a world state have? |
| 23155 | In early societies the leaders needed cohesion, but the rest just had to obey [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In historical societies such as ancient Egypt only a minority at the top of the social scale - the king, the aristocracy and the priests - needed any psychological mechanism towards social cohesion; all the rest merely obeyed. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is why even now I take obedience to be a key right-wing virtue, though it is usually reinforced through national myths and distorted proganda. Quasi-worship of the leader also seems to be a major ingredient. Obedience unifies armies. |
| 23156 | The economic and political advantages of great size seem to have no upper limit [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Short of the whole planet there is no visible limit to the advantages of size, both in economic and in political organisation. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 2) | |
| A reaction: Obviously there are also disadvantages, such as the vast distances, and the alienation of people far from the centre. I take economies of scale to be one of the advantages of socialist nationalisations. |
| 23157 | Government has a negative purpose, to prevent trouble, and a positive aim of realising our desires [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Government has a negative function, to prevent private violence, to protect life and property, to enact criminal law and secure its enforcement. It also has a positive purpose, to facilitate the realisation of desires common to most of the citizens. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Interesting because the second purpose is rarely cited. Governments improve communications, facilitate trade, and encourage health and education services, which we all want. |
| 23151 | A monarch is known to everyone in the group, and can thus unite large groups [Russell] |
| Full Idea: At a very early stage loyalty to a group must have been reinforced by loyalty to a leader. In a large tribe the king or chief may be known the everybody even when individuals are strangers. This makes possible increase in the size of the group. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: In this way humanity could move from hunter-gatherer groups to tribes or clans. In the UK even people who couldn't name the current Prime Minister are all fully aware of the monarch. In this way a merely constitutional monarch makes sense, |
| 23167 | Power should be with smaller bodies, as long as it doesn't restrict central powers [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The general principle of delimiting powers should be to leave to smaller bodies all functions which do not prevent larger bodies from fulfilling their purpose. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: In recent years in the UK smaller local bodies have been severely reduced in power by central government. This is nominally in favour of individuals, but in practice seems to have strengthened the centre. Russell was keen on devolving powers. |
| 23163 | In an anarchy universities, research, books, and even seaside holidays, would be impossible [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is obvious that in a state of anarchy there could not be universities or scientific research or publication of books, or even such simple things as seaside holidays. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: A seaside holiday seems possible, though it obviously needs means of publicity, and of transport. Why is a private university impossible? The general thought seems to be that anything very complex would be impossible. Maybe. |
| 23168 | A state is essential, to control greedy or predatory impulses [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The control of greedy or predatory impulses is imperatively necessary, and therefore States …are needed for survival. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: The anarchist replies that the corruption of this benevolent state is precisely the problem they are trying to avoid. Perhaps the emphasis should be on the rule of law, rather than on people holding centralised power. |
| 23166 | In democracy we are more aware of being governed than of our tiny share in government [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In a democracy you have a 20 millionth share in the government of others, but only a 20 millionth share in the government of yourself. You are therefore much more conscious of being governed than of governing. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Add to that the fact that your share in governing others only occurs at election time. In between we are powerless spectators, but we are still governed. |
| 23162 | Managers are just as remote from workers under nationalisation as under capitalism [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Nationalisation leaves managers and officials almost as remote from the workers as they are under a capitalist regime. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: Russell's solution is workplace democracy. Presumably that could be imposed on a nationalised industry much more easily than on a profit-driven private capitalist industry. |
| 23165 | Socialists say economic justice needs some state control of industries, and of foreign trade [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Economic justice is held by Socialists (rightly, in my opinion) to involve state ownership of key industries and considerable regulation of foreign trade. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: This must be to obtain greater control over the profits of industry, and also to prevent trade become too exploitative of weaker foreign nations. Britain had a socialist government when this book was written. |
| 23160 | Being a slave of society is hardly better than being a slave of a despot [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A society in which each is the slave of all is only a little better than one in which each is the slave of a despot. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to apply quite accurately to the position of those state employees who have the lowest status and wages. Society as a whole exploits them, so it is hard to point the finger at their oppressors. |
| 23158 | Slavery began the divorce between the work and the purposes of the worker [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The introduction of slavery began the divorce between the purpose of the work and the purposes of the worker. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: Worth saying, because marxists tend to blame more recent capitalism for creating this problem (of 'alienation'). There are many degrees of slavery. |
| 23161 | Slaves can be just as equal as free people [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is equality where all are slaves, as well as where all are free. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: A nice observation, though a person is only a slave if someone controls them, so it is not strictly true. |
| 23159 | Scarce goods may be denied entirely, to avoid their unequal distribution [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is a risk that, in the pursuit of equality, good things which there is difficulty in distributing evenly may not be admitted to be good. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: Lovely sentence. The clarity and economy with which he expresses an intricate idea. Why can't you philosophers all write like that? This is not just the unequal distribution of scarce goods, but a subtler problem. The finest wines, for example. |
| 23164 | Modern justice is seen as equality, apart from modest extra rewards for exceptional desert [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Justice has come to be interpreted as equality, except where exceptional merit is thought to deserve an exceptional but still moderate reward. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: Kekes rebels against this modern distortion of justice, which traditionally means everyone getting what they deserve - good or bad. The modern egalitarian view seems to be a rebellion against the harsh interpretation of the older view. |
| 4179 | The essence of nature is the will to life itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The essence of nature is the will to life itself. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.60) | |
| A reaction: How would he have responded to Darwin? The will to life is the product, there, of a different and more remote force, such as the 'energy' of the physicist (whatever that is!). |
| 4178 | Christianity is a pessimistic religion, in which the world is equated with evil [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Let no one think that Christianity is conducive to optimism; on the contrary, in the Gospels 'world' and 'evil' are used almost synonymously. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.59) | |
| A reaction: The source of Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil'. Do any religions throw you vigorously back into the middle of life, with its conflict and creativity? |
| 4180 | Religion is the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: All systems of religion are the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.63) | |
| A reaction: Is this a compliment? It seems to be, because at least the mysteries are identified and given an outward form. A nice thought. |