6 ideas
| 1556 | By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias] |
| Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature. | |
| From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8 |
| 22040 | Freedom is produced by the activity of the mind, and is not intrinsically given [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Actual freedom is not something immediately existent in mindedness, but is something to be produced by the mind's own activity. It is thus as the producer of its freedom that we have to consider mindedness in philosophy. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Mind (Encylopedia III) [1817], §382, Zusatz), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11 | |
| A reaction: Pinkard glosses this as an agent being free by being the centre of a group of social responsibilities. Hence I presume small children have no freedom. Presumably we could deprive citizens of all responsibility, and hence of metaphysical freedom. |
| 22039 | Geist is distinct from nature, not as a substance, but because of its normativity [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Hegel argued that it was the impossibility of a naturalistic account of normativity that distinguished Geist from nature, not Geist's being any kind of metaphysical substance. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Mind (Encylopedia III) [1817]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11 | |
| A reaction: Hegel always seems to want to have his cake and eat it. Without a mental substance, how can Geist not be part of nature? What is Geist made of? Is his view functionalist? But that is usually naturalistic. Is normativity magic? |
| 299 | What is fine is always difficult [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The proverb says 'Anything fine is difficult'. | |
| From: Plato (Hippias Major [c.392 BCE], 304e) | |
| A reaction: attributed (as usual) to Solon |
| 297 | What is fine is the parent of goodness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Fineness is the father of goodness. | |
| From: Plato (Hippias Major [c.392 BCE], 297b) |
| 298 | While sex is very pleasant, it should be in secret, as it looks contemptible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: As for sex, everyone agrees that, while it is extremely pleasant, it should be indulged in (if at all) in secret, because it is a highly contemptible sight. | |
| From: Plato (Hippias Major [c.392 BCE], 299a) |