Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'works' and 'Dewey'

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4 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention

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

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / d. Explaining people

7082	Nature requires causal explanations, but society requires clarification by reasons and motives [Weber, by Critchley]
	Full Idea: Weber coined the distinction between explanation and clarification, saying that natural phenomena require causal explanation, while social phenomena require clarification by giving reasons or offering possible motives for how things are.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.7
	A reaction: This is music to the ears of property dualists and other non-reductivists, but if you go midway in the hierarchy of animals (a mouse, say) the distinction blurs. Weber probably hadn't digested Darwin, whose big impact came around 1905.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value

22155	We are disenchanted because we rely on science, which ignores values [Weber, by Boulter]
	Full Idea: Weber contends that modern western civilisation is 'disenchanted' because our society's method of arriving at beliefs about the world, that is, the sciences, is unable to address questions of value.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 6
	A reaction: This idea, made explicit by Hume's empirical attitude to values, is obviously of major importance. For we Aristotelians values are a self-evident aspect of nature. Boulter says philosophy has added to the disenchantment. I agree.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 13. Green Politics

22881	Should we value environmental systems for human benefit, or for their own sake? [Hildebrand]
	Full Idea: There is a long-running debate between anthropo-centrists and eco-centrists. The latter believe that humans must protect environmental systems because they have intrinsic value; the former argue that human interests are the root of all value.
	From: David Hildebrand (Dewey [2008], 8 'Environ')
	A reaction: How many tigers would you kill to save a human life? Would you allow a human to die in order to save a species from extinction? It is very hard to think that the Earth has great value if humans are removed from it!