65 ideas
| 21422 | Moral self-knowledge is the beginning of all human wisdom [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Moral self-knowledge, which seeks to penetrate into the depths (the abyss) of one's heart that are quite difficult to fathom, is the beginning of all human wisdom. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 441 I.I) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear what I am supposed to be looking for on this quest. I'm guessing that being completely honest about one's own maxims in moral action would be a good start. And maybe confronting one's murkier desires. |
| 20678 | The Scientific Revolution was the discovery of our own ignorance [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The great discovery of the Scientific Revolution was that humans do not know the answers to their most important question. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 14 'Ignoramus') | |
| A reaction: I think of that revolution as raising the bar in epistemology, but this idea gives a motivation for doing so. Why the discovery then, and not before? |
| 20686 | For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another [Harari] |
| Full Idea: For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another, …and the only machine capable of performing energy conversion was the body. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 17 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: Hence the huge and revolutionary importance of the steam engine and the electricity generator. |
| 16000 | Fixed ideas should be tackled aggressively [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Fixed ideas are like a cramp in your foot: the best remedy is to stomp on them. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 635) | |
| A reaction: Sound philosophical advice at any time. [SY] Does this apply in seminars, as well as in private meditation? [PG] |
| 21408 | For any subject, its system of non-experiential concepts needs a metaphysics [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A philosophy of any subject (a system of rational knowledge from concepts) requires a system of pure rational concepts independent of any conditions of intuition, that is, a metaphysics. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 375 Pref) | |
| A reaction: 'Pure rational concepts' must be a priori, and (in Kant's case) transcendental - i.e. discovered from the study of presuppositions. Does this actually say that the philosophies of science, biology, psychology, economics etc each needs a metaphysics? |
| 16012 | Philosophy can't be unbiased if it ignores language, as that is no more independent than individuals are [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: If the claim of philosophers to be unbiased were all it pretends to be, it would have to take account of language and its significance...Language is partly given and partly develops freely. As individuals cannot be truly independent, so too with language. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], 1840.07.18) | |
| A reaction: A surprisingly prophetic entry from Kierkegaard anticipating the linguistic turn. [SY] |
| 21416 | Philosophers should not offer multiple proofs - suggesting the weakness of each of them [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is a highly unphilosophic expedient to resort to a number of proofs for one and the same proposition, consoling oneself that the multitude of reasons makes up for the inadequacy of any one of them taken by itself. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 403 Intro XIII) | |
| A reaction: This makes philosophical proofs sound very mathematical in character, whereas I think most reasons for a proposition given in philosophy are more like evidence, which can clearly accumulate in a rational way. Some maths proofs are better than others. |
| 21410 | That a concept is not self-contradictory does not make what it represents possible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: That the concept of a thing is possible (not self-contradictory) is not yet sufficient for assuming the possibility of the thing itself (the objective reality of the concept). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 382 Intro I) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an inkling of Kripke's a posteriori scientific necessities, which place far greater restrictions on the possibilies of what we seem to have conceived, in addition to the mere need for consistency. |
| 21421 | Within nature man is unimportant, but as moral person he is above any price [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In the system of nature, man is a being of slight importance ....but man regarded as a person, that is as the subject of a morally practical reason, is exalted above any price. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 434 I.I) | |
| A reaction: See what you've done, John Locke? You've given yet another ground for claiming that humans are angels or demi-gods, exalted far above our animal cousins. |
| 21415 | Duty is impossible without prior moral feeling, conscience, love and self-respect [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Moral feeling, conscience, love of one's neighbour, and respect for oneself (self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these, because they lie at the basis of morality, as subjective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 399 Intro XII) | |
| A reaction: A bit of a revelation, this one, because I thought the only precondition for Kantian morality was rationality. Turns out that he agrees with Aristotle (Idea 46) that you can't started in morality if your heart isn't in the right place. |
| 21409 | Moral principles do not involve feelings [Kant] |
| Full Idea: No moral principle is based on any feeling whatsoever. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 376 Pref) |
| 21431 | The love of man is required in order to present the world as a beautiful and perfect moral whole [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Love of man is required by itself, in order to present the world as a beautiful moral whole in its full perfection, even if no account is taken of advantages (of happiness). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 458 I.II) | |
| A reaction: For me, this illustrates the basic problem with Kant. In the Groundwork he presents morality as arising from pure reason, deriving moral maxims from contradictions, but here we find a totally ungrounded assertion of grand traditional values. |
| 21437 | All morality directs the will to love of others' ends, and respect for others' rights [Kant] |
| Full Idea: All moral relations of rational beings, which involve a principle of the harmony of the will of one with another, can be reduced to love and respect. Love reduces one's will to another's end, and respect to another's right. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 488 II) | |
| A reaction: It all comes out too neat and tidy in Kant. Love doesn't merely focus on another person's 'ends', and respect should be for a lot more than another person's mere 'rights'. They'd have to be natural rights, because some societies restrict rights. |
| 21429 | The duty of love is to makes the ends of others one's own [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The duty of love for one's neighbour can be expressed as the duty to make others' ends my own (provided they are not immoral). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: An interesting idea. Kant's remarks on love and respect seem distorted, to shoehorn them into his system of end/means and maxims. If I love someone, should I continually enquire what their current ends are? |
| 16003 | If people marry just because they are lonely, that is self-love, not love [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: People despair about being lonely and therefore get married. But is this love? I should say it is self-love. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 40-41) | |
| A reaction: If you decide to marry someone because you don't want to be an old maid/bachelor in your elder years, try to actually love the person you're marrying. Not just for money or sex. [SY] |
| 21411 | A duty of virtue is a duty which is also an end [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Only an end that is also a duty can be called a duty of virtue. ....[385] The necessary ends are one's own perfection, and the happiness of others. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 383 Intro II) | |
| A reaction: So virtues are a subset of duties. I don't think an Aristotelian virtue is anything like a duty. A soldier might do his duty, with no virtue at all. An even a Kantian categorical imperative duty can be formed without right feeling or good character. |
| 21413 | Virtue is strong maxims for duty [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Virtue is the strength of man's maxims in fulfilling his duty. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 394 Intro IX) | |
| A reaction: So virtue is just strong moral commitment. So what are we to make of the lists of distinctive virtues, found in every culture? How do they differ? Only in the areas of duty to which they refer? How do we possess some virtues without others? |
| 21414 | The supreme principle of virtue is to find universal laws for ends [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The supreme principle of the doctrine of virtue is: Act in accordance with a maxim of ends that it can be a universal law for everyone to have. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 395 Intro IX) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that any end can be a universal law. I certainly don't expect everyone to study philosophy. I suppose basic human ends, such as kindness and avoidance of suicide, are what he means. He's even more conformist than Aristotle! |
| 21436 | We are obliged to show the social virtues, but at least they make a virtuous disposition fashionable [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Affability, sociability, courtesy, hospitality and gentleness in argument ...are merely the manners one is obliged to show in social intercourse, ...and so they promote a virtuous disposition by at least making virtue fashionable. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 473-4 I.II App) | |
| A reaction: His emphasis on rational duty forces him to diminish virtue, making it sound hypocritical. He needs Aristotle's distinction between the controlled [enkratic] man and the man of true virtue (which is rational and whole-hearted). |
| 21419 | If virtue becomes a habit, that is a loss of the freedom needed for adopting maxims [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If the practice of virtue were to become a habit the subject would suffer loss to that freedom in adopting his maxims which distinguishes an action done from duty. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 409 Intro XVI) | |
| A reaction: Looks like a misunderstanding of Aristotle, who always promotes the role of 'phronesis' [practical reason], and never advocates unthinking virtuous habits. I think Aristotle would ask how you select your maxim, if you lack the virtues. |
| 21417 | How do we distinguish a mean? The extremes can involve quite different maxims [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Who will specify for me this mean between the two extremes? What distinguishes avarice (as a vice) from thrift (as a virtue) is not that avarice carries thift too far but that avarice has an entirely different principle (maxim). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 404n Intro XIII) | |
| A reaction: He says one concerns enjoyment of possessions, and the other their mere possession. Similarly, reckless courage may aim at glory, while cowardice aims at survival. Aristotle is looking at circumstances, Kant at mental states. |
| 21420 | If virtue is the mean between vices, then virtue is just the vanishing of vice [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If the mean between prodigality and avarice is supposed to be one of degree, then one vice would pass over into the opposite vice only through the virtue. So virtue would simply be a diminished, or rather a vanishing vice. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 432 I.I) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, but not convincing. Doesn't the thought equally show that vice is a vanishing virtue? Aristotle gives the example of the quantity of food we eat, which obviously passes from starvation to appropriate diet to gluttony. |
| 21418 | There is one principle of virtues; the virtues are distinguished by their objects [Kant] |
| Full Idea: To think of several virtues (as one unavoidably does) is nothing other than to think of the various moral objects to which the will is led by the one principle of virtue. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 406 Intro XIII) | |
| A reaction: So Kant commits to the Greek ideal of the unity of virtue - but not for Greek reasons. The unity of duty is what concerns Kant. |
| 21425 | We can love without respect, and show respect without love [Kant] |
| Full Idea: One can love one's neighbour though he might deserve but little respect, and can show him the respect necessary for every man regardless of the fact that he would hardly be judged worthy of love. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 448 I.II) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. Respect seems much clearer than love. You can train yourself and others to show respect, but you can't switch on love. Personally, I don't love strangers, but I try hard to respect them. |
| 21427 | Respect is limiting our self-esteem by attending to the human dignity of other persons [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Respect ...is to be understood as the maxim of limiting our self-esteem by the dignity of humanity in another person. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: I can't see any direct connection between my own self-esteem and my respect for others, though in practice great vanity makes us neglect others. I also don't find the concept of 'dignity' very helpful. I think we should respect plants. |
| 21430 | Disrespect is using a person as a mere means to my own ends [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The duty of respect for my neighbour is contained in the maxim not to degrade any other man to a mere means to my ends (not to demand that another throw himself away in order to slave for my end). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: A weirdly narrow concept of respect. Is enslavement the only way to show disrespect? What about sneering at people, or ignoring them, or prejudicially depriving them of some benefit? |
| 21428 | Respect is purely negative (of not exalting oneself over others), and is thus a duty of Right [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A duty of free respect towards others is only a negative one (of not exalting oneself above others) and is thus analogous to the duty of Right not to encroach upon what belongs to anyone. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: Not good enough. He seems to think belongings are the main issue. By referring to one's own modesty, he has no way to indicate equality of respect (among races, ages, genders, religions, animals etc). Being humble does not entail being respectful. |
| 21426 | Love urges us to get closer to people, but respect to keep our distance [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The principle of mutual love admonishes men constantly to come closer to one another; that of the respect they owe one another, to keep themselves at a distance from one another. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 449 I.II) | |
| A reaction: It might be a situation where it is right to invoke the Golden Rule. Do we want others to be close to us all the time? Probably not. Respect wins, and love loses! Kant's makes a nice distinction. Respect is a virtue, and love is not. |
| 21434 | We must respect the humanity even in a vicious criminal [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I cannot deny all respect to even a vicious man as a man; I cannot withdraw at least the respect that belongs to him in his quality as a man, even though by his deeds he makes himself unworthy of it. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 463 I.II) | |
| A reaction: The obvious way to find some respect for a vicious criminal is to ask how they got that way. Their state is almost certainly self-destructive, and not what they would ever have wished for. Would they choose eternal recurrence? |
| 20692 | Money does produce happiness, but only up to a point [Harari] |
| Full Idea: An interesting conclusion (from questionnaires) is that money does indeed bring happiness. But only up to a point, and beyond that point it has little significance. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 19 'Counting') | |
| A reaction: The question is whether that flattening-off point is relative to those around us, or absolute, according to the needs of living. Though these two may not be separate. |
| 21910 | Our destiny is the highest pitch of world-weariness [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Our destiny in this life is to be brought to the highest pitch of world-weariness. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], 1855.09.25), quoted by Alastair Hannay - Kierkegaard 10 | |
| A reaction: The beginning of his last entry. Hardly a great general truth, but interesting. Should we aspire to exhaust life? |
| 16001 | Life may be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backwards. But then it forgets the other side - that it must be lived forwards. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-III, 635) | |
| A reaction: Some of the best philosophers dwell too much on philosophy, history and the past, while forgetting to actually live and enjoy their lives. [SY] |
| 21412 | Humans are distinguished from animals by their capacity to set themselves any sort of end [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The capacity to set oneself an end - any end whatsoever - is what characterises humanity (as distinguished from animality). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 392 Intro VIII) | |
| A reaction: This appears to exclude animals which hunt, or build nests - but we have now hugely closed the gap between humans and other animals. I like this, because it chimes in with Sandel's Idea 21045. |
| 21435 | Man is both social, and unsociable [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Man is a being meant for society (though he is also an unsociable one). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 471 I.II) | |
| A reaction: A striking contrast with Aristotle in Idea 5133. It is the difference between the communitarian and the liberal views of society. The latter values privacy and good fences. |
| 20663 | If a group is bound by gossip, the natural size is 150 people [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Sociological research has shown that the maximum 'natural' size of a group bound by gossip is about 150 individuals. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 02 'Legend') | |
| A reaction: On the other hand, most of us can learn the names of a group of about 450. Maybe the 'known' group and the 'gossip' group are equally significant. Not much use for a modern state, but of interest to communitarians. |
| 20677 | Since 1500 human population has increased fourteenfold, and consumption far more [Harari] |
| Full Idea: In the year 1500 there were about 500 million Homo sapiens in the world. Today there are 7 billion. …Human population has increased fourteenfold, our production 240-fold, and energy consumption 115-fold. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 14 'Discovery') | |
| A reaction: We really need to grasp how extraordinary this is. |
| 20688 | People 300m tons; domesticated animals 700m tons; larger wild animals 100m tons [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The combined mass of homo sapiens is about 300 million tons; the mass of all domesticated farmyard animals is about 700 million tons; the mass of the surviving larger wild animals (from porcupines up) is less than 100 million tons. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 18 'Permanent') | |
| A reaction: These really are figures that deserve much wider currency. Every school entrance hall needs a board with a few of the basic dramatic statistics about human life on Earth. |
| 20674 | The Nazi aim was to encourage progressive evolution, and avoid degeneration [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The main ambition of the Nazis was to protect humankind from degeneration and encourage its progressive evolution. …Given the state of scientific knowledge in 1933, Nazi beliefs were hardly outside the pale. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Worship') | |
| A reaction: It still sounds a fairly worthy ambition, close to the heart of educationalists everywhere. The problems start with the definition of 'degeneration' and 'progress'. |
| 20679 | We stabilise societies with dogmas, either of dubious science, or of non-scientific values [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Modern attempts to stabilise the sociopolitical order either declare a scientific theory (such as racial theories for Nazis, or economic ones for Communists) to be an absolute truths, or declare non-scientific dogmas (such as liberal values) | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 14 'Ignoramus') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] |
| 20690 | The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community [Harari] |
| Full Idea: States and markets use their growing power to weaken the bonds of family and community. They made an offer that couldn't be refused - 'become individuals' (over marriage, jobs and residence). The 'romantic individual' is not a rebel against the state. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 18 'Collapse') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] See the film 'Breaking the Waves'. An interesting slant on the Romantic movement. See Wordsworth's 'Michael'. Capitalism needs shoppers with their own money, and a mobile workforce. |
| 20689 | In 1750 losing your family and community meant death [Harari] |
| Full Idea: A person who lost her family and community around 1750 was as good as dead. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 18 'Collapse') | |
| A reaction: This is a very good advert for liberal individualism, and marks the downside of 'too much community'. |
| 20681 | The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari] |
| Full Idea: In the new capitalist creed, the first and most sacred commandment is: The profits of production must be reinvested in increasing production. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Growing') | |
| A reaction: In this sense, capitalism is less greedy than its predecessors. 17th century aristocratic monopolists simply spent the profits of their activities. See the gorgeous clothes then (and pyramids and palaces), and the quiet suits of capitalists. |
| 20682 | The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The principle tenet of capitalism is that economic growth is the supreme good, or at least a proxy for it, because justice, freedom, and even happiness all depend on economic growth. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Growing') | |
| A reaction: In this respect, the main opponent of captitalism is green politics, rather than marxism. |
| 20683 | The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The history of capitalism is unintelligible without taking science into account. …The human economy has managed to keep on going only thanks to the fact that scientists come up with a new discovery or gadget every few years. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Growing') | |
| A reaction: For example, the desperate but unconvincing attempts to persuade us of the novelty of new models of car. Built-in obsolescence is needed once a design becomes static. |
| 20687 | In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The supreme commandment of the rich is 'invest!', and the supreme commandment of the rest of us is 'buy!' | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 17 'Age') | |
| A reaction: Hence not only do the rich get much richer, while most of us remain roughly where we were, but there is a huge gulf between the investors and the non-investors. Encouraging small investors is a step forward. |
| 20685 | No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as a market free of all political bias, …and markets by themselves offer no protection against fraud, theft and violence. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Cult') | |
| A reaction: Is this in theory, or in practice? In Sicily the free market has been a tool of the mafia. |
| 20693 | Freedom may work against us, as individuals can choose to leave, and make fewer commitments [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The freedom we value so highly may work against us. We can choose our spouses, friends and neighbours, but they can choose to leave us. With the individual wielding unprecedented power to decide her own path, we find it ever harder to make commitments. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 19 'Counting') | |
| A reaction: This is the worry of the communitarian. I take freedom to be a great social virtue - but an overrated one. |
| 21433 | Violation of rights deserves punishment, which is vengeance, rather than restitution [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Every deed that violates a man's right deserves punishment, the function of which is to avenge a crime on the one who committed it (not merely to make good the harm done). ...but no punishment may be inflicted out of hatred. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 460-1 I.II) | |
| A reaction: A fairly hideous idea, confirming the image of Kant as someone who coldly perfoms ruthless duties. I don't think Kant ever offers any clarity for the concepts of 'deserving' or of 'avenging'. What is the appropriate vengeance for theft? |
| 20691 | Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Real peace is not the mere absence of war. Real peace is the implausibility of war. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 18 'Pax') | |
| A reaction: I have a nasty feeling that war only becomes implausible because it hasn't happened for a long time. War looked implausible for Britain in 1890. War certainly now looks implausible in western Europe. |
| 20684 | Financing is increasingly through credit rather than taxes; people prefer investing to taxation [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The European conquest of the world was increasingly financed through credit rather than taxes. …Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 16 'Columbus') | |
| A reaction: This is presumably the mechanism that drives the unstoppable increase of the gulf between the rich and the poor in modern times. With investment, the rich get richer. |
| 20675 | The more you know about history, the harder it becomes to explain [Harari] |
| Full Idea: A distinguishing mark of history is that the better you know a historical period, the harder it becomes to explain why things happened one way and not another. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 13 'Hindsight') | |
| A reaction: Presumaby that means it resembles statistics. Each individual reading is perplexing, but some patterns emerge on the large scale. |
| 20676 | History teaches us that the present was not inevitable, and shows us the possibilities [Harari] |
| Full Idea: We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and the we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we can imagine. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 13 'Hindsight') | |
| A reaction: On the whole winners forget history, and losers are branded through and through with it. If you don't know history, you can never understand the latter group. |
| 21423 | Men can only have duties to those who qualify as persons [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Man has duties only to men, ...since his duty to any other subject is moral constraint by that's subject's will. Hence the constraining (binding) subject must first be a person. Man can therefore have no duty to any beings other than men. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 442 I.I) | |
| A reaction: This is good for illuminating why I am not a Kantian. It is not just that animals are ruled out - it is that whether you show respect depends on whether the recipient passes some test or other. Humans with brain damage may fail the test. |
| 21424 | Cruelty to animals is bad because it dulls our empathy for pain in humans [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Cruel treatment of animals is intimately opposed to man's duty to himself; ...for it dulls his shared feeling of their pain and so weakens and gradually uproots a natural predisposition that is very serviceable to morality in relations with other men. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 443 I.I) | |
| A reaction: This idea is quite shocking. Kant's rough contemporary Bentham was far more enlightened. If we could be certain that our feelings of empathy for pain were not dulled by cruelty to animals, then it would be fine. |
| 20671 | In order to explain both order and evil, a single evil creator is best, but no one favours that [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Monotheism explains order but not evil, and dualist religion explains evil but not order. One logical solution is a single omnipotent God who created the universe, and is evil - but nobody in history has had much stomach for that belief. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Battle') | |
| A reaction: Eh? Is there not also good, which also needs explaining? And there is some chaos to be explained too. Hume offers the best explanations. An inexperienced god, a team of squabbling gods, a god with shifting moods…. Study the facts first. |
| 20664 | Animism is belief that every part of nature is aware and feeling, and can communicate [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Animism is the belief that almost every place, every animal, every plant and every natural phenomenon has awareness and feelings, and can communicated direct with humans. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 03 'Talking') | |
| A reaction: So does this count as a 'supernatural' belief system? It seems not, if the awareness is integral to the natural feature, and dies with it. Panpsychism is not supernatural either. A problem for anyone trying to define Naturalism. |
| 20666 | Most polytheist recognise one supreme power or law, behind the various gods [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Polytheism does not necessarily dispute the existence of a single power or law governing the entire universe. Most poytheist and even animist religions recognised such a supreme power that stands behind all the different gods, demons and holy rocks. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Benefits') | |
| A reaction: Presumably this one supreme power was always taken to be too remote for communication or worship. Are the other gods seen as slaves, or friends, or ambassadors of the Supreme One? |
| 20667 | Polytheism is open-minded, and rarely persecutes opponents [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Polytheism is inherently open-minded, and rarely persecutes 'heretics' and 'infidels'. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Benefits') | |
| A reaction: The Old Testament tells of the Jews turning on local pagans, and India was presumably tolerant Hindus encountering less tolerant Muslims. Then there's Christians in Africa. Dreadful bunch, the monotheists. Romans killed very few Christians. |
| 20665 | Mythologies are usual contracts with the gods, exchanging devotion for control of nature [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Much of ancient mythology is a legal contract in which humans promise everlasting devotion to the gods in exchange for mastery over plants and animals. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Silencing') | |
| A reaction: [He cites the first book of Genesis] So how readily do you swith allegiance, if someone else's gods are more successful? Why be loyal a loser. It should be like shopping - but I bet it wasn't. |
| 20669 | Dualist religions see everything as a battleground of good and evil forces [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Polytheism gave birth to monotheism, and to dualistic religions. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a battleground between good and evil forces, and everything that happens is part of that struggle. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Battle') | |
| A reaction: Presumably we are supposed to support the good guys, so the gods are not equals. God v Satan seems the right model, but Satan has to be beyond God's control, or else the problem of evil has to be solved. Empedocles held something like this. |
| 20670 | Dualist religions say the cosmos is a battleground, so can’t explain its order [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Dualist religions solve the problem of evil, but are unnerved by the Problem of Order. …If Good and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the laws governing this cosmic war? | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Battle') | |
| A reaction: You might explain it if one side was persistently winning, which is roughly God v Satan. |
| 20673 | Manichaeans and Gnostics: good made spirit, evil made flesh [Harari] |
| Full Idea: Manichaeans and Gnostics argued that the good god created the spirit and the soul, whereas matter and bodes are the creation of the evil god. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'Battle') | |
| A reaction: Hm. What motivated the evil god to do that? The evil god's achievement looks a lot more impressive. |
| 20668 | Monotheism appeared in Egypt in 1350 BCE, when the god Aten was declared supreme [Harari] |
| Full Idea: The first monotheist religion known to us appeared in Egypt c.1350 BCE, when Pharaoh Akenaten declared that one of minor deities of the Egyptian pantheon, the god Aten, was in fact the supreme power ruling the universe. | |
| From: Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 12 'God') | |
| A reaction: Zeus seems to have started like a tribal chief, and eventually turned into something like God. |
| 16008 | The best way to be a Christian is without 'Christianity' [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: One best becomes a Christian - without 'Christianity'. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], JP-1:214) | |
| A reaction: A very healthy attitude for followers of Jesus, given today's television evangelists, religious fundamentalist and zealots. [SY] |
| 20735 | We need to see that Christianity cannot be understood [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: The problem is not to understand Christianity, but to understand that it cannot be understood. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Journals of Kierkegaard [1850], p.146), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 1 'Roots' | |
| A reaction: This seems to cut us intellectually adrift. We could say the same of supporting Real Madrid. There has to be some magnetism which holds our attention, and there must be something to say about that. |