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All the ideas for 'Queries to the 'Opticks'', 'works' and 'Lectures on the Philosophy of Right'

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7 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use

20949	Study the use of words, not their origins [Herder]
	Full Idea: Not how an expression can be etymologically derived and determined analytically, but how it is used is the question. Origin and use are often very different.
	From: Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784], p.153), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 2 'Herder'
	A reaction: This doesn't quite say that meaning is use, and is basically an attack on the Etymological Fallacy (that origin gives meaning), but it is a strikingly modern view of language.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value

7669	We cannot attain all the ideals of every culture, so there cannot be a perfect life [Herder, by Berlin]
	Full Idea: For Herder, we cannot attain to the highest ideals of all the centuries and all the places at once, and since we cannot do that, the whole notion of the perfect life collapses.
	From: report of Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784]) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism Ch.3
	A reaction: Herder seems to be the father of modern cultural relativism. The idea is hard to challenge, but the ideals of some cultures should be ignored, if they diminish rather than enhance the good life for all.

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 3. Natural Values / c. Natural rights

21785	We are only free, with rights, if we claim our freedom, and there are no natural rights [Hegel, by Houlgate]
	Full Idea: Hegel says we are only truly free, and so bearers of rights, in so far as we claim our freedom. ...So there are no merely natural rights, and animal's have no rights.
	From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819], p.78) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'
	A reaction: If there are no natural rights, then it is hard to see how claiming a right will create it. I can't create a right to drink the best champagne. It seems particularly unjust to deny rights to people so enslaved that freedom has never occurred to them.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 5. Democracy / d. Representative democracy

22041	Representatives by region ignores whether they care about the national interest [Hegel, by Pinkard]
	Full Idea: Selecting representatives on the basis of geography means selecting people without any regard to whether they represent the basic and important interests of the 'whole' of society.
	From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
	A reaction: Proportional representation seems to get away from this, but that can still be arranged according to large regions. Some means is needed to prevent the whole nation from exploitation a regional minority (such as Welsh speakers).

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 7. Communitarianism / a. Communitarianism

7668	Herder invented the idea of being rooted in (or cut off from) a home or a group [Herder, by Berlin]
	Full Idea: The whole notion of being at home, or being cut off from one's natural roots, the whole idea of roots, the whole idea of belonging to a group, a sect, a movement, was largely invented by Herder.
	From: report of Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism
	A reaction: Hm. Broad generalisations are an awful temptation in the history of ideas. As a corrective to this, trying reading the two Anglo-Saxon poems 'The Wanderer' and 'The Seafarer'. Very Germanic, I suppose. Interesting, though. Leads to Hegel's politics.

25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights

21781	The absolute right is the right to have rights [Hegel]
	Full Idea: The absolute right is the right to have rights.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819], p.127), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'
	A reaction: What a beautifully succinct and important idea! Does a foetus, or a dog, or a person in a vegetative state, or a slave, qualify?

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature

16746	Principles of things are not hidden features of forms, but the laws by which they were formed [Newton]
	Full Idea: The (active) principles I consider not as occult qualities, supposed to result from the specific forms of things, but as general laws of nature, by which the things themselves are formed.
	From: Isaac Newton (Queries to the 'Opticks' [1721], q 31), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
	A reaction: This is the external, 'imposed' view of laws (with the matter passive) at its most persuasive. If laws arise out the stuff (as I prefer to think), what principles went into the formulation of the stuff?