22070
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Irony is consciousness of abundant chaos [Schlegel,F]
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Full Idea:
Irony is the clear conscousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely abundant chaos.
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From:
Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol 2 p.263), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism p.81
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A reaction:
[1800, in Athenaum] The interest here is irony as a reaction to chaos, which has made systematic thought impossible. Do romantics necessarily see reality as beyond our grasp, even if not chaotic? This must be situational, not verbal irony.
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22069
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Plato has no system. Philosophy is the progression of a mind and development of thoughts [Schlegel,F]
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Full Idea:
Plato had no system, but only a philosophy. The philosophy of a human being is the history, the becoming, the progression of his mind, the gradual formation and development of his thoughts.
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From:
Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol.11 p.118), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism
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A reaction:
[1804] Looks like the first sign of rebellion against the idea of having a 'system' in philosophy, making it a key idea of romanticism. Systems are classical? This looks like an early opposition of a historical dimension to static systems. Big idea.
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22068
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Poetry is transcendental when it connects the ideal to the real [Schlegel,F]
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Full Idea:
There is a kind of poetry whose essence lies in the relation between the ideal and the real, and which therefore, by analogy with philosophical jargon, should be called transcendental poetry.
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From:
Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol 2 p.204), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism p.78
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A reaction:
I think the basic idea is that the imaginative creation of poetry has the power to bridge the gap between the transcendental (presupposed) ideal in Fichte, and nature (which Fichte seems to have excluded from his system).
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8430
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Causal statements are used to explain, to predict, to control, to attribute responsibility, and in theories [Kim]
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Full Idea:
The function of causal statements is 1) to explain events, 2) for predictive usefulness, 3) to help control events, 4) with agents, to attribute moral responsibility, 5) in physical theory. We should judge causal theories by how they account for these.
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From:
Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.207)
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A reaction:
He suggests that Lewis's counterfactual theory won't do well on this test. I think the first one is what matters. Philosophy aims to understand, and that is achieved through explanation. Regularity and counterfactual theories explain very little.
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8429
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Counterfactuals can express four other relations between events, apart from causation [Kim]
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Full Idea:
Counterfactuals can express 'analytical' dependency, or the fact that one event is part of another, or an action done by doing another, or (most interestingly) an event can determine another without causally determining it.
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From:
Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.205)
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A reaction:
[Kim gives example of each case] Counterfactuals can even express a relation that involves no dependency. Or they might just involve redescription, as in 'If Scott were still alive, then the author of "Waverley" would be too'.
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4781
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Many counterfactual truths do not imply causation ('if yesterday wasn't Monday, it isn't Tuesday') [Kim, by Psillos]
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Full Idea:
Kim gives a range of examples of counterfactual dependence without causation, as: 'if yesterday wasn't Monday, today wouldn't be Tuesday', and 'if my sister had not given birth, I would not be an uncle'.
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From:
report of Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §3.3
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A reaction:
This is aimed at David Lewis. The objection seems like commonsense. "If you blink, the cat gets it". Causal claims involve counterfactuals, but they are not definitive of what causation is.
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