42 ideas
| 7973 | There is no longer anything on which there is nothing to say [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: There is no longer anything on which there is nothing to say. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 17) | |
| A reaction: Compare Ideas 2937 and 6870. I'm not sure whether Baudrillard is referring to the limits of philosophy, or merely to social taboos. I like Ansell Pearson's view: we should attempt to discuss what appears to be undiscussable. |
| 7975 | The task of philosophy is to unmask the illusion of objective reality [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The task of philosophy is to unmask the illusion of objective reality - a trap that is, in a sense, laid for us by nature. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 40) | |
| A reaction: There is a vast gap between this and the Lockean view (Idea 7653) that philosophers are there to help reveal reality, probably via science. I retain the Enlightenment faith that there is a reality to be found. Baudrillard must be taken seriously, though. |
| 7986 | Drunken boat pilots are less likely to collide than clearly focused ones [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Two boats on Lake Constance in dense fog are in less danger of colliding if their pilots are drunk than if they are attempting to master the situation. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.196) | |
| A reaction: Charming, but I think empirical research would prove it false. At least rational pilots know to keep to the right (?) when a shape looms through the fog. I prefer rational pilots, but then I am one of those sad people who admires the Enlightenment. |
| 7982 | Instead of thesis and antithesis leading to synthesis, they now cancel out, and the conflict is levelled [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Gone is the dialectic, the play of thesis and antithesis resolving itself in synthesis. The opposing terms now cancel each other out in a levelling of all conflict. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.129) | |
| A reaction: This is from someone who approved of 9/11 (p.137 of this text), and seemed to welcome conflict. His idea, which has plausibility, is that the modern media have become a great warm bath that calmly absorbs every abrasive thrown into it. |
| 7974 | Without God we faced reality: what do we face without reality? [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The eclipse of God left us up against reality. Where will the eclipse of reality leave us? | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004]) | |
| A reaction: Baudrillard's distinctive view is that modern culture is thwarting all our attempts to grasp reality, which itself becomes a fiction. The answer is that you are left in the position of the ancient sceptics. Sextus Empiricus (see) is the saviour. |
| 7987 | Nothing is true, but everything is exact [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Someone said: everything is true, nothing is exact. I would say the opposite: nothing is true, everything is exact. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.210) | |
| A reaction: In analytical terminology, this appears to say that vagueness is ontological, not epistemological, agreeing with Williamson and others. To say that 'nothing is true', though, just strikes me as silly. What does Baudrillard mean by 'true'? |
| 19542 | It is nonsense that understanding does not involve knowledge; to understand, you must know [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
| Full Idea: The proposition that understanding does not involve knowledge is widespread (for example, in discussions of what philosophy aims at), but hardly withstands scrutiny. If you do not know how a jet engine works, you do not understand how it works. | |
| From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.24) | |
| A reaction: This seems a bit disingenuous. As in 'Theaetetus', knowing the million parts of a jet engine is not to understand it. More strongly - how could knowledge of an infinity of separate propositional truths amount to understanding on their own? |
| 19543 | To grasp understanding, we should be more explicit about what needs to be known [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
| Full Idea: An essential prerequisite for useful discussion of the relation between knowledge and understanding is systematic explicitness about what is to be known or understood. | |
| From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.25) | |
| A reaction: This is better. I say what needs to be known for understanding is the essence of the item under discussion (my PhD thesis!). Obviously understanding needs some knowledge, but I take it that epistemology should be understanding-first. That is the main aim. |
| 19541 | Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
| Full Idea: If we say our cognitive aim is to get knowledge, the opposing views are the naturalistic view that what matters is just true belief (or just 'getting by'), or that there are rival epistemic goods such as understanding and wisdom. | |
| From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.17) | |
| A reaction: [compressed summary] I'm a fan of understanding. The accumulation of propositional knowledge would relish knowing the mass of every grain of sand on a beach. If you say the propositions should be 'important', other values are invoked. |
| 7978 | There is no need to involve the idea of free will to make choices about one's life [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: There is no need to involve the idea of free will to make choices about one's life. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 57) | |
| A reaction: Someone who believed that free will was metaphysically possible, but that they themselves lacked it, might feel paralysed, defeated or fatalistic about their decision-making. But that would be like falsely believing you were fatally ill. |
| 7980 | In modern times, being useless is the essential aesthetic ingredient for an object [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Since the nineteenth century it has been art's claim that it is useless...so it is enough to elevate any object to uselessness to turn it into a work of art...and obsolete useless objects automatically acquire an aesthetic aura. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.111) | |
| A reaction: Art is 'purposive without purpose' (Kant). An nice summary of the situation, and this seems to explain the role of Duchamp's famous urinal, up on the wall and rendered useless. The obvious rebellion, though, is Arts and Crafts. |
| 7983 | Good versus evil has been banefully reduced to happiness versus misfortune [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The ideal opposition between good and evil has been reduced to the idealogical oppositions between happiness and misfortune. The reduction of good to happiness is as baneful as that of evil to misfortune. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.139) | |
| A reaction: A nice example is the use in the media of the word 'tragic' for every misfortune. See the debate over the translation of the Greek 'eudaimonia'. 'Happiness' seems the wrong translation, if it leads to comments like Baudrillard's. |
| 20547 | We should respect the right of people to live in their own way, even if it is irrational [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Forcing people to do what is rational involves a lack of respect, a failure to respect the value of her living her life in her own (irrational) way. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 2 'Resisting' 6) | |
| A reaction: Up to a point. Irrationally eccentric is one thing, and irrationally self-destructive is another. You can sit back and watch your children embrace a life less happy than the one you wanted for them - but not a life of utter misery. |
| 20564 | Anti-colonial movements usually invoke the right of their 'people' to self-determination [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Nationalist movements seeking to throw off the yoke of colonial rule are often motivated by a sense that their 'people' have the right to self-determination. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Intrinsic 1') | |
| A reaction: In 2017, Basques, Catalans and Kurds come to mind. The whole of Africa was an example of this c.1950-80, but there was uncertainty about states, tribes and language groups. |
| 20535 | Isn't it more rational to maximise the average position, but with a safety net? [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Wouldn't it be more rational to choose principles that would maximize the average position, perhaps subject to some 'floor' level beneath which they would not want to take the risk of sinking? | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Rawls') | |
| A reaction: The criticism is that Rawls's prediction is over-cautious, and that people will take mild risks in what they choose, as long as there is no danger of disaster. (Just as you should allow small children to risk injury, but not death). |
| 20537 | Hypothetical contracts have no binding force [Swift] |
| Full Idea: A common objection to Rawls is that hypothetical contracts, unlike real ones, have no binding force. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Rawls') | |
| A reaction: [I think Dworkin made this point] 'Contract' may be metaphorical. Perhaps it is just an 'initial agreement' or a 'working arrangement', |
| 20542 | Cosmopolitans reject the right of different states to distribute resources in different ways [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Cosmopolitans who claim that the same distributive principles should apply to all human beings seem to be denying that different states may make different judgements about how they want to allocate resources among their members. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Social') | |
| A reaction: If you want to be a citizen of the world, you have to face up to the pluralistic character of cultures. Do you thereby want to be a citizen of both California and Saudi Arabia? Or are you actually just becoming a citizen of nowhere? |
| 7981 | Whole populations are terrorist threats to authorities, who unite against them [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: One way or another, populations themselves are a terrorist threat to the authorities...and by extension, we can hypothesize a coalition of all governments against all populations. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.120) | |
| A reaction: This may count as left-wing paranoia, but it is a striking thought, which plants an uneasy notion in the mind whenever we see two world leaders disappear behind closed doors for a chat. |
| 20559 | Democracy is bad, but the other systems are worse [Swift] |
| Full Idea: During WW2 Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Procedures') | |
| A reaction: [Actually a speech in 1947, which began 'it has been said that....'] Aristotle thought an intelligent and benevolent dictatorship was the best form, but held little hope of achieving it. Getting rid of bad rulers is the big virtue. |
| 20561 | Since all opinions are treated as equal in democracy, it implies there are no right answers [Swift] |
| Full Idea: If there were moral knowledge about political matters, democracy would be a very strange way of reaching it. Democratic law-making means treating each person's view as equally good, which only makes sense if there is nothing to be right or wrong about. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Subjectivism') | |
| A reaction: Ah, I suddenly grasp that the modern fad for a rather gormless blanket relativism is rooted in the modern desire to take democracy really seriously. Important to remember Condorcet's point here. |
| 20562 | Design your democracy to treat citizens equally, or to produce better citizens? [Swift] |
| Full Idea: If your main reason for being a democrat is that democratic procedures respect citizens equally, then you may want a different kind of democracy from those who favour it because they think it tends to produce better citizens? | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Values') | |
| A reaction: [Combine this with Idea 20563] |
| 20563 | Design your democracy to yield political stability, or good decisions? [Swift] |
| Full Idea: If you value democracy because it yields political stability, then you will probably worry about different aspects of the procedure from those who care about its producing good decisions. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Values') | |
| A reaction: [Combine this with Idea 20562] Surely the primary aim must be good decisions? The other three options are the result of pessimism about any method achieving that. Instability, inequality and dud citizens are bars to good decisions. |
| 20560 | Teledemocracy omits debate and deliberation, which are important parts of good decisions [Swift] |
| Full Idea: We are averse to teledemocracy because it misses out some important parts of a good decision-making procedure, such as debate and deliberation. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 5 'Procedures') | |
| A reaction: Perhaps you should be sent a short info pack, and only allowed to vote when you have passed a factual multiple choice test about the topic. Or one pack from each political party. Maybe compulsory online discussion as well. |
| 7976 | People like democracy because it means they can avoid power [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: If the people puts itself into the hands of the political class, it does so more to be rid of power than out of any desire for representation. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 54) | |
| A reaction: Very nice. If we are all in the grips of some biological 'will to power', that needn't be power over huge numbers of other people, merely power over our immediate lives. It can be expressed by building a wall. |
| 7977 | Only in the last 200 years have people demanded the democratic privilege of being individuals [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Individuality is a recent phenomenon. It is only over the last two centuries that the populations of the civilized countries have demanded the democratic privilege of being individuals. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 55) | |
| A reaction: I think Aristotle's ethics and politics imply individuality, given that the only purpose of civic society seems to be to enable individuals to flourish and lead virtuous lives. Society is justified, for example, because it makes friendship possible. |
| 20554 | Multiculturalism is a barrier to the whole state being a community [Swift] |
| Full Idea: For those wanting to regard the state itself as a community, multiculturalism can be a problem. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Liberalism') | |
| A reaction: A very important idea. A certain type of aggressive patriot passionately wants the whole country to be a close-bound community, and becomes deeply frustrated by the impossibility of this in a complex and fluid modern world. |
| 20553 | Liberals mistakenly think individuals choose their values, without reference to the community [Swift] |
| Full Idea: The two core liberal mistakes (according to communitarians) are that people choose their values, and that they do so in some way detached from their communities. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Correcting') | |
| A reaction: I think I might be a communitarian liberal, meaning that extreme individualism is both incorrect and pernicious, but that communities should only exist to promote the varied lives of individuals within them. |
| 20556 | The best way to build a cohesive community is to be involved in a war [Swift] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing like a war to build a sense of common purpose, of being in the same boat, and to generate the kind of interaction between people that breaks down divisive social boundaries. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014]) | |
| A reaction: A nice warning to those who over-do or simplify communitarianism. Alternatively, the greatest sign of health in a community is that citizens have almost no interest in one another? |
| 20557 | Membership and inclusion in a community implies non-membership and exclusion [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Community is about membership and inclusion. But that means it is also about non-membership and exclusion. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Conc') | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of communitarianism (focused on Aristotle's life of individual virtue for each citizen), but I'm beginning to see that it has a poisonous cousin travelling under the same name. The cousin's rallying cries focus on aliens and enemies. |
| 20555 | Liberals are concerned to protect individuals from too much community [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Liberals are concerned to protect individuals from too much community - from practices that stifle the individual's freedom to choose for herself how she lives her life. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 4 'Liberalism') | |
| A reaction: The phrase 'too much community' is an excellent warning to communitarians. I'm happy to be enmeshed in a community, as long as it is composed of highly liberal and easy-going individuals. Avoid too much bad community. |
| 20540 | Redistributing wealth treats some people as means, rather than as ends [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Treating people as means seems like a fairly accurate description of what is involved when the state coercively redistributes resources from some to others. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Nozick') | |
| A reaction: The objection comes from Nozick, and alludes to Kant's desire to treat everyone as an end in themselves. Personally I don't mind at all being treated as a means, when my wife asks me to make her a cup of tea. Or paying my taxes to help the community. |
| 20551 | Men have had the power to structure all of our social institutions [Swift] |
| Full Idea: The problem for feminists is that men have had the power to structure all our social institutions - family, economy, polity - in ways that suit them. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 3 'Gender') | |
| A reaction: An interesting question is whether masculine domination runs even deeper than that, into our value system, our metaphysics, our science, our epistemology, our language. How do you tell? If women take over half the masculine roles, does that solve it? |
| 20545 | Maybe a freedom is from a restraint, and also in order to do something [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Maybe freedom is a triadic relation, involving an agent, freedom from a contraint, and in order to act towards some goal. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 2 'Two') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Gerald MacCallum for this thought] The point is that this makes freedom both negative and positive, contrary to Isaiah Berlin's claim. But on the first day of the school holidays you are 'free', with nothing in particular in mind. |
| 20550 | Opportunity should ignore extraneous factors, or foster competence, or ignore all disadvantages [Swift] |
| Full Idea: The minimal conception of equality of opportunity is that race or gender or religion should not affect chances of a good job or education. The conventional conception needs equality in acquiring competences. Radical views ignore inborn disadvantages. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 3 'Equality') | |
| A reaction: [my summary of Swift] The strong version only says the less talented should have access to large rewards. The whole idea has strong capitalist assumptions. |
| 20536 | Inequalities are needed, as incentives to do the most important jobs [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Without inequalities, people will have no incentive to do one job rather than another - to do the kind of work which is most useful. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Rawls') | |
| A reaction: The reality is that the lowest pay goes to the jobs that no one wants to do, and all the really nice jobs are usually well paid. Which is a conspiracy, because all the salaries are set by the people with the nice jobs. |
| 20548 | A person can desire redistibution of wealth, without it being for reasons of equality [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Someone who rejects equality can care passionately that resources should be transferred from the rich to the poor. They are just rejecting a particular reason that might be offered to justify the redistribution. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 3 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: For example, it might be for utilitarian reasons, which usually only seek maximised happiness, not equal happiness. And one may love many forms of equality, without economic equality being one of them. |
| 20541 | You can't necessarily sell your legitimate right to something, even if you produced it [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Ownership is a complicated idea. I have a right to the office photocopier, but I can's sell the right to others. If people have absolute rights over what they produce, why can't parents sell their children into slavery? | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Nozick') | |
| A reaction: If I make a car from stolen parts, does constructing it make it mine? Etc. Do birds own their nests? Swift goes on to ask if we 'own' our bodies. |
| 20546 | Libertarians about property ignore the fact that private property is a denial of freedoms [Swift] |
| Full Idea: Libertarians say that they care about freedom, and argue for private property rights on freedom grounds. But they don't sem to care about, or even notice, the unfreedom implied by the existence of private property rights. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 2 'Freedom') | |
| A reaction: When I pass some vast country estate totally surrounded by a high wall, I certainly don't think how wonderful it is that someone has the right to own this property as private land. On the contrary.... |
| 20533 | Justice can be seen as fairness or entitlement or desert [Swift] |
| Full Idea: The three influential conceptions of justice are as fairness (Rawls), as entitlement (Nozick), and as desert. | |
| From: Adam Swift (Political Philosophy (3rd ed) [2014], 1 'Concept') |
| 7979 | The arrival of the news media brought history to an end [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The course of history came to an end with the entry on the scene of the news media. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p. 83) | |
| A reaction: The sort of remark for which Baudrillard became famous. It strikes me as nonsense. The view the British people got of the Battle of Trafalgar was even more distorted than their picture of the Battle of El Alamein. We know what he means, though. |
| 7984 | Suicide is ascribed to depression, with the originality of the act of will ignored [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: Suicide is always ascribed to depressive motivations with no account taken of an originality of, an original will to commit, the act itself. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.153) | |
| A reaction: Apparently research suggests that most suicides are clinically depressed, but even within the depression there is a startling act of will that goes beyond merely feeling bad. |
| 7985 | Pascal says secular life is acceptable, but more fun with the hypothesis of God [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: What Pascal says, more or less, is that you can more or less content yourself with a secular existence and its advantages, but it's much more fun with the hypothesis of God. | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.155) | |
| A reaction: Pascal will be a bit startled when he reads this, but it is a lovely way to present his idea. It suddenly sounds much more attractive. Life would be much more fun if we lived according to all sorts of startling beliefs. Relating your life to God is one. |