159 ideas
| 11283 | There is pure deductive reasoning, and explanatory demonstration reasoning [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle distinguishes between deductive reasoning (sullogismos) and demonstration (apodeixis). All demonstration is deductive reasoning, but not all deductive reasoning is demonstration. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], Bk I.2) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This sounds not far off the distinction between single-turnstile (formal proof) and double-turnstile (semantic consequence). Politis says, though, that the key point is the demonstration is explanatory. |
| 1672 | Maybe everything could be demonstrated, if demonstration can be reciprocal or circular [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some optimists think understanding arises only through demonstration, but say there could be demonstration of everything, for it is possible to demonstrate in a circle or reciprocally. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72b16) | |
| A reaction: I'm an optimist in this sense, though what is being described would probably best be called 'large-scale coherence'. Two reciprocal arguments look bad, but a hundred look good. |
| 19807 | Both nature and reason require that everything has a cause [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Under the law of reason nothing takes place without a cause, any more than under the law of nature. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.04) | |
| A reaction: Is this the influence of Leibniz? Note that the principle is identified in two different areas, so in nature we may say 'everything has a cause', and in rationality we may say 'there is a reason for everything'. But are these the same? |
| 1684 | Two falsehoods can be contrary to one another [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are falsehoods which are contrary to one another and cannot be the case together e.g. that a man is a horse or a cow. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 88a29) |
| 12145 | Definitions are of what something is, and that is universal [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Definitions are thought to be of what something is, and what something is is in every case universal and positive. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 90b05) | |
| A reaction: This is exhibit A for those who think that Aristotelian essences concern the genus, rather than the particular. I suspect that this idea is best expressed as 'all we can say by way of definition of a particular thing involves the use of universals'. |
| 12075 | An Aristotelian definition is causal [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: An Aristotelian definition is causal. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], Bk II.2) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 1.5 | |
| A reaction: [She refers us to Posterior Analytics II.2] This is important if we are tempted to follow a modern line of saying that we want Aristotelian essences, and that these are definitions. We ain't thinking of dictionaries. |
| 12384 | Definition by division needs predicates, which are well ordered and thorough [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To establish a definition through division, you must aim for three things: you must take what is predicated in what the thing is; you must order these items as first or second; and you must ensure that these are all there are. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 97a23) | |
| A reaction: This gives an indication of the thoroughness that Aristotle expects from a definition. They aren't like dictionary definitions of words. He expects definitions to often be very lengthy (see Idea 12292). |
| 9066 | You can define objects by progressively identifying what is the same and what is different [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Find what is in common among items similar and undifferentiated, then do the same for items of the same kind as the first group but a different form, and so on, till you come to a single account: this will be the definition of the object. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 97b07-14) | |
| A reaction: [His example is distinguishing 'magnanimity' from 'indifference to fortune' among people] Presumably this process works for the formation of new concepts (e.g. in biology), as well as for the definition of familiars in terms of other familiars. |
| 12382 | What it is and why it is are the same; screening defines and explains an eclipse [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What it is and why it is are the same. What is an eclipse? Privation of light from the moon by screening of the earth. Why is there an eclipse? ...What is a harmony? A numerical ratio between high and low. Why do the high and low harmonize? The ratio. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 90a15) | |
| A reaction: This is right at the heart of Aristotelian essentialism, and (I take it) modern scientific essentialism. If you fully know what cigarette tars are, and what human cell structure is, you understand immediately why cigarettes cause cancer. |
| 1668 | An axiom is a principle which must be understood if one is to learn anything [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: An axiom is a principle which must be grasped if anyone is going to learn anything whatever. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72a17) |
| 21717 | Reducibility undermines type ramification, and is committed to the existence of functions [Quine, by Linsky,B] |
| Full Idea: Quine charges that the axiom of Reducibility both undoes the effect of the ramification, and commits the theory to a platonist view of propositional functions (which is a theory of sets, once use/mention confusions are cleared up). | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Set Theory and its Logic [1963], p.249-58) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 6.1 |
| 12376 | Demonstrations by reductio assume excluded middle [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Demonstrations by reduction to the impossible assume that everything is asserted or denied. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 77a23) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the lynchpin of classical logic. |
| 12373 | Something holds universally when it is proved of an arbitrary and primitive case [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Something holds universally when it is proved of an arbitrary and primitive case. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 73b33) | |
| A reaction: A key idea in mathematical logic, but it always puzzles me. If you snatch a random person in London, and they are extremely tall, does that prove that people of London are extremely tall? How do we know the arbitrary is representative? |
| 12363 | Everything is either asserted or denied truly [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Of the fact that everything is either asserted or denied truly, we must believe that it is the case. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 71a14) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this means that every assertion which could possibly be asserted must come out as either true or false. This will have to include any assertions with vague objects or predicates, and any universal assertions, and negative assertions. |
| 13004 | Aristotle's axioms (unlike Euclid's) are assumptions awaiting proof [Aristotle, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's way with axioms, rather than Euclid's, is as assumptions which we are willing to agree on while awaiting an opportunity to prove them | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 76b23-) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 4.07 | |
| A reaction: Euclid's are understood as basic self-evident truths which will be accepted by everyone, though the famous parallel line postulate undermined that. The modern view of axioms is a set of minimum theorems that imply the others. I like Aristotle. |
| 12377 | Mathematics is concerned with forms, not with superficial properties [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics is concerned with forms [eide]: its objects are not said of any underlying subject - for even if geometrical objects are said of some underlying subject, still it is not as being said of an underlying subject that they are studied. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 79a08) | |
| A reaction: Since forms turn out to be essences, in 'Metaphysics', this indicates an essentialist view of mathematics. |
| 12372 | The essence of a triangle comes from the line, mentioned in any account of triangles [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Something holds of an item in itself if it holds of it in what it is - e.g., line of triangles and point of lines (their essence comes from these items, which inhere in the account which says what they are). | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 73a35) | |
| A reaction: A helpful illustration of how a definition gives us the essence of something. You could not define triangles without mentioning straight lines. The lines are necessary features, but they are essential for any explanation, and for proper understanding. |
| 12369 | A unit is what is quantitatively indivisible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Arithmeticians posit that a unit is what is quantitatively indivisible. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72a22) | |
| A reaction: Presumably indeterminate stuff like water is non-quantitatively divisible (e.g. Moses divides the Red Sea), as are general abstracta (curved shapes from rectilinear ones). Does 'quantitative' presupposes units, making the idea circular? |
| 18910 | To seek truth, study the real connections between subjects and attributes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If, however, one is aiming at truth, one must be guided by the real connexions of subjects and attributes. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 81b22), quoted by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 3 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a warning that predicates that indicate mere 'Cambridge properties' (such as relations, locations, coincidences etc) have nothing to do with ontology. See Shoemaker on properties. |
| 1675 | Separate Forms aren't needed for logic, but universals (one holding of many) are essential [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There need be no forms (one item apart from the many) for demonstrations. But there must be universals, where one thing holds of the many. Without universals there are no middle terms, and so no demonstrations. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 77a05) |
| 1677 | We can forget the Forms, as they are irrelevant, and not needed in giving demonstrations [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We can say goodbye to the forms. They are nonny-noes; and if there are any they are irrelevant - for demonstrations are not concerned with them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 83a34) |
| 1687 | Why are being terrestrial and a biped combined in the definition of man, but being literate and musical aren't? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Why will a man be a two-footed terrestrial animal and not an animal and terrestrial? Assumptions do not make it necessary that what is predicated form a unity - rather, it is as if the same man were musical and literate. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 92a30) |
| 1681 | Units are positionless substances, and points are substances with position [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A unit is a positionless substance, and a point a substance having position. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 87a36) |
| 12146 | Definitions recognise essences, so are not themselves essences [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If a definition is the recognition of some essence, it is clear that such items are not essences. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 90b17) | |
| A reaction: So definitions are not themselves essences (as some modern thinkers claim). The idea seems obvious to me, but it is a warning against a simplistic view of Aristotelian essences, and a reminder that such things are real, not verbal. |
| 17039 | The predicates of a thing's nature are necessary to it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whatever is predicated in what something is is necessary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 96b03) | |
| A reaction: This does NOT say that the essence is just the necessities. He goes on to say to say separately that certain properties of a triplet are part of the essence, as well as being necessary. This shows the nature of a thing is also necessary. |
| 11994 | Aristotelian essences are properties mentioned at the starting point of a science [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: As Aristotle uses the term 'essence', only those properties which are mentioned in or relatively close to the starting points of the science will be essential. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation II | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the correct way to understand Aristotelian essence - as something understood by its role in scientific explanations. We may, of course, work back to the starting point of a science, by disentangling the mess in the middle. |
| 12381 | What is necessary cannot be otherwise [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What is necessary cannot be otherwise. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 88b32) | |
| A reaction: If the next interesting question is the source of necessity, then the question seems to be 'what prevents it from being otherwise?'. |
| 1690 | A stone travels upwards by a forced necessity, and downwards by natural necessity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are two types of necessity, one according to nature and impulse, the other by force and contrary to impulse. A stone travels upwards and downwards from different necessities. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 94b38) |
| 12072 | For Aristotle knowledge is explanatory, involving understanding, and principles or causes [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, knowledge is explanatory, for to know something is to understand it, and to understand something is to grasp its principles or causes. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 1.2 | |
| A reaction: Thus the kind of 'knowledge' displayed in quiz shows would not count as knowledge at all, if it was mere recall of facts. To know is to be able to explain, which is to be able to teach. See Idea 11241. |
| 12073 | 'Episteme' means grasping causes, universal judgments, explanation, and teaching [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, a person who has 'episteme' grasps the cause of a given phenomenon, can make a universal judgment about it, can explain it, and can teach others about it. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 1.2 | |
| A reaction: This I take to be the context in which we should understand what Aristotle means by an 'essence' - it is the source of all of the above, so it both makes a thing what it is, and explains why it shares features with other such things. |
| 12378 | The reason why is the key to knowledge [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Study of the reason why has the most importance for knowledge. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 79a24) | |
| A reaction: I take the study of reasons for belief to be much more central to epistemology than finding ways to answer radical sceptics about the basic possibility of knowledge. |
| 12364 | We understand a thing when we know its explanation and its necessity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We understand something simpliciter when we think we know of the explanation because of which the object holds that it is its explanation, and also that it is not possible for it to be otherwise. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 71b10) | |
| A reaction: The second half sounds odd, since we ought to understand that something could have been otherwise, and knowing whether or not it could have been otherwise is part of the understanding. It sounds like Spinozan determinism. |
| 12366 | We only understand something when we know its explanation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We only understand something when we know its explanation. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 71b30) | |
| A reaction: If we believe that the whole aim of philosophy is 'understanding' (Idea 543) - and if it isn't then I am not sure what the aim is, and alternative aims seem a lot less interesting - then we should care very much about explanations, as well as reasons. |
| 12370 | Some understanding, of immediate items, is indemonstrable [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Not all understanding is demonstrative: rather, in the case of immediate items understanding is indemonstrable. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72b19) | |
| A reaction: These are the foundations of Aristotle's epistemology, and I take it that they can be both empiricist and rationalist - sense experiences, and a priori intuitions. |
| 1685 | No one has mere belief about something if they think it HAS to be true [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: No one holds something as an opinion when he thinks that it is impossible for it to be otherwise - for then he thinks he understands it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 89a07) |
| 1673 | Knowledge proceeds from principles, so it is hard to know if we know [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is difficult to know whether you know something or not. For it is difficult to know whether or not our knowledge of something proceeds from its principles - and this is what it is to know something. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 76a25) |
| 12379 | You cannot understand anything through perception [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: You cannot understand anything through perception. Demonstrations are universal, and universals cannot be perceived. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 87b28) |
| 16725 | Some knowledge is lost if you lose a sense, and there is no way the knowledge can be replaced [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The loss of any one of the senses entails the loss of a corresponding portion of knowledge, and since we learn either by induction or by demonstration, this knowledge cannot be acquired. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 81a37) | |
| A reaction: This suggests Jackson's 'knowledge argument', that raw experience contains some genuine knowledge, for which there is no mechanistic substitute. Not that I accept…. |
| 23309 | Aristotle's concepts of understanding and explanation mean he is not a pure empiricist [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It is a certain notion of understanding and, correspondingly, explanation which makes Aristotle think that knowledge, properly speaking, could not be a matter of mere experience. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.160 | |
| A reaction: Frede says this means that Aristotle is a rationalist, though few empiricists think understanding is 'merely' a matter of experience. My own epistemology is Explanatory Empiricism, which I see as more empiricist than rationalist. |
| 1693 | Animals may have some knowledge if they retain perception, but understanding requires reasons to be given [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In some animals the perception is retained, and in some not. Without retention knowledge is impossible. Some animals go further and form an account based on the perception. This leads to memory and experience, and so to either skill or understanding. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 99b35-) |
| 9067 | Many memories of the same item form a single experience [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When it occurs often in connection with the same item, ..memories which are many in number form a single experience. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 100a05) | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle at his most empirical. He is not describing an operation of the understanding, but a process of association. The process he alludes to is at the heart of the abstractionist view of concept-formation. |
| 1671 | Sceptics say justification is an infinite regress, or it stops at the unknowable [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Sceptics say that there is either an infinite regress of ideas based on one another, or things come to a stop at primitives which are unknowable (because they can't be demonstrated). | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72b09) | |
| A reaction: This is one strand of what eventually becomes the classic Agrippa's Trilemma (Idea 8850). For Aristotle's view on this one, see Idea 562. |
| 1670 | When you understand basics, you can't be persuaded to change your mind [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anyone who understands anything simpliciter (as basic) must be incapable of being persuaded to change his mind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72b04) | |
| A reaction: A typical Aristotle test which seems rather odd to us. Surely I can change my mind, and decide that something is not basic after all? But, says Aristotle, then you didn't really think it was basic. |
| 1691 | Aim to get definitions of the primitive components, thus establishing the kind, and work towards the attributes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Divide a whole into its primitives, then try to get definitions of these. Thus you establish the kind, and then study the attributes through the primitive common items. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 96b16) |
| 12383 | There must be definitions before demonstration is possible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is no demonstration of anything of which there is no definition. Definitions are of what something is, i.e. of its essence, but all demonstrations clearly suppose and assume what a thing is. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 90b30) | |
| A reaction: Note that while essentialism rests on definitions, the job is not yet complete once the definitions are done. With good definitions, it should be easy to show how the pieces of the jigsaw fit together. |
| 1674 | All demonstration is concerned with existence, axioms and properties [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All demonstrative science [apodeiktike episteme] is concerned with three things: what it posits to exist (the kind), the axioms (primitives basic to demonstration), and the attributes. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 76b12) |
| 24068 | Demonstration is more than entailment, as the explanatory order must match the causal order [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's demonstration encompasses more than deductive entailment, in that the explanatory order of priority represented in a successful demonstration must mirror precisely the causal order of priority in the phenomena in question. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - Form, Matter and Substance 4.5 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. I presume this is correct, but is not an aspect I had registered. In Metaphysics his essentialist explanations are causal, so it all hangs together. |
| 17310 | Aristotle gets asymmetric consequence from demonstration, which reflects real causal priority [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: In Aristotle's system, the relevant notion of asymmetric consequence that is operative in his model of scientific explanation is that of demonstration. ...It is a theoretical/linguistic reflection of an asymmetric real-world relation of causal priority. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - Varieties of Ontological Dependence 7.3 n7 | |
| A reaction: The asymmetry is required for explanation, and for grounding. |
| 21359 | Aristotle doesn't actually apply his theory of demonstration to his practical science [Leroi on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is a conflict between the syllogistic theory of demonstration of the Posterior Analytics, with its austere programme of certainties, and how Aristotle actually does science. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Armand Marie LeRoi - The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science 104 | |
| A reaction: Leroi observes that there are no demonstrations anywhere in the biological writings. Biology probably lends itself least to such an approach. |
| 1667 | Premises must be true, primitive and immediate, and prior to and explanatory of conclusions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Demonstrative understanding must proceed from items which are true and primitive and immediate and more familiar and prior to and explanatory of the conclusions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 71b22) |
| 12365 | We can know by demonstration, which is a scientific deduction leading to understanding [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We know things through demonstration, by which I mean a scientific deduction, and by 'scientific' I mean a deduction by possessing which we understand something. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 71b17) | |
| A reaction: This is a distinctively Aristotelian account of what science aims at, and which seems to have dropped out of modern accounts of science, which are still under the influence of logical positivism. Time to revive it. |
| 10918 | Demonstrative understanding rests on necessary features of the thing in itself [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If demonstrative understanding proceeds from necessary principles, and whatever holds of an object in itself is necessary, then it is clear that demonstrative deductions will proceed from certain items of this sort. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 74b05-) | |
| A reaction: This is the characterization of the essence of something in terms of what counts as a good explanation of that thing. Although explanation is a bit subjective, I like this approach, because you will dig down to the source of the powers of the thing. |
| 12374 | Demonstrations must be necessary, and that depends on the middle term [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you understand something demonstratively, it must hold from necessity, so it is plain that your demonstration must proceed through a middle term which is necessary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 75a13) | |
| A reaction: How can a middle 'term' be necessary, if it is not a proposition? Presumably Socrates is necessarily a man, and men are necessarily mortal, so it is the predication which is necessary. |
| 12148 | Demonstrations are syllogisms which give explanations [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Demonstrations are probative deductions [sullogismos] which give the explanation [aitias] and the reason why. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 85b24) | |
| A reaction: This notion seems to have slipped out of modern philosophy of science, because (while scientists have just pressed on) philosophers of science have raised so many sceptical questions that they have, I would say, lost the plot. |
| 1679 | Universal demonstrations are about thought; particular demonstrations lead to perceptions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Universal demonstrations are objects of thought, particular demonstrations terminate in perception. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 86a30) |
| 1680 | Demonstration is better with fewer presuppositions, and it is quicker if these are familiar [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A demonstration is superior if it depends on fewer suppositions or propositions - for if these are familiar, knowledge will come more quickly, and this is preferable. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 86a35) |
| 12147 | The principles of demonstrations are definitions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The principles of demonstrations are definitions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 90b25) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be a key idea linking Aristotle's desire to understand the world, by using demonstrations to reach good explanations. Definitions turn out to rest on essences, so our understanding of the world rests on essences. |
| 12371 | A demonstration is a deduction which proceeds from necessities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A demonstration is a deduction which proceeds from necessities. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 73a24) | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere he tells us that demonstration that brings understanding (Idea 12365), so this is an interesting gloss. He says that the middle term of the syllogism gives the understanding, but necessities reside in the whole propositions of the premisses. |
| 1683 | We learn universals from many particulars [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is from many particulars that the universal becomes plain. Universals are valuable because they make the explanation plain. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 88a05) |
| 12367 | What is most universal is furthest away, and the particulars are nearest [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What is most universal is furthest away, and the particulars are nearest. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72a05) | |
| A reaction: This is the puzzle that bother Aristotle about explanation, that we can only grasp the universals, when we want to explain the particulars. |
| 12385 | Are particulars explained more by universals, or by other particulars? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Which of the middle terms is explanatory for the particulars - the one which is primitive in the direction of the universal, or the one which is primitive in the direction of the particular? | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 99b09) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear about this, but it shows Aristotle wrestling with the issue of whether explanations are of particulars or universals, and whether they employ particulars as well as employing universals. The particular must be defined! |
| 12380 | Universals are valuable because they make the explanations plain [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Universals are valuable because they make the explanations plain. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 88a06) | |
| A reaction: Everything in Aristotle comes back to human capacity to understand. There seems to be an ideal explanation consisting entirely of particulars, but humans are not equipped to grasp it. We think in a broad brush way. |
| 1689 | Explanation is of the status of a thing, inferences to it, initiation of change, and purpose [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are four sorts of explanation: what it is to be something, that if certain items hold it is necessary for this to hold, what initiated the change, and the purpose. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 94a21) | |
| A reaction: This might be summed up as: 'we want to know the essence, the necessary conditions, the cause, and the purpose'. Can anyone improve on that as the aims of explanation? The second explanation (necessary preconditions) isn't in 'Physics' - Idea 8332. |
| 1686 | What we seek and understand are facts, reasons, existence, and identity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The things we seek are equal in number to those we understand: the fact, the reason why, if something is, and what something is. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 89b24) |
| 12357 | Explanation and generality are inseparable [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, explanation and generality are fellow-travellers. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance X.11 | |
| A reaction: This isn't 'lawlike' explanation, but it is interestingly close to it. It seems to be based on the fact that predicates are universals, so we can only state truths in general terms. |
| 1669 | The foundation or source is stronger than the thing it causes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Something always holds better because of that because of which it holds - e.g. that because of which we love something is better loved. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72a30) |
| 1678 | Universals give better explanations, because they are self-explanatory and primitive [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Universals are more explanatory (for something which holds in itself is itself explanatory of itself; and universals are primitive; hence universals are explanatory) - so universal demonstrations are better. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 85b25) |
| 9068 | Perception creates primitive immediate principles by building a series of firm concepts [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Primitive immediate principles ...come about from perception - as in a battle, when a rout has occurred, first one man makes a stand, then another, and then another, until a position of strength is reached. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 100a12) | |
| A reaction: Philosophers don't create imagery like that any more. This empiricist account of how concepts and universals are created is part of a campaign against Plato's theory of forms. [Idea 9069 continues his idea] |
| 9069 | A perception lodging in the soul creates a primitive universal, which becomes generalised [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When one undifferentiated item in perception makes a stand, there is a primitive universal in the soul; for although you perceive particulars, perception is of universals - e.g. of man, not of Callias the man. One animal makes a stand, until animal does. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 100a15-) | |
| A reaction: This is the quintessential account of abstractionism, with the claim that primitive universals arise directly in perception, but only in repeated perception. How the soul does it is a mystery to Aristotle, just as associations are a mystery to Hume. |
| 9070 | We learn primitives and universals by induction from perceptions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We must get to know the primitives by induction; for this is the way in which perception instils universals. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 100b04) | |
| A reaction: This statement is so strongly empirical it could have come from John Stuart Mill. The modern post-Fregean view of universals is essentially platonist - that they have a life and logic of their own, and their method of acquisition is irrelevant. |
| 12368 | Negation takes something away from something [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The part of a contradictory pair which says something of something is an affirmation; the part which takes something from something is a negation. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 72a14) | |
| A reaction: So affirmation is predication about an object ['Fa'], and negation is denial of predication. We have a scope problem: there is nothing which is F [¬∃x(Fx)], or there is a thing which is not-F [∃x(¬Fx)]. Aristotle seems to mean the latter. |
| 1692 | If you shouldn't argue in metaphors, then you shouldn't try to define them either [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you should not argue in metaphors, it is plain too that you should neither define by metaphors nor define what is said in metaphors; for then you will necessarily argue in metaphors. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 97b37) | |
| A reaction: Impeccable logic, but seeing a similarity can be a wonderful shortcut to seeing a great truth. |
| 7235 | Without freedom of will actions lack moral significance [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: If you take away all freedom of the will, you strip a man's actions of all moral significance. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.4) | |
| A reaction: Rousseau is (in the context) guilty of the basic error of confusing freedom of action with freedom of the will. If the will has scope to act, it has freedom of action; if the will is not contrained in its decision by prior causes, it has freedom of will. |
| 19791 | Natural mankind is too fragmented for states of peace, or of war and enmity [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Men are not naturally enemies, for the simple reason that men living in their original state of independence do not have sufficiently constant relationships among themselves to bring about either a state of peace or a state of war. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.4) | |
| A reaction: He sees people in a state of nature as more or less solitary, and certainly in groups any more organised than a small family. One might then be in a state of permanent feud, rather than war, but without settlements people can move away. |
| 20501 | Rousseau assumes that laws need a people united by custom and tradition [Rousseau, by Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Rousseau assumes that there should already be bonds of custom and tradition uniting a people before it is fit to receive laws. | |
| From: report of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 3 'Rousseau' | |
| A reaction: In unusual circumstances, such as the arrival of a large population at a new colony, it might be that the laws would create the missing customs and traditions. |
| 7237 | The act of becoming 'a people' is the real foundation of society [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The act by which people become 'a people' is the real foundation of society. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.5) | |
| A reaction: The difficulty with many older countries is that it is impossible to identify such an act. Mythologies are created to fictionalise such acts; in Britain we refer back to King Alfred, and to Magna Carta. I suspect 1660 is the key year. |
| 19792 | To overcome obstacles, people must unite their forces into a single unified power [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Men have no other means of maintaining themselves but to form by aggregation a sum of forces that could gain the upper hand over the resistance of obstacles, so that their forces are directed by means of a single moving power and made to act in concert. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.6) | |
| A reaction: I prefer the Aristotelian view, that men are naturally gregarious and social (like bees and ants), so this act of solidarity in superfluous. A human people is only broken up by violence or disaster, like kicking over an ants' nest. |
| 19812 | Human nature changes among a people, into a moral and partial existence [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The establisher of a people is in a position to change human nature, to transform each individual into a part of a larger whole from which the individual receives his life and being, to substitute a partial and moral existence for natural independence. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.07) | |
| A reaction: The 'partial' part is obvious, in the compromises of society, but he says we only become moral in a people, and even more so when that people constitute a state. In the state of nature, morality seems to be unneeded, rather than absent. |
| 19814 | A state must be big enough to preserve itself, but small enough to be governable [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Like a well-formed man, there are limits to the size a state can have, so as not to be too large to be capable of being well governed, nor too small to be capable of preserving itself on its own. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.09) | |
| A reaction: Geneva was his model, and it is close to the size of a Greek polis. Presumably even Scotland would be thought ungovernable, never mind the United States. Luxembourg might be his ideal nowadays. Thousands of them! |
| 19815 | Too much land is a struggle, producing defensive war; too little makes dependence, and offensive war [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Too much land makes its defence is onerous, its cultivation inadequate, and its yield surplus, which causes defensive wars. If there is not enough land, the state is at the discretion of its neighbours for what it needs as surplus, causing offensive wars. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.10) | |
| A reaction: This sounds much too simplistic, like the causes of squabbles in a kindergarten. Certainly inequalities between nations (such as the USA and Mexico) produces frictions. Advances in agriculture technology have transformed this problem. |
| 19822 | If the state enlarges, the creators of the general will become less individually powerful [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The ratio of the sovereign to the subject increases in proportion to the number of citizens. The larger the state becomes, the less liberty there is. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.01) | |
| A reaction: This is because we remain equally subjected to the state whatever its size, but have less power to influence if there are more citizens. In modern states we all feel pathetically powerless, because of the numbers. |
| 19823 | If the population is larger, the government needs to be more powerful [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: In order to be good, the government must be relatively stronger in proportion as the populace is more numerous. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.01) | |
| A reaction: This could either imply a larger government, or more powerful laws for a fairly small government. Rousseau implies an almost mathematical law (of ratios) which determines the size of the government. |
| 7232 | Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.1) | |
| A reaction: I've always liked the second sentence, though it may be wishful thinking. It is probably rather fun owning slaves. The idea that man is 'born free' strikes me as nonsense. Man is a highly social animal, which only flourishes if enmeshed in a culture. |
| 7234 | No man has any natural authority over his fellows [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: No man has any natural authority over his fellows. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.4) | |
| A reaction: This is, of course, specifically denying that superior strength is the same as a natural right. 'Right' might be a better word than 'authority'. If strength doesn't bestow a natural right, then presumably neither does weakness. |
| 19816 | A state's purpose is liberty and equality - liberty for strength, and equality for liberty [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The greatest good and purpose of every legislative system boils down to liberty and equality. Liberty because dependence takes force from the body of the state, and equality because liberty cannot subsist without it. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.11) | |
| A reaction: The idea of 'taking force' seems to cover the modern welfare state. Rousseau likes robustly self-sufficient citizens. To ensure equality, however, it may be necessary to restrict liberty. |
| 7247 | The greatest social good comes down to freedom and equality [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The greatest good of all, which ought to be the goal of every system of law, comes down to two main objects, freedom and equality. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.11) | |
| A reaction: He goes on the specify the nature of the equality (Idea 7248). A rival pair of goods might be security and opportunity. On balance, I think I prefer my pair to Rousseau's. |
| 19838 | The measure of a successful state is increase in its population [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The government under which, without external means, without naturalisations, without colonies, the citizens become populous and multiply the most, is infallibly the best government. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.09) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure if this was true in the eighteenth century. Birth control has entirely changed the picture, since affluent people seem less inclined to breed. Presumably poverty increased famine and infant mortality. |
| 19848 | The sovereignty does not appoint the leaders [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The election of leaders is a function of government and not of the sovereignty. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that the general will only establishes the form of government, and not its content. In Britain we accept leaders who are appointed by their own party, and not by the electorate. |
| 20567 | Rousseau insists that popular sovereignty needs a means of expressing consent [Rousseau, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Rousseau's idea of popular sovereignty is a much more radical idea of self-government, because he insists that the consent of the people has to have a real means of expression. | |
| From: report of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Presumably Hobbes's 'contract' is forgotten in the mists of time, and ceases to be of any interest to a ruler (such as Charles I, who thought God must have appointed him). Perhaps Britain needs an annual ceremony reaffirming the monarch. |
| 19801 | Sovereignty is the exercise of the general will, which can never be delegated [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Since sovereignty is merely the exercise of the general will, it can never be alienated, and the sovereign which is only a collective being, cannot be represented by anything but itself. Power can perfectly well be transmitted, but not the will. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.01) | |
| A reaction: Part of the post-Hobbesian revolution, which sees sovereignty as residing in the will or consensus of the people, rather than in a divine right, or a right of power. In 2016 this isn't going very well. A people choosing to obey is thereby dissolved. |
| 19805 | Just as people control their limbs, the general-will state has total control of its members [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Just as nature gives each man an absolute power over all of his members, the social compact gives the body politic an absolute over all its members, which is the power directed by the general will, and bearing the name sovereignty. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.04) | |
| A reaction: A highly organic view of the state, and his favourite political metaphor. Does the metaphor include disease and madness? In the 1930s Germany went insane. The man may be happy, but are his limbs happy? If I burn my hand? Etc. |
| 19818 | Political laws are fundamental, as they firmly organise the state - but they could still be changed [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The laws regulating the relationship of the sovereign to the state are political laws, which are also fundamental. There is one way of organising a state, and people should stand by it. ...But a people is always in a position to change its laws. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.12) | |
| A reaction: Constitutions take on a sacred and inviolable quality, but Rousseau clearly thinks 'the Sabbath is made for man'. I think the USA is crazy not to change its constitution on the subject of bearing arms. |
| 19790 | Force can only dominate if it is seen as a right, and obedience as a duty [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The strongest is never strong enough to be master all the time, unless he transforms force into right and obedience into duty. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the people only accept force as a right and obedience as a duty if they appear to be in the people's interests - because the alternative looks worse. In other words, they are terrified. |
| 7233 | The social order is a sacred right, but based on covenants, not nature [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The social order is a sacred right which serves as a basis for all other rights; and as it is not a natural right, it must be one founded on covenants. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.1) | |
| A reaction: I think Rousseau is offering a contradiction here, when he suggests we have a 'sacred' right, which is nevertheless only based on 'covenants'. You can't have it both ways. This is an abuse of the word 'sacred'. |
| 19842 | The government is instituted by a law, not by a contract [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The act that institutes the government is not a contract but a law. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.18) | |
| A reaction: This is a law which implements the general will. There is nothing for citizens to make a contract with, since the sovereign is an abstraction, whereas a social contract is made between actual people. I like Rousseau's big idea. |
| 7239 | The social pact is the total subjection of individuals to the general will [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The essence of the social pact is that 'each one of us puts into the community his person and all his powers under the supreme direction of the general will; and as a body, we incorporate every member as an indivisible part of the whole'. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.6) | |
| A reaction: This is alarmingly like totally subjecting yourself to the 'Will of God', where the big problem is a bunch of priests (or worse) insisting that they know better than you do what that Will consists of. I have no idea what the current Will of Britain is. |
| 19793 | We need a protective association which unites forces, but retains individual freedom [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The problem is to find a form of association which protects with all common forces the person and goods of each associate, by means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.6) | |
| A reaction: This is the clear purpose of Rousseau's famous concept of the General Will. The idea is that you submit to the general will because you helped formulate it, so you remain free. It is a lovely idea, but notoriously difficult to implement. |
| 7240 | To foreign powers a state is seen as a simple individual [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: In relation to a foreign power, the body politic is a simple entity, an individual. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.7) | |
| A reaction: This is strikingly contrary to the spirit of liberalism, in which I may be appalled by the foreign policy of my own government, and protest strongly against it. Rousseau might be considered as freedom's greatest champion, and greatest enemy! |
| 19795 | The act of association commits citizens to the state, and the state to its citizens [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The act of association is a reciprocal commitment of public and private individuals, and each individual, contracting with himself, is under a twofold commitment, as a member of the sovereign to individuals, and as a member of the state to the sovereign. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be expressed in modern terms as a mutual entailment of rights and duties. Where the traditional social contract is just between individuals, this seems to be a contract with a unified abstraction, of state commitment to citizens. |
| 19797 | Citizens must ultimately for forced to accept the general will (so freedom is compulsory!) [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: To avoid the general compact being an empty formula, it tacitly entails the commitment that whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body. This means merely that he will be forced to be free. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.7) | |
| A reaction: Rousseau obviously enjoyed this paradox (which sounds like US foreign policy). Apart from anarchism, any political system will need a bit of force to back it up. Should democratic voting becoming compulsory, if the turnout declines too far? |
| 19796 | Individual citizens still retain a private will, which may be contrary to the general will [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Each individual can, as a man, have a private will contrary to or different from the general will that he has as a citizen. His private interest can speak to him in an entirely different manner than the common interest. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.7) | |
| A reaction: So why I accept the general will when these two clash (apart from threat of punishment - which may be capital if I am recalcitrant!)? Usually the general will is also for my good - but not always. Idealist love of the people? |
| 7244 | The general will is common interest; the will of all is the sum of individual desires [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The general will studies only common interest, while the will of all studies private interest, and is indeed no more than the sum of individual desires. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.03) | |
| A reaction: This invites the obvious liberal response (given later by utilitarians: Idea 3778) that there can be no more to any great 'will' than the sum of the individuals (which leads to Margaret Thatcher's famous 'there is no such thing as society'). |
| 19802 | The general will is always right, but the will of all can err, because it includes private interests [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The general will is always right. ....There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will. The latter considers only the general interest, but the former considers private interest and is merely the sum of private wills. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.03) | |
| A reaction: Hence in order to get an expression of the general will, voters must exclusively focus on the general good. I do that in general elections, only to find that the people around me vote for their own interests. I wish we all did the same thing. |
| 19803 | If the state contains associations there are fewer opinions, undermining the general will [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: If there are partial association in the state ...there are no longer as many voters as there are men, but merely as many as there are associations. The differences become less numerous and yield a result that is less general. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.03) | |
| A reaction: This appears to entirely reject political parties, and similar groups, which he had seen forming in England. It goes with his interesting faith that the more separate views there are, the more the right choice will emerge. |
| 19804 | If a large knowledgeable population votes in isolation, their many choices will have good results [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: If, when a sufficiently informed populace deliberates, the citizens were to have no communication among themselves, the general will would always result from a large number of small differences, and the deliberations would always be good. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.03) | |
| A reaction: An obvious weak point in the electorate being well informed, if someone controls the sources of information. All the optimism of the Enlightenment is in this idea - that rational beings converge of the truth. All pubs closed in the month of an election? |
| 19808 | The general will changes its nature when it focuses on particulars [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Just as a private will cannot represent the general will, the general will, for its part, alters its nature when it has a particular object. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.04) | |
| A reaction: Is the general will, then, in danger of being much too general, because as soon as it gets close to anything practical it becomes distorted. It can design the constitution, but can it give a view on capital punishment, or is that too personal? |
| 7246 | The general will is always good, but sometimes misunderstood [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: By themselves the people always will what is good, but by themselves they do not always discern it. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.06) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a can of worms. It invites someone to step in as interpreter - a spin doctor, perhaps, or a newspaper proprietor. The first proposition strikes me as absurdly optimistic. Think of the people of Europe in August 1914. |
| 7250 | Laws are authentic acts of the general will [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The laws are nothing other than the authentic acts of the general will. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.12) | |
| A reaction: I wonder how you tell whether an act of the general will is 'authentic'? Nevertheless, in a modern democracy there seems a lot of truth in it; when controversial legislation is in the offing, governments have to be very attentive to the people. |
| 19844 | Assemblies must always confirm the form of government, and the current administration [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The opening of assemblies, which solely aim to preserve the social treaty, should always start with two separate propositions: 1) does it please the sovereign to preserve the present form of government?, 2) ...and to preserve the present administration? | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.18) | |
| A reaction: I would love it if the British people were allowed to discuss our form of government, but it now seems completely ossified. Being a monarchy, with the consequent patronage, almost guarantees this stasis. |
| 19846 | The more unanimous the assembly, the stronger the general will becomes [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The more harmony reigns in the assemblies, that is to say, the closer opinions come to unanimity, the more dominant too is the general will. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems important, because the general will comes in degrees. A decision from the assembly would come with an index number indicating its strength. His dream is obviously to get close to unanimity on all decisions. Maybe! Brexit 52%! |
| 19817 | Citizens should be independent of each other, and very dependent on the state [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Each citizen should be perfectly independent of all the others and excessively dependent on the city. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.12) | |
| A reaction: Unlike many other of his pronouncements, this sounds a bit like a welfare state, though I doubt if he means that. Rousseau's state, founded by the general will, seems to have a quasi-religious quality, like a devotee's love of God. |
| 19840 | A citizen is a subject who is also sovereign [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The words 'subject' and 'sovereign' are identical correlatives, whose meaning is combined in the single word 'citizen'. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.13) | |
| A reaction: 'Citizen' was the favourite post-revolutionary label, probably based on this remark. I've heard foreigners tease Britons for being 'subjects' of the monarch, where they are pure citizens. But we are all subject to the law, made by others. |
| 19839 | The flourishing of arts and letters is too much admired [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Times in which letters and arts are known to have flourished have been admired too much. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.09 n9) | |
| A reaction: I assume most marxists would agree with this thought. Eighteenth century France is a good candidate for this judgement. The arts always needed patronage. |
| 19798 | Ancient monarchs were kings of peoples; modern monarchs more cleverly rule a land [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Ancient monarchs called themselves King of the Persians or Scythians, regarding themselve merely as the leaders of men. Today's monarchs more shrewdly call themselves King of France or England. By holding the land, they are sure of the inhabitants. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.9) | |
| A reaction: This matches the Germans being earlier defined by speaking the language, and now defined by a territory. It is more to do with the rise of the modern state than to do with the shrewdness of the monarchs. |
| 19831 | The highest officers under a monarchy are normally useless; the public could choose much better [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Those who attain the highest positions in monarchies are most often petty bunglers, swindlers and intriguers, whose talents serve only to display their incompetence to the public. The populace is much less often in error in its choice than the prince. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.06) | |
| A reaction: Many monarchs have had famously good advisers, such as Lord Burleigh. The worst thing about bad leaders, at any level, is the bad appointments they make. |
| 19833 | Hereditary monarchy is easier, but can lead to dreadful monarchs [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Some crowns are hereditary. So by substituting the disadvantage of regencies for elections, an apparent tranquillity has been preferred to a wise election, the risk of having children, monsters or imbeciles for leaders is preferred to choosing good kings. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.06) | |
| A reaction: Henry VI is the prime English example. The regents feuded, and then when he grew up it became obvious that he was hopeless. How many English monarchs would have been elected? But we would have missed Good Queen Bess. |
| 19834 | Attempts to train future kings don't usually work, and the best have been unprepared [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: A great deal of effort is made to teach young princes the art of ruling. It does not appear that this education does them any good. It would be better to teach them the art of obeying. The most celebrated kings were not brought up to reign. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.06) | |
| A reaction: King Alfred is our prime example of a success, But if only we had had Charles I's late brother Henry, instead the untrained Charles. |
| 19829 | Natural aristocracy is primitive, and hereditary is dreadful, but elective aristocracy is best [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: There are three sorts of aristocracy: natural, elective, and hereditary. The first is suited only to simple people; the third is the worst of any government. The second is the best; it is aristocracy properly so-called. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.05) | |
| A reaction: This seems like the modern idea of 'meritocracy'. The Chinese civil service exams, introduced into Europe in the nineteenth century. |
| 7249 | Natural aristocracy is primitive, hereditary is bad, and elective aristocracy is the best [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: There are three types of aristocracy, natural, elective and hereditary. The first is suited only to primitive peoples; the third is the worst of all governments; the second is the best, and this is aristocracy in the true sense of the word. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.05) | |
| A reaction: Presumably he means what we call 'meritocracy', and it seems a bit optimistic to hope that democracy will deliver that. I don't think Plato would expect a democracy to elect his Guardians. |
| 19830 | Large states need a nobility to fill the gap between a single prince and the people [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: With a large state in the hands of one man there is too great a distance between the prince and the people, and the state lacks cohesiveness. This requires intermediate orders of nobility to fill them. A small state is ruined by all these social levels. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.06) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This seems to be a justification for the French ancien regime. Presumably this bit was not quoted much in 1789. Why must the gap be filled by 'nobility'? What about an elected house of lords? |
| 19827 | Law makers and law implementers should be separate [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: It is not good for the one who makes the laws to execute them. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.04) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't give his reasons here, but this piece of wisdom is widely supported. There is a problem when the executive find themselves trying to enforce bad, discredited laws. Maybe the police know best what the law should say? Or not! |
| 19820 | The state has a legislature and an executive, just like the will and physical power in a person [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Every free action has a moral cause, the will, and a physical cause, the power to act. ...The body politic has the same moving causes, namely the legislative power, and executive power. Nothing should be done without their concurrence. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.01) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This terminology is now standard in political philosophy. An absolute monarch like Edward III presumably embodies both branches. |
| 19821 | I call the executive power the 'government', which is the 'prince' - a single person, or a group [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: I call 'government' or supreme administration the legitimate exercise of executive power; I call 'prince' or magistrate the man or body charged with that administration. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.01) | |
| A reaction: Whether the prince is one person or many is left up to the legislative body, which is the general will. Rousseau has no view on the matter. |
| 19824 | Large populations needs stronger control, which means power should be concentrated [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The government becomes slack as the magistrates are multiplied, and the more numerous the people the greater should be the increase of repressive force - ...so the number of leaders should decrease in proportion to the increase of the number of people. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.02) | |
| A reaction: This bit sounds Stalinist! A vast population seems to require a dictator. When his state is Geneva-sized Rousseau seems comfortable, but his plans for bigger states are a bit disturbing. |
| 19826 | Democracy for small states, aristocracy for intermediate, monarchy for large [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Democratic government is suited to small states, aristocratic government to states of intermediate size, and monarchical government to large ones. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.03) | |
| A reaction: Is he thinking of France for the large state? What would he have made of 1789? Does this progression go on to increase the power of the monarch as the state gets even larger, into dictatorship? |
| 19837 | If inhabitants are widely dispersed, organising a revolt is much more difficult [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The greater the area occupied by the same number of inhabitants, the more difficult it becomes to revolt, since concerted action cannot be taken promptly and secretly. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.09) | |
| A reaction: Revolutions since then have all occurred in large cities, which have become huge. The dispersal of the rest of the population (as in Russia) doesn't matter. |
| 19843 | The state is not bound to leave civil authority to its leaders [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The state is no more bound to leave civil authority to its leaders than it is to leave military authority to its generals. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.18) | |
| A reaction: He assumes that a meeting of the citizens can articulate a new expression of the general will, but this idea also endorses revolution, if the prince or magistrates refuse to call this national AGM. |
| 19825 | If the sovereign entrusts government to at least half the citizens, that is 'democracy' [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The sovereign can entrust the government to the entire people or to the majority of them. This is given the name 'democracy'. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.03) | |
| A reaction: Note that democracy is here a form for the executive, not for the legislature. I take it that the general will must come close to unanimity, and a mere 51% support for fundamental legislation would never do. Increase the percentage with the importance? |
| 19832 | Democratic elections are dangerous intervals in government [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Elections leave dangerous intervals and are stormy. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.06) | |
| A reaction: American presidential elections partially paralyse government for about nine months. In a settled democracy the process of election seems OK. The immediate aftermath can be worse. Losers may refuse to accept the result. |
| 7243 | Silence of the people implies their consent [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The silence of the people permits the assumption that the people consents. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.01) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a crucial principle for a democracy, because it says that the democratic way of life is much more than elections. Each citizen has a duty to bravely speak out; the more citizens willing to do this, the less bravery is required. |
| 7251 | The English are actually slaves in between elections [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the Members are elected, the people is enslaved. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.15) | |
| A reaction: Rousseau seems to be hoping for some sort of direct democracy. We could probably set up a direct democracy, by implementing regular voting over the internet, but I doubt if Rousseau would like that either. I certainly wouldn't. |
| 7238 | Minorities only accept majority-voting because of a prior unanimous agreement [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: If there were no earlier agreement, how could there be any obligation on the minority to accept the decision of the majority? The law of majority-voting rests on a covenant, implying at least one previous occasion of unanimity. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.5) | |
| A reaction: In Britain this points to the Reform Acts of 1832 onwards as crucial. However, whenever democracy is newly introduced into a country (Iraq being a current spectacular case) there is usually a minority opposed to it, who are forcibly overruled. |
| 19828 | Democracy leads to internal strife, as people struggle to maintain or change ways of ruling [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: No government is so subject to civil wars and internal agitations as a democratic or popular one, since there is none that tends so forcefully and continuously to change its form, or that demands greater vigilance and courage to keep its form. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.05) | |
| A reaction: We would like to think that a robust democracy, with a free press, can cope with all this strife and still survive. He may be thinking of the English Civil War. Democracies seem to be more conservative about the structure of government. |
| 19835 | When ministers change the state changes, because they always reverse policies [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Each revolution in the ministry produces a revolution in the state, since the maxim common to all ministers and nearly all kings is to do the reverse of their predecessor in everything. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.06) | |
| A reaction: Most parents bring up their children by trying to correct mistakes their own parents made. British democracy is rife with this desperate need for a new government to make its mark, because they want to win the next election. |
| 19849 | In early theocracies the god was the king, and there were as many gods as nations [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: At first men had no other kings but gods, and no other government than a theocratic one. ....By the mere fact that a god was placed at the head of every political society, it followed that there were as many gods as there were peoples. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.8) | |
| A reaction: He must be thinking of the Old Testament histories here. (see Spinoza on that!). He says that the modern idea that these were all really the same god is ridiculous. |
| 19841 | Sometimes full liberty is only possible at the expense of some complete enslavement [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: There are some unfortunate circumstances where one's liberty can be preserved only at the expense of someone else's, and where the citizen can be perfectly free only if the slave is completely enslaved. Such was the situation in Sparta. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.15) | |
| A reaction: Rousseau wrote just before the moment when it was seen that slavery in European empires might be abolished, but he was not in the forefront of thought on this one. Greek philosophy would probably never have happened without slavery. |
| 19847 | We can never assume that the son of a slave is a slave [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not a man. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.2) | |
| A reaction: Obviously this is because men are 'born free', though I am not clear how that maxim can be reached. I take it for granted that African slaves in the Americas found themselves born into slavery. No justification was required. |
| 7242 | Appetite alone is slavery, and self-prescribed laws are freedom [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: To be governed by appetite alone is slavery, while obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself is freedom. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.8) | |
| A reaction: An interesting formulation, sitting somewhere between Aristotle and Kant. The problem is to find a metaethic which will justify the prescription and nature of the self-imposed law. |
| 19800 | The social compact imposes conventional equality of rights on people who may start unequally [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Instead of destroying natural equality, the fundamental compact substitutes a moral and legitimate equality to any natural physical inequality. ...so that men all become equal by convention and by right. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.9) | |
| A reaction: This does not pretend that equality is a natural right. The imposition of equality is virtually the main point of forming a state. Effectively, the state operates like an insurance company, treating all contributors as equal. |
| 7248 | No citizen should be rich enough to buy another, and none so poor as forced to sell himself [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Where wealth is concerned, no citizen should be rich enough to buy another, and none should be so poor as to be forced to sell himself. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.11) | |
| A reaction: Rousseau is thinking of slavery, but this also points to prostitution as a key indicator of social equality. In Victorian Britain it seems that extensive prostituion was unavoidable; nowadays it looks more like a voluntary choice (for indigenous Britons). |
| 19794 | If we all give up all of our rights together to the community, we will always support one another [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The social compact reduces to a single clause, namely the total alienation of each associate, together with all of his rights, to the entire community. Since this condition is equal for everyone, no one has an interest in making it burdensome for others. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.6) | |
| A reaction: He speaks elsewhere of basic natural rights which can never be alienated, such as self-defence. It is what small groups do all the time, if they start off as equals. Difficult to manage with large groups. Factions are the problem. |
| 7241 | In society man loses natural liberty, but gains a right to civil liberty and property [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and the absolute right to anything that tempts him; what he gains is civil liberty and the legal rights of propery in what he possesses. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.8) | |
| A reaction: It is an appealing idea that the purpose of society is to increase liberty, not to restrict it. That, on the whole, is my view. American libertarianism opens up the world to gun crime, vigilantes, pornographers and bounty-hunters. |
| 19806 | We alienate to society only what society needs - but society judges that, not us [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Each person alienates, by the social compact, only that portion of his power, his goods, and liberty whose use is of consequence to the community; but we must also grant that only the sovereign is the judge of what is of consequence. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.04) | |
| A reaction: The weakness here is how society sees its needs. He seems to assume that two societies will arrive at almost identical general wills, but Spartans, Prussians and Serbs may require the lives of your children for the state. |
| 19799 | Private property must always be subordinate to ownership by the whole community [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Each private individual's right to his very own store is always subordinate to the community's right to all, without which there could be neither solidity in the social fabric nor real force in the exercise of sovereignty. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.9) | |
| A reaction: This may sound a bit drastic, but every country practices this principle, seen in compulsory purchase orders (e.g. to build a railway line). In liberal democracies you expect good compensation. In communist Roumania you were just moved. Also taxation. |
| 19819 | The state ensures liberty, so civil law separates citizens, and binds them to the state [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The relationship of members to each other should be as small as possible, and as large as possible to the entire body. ...Only the force of the state brings about the liberty of its members. From this relationship civil laws arise. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.12) | |
| A reaction: I'm guessing that these laws could be said mainly to prescribe both our rights and our duties. His four types of law are political, civil, criminal, and customary. |
| 7245 | Natural justice, without sanctions, benefits the wicked, who exploit it [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The laws of natural justice, lacking any natural sanctions, are unavailing among men. In fact, such laws merely benefit the wicked and injure the just, since the just respect them while others do not do so in return. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.06) | |
| A reaction: This seems a very accurate observation, and points us towards either contracts, or a justification of the use of force by good people. |
| 19809 | We accept the death penalty to prevent assassinations, so we must submit to it if necessary [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Whoever wills the end also wills the means. ...The death penalty inflicted on criminals can be viewed from more or less this point of view. It is in order to avoid being the victim of an assassin that a person consents to die, were he to become one. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.05) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be roughly the spirit in which Socrates submitted to his death. I doubt whether many criminals agree with harsh punishments dished out to other criminals who get caught. |
| 19810 | A trial proves that a criminal has broken the social treaty, and is no longer a member of the state [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The legal proceeding and judgement are the proofs and the declaration that a criminal has broken the social treaty, and consequently that he is no longer a member of the state. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.05) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a plausible rationalisation of capital punishment, but what about lesser crimes. Is the interior of a prison a sort of temporary exile from the state? Hence the significance of whether prisoners are allowed to vote. But 19811. |
| 19811 | Only people who are actually dangerous should be executed, even as an example [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: There is no wicked man who could not be made good for something. One has the right to put to death, even as an example, only someone who cannot be preserved without danger. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.05) | |
| A reaction: This formulation implies that we could execute a dangerous person as a deterrent, even though they were not guilty of this particular crime. I suspect that Rousseau was too nice to go through with that. |
| 7236 | War gives no right to inflict more destruction than is necessary for victory [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: War gives no right to inflict any more destruction than is necessary for victory. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], I.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the principle at stake in discussion of the bombing of Germany in 1942-5. We all seem to agree with this principle, and are shocked by breaches of it, but I am not sure why. Destruction must be a fundamentally bad thing - a basic value. |
| 23607 | Wars are between States, not people, and the individuals are enemies by accident [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: War is something that occurs not between man and man, but between States. The individuals who become involved in it are enemies only by accident. A State can have as its enemies only other States, not men at all. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], p.249), quoted by Jeff McMahan - Killing in War 2.5 | |
| A reaction: This is the classic statement of the collectivist view, which goes on to assert that the morality of warfare is quite different from ordinary morality. McMahan argues against this view, very persuasively. |
| 19850 | By separating theological and political systems, Jesus caused divisions in the state [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: In separating the theological system from the political system, Jesus made the state to cease being united and caused internal divisions. Since this new idea of an otherwordly kingdom had never entered the heads of pagans, they saw Christians as rebels. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.8) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of stuff that made Rousseau a vast number of enemies, which embittered him. It is the sort of cool assessment which became commonplace in Germany sixty year later. |
| 19852 | Civil religion needs one supreme god, an afterlife, justice, and the sanctity of the social contract [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Dogmas of civil religion should be simple. The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent divinity that foresees and provides; the life to come; the happiness of the just; the punishment of the wicked; the sanctity of the social contract and laws. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.8) | |
| A reaction: Notice that he gratuitously makes the social contract sacred (even though it can be voluntarily abandoned, and the general will can be changed). Presumably the foundation of any society, such as the ballot box, has to be sacred. |
| 19853 | All religions should be tolerated, if they tolerate each other, and support citizenship [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Tolerance should be shown to all religions which tolerate other religions, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of a citizen. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.8) | |
| A reaction: Quite a good guideline for the attitude of western countries to middle eastern religious practices which arrive in their midst. Rousseau says the state has a minimal core religion (Idea 19852), which thus tolerates most other religions. |
| 19851 | Every society has a religion as its base [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: No state has ever been founded without religion serving as its base. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.8) | |
| A reaction: It is not clear to me that the ancient Greek cities had religion as a 'base', though they all had a religion, and expected conformity. Religion doesn't figure much in Thucydides. Communist Russia was the first explicitly atheist state, I think. |
| 19836 | The amount of taxation doesn't matter, if it quickly circulates back to the citizens [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: It is not on the basis of the amount of taxation that the burden is measured, but on the basis of the path they have to travel in order to return to the hands from which they came. If circulation is prompt and regular, the amount one pays is unimportant. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.08) | |
| A reaction: So the problem is when the government wants to build up a surplus, or pay off debts (or is corrupt, or even if it is suspected of corruption). |
| 12375 | Whatever holds of a kind intrinsically holds of it necessarily [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In each kind, whatever holds of something in itself and as such holds of it from necessity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 75a30) | |
| A reaction: This seems to confirm the view that essential properties are necessary, but it does not, of course, follow that all necessary properties are essential properties (e.g. trivial necessities are not essential). |
| 1688 | Properties must be proved, but not essence; but existents are not a kind, so existence isn't part of essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Everything which a thing is must be proved through a demonstration - except its essence. But existence is not the essence of anything; for the things that exist do not constitute a kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 92b14) |
| 7252 | A tyrant exploits Christians because they don't value this life, and are made to be slaves [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The Christian spirit is too favourable to tyranny for tyranny not to take advantage of it. True Christians are made to be slaves; they know it and hardly care; this short life has too little value in their eyes. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], IV.8) | |
| A reaction: This is strikingly close to Nietzsche's verdict on Christianity, that it is the essence of slave morality. It has certainly been my experience that Christians tend to be much more reluctant than other people to stand up to authority. |