152 ideas
18330 | Judging by the positive forces, the Renaissance was the last great age [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Ages are to be assessed by their positive forces - and by this assessment the age of the Renaissance, so prodigal and so fateful, appears as the last great age. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.37) | |
A reaction: I suspect that Nietzsche places art very high among the positive forces. Science and technology showed barely a glimmer during the Renaissance. Mathematics moved very little, Copernicus was ignored, and logic was static. |
2900 | I revere Heraclitus [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: I set apart with high reverence the name of Heraclitus. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.2) |
2913 | Thucydides was the perfect anti-platonist sophist [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: My recreation, my preference, my cure from all Platonism has always been Thucydides. …Sophist culture, by which I mean realist culture, attains in him its perfect expression. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 9.2) |
2909 | Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 7.7) | |
A reaction: Nice. At its deepest level thinking isn't a rational process? |
2892 | Wanting a system in philosophy is a lack of integrity [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to system is a lack of integrity. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 26) |
2896 | I want to understand the Socratic idea that 'reason equals virtue equals happiness' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: I seek to understand out of what idiosyncrasy that Socratic equation 'reason equals virtue equals happiness' derives. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.04) |
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? |
2897 | With dialectics the rabble gets on top [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: With dialectics the rabble gets on top. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.05) |
19215 | Arguers often turn the opponent's modus ponens into their own modus tollens [Merricks] |
Full Idea: There is a seasoned method of turning your opponent's modus ponens into your own modus tollens. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 5.VII) | |
A reaction: That is, they say 'if he's coming he'll be hear by now, and he's definitely coming', to which you say 'I'm afraid he's not here, so he obviously isn't coming after all'. They say if-A-then-B, and A, so B. You say not-B, so you're wrong about A. |
2898 | Anything which must first be proved is of little value [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: What has first to have itself proved is of little value. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.05) |
19205 | 'Snow is white' only contingently expresses the proposition that snow is white [Merricks] |
Full Idea: It is contingently true that 'snow is white' expresses the proposition that snow is white. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 1.V n14) | |
A reaction: Tarski stuck to sentences, but Merricks rightly argues that truth concerns propositions, not sentences. Sentences are subservient entities - mere tools used to express what matters, which is our thoughts (say I). |
19209 | Simple Quantified Modal Logc doesn't work, because the Converse Barcan is a theorem [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Logical consequence guarantees preservation of truth. The Converse Barcan, a theorem of Simple Quantified Modal Logic, says that an obvious truth implies an obvious falsehood. So SQML gets logical consequence wrong. So SQML is mistaken. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.V) | |
A reaction: I admire this. The Converse Barcan certainly strikes me as wrong (Idea 19208). Merricks grasps this nettle. Williamson grasps the other nettle. Most people duck the issue, I suspect. Merricks says later that domains are the problem. |
19208 | The Converse Barcan implies 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists' [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The Converse Barcan Formula has a startling result. Simple Quantified Modal Logic (SQML) has the following as a theorem: □∀xFx → ∀x□Fx. So 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists'. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.V) | |
A reaction: He says this is blatantly wrong. Williamson is famous for defending it. I think I'm with Merricks on this one. |
19207 | Sentence logic maps truth values; predicate logic maps objects and sets [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The models for sentential logic map sentences to truth-values. The models for predicate logic map parts of sentences to objects and sets. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.II) | |
A reaction: Logic books rarely tell you important things like this. That is why this database is so incredibly important! You will never understand the subject if you don't collect together the illuminating asides of discussion. They say it all so much more simply. |
18317 | The 'real being' of things is a nothingness constructed from contradictions in the actual world [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The characteristics which have been assigned to the 'real being' of things are the characteristics of non-being, of nothingness - the 'real world has been constructed out of the contradiction of the actual world. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.6) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a critique of Hegel, in particular. Could we describe the metaphysics of Nietzsche as 'constructivist'? I certainly think he is underrated as a metaphysician, because the ideas are so fragmentary. |
18315 | We get the concept of 'being' from the concept of the 'ego' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Being is everywhere thought in, foisted on, as cause; it is only from the conception 'ego' that there follows, derivatively, the concept 'being'. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.5) | |
A reaction: 'Being' is such a remote abstraction that I doubt whether we can say anything at all meaningful about where it 'comes from'. |
18316 | The grounds for an assertion that the world is only apparent actually establish its reality [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The grounds upon which 'this' world has been designated as apparent establish rather its reality - another kind of reality is absolutely undemonstrable. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.6) |
18314 | In language we treat 'ego' as a substance, and it is thus that we create the concept 'thing' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: It is the metaphysics of language (that is, of reason) ....which believes in the 'ego', in the ego as being, in the ego as substance, and which projects its belief in the ego-substance on to all things - only thus does it create the concept 'thing'. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.5) |
19214 | In twinning, one person has the same origin as another person [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Origin essentialists claim that parental union results in a person, and that person could not have resulted from any other union. However, if the fertilised egg undergoes twinning, at least one of the resultant persons is not the original person. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 5.V) | |
A reaction: Merricks says that therefore that origin could have just produced the second twin, rather than the original person. This is interesting, but doesn't seem to threaten the necessity of origin thesis. Once I'm here, I have that origin, despite my twin. |
18309 | The evidence of the senses is falsified by reason [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: 'Reason' is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.1) | |
A reaction: One for McDowell. |
18323 | Any explanation will be accepted as true if it gives pleasure and a feeling of power [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying and gives moreover a feeling of power. ...First principle: any explanation is better than none. ...Proof by pleasure ('by potency') as criterion of truth. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.5) | |
A reaction: By 'proof by pleasure' he means that we find an explanation so satisfying that we cling to it. I assume it is a criterion of rationality (an epistemic virtue) to reject the principle 'any explanation is better than none'. Negative capability. |
18310 | The 'highest' concepts are the most general and empty concepts [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'highest concepts' ...are the most general, the emptiest concepts, the last fumes of evaporating reality. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.4) | |
A reaction: This could be seen as an attack on the aspirations of all of philosophy, which seeks general truths out of the chaos of experience. Should we shut up, then, and just be and do? |
20368 | There are no 'individual' persons; we are each the sum of humanity up to this moment [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'individual' ...is an error: he does not constitute a separate entity, an atom, a 'link in the chain', something merely inherited from the past - he constitutes the entire single line 'man' up to and including himself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.33) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this, but you can sort of imagine yourself as a culmination of something, rather than as an isolated entity. I'm not sure how that is supposed to affect my behaviour. |
2899 | The fanatical rationality of Greek philosophy shows that they were in a state of emergency [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought throws itself at rationality betrays itself as a state of emergency: one was in peril, one had only one choice: either to perish or- be absurdly rational. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.10) |
19217 | I don't accept that if a proposition is directly about an entity, it has a relation to the entity [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The Aboutness Assumption says that necessarily, if a proposition is directly about an entity, then that proposition stands in a relation to the entity. I shall argue that the Assumption is false. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 5.VII) | |
A reaction: This feels sort of right, though the nature of aboutness remains elusive. He cites denials of existence. I take speech to be fairly internal, even though its main role is communication. Maybe its a Cambridge relation, as far as the entity is concerned. |
19203 | A sentence's truth conditions depend on context [Merricks] |
Full Idea: A sentence has truth conditions only in a context of use. And the truth conditions of many sentences can differ from one context of use to another (as in 'I am a philosopher'). | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 1.II) | |
A reaction: He is building a defence of propositions, because they are eternal, and have their truth conditions essentially. I too am a fan of propositions. |
19200 | Propositions are standardly treated as possible worlds, or as structured [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The thesis that propositions are sets of possible worlds is one of the two leading accounts of the nature of propositions. The other leading account endorses structured propositions. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], Intro) | |
A reaction: Merricks sets out to reject both main views. I take the idea that propositions actually are sets of possible worlds to be ridiculous (though they may offer a way of modelling them). The idea that they have no structure at all strikes me as odd. |
19206 | 'Cicero is an orator' represents the same situation as 'Tully is an orator', so they are one proposition [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The proposition expressed by 'Cicero is an orator' represents things as being exactly the same way as does the proposition expressed by 'Tully is an orator'. Hence two sentences express the same proposition. Fregeans about names deny this. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.II) | |
A reaction: Merricks makes the situation in the world fix the contents of the proposition. I don't agree. I would expand the first proposition as 'The person I know as 'Cicero' was an orator', but I might never have heard of 'Tully'. |
19202 | Propositions are necessary existents which essentially (but inexplicably) represent things [Merricks] |
Full Idea: My account says that each proposition is a necessary existent that essentially represents things as being a certain way, ...and there is no explanation of how propositions do that. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], Intro) | |
A reaction: Since I take propositions to be brain events, I don't expect much of an explanation either. The idea that propositions necessarily exist strikes me as false. If there were no minds, there would have been no propositions. |
19204 | True propositions existed prior to their being thought, and might never be thought [Merricks] |
Full Idea: 1,000 years ago, no sentence had ever expressed, and no one had believed, the true proposition 'a water molecule has two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms'. There are surely true propositions that have never been, and never will be, expressed or believed. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 1.V) | |
A reaction: 'Surely'? Surely not! How many propositions exist? Where do they exist? What are they made of? If they already exist when we think them, how do we tune into them? When did his example come into existence? Before water did? No! No! |
19210 | The standard view of propositions says they never change their truth-value [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The standard view among philosophers nowadays seems to be that propositions do not and even cannot change in truth-value. But my own view is that some propositions can, and do, change in truth value. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 3.VII) | |
A reaction: He gives 'that A sits' as an example of one which can change, though 'that A sits at time t' cannot change. I take Merricks to be obviously right, and cannot get my head round the 'standard' view. What on earth do they think a proposition is? |
19201 | Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks] |
Full Idea: If a singular proposition is 'directly about' an entity, I argue that a singular proposition does not have the entity that it is directly about as a constituent. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], Intro) | |
A reaction: This opposes the view of the early Russell, that propositions actually contain the entities they are about, thus making propositions real features of the external world. I take that view of Russell's to be absurd. |
19211 | Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks] |
Full Idea: I describe Russell's 1903 account of propositions as the view that each proposition is identical with the state of affairs that makes that proposition true. That is, a proposition is identical with its 'truthmaking' state of affairs. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 4.II) | |
A reaction: Russell soon gave this view up (false propositions proving tricky), and I'm amazed anyone takes it seriously. I take it as axiomatic that if there were no minds there would be no propositions. Was the Big Bang a set of propositions? |
19212 | Unity of the proposition questions: what unites them? can the same constituents make different ones? [Merricks] |
Full Idea: What binds the constituents of a structured proposition together into a single unity, a proposition? Can the very same constituents constitute two distinct propositions? These are questions about 'the unity of the proposition'. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 4.II) | |
A reaction: Merricks solves it by saying propositions have no structure. The problem is connected to the nature of predication (instantiation, partaking). You can't just list objects and their properties. Objects are united, and thus propositions are too. |
19213 | We want to explain not just what unites the constituents, but what unites them into a proposition [Merricks] |
Full Idea: A successful account of the unity of the proposition tells us what unites the relevant constituents not merely into some entity or other, but into a proposition. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 4.X) | |
A reaction: Merrickes takes propositions to be unanalysable unities, but their central activity is representation, so if they needed uniting, that would be the place to look. Some people say that we unite our propositions. Others say the world does. I dunno. |
18313 | The big error is to think the will is a faculty producing effects; in fact, it is just a word [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: At the beginning stands the great fateful error that the will is something which produces an effect - that will is a faculty.... Today we know it is merely a word. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.5) | |
A reaction: This is despite Nietzsche's insistence that 'will to power' is the central fact of active existence. The misreading of Nietzsche is to think that this refers to the conscious exercising of a mental faculty. |
20133 | The 'motive' is superficial, and may even hide the antecedents of a deed [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The so-called 'motive' is another error. Merely a surface phenomenon of consciousness - something alongside the deed which is more likely to cover up the antecedents of the deed than to represent them. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 6.3) | |
A reaction: [Leiter gives 'VI.3', but I can't find it] As far as you can get from intellectualism about action, and is more in accord with the picture found in modern neuro-science. No one knows why they are 'interested' in something, and that's the start of it. |
18326 | The beautiful never stands alone; it derives from man's pleasure in man [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Anyone who tried to divorce the beautiful from man's pleasure in man would at once feel the ground give way beneath him. The 'beautiful in itself' is not even a concept, merely a phrase. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.19) | |
A reaction: I love the insult 'not even a concept'! It's like Pauli's 'not even wrong'! |
20101 | Without music life would be a mistake [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Without music life would be a mistake. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 33) | |
A reaction: Cf Schopenhauer in Idea 21469. If you, dear reader, don't love music, then I sincerely hope that there is something in your life which can match it. |
2902 | Healthy morality is dominated by an instinct for life [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: All naturalism in morality, that is all healthy morality, is dominated by an instinct for life. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.4) | |
A reaction: Sounds right. There is no reasoning against a moral nihilist, because they seem to have no instinct in favour of life. It is the given of morality. |
18311 | Philosophers hate values having an origin, and want values to be self-sufficient [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: For philosophers, the higher must not be allowed to grow out of the lower, must not be allowed to have grown at all ...Moral: everything of the first rank must be causa sui. Origin in something else counts as an objection, as casting a doubt on value. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.4) | |
A reaction: This is so deep and central that I wrote a paper on it, advocating that the theory of values should focus of value-makers. |
18324 | There are no moral facts, and moralists believe in realities which do not exist [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: An insight formulated by me: that there are no moral facts whatever. Moral judgement has this in common with religious judgement that it believes in realities which do not exist. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 6.1) | |
A reaction: Not only a slogan for non-cognitivism, but also a clear statement of the error theory about morality, a century before John Mackie. |
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. |
2904 | The doctrine of free will has been invented essentially in order to blame and punish people [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The doctrine of will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is of finding guilty. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.7) | |
A reaction: Michael Frede says free will was invented to feel wholly in charge of our own actions. I doubt whether punishment was the first motive. The will just gives a simple explanation of actions. |
2894 | Value judgements about life can never be true [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Judgements, value judgements concerning life, for or against it, can in the last resort never be true. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.02) | |
A reaction: I suppose this is in the same spirit as judging whether celery tastes nice. Are you for or against the Moon? |
18321 | To evaluate life one must know it, but also be situated outside of it [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: One would have to be situated outside life ....[and yet know it thoroughly] ....to be permitted to touch on the problem of the value of life at all. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.5) | |
A reaction: Can practising artists question the value of their art? The whole point of objectivity is that we can mentally step 'outside' of something, without actually withdrawing from it. |
2895 | The value of life cannot be estimated [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The value of life cannot be estimated. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.02) | |
A reaction: Military leaders apparently judge that the death of one of their own soldiers is worth between 12 and 20 enemy deaths (so history suggests). How about ransom money? |
18322 | When we establish values, that is life itself establishing them, through us [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: When we speak of values we do so under the inspiration and from the perspective of life: life itself evaluates through us when we establish values | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.5) | |
A reaction: I love Nietzsche's ideas about the source of values, and his remarks about the value of life. Other thinkers sound so simplistic in comparison. |
2893 | In every age the wisest people have judged life to be worthless [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgement on life: it is worthless. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.01) | |
A reaction: I guess he was having a bad day. Since the whole universe is clearly 'worthless', this judgement must in some sense be correct. But I love my books. |
18308 | A philosopher fails in wisdom if he thinks the value of life is a problem [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life thus even constitutes an objection to him, a question-mark as to his wisdom, a piece of unwisdom. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 1.02) | |
A reaction: I take his point to be neither that life is unquestionably valuable nor that it is valueless, but that the very question is ridiculous. If we live, we value living. Sounds right. |
18319 | Love is the spiritualisation of sensuality [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The spiritualization of sensuality is called 'love': it is a great triumph over Christianity. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.3) | |
A reaction: I'm not quite clear what 'spiritualization' means, particularly when it comes from Nietzsche. |
2903 | A good human will be virtuous because they are happy [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: A well-constituted human being, a 'happy one', must perform certain actions and shrink from other actions. In a formula: his virtue is the consequence of his happiness. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.2) | |
A reaction: A nice reversal of basic Aristotle, though Aristotle does say that the truly virtuous person is happy in their actions. Treat unhappy people with caution! |
2891 | Only the English actually strive after happiness [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Man does not strive after happiness; only the Englishman does that. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 12) | |
A reaction: The Danes keeping being voted the happiest nation, so presumably that results from some sort of effort on their part. The easiest is happiness is to achieve security, then do nothing. |
18327 | A wholly altruistic morality, with no egoism, is a thoroughly bad thing [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: An 'altruistic' morality, a morality under which egoism languishes - is under all circumstances a bad sign. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.35) |
15606 | Military idea: what does not kill me makes me stronger [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: From the military school of life. - What does not kill me makes me stronger. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], Maxim 08) | |
A reaction: The published version! Perhaps the most famous remark in all of Nietzsche, and no one realises it is ironic! It is a sarcastic remark about the battering ram mentality of the Prussian militarist! He had served in the army. |
18328 | Invalids are parasites [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The invalid is a parasite on society. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.36) | |
A reaction: I'll skip the rest, but you get the idea. The point (with which I sympathise) is that life is primarily about what healthy people do. Something has gone wrong if all we do is worry about the sick and the suffering. |
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. |
18331 | Democracy is organisational power in decline [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Democracy has always been the declining form of the power to organise. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.39) | |
A reaction: Even when Nietzsche is wrong (and who knows, here?) he always challenges you to think! |
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. |
18332 | The creation of institutions needs a determination which is necessarily anti-liberal [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: For institutions to exist there must exist the kind of will, instinct, imperative which is anti-liberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority, to centuries-long responsibility, to solidarity between succeeding generations. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.39) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a lovely challenge to Popper, who seems to have been a liberal who pinned his faith on institutions. |
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. |
2911 | True justice is equality for equals and inequality for unequals [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: 'Equality for equals, inequality for unequals' - that would be the true voice of justice. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.48) |
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. |
18320 | To renounce war is to renounce the grand life [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: One has renounced grand life when one renounces war. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.3) | |
A reaction: Nietzsche was a medical orderly in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, so he had seen it at first hand. I think the machine gun and the heavy bomber would have changed his attitude to warfare. He sounds a bit silly now. Nostalgia for the Iliad. |
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). |
2908 | There is a need for educators who are themselves educated [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: There is a need for educators who are themselves educated. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 7.5) |
18329 | Sometimes it is an error to have been born - but we can rectify it [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: We have no power to prevent ourselves being born: but we can rectify this error - for sometimes it is an error. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.36) |
2905 | 'Purpose' is just a human fiction [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: We invented the concept 'purpose': in reality purpose is lacking. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.8) |
18312 | The supreme general but empty concepts must be compatible, and hence we get 'God' [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The supreme concepts of philosophers cannot be incommensurate with one another, be incompatible with one another... Thus they acquired their stupendous concept 'God'.... The last, thinnest, emptiest is placed as the first, as cause in itself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.4) |
2906 | By denying God we deny human accountability, and thus we redeem the world [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: We deny God; in denying God we deny accountability; only by doing that do we redeem the world. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 5.8) |
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. |
2901 | How could the Church intelligently fight against passion if it preferred poorness of spirit to intelligence? [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The primitive church fought against the 'intelligent' in favour of the 'poor in spirit': how could one expect from it an intelligent war against passion? | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.1) |
18325 | Christians believe that only God can know what is good for man [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know what is good for him and what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 8.05) |
18318 | People who disparage actual life avenge themselves by imagining a better one [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: If there is a strong instinct for slandering, disparaging and accusing life within us, then we revenge ourselves on life by means of the phantasmagoria of 'another', a 'better' life. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.6) |