28 ideas
| 9777 | Kant was the first philosopher [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: From today's perspective it is in a way clear that Kant was the first philosopher. Pre-Kantian philosophy cannot think in his transcendental aspect. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §1) | |
| A reaction: It is probably equally plausible to say that Kant was the last philosopher. More thought-provoking than true. |
| 2666 | Carneades' pinnacles of philosophy are the basis of knowledge (the criterion of truth) and the end of appetite (good) [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Carneades said the two greatest things in philosophy were the criterion of truth and the end of goods, and no man could be a sage who was ignorant of the existence of either a beginning of the process of knowledge or an end of appetition. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.09.29 | |
| A reaction: Nice, but I would want to emphasise the distinction between truth and its criterion. Admittedly we would have no truth without a good criterion, but the truth itself should be held in higher esteem than our miserable human means of grasping it. |
| 9778 | There is no dialogue in philosophy [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: I think I truly became a philosopher when I realised that there is no dialogue in philosophy. Plato's dialogues are clearly fakes, with one guy talking most of the time. ...Philosophy as an interdisciplinary project is the ultimate nightmare. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §1) | |
| A reaction: This goes against all my prejudices in favour of teamwork and mutual criticism (e.g. Idea 1576), but I was a bit shaken by it, and have begun to wonder whether I must just face up to the solitary nature of the enterprise. |
| 9779 | Philosophy is transcendental questioning (not supporting science or constructing ontology) [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy can no longer play its traditional roles, giving foundations to science, or constructing general ontology. It should simply fulfil its task of transcendental questioning. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §2) | |
| A reaction: I remain unsure what is being recommended, unless it is for philosophy to start asking questions just at the point where everyone else gives up. |
| 22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte 'subjectivity' came first, and he was then stuck with the (impossible) task of showing how 'objectivity' arose out of it. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: The best available answer to this problem (for idealists) is, I think, Nietzsche's perspectives, in which multiple subjectivities are summed to produce a blurred picture which has a degree of consensus. Fichte later embraced other minds. |
| 21390 | Future events are true if one day we will say 'this event is happening now' [Carneades] |
| Full Idea: We call those past events true of which at an earlier time this proposition was true: 'They are present now'; similarly, we shall call those future events true of which at some future time this proposition will be true: 'They are present now'. | |
| From: Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 9.23-8 | |
| A reaction: This is a very nice way of paraphrasing statements about the necessity of true future contingent events. It still relies, of course, on the veracity of a tensed assertion |
| 21672 | We say future things are true that will possess actuality at some following time [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Just as we speak of past things as true that possessed true actuality at some former time, so we speak of future things as true that will possess true actuality at some following time. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 11.27 | |
| A reaction: This ducks the Aristotle problem of where it is true NOW when you say there will be a sea-fight tomorrow, and it turns out to be true. Carneades seems to be affirming a truth when it does not yet have a truthmaker. |
| 22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: To adopt any kind of normative stance is to commit oneself necessarily to the possibility of negation. It involves doing something correctly or incorrectly, so there must exist the possibility of denying or affirming. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key idea for understanding Hegel's logic. Personally I think animals have a non-verbal experience of negation - when a partner dies, for example. |
| 15825 | Carneades denied the transitivity of identity [Carneades, by Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: Carneades denied the principle of the transitivity of identity. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE], fr 41-42) by Roderick Chisholm - Person and Object 3.1 | |
| A reaction: Chisholm calls this 'extreme', but I assume Carneades wouldn't deny the principle in mathematics. I'm guessing that he just means that nothing ever stays quite the same. |
| 21389 | Carneades distinguished logical from causal necessity, when talking of future events [Long on Carneades] |
| Full Idea: From 'E will take place is true' it follows that E must take place. But 'must' here is logical not causal necessity. It is a considerable achievement of Carneades to have distinguished these two senses of necessity. | |
| From: comment on Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 3 | |
| A reaction: Personally I am inclined to think 'necessity' is univocal, and does not have two senses. What Carneades has nicely done is distinguish the two different grounds for the necessities. |
| 22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte thought that everything that involves necessary truths - even mathematics and logic - should be shown to follow from the more basic principles involved in assertion and negation. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: An interesting proposal, though I am struggling to see how it works. Fichte sees assertion and negation as foundational (Idea 22017), but I take them to be responses to the real world. |
| 22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Only Fichte's principles are deduced in his book, that is, the logical ones, and not even these completely. And what about the practical, the moral and ethical ones. Society, learning, wit, art, and so on are also entitled to be deduced here. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works Vol 18 p.34 | |
| A reaction: This is the beginnings of the romantic rebellion against a rather narrowly rationalist approach to philosophy. Schlegel also objects to the fact that Fichte only had one axiom (presumably the idea of the not-Self). |
| 22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte's key claim was that the difference between the subjective and the objective points of view had to be itself a subjective distinction, something that the 'I' posits. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09 | |
| A reaction: This seems to lock us firmly into the idealist mental prison and throw away the key. |
| 22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: A rational creature cannot posit itself as such a creature with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among many rational creatures. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.8), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 n25 | |
| A reaction: [1796 book about his Wissenschaftlehre] This is the transcendental (Kantian) approach to other minds. Wittgenstein's private language argument is similar. Hegel was impressed by this idea (I think). |
| 9780 | Consciousness is a malfunction of evolution [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is a kind of mistake, a malfunction of evolution, and out of this mistake a miracle occurred. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §2) | |
| A reaction: Rather hard to prove, but actually quite an uplifting thought. If consciousness only evolved so that we could navigate and defend ourselves, our 'higher' activities seem irrelevant. But Zizek's view means we can make them central. Nice. |
| 22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: According to Fichte, spontaneity, self-relatedness, and unity are the basic traits of knowledge (which includes conscience). ...This principle of all knowledge is what he calls the 'I' or the Self. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.58 | |
| A reaction: This is the idealist view. He gets 'spontaneity' from Kant, which is the mind's contribution to experience. Self-relatedness is the distinctive Fichte idea. Unity presumably means total coherence, which is typical of idealists. |
| 22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Novalis aimed to create a theory of the ego with a much wider scope than Fichte's doctrine of knowledge had been able to establish. ....Without philosophy, imperfect poet - without poetry, imperfect thinker. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Novalis - Logological Fragments I vol.3 p.531 | |
| A reaction: [in his 'Fichte Studies] Since this is at the heart of early romanticism, I take the concept to embrace nature, as well as creative imagination. There is a general rebellion against the narrowness of Fichte. |
| 22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte said the self is not a natural 'thing' but is itself a normative status, and 'it' can obtain this status, so it seems, only by an act of attributing it to itself. ...He continually identified the 'I' with 'reason' itself. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: Pinkard says Fichte gradually qualified this claim. Fichte struggled to state his view in a way that avoided obvious paradoxes. 'My mind produces decisions, so there must be someone in charge of them'? Is this transcendental? |
| 22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I can be conscious of any object only on the condition that I am also conscious of myself, that is, of the conscious subject. This proposition is incontrovertible. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.112), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: [from the 1797/8 version of Wissenschaftslehre] Russell might be cross to find that his idea on this was anticipated by Fichte. I still approve of the idea. |
| 21671 | Voluntary motion is intrinsically within our power, and this power is its cause [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Voluntary motion possesses the intrinsic property of being in our power and of obeying us, and its obedience is not uncaused, for its nature is itself the cause of this. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 11.25 | |
| A reaction: To say that actions arise from our 'intrinsic power' is not much of an explanation, but it is still informative - that you should study the intrinsic powers of humans if you want to explain it. |
| 21391 | Some actions are within our power; determinism needs prior causes for everything - so it is false [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Now something is in our power; but if everything happens as a result of destiny all things happen as a result of antecedent causes; therefore what happens does not happen as a result of destiny. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 14.31 | |
| A reaction: This invites the question of whether some things really are 'in our power'. Carneades (as expressed by Cicero) takes that for granted. Our 'power' may be antecedent causes in disguise. |
| 21674 | Even Apollo can only foretell the future when it is naturally necessary [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Carneades used to say that not even Apollo could tell any future events except those whose causes were so held together that they must necessarily happen. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 14.32 | |
| A reaction: Carneades is opposing the usual belief in divination, where even priests can foretell contingent future events to some extent. Careneades, of course, was defending free will. |
| 22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte, to judge means to distinguish concepts from one another and to place them in relationship to one another. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.59 | |
| A reaction: This idea of Fichte's seems to be the key one for Hegel, and hence (I presume) it is the lynchpin of German Idealism. It seems to describe mathematical knowledge quite well. I don't think it fits judging whether there is a snake in the grass. |
| 22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte placed emphasis on human spontaneity, on nothing 'counting' for us unless we somehow bestowed some kind of status on it. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: This idea evidentally arises from Kant's account of thought. Pinkard says this idea inspired the early Romantics. I would have thought the drive to exist (Spinoza's conatus) would make things count whether we liked it or not. |
| 9781 | Tolerance and love are strategies to avoid encountering our neighbours [Zizek] |
| Full Idea: All this preaching about tolerance, love for one's neighbour and so on, are ultimately strategies to avoid encountering the neighbour. | |
| From: Slavoj Zizek (Conversations, with Glyn Daly [2004], §2) | |
| A reaction: I have begun to wonder whether some such motivation underlies the modern obsession with raising huge sums for charity. |
| 7398 | Carneades said that after a shipwreck a wise man would seize the only plank by force [Carneades, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Carneades argued forcefully that in the event of a shipwreck, the wise man would be prepared to seize the only plank capable of bearing him to shore, even if that meant pushing another person off it. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: [source for this?] This thought seems to have provoked great discussion in the sixteenth century (mostly sympathetic). I can't help thinking the right answer depends on assessing your rival. Die for a hero, drown a nasty fool. |
| 21392 | People change laws for advantage; either there is no justice, or it is a form of self-injury [Carneades, by Lactantius] |
| Full Idea: The same people often changed laws according to circumstances; there is no natural law. There is no such thing as justice or, if there is, it is the height of folly, since a man injures himself in taking thought for the advantage of others. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by Lactantius - Institutiones Divinae 5.16.4 | |
| A reaction: [An argument used by Carneades on his notorious 156BCE visit to Rome, where he argued both for and against justice] This is probably the right wing view of justice. Why give other people what they want, if it is at our expense? |
| 22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Fichte reduces the non-Ego or nature to a state of constant calm, standstill, immobility, lack of all change, movement and life, that is death. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works vol 12 p.190 | |
| A reaction: The point is that Fichte's nature is a merely logical or conceptual deduction from the spontaneous reason of the self, so it can't have the lively diversity we find in nature. |