Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'The Law of Peoples' and 'talk'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / c. A unified people

21137	Rawls rejected cosmopolitanism because it doesn't respect the autonomy of 'peoples' [Rawls, by Shorten]
	Full Idea: Rawls rejected the cosmopolitan extension of his theory because he thought it failed to respect the political autonomy of 'peoples', which was his term of art for societies or political communities.
	From: report of John Rawls (The Law of Peoples [1999], p.115-8) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 09
	A reaction: Interesting that you might well start with the concept of 'a people', prior to some sort of social contract, but end up with rather alarming conflicts or indifference between rival peoples. Why should my people help in the famine next door?

24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 5. Culture

21432	Culture is the struggle to agree what is normal [Gibson,A]
	Full Idea: Culture is the struggle to agree what is normal.
	From: Andrew Gibson (talk [2018])
	A reaction: A nice aphorism. Typically the struggle took place in villages, but has now gone global. The normalities of other cultures are beamed into a remote society, and are frequently unwelcome.