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All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'works' and 'Introduction to Philosophical Papers I'

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9 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
22070 Irony is consciousness of abundant chaos [Schlegel,F]
     Full Idea: Irony is the clear conscousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely abundant chaos.
     From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol 2 p.263), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism p.81
     A reaction: [1800, in Athenaum] The interest here is irony as a reaction to chaos, which has made systematic thought impossible. Do romantics necessarily see reality as beyond our grasp, even if not chaotic? This must be situational, not verbal irony.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
22069 Plato has no system. Philosophy is the progression of a mind and development of thoughts [Schlegel,F]
     Full Idea: Plato had no system, but only a philosophy. The philosophy of a human being is the history, the becoming, the progression of his mind, the gradual formation and development of his thoughts.
     From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol.11 p.118), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism
     A reaction: [1804] Looks like the first sign of rebellion against the idea of having a 'system' in philosophy, making it a key idea of romanticism. Systems are classical? This looks like an early opposition of a historical dimension to static systems. Big idea.
21461 I tried to be unsystematic and piecemeal, but failed; my papers presuppose my other views [Lewis]
     Full Idea: I should have like to be a piecemeal, unsystematic philosopher, offering independent proposals on a variety of topics. It was not be. I succumbed too often to the temptation to presuppose my views on one topic when writing on another.
     From: David Lewis (Introduction to Philosophical Papers I [1983], p.1)
     A reaction: He particularly mentions his possible worlds realism as a doctrine which coloured all his other work. A charming insight into the mind of a systematic thinker (called by someone 'the most systematic metaphysician since Leibniz').
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
8978 Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
     Full Idea: Events are not basic items in the universe; they should not be included in any fundamental ontology...all the truths about them are entailed by and explained and made true by truths that do not involve the event concept.
     From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1
     A reaction: Given the variable time spans of events, their ability to coincide, their ability to contain no motion, their blatantly conventional component, and their recalcitrance to individuation, I say Bennett is right.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
22068 Poetry is transcendental when it connects the ideal to the real [Schlegel,F]
     Full Idea: There is a kind of poetry whose essence lies in the relation between the ideal and the real, and which therefore, by analogy with philosophical jargon, should be called transcendental poetry.
     From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol 2 p.204), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism p.78
     A reaction: I think the basic idea is that the imaginative creation of poetry has the power to bridge the gap between the transcendental (presupposed) ideal in Fichte, and nature (which Fichte seems to have excluded from his system).
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature
22030 For poets free choice is supreme [Schlegel,F]
     Full Idea: Romantic poetry recognises as its first commandment that the free choice [Wilkür] of the poet can tolerate no law above itself.
     From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Frag 116 p.32), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06
     A reaction: This leads to Shelley's 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the race'. We should also take it as a response to Kant's categorical imperative, which leads to the Gauguin Problem (wickedness justified by the art it leads to).
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
22071 True love is ironic, in the contrast between finite limitations and the infinity of love [Schlegel,F]
     Full Idea: True irony is the irony of love. It arises from the feeling of finitude and one's own limitation, and the apparent contradiction of these feelings with the concept of infinity inherent in all true love.
     From: Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798], Vol.10 p.357), quoted by Ernst Behler - Early German Romanticism
     A reaction: [c.1827] This is more about idealist philosophy and its yearning for the Absolute than it is about the actual nature of love. Love is the door to the Absolute. The irony is our inability to pass through it.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 3. Angst
22029 Irony is the response to conflicts of involvement and attachment [Schlegel,F, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Irony is thus the appropriate stance to feeling that is both inescapably committed and inescapably detached at the same time.
     From: report of Friedrich Schlegel (works [1798]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06
     A reaction: This is the epitome of romanticism, which carries over into the dilemmas of existentialism. Striking the right balance between caring and not caring seems to me to be the main focus of modern British people.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
10364 Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett]
     Full Idea: Facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world.
     From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1
     A reaction: Compare 10361. Good argument, but maybe 'fact' is ambiguous. See Idea 10365. Events are said to be more concrete, and so can do the job, but their individuation also seems to depend on a description (as Davidson has pointed out).