9 ideas
7662 | Romanticism is the greatest change in the consciousness of the West [Berlin] |
Full Idea: Romanticism seems to me the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West that has occurred. | |
From: Isaiah Berlin (The Roots of Romanticism [1965], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Far be it from me to challenge Berlin on such things, but I think that the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century (though acting more slowly and less dramatically than romanticism) may well be more significant in the long run. Ideas filter down. |
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. |
10269 | Mathematics eliminates possibility, as being simultaneous actuality in sets [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Mathematics has got rid of possibility by simply assuming that, up to isomorphism anyway, all possibilities are simultaneous actual - actual, that is, in the universe of 'sets'. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (What is Mathematical Truth? [1975], p.70), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 7.5 |
7665 | Most Enlightenment thinkers believed that virtue consists ultimately in knowledge [Berlin] |
Full Idea: What is common to most of the main thinker of the Enlightenment is the view that virtue consists ultimately in knowledge. | |
From: Isaiah Berlin (The Roots of Romanticism [1965], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I have always found this view (which seems to originate with Socrates) rather sympathetic. What is so frustrating about cheerful optimists who smoke cigarettes is not the weakness of will or strong desires, but their apparent failure of understanding. |
7676 | If we are essentially free wills, authenticity and sincerity are the highest virtues [Berlin] |
Full Idea: Since (for romantics) we are wills, and we must be free, in the Kantian sense, controllable motives count more than consequences, and the greatest virtue of all is what existentialists call 'authenticity' and what romantics called 'sincerity'. | |
From: Isaiah Berlin (The Roots of Romanticism [1965], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: The case of the sincere or authentic Nazi shows the problems with this. However, I agree that sincerity is a key virtue, perhaps the crucial preliminary to all the other virtues. It is hard to imagine a flow of other virtues from an insincere person. |
7664 | The Greeks have no notion of obligation or duty [Berlin] |
Full Idea: There is an absence among the Greeks of a notion of obligation, and hence of duty, which is difficult to grasp for people who read the Greeks through spectacles partly affected by the jews. | |
From: Isaiah Berlin (The Roots of Romanticism [1965], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This doesn't quite fit early section of 'Republic', in which morality is a mutual agreement not to do harm. Presumably the Greek word 'deon' refers to what needs to be done, rather than to anyone's obligation to do it(?). Contracts need duty? Cf. 4133 |
7677 | Central to existentialism is the romantic idea that there is nothing to lean on [Berlin] |
Full Idea: The central sermon of existentialism is essentially a romantic one, namely, that there is in the world nothing to lean on. | |
From: Isaiah Berlin (The Roots of Romanticism [1965], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: He tracks this back to Kant's view that our knowledge of the world arises out of our own minds. So what is there to lean on? Rational consistency? Natural human excellence? God? Pleasure? Anonymous duty? I like the second one. |
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). |
7663 | Judaism and Christianity views are based on paternal, family and tribal relations [Berlin] |
Full Idea: The notion from which both Judaism and Christianity to a large degree sprang is the notion of family life, the relations of father and son, perhaps the relations of members of a tribe to one another. | |
From: Isaiah Berlin (The Roots of Romanticism [1965], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: He compares this with Plato's mathematical view of reality. Key stories would be Abraham and Isaac, and Jesus being the 'son' of God, which both touch the killing of the child. Berlin means that the universe is explained this way. |