17 ideas
| 3067 | A philosopher should have principles ready for understanding, like a surgeon with instruments [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: As physicians have always their instruments and knives ready for cases which suddenly require their skill, so should you have principles ready for the understanding of things divine and human. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 3.13) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Philosophy is the training ground where wisdom and good living are made possible, but it cannot be a substitute for living. |
| 23877 | Most people won't question an idea's truth if they depend on it [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The majority of human beings do not question the truth of an idea without which they would literally be unable to live. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.163) | |
| A reaction: I assume that this inability grows stronger with age, as the dependence on the idea runs deeper. Hence for most people the beliefs which sustain them have a higher value than truth. Obviously we should all make love of truth our guiding idea! |
| 3072 | Everything is changing, including yourself and the whole universe [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: All things are changing; and you yourself are in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction, and the whole universe too. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 9.19) |
| 23878 | Weakness of will is the inadequacy of the original impetus to carry through the action [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is naïve to be astonished when we do not stick to firm resolutions. Something stimulated the resolution, but that something was not powerful enough to bring us to the point of carrying it out. Making the resolution may even have exhausted the stimulus. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.169) | |
| A reaction: Socrates says it is a change of belief. Aristotle says it is a desire overcoming a belief. Weil gives a third way: that it is a fading in the strength of the original belief/desire impetus. |
| 8122 | True works of art transmit completely new feelings [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Only that is a true work of art which transmits fresh feelings not previously experienced by man. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: I think a great composer will probably not have any new feelings at all, but will discover new expressions which contain feelings by which even they are surprised (e.g. the Tristan chord). |
| 8121 | Art is when one man uses external signs to hand on his feelings to another man [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Art is a human activity in which one man consciously by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and other are infected by those feelings, and also experience them. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Such definitions always work better for some art forms than for others. This may fit 'Anna Karenin' quite well, but probably not Bach's 'Art of Fugue'. Writing obscenities on someone's front door would fit this definition. |
| 8124 | The highest feelings of mankind can only be transmitted by art [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The highest feelings to which mankind has attained can only be transmitted from man to man by art. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: We are much more nervous these days of talking about 'highest' feelings. Tolstoy obviously considers religion to be an ingredient of the highest feelings, but that prevents us from judging them purely as feelings. Music is the place to rank feelings. |
| 8123 | The purpose of art is to help mankind to evolve better, more socially beneficial feelings [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The evolution of feeling proceeds by means of art - feelings less kind and less necessary for the well-being of mankind being replaced by others kinder and more needful for that end. That is the purpose of art. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.16) | |
| A reaction: Underneath his superficially expressivist view of art, Tolstoy is really an old-fashioned moralist about it, like Dr Johnson. This is the moralism of the great age of the nineteenth century novel (which was, er, the greatest age of the novel!). |
| 22710 | People estimate art according to their moral values [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The estimation of the value of art …depends on men's perception of the meaning of life; depends on what they hold to be the good and evil of life. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898]), quoted by Iris Murdoch - The Sublime and the Good p.206 | |
| A reaction: [No ref given] This is put to the test by the insightful depiction of wickedness. We condemn the wickedness and admire the insight. Every reading of a novel is a moral journey, though I'm not sure how the true psychopath reads a novel. |
| 8125 | The upper classes put beauty first, and thus freed themselves from morality [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The people of the upper class, more and more frequently encountering the contradictions between beauty and goodness, put the ideal of beauty first, thus freeing themselves from the demands of morality. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: The rich are a great deal freer to pursue the demands of beauty than are the poor. They also have a tradition of 'immorality' (such as duels and adultery) which was in place long before they discovered art. |
| 8064 | We separate the concept of beauty from goodness, unlike the ancients [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The ancients had not that conception of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of aesthetics in our time. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This is written at around the time of the Aesthetic Movement, but Tolstoy's own novels are intensely moral. This separation makes abstract painting possible. |
| 23879 | In a violent moral disagreement, it can't be that both sides are just following social morality [Weil] |
| Full Idea: If two men are in violent disagreement about good and evil, it is hard to believe that both of them are blindly subject to the opinion of the society around them. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.171) | |
| A reaction: What a beautifully simple observation. Simone would have become a major figure if she had lived longer. No philosopher has ever written better prose. |
| 3066 | Nothing is evil which is according to nature [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is evil which is according to nature. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 2.17) | |
| A reaction: A bit hopeful. Sounds tautological. I.e. anything which is agreed to be evil is probably immediately labelled as 'unnatural'. What would he agree was evil? |
| 3071 | Justice has no virtue opposed to it, but pleasure has temperance opposed to it [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: In the constitution of the rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice; but I see a virtue which is opposed to pleasure, and that is temperance. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 8.39) | |
| A reaction: There are plenty of hideous things opposed to justice, but presumably that immediately disqualifies them from being virtues. |
| 3069 | The art of life is more like the wrestler's than the dancer's [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: The art of life is more like the wrestler's than the dancer's. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 7.61) |
| 3065 | Humans are naturally made for co-operation [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: We are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 2.1) |
| 23880 | When war was a profession, customary morality justified any act of war [Weil] |
| Full Idea: At the time when war was a profession, fighting men had a morality whereby any act of war, in accordance with the customs of war, and contributing to victory, was legitimate and right. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Is There a Marxist Doctrine? [1943], p.173) | |
| A reaction: Note the caveat about 'customs', which were largely moral. See the discussion of killing the non-combatant prisoners in Shakespeare's 'Henry V'. |