7 ideas
21982 | I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L] |
Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people." | |
From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork. |
12708 | The soul is not a substance but a substantial form, the first active faculty [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The soul, properly and accurately speaking, is not a substance, but a substantial form, or the primitive form existing in substances, the first act, the first active faculty. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Fardella [1690], A6.4.1670), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 2 | |
A reaction: In all of Leibniz's many gropings towards what is at the heart of a unified object, I pounce on the phrase "the first active faculty" as the one that suits me. I take that to be a 'power'. It has two characteristics - it is active, and it is basic. |
23061 | Free atheism should start by questioning its faith in humanity [Gray] |
Full Idea: A free-thinking atheism would begin by questioning the prevailing faith in humanity. But there is little prospect of contemporary atheists giving up their reverence for this phantom. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Conc) | |
A reaction: He seems to be referring to 'humanism', which I take to be quite different from atheism. I take it as obvious that simple atheism is entirely neutral on the question of whether we should have 'faith' in humanity (which presumably mean optimism). |
23057 | Gnosticism has a supreme creator God, giving way to a possibly hostile Demiurge [Gray] |
Full Idea: Gnostic traditions envisage a supreme God that created the universe and then withdrew into itself, leaving the world to be ruled by a lesser god, or Demiurge, which might be indifferent or hostile to mankind. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: It doesn't seem to solve any problems, given that the first God is 'supreme', and is therefore responsible for the introduction and actions of the later Demiurge. |
23056 | Judaism only became monotheistic around 550 BCE [Gray] |
Full Idea: It was only sometime around the sixth century BC, during the period when the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, that the idea that there is only one God emerged in Jewish religion. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: There seems to be a parallel move among the Greeks to elevate Zeus to special status. |
23055 | Christians introduced the idea that a religion needs a creed [Gray] |
Full Idea: The notion that religions are creeds - lists of propositions or doctrines that everyone must accept or reject - emerged only with Christianity. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: With a creed comes the possibility of heresy. I''m not happy with children being taught to recite something which begins 'I believe…', but which they have never thought about and barely understand. |
23058 | Buddhism has no divinity or souls, and the aim is to lose the illusion of a self [Gray] |
Full Idea: Buddhism says nothing of any divine mind and rejects any idea of the soul. The world consists of processes and events. The human sense of self is an illusion; freedom is found in ridding oneself of this illusion. | |
From: John Gray (Seven Types of Atheism [2018], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why shaking off the illusion of a self is a superior state. Freedom to do what? Presumably nothing at all, since there is no self to desire anything. |