Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'Existentialism and Humanism' and 'Causes and Conditions'

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26 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
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.
16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 4. Persons as Agents
Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.41)
     A reaction: This might be plausible if unperformed actions are included. For some people, their whole life story consists of what they failed to do.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
Man IS freedom [Sartre]
     Full Idea: There is no determinism - man is free, man IS freedom. …Man is condemned to be free.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.34)
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
There is no human nature [Sartre]
     Full Idea: There is no human nature.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.28)
     A reaction: Everything which can be individuated has a nature, say I, wearing my Aristotelian lapel badge. Does he think the same of cats? Does he think the mind is a blank page?
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
There are no values to justify us, and no excuses [Sartre]
     Full Idea: There are no values or commands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. …We are alone with no excuses.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.296), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Bad'
     A reaction: If there are no values or duties, why might you ever need excuses?
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / d. Subjective value
If values depend on us, freedom is the foundation of all values [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Once a man has seen that values depend upon himself, he can only will one thing, and that is freedom as the foundation of all values.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.51)
     A reaction: I don't think so. Is freedom the foundation of all arithmetic, because I am untrammelled when doing addition? Values are ridiculous if they don't reflect facts.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character
In becoming what we want to be we create what we think man ought to be [Sartre]
     Full Idea: In creating the man that we want to be, there is not a single one of our acts which does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.293), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 7 'Anything'
     A reaction: I recall this being one of my earliest thoughts about morality - that in everything we do we are all role models for the people around us. For me, that leads to virtue theory.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / d. Courage
Cowards are responsible for their cowardice [Sartre]
     Full Idea: The existentialist, when he portrays a coward, shows him as responsible for his cowardice.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.42)
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability
When my personal freedom becomes involved, I must want freedom for everyone else [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Freedom as the definition of man does not depend on others, but as soon as there is involvement, I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.306), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 7 'Anything'
     A reaction: Appears to be a highly Kantian sense of rational duty, and a rather odd constraint on someone whose only value is freedom. Sartre is aware that he needs an existential politics, but he's not there yet. 'Involvement' is an interesting addition to Kant.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 1. Existentialism
Existentialists says that cowards and heroes make themselves [Sartre]
     Full Idea: What the existentialist says is that the coward makes himself cowardly, that the hero makes himself heroic.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.35), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.3
     A reaction: A nice statement of the existential plasticity of the self, in opposition to the much stronger concept of human nature in Aristotle (who nevertheless believes you can acquire virtues and vices).
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 5. Existence-Essence
Existence before essence (or begin with the subjective) [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Existentialism says that existence comes before essence - or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.26)
'Existence precedes essence' means we have no pre-existing self, but create it through existence [Sartre, by Le Poidevin]
     Full Idea: I take 'existence precedes essence' to mean that we do not have a pre-existing self, which organises our behaviour, but rather that we create our self as we go along, through our existence and activities.
     From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.222
     A reaction: The direct opponent of this is Aristotle, who builds his ethics on a fairly fixed human nature, but even he agrees that we mould our moral characters through our activities, in a circular way. There are not, though, infinite possibilities in mankind.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self
Existentialism says man is whatever he makes of himself [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. This is the first principle of existentialism.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.28)
It is dishonest to offer passions as an excuse [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Every man who takes refuge behind the excuse of his passions is a dishonest man.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.305), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 5 'Core'
     A reaction: To say 'my passion was so strong that I was too weak to resist it' doesn't sound prima facie dishonest. Sartre's idea is more of an exhortation than a fact, and sounds rather old fashioned and puritan. Do my reasons constitutes excuses?
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 7. Existential Action
When a man must choose between his mother and the Resistance, no theory can help [Sartre, by Fogelin]
     Full Idea: When a young man must choose between his bereft mother and the French Resistance, Sartre says no moral theory is capable of resolving the dilemma; the man must act on his own, and in the process define his moral character.
     From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.35-9) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2
     A reaction: Fogelin agrees, but rejects Sartre's claim that all morality is like this. I agree with Fogelin. However, what I like is the idea of 'defining one's moral character' by choices, but that is because it endorses the views of Aristotle (e.g. Idea 4394).
If I do not choose, that is still a choice [Sartre]
     Full Idea: If I do not choose, that is still a choice.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.48)
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / a. Observation of causation
Some says mental causation is distinct because we can recognise single occurrences [Mackie]
     Full Idea: It is sometimes suggested that our ability to recognise a single occurrence as an instance of mental causation is a feature which distinguishes mental causation from physical or 'Humean' causation.
     From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §9)
     A reaction: Hume says regularities are needed for mental causation too. Concentrate hard on causing a lightning flash - 'did I do that?' Gradually recovering from paralysis; you wouldn't just move your leg once, and know it was all right!
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
Mackie tries to analyse singular causal statements, but his entities are too vague for events [Kim on Mackie]
     Full Idea: In spite of Mackie's announced aim of analysing singular causal statements, it is doubtful that the entities that he is concerned with can be consistently interpreted as spatio-temporally bounded individual events.
     From: comment on J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Jaegwon Kim - Causes and Events: Mackie on causation §3
     A reaction: This is because Mackie mainly talks about 'conditions'. Nearly every theory I encounter in modern philosophy gets accused of either circular definitions, or inadequate individuation conditions for key components. A tough world for theory-makers.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / c. Conditions of causation
Necessity and sufficiency are best suited to properties and generic events, not individual events [Kim on Mackie]
     Full Idea: Relations of necessity and sufficiency seem best suited for properties and for property-like entities such as generic states and events; their application to individual events and states is best explained as derivative from properties and generic events.
     From: comment on J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Jaegwon Kim - Causes and Events: Mackie on causation §4
     A reaction: This seems to suggest that necessity must either derive from laws, or from powers. It is certainly hard to see how you could do Mackie's assessment of necessary and sufficient components, without comparing similar events.
A cause is part of a wider set of conditions which suffices for its effect [Mackie, by Crane]
     Full Idea: The details of Mackie's analysis are complex, but the general idea is that the cause is part of a wider set of conditions which suffices for its effect.
     From: report of J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Tim Crane - Causation 1.3.3
     A reaction: Helpful. Why does something have to be 'the' cause? Immediacy is a vital part of it. A house could be a 'fire waiting to happen'. Oxygen is an INUS condition for a fire.
Necessary conditions are like counterfactuals, and sufficient conditions are like factual conditionals [Mackie]
     Full Idea: A necessary causal condition is closely related to a counterfactual conditional: if no-cause then no-effect, and a sufficient causal condition is closely related to a factual conditional (Goodman's phrase): since cause-here then effect.
     From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §4)
     A reaction: The 'factual conditional' just seems to be an assertion that causation occurred (dressed up with the logical-sounding 'since'). An important distinction for Lewis. Sufficiency doesn't seem to need possible-worlds talk.
The INUS account interprets single events, and sequences, causally, without laws being known [Mackie]
     Full Idea: My account shows how a singular causal statement can be interpreted, and how the corresponding sequence can be shown to be causal, even if the corresponding complete laws are not known.
     From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §9)
     A reaction: Since the 'complete' laws are virtually never known, it would be a bit much to require that to assert causation. His theory is the 'INUS' account of causal conditions - see Idea 8333.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
A cause is an Insufficient but Necessary part of an Unnecessary but Sufficient condition [Mackie]
     Full Idea: If a short-circuit causes a fire, the so-called cause is, and is known to be, an Insufficient but Necessary part of a condition which is itself Unnecessary but Sufficient for the result. Let us call this an INUS condition.
     From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §1)
     A reaction: I'm not clear why it is necessary, given that the fire could have started without the short-circuit. The final situation must certainly be sufficient. If only one situation can cause an effect, then the whole situation is necessary.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / b. Nomological causation
Mackie has a nomological account of general causes, and a subjunctive conditional account of single ones [Mackie, by Tooley]
     Full Idea: For general causal statements Mackie favours a nomological account, but for singular causal statements he argued for an analysis in terms of subjunctive conditionals.
     From: report of J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Michael Tooley - Causation and Supervenience 5.2
     A reaction: These seem to be consistent, by explaining each by placing it within a broader account of reality. Personally I think Ducasse gives the best account of how you get from the particular to the general (via similarity and utility).
The virus causes yellow fever, and is 'the' cause; sweets cause tooth decay, but they are not 'the' cause [Mackie]
     Full Idea: We may say not merely that this virus causes yellow fever, but also that it is 'the' cause of yellow fever; but we could only say that sweet-eating causes dental decay, not that it is the cause of dental decay (except in an individual case).
     From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §3)
     A reaction: A bit confusing, but there seems to be something important here, concerning the relation between singular causation and law-governed causation. 'The' cause may not be sufficient (I'm immune to yellow fever). So 'the' cause is the only necessary one?
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
Without God there is no intelligibility or value [Sartre]
     Full Idea: For the atheist existentialist there disappears with God all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. (Dostoevsky wrote "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted").
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism and Humanism [1945], p.33)