22 ideas
13560 | A wise man is not subservient to anything [Seneca] |
Full Idea: I do not call any man wise who is subservient to anything. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §11) | |
A reaction: At the very least, a wise man should be subservient to a wiser man. |
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. |
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. |
15375 | If terms change their designations in different states, they are functions from states to objects [Fitting] |
Full Idea: The common feature of every designating term is that designation may change from state to state - thus it can be formalized by a function from states to objects. | |
From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3) | |
A reaction: Specifying the objects sounds OK, but specifying states sounds rather tough. |
15376 | Intensional logic adds a second type of quantification, over intensional objects, or individual concepts [Fitting] |
Full Idea: To first order modal logic (with quantification over objects) we can add a second kind of quantification, over intensions. An intensional object, or individual concept, will be modelled by a function from states to objects. | |
From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.3) |
15378 | Awareness logic adds the restriction of an awareness function to epistemic logic [Fitting] |
Full Idea: Awareness logic enriched Hintikka's epistemic models with an awareness function, mapping each state to the set of formulas we are aware of at that state. This reflects some bound on the resources we can bring to bear. | |
From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Fagin and Halpern 1988 for this] |
15379 | Justication logics make explicit the reasons for mathematical truth in proofs [Fitting] |
Full Idea: In justification logics, the logics of knowledge are extended by making reasons explicit. A logic of proof terms was created, with a semantics. In this, mathematical truths are known for explicit reasons, and these provide a measure of complexity. | |
From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) |
11026 | Classical logic is deliberately extensional, in order to model mathematics [Fitting] |
Full Idea: Mathematics is typically extensional throughout (we write 3+2=2+3 despite the two terms having different meanings). ..Classical first-order logic is extensional by design since it primarily evolved to model the reasoning of mathematics. | |
From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §1) |
11028 | λ-abstraction disambiguates the scope of modal operators [Fitting] |
Full Idea: λ-abstraction can be used to abstract and disambiguate a predicate. De re is [λx◊P(x)](f) - f has the possible-P property - and de dicto is ◊[λxP(x)](f) - possibly f has the P-property. Also applies to □. | |
From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §3.3) | |
A reaction: Compare the Barcan formula. Originated with Church in the 1930s, and Carnap 1947, but revived by Stalnaker and Thomason 1968. Because it refers to the predicate, it has a role in intensional versions of logic, especially modal logic. |
15377 | Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds [Fitting] |
Full Idea: Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds quite naturally. | |
From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.4) | |
A reaction: A definite description can pick out the same object in another possible world, or a very similar one, or an object which has almost nothing in common with the others. |
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). |
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). |
13558 | The supreme good is harmony of spirit [Seneca] |
Full Idea: The highest good is harmony of spirit. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §08) | |
A reaction: This idea is straight from Plato's Republic. |
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. |
13559 | I seek virtue, because it is its own reward [Seneca] |
Full Idea: You ask what I seek from virtue? Virtue herself. For she has nothing better, she is herself her own reward. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §09) | |
A reaction: Presumably this is the source of the popular saying that 'virtue is its own reward'. The trouble is that this doesn't seem a very persuasive thing to say to a sceptic who doubts whether being virtuous is worth the trouble. |
13561 | Virtue is always moderate, so excess need not be feared [Seneca] |
Full Idea: In the case of virtue excess should not be feared, since in virtue resides moderation. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §13) | |
A reaction: This seems to imply that all of the virtues are unified in the one achievement of the virtuous state. It leaves the notion of 'virtue' a bit thin in content, though. |
13562 | It is shameful to not even recognise your own slaves [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Why, to your shame, are you so careless that you do not know your handful of slaves by sight? | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §17) |
13563 | Why does your wife wear in her ears the income of a wealthy house? [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Why does your wife wear in her ears the income of a wealthy house? | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §17) |
13565 | If wealth was a good, it would make men good [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Wealth is not a good; for it it was, it would make men good. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §24) | |
A reaction: An immediately attractive argument, but should we assume that anything which is good will enhance our personal goodness? If goodness is a habit, then continual pursuit of wealth is the test case to examine. Seneca is right! |
13564 | There is far more scope for virtue if you are wealthy; poverty only allows endurance [Seneca] |
Full Idea: What doubt can there be that the wise man has greater scope for displaying his powers if he is rich than if he is poor, since in the case of poverty only one kind of virtue exists - refusal to be bowed down and crushed. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §22) | |
A reaction: It is against this view that I see Jesus proposing poverty as central to virtue. But then he has the surprising view (to Seneca) that humility is a virtue. What Nietzsche calls the slaves' inversion of values. |
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. |
13557 | Unfortunately the majority do not tend to favour what is best [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Human concerns are not so happily arranged that the majority favours the better things. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On the Happy Life [c.60], §02) | |
A reaction: On the whole Seneca is unimpressed by democracy, as people are rushed into decisions by the crowd, and live to regret them. |