10 ideas
19588 | The highest aim of philosophy is to combine all philosophies into a unity [Novalis] |
Full Idea: He attains the maximum of a philosopher who combines all philosophies into a single philosophy | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 31) | |
A reaction: I have found the epigraph for my big book! Recently a few narrowly analytical philosophers have attempted big books about everything (Sider, Heil, Chalmers), and they get a huge round of applause from me. |
19598 | Philosophy relies on our whole system of learning, and can thus never be complete [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Now all learning is connected - thus philosophy will never be complete. Only in the complete system of all learning will philosophy be truly visible. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 39) | |
A reaction: Philosophy is evidently the unifying subject, which reveals the point of all the other subjects. It matches my maxim that 'science is the servant of philosophy'. |
19586 | Philosophers feed on problems, hoping they are digestible, and spiced with paradox [Novalis] |
Full Idea: The philosopher lives on problems as the human being does on food. An insoluble problem is an indigestible food. What spice is to food, the paradoxical is to problems. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 09) | |
A reaction: Novalis would presumably have disliked Hegel's dialectic, where the best food seems to be the indigestible. |
19587 | Philosophy aims to produce a priori an absolute and artistic world system [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Philosophy ...is the art of producing all our conceptions according to an absolute, artistic idea and of developing the thought of a world system a priori out of the depths of our spirit. | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 19) | |
A reaction: A lovely statement of the dream of building world systems by pure thought - embodying perfectly the view of philosophy despised by logical positivists and modern logical metaphysicians. The Novalis view will never die! I like 'artistic'. |
19597 | Logic (the theory of relations) should be applied to mathematics [Novalis] |
Full Idea: Ought not logic, the theory of relations, be applied to mathematics? | |
From: Novalis (Logological Fragments II [1798], 38) | |
A reaction: Bolzano was 19 when his was written. I presume Novalis would have been excited by set theory (even though he was a hyper-romantic). |
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
3236 | Equality of opportunity without equality of respect would create a very inhuman society [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: A highly rational, efficient and unmitigated application of the idea of equality of opportunity, while abandoning the idea of equality of respect as vague and nostalgic, would lead to a quite inhuman society. | |
From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §3) |
3234 | Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Equality seems to require that each person is owed an effort at identification; they should not be seen as a surface to which a label can be applied, but one should try to see the world (including the label) from their point of view. | |
From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
3233 | Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Supporters of equality have asserted that people are alike in certain things they could do or achieve, as well as in the things that they need and could suffer. | |
From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |
3235 | It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: It is a mark of extreme exploitation or degradation that those who suffer it do NOT see themselves differently from the way they are seen by the exploiters. | |
From: Bernard Williams (The Idea of Equality [1962], §2) |