15312
|
We get the idea of power by abstracting from ropes, magnets and electric shocks [Priestley]
|
|
Full Idea:
A rope sustains weight, a magnet attracts iron, a charged electrical jar gives a shock, and from these and other similar observations, we get the idea of power, universally and abstractly considered.
|
|
From:
Joseph Priestley (Theological and other works [1790], p.191), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B
|
|
A reaction:
I agree with this, in that we appear to be observing powers directly, and are not observing something which can then be reduced to non-powers. Nature just can't be a set of inert structures, with forces 'imposed' on them.
|
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').
|
21099
|
People must have agreed to authority, because they are naturally equal, prior to education [Hume]
|
|
Full Idea:
When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education, ...then nothing but their own consent could at first associate them together, and subject them to authority.
|
|
From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.276)
|
|
A reaction:
This doesn't sound very convincing. Some people are much better suited than others to training and education. Men vary enormously in size.
|
20495
|
We no more give 'tacit assent' to the state than a passenger carried on board a ship while asleep [Hume]
|
|
Full Idea:
[If we give 'tacit' assent to the state] ...we may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master, though he was carried aboard while asleep.
|
|
From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.283)
|
|
A reaction:
We should probably drop the whole idea that we give assent to the state. We are stuck with a state, and a few of us can escape, if it seems important enough, but most of us have no choice. He hope to assent to the controllers of the state.
|
6703
|
Poor people lack the knowledge or wealth to move to a different state [Hume]
|
|
Full Idea:
Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages that he acquires?
|
|
From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.283)
|
|
A reaction:
Of course, in the nineteenth century the Scottish poor did, going to America, which welcomed the poor, and spoke English. Hume's point is the right reply to anyone who says 'If you don't like it, go elsewhere'. Also 'No! Change it!'
|
21102
|
We all know that the history of property is founded on injustices [Hume]
|
|
Full Idea:
Reason tells us that there is no property in durable objects, such as land or houses, when carefully examined in passing from hand to hand, but must, in some period, have been founded on fraud and injustice.
|
|
From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.288)
|
|
A reaction:
A prime objection to Nozick, who fantasises about an initial position of just ownership, which can then be the subject of just contracts. In 1866 thousands of white people were granted land in the USA, but not a single black freed slave got anything.
|
15311
|
Attraction or repulsion are not imparted to matter, but actually constitute it [Priestley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Attraction or repulsion appear to me not to be properly what is imparted to matter, but what really makes it what it is, in so much that, without it, it would be nothing at all.
|
|
From:
Joseph Priestley (Theological and other works [1790], p.237), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B
|
|
A reaction:
This is music to the ears of anyone who thinks that powers are the fundamentals of nature (like me).
|