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All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Lectures on Aesthetics' and 'The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims'

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15 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
Genuine truth is the resolution of the highest contradiction [Hegel]
     Full Idea: The highest truth, truth as such, is the resolution of the highest opposition and contradiction.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], I: 99), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Art'
     A reaction: Uneasy about the word 'highest', and the general Hegelian dream of 'resolving' contradictions, rather than just eliminating at least one component of them. No one else uses the word 'truth' like this. I suppose this Truth has a capital 'T'.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
What I hold true must also be part of my feelings and character [Hegel]
     Full Idea: Whatever I hold as true, whatever ought to be valid for me, must also be in my feeling, must belong to my being and character.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], I: 97), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Philosophy'
     A reaction: I can see that truths do tend to become part of our character, but not that they ought to do so. I suppose I try to live my life enmeshed in the many truths which I have personally selected from the maelstrom of possibilities that engulf us.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
Only individuals have essences, so numbers (as a higher type based on classes) lack them [McMichael]
     Full Idea: Essentialism is not verified by the observation that numbers have interesting essential properties, since they are properties of classes and so are entities of a higher logical type than individuals.
     From: Alan McMichael (The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims [1986], Intro)
     A reaction: This relies on a particular view of number (which might be challenged), but is interesting when it comes to abstract entities having essences. Only ur-elements in set theory could have essences, it seems. Why? Rising in type destroys essence?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties
Essences are the interesting necessary properties resulting from a thing's own peculiar nature [McMichael]
     Full Idea: Essentialism says some individuals have certain 'interesting' necessary properties. If it exists, it has that property. The properties are 'interesting' as had in virtue of their own peculiar natures, rather than as general necessary truths.
     From: Alan McMichael (The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims [1986], Intro)
     A reaction: [compressed] This is a modern commentator caught between two views. The idea that essence is the non-trivial-necessary properties is standard, but adding their 'peculiar natures' connects him to Aristotle, and Kit Fine's later papers. Good!
Maybe essential properties have to be intrinsic, as well as necessary? [McMichael]
     Full Idea: There is a tendency to think of essential properties as having some characteristic in addition to their necessity, such as intrinsicality.
     From: Alan McMichael (The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims [1986], VIII)
     A reaction: Personally I am inclined to take this view of all properties, and not just the 'essential' ones. General necessities, relations, categorisations, disjunctions etc. should not be called 'properties', even if they are 'predicates'. Huge confusion results.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
Essentialism is false, because it implies the existence of necessary singular propositions [McMichael]
     Full Idea: Essentialism entails the existence of necessary singular propositions that are not instances of necessary generalizations. Therefore, since there are no such propositions, essentialism is false.
     From: Alan McMichael (The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims [1986], I)
     A reaction: This summarises the attack which McMichael wishes to deal with. I am wickedly tempted to say that essences actually have a contingent existence (or a merely hypothetical dependent necessity), and this objection might be grist for my mill.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 1. Aesthetics
Nineteenth century aesthetics focused on art rather than nature (thanks to Hegel) [Hegel, by Scruton]
     Full Idea: Only In the course of the nineteenth century, and in the wake of Hegel's posthumously published lectures on aesthetics, did the topic of art come to replace that of natural beauty as the core subject-matter of aesthetics.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], 5) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
Hegel largely ignores aesthetic pleasure, taste and beauty, and focuses on the meaning of artworks [Hegel, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Unlike his predecessors (including Kant), Hegel does not focus on aesthetic pleasure, nor on good taste, nor even on the nature and criteria for beauty. Instead he focuses on the meaning of artworks and their role in forming mankind's self-consciousness.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
     A reaction: Personally I dislike over-intellectualising art. The aim of a work of art is to give a certain experience, not to generate an ensuing sequence of theorising. I doubt whether Vermeer had any 'meaning' in mind in his obsessive work.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty
Natural beauty is unimportant, because it doesn't show human freedom [Hegel, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Hegel thinks that natural beauty is of no real significance since it cannot display our freedom to us; nature per se is meaningless.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11
     A reaction: Presumably freedom is in the creation, and so creativity is what matters in aesthetics. But what are the criteria of good creativity?
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 6. Art as Institution
For Hegel the importance of art concerns the culture, not the individual [Hegel, by Eldridge]
     Full Idea: Hegel locates the significance of art in its role in cultural life in general, not in relation to the psychological needs of individuals.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics) 1
     A reaction: I'm beginning to see that art is a wonderful focus and test case for political attitudes. Roughly, liberalism focuses on individual responses, but more societal views (from right and left) see it in terms of role in the community. Which are you?
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 6. Value of Art
The purpose of art is to reveal to Spirit its own nature [Hegel, by Davies,S]
     Full Idea: According to Hegel, the goal of art was to serve as a phase in a process by which Spirit would come to understand its own nature.
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]) by Stephen Davies - The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed) 2.7
     A reaction: I try very hard to understand ideas like this. Really really hard. However, since I see little sign of 'Spirit' really understanding its own nature, I'm guessing that the project is not going well.
The main purpose of art is to express the unity of human life [Hegel]
     Full Idea: Art's primary function, for Hegel, is to give expression to the unity and wholeness of life - especially human life - that the contingencies of everyday existence frequently conceal.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826]), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 09 'Beauty'
     A reaction: I don't find the view that human life is 'unified' and 'whole' vary illuminating, and I have no objection to art which reflects the fragmentary and unstable aspects of life. I suspect Hegel would just prefer it if life were a unity.
Art forms a bridge between the sensuous world and the world of pure thought [Hegel]
     Full Idea: Spirit generates out of itself works of fine art as the first reconciling middle term between pure thought and what is merely external, sensuous and transient - between finite natural reality and the infinite freedom of conceptual thinking.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on Aesthetics [1826], p.8), quoted by Richard Eldridge - G.W.F. Hegel (aesthetics)
     A reaction: This apparently says that there is necessarily an intellectual and conceptual component in art. This means little to me. Does he include portraits? Dutch domestic scenes? Would photography qualify?
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
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').
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 5. Laws from Universals
Individuals enter into laws only through their general qualities and relations [McMichael]
     Full Idea: Individuals appear to enter into laws only through their general qualities and relations.
     From: Alan McMichael (The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims [1986], VIII)
     A reaction: This is a very significant chicken-or-egg issue. The remark seems to offer the vision of pre-existing general laws, which individuals then join (like joining a club). But surely the laws are derived from the individuals? Where else could they come from?