Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Lectures on Aesthetics' and 'Utilitarianism and the Virtues'

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17 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.
We should speak the truth, but also preserve and pursue it [Foot]
     Full Idea: There belongs to truthfulness not only the avoidance of lying but also that other kind of attachment to truth which has to do with its preservation and pursuit.
     From: Philippa Foot (Utilitarianism and the Virtues [1985], p.74)
     A reaction: This is truth as a value, rather than as a mere phenomenon of accurate thought and speech. The importance of 'preserving' the truth is the less common part of this idea.
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?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / g. Consequentialism
Consequentialists can hurt the innocent in order to prevent further wickedness [Foot]
     Full Idea: For consequentialists there will be nothing that it will not be right to do to a perfectly innocent individual, if that is the only way of preventing another agent from doing more things of the same kind.
     From: Philippa Foot (Utilitarianism and the Virtues [1985], p.61)
     A reaction: This is her generalised version that Williams dramatised as Jim and the Indians. Roughly, if you achieve a good outcome, it matters little how it is achieved. Foot sees consequentialism as the main problem with utilitarianism.
Why might we think that a state of affairs can be morally good or bad? [Foot]
     Full Idea: We should ask why we think that it makes sense to talk about morally good and bad states of affairs.
     From: Philippa Foot (Utilitarianism and the Virtues [1985], p.68)
     A reaction: This is the key question in her attack on consequentialism. There is nothing 'morally' good about my football team winning a great victory.
Good outcomes are not external guides to morality, but a part of virtuous actions [Foot]
     Full Idea: It is not that maximum welfare or 'the best outcome' stands outside morality as it foundation and arbiter, but rather that it appears within morality as the end of one of the virtues.
     From: Philippa Foot (Utilitarianism and the Virtues [1985], p.73)
     A reaction: She cites justice and benevolence as aiming at different (and even conflicting) outcomes. I'm not sure about her distinction between 'outside' and 'within' morality. I suppose a virtuously created end is a moral end, unlike mere good states of affairs.
The idea of a good state of affairs has no role in the thought of Aristotle, Rawls or Scanlon [Foot]
     Full Idea: The idea of the goodness of total states of affairs played no part in Aristotle's moral philosophy, and in modern times plays not part either in Rawls's account of justice or in the theories of more thoroughgoing contractualists such as Scanlon.
     From: Philippa Foot (Utilitarianism and the Virtues [1985], p.76)
     A reaction: We can add Kant to that. But if the supremely good state of affairs were permanently achieved, would that make morality irrelevant? A community of the exceptionally virtuous would not need the veil of ignorance, or contracts.
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').
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
Morality is seen as tacit legislation by the community [Foot]
     Full Idea: Morality is thought of as a kind of tacit legislation by the community.
     From: Philippa Foot (Utilitarianism and the Virtues [1985], p.75)
     A reaction: Foot presents this as a utilitarian doctrine, because the tacit legislation is felt to produce the best outcomes. This is Nietzsche's good and evil, beyond which he wished to go (presumably following other values).
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 5. Rule Utilitarianism
For consequentialism, it is irrational to follow a rule which in this instance ends badly [Foot]
     Full Idea: It would be irrational to obey even the most useful rule if in a particular instance we clearly see that such obedience will not have the best results.
     From: Philippa Foot (Utilitarianism and the Virtues [1985], p.62)
     A reaction: This is the simple reason why attempts at rule utilitarianism always lead back to act utilitarianism. Another way of putting it is that a good rule can only be assessed by the outcomes of individual acts that follow it.