12 ideas
| 21405 | Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long] |
| Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom. | |
| From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue. |
| 20871 | Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117) | |
| A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties. |
| 21970 | Philosophy attains its goal if one person feels perfect accord between their system and experience [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: If even a single person is completely convinced of his philosophy; ...if his free judgement in philosophising, and what life obtrudes upon him, are perfectly in accord; then in this person philosophy has completed its circuit and attained its goal. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:512), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.4 | |
| A reaction: Interesting to hear a famous idealist offering accordance with real life as a criterion for philosophical success. But that is real life, but not as you and I may know it.... His criterion is very subjective. A bad philosopher might attain it? |
| 6912 | For Fichte there is no God outside the ego, and 'our religion is reason' [Fichte, by Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte there is no God outside the ego, and 'our religion is reason'. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (works [1798]) by Ludwig Feuerbach - Principles of Philosophy of the Future §17 | |
| A reaction: Fichte was not an atheist, but this seems to be a supreme aphorism for summarising our image of the Englightenment. Personally I subscribe to the Enlightenment ideal (the best life is the rational life), despite doubts about 'pure' reason. |
| 21973 | Fichte believed in things-in-themselves [Fichte, by Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Fichte retained a broadly Kantian conception of how things are in themselves. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (works [1798]) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.2 | |
| A reaction: The contrast is between those who believe in the thing-in-itself, while admitting that we can't know it, and those who deny such a thing. The debate returned 130 years later as verificationism in language. |
| 21914 | We can deduce experience from self-consciousness, without the thing-in-itself [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: We can abandon the thing-in-itself, and aim for 'a complete deduction of all experience from the possibility of self-consciousness'. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I p.425), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 3 | |
| A reaction: German Idealism now looks to me like a weird abberation in the history of philosophy, though no doubt it has (like every philosophical theory) some supporters out there somewhere. Schopenhauer called this 'raving nonsense'. |
| 20951 | The absolute I divides into consciousness, and a world which is not-I [Fichte, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Fichte's very influential idea is that the subject becomes divided against itself. The absolute I splits into an I (consciousness) and a not-I (the objective world) that are relative to each other. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (works [1798]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 3 'Fichtean' | |
| A reaction: This is German Idealism in action. Is there a before and after the split here? I can't make much sense of this idea. It is said that babies spend a while deciding which bits are them and which aren't. There is more to the world than 'not-I'. |
| 21964 | Reason arises from freedom, so philosophy starts from the self, and not from the laws of nature [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Not by any law of nature do we attain to reason; we achieve it by absolute freedom. ...In philosophy, therefore, we must necessarily start from the self. The materialists' project of deriving the appearance of reason from natural laws is impossible. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:298), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics | |
| A reaction: I blame Descartes' Cogito for this misunderstanding. The underlying idea (in Kant, and probably earlier) is that pure reason needs pure free will. Modern thought usually sees reason as extremely impure. |
| 21968 | Abandon the thing-in-itself; things only exist in relation to our thinking [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: We must be rid of the thing-in-itself; for whatever we may think, we are that which thinks therein, and hence nothing could ever come to exist independently of us, for everything is necessarily related to our thinking. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:501), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.3 | |
| A reaction: Some statements of idealism are understandable, or even quite plausible, but this one sounds ridiculous. The idea that if human beings die out then reality ceases to exist is absurd humanistic vanity. |
| 21965 | Spinoza could not actually believe his determinism, because living requires free will [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Spinoza could only think his philosophy, not believe it, for it stood in immediate contradiction to his necessary conviction in daily life, whereby he was bound to regard himself as free and independent. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (works [1798], I:513), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be invoking Kant's idea that we must presuppose free will, rather than an assertion that we actually have it. |
| 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'). |
| 6031 | The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The whole essence of propriety is quite certainly consistency. | |
| From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.110) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me the key intuition on which Kant built his deontological ethical theory. However, opponents say the consistency requires principles, and these are the enemies of truly good human behaviour, which involves Aristotle's 'particulars'. |