86 ideas
13310 | Wisdom does not lie in books, and unread people can also become wise [Seneca] |
Full Idea: What grounds could I possibly have for supposing that a person who has no acquaintance with books will never be a wise man? For wisdom does not lie in books. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
A reaction: A useful warning to the likes of me, who may have retreated from the hurly-burly of the agora (see Callicles in Plato's 'Gorgias'), under the illusion that detachment is needed for wisdom. Maybe involvement is needed for wisdom. |
13295 | Wise people escape necessity by willing it [Seneca] |
Full Idea: There is nothing a wise man does reluctantly; he escapes necessity because he wills what necessity is going to force on him. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 054) | |
A reaction: He is discussing death in this letter. The difficulty here is sliding into fatalism. For instance, if you are informed that you have cancer, it is tempting to become 'wise' and will your own death, but lots of people fight it, and win. |
2512 | Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Philosophical problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have already known. Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §109), quoted by Jerrold J. Katz - Realistic Rationalism Int.xi | |
A reaction: A philosophical dispute can be settled by a piece of information, which may be already known to you, but new to me. Philosophical discussion can also point to a scientific research programme - i.e. a need for new information. I like the first sentence. |
13317 | Philosophy aims at happiness [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Philosophy takes as her aim the state of happiness. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 090) | |
A reaction: A startlingly forthright view. It seems to neglect what I take to be the main aim of philosophy, which is to achieve understanding. I presume true happiness would follow from that. Seneca must now explain why soporific pleasure is wrong. |
13293 | What philosophy offers humanity is guidance [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Shall I tell you what philosophy holds out for humanity? Counsel. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 048) | |
A reaction: See Quine for a flat modern denial of this claim (Idea 9764). There is a modern tendency to see ethics and political thought operating at a meta- or metameta- level. I take the main ethical theories to be very illuminating of real life. |
4148 | What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §309) | |
A reaction: Ridiculous. Trying to think about thought is not a pointless buzzing - it is an attempt by humans to become like gods. |
13309 | That something is a necessary condition of something else doesn't mean it caused it [Seneca] |
Full Idea: There's no reason for you to assume that, X being something without which Y could never have come about, Y came about as a result of the assistance of X. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
A reaction: This thought originates with Carneades, reported by Cicero. This is a clear message to the likes of Mackie, who are in danger of thinking that giving the preconditions of something is sufficient to give its causes. |
13313 | Even philosophers have got bogged down in analysing tiny bits of language [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Even the philosophers have descended to the level of drawing distinctions between the uses of different syllables and discussing the proper meanings of prepositions and conjunctions. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
A reaction: How wonderfully prescient! The vast industry of modern philosophy of language exactly fits Seneca's description. I don't quite share his contempt, of course, and I think Seneca would have a bit of sympathy with modern analysis (just a bit!). |
22490 | Bring words back from metaphysics to everyday use [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], 116), quoted by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness 7 n16 | |
A reaction: A germ of ordinary language philosophy. It is wrong to think that metaphysics must be studied in the usages of ordinary language, but I strongly believe that words like 'essence' or 'objectivity' should retain their normal meaning when philosophising. |
6566 | The problem is to explain the role of contradiction in social life [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: When a contradiction appears, we say: "I didn't mean it like that"; the civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §125), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
A reaction: The point is that logical concepts such as contradiction are conventional, and not all-or-nothing, so we might agree that you didn't really contradict yourself (when perhaps you uttered a witty ironic paradox). I don't see the problem as philosophical. |
18743 | Wittgenstein says we want the grammar of problems, not their first-order logical structure [Wittgenstein, by Horsten/Pettigrew] |
Full Idea: For the later Wittgenstein what we should be after is the grammatical structure of philosophical problems, not the first-order logical structure of such problems. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R - Mathematical Methods in Philosophy 2 | |
A reaction: This is the most sympathetic spin I have ever seen put on the apparent rather anti-philosophical later Wittgenstein. I nurse doubts about highly formal approaches to philosophy, and maybe 'grammar' (whatever that is) is our target. |
4139 | Naming is a preparation for description [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Naming is a preparation for description. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §049) | |
A reaction: Something has to be the starting point for a description. And yet a description could turn out to be an elaborate name. |
4946 | A name is not determined by a description, but by a cluster or family [Wittgenstein, by Kripke] |
Full Idea: According to Wittgenstein (and Searle) the referent of a name is determined not by a single description but by some cluster or family. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §079) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity lectures Lecture 1 | |
A reaction: It is because of this characteristically woolly, indeterminate and relativist view of Wittgenstein that I (and most people) find Kripke's notion of a 'baptism' so refreshing. It cuts throught the fog of language, and connects to reality. |
15106 | Essence is expressed by grammar [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Essence is expressed by grammar. ...Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §371-3) | |
A reaction: Enigmatic, as usual. The second part seems to imply sortal essentialism, though the emphasis on grammar seems to make it highly conventional, rather than a reflection of 'real' sorts. |
6600 | The belief that fire burns is like the fear that it burns [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The belief that fire will burn me is of the same kind as the fear that it will burn me. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §473) | |
A reaction: Most of our beliefs are forced on us, rather than chosen, and this nice remark gives an indication of the reason. It dovetails with Peirce's pragmatic approach to be belief (e.g. Idea 6598), which is well developed by Robert Fogelin. |
4153 | Are sense-data the material of which the universe is made? [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Are sense-data the material of which the universe is made? | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §401) | |
A reaction: Presumably the question is meant to be absurd, and to a realist it is. You can't serious think that a filing cabinet is made of sensations. |
6501 | As sense-data are necessarily private, they are attacked by Wittgenstein's objections [Wittgenstein, by Robinson,H] |
Full Idea: Sense-data are usually conceived as necessarily private to individual observers, so the final crisis for the empiricist conception of perception was Wittgenstein's famous polemic against such private objects. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Howard Robinson - Perception IV.1 | |
A reaction: Personally I remain unconvinced by Wittgenstein's very elusive argument, but I think there are plenty of other reasons for doubting whether the idea of sense-data throws much light on our understanding of the processes of perception. |
11079 | How do I decide when to accept or obey an intuition? [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If intuition is an inner voice - how do I know how I am to obey it? And how do I know that it doesn't mislead me? For if it can guide me right, it can also guide me wrong. ((Intuition an unnecessary shuffle)) | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], 213) | |
A reaction: Presumably the last point, in brackets, means that you still have to evaluate the intuition, with which I would agree. I take judgement to occur in the space of reasons, to which intuition is a major contributor. Only a fool would just accept intuition. |
4160 | One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own beliefs [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own beliefs. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.x) | |
A reaction: This seems right, because we don't choose our beliefs. We don't even choose whether to believe a sensation - we just focus harder until belief does or doesn't occur. |
13297 | To the four causes Plato adds a fifth, the idea which guided the event [Seneca] |
Full Idea: To the four Aristotelian causes Plato adds a fifth in the model - what he himself calls the 'idea' - this being what the sculptor had constantly before his eyes as he executed the intended work. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 065) | |
A reaction: A very interesting interpretation. I take the four 'causes' to be primarily the four 'explanations', and it exactly fits how we should understand Plato, as offer a crucial underlying explanation. The statue is Aristotle's example. |
19273 | I don't have the opinion that people have minds; I just treat them as such [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the 'opinion' that he has a soul. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.iv) | |
A reaction: This seems to be precisely Dennett's 'intentional stance', where we conjure up minds in things like chess-playing computers, irrespective of whether we believe they are conscious. |
5663 | It is irresponsible to generalise from my own case of pain to other people's [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word 'pain' means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalise from the one case so irresponsibly? | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) | |
A reaction: This is the best known objection to Mill's Argument from Analogy for other minds. It appears to be induction from a single instance. The better approach seems to be ABduction (best explanation), in which my own case is just some evidence. |
19272 | To imagine another's pain by my own, I must imagine a pain I don't feel, by one I do feel [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If one has to imagine someone else's pain on the model of one's own, this is none too easy a thing to do: for I have to imagine pain which I do not feel on the model of pain which I do not feel. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §302) | |
A reaction: I just don't feel a deep problem here. Wittgenstein didn't know about mirror neurons, which trigger in me a reaction like the one causing your behaviour. |
4161 | If a lion could talk, we could not understand him [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.xi) | |
A reaction: How does he know these things?! We could at least know whether they talked or merely grunted, by studying their correlated behaviour. Cf. dolphins. I think he is wrong. All talk is understandable to a degree, even God's. |
7392 | If a lion could talk, it would be nothing like other lions [Dennett on Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: I think that if a lion could talk, that lion would have a mind so different from the general run of lion minds, that although we could understand him just fine, we would learn little about ordinary lions from him. | |
From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.xi) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 14.2 | |
A reaction: This is rather more sensible than Wittgenstein's famous enigmatic utterance. |
5676 | To say that I 'know' I am in pain means nothing more than that I AM in pain [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: As the word is normally used, it can't be said of me at all that I 'know' I am in pain; what is it supposed to mean - except perhaps that I am in pain? | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §246) | |
A reaction: This raises the question of whether self-consciousness implies self-knowledge, and suggests that it doesn't. All our normal talk of knowledge requires some sort of reliable justification of beliefs, and we can't drop that in the case of self-knowledge. |
13307 | If everything can be measured, try measuring the size of a man's soul [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
A reaction: This is Descartes's non-spatial argument, which I take to be one of the four main props to his mind-body dualism. As always, it is expressed with beautiful concision by Seneca. |
4154 | Why are we not aware of the huge gap between mind and brain in ordinary life? [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Why does the feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process not come into the considerations of our ordinary life? | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §412) | |
A reaction: Nice question. Presumably Wittgenstein has a quasi-behaviouristic answer. People don't now ignore it? They retreat into crazy spiritualism. |
6165 | Every course of action can either accord or conflict with a rule, so there is no accord or conflict [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. Answer: if everything can accord with the rule, then everything can conflict with it, so there is no accord or conflict. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §201) | |
A reaction: This is a very interesting claim which goes beyond the private language question. It seems to imply, for example, Dancy's 'Particularism' about morality, which is a general rejection of rules and principles in moral thought. |
4143 | One cannot obey a rule 'privately', because that is a practice, not the same as thinking one is obeying [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: 'Obeying a rule' is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) | |
A reaction: The core of the Private Language argument. But if I drive on the right erroneously thinking it is the law, I can still make progress until I meet someone. |
7092 | If individuals can't tell if they are following a rule, how does a community do it? [Grayling on Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The problem facing a putative private language-user - namely, that he cannot tell whether he is, or only thinks he is, following a rule - also faces the community as a whole; how does the community tell whether it is following a rule? | |
From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §580) by A.C. Grayling - Wittgenstein Ch.3 | |
A reaction: Nice question. If you really get into the sceptical frame of mind that Wittgenstein reached about rules, almost everything seems impossible. How can I move? How can I speak? How can one instant follow another? How can I understand a word? |
4158 | An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §580) | |
A reaction: Why do processes need 'criteria'? I have never understood why I can't have private criteria, or at least private modifications of public criteria. |
4138 | Is white simple, or does it consist of the colours of the rainbow? [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Is white simple, or does it consist of the colours of the rainbow? | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §047) | |
A reaction: A nice challenge to externalism. White remains simple long after experts have told us it is complex. |
7055 | Externalist accounts of mental content begin in Wittgenstein [Wittgenstein, by Heil] |
Full Idea: The roots of externalist accounts of mental content lie in Wittgenstein. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by John Heil - From an Ontological Point of View 18.2 n1 | |
A reaction: This points to the key idea being that content involves the whole language community, rather than that it involves the physical stuffs of the world, such as water. I suspect that Wittgenstein is right, but Putnam is wrong. |
12576 | Possessing a concept is knowing how to go on [Wittgenstein, by Peacocke] |
Full Idea: Wittgenstein implies that which concepts a thinker is capable of possessing depends on the ways in which he is capable of finding a natural way to go on. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 1.2 | |
A reaction: This doesn't seem to amount to much. Presumably someone who failed to grasp a concept would demonstrate the fact by going on in a silly way, and whether or not it was silly might not be obvious. A genius may go on in a quirky way. |
4157 | Concepts direct our interests and investigations, and express those interests [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Concepts lead us to make investigations; are the expression of our interest, and direct our interest. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §570) | |
A reaction: This presumably points to the evolutionary origin of our concept-creating capacity, though I am not sure that it defines what a concept actually is. |
12606 | Man learns the concept of the past by remembering [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Man learns the concept of the past by remembering. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.13) | |
A reaction: [quoted by Peacocke] Is it the case that we learn all of our concepts by doing? Obviously not, since we can be taught them. Could you have no long-term memories (head trauma), and be taught the concept of the past by someone else? |
4141 | Various games have a 'family resemblance', as their similarities overlap and criss-cross [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: I shall say 'games' form a family, with a 'family resemblance', for the resemblances within a family - build, eyes, temperament etc. - overlap and criss-cross in the same way. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §067) | |
A reaction: A very helpful idea for the nominalist view of universals, particularly for showing how concepts shade off indeterminately at the edges. |
23450 | Wittgenstein rejected his earlier view that the form of language is the form of the world [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
Full Idea: Wittgenstein's later work rejects the central thesis of the Tractatus's philosophy of language, that the form of language is the same as the form of the world. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus Intro.4 | |
A reaction: I associate the earlier view with the stoic belief that nature is wholly rational, and that our reasoning can match it. I take it for granted that language largely matches the world, but we must explain why so many people believe absurdities. |
4150 | Asking about verification is only one way of asking about the meaning of a proposition [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Asking whether and how a proposition can be verified is only a particular way of asking 'How do you mean?' The answer is a contribution to the grammar of the proposition. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §353) | |
A reaction: 'How' a proposition is verified seems utterly irrelevant. What situation in reality provides the verification must have something to do with the meaning. Cat-on-mat is what counts, not whether you see it, hear it or smell it. |
4137 | In the majority of cases the meaning of a word is its use in the language [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: For a large class of cases - though not for all - the meaning of a word is its use in the language. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §043) | |
A reaction: Defended by Paul Horwich, but I don't like this. If "swordfish" is a password, its meaning and its use are miles apart. Meaning connects to reality, but use doesn't. |
6567 | For Wittgenstein, words are defined by their use, just as chess pieces are [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: For Wittgenstein, just as pieces in a game such as chess are defined by the rules that govern their moves, the meanings of words are similarly defined by the rules that govern their employment. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
A reaction: Fogelin's note points out that it is more complex than this. It is hard to dispute the chess case, but while words like 'and' and 'not' may be given entirely functional definitions, others don't work like that: John, run, red, solid, pain, ow! …. |
6169 | We do not achieve meaning and understanding in our heads, but in the world [Wittgenstein, by Rowlands] |
Full Idea: For Wittgenstein, meaning and understanding are not things that we do or achieve in our heads; they are things we achieve in the world. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Can't we achieve anything in our heads? Mental arithmetic seems to be fairly mental, unless we are going to be absurdly behaviouristic. If we can achieve some things in our heads, why not lots of things? |
4155 | We all seem able to see quite clearly how sentences represent things when we use them [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: It it be asked, "How do sentences manage to represent?" the answer might be, "Don't you know? You certainly see it when you use them." For nothing is concealed. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §435) | |
A reaction: A tool isn't its use, even though it becomes obvious how a tool works when it is used. It has a use because it has a certain nature or property. |
4142 | To understand a sentence means to understand a language [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: To understand a sentence means to understand a language. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §198) | |
A reaction: Does this make learning a language logically impossible? Helen Keller only knew one word at the beginning. |
4149 | We don't have 'meanings' in our minds in addition to verbal expressions [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: When I think in language, there aren't 'meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §329) | |
A reaction: No, but words have properties, like being meaningful, or long, or beautiful. They are not abstractions, or empty counters which can be used for anything. |
4156 | Make the following experiment: say "It's cold here" and mean "It's warm here" [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Make the following experiment: say "It's cold here" and mean "It's warm here". | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §510) | |
A reaction: A lovely experiment, whatever it proves. It is easier if the meaning is the truth, rather than the words. I try to weld a new word onto my experience. |
4145 | How do words refer to sensations? [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: How do words refer to sensations? | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §244) | |
A reaction: A very nice question, to be remembered when discussing how we refer to beauty, gold, water or the present King of France. |
21399 | Referring to a person, and speaking about him, are very different [Seneca] |
Full Idea: It makes a very great difference whether you refer to the person directly, or speak about him. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 117.13), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.3.2 | |
A reaction: We seem to think that the distinctiveness of reference was first spotted by Frege. Not so. |
4140 | The standard metre in Paris is neither one metre long nor not one metre long [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §050) | |
A reaction: The remark which inspired Kripke's causal theory. Clearly W. is wrong, because it is one metre long, but why is it that length? |
4136 | To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §019) | |
A reaction: I take this to be about the transparency of language, but it supports meaning as truth conditions, rather than as use. |
6166 | Was Wittgenstein's problem between individual and community, or between occasions for an individual? [Rowlands on Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: There are two interpretations of Wittgenstein here: the community interpretation sees error in a rule between the individual and the community, where the individual interpretation sees the problem between repeated occasions in the use of a sign. | |
From: comment on Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §202) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Rowlands brings out how a lot hangs on which of these two interpretations we opt for, but also that if the individual has a problem, this may logically imply the same problem for the community. The individual interpretation would be a deeper problem. |
7875 | If a brilliant child invented a name for a private sensation, it couldn't communicate it [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Let's assume the child is a genius and itself invents a name for the sensation! - But then, of course, he couldn't make himself understood when he used the word. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §257) | |
A reaction: [His example is a sensation with no behaviour] Sensations are not just related to behaviour; they are related to external objects, and to parts of the body. We doubt the sensations of others if they can't name the object or the body part. |
4146 | We cannot doublecheck mental images for correctness (or confirm news with many copies of the paper) [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If the mental image of a train timetable cannot itself be tested for correctness, how can it confirm the correctness of the first memory? (As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true). | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §265) | |
A reaction: An important point for the epistemological sceptic. Could God do an infinite regress of checks on the truth of his mental images? |
4147 | If we only named pain by our own case, it would be like naming beetles by looking in a private box [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If someone says he only knows what pain is from his own case, suppose everyone had a box with something in it (a 'beetle'). We can't see into other boxes, so we say what a beetle is by looking in our own box. The contents of each box could be different. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) | |
A reaction: But pain is private. Children must guess the meaning of parts of the language that refer to inner experience, like 'sad' or 'hopeful'. Body language brings our private concepts together, but error seems possible. |
5659 | If the reference is private, that is incompatible with the sense being public [Wittgenstein, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: Wittgenstein's claim is that the assumption that the reference is private (being observable to one person alone) is incompatible with the hypothesis that the sense is public. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §293) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.19 | |
A reaction: An illuminating summary, showing the link between the private language argument and modern 'externalism' about the meaning of concepts (e.g. Idea 4099). I still don't find Wittgenstein's claim conclusive. Something is definitely private. |
4152 | Getting from perceptions to words cannot be a private matter; the rules need an institution of use [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: I could not apply any rules to a private transition from what is seen to words. Here the rules really would hang in the air; for the institution of their use is lacking. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §380) | |
A reaction: That puts the argument nicely. In studying art or wine you learn what to say about your private experiences. |
4144 | Common human behaviour enables us to interpret an unknown language [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §206) | |
A reaction: This is a behaviourist spin on the idea of charity, but it leads to Davidson's assumption that most alien beliefs must be true. |
11049 | To communicate, language needs agreement in judgment as well as definition [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §242) | |
A reaction: If someone is locked into a highly alien viewpoint, then communication with them does seem to be virtually impossible. Amenability to reason, and consensus on elementary facts, seems to be the sine qua non of communication. |
6658 | What is left over if I subtract my arm going up from my raising my arm? [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: What is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm? | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §621) | |
A reaction: Wittgenstein's implication seems to be that nothing is left over, but I would have thought that the will was the thing left over when you decide to raise your arm, but then discover that you are paralysed. |
13325 | Trouble in life comes from copying other people, which is following convention instead of reason [Seneca] |
Full Idea: One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we're seduced by convention. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 123) | |
A reaction: An interesting practical spin and critique of the standard metaethical idea that morality is just convention. If you think morality is convention, presumably your moral duty is to imitate your neighbours. Nice deconstruction. |
22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
Full Idea: Seneca held that human beings owe the original acquisition of the concept of virtue to an analogy with bodily health and strength | |
From: report of Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 120.5) by James Allen - Soul's Virtue and the Health of the Body p.76 | |
A reaction: This is an unusual view, even for a stoic, but shows how close the concepts of health and virtue were. Notice that it is strength as well as health. Plato just emphasises mental and physical harmony. |
13294 | We know death, which is like before birth; ceasing to be and never beginning are the same [Seneca] |
Full Idea: I already know what death is like - it will be the same after me as it was before me. ..Only an utter idiot would think a lamp was worse off when it was put out than before it was lit. ..What does it matter whether you cease to be or never begin? | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 054) | |
A reaction: These sentiments are, interestingly, derived from the epicureans, rather than from the stoic tradition, but to us they probably look close together, where they looked like opponents at the time. |
13299 | Living is nothing wonderful; what matters is to die well [Seneca] |
Full Idea: There's nothing so very great about living - all your slaves and all the animals do it. What is, however, a great thing is to die in a manner which is honourable, enlightened and courageous. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
A reaction: You get the feeling that Seneca actually thought suicide was better than a natural death. Did he actually seek his own death? It is an odd interpretation of his own stoic injunction to 'live according to nature'. |
13300 | It is as silly to lament ceasing to be as to lament not having lived in the remote past [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Wouldn't you think a man a prize fool if he burst into tears because he didn't live a thousand years ago? A man is such a fool for shedding tears because he isn't going to be alive a thousand years from now. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
A reaction: These thoughts are traditional, dating back to Epicurus, but Seneca is exceptionally going at finding new variations and examples to reinforce the basic thought. |
13321 | Is anything sweeter than valuing yourself more when you find you are loved? [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Can anything be sweeter than to find that you are so dear to your wife that this makes you dearer to yourself? | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 104) | |
A reaction: Another lovely penetrating remark from Seneca. I suppose a symptom of low self-esteem might be 'why does she love someone as worthless as me?', but that would be unusual. |
13292 | Selfishness does not produce happiness; to live for yourself, live for others [Seneca] |
Full Idea: No one can lead a happy life if he thinks only of himself and turns everything to his own purposes. You should live for the other person if you wish to live for yourself. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 048) | |
A reaction: It is important to see this as a key aspect of the ancient aspiration to virtue. The end result is not far from Christianity. It is simplistic to see the quest for virtue as a crass self-obsessed quest for self-improvement. We are social. |
13303 | A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is [Seneca] |
Full Idea: A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 078) | |
A reaction: Seneca is a very penetrating thinker about ordinary life - an aspect of philosophy which is nowadays totally neglected by the most eminent philosophers. |
13302 | Life is like a play - it is the quality that matters, not the length [Seneca] |
Full Idea: As it is with a play, so it is with life - what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
A reaction: A very nice epigram, culminating the wonderful Letter 77 on the subject of death. A play needs to be a decent length if it is to exhibit its qualities. It would be heartbreaking if all of Shakespeare's plays were just 20-minute sketches. |
13301 | We are scared of death - except when we are immersed in pleasure! [Seneca] |
Full Idea: You are scared of death - but how heedless of it you are while you are dealing with a dish of choice mushrooms! | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
A reaction: A beautifully simple observation, from the greatest philosopher of death. Maybe hospices should concentrate on sex, drugs and rock and roll. |
13323 | The whole point of pleasure-seeking is novelty, and abandoning established ways [Seneca] |
Full Idea: The whole object of luxurious living is the delight it takes in irregular ways and in not merely departing from the correct course but going to the farthest point away from it, and in eventually even taking a stand diametrically opposed to it. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 122) | |
A reaction: A rather conservative and puritanical remark, but worthy of contemplation even for committed hedonists. It is just a sad facts that most pleasures diminish with familiarity. Small children make delightful remarks. Imagine if they repeated them. |
13318 | Nature doesn't give us virtue; we must unremittingly pursue it, as a training and an art [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Nature does not give a man virtue; the process of becoming a good man is an art. ...Virtue only comes to a character which has been thoroughly schooled and trained and brought to a pitch of perfection by unremitting practice. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 090) | |
A reaction: This is an important gloss from a leading stoic on the slogan of 'live according to nature'. One might say that the natural life must be 'tracked' (as Philip Larkin says we track happiness). The natural life is, above all, the rational life, for stoics. |
13324 | Living contrary to nature is like rowing against the stream [Seneca] |
Full Idea: For those who follow nature everything is easy and straightforward, whereas for those who fight against her life is just like rowing against the stream. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 102) | |
A reaction: A classic statement of the well-known stoic slogan, but expressed with Seneca's characteristic elegance. There is always a slight hidden of dubious fatalism in the slogan. 'Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!' - Dylan Thomas. |
13305 | Character is ruined by not looking back over our pasts, since the future rests on the past [Seneca] |
Full Idea: What really ruins our characters is the fact that none of us looks back over his life. We think a little about what we are going to do, and fail to think about what we have done, yet plans for the future depend on the past. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 083) | |
A reaction: One always assumes that writings about the wisdom of daily life will be one mass of clichés, but Seneca proves otherwise. With a pang I realise that I may be too guilty of not thinking about the past. I've even been proud of 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'). |
13312 | Excessive curiosity is a form of intemperance [Seneca] |
Full Idea: To want to know more than is sufficient is a form of intemperance. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
A reaction: This comes as a bit of a surprise, given the high value that philosophers place on knowledge. I'm reminded of Auberon Waugh's criticism of the Scots as a 'wildly over-educated people'. I think the problem is what you could have been doing instead. |
13308 | It's no good winning lots of fights, if you are then conquered by your own temper [Seneca] |
Full Idea: What's the use of overcoming opponent after opponent in the wrestling or boxing rings if you can be overcome by your temper? | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
A reaction: He has such a nice way of presenting what might be traditional and commonplace ideas. If you see life as a battle, then you should think very carefully about who the opponents are - because they may be hiding within. |
13315 | To govern used to mean to serve, not to rule; rulers did not test their powers over those who bestowed it [Seneca] |
Full Idea: In the Golden Age, to govern was to serve, not to rule. No one used to try out the extent of his power over those to whom he owed that power in the first place. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 090) | |
A reaction: I spent my professional career trying to persuade people that management should be a subjection to the managed. Wake up! The second half of this idea is the interesting bit - the temptation to just 'try out' your powers gets to them all. |
13290 | One joy of learning is making teaching possible [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Part of my joy in learning is that it puts me in a position to teach. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 006) | |
A reaction: This doesn't quite distinguish between bad learning and good learning, but I take a commitment to wanting to teach what you know as an essential part of wanting to know. |
13322 | Both teachers and pupils should aim at one thing - the improvement of the pupil [Seneca] |
Full Idea: A person teaching and a person learning should have the same end in view: the improvement of the latter. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 108) | |
A reaction: [He cites a philospher called Attalus for this remark] This is worthy to be up in the hall of every educational institution in the world, and especially in the staff rooms. |
13298 | Suicide may be appropriate even when it is not urgent, if there are few reasons against it [Seneca] |
Full Idea: There are many occasions on which a man should leave life not only bravely but for reasons which are not as pressing as they might be - the reasons which restrain us being not so pressing either. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
A reaction: This is an interesting and startling claim from the great champion of suicide, who nobly and memorably committed suicide himself. But we all dread a loved one miscalculating Seneca's dialectic, and dying when living would have been better. |
13320 | Sometimes we have a duty not to commit suicide, for those we love [Seneca] |
Full Idea: There are times when, however pressing one's reasons to the contrary, one's dying breath must be held back as it is passing one's lips, even if this is torture, simply out of consideration for one's dear ones. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 104) | |
A reaction: This is, of course, a highly significant counterbalance to his normal acceptance of suicide. I wish anyone who is planning suicide would heed it. They have no idea how much suffering will usually result from their action. |
13319 | If we control our own death, no one has power over us [Seneca] |
Full Idea: No one has power over us when death is in our own power. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 091) | |
A reaction: A classic slogan for the stoic view of suicide, an idea that crops up in Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar'. He doesn't seem to have understood that they can take away your shoelaces. |
13311 | Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos? [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Look how many questions there are on time. Does it have an existence of its own? Does anything exist prior to time, independently of it? Did it begin with the universe, or did it exist even before then? | |
From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure that the questions have shifted or become any clearer after two thousand years, despite Einstein and co. Note that discussions of time were not initiated by Augustine. |
4151 | Grammar tells what kind of object anything is - and theology is a kind of grammar [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar) | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §373) | |
A reaction: A classic twentieth century blunder, originating in Frege and culminating in Quine, of thinking that the analysis of language is the last word in ontology. |
4159 | The human body is the best picture of the human soul [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The human body is the best picture of the human soul. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.iv) | |
A reaction: Nice. How did we imagine the soul before reading that remark? My soul requires fingernails and eyelids in order to fulfil its essential nature. |