Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Making It Explicit' and 'Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


4 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts
Facts can't make claims true, because they are true claims [Brandom, by Kusch]
     Full Idea: Brandom says that facts do not make claims true, because facts simply are true claims.
     From: report of Robert B. Brandom (Making It Explicit [1994], p.327) by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.18
     A reaction: Nice. Notoriously, anyone defending the correspondence theory of truth in terms of facts had better say what they mean by a 'fact'. Personally I take a fact to be a non-verbal, mind-independent situation in the world, so I disagree with Brandom.
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').
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity
To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel]
     Full Idea: If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith'
     A reaction: Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel]
     Full Idea: The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'
     A reaction: An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it?