5 ideas
| 9786 | Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard [Cartwright,R] |
| Full Idea: The notion that philosophy can be done cooperatively, in the manner of scientists or engineers engaged in a research project, seems to me absurd. And yet few philosophers can survive in isolation. | |
| From: Richard Cartwright (Intro to 'Philosophical Essays' [1987], xxi) | |
| A reaction: This why Nietzsche said that philosophers were 'rare plants'. |
| 9784 | A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system [Cartwright,R] |
| Full Idea: You do not improve the truth value of a false proposition by calling attention to a coherent system of propositions of which it is one. | |
| From: Richard Cartwright (Intro to 'Philosophical Essays' [1987], xi) | |
| A reaction: We need to disentangle the truth-value from the justification here. If it is false, then we can safely assume that is false, but we are struggling to decide whether it is false, and we want all the evidence we can get. Falsehood tends towards incoherence. |
| 23888 | Knowledge is beyond question, as an unavoidable component of thinking [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The speaker refuses to pose the question of knowledge, since knowledge is a given that is mixed with thought, and that no thinking being can get away from. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Philosophy [1941], p.42) | |
| A reaction: On the whole I favour belief-first, but I take the primary purpose of minds to be navigation, and that needs facts, not hopeful beliefs. Weil's thought pushes me a bit towards the knowledge first view. |
| 23887 | Art (like philosophy) establishes a relation between world and self, and between oneself and others [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Isn't true art a method for establishing a certain relation between the world and the self, and between oneself and others, and isn't that the equivalent of philosophy? | |
| From: Simone Weil (Philosophy [1941], p.38) | |
| A reaction: I hope the definition of 'true' art doesn't have to conform to achieving this relation. I suppose each good work of art shows you a distinctive way of relating to the world. An interesting thought (as so often with this thinker). |
| 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'). |