69 ideas
| 4171 | Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy considers only the universal, in nature as everywhere else. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 027) | |
| A reaction: I think what draws people to philosophy is an interest in whatever is timeless. Contingent reality is so frustrating and exhausting. Hence I agree. |
| 4186 | Everyone is conscious of all philosophical truths, but philosophers bring them to conceptual awareness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every person is conscious of all philosophical truths, but to bring them to conceptual awareness, to reflection, is the business of the philosopher. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.68) | |
| A reaction: I like this. All human beings are philosophical. It seems unlikely, though, that we are all pre-conceptually conscious of the higher levels of philosophical logic. |
| 12171 | Absurdity is incongruity between correct and false points of view [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The more correct the subsumption of objects from one point of view, and the greater and more glaring the incongruity from another point of view, the greater is the ludicrous effect which is produced by this contrast. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 013), quoted by Roger Scruton - Laughter §5 | |
| A reaction: This accounts for ludicrous humour, but there seem to be plenty of other types. Exceptional stupidity is usually amusing without necessarily being incongruous. Though it is a departure from the sensible norm. |
| 21366 | Metaphysics must understand the world thoroughly, as a principal source of knowledge [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The task of metaphysics is not to pass over experience in which the world exists, but to understand it thoroughly, since inner and outer experience are certainly the principal source of all knowledge. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 428), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: I wonder to what extent he meant ordinary experience, and to what extent he was advocating the study if science? |
| 17651 | Without words or other symbols, we have no world [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We can have words without a world but no world without words or other symbols. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: Goodman seems to have a particularly extreme version of the commitment to philosophy as linguistic. Non-human animals have no world, it seems. |
| 5331 | You can't infer that because you have a hidden birth-mark, everybody else does [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: My knowing that I had a hidden birth-mark would not entitle me to infer with any great degree of confidence that the same was true of everybody else. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.E) | |
| A reaction: This is the notorious 'induction from a single case' which was used by Mill to prove that other minds exist. It is a very nice illustration of the weakness of arguments from analogy. Probably analogy on its own is useless, but is a key part of induction. |
| 17652 | Truth is irrelevant if no statements are involved [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Truth pertains solely to what is said ...For nonverbal versions and even for verbal versions without statements, truth is irrelevant. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Goodman is a philosopher of language (like Dummett), but I am a philosopher of thought (like Evans). The test, for me, is whether truth is applicable to the thought of non-human animals. I take it to be obvious that it is applicable. |
| 4168 | Matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which only exist relatively, and for each other [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: In my system matter and intellect are inseparable correlatives which exist only for each other, and so exist only relatively. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I.Supp) | |
| A reaction: A plausible picture, but built from dualist presuppositions. Personally I think intellect is built out of matter, so I am not going down Schopenhauer's road. |
| 17656 | Being primitive or prior always depends on a constructional system [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is primitive or derivationally prior to anything apart from a constructional system. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4c) | |
| A reaction: Something may be primitive not just because we can't be bothered to analyse it any further, but because even God couldn't analyse it. Maybe. |
| 17661 | We don't recognise patterns - we invent them [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Recognising patterns is very much a matter of inventing or imposing them. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be false. |
| 17659 | Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Reality in a world, like realism in a picture, is largely a matter of habit. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm a robust realist, me, but I sort of see what he means. We become steeped in unspoken conventions about how we take our world to be, and filter out anything that conflicts with it. |
| 21926 | Schopenhauer, unlike other idealists, says reality is irrational [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer radically departs from his fellow idealists in his assertion of the irrational character of reality. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: This is the rejection of the original confidence about rationality of the stoics. And yet Schopenauer saw the principle of sufficient reason as axiomatic. Not sure how to reconcile those. Lewis identifies this idea as 'Romantic'. |
| 4167 | The knowing subject and the crude matter of the world are both in themselves unknowable [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The world has two poles - the knowing subject and crude matter, which are both completely unknowable, the former because it is the knower, the latter because without form and quality it cannot be perceived. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: A nice concept, that all of reality comes from their relationship, but the two components are intrinsically unknowable. Does God the Knower know his own mind? |
| 17657 | We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We dismiss as illusory or negligible what cannot be fitted into the architecture of the world we are building. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4d) | |
| A reaction: I'm trying to think of an example of this, but can't. Maybe poor people are invisible to the rich? |
| 2611 | It is currently held that quantifying over something implies belief in its existence [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: It is currently held that we are committed to a belief in the existence of anything over which we quantify. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], IX.C) |
| 17654 | A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: A world may be unmanageably heterogeneous or unbearably monotonous according to how events are sorted into kinds. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4a) | |
| A reaction: We might expect this from the man who invented 'grue', which allows you to classify things that change colour with things that don't. Could you describe a bird as 'might have been a fish', and classify it with fish? ('Projectible'?) |
| 16520 | We see properties necessary for a kind (in the definition), but not for an individual [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: We can significantly ask what properties it is necessary for something to possess in order to be a thing of such and such a kind, since that asks what properties enter into the definition of the kind. But there is no such definition of the individual. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], 9.A.5) | |
| A reaction: [Quoted, not surprisingly, by Wiggins] Illuminating. If essence is just about necessary properties, I begin to see why the sortal might be favoured. I take it to concern explanatory mechanisms, and hence the individual. |
| 17653 | Things can only be judged the 'same' by citing some respect of sameness [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Identification rests upon organization into entities and kinds. The response to the question 'Same or not the same?' must always be 'Same what?'. ...Identity or constancy in a world is identity with respect to what is within that world as organised. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4a) | |
| A reaction: And the gist of his book is that 'organised' is done by us, not by the world. He seems to be committed to the full Geachean relative identity, rather than the mere Wigginsian relative individuation. An unfashionable view! |
| 4165 | Descartes found the true beginning of philosophy with the Cogito, in the consciousness of the individual [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: By taking Cogito Ergo Sum as the only certainty, and by his provisionally regarding the existence of the world as problematical, the essential starting point of all philosophy was found, and its true focus in the subjective, the individual consciousness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: Some people think this was a disaster, not a triumph. Descartes could have doubted himself and accepted the world as his starting point. |
| 21923 | Schopenhauer can't use force/energy instead of 'will', because he is not a materialist [Lewis,PB on Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Some say Schopenhauer would be less misunderstood if he had used 'force' or 'energy' rather than 'will' to characterise inner natures. But this would have steered his idealism towards materialism, of which he was an avowed opponent. | |
| From: comment on Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: I presume therefore that Nietzsche's will to power is a commitment to materialism, since it occurs in material objects as well as minds. |
| 4162 | The world only exists in relation to something else, as an idea of the one who conceives it [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The world which surrounds man exists only as idea - that is, only in relation to something else, the one who conceives the idea, which is himself. If any truth can be enunciated a priori, it is this. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 001) | |
| A reaction: Yes, but the idea we have is of a real world. It is definitely not part of the idea that it is an idea (unlike my idea for a Christmas present). |
| 21922 | We know reality because we know our own bodies and actions [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The double knowledge of the nature and action of our own body is the key to the inner being of every phenomenon in nature. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 105), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: Lewis calls this 'the heart of his philosophy'. Bodily awareness comes from acts of willing. So Lewis says 'the thing-in-itself is revealed to us in willing'. We experience Being and causation. Is he trying to combine idealism with the thing-in-itself? |
| 21913 | Kant rightly separates appearance and thing-in-itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Kant's greatest merit is the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 417 App), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 3 | |
| A reaction: This is Schopenhauer firmly opposing the Absolute Idealism of Kant's successors, who dismissed the 'thing-in-itsef'. |
| 4164 | Direct feeling of the senses are merely data; perception of the world comes with understanding causes [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: What the eye, the ear, or the hand feels, is not perception, it is merely data. Only when the understanding passes from the effect to the cause does the world lie before us as perception extended in space. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 004) | |
| A reaction: These certainly seems to be a sense-data theory. Philosophers are much more ready to separate the data from the understanding than neuroscientists are. |
| 4163 | All perception is intellectual [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: All perception is intellectual. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 004) | |
| A reaction: Even in slugs? I suspect that this is a tautology. Schopenhauer will only allow my vision or hearing to become 'perception' when an intellectual element enters into it. |
| 17660 | Discovery is often just finding a fit, like a jigsaw puzzle [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Discovery often amounts, as when I place a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, not to arrival at a proposition for declaration or defense, but to finding a fit. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: I find Goodman's views here pretty alien, but I like this bit. Coherence really rocks. |
| 17658 | Users of digital thermometers recognise no temperatures in the gaps [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: To use a digital thermometer with readings in tenths of a degree is to recognise no temperature as lying between 90 and 90.1 degrees. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4d) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be nonsense, treating users of digital thermometers as if they were stupid. No one thinks temperatures go up and down in quantum leaps. We all know there is a gap between instrument and world. (Very American, I'm thinking!) |
| 17650 | We lack frames of reference to transform physics, biology and psychology into one another [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We have no neat frames of reference, no ready rules for transforming physics, biology and psychology into one another. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.2) |
| 17655 | Grue and green won't be in the same world, as that would block induction entirely [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Grue cannot be a relevant kind for induction in the same world as green, for that would preclude some of the decisions, right or wrong, that constitute inductive inference. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4b) | |
| A reaction: This may make 'grue' less mad than I thought it was. I always assume we are slicing the world as 'green, blue and grue'. I still say 'green' is a basic predicate of experience, but 'grue' is amenable to analysis. |
| 2613 | The theory of other minds has no rival [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The theory that other people besides oneself have mental states is one that has no serious rival. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.E) | |
| A reaction: See 3463, where Searle says there is no such thing as our "theory" about other minds. In a science fiction situation (see 'Blade Runner'), this unrivalled theory could quickly unravel. It could even be a fact that you are the only humanoid with a mind. |
| 5328 | Originally I combined a mentalistic view of introspection with a behaviouristic view of other minds [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: In 1936 I combined a mentalistic analysis of the propositions in which one attributes experiences to oneself with a behaviouristic analysis of the propositions in which one attributes experiences to others. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.D) | |
| A reaction: He then criticises his view for inconsistency. Ryle preferred a behaviouristic account of introspection, but Ayer calls this 'ridiculous'. Ayer hunts for a compromise, but then settles for the right answer, which makes mentalism the 'best explanation'. |
| 5330 | Physicalism undercuts the other mind problem, by equating experience with 'public' brain events [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The acceptance of physicalism undercuts the other minds problem by equating experiences with events in the brain, which are publicly observable. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.E) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that if we could actually observe the operations of one another's brains, a great many of the problems of philosophy would never have appeared in the first place. Imagine a transparent skull and brain, with coloured waves moving through it. |
| 4166 | A consciousness without an object is no consciousness [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: A consciousness without an object is no consciousness. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: This hints at Hume's observations about the self. Certainly totally vacant consciousness seems inconceivable, but is that a necessary or a contingent truth? |
| 21369 | We have hidden and unadmitted desires and fears, suppressed because of vanity [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We often do not know what we desire or fear. For years we can have a desire without admitting it to ourselves ....because the intellect is not to know anything about it, since the good opinion we have of ourselves would inevitably suffer thereby. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 210), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 5 'Will' | |
| A reaction: The idea of unconscious thought crept up well before Freud. It is in La Rochefoucauld, and important in Nietzsche. Neuroscience seems to give it a strong priority over the conscious mind, which is a revolutionary idea. |
| 5326 | Qualia must be united by a subject, because they lead to concepts and judgements [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The ground for thinking that qualia are only experiences because they relate to a unifying subject is that they have to be identified, by being brought under concepts, and giving rise to judgements which usually go beyond them. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.B) | |
| A reaction: Thus one of Hume's greatest fans gives the clearest objection to Hume. It strikes me as a very powerful objection, better than anything Carruthers offers (1394,1395,1396). The conceptual element is very hard to disentangle from the qualia. |
| 5325 | Is something an 'experience' because it relates to other experiences, or because it relates to a subject? [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Is the character of being an item of experience one that can accrue to a quale through its relation to other qualia, or must it consist in a relation to a subject, which is conscious of these elements and distinct from them? | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.B) | |
| A reaction: When nicely put like this, it is hard to see how qualia could be experiences just because they relate to one another. It begs the question of what is causing the relationship. There seems to be a Cogito-like assumption of a thinker. |
| 5324 | Bodily identity and memory work together to establish personal identity [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: In general the two criteria of memory and bodily identity work together. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.B) | |
| A reaction: This seems better than any simplistic one-criterion approach. In life we use different criteria for our own identity, as when dreaming, or waking with a hangover, or wondering if we are dead after an accident. |
| 21367 | I know both aspects of my body, as representation, and as will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: My body is the only object of which I know not merely the one side, that of the representation, but also the other, that is called 'will'. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 125), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that knowledge of the body through the will (and action, presumably) constitutes a different sort of knowledge. Philosophers are always trying to split the world in two (but not Nietzsche!). |
| 5322 | Self-consciousness is not basic, because experiences are not instrinsically marked with ownership [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Self-consciousness is not a primitive datum, or in other words the observer's experiences are not intrinsically marked as his own. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.A) | |
| A reaction: This is a very Humean, ruthlessly empiricist view of the matter. Plenty of philosophers (existentialists, or Charles Taylor) would say that our experiences have our interests or values built into them. Why are they experiences, and not just events? |
| 5327 | Temporal gaps in the consciousness of a spirit could not be bridged by memories [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: If there were temporal gaps in the consciousness of disembodied spirits, the occurrences of memory-experiences would not be sufficient to bridge them. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.C) | |
| A reaction: Ayer is very sympathetic to the idea that the body is a key ingredient in personal identity. Without a body, there would be no criteria at all for the continuity of a spirit which lost consciousness for a while, since consciousness is all it is. |
| 4175 | It is as perverse to resent our individuality being replaced by others, as to resent the body renewing itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: It is as perverse to desire the continuity of one's individuality which is being replaced by other individuals, as to desire the permanence of the body's substance which is always being replaced by new substance. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.54) | |
| A reaction: If I let that go, what am I supposed to hang on to? Nothing? Non-existence is not an attractive condition to aspire to. |
| 4176 | We all regard ourselves a priori as free, but see from experience that character and motive compel us [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Everyone regards himself a priori as free in his individual actions, and only a posteriori sees that necessarily his actions follow from the coincidence of character with motives. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.55) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what experience shows. Necessity seems more obvious when observing other people. Samuel Johnson said experience showed freedom, not necessity. |
| 4170 | Man's actions are not free, because they follow strictly from impact of motive on character [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Man's action have been interpreted as free, which they are not, for every individual action follows with strict necessity from the impact of motive on character. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 023) | |
| A reaction: If 'character is fate' (Heraclitus) then presumably motive must also be fate to complete the determinist picture. I shall spend the next year redesigning my motivation. |
| 5329 | Why shouldn't we say brain depends on mind? Better explanation! [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: If mind and brain exactly correspond we have as good ground for saying the brain depends on the mind as the other way round; if predominance is given to the brain, the reason is that it fits into a wider explanatory system. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], §VI.D) | |
| A reaction: A small but significant point. If an 'identity' theory is to be developed, then this step in the argument has to be justified. It is tempting here to move to the eliminativist view, because we no longer have to worry about a 'direction of priority'. |
| 2610 | Talk of propositions is just shorthand for talking about equivalent sentences [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Our talk of propositions should not be regarded as anything more than a concise way of talking about equivalent sentences. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], IX.C) | |
| A reaction: Wrong, though I can see why he says it. We struggle to express difficult propositions by offering several similar (but not equivalent) sentences. What is the criterion for deciding his 'equivalence'? |
| 4169 | Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every true act of will is also at once and without exception a movement of the body. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 018) | |
| A reaction: The word 'act' seems to beg the question (as does 'true'!). I am no longer sure that I know what an act of will is. Hobbes says there is no such thing. |
| 7187 | Schopenhauer was caught in Christian ideals, because he didn't deify his 'will' [Nietzsche on Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer's interpretation of the in-itself as will was an essential step: but he didn't know how to deify the will, and remained caught in the moral, Christian ideal | |
| From: comment on Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 9[42] | |
| A reaction: Intriguingly, this seems to suggest that Nietzsche consciously sought to replace the absence of God with the human will, which strikes me as an odd, and very nineteenth century, idea. Loss of religion bothered them a lot. |
| 21365 | Only the will is thing-in-itself, seen both in blind nature and in human action [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Only the will is thing-in-itself. ...It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man, and the great difference between the two concerns only the degree of the manifestation. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 110), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: If will acts 'blindly' in forces of nature, then these seems to be the same concept as Nietzsche's 'will to power'. This seems to be heading towards Heidegger's Dasein, as a central and distinctive mode of being. |
| 4173 | If we were essentially intellect rather than will, our moral worth would depend on imagined motives [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: If, as all philosophers imagine, the intellect is our actual nature and the will is arrived at through knowledge, then only the motive from which we imagined we were acting would decide our moral worth. Imagined and true motive would be indistinguishable. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II Supp) | |
| A reaction: A nice argument. If motive is morally decisive, it is certainly crucial to decide between real and imagined motive (especially since Freud). But uncontrollable motive seems morally irrelevant. |
| 21370 | Schopenhauer is a chief proponent of aesthetic experience as 'disinterested' [Schopenhauer, by Janaway] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer belongs to a tradition which equates aesthetic experience with a 'disinterested' attitude towards its object, and is often cited as one of the chief proponents of such a view. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
| A reaction: 'Disinterested' is quite a nice word for one's attitude to art, though you then have to capture why you are also involved in it. |
| 4182 | A principal pleasure of the beautiful is that it momentarily silences the will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The momentary silencing of all volition …is one of the principal elements in our pleasure in the beautiful. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.65) | |
| A reaction: Iris Murdoch sees moral value in beauty, because it overrides selfishness. The perception of beauty is certainly something deeper than just another nice feeling. There is a cognitive element to it. |
| 21928 | The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Exaltation of the Sublime is the struggle to maintain will-less knowing in the face of a threat to the human will. The Sublime contains an awful beauty and a delightful terror because it includes a threat to human existence. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 201-7) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 5 | |
| A reaction: Can you experience the Sublime when looking down a microscope? Can a mere theory in cosmology be sublime? Can a supposed perception of the Sublime ever be incorrect? We no longer worry about these questions, it seems. |
| 21927 | Schopenhauer emphasises Ideas in art, unlike most romantics [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: The emphasis on the presentation of Platonic Ideas distinguishes Schopenhauer's theory of art from standard Romantic theories, which emphasize the expression of emotion and feeling. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 5 | |
| A reaction: Theories of art that neglect ideas, even if subliminally expressed, have gone badly wrong. |
| 8116 | The will-less contemplation of art brings a liberation from selfhood [Schopenhauer, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: For Schopenhauer, the point of art lies in the metaphysical liberation from selfhood that will-less aesthetic contemplation induces. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.6.3 | |
| A reaction: I've never understood why anyone (Buddhists included) would want 'liberation from selfhood'. Certainly art can make us forget ourselves in a more objective view of things, but science can do that too. |
| 4174 | Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Man is more beautiful than anything else, and the loftiest purpose of art is to reveal his nature. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], III 41) | |
| A reaction: A bit of a shock, because it implies human vanity, but it fits the best works of art rather well. What else reveals humanity's beauty? Beautiful deeds must be recorded. |
| 21380 | The only aim of our existence is to grasp that non-existence would be better [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Nothing else can be stated as the aim of our existence except the knowledge that it would be better for us not to exist. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 605), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 8 'Denial' | |
| A reaction: Nonsense on stilts. Nietzsche rebelled against this. If there is such 'knowledge' then it obviously has nothing to do with the aim of our existence. It is just a rejection of aims. The aim is making the best of existence, not spurning it. |
| 21374 | We should no more expect ethical theory to produce good people than aesthetics to produce artists [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We should be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics would create virtuous, noble and hold men, as that our aesthetics would produce poets, painterd and musicians. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 271), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 7 'Against' | |
| A reaction: Presumably the aim of ethical theory is to understand the truths about ethics. That can't do any harm, can it? In every other area of life we think that understanding leads to improvement. Unless, of course, there are no truths of ethics.... |
| 4181 | Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Every good is essentially relative, for it has its essential nature only in its relation to a desiring will. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.65) | |
| A reaction: A nice way of stating the core of moral relativism. To me, though, it just seems a rejection of morality. Conflicting wills bring moral paralysis. Might is right. |
| 5649 | Will casts aside each of its temporary fulfilments, so human life has no ultimate aim [Schopenhauer, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Since for Schopenhauer will has no intrinsic end, but breaks through all its temporary fulfilments and casts them aside as irrelevant once attained, it becomes impossible to assert that there is any ultimate aim to human activity. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13 | |
| A reaction: This sums up part of the modern anti-teleological view of life, with its notion of purposes which can only arise out of consciousnesses. Such a view leaves untouched the key question, which is "What should I will?" |
| 4177 | Most people would probably choose non-existence at the end of their life, rather than relive the whole thing [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps no one at the end of his life, if he gives the matter sober consideration and is, at the same time, frank, ever wishes to live it over again; he more readily chooses non-existence. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.59) | |
| A reaction: Hence Nietzsche's doctrine of 'eternal return' (Gay Science §341, idea 2936). From Schopenhauer it is just bleak pessimism, but from Nietzsche it is a wonderful challenge to live, perhaps the best ever. |
| 4185 | Altruistic people make less distinction than usual between themselves and others [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: If we observe an altruistic action the simplest explanation and the essential character of the person's conduct is that they make less distinction than is usually made between themselves and others. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: Obvious, really, but Schopenhauer is talking about the will. Is the effacement of the Self desirable, apart from the benefit it might bring to other people. I don't find it appealing. |
| 4183 | Only self-love can motivate morality, but that also makes it worthless [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: A theory of morals which motivates can only do so by working on self-love, but what springs from this latter has no moral worth. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: I just don't believe this pessimism. Schopenhauer was an incipient social darwinist who needed a course in modern game theory. Or he just needed to be a nicer man. |
| 4172 | Happiness is the swift movement from desire to satisfaction, and then again on to desire [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: We are fortunate if we keep up the game whereby desire passes into satisfaction, and satisfaction into new desire - if the pace of this is swift, it is called happiness, and if it is slow, sorrow. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], II 029) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the dream of the addict, as Socrates points out with his example of the leaky jar in 'Gorgias'. Should we want more desires? |
| 21371 | We can never attain happiness while our will is pursuing desires [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: So long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never attain lasting happiness or peace. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 196), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
| A reaction: I hate this idea. It obviously leads to his Buddhism, and the eastern idea that life is generally a bad idea and to be avoided. I think Nietzsche rebelled strongly against this attitude of Schopenhauer's. |
| 4184 | Virtue must spring from an intuitive recognition that other people are essentially like us [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Virtue must spring from that intuitive knowledge which recognises in the individuality of others the same essence as in our own. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.66) | |
| A reaction: After all his pessimism, he arrives at a view similar to Hume's, that morality is built on natural empathy. But why built a moral theory on one base. Everything points us towards morality! Moral actions are more beautiful. |
| 17649 | If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: If there is but one world, it embraces a multiplicity of contrasting aspects; if there are many worlds, the collection of them all is one. One world may be taken as many, or many worlds taken as one; whether one or many depends on the way of taking. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: He cites 'The Pluralistic Universe' by William James for this idea. The idea is that the distinction 'evaporates under analysis'. Parmenides seems to have thought that no features could be distinguished in the true One. |
| 4179 | The essence of nature is the will to life itself [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The essence of nature is the will to life itself. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.60) | |
| A reaction: How would he have responded to Darwin? The will to life is the product, there, of a different and more remote force, such as the 'energy' of the physicist (whatever that is!). |
| 4178 | Christianity is a pessimistic religion, in which the world is equated with evil [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Let no one think that Christianity is conducive to optimism; on the contrary, in the Gospels 'world' and 'evil' are used almost synonymously. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.59) | |
| A reaction: The source of Nietzsche's 'Beyond Good and Evil'. Do any religions throw you vigorously back into the middle of life, with its conflict and creativity? |
| 4180 | Religion is the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: All systems of religion are the mythical clothing of the truth which is inaccessible to the crude human intellect. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], IV.63) | |
| A reaction: Is this a compliment? It seems to be, because at least the mysteries are identified and given an outward form. A nice thought. |