14 ideas
| 22026 | Philosophy is homesickness - the urge to be at home everywhere [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is actually homesickness - the urge to be everywhere at home. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 45) | |
| A reaction: The idea of home [heimat] is powerful in German culture. The point of romanticism was seen as largely concerning restless souls like Byron and his heroes, who do not feel at home. Hence ironic detachment. |
| 23634 | Accepting the existence of anything presupposes the notion of existence [Reid] |
| Full Idea: The belief of the existence of anything seems to suppose a notion of existence - a notion too abstract, perhaps, to enter into the mind of an infant. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 05) | |
| A reaction: But even a small infant has to cope with the experience of waking up from a dream. I don't see how existence can be anything other than a primitive concept in any system of ontology. |
| 23635 | Truths are self-evident to sensible persons who understand them clearly without prejudice [Reid] |
| Full Idea: Self-evident propositions are those which appear evident to every man of sound understanding who apprehends the meaning of them distinctly, and attends to them without prejudice. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 10) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that there are some truths which are self-evident to dogs. There are also truths which are self-evident to experts, but not to ordinary persons of good understanding. Self-evidence is somewhat contextual. Self-evidence can be empirical. |
| 7631 | Sensation is not committed to any external object, but perception is [Reid] |
| Full Idea: Sensation, by itself, implies neither the conception nor belief of any external object. ...Perception implies a conviction and belief of something external. ...Things so different in their nature ought to be distinguished. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], II.16), quoted by Barry Maund - Perception | |
| A reaction: Maund sees this as the origin of the two-stage view of perception, followed by Chisholm, Evans, Dretske and Lowe. It implies that 'looks', 'tastes', 'sounds' etc. are ambiguous words, having either phenomenal or realist meanings. I like it. |
| 23637 | Primary qualities are the object of mathematics [Reid] |
| Full Idea: The primary qualities are the object of the mathematical sciences. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 17) | |
| A reaction: He spells out this crucial point, which is not so obvious in Locke. The sciences totally rely on the primary qualities, so it is ridiculous to reject the distinction (which Reid accepts). |
| 23638 | Secondary qualities conjure up, and are confused with, the sensations which produce them [Reid] |
| Full Idea: The thought of a secondary quality always carries us back to the sensation which it produces.We give the same name to both, and are apt to confound them. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 17) | |
| A reaction: 'Redness', for example. Reid puts the point very nicely. Secondary qualities are not entirely mental; they pick out features of the world, but are much harder to understand than the primary qualities. The qualia question lurks. |
| 23639 | It is unclear whether a toothache is in the mind or in the tooth, but the word has a single meaning [Reid] |
| Full Idea: If it be made a question whether the toothache be in the mind that feels it, or in tooth that is affected, much might be said on both sides, while it is not observed that the word has two meanings. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 18) | |
| A reaction: I'm glad Reid was struck by the weird phenomenon of the brain apparently 'projecting' a pain into a tooth. Presumably before the brain's role was known, people were unaware of this puzzle. There certainly are not two distinct experiences. |
| 6492 | Reid is seen as the main direct realist of the eighteenth century [Reid, by Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Reid is often represented by modern opponents of the empiricists as the outstanding protagonist of direct or naïve realism and common sense in the eighteenth century. | |
| From: report of Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785]) by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.6 | |
| A reaction: Robinson does not deny that this is Reid's view. Keith Lehrer is a great fan of Reid. Personally I think direct realism is quite clearly false, so I find myself losing interest in Reid's so-called 'common sense'. |
| 23641 | People dislike believing without evidence, and try to avoid it [Reid] |
| Full Idea: To believe without evidence is a weakness which every man is concerned to avoid, and which every man wishes to avoid. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 20) | |
| A reaction: It seems to be very common, though, for people to believe things on incredibly flimsy evidence, if they find the belief appealing. This is close to Clifford's Principle, but not quite as dogmatic. |
| 23642 | If non-rational evidence reaches us, it is reason which then makes use of it [Reid] |
| Full Idea: If Nature gives us information of things that concern us, by other means that by reasoning, reason itself will direct us to receive that information with thankfulness, and to make the best use of it. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 20) | |
| A reaction: This is more of a claim than an argument, but it is hard to see how anything could even be seen as evidence if some sort of rational judgement has not been made. The clever detective sees which facts are evidence. |
| 19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
| Full Idea: An absolute drive toward perfection and completeness is an illness, as soon as it shows itself to be destructive and averse toward the imperfect, the incomplete. | |
| From: Novalis (General Draft [1799], 33) | |
| A reaction: Deep and true! Novalis seems to be a particularist - hanging on to the fine detail of life, rather than being immersed in the theory. These are the philosophers who also turn to literature. |
| 23640 | Only mature minds can distinguish the qualities of a body [Reid] |
| Full Idea: I think it requires some ripeness of understanding to distinguish the qualities of a body from the body; perhaps this distinction is not made by brutes, or by infants. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses [1785], 19) | |
| A reaction: I'm glad the brutes get a mention in his assessment of these questions. I take such thinking to arise from what can be labelled the faculty of abstraction, which presumably only appears in a mature brain. It is second-level thinking. |
| 22745 | Pherecydes said the first principle and element is earth [Pherecydes, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Pherecydes of Syros said that the principle and element of all things is earth. | |
| From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.360 | |
| A reaction: Sextus is giving the history, and mentions it before saying that Thales thought it was water. Earth seems a sensible starting point, and I am guessing that Thales was trying to think a bit more deeply than Pherecydes about it. |
| 5883 | Pherecydes was the first to say that the soul is eternal [Pherecydes, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: As far as the literature tells us, Pherecydes of Syros was the first who pronounced the souls of men to be eternal. | |
| From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.xvi.38 | |
| A reaction: Presumably before that it was the physical person who arrived in the Underworld. The Hindu tradition seems to require the soul to be very long-lived, if not eternal. Why did Pherecydes come up with this idea? |