19 ideas
9307 | Modern Western culture suddenly appeared in Jena in the 1790s [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: Foucault was right to say that Jena in the 1790s was the arena where the fundamental interests in modern Western culture suddenly had their breakthrough. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: [Hölderlin, Novalis, Tieck, Schlegel, based on Kant and Fichte] Romanticism seems to have been born then. Is that the essence of modernism? Foucault and his pals are hoping to destroy the Enlightenment by ignoring it, but that is modern too. |
9297 | You can't understand love in terms of 'if and only if...' [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: I once began reading a philosophical article on love. The following statement soon came up: 'Bob loves Kate if and only if...' At that point I stopped reading. Such a formalized approach was unsuitable, because the actual phenomenon would be lost. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Pref) | |
A reaction: It is hard to disagree! However, if your best friend comes to you and says, 'I can't decide whether I am really in love with Kate; what do you think?', how are you going to respond. You offer 'if and only if..', but in a warm and sympathetic way! |
9331 | How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich] |
Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2) | |
A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't? |
13082 | The complete concept of an individual includes contingent properties, as well as necessary ones [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: In this complete concept of possible Peter are contained not only essential or necessary things, ..but also existential things, or contingent items included there, because the nature of an individual substance is to have a perfect or complete concept. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Of liberty, Fate and God's grace [1690], Grua 311), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.3.1 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 13077, where he seems to say that the complete concept is only necessarily linked to properties which will predict future events - though I suppose that would have to include all of the contingent properties mentioned here. |
9333 | A priori belief is not necessarily a priori justification, or a priori knowledge [Horwich] |
Full Idea: It is one thing to believe something a priori and another for this belief to be epistemically justified. The latter is required for a priori knowledge. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
A reaction: Personally I would agree with this, because I don't think anything should count as knowledge if it doesn't have supporting reasons, but fans of a priori knowledge presumably think that certain basic facts are just known. They are a priori justified. |
9342 | Understanding needs a priori commitment [Horwich] |
Full Idea: Understanding is itself based on a priori commitment. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: This sounds plausible, but needs more justification than Horwich offers. This is the sort of New Rationalist idea I associate with Bonjour. The crucial feature of the New lot is, I take it, their fallibilism. All understanding is provisional. |
9332 | Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich] |
Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it. |
9341 | Meanings and concepts cannot give a priori knowledge, because they may be unacceptable [Horwich] |
Full Idea: A priori knowledge of logic and mathematics cannot derive from meanings or concepts, because someone may possess such concepts, and yet disagree with us about them. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: A good argument. The thing to focus on is not whether such ideas are a priori, but whether they are knowledge. I think we should employ the word 'intuition' for a priori candidates for knowledge, and demand further justification for actual knowledge. |
9334 | If we stipulate the meaning of 'number' to make Hume's Principle true, we first need Hume's Principle [Horwich] |
Full Idea: If we stipulate the meaning of 'the number of x's' so that it makes Hume's Principle true, we must accept Hume's Principle. But a precondition for this stipulation is that Hume's Principle be accepted a priori. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §9) | |
A reaction: Yet another modern Quinean argument that all attempts at defining things are circular. I am beginning to think that the only a priori knowledge we have is of when a group of ideas is coherent. Calling it 'intuition' might be more accurate. |
9339 | A priori knowledge (e.g. classical logic) may derive from the innate structure of our minds [Horwich] |
Full Idea: One potential source of a priori knowledge is the innate structure of our minds. We might, for example, have an a priori commitment to classical logic. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §11) | |
A reaction: Horwich points out that to be knowledge it must also say that we ought to believe it. I'm wondering whether if we divided the whole territory of the a priori up into intuitions and then coherent justifications, the whole problem would go away. |
9308 | If subjective and objective begin to merge, then so do primary and secondary qualities [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: It is doubtful whether the traditional dichotomy between the strictly subjective and the strictly objective can still be maintained; if not, we must also revise the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Very perceptive. The reason why I am so keen to hang onto the primary/secondary distinction is because I want to preserve objectivity (and realism). I much prefer Locke to Hume, as empiricist spokesmen. |
9309 | Emotions have intentional objects, while a mood is objectless [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: An emotion normally has an intentional object, while a mood is objectless. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: It doesn't follow that the object of the emotion is clearly understood, or even that it is conscious. One may experience rising anger while struggling to see what its object is. Artistic symbolism seems to involve objects that create moods. |
9304 | Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: [He credits Adorno with this] A good thought, which should be immediately emailed to Epicurus for comment. Which is worse - to die when you have barely started your great work (Ramsey), or dying in full flow (Schubert)? |
9298 | We can be unaware that we are bored [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: It is perfectly possible to be bored without being aware of the fact. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: True. Also, I sometimes mistake indecision for boredom. It becomes very hard to say for certain whether you are bored. I am certain that I am bored if I am forced to do something which has no interest for me. The big one is free-but-bored. |
9302 | We are bored because everything comes to us fully encoded, and we want personal meaning [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: Boredom results from a lack of personal meaning, which is due to the fact that all objects and actions come to us fully encoded, while we (as descendants of Romanticism) insist on a personal meaning. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This idea justifies me categorising Boredom under Existentialism. This is an excellent idea, and perfectly captures the experience of most teenagers, for whom it is impossible to impose a personal meaning on such a vast cultural reality. |
9301 | Boredom is so radical that suicide could not overcome it; only never having existed would do it [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: Boredom is so radical that it cannot even be overcome by suicide, only by something completely impossible - not to have existed at all. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: [he cites Fernando Pessoa for this] The actor George Sanders left a suicide note saying that he was just bored. A cloud of boredom is left hanging in the air where he was. |
9310 | The profoundest boredom is boredom with boredom [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: In the profound form of boredom, I am bored by boredom itself. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Boredom is boring, which is why I try to avoid it. Third-level boredom is a rather enchanting idea. It sounds remarkably similar to the Buddha experiencing enlightenment. |
9311 | We have achieved a sort of utopia, and it is boring, so that is the end of utopias [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: There can hardly be any new utopias. To the extent that we can imagine a utopia, it must already have been realised. A utopia cannot, by definition, include boredom, but the 'utopia' we are living in is boring. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 8989. Lots of people (including me) think that we have achieved a kind of liberal, democratic, individualistic 'utopia', but the community needs of people are not being met, so we still have a way to go. |
9303 | The concept of 'alienation' seems no longer applicable [Svendsen] |
Full Idea: I do not believe that the concept of 'alienation' is all that applicable any more. | |
From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Interesting but puzzling. If alienation is the key existential phenomenon of a capitalist society, why should it fade away if we remain capitalist? He is proposing that it has metamorphosed into boredom, which may be a different sort of alienation. |