41 ideas
| 20109 | Hegel inserted society and history between the God-world, man-nature, man-being binary pairs [Hegel, by Safranski] |
| Full Idea: Before Hegel, people thought in binary oppositions of God and the world, man and nature, man and being. After Hegel an intervening world of society and history was inserted between these pairs. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840]) by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 05 | |
| A reaction: This is what Popper later called 'World Three'. This might be seen as the start of what we islanders call 'continental' philosophy, which we have largely ignored. Analytic philosophy only discovered this through philosophy of language. |
| 125 | Is a gifted philosopher unmanly if he avoids the strife of the communal world? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: Even a naturally gifted philosopher isn't going to develop into a real man, because he's avoiding the heart of his community and the thick of the agora. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 485d) | |
| A reaction: A serious charge against philosophy. An attraction of the subject is its purity, its necessity, its timelessness, and in some ways these are just nicer and easier and more understandable than the hard mess of real life. But understanding has to be good. |
| 1654 | In "Gorgias" Socrates is confident that his 'elenchus' will decide moral truth [Vlastos on Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the 'Gorgias' Socrates is still supremely confident that the elenchus is the final arbiter of moral truth. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.117 |
| 4321 | We should test one another, by asking and answering questions [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Test me, and let yourself be tested as well, by asking and answering questions. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 462a) | |
| A reaction: The idea must be to avoid wild speculation, by continually filtering ideas through rival critical intelligences. The best philosophical method ever devised. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 116 | Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Rhetoric is a knack, because it lacks rational understanding of its object or what it dispenses (and can't explain the reason anything happens). | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 465a) | |
| A reaction: If there are cunning people who have the wrong sort of intelligence for morality, there must be cunning users of rhetoric who know exactly what they are doing. |
| 114 | Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Rhetoric is an agent of the kind of persuasion which is designed to produce conviction, but not to educate people about right and wrong. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 455a) | |
| A reaction: Surely there must be good rhetoric (or at least it is an open question)? |
| 135 | All activity aims at the good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: All activity aims at the good. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 499e) | |
| A reaction: He includes non-conscious activity, so this is the 'teleological' view of nature, which seems a bit optimistic to the modern mind. |
| 122 | Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: It's the weaklings who constitute the majority of the human race who make the rules. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483b) | |
| A reaction: An aristocrat bemoans democracy. Presumably the qualification for being a 'weakling' is shortage of money. How strong are the scions of the aristocrats? |
| 139 | A good person is bound to act well, and this brings happiness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A good person is bound to do whatever he does well and successfully, and success brings fulfilment and happiness. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 507c) | |
| A reaction: Not how we would see it, I guess, but this is the Greek idea that a good person is one who functions well. Anyone who functions well is probably having a good time. |
| 128 | Is it natural to simply indulge our selfish desires? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: Nature says the only authentic way of life is to do nothing to hinder or restrain the expansion of one's desires. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 491e) | |
| A reaction: Sounds like the natural desires of a young single man. Parents and spouses have natural desires that focus on other people's desires. |
| 4322 | In slaking our thirst the goodness of the action and the pleasure are clearly separate [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When we drink to quench thirst, we lose the distress of the thirst and the pleasure of drinking at the same moment, but one loss is good and the other bad, so the pleasure and the goodness must be separate. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 497d) | |
| A reaction: This is open to the objection that the good of slaking one's thirst is a long-term pleasure, where the drinking is short-term, so pleasure is still the good. |
| 136 | Good should be the aim of pleasant activity, not the other way round [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Good should be the goal of pleasant activities, rather than pleasure being the goal of good activities. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 500a) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Not far off what Aristotle says on the topic. So what activities should we seek out? Narrow the pleasures down to the good ones, or narrow the good ones down to the pleasurable? |
| 23274 | World history has no room for happiness [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: World history is not the place for happiness. Periods of happiness are empty pages in history. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3) | |
| A reaction: Clearly, Hegel thinks the progress of world history is much more important than happiness. This idea gives backing to those who don't care much about the casualties on either side in a major war. |
| 134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There is little to tell between good and bad people (e.g. cowards) in terms of how much pleasure and distress they experience. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 498c) | |
| A reaction: A very perceptive remark. If the good are people with empathy for others, then they may suffer more distress than the insensitive wicked. |
| 132 | If happiness is the satisfaction of desires, then a life of scratching itches should be happiness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: I want to ask whether a lifetime spent scratching, itching and scratching, no end of scratching, is also a life of happiness. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 494c) | |
| A reaction: There are plenty of people who think 'fun' is the main aim of life, and who fit what Socrates is referring to. We don't admire such a life, but not many people can be admired. |
| 4319 | In a fool's mind desire is like a leaky jar, insatiable in its desires, and order and contentment are better [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In a fool's mind desire is a leaky jar, …which is an analogy for the mind's insatiability, showing we should prefer an orderly life, in which one is content with whatever is to hand, to a self-indulgent life of insatiable desire. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 493b) | |
| A reaction: This points to an interesting paradox, that pleasure requires the misery of desire. And yet absence of desire is like death. An Aristotelian mean, of living according to nature, seems the escape route. |
| 130 | Is the happiest state one of sensual, self-indulgent freedom? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: If a person has the means to live a life of sensual, self-indulgent freedom, there's no better or happier state of existence. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 492c) |
| 120 | Should we avoid evil because it will bring us bad consequences? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: We should avoid doing wrong because of all the bad consequences it will bring us. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 480a) |
| 118 | I would rather be a victim of crime than a criminal [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: If I had to choose between doing wrong and having wrong done to me, I'd prefer the latter to the former. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 469c) | |
| A reaction: cf Democritus 68B45 |
| 140 | Self-indulgent desire makes friendship impossible, because it makes a person incapable of co-operation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Self-indulgent desire makes a person incapable of co-operation, which is a prerequisite of friendship. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 507e) |
| 131 | If absence of desire is happiness, then nothing is happier than a stone or a corpse [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: If people who need nothing are happy, there would be nothing happier than a stone or a corpse. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 492e) | |
| A reaction: We aren't really supposed to approve of Callicles, but to me this is a splendidly crushing western response to many of the ideals found in eastern philosophy. |
| 119 | A criminal is worse off if he avoids punishment [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates: A criminal is worse off if he doesn't pay the penalty, and continues to do wrong without getting punished. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 472e) |
| 129 | Do most people praise self-discipline and justice because they are too timid to gain their own pleasure? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: Why do most people praise self-discipline and justice? Because their own timidity makes them incapable of satisfying their pleasures. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 492a) |
| 4320 | The popular view is that health is first, good looks second, and honest wealth third [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I'm sure you know the list of human advantages in the party song: 'The very best is health, Second good looks, and third honest wealth'. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 451e) | |
| A reaction: This invites the obvious question of why anyone wants these three things, with the implied answer of 'pleasure'. But we might want them even if we couldn't use them, implying pluralism. |
| 23275 | The state of nature is one of untamed brutality [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The 'state of nature' is not an ideal condition, but a condition of injustice, of violence, of untamed natural drives, inhuman acts and emotions. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3) | |
| A reaction: He agrees with Hobbes, and disagrees with Rousseau. Hobbes's solution is authoritarian monarchy, but Hegel's solution is the unified and focused state, in which freedom can be realised. |
| 23276 | The soul of the people is an organisation of its members which produces an essential unity [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The soul [of the people] exists only insofar as it is an organisation of its members, which - by taking itself together in its simple unity - produce the soul. Thus the people is one individuality in its essence. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3) | |
| A reaction: Hegel is seen (e.g. by Charles Taylor) as the ancestor of a rather attractive communitarianism, but I think Popper is more accurate in seeing him as the first stage of modern totalitarianism. The people seen as one individual terrifies me. |
| 137 | As with other things, a good state is organised and orderly [Plato] |
| Full Idea: As in every case (an artefact, a body, a mind, a creature), a good state is an organised and orderly state. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 506e) |
| 141 | A good citizen won't be passive, but will redirect the needs of the state [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The only responsibility of a good member of a community is altering the community's needs rather than going along with them. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 517b) |
| 23272 | The human race matters, and individuals have little importance [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Individuals are of slight importance compared to the mass of the human race. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3) | |
| A reaction: A perfect statement of the anti-liberal viewpoint. Hegel is complex, but this is the strand that leads to ridiculous totalitarianism, where the highest ideal is to die for the glory of your nation. Importance can only start from individuals. |
| 23273 | In a good state the goal of the citizens and of the whole state are united [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: A state is well constituted and internally strong if the private interest of the citizens is united in the universal goal of the state. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3) | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is who decides on the goals, and what to do with the citizens who don't accept them. |
| 23271 | The goal of the world is Spirit's consciousness and enactment of freedom [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The final goal of the world is Spirit's consciousness of its freedom, and hence also the actualisation of that very freedom. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 3) | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that this ridiculous idea has been very influential in modern French philosophy, since they all seem to be dreaming of some perfect freedom at the end of the rainbow. Freedom is good, but this gives it a bad name. |
| 123 | Do most people like equality because they are second-rate? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: It's because most people are second-rate that they are happy for things to be distributed equally. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483c) |
| 124 | Does nature imply that it is right for better people to have greater benefits? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Callicles: We only have to look at nature to find evidence that it is right for better to have a greater share than worse. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483d) |
| 23270 | We should all agree that there is reason in history [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: We ought to have the firm and unconquerable belief that there is reason in history. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Introduction to the Philosophy of History [1840], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is a ridiculous but hugely influential idea, and I have no idea what makes Hegel believe it. It is the Stoic idea that nature is intrinsically rational, but extending it to human history is absurd. Human exceptionalism. Needs a dose of Darwin. |