9 ideas
| 20100 | Classical liberalism seeks freedom of opinion, of private life, of expression, and of property [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: The classical liberals agreed on a basic list of freedoms: of opinion (including religion), of private life, of expression, and of property | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 9) | |
| A reaction: Mill is main articulator of this. Modern neo-liberals focus on economic freedom. Neither of them seem to make freedom of opportunity central, though I suspect our modern Liberal Party would. |
| 7906 | When the Buddha reached the highest level of insight, he could detect no self in the world [Ashvaghosha] |
| Full Idea: The great Buddha passed through the eight stages of Transic insight, and quickly reached their highest point. From the summit of the world downwards he could detect no self anywhere. | |
| From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], XIV) | |
| A reaction: In the manner of Nietzsche, I am inclined to say that they find what they want to find, because that is their value. They want to get rid of the self, and dream of a mode in which existence continues without it. Is Buddhism opposed to human life? |
| 22489 | 'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot] |
| Full Idea: Geach puts 'good' in the class of attributive adjectives, such as 'large' and 'small', contrasting such adjectives with 'predicative' adjectives such as 'red'. | |
| From: report of Peter Geach (Good and Evil [1956]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness Intro | |
| A reaction: [In Analysis 17, and 'Theories of Ethics' ed Foot] Thus any object can simply be red, but something can only be large or small 'for a rat' or 'for a car'. Hence nothing is just good, but always a good so-and-so. This is Aristotelian, and Foot loves it. |
| 20097 | The welfare state aims at freedom from want, and equality of opportunity [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: In the classical liberal tradition freedom meant freedom from external control, and equality meant equality before the law. In the welfare state (of Beatrice Webb) freedom was reinterpreted as freedom from want, and equality as equality of opportunity. | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: The authors call this the 'third revolution' in government, after 17th century centralisation and early 19th century accountability. Tawney 1931 is the key text. |
| 20099 | For communists history is driven by the proletariat [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: For the communists the proletariat rather than the state was the locomotive of history. | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: I feel increasingly reluctant to support any party which appears to mainly represent the interests of a single social class, no matter how large that class may be. An attraction of liberalism is that it makes no reference to class. |
| 20098 | Fans of economic freedom claim that capitalism is self-correcting [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: The central laissez-faire conceit is that capitalism is a self-correcting mechanism. | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 3) | |
| A reaction: This was Keynes's rather left-wing criticism of standard capitalist views. These resurfaced in the 1980s with mantras about the virtues of 'market forces'. |
| 20096 | Roman law entrenched property rights [Micklethwait/Wooldridge] |
| Full Idea: Roman law entrenched property rights. | |
| From: Micklethwait,J/Wooldridge,A (The Fourth Revolution [2014], 1 Intro) | |
| A reaction: Normally attributed to Locke, so this is a good corrective. Was the principle gradually forgotten before Locke? |
| 7904 | The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking [Ashvaghosha] |
| Full Idea: The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking. | |
| From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], V.11) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am not sure that I would want to go any further that the first stage, since the elimination of discursive thinking seems to me to be approaching death. To pursue intense thinking very calmly I take to be the ideal of all western philosophers. |
| 7905 | The Buddha sought ultimate reality and the final goal of existence in his meditations [Ashvaghosha] |
| Full Idea: Next the Boddhisatva, possessed of great skill in Transic meditation, put himself into a trance, intent on discerning both the ultimate reality of things and the final goal of existence. | |
| From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], XIV.2) | |
| A reaction: The ontological and teleological goals of the Buddha were identical to the goals of the ancient Greek philosophers, and even we have teleological aims in our study of evolution. I would expect better results from the western approach. |