42 ideas
| 22496 | Wisdom only implies the knowledge achievable in any normal lifetime [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom implies no more knowledge and understanding than anyone of normal capacity can and should acquire in the course of an ordinary life. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: Have philosophers stopped talking about wisdom precisely because you now need three university degrees to be considered even remotely good at phillosophy? Hence wisdom is an inferior attainment, because Foot is right. |
| 22216 | Phenomenology studies different types of correlation between consciousness and its objects [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Husserl's phenomenology is the science of the intentional correlation of acts of consciousness with their objects and it studies the ways in which different kinds of objects involve different kinds of correlation with different kinds of acts. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.198 | |
| A reaction: I notice he uncritically accepts Husserl's description of it as a 'science'. My naive question is how you would distinguish one kind of 'correlation' from another. |
| 21217 | Phenomenology needs absolute reflection, without presuppositions [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenology demands the most perfect freedom from presuppositions and, concerning itself, an absolute reflective insight. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], III.1.063), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.1 | |
| A reaction: As an outsider, I would have thought that the whole weight of modern continental philosophy is entirely opposed to the aspiration to think without presuppositions. |
| 22218 | There can only be a science of fluctuating consciousness if it focuses on stable essences [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: How can there be a science of a Heraclitean flux of acts of consciousness? Husserl answers that this is possible only if these acts are described in respect of their invariant or essential structure. This is an 'eidetic' scence of 'pure' psychology. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199 | |
| A reaction: This is his phenomenology in 1913, which Bernet describes as 'static'. Husserl later introduced time with his 'genetic' version of phenomenology, looking at the sources of experience (and then at history). Essentialism seems to be intuitive. |
| 22217 | Phenomenology aims to validate objects, on the basis of intentional intuitive experience [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Husserl's goal is to account for the validity, the 'being-true', of objects on the basis of the way in which they are given or constituted. ...Experiences more suitable for guaranteeing objects are those which both intend and intuitively apprehend them. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] In the light of previous scepticism and idealism, the project sounds a bit optimistic. If there is a gulf between mind and world it can only be bridged by 'reaching out' from both sides. This is a mind-sided attempt. |
| 22219 | Husserl saw transcendental phenomenology as idealist, in its construction of objects [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Phenomeonology is 'transcendental' in describing the correlation between phenomena and intentional objects, to show how their meaning and validity are constructed. Husserl gave this process an idealist interpretation (which Heidegger criticised). | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.200 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] If the actions which produce our concepts of objects all take place 'behind' phenomenal consciousness, then it is hard to avoid sliding into some sort of idealism. It encourages direct realism about perception. |
| 22204 | Start philosophising with no preconceptions, from the intuitively non-theoretical self-given [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Where other philosophers ...start from unclarified, ungrounded preconceptions, we start out from that which antedates all standpoints: from the totality of the intuitively self-given which is prior to any theorising reflexion. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.020) | |
| A reaction: This is the great aim of Phenomenology, which is obviously inspired by Hegel's similar desire to start from nothing. Hegel starts from a concept ('nothing'), but Husserl starts from raw experience. I suspect both approaches are idle dreams. |
| 22207 | Epoché or 'bracketing' is refraining from judgement, even when some truths are certain [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: In relation to every thesis we can use this peculiar epoché (the phenomenon of 'bracketing' or 'disconnecting'), a certain refraining from judgment which is compatible with the unshaken and unshakable because self-evidencing conviction of Truth. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.031) | |
| A reaction: This is the crucial first step of Phenomenology. It seems to me that it is best described as 'methodological scepticism'. People actually practise it all the time, while they focus on some experience, while trying to forget preconceptions. |
| 22208 | 'Bracketing' means no judgements at all about spatio-temporal existence [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: I use the 'phenomenological' epoché, which completely bars me from using any judgment that concerns spatio-temporal existence. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.032) | |
| A reaction: This makes bracketing (or epoché) into a sort of voluntary idealism. Put like that, it is hard to see what benefits it could bring. I am, you will notice, a pretty thorough sceptic about the project of phenomenology. What has it taught us? |
| 22210 | After everything is bracketed, consciousness still has a unique being of its own [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We fix our eyes steadily upon the sphere of Consciousness and study what it is that we find immanent in it. ...Consciousness in itself has a being of its own which in its absolute uniqueness of nature remains unaffected by disconnection. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033) | |
| A reaction: 'Disconnection' is his 'bracketing'. He makes it sound obvious, but Schopenhauer entirely disagrees with him, and I have no idea how to arbitrate. I struggle to grasp consciousness once nature has been bracketed, but have little luck. Is it Da-sein? |
| 22215 | Phenomenology describes consciousness, in the light of pure experiences [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenology is a pure descriptive discipline which studies the whole field of pure transcendental consciousness in the light of pure intuition. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.059) | |
| A reaction: When he uses the word 'pure' three times in a sentence, each applied to a different thing, you begin to wonder precisely what it means. Strictly speaking, I would probably only apply 'pure' to abstracta, and never to experiences or reality.115 |
| 22201 | The use of mathematical-style definitions in philosophy is fruitless and harmful [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Definition cannot take the same form in philosophy as it does in mathematics; the imitation of mathematical procedure is invariably in this respect not only unfruitful, but perverse and most harmful in its consequences. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A hundred years of analytic philosophy has entirely ignored this warning. My heart has always sunk when I read '=def...' in a philosophy article (which is usually American). The illusion of rigour. |
| 22209 | Our goal is to reveal a new hidden region of Being [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We could refer to our goal as the winning of a new region of Being, the distinctive character of which has not yet been defined. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033) | |
| A reaction: The obvious fruit of this idea, I would think, is Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, which claims to be a distinctively human region of Being. I'm not sure I can cope with the claim that Being itself (a very broad-brush term) has hidden regions. |
| 22211 | As a thing and its perception are separated, two modes of Being emerge [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We are left with the transcendence of the thing over against the perception of it, ...and thus a basic and essential difference arises between Being as Experience and Being as Thing. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.042) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that this is not just the germ of Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, but it actually IS his concept, without the label. Husserl had said that he hoped to reveal a new region of Being. |
| 22202 | The World is all experiencable objects [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: The World is the totality of objects that can be known through experience. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.001) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the 'Nature' which has to be 'bracketed', when pursuing Phenomenology. It sounds like anti-realist empiricism, which has no place for unobservables. |
| 22213 | Absolute reality is an absurdity [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: An absolute reality is just as valid as a round square. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.055) | |
| A reaction: Husserl distances himself from 'Berkeleyian' idealism, but his discussion keeps flirting with, perhaps in some sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it Hegelian way. Perhaps it is close to Dummett's Anti-Realism. |
| 13432 | The essence of a circle is the equality of its radii [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The essence of a circle consists in the equality of all lines drawn from its centre to its circumference. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669) | |
| A reaction: Compare Locke in Idea 13431 and Spinoza in Idea 13073 on the essence of geometrical figures. A key question is whether the essence is in the simplest definition, or in a complex and wide-ranging account, e.g. including conic sections for circles. |
| 21218 | The sense of anything contingent has a purely apprehensible essence or Eidos [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: It belongs to the sense of anything contingent to have an essence and therefore an Eidos which can be apprehended purely. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.002), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.2.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the quirky idea that we can know necessary categorial essences a priori, even if the category is currently empty. Crops us in Lowe. Husserl says grasping the corresponding individuals must be possible. Third Man question. |
| 19263 | Imagine an object's properties varying; the ones that won't vary are the essential ones [Husserl, by Vaidya] |
| Full Idea: Husserl's 'eidetic variation' implies that we can judge the essential properties of an object by varying the properties of the object in imagination, and seeing which vary and which do not. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Anand Vaidya - Understanding and Essence 'Knowledge' | |
| A reaction: The problem with this is that there are trivial or highly general necessary properties which are obviously not essential to the thing. Vaidya says [822] you can't perform the experiment without prior knowledge of the essence. |
| 21220 | The physical given, unlike the mental given, could be non-existing [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Anything physical which is given in person can be non-existing, no mental process which is given in person can be non-existing. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.046), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.3.5 | |
| A reaction: This endorsement of Descartes shows how strong the influence of the Cogito remained in later continental philosophy. Phenomenology is a footnote to Descartes. |
| 22205 | Feelings of self-evidence (and necessity) are just the inventions of theory [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: So-called feelings of self-evidence, of intellectual necessity, and however they may otherwise be called, are just theoretically invented feelings. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.021) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a dismissal of the a priori necessary on the grounds that it is 'theory-laden' - which is why it has to be bracketed in order to do phenomenology. |
| 21221 | Direct 'seeing' by consciousness is the ultimate rational legitimation [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Immediate 'seeing', not merely sensuous, experiential seeing, but seeing in the universal sense as an originally presenting consciousness of any kind whatsoever, is the ultimate legitimising source of all rational assertions. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.019), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.3.5 | |
| A reaction: Husserl is (I gather from this) a classic rationalist. Just like Descartes' judgement of the molten wax. |
| 22220 | The phenomena of memory are given in the present, but as being past [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: In Husserl's phenomenology, the intentional object of a memory is the object of a past experience, which is intuitively given to me in the present, not, however, as being present but as being past. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203 | |
| A reaction: I certainly don't have to assess my mental events, and judge which are past, which are now, and which are future imaginings. I suppose Fodor would say they are memories because we find them in the memory-box. How else could it work? |
| 22206 | Natural science has become great by just ignoring ancient scepticism [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Natural science has grown to greatness by pushing ruthlessly aside the rank growth of ancient skepticism and renouncing the attempt to conquer it. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.026) | |
| A reaction: This may be because scepticism is boring, or it may be because science 'brackets' scepticism, leaving philosophers to worry about it. |
| 22221 | We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible [Husserl, by Bernet] |
| Full Idea: Another person's consciousness is given to me through the expressive stratum of her body, which gives me access to her experience while making me realise that it is inaccessible to me. Empathy is a presentation of what is absent. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203 | |
| A reaction: This is the phenomenological approach to the problem of other minds, by examining the raw experience of encountering another person. It is true that we seem to both know and not know another person's mind when we encounter them. |
| 22212 | Pure consciousness is a sealed off system of actual Being [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness, considered in its 'purity', must be reckoned as a self-contained system of Being, a system of actual Being, into which nothing can penetrate, and from which nothing can escape. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.049) | |
| A reaction: Recorded without comment, to show that among phenomenologists there is a way of thinking about consciousness which is a long way from analytic discussions of the topic. |
| 22214 | We never meet the Ego, as part of experience, or as left over from experience [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: We never stumble across the pure Ego as an experience within the flux of manifold experiences which survives as transcendental residuum; nor do we meet it as a constitutive bit of experience appearing with the experience of which it is an integral part. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.057) | |
| A reaction: It seems that he agrees with David Hume. Sartre's 'Transcendence of the Ego' follows up this idea. However, Husserl goes on to assert the 'necessity' of the permanent Ego, which sounds like Kant's view. |
| 23694 | All criterions of practical rationality derive from goodness of will [Foot] |
| Full Idea: I want to say, baldly, that there is no criterion for practical rationality that is not derived from that of goodness of will. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: Where does that put the successful and clever criminal? Presumably they are broadly irrational, but narrowly rational - but that is not very clear distinction. She says Kant's concept of the good will is too pure, and unrelated to human good. |
| 23686 | Moral reason is not just neutral, because morality is part of the standard of rationality [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| Full Idea: In her late period she again reverses her thoughts on moral rationalism; …rather than a neutral rationality which fulfils desires, she argues that morality ought to be thought of as part of the standard of rationality itself. | |
| From: report of Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
| A reaction: This comes much closer to the Greek and Aristotelian concept of logos. They saw morality as inseparable from our judgements about how the world is. All 'sensible' thinking will involve what is good for humanity. |
| 23693 | Practical rationality must weigh both what is morally and what is non-morally required [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Different considerations are on a par, in that judgement about what is required by practical rationality must take account of their interaction: of the weight of the ones we call non-moral as well as those we call moral. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: Her final settled view of rationalism in morality, it seems. The point is that moral considerations are not paramount, because she sees possible justifications for ignoring moral rules (like 'don't lie') in certain practical situations. |
| 23687 | Moral virtues arise from human nature, as part of what makes us good human beings [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| Full Idea: In her later work she offers a view of the relationship of morality to human nature, arguing that the moral virtues are part of what makes us good as human beings. | |
| From: report of Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
| A reaction: In this phase she talks explicitly of the Aristotelian idea that successful function is the grounding of what is good for any living being, including humans. |
| 22493 | Sterility is a human defect, but the choice to be childless is not [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Lack of capacity to reproduce is a defect in a human being. But choice of childlessness and even celibacy is not thereby shown to be defective choice, because human good is not the same as plant or animal good. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: Is failure to reproduce a defect in an animal? If goodness and virtue derive from function, it is hard to see how deliberate childlessness could be a human good, even if it is not a defect. Choosing to terminate a hereditary defect seems good. |
| 22492 | Virtues are as necessary to humans as stings are to bees [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Virtues play a necessary part in the life of human beings as do stings in the life of a bee. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 2) | |
| A reaction: This presumably rests on the Aristotelian idea that humans are essentially social (as opposed to solitary humans who choose to be social, perhaps in a contractual way, as Plato implies). |
| 22203 | Only facts follow from facts [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: From facts follow always nothing but facts. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.008) | |
| A reaction: I presume objective possibilities follow from facts, so this doesn't sound strictly correct. I sounds like a nice slogan for those desiring to keep facts separate from values. [on p.53 he comments on fact/value] |
| 22491 | Moral evaluations are not separate from facts, but concern particular facts about functioning [Foot] |
| Full Idea: A moral evaluation does not stand over against the statement of a matter of fact, but rather has to do with facts about a particular subject matter, as do evaluations of such things as sight and hearing in animals. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: She avoids the word 'function', and only deals with living creatures, but she uses a 'good knife' as an example, and this Aristotelian view clearly applies to any machine which has a function. |
| 22497 | Deep happiness usually comes from the basic things in life [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Possible objects of deep happiness seem to be things that are basic in human life, such as home, and family, and work, and friendship. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 6) | |
| A reaction: I've not encountered discussion of 'deep' happiness before. I heard of an old man in tears because he had just seen a Purple Emperor butterfly for the first time. She makes it sound very conservative. How about mountaineering achievements? |
| 22498 | Happiness is enjoying the pursuit and attainment of right ends [Foot] |
| Full Idea: In my terminology 'happiness' is understood as the enjoyment of good things, meaning the enjoyment in attaining, and in pursuing, right ends. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 6) | |
| A reaction: A modified version of Aristotle's view, which she contrasts with McDowell's identification of happiness with the life of virtue. They all seem to have an optimistic hope that the pleasure in being a bit wicked is false happiness. |
| 23695 | Good actions can never be justified by the good they brings to their agent [Foot] |
| Full Idea: There is no good case for assessing the goodness of human action by reference only to good that each person brings to himself. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: She observes that even non-human animals often act for non-selfish reasons. The significance of this is its rejection of her much earlier view that virtues are justified by the good they bring their possessor. |
| 22499 | We all know that just pretending to be someone's friend is not the good life [Foot] |
| Full Idea: We know perfectly well that it is not true that the best life would consist in successfully pretending friendship: having friends to serve one but without being a real friend oneself. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 7) | |
| A reaction: For some skallywags the achieving of something for nothing seems to be very much the good life, but not many of them want to exploit people who are seen to be their friends. |
| 22495 | Someone is a good person because of their rational will, not their body or memory [Foot] |
| Full Idea: To speak of a good person is to speak of an individual not in respect of his body, or of faculties such as sight and memory, but as concerns his rational will (his 'will as controllable by reason'). | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: She more or less agrees with Kant that the only truly good moral thing is a good will, though she has plenty of other criticisms of his views. |
| 22502 | Refraining from murder is not made good by authenticity or self-fulfilment [Foot] |
| Full Idea: If a stranger should come on us when we are sleeping he will not think it all right to kill us. …In human life as it is, this kind of action is not made good by authenticity or self-fulfilment in the one who does it. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 7) | |
| A reaction: A rare swipe from Foot at existentialism, which she hardly ever mentions. I find it hard to see these existential virtues as in any way moral. It means nothing to other citizens whether one of their number is 'authentic'. |
| 12696 | Bodies are recreated in motion, and don't exist in intervening instants [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I have demonstrated that whatever moves is continuously created and that bodies are nothing at any time between the instants in motion. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669.04), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 1 | |
| A reaction: Leibniz is a little over-confident about what he has 'demonstrated', but I think (from this remark) that he would not have been displeased with quantum theory, and the notion of a 'quantum leap' and a 'Planck time'. A 'conatus' is a 'smallest motion'. |