7 ideas
| 20110 | Hegel, Fichte and Schelling wanted to know Kant's thing-in-itself, as ego, or nature, or spirit [Safranski] |
| Full Idea: The 'thing in iself' acted on Kant's successors like a hole in the closed world of knowledge...Hegel, Fichte and Schelling wanted to penetrate into what they presumed to be the heart of things, by the invention of means of 'ego', or 'nature', or 'spirit., | |
| From: Rüdiger Safranski (Nietzsche: a philosophical biography [2000], 07) | |
| A reaction: [a bit compressed] Although no scientist claims to know the ultimate essence of matter, the authority of science largely comes from persuasively moving us several steps closer to the thing in itself (more persuasively than these three). |
| 7458 | The reliability of witnesses depends on whether they benefit from their observations [Laplace, by Hacking] |
| Full Idea: The credibility of a witness is in part a function of the story being reported. When the story claims to have infinite value, the temptation to lie for personal benefit is asymptotically infinite. | |
| From: report of Pierre Simon de Laplace (Philosophical Essay on Probability [1820], Ch.XI) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: Laplace seems to especially have reports of miracles in mind. This observation certainly dashes any dreams one might have of producing a statistical measure of the reliability of testimony. |
| 3441 | If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace] |
| Full Idea: An intelligence knowing at an instant the whole universe could know the movement of the largest bodies and atoms in one formula, provided his intellect were powerful enough to subject all data to analysis. Past and future would be present to his eyes. | |
| From: Pierre Simon de Laplace (Philosophical Essay on Probability [1820]), quoted by Mark Thornton - Do we have free will? p.70 |
| 23674 | If an attempted poisoning results in benefits, we still judge the agent a poisoner [Reid] |
| Full Idea: If a man should give to his neighbour a potion which he really believes will poison him, but which, in the event, proves salutary, and does much good; in moral estimation, he is a poisoner, and not a benefactor. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 5) | |
| A reaction: I take Reid to mean that morality concerns how we assess the agent, and not the results of his actions. Mill and Bentham concede that we judge people this way, but don't think morality mainly concerns judging people. |
| 23675 | We shouldn't do to others what would be a wrong to us in similar circumstances [Reid] |
| Full Idea: It is a first principle of morals, that we ought not to do to another what we should think wrong to be done to us in like circumstances. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 6) | |
| A reaction: This negative form of the rule is more plausible than the positive form, presumably because there is more consensus about what we all dislike than what we all prefer. But presents for people that they would like, not that you like. |
| 23672 | To be virtuous, we must care about duty [Reid] |
| Full Idea: A man cannot be virtuous, if he has no regard to duty. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 5) | |
| A reaction: Thus are Aristotle and Kant united in a simple sentence. Aristotle thinks that a virtuous person thereby sees what is the right thing to do, but I take 'duty' to imply a requirement which comes not from good character but from external society. |
| 23673 | Every worthy man has a principle of honour, and knows what is honourable [Reid] |
| Full Idea: I presume it will be granted, that, in every man of real worth, there is a principle of honour, a regard to what is honourable or dishonourable, very distinct from a regard to his interest. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 3: Princs of action [1788], 5) | |
| A reaction: Note that there is a 'principle' of honour in a person's character, and there are also actions which are intrinsically honourable or not. I fear that only the worthy are honourable, and only the honourable are worthy! |