11 ideas
| 7893 | Our life is the creation of our mind [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §1.1) | |
| A reaction: I may adopt this as a second epigraph for the database. This idea records the subjective view, which now comes up against evolutionary psychology. Maybe philosophy is opposed to science, because it is committed to exploring the subjective view? |
| 7898 | The world is just the illusion of an appearance [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: When a man considers this world as a bubble of froth, and as the illusion of an appearance, then the king of death has no power over him. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §13.170) | |
| A reaction: Strictly, of course, this says you can 'consider' things this way. Perhaps we could substitute 'pretends', but the world's great religions don't go in for that sort of thing. Berkeley would be shocked to learn he was approaching Buddhism. |
| 12156 | Aesthetics has risen and fallen with Romanticism [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The rise and fall (as we presently perceive them) of aesthetics have been contemporaneous with the rise and fall of Romanticism. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Recent Aesthetics in England and America [1980], p.3) | |
| A reaction: Maybe it started a little before Romanticism, as part of the Englightenment aim of being rational about everything, and maybe it survives Romanticism because we want to be scientific about everything. |
| 12158 | Aesthetic experience informs the world with the values of the observer [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It is possible to conclude that aesthetic experience has a peculiar practical significance: it represents the world as informed by the values of the observer. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Recent Aesthetics in England and America [1980], p.13) | |
| A reaction: An excellent remark. If you look at, or listen to, anything, you can make a conscious effort to drain away your personal values (objectivity; science?), or you can consciously flood them with values. But moral and aesthetic vision must differ... |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
| From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |
| 7894 | Hate is conquered by love [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: Hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is the law eternal. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §1.5) | |
| A reaction: [N.B. This thought was not invented by Jesus] The challenge to this view might be the tit-for-tat strategy of game theory, which says that hate is actually conquered by a combination of hate and love, judiciously applied. |
| 7899 | Even divine pleasure will not satisfy the wise, as it is insatiable, and leads to pain [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: Since a shower of gold coins could not satisfy craving desires and the end of all pleasure is pain, how could a wise man find satisfaction even in the pleasures of the gods? | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §14.186) | |
| A reaction: I'm never sure how so many ancient thinkers arrived at this implausible view. They seem to think that no one knows when to stop, and that every drink leads to hangover. What is actually wrong with moderate sensible pleasure? |
| 7896 | The foolish gradually fill with evil, like a slowly-filled water-jar [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the foolish man becomes full of evil, although he gather it little by little. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §9.121) | |
| A reaction: This coincides closely with Aristotle's view of moral education. Maybe a wise man can maintain one small vice. Not all slopes are slippery. |
| 7897 | The wise gradually fill with good, like a slowly-filled water-jar [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the wise man becomes full of good, although he gather it little by little. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §9.122) | |
| A reaction: Again, this is like Aristotle's proposal of how to educate people in virtue. In my experience, there is no guarantee that small acts of politeness and charity will eventually guarantee goodness of character. Thought is also needed. |
| 7895 | Don't befriend fools; either find superior friends, or travel alone [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: If on the great journey of life a man cannot find one who is better or at least as good as himself, let him joyfully travel alone: a fool cannot help him on his journey. | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §5.61) | |
| A reaction: This is a slightly disturbing aspect of Buddhism, possibly leading to contradiction. It urges friendship and love, but the finest people will have virtually no friends, and solitude is presented as a finer state than friendship. |
| 7900 | Speak the truth, yield not to anger, give what you can to him who asks [Anon (Dham)] |
| Full Idea: Speak the truth, yield not to anger, give what you can to him who asks: these three steps lead you to the gods | |
| From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §17.224) | |
| A reaction: I don't recall either the Old or New Testament, or the Koran, placing great emphasis on speaking the truth. The injunction to give is not so simple. Give to greedy children, to alcoholics, to criminals, to the rich, to fools, to yourself? |