84 ideas
| 23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
| A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
| 21979 | Wisdom emerges at the end of a process [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The Owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], Pref p.13), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4 | |
| A reaction: Hegel explains that this means that wisdom is the product of historical maturity, as the ideal emerges, and illuminates what is real. I think. |
| 3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
| 22766 | Philosophy is exploration of the rational [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is exploration of the rational. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], Pref) | |
| A reaction: The only problem is that Hegel (like the Stoics) thought that nature is rational all the way down, so philosophy becomes the study of everything. |
| 22768 | Subjective and objective are not firmly opposed, but merge into one another [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: It is usually believed that the subjective and objective are firmly opposed to one another. But this is not the case; they in fact pass over into one another. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 026 add) | |
| A reaction: I take this to mean that they are on a spectrum, rather than being binary opposites. This seems reasonable to me, since I take there to be degrees of objectivity. |
| 23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70 | |
| A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing. |
| 18151 | Could we replace sets by the open sentences that define them? [Chihara, by Bostock] |
| Full Idea: Chihara proposes to replace all sets by reference to the open sentences that define them. | |
| From: report of Charles Chihara (Ontology and the Vicious Circle Principle [1973]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 9.B.4 | |
| A reaction: This depends on predicativism, because that stipulates the definitions will be available (cos if it ain't definable it ain't there). Chihara went on to define the open sentences in terms of the possibility of uttering them. Cf. propositional functions. |
| 22772 | Personality overcomes subjective limitations and posits Dasein as its own [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Personality is that which overcomes the limitation of being merely subjective and gives itself reality - or, what amounts to the same thing, to posit that existence [Dasein] as its own. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 039) | |
| A reaction: This looks like the source for Heidegger's distinctive concept of Dasein. The emphasis in Hegel is on creating it out of subjectivity by an act of choice. For Heidegger Dasein seems to be a primitive concept. |
| 14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: 'Structure' tends to be characterized by Plato as something that is mathematically expressed. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects V.3 iv | |
| A reaction: [Koslicki is drawing on Verity Harte here] |
| 17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: Plato's theory of Forms allowed him to claim that the sophists and other opponents were trapped in the world of appearance. What they therefore taught was only apparent wisdom and virtue. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.118 |
| 20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Platonists, on the basis of purely logical arguments, posit the existence of an indivisible 'triangle in itself'. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a15 | |
| A reaction: A helpful confirmation that geometrical figures really are among the Forms (bearing in mind that numbers are not, because they contain one another). What shape is the Form of the triangle? |
| 3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When Diogenes told Plato he saw tables and cups, but not 'tableness' and 'cupness', Plato replied that this was because Diogenes had eyes but no intellect. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.2.6 |
| 556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: If there is the same Form for the Forms and for their participants, then they must have something in common. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
| 563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: We say there is the form of man, horse and health, but nothing else, making the same mistake as those who say that there are gods but that they are in the form of men. They just posit eternal men, and here we are not positing forms but eternal sensibles. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 997b |
| 557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
| 565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The Forms could not be changeless if they were in changing things. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 998a |
| 9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
| 13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
| 13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
| 13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
| A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
| 593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b |
| 13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
| 11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
| 11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
| 22780 | It is a rejection of intellectual dignity to say that we cannot know the truth [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The assertion that human beings cannot know the truth, but have to do only with appearances …deprives the spirit of intellectual dignity. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 132) | |
| A reaction: It is a relief to find Hegel making this assertion. His later followers seem to have slid into an extreme cultural relativism. I'm not sure that 'intellectual dignity' is a very secure foundation for his claim. |
| 17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
| A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
| 22770 | A person is a being which is aware of its own self-directed and free subjectivity [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: A person is a subject which is aware of its subjectivity, for as a person, I am completely for myself: the person is the individuality of freedom in pure being-for-itself. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 035 add) | |
| A reaction: Sartre's being 'pour-soi'. Presumably the freedom is for action as well as thought. He ignores Spinoza's claim that such freedom is just an illusion. |
| 22788 | A human only become a somebody as a member of a social estate [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: When we say that a human being must be somebody, we mean that he must belong to a particular estate. …A human being with no estate is merely a private person and does not possess universality. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 207 add) | |
| A reaction: The first rebellion in Europe against the rising individual liberalism which started with Descartes and was clarified in Kant. Hegel's idea is hugely influential, especially through Marx. I don't believe being a person is a wholly social matter. |
| 22792 | Individuals attain their right by discovering their self-consciousness in institutions [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Individuals attain their essential right by discovering their essential self-consciousness in social institutions, as that universal aspect of their particular interests which has being in itself. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 264) | |
| A reaction: This is the source of the influential idea made famous by Marx. Hegel seems to have a rather rigid and deterministic view of society, which fixes self-consciousness. The modern view is that self-consciousness is endlessly malleable, by society. |
| 21780 | A free will primarily wills its own freedoom [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: For Hegel, the content or 'object' which any free will wills simply by virtue of being free is nothing other than its own freedom. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 027) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 8 'The Limits' | |
| A reaction: Personally I take the concept of a wholly 'free' will to be vacuous, but this is a very interesting idea. I would delete 'by virtue of being free', and say that what we mean by free will is the will's desperation to be as free as possible. Love it. |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
| A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
| 3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 | |
| A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that. |
| 22769 | The concept of the will is the free will which wills its freedom [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The abstract concept of the Idea of the will is in general the free will which wills the free will. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 027) | |
| A reaction: Since Hegel thinks we only have free will because we will to have it, it makes sense that that will precedes the free will. But I don't understand how the will which wills that freedom is itself free. No doubt Hegelians understand this. |
| 21787 | Evil enters a good will when we believe we are doing right, but allow no criticism of our choice [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: The evil Hegel finds at the heart of the good will is not simply the criminal violation of rights, but the evil which lies in believing oneself to be doing what is truly good, while allowing no one but oneself to determine what the good actually is. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Problem' | |
| A reaction: That is not intellectualism, but the implication that intellectualism is a potential source of evil. The interesting thought is that Hegel is contributing a social dimension to the weakness of will problem. |
| 7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Plato never speaks of the examination of conscience - never! | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics p.276 | |
| A reaction: Plato does imply some sort of self-evident direct knowledge about that nature of a healthy soul. Presumably the full-blown concept of conscience is something given from outside, from God. In 'Euthyphro', Plato asserts the primacy of morality (Idea 337). |
| 21786 | Conscience is the right of the self to know what is right and obligatory, and thus make them true [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Conscience is the expression of the absolute title of subjective self-consciousness to know in itself and from within itself what is right and obligatory, to recognise only what it knows as good, and that what is thus known is right and obligatory. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 137), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Problem' | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the sort of rabbit-out-of-the-hat move that Hegel loves, and I find implausible. Mill made the key point about conscience. |
| 2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Once gods and fate and social expectation were no longer there, Plato felt it necessary to discover ethics inside human nature, not just as ethical knowledge (Socrates' view), but in the structure of the soul. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.43 | |
| A reaction: anti Charles Taylor |
| 22784 | Love is ethical life in its natural form [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Love is a feeling, that is, ethical life in its natural form. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 158 add) | |
| A reaction: For Hegel the less natural forms are more abstract - such as the categorical imperative. Does this imply that intellectual beings should extend the feeling of love into more abstract forms, such as virtues or principles or ideals? |
| 9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
| Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8 | |
| A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them. |
| 94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27 | |
| A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence? |
| 17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117 | |
| A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought. |
| 6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
| Full Idea: Two virtues that are ordinarily kept distinct - theoretical and practical wisdom - are joined by Plato; he thinks that neither one can be fully possessed unless it is combined with the other. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Richard Kraut - Plato | |
| A reaction: I get the impression that this doctrine comes from Socrates, whose position is widely reported as 'intellectualist'. Aristotle certainly held the opposite view. |
| 8029 | You can't have a morality which is supplied by the individual, but is also genuinely universal [Hegel, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Hegel attacks doctrines which are attempts by the individual to supply his own morality, and at one and the same time, to claim for it a genuine universality. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.15 | |
| A reaction: Hegel clearly has Kant in mind. It is a penetrating criticism. Of course, there is no reason why a universal mathematical proof shouldn't be 'provided' by the individual. The Kantian seeks agreement. See Contractualism. |
| 22771 | Be a person, and respect other persons [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The commandment of right is: be a person, and respect other persons | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 036) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be presented as a categorical imperative. He implies that you can choose whether to be a person, which seems wrong. I love making 'respect other persons' the supreme command - but I prefer 'respect everything'. |
| 22051 | The categorical imperative lacks roots in a historical culture [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Hegel criticised the categorical imperative for lacking any roots in the moral habits and practices which develop in actual historical communities. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1 | |
| A reaction: This is the gist of Alasdair MacIntyre's defence of virtue theory, against rational Enlightenment ethics. Charles Taylor made the link to Hegel. |
| 22781 | The categorical imperative is fine if you already have a set of moral principles [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The proposition 'Consider whether your maxim can be asserted as a universal principle' would be all very well if we already had determinate principles concerning how to act. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 135 add) | |
| A reaction: Excellent! I have always taken this to be the overwhelming problem with Kant's theory. Kant's examples always presume a set of unquestioned conventional values. Kant offers a framework for moral thought, but values are what matter. |
| 22779 | The good is realised freedom [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The good is realised freedom, the absolute and ultimate end of the world. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 129) | |
| A reaction: This remark could have been made by Sartre. On its own I find it baffling, and can make no sense of an account of ethics that gives no guidance on behaviour at all, other than that freedom should be asserted. |
| 2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato is boring. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols 9.2 |
| 22787 | The family is the first basis of the state, but estates are a necessary second [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: While the family is the primary basis of the state, the estates are second. The latter are of special importance, because private persons, despite their selfishness, must have recourse to others. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 201 add) | |
| A reaction: He mentions agriculture as an estate. The implication is that interactions between families requires state institutions, but in simpler societies families can obviously interact and help one another directly. He wants the state to be indispensable. |
| 22790 | We cannot assert rights which are unnatural [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: No one can assert a right against nature. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 244 add) | |
| A reaction: Although the existence of natural rights is dubious (or nonsense, for Bentham), this is a vague but sensible constraint on what can plausibly be asserted as a right. The rights we create in society must respond to natural needs. |
| 22767 | I aim to portray the state as a rational entity [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: This treatise is an attempt to comprehend and portray the state as an inherently rational entity. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Right now I see very little sign of that being the case. States contain many institutions which are fairly rational, because they focus efficiently on a clear object, but a state can only be rational if there is a wide consensus on its objective. |
| 22789 | Society draws people, and requires their work, making them wholly dependent on it [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Civil society is the immense power which draws people to itself and requires them to work for it, to owe everything to it, and to do everything by its means. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 238 add) | |
| A reaction: This is the disturbing side of Hegel's quite attractive communitarian thinking. His general picture is of the state prescribing what is required of its citizens, with little scope for citizens to prescribe what they need from the state. See Popper. |
| 22791 | The state is the march of God in the world [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The state consists of the march of God in the world, and its basis is the power of reason actualising itself as will. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 258) | |
| A reaction: The most notorious sentence in the whole book. See Wiki article on it. The hair-raising aspect of it is that God won't tell us where the state is going, so those in charge will decide that for us. God gives their preferences maximum authority. |
| 22778 | Individuals can't leave the state, because they are natural citizens, and humans require a state [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The arbitrary will of individuals cannot break away from the state, because the individual is already by nature a citizen of it. It is the rational destiny of humans to live within a state, and if there is no state reason requires it to be established. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 075 add) | |
| A reaction: The Aristotelian view, in opposition to the social contract idea that individuals must choose to have a state. I agree with Hegel, but find his authoritarian tone disturbing. What else will I be told is my 'rational destiny'? We want liberal communiity. |
| 22794 | A fully developed state is conscious and knows what it wills [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: An essential part of the fully developed state is consciousness or thought; the state accordingly knows what it wills and knows this an a object of thought. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 270 add) | |
| A reaction: The silliest idea by a famous philosopher anywhere in this database. I bet the criterion for being fully developed is being conscious, and the criterion for being conscious is being fully developed, whatever that means. General will run riot. |
| 22799 | The people do not have the ability to know the general will [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: To know what one wills, and even more to know what reason wills, is the fruit of profound cognition and insight, and this the very thing which 'the people' lack. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 301) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously directed at Rousseau, and seems to be specifically anti-democratic. Hegel sees the general will as a mystical fact, only knowable to some elite intellectual priesthood. |
| 22801 | The great man of the ages is the one who reveals and accomplishes the will of his time [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: He who expresses the will of his age, tells it what its will is, and accomplishes this will, is the great man of the age. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 318 add) | |
| A reaction: The great man of Hegel's age had obviously been Napoleon, who may have accomplished the will of part of the French people, but went massively against the will of the rest of Europe. For Hegel this seems to be the reality of the General Will. |
| 22796 | A constitution embodies a nation's rights and condition [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The constitution of a nation must embody the nation's feeling for its rights and present condition. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 274 add) | |
| A reaction: Most constitutions also specify the institutions needed to maintain its principles and values. If it specifies its 'present' condition, that is a licence to change it from time to time. Hegel endorses such flexibility. |
| 22777 | Individuals must dedicate themselves to the ethical whole, and give their lives when asked [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The individual person is a subordinate entity who must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Consequently, if the state demands his life, the individual must surrender it. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 070 add) | |
| A reaction: The obvious problem is a war which is perceived to be unjust. Vietnam draft dodgers. We should always consider the common good, but 'dedicate himself to the ethical whole'? It depends whether the ethical whole is dedicated to us. |
| 21791 | Social groups must focus on the state, which must in turn respect their inclusion and their will [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The interests of family and civil society must concentrate themselves on the state, although the universal end cannot be advanced without the personal knowledge and will of its particular members, whose own rights must be maintained. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 260), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom' | |
| A reaction: Hegel's emphasis on the state has sometimes allowed him to be presented as a proto-fascist, so the second half of this is important - especially the remark about citizens having 'knowledge' of what is going on. Is citizen commitment conditional on this? |
| 22795 | People can achieve respect for their state by insight into its essence [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The best way for humans to achieve respect for the state as that whole of which they are branches is through philosophical insight into its essence. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 270 add) | |
| A reaction: Although Hegel on the state can be quite alarming, I rather approve of this Aristotelian thought. States do not, of course, have ready made essences awaiting the insights of philosophers, but discussion can converge on a concept of what the state is. |
| 21988 | In the 1840s Hegel seemed to defend society being right as it is, as a manifestation of Mind [Hegel, by Singer] |
| Full Idea: In the 1840s the orthodox interpretation of Hegel was that since human society is the manifestation of Mind [Geist] in the world, everything is right and rational as it is. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Peter Singer - Marx 2 | |
| A reaction: This orthodoxy provoked the rebellion of Marx and the Young Hegelians. Modern Communitarians like Hegel, but that view seems to hover between right-wing authoritarianism and left-wing egalitarianism. |
| 22800 | Majority rule means obligations can be imposed on me [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Majority decisions are at variance with the principle that I should be personally present in anything which imposes an obligation on me. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 309 add) | |
| A reaction: The big democratic problem of my time is sharp binary decisions made by a democracy, such as UK leaving the EU, or Scotland leaving the UK. A very large minority in such cases has their will entirely thwarted, whichever way it goes. |
| 21792 | The state should reflect all interests, and not just popular will, or a popular party [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: The best guarantee of freedom is for the state to be organised in such a way that the legislature reflects all the substantial interests within civil society, and not just the 'will of the majority', or the parties which happen to find popular support. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 311) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom' | |
| A reaction: In our first-past-the-post system innumerable interests fail to be represented, and parliament is crushed by dull plodders with ossified views who smugly hang on to safe seats. IMHO. |
| 22797 | In modern states an individual's actions should be their choice [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: It is inherent in the principle of the modern state that all of an individual's actions should be mediated by his will. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 299 add) | |
| A reaction: This is the liberal side of Hegel's thinking. It is a corrective to his reverential attitude to the state. He criticise Plato for assigning citizens their jobs. |
| 21790 | Moral individuals become ethical when they see the social aspect of a matter [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: The moral individual becomes an ethical individual when he recognises that his own voice need not always utter the last word on a given matter, but should be understood as participating in ongoing social and political practices. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom' | |
| A reaction: This is a key idea in Hegel, and is seen (by Charles Taylor etc) as the foundations of modern communitarianism. |
| 8030 | For Hegel, the moral life can only be led within a certain type of community [Hegel, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Hegel's final standpoint is that the moral life can only be led within a certain type of community. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.15 | |
| A reaction: This (together with Aristotle) is the basis of modern communitarianism. There is the problem of saintly people who kept their integrity through the Nazi period. I agree with the proposal, in a loose sort of way. |
| 22785 | Even educated women are unsuited to science, philosophy, art and government [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Women may well be educated, but they are not made for the higher sciences, for philosophy and certain artistic productions which require a universal element. …When women are in charge of government the state is in danger. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 166 add) | |
| A reaction: This makes unpleasant reading. Women have recently played a leading role in creating the Covid vaccines which may well have saved millions of lives. There were plenty of good women novelists around in Hegel's time. |
| 21789 | Slaves have no duties because they have no rights [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Slaves have no duties because they have no rights. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 261), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Freedom' | |
| A reaction: Does this correlation go all the way up society? Do I only have duties insofar as I have correlative rights? Monarchs seem to have maximum duties and maximum rights. Democratic leaders seem thereby to get a raw deal. |
| 22776 | Slaves are partly responsible for their own condition [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: If someone is a slave, his own will is responsible. The wrong of slavery is not only the fault of those who enslave people, but of the slaves themselves. …[66 add: The slave has an absolute right to free himself] | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 057 add) | |
| A reaction: He accepts that enslaving people is wrong. Are the slaves at fault for losing their struggle? Would Hegel approve of someone giving modern weapons to the slaves? |
| 21778 | True liberal freedom is to pursue something, while being free to cease the pursuit [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: The third moment of liberal freedom for Hegel is the unity of the first two - the freedom to engage in some specific pursuit, but in so doing to preserve the sense that one is not irrevocably committed to that pursuit. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 005) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Limits' | |
| A reaction: Not too surprising, but Hegel is interesting for thinking that we shouldn't just rabbit on about having 'freedom', but should investigate more closely what this is exactly supposed to mean. |
| 21779 | People assume they are free, but the options available are not under their control [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The ordinary man believes himself to be free ...to act as he wants, but this arbitrariness entails that he is not free, because what it is that he wills is not intrinsic to self-determining activity, ...and depends on a given content and material. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 015), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'The Limits' | |
| A reaction: [a bit compressed] I take this to be an extraordinarily influential idea (especially for Marx). Hitherto philosophers just wanted some vague metaphysical 'free will', making moral responsibility and pure reason possible. But who controls the options? |
| 22085 | Freedom requires us to submit to a family, or a corporation, or a state [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: Hegel thinks that political and social freedom involves letting one's actions be guided by those institutional structures (such as the family, corporations and the state) which secure rights, welfare, and mutual respect. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821]) by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel 102 | |
| A reaction: Since there are some hideous families, corporations and states, we will need more than that. He may have a point, though, that the rights we desire can only exist in healthy examples of such institutions. Popper loved institutions. |
| 22798 | Money is the best way to achieve just equality [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The justice of equality can be achieved most effectively by money. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 299) | |
| A reaction: There are also important equalities such as access to education and to superior jobs. Money is more tangible, but you can fob poor people off with quite small sums of money. |
| 22783 | Rights imply duties, and duties imply rights [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: A human being has rights in so far as he has duties, and duties in so far as he has rights. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 155) | |
| A reaction: I would express this as 'why we should we be loyal to the state if the state is not loyal to us'. The state must not only provide us with nominal rights, but must also enforce them. Without that the citizens are alienated, and the sense of duty fades. |
| 21782 | Man has an absolute right to appropriate things [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: A person has as his substantive end the right of putting his will into any and every thing and thereby making it his ...This is the absolute right of appropriation which man has over all things. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 044), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights' | |
| A reaction: Houlgate shows this is not a defence of theft. Hegel thinks the right to property stems from our freedom, not from our natural needs. Did Hegel know Locke? It is not obvious that if I pocket a stone I thereby 'own' it. Do birds own their nests? |
| 22773 | Because only human beings can own property, everything else can become our property [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: All things can become the property of human beings, because the human being is free will, and exists in and for himself, whereas that which confronts him does not have this quality. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 044 add) | |
| A reaction: Note that the human 'is' free will, rather than 'has' free will. He explicitly includes animals. From a modern ecological view this is a sinister idea. The default position is that if you own something you can do whatever you like with it. |
| 22774 | A community does not have the property-owning rights that a person has [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Many states have rightly dissolved the monasteries, because a community does not ultimately have the same right to property as a person does. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 046) | |
| A reaction: Trinity College, Cambridge, owns vast amounts of land. A lot of property seems to be owned by legal trusts. Hegel sees the basis of property ownership in a person's will. He allows some exceptions. |
| 22775 | The owner of a thing is obviously the first person to freely take possession of it [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: That a thing belongs to a person who happens to be the first to take possession of it is immediately self-evident. …This is not because he is the first, but because he is a free will. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 050) | |
| A reaction: At this time they were very conscious of the native Americans. They seem to have lost their lands because they had no institution of private property, and had not asserted their ownership. I suspect Hegel of endorsing this. |
| 22802 | Wars add strength to a nation, and cure internal dissension [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Not only do peoples emerge from wars with added strength, but nations troubled by civil dissension gain internal peace as a result of wars with their external enemies. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 324 add) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that Hegel quite likes wars because they accelerate the development of history. I don't think he would have written nonsense like this after WW1 and WW2. Leaders facing internal dissent like small external wars. |
| 22786 | Children need discipline, to break their self-will and eradicate sensuousness [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: One of the chief moments in a child's upbringing is discipline, the purpose of which is to break the child's self-will in order to eradicate the merely sensuous and natural. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 174 add) | |
| A reaction: A standard view for his time, no doubt. No sensible parent doubts that children need to be civilised, and taught to recognise the needs of others. I hope the general aspiration in our society to 'break' a child's self-will has now faded away. |
| 1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: With a single exception (Plato) everyone agrees about time - that it is not generated. Democritus says time is an obvious example of something not generated. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 251b14 |
| 22782 | To have pagan beliefs and be a pagan are quite different [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: To believe in pagan religion and to be a pagan are two different things. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 147) | |
| A reaction: A nice general truth about all religions, and one not often understood by atheists. |
| 22793 | Some religions lead to harsh servitude and the debasement of human beings [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: It should not be a forgotten that can take on a from which leads to the harshest servitude within the fetters of superstition, and to the debasement of human beings to a level below that of animals. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 270) | |
| A reaction: Hegel was a Christian, though a very unorthodox one. He cities ancient Egypt and India as examples. If you want to assess a religion, see how it behaves when it has political power. |