57 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. |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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? |
| 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 |
| 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] |
| 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. |
| 14894 | Indexicals have a 'character' (the standing meaning), and a 'content' (truth-conditions for one context) [Kaplan, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
| Full Idea: Kaplan distinguished two different semantic features of indexical expressions: a 'character' that captures the standing meaning of the expression, and a 'content' that consists of their truth-conditional contribution in particular contexts. | |
| From: report of David Kaplan (Demonstratives [1989]) by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro - Introduction to 'Two-Dimensional Semantics' 1 | |
| A reaction: This seems so clearly right that there isn't much to dispute. You can't understand the word 'I' or 'now' if you don't understand both its general purpose, and what it is doing in a particular utterance. But will this generalise to other semantics? |
| 14700 | 'Content' gives the standard modal profile, and 'character' gives rules for a context [Kaplan, by Schroeter] |
| Full Idea: Kaplan sees two aspects of meaning, the 'content', reflecting a thing's modal profile, which is modelled by standard possible worlds semantics, and 'character', giving rules for different contexts. Proper names have constant character; indexicals vary. | |
| From: report of David Kaplan (Demonstratives [1989]) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics 1.1.1 | |
| A reaction: This gives rise to 2-D matrices for representing meaning, and the possible worlds are used twice, for evaluating meaning and then for evaluating context of use. I've always been struck by the two-dimensional semantics of passwords. |
| 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. |
| 23590 | Criminal responsibility can be fully assigned to each member of a group [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: It is a feature of criminal responsibility that it can be distributed without being divided. We can, that is, blame more than one person for a particular act without splitting up the blame we assign. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 19) | |
| A reaction: How far can this extend? To a large violent mob? To an entire nation? In court the responsibility is usually adjusted in the sentencing, rather than in the initial verdict. |
| 23578 | Double Effect needs a double intention - to achieve the good, and minimise the evil [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Double effect is defensible, I want to argue, only when the two outcomes are the product of a double intention - that 'good' be achieved, and that the foreseeable evil be reduced as far as possible. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 09) | |
| A reaction: A good proposal, I think. We have to accept evil side effects sometimes, but it is immoral to pursue some good 'whatever the cost'. |
| 23564 | Deep ethical theory is very controversial, but we have to live with higher ethical practice [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The substructure of the ethical world is a matter of deep and unending controversy, Meanwhile, however, we are living in the superstructure. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This may be the best approach to ethics. Nearly all applied ethics takes the common sense consensus on values for granted. Personally I think that is because the substructure is the obvious success and failure of human functioning. |
| 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). |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 23568 | If whole states possess rights, there can be social relations between states [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: If states possess rights more or less as individuals do, then it is possible to imagine a society among them more or less like the individuals. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
| A reaction: The state's rights must derive from the people. Plots of land don't have rights. In some states the people are in conflict. It can't just be the government which represents the rights of the state. |
| 23571 | States can rightly pre-empt real and serious threats [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: States can use force in the face of threats of war, if there is a serious risk to territory or independence. They are then forced to fight, and are the victims of aggression. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 05) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He uses this to justify Israeli pre-emptive strikes against Palestinians. I don't think his confident assertion of this principle is justified. It is open to massive abuse. There are, though, clearly situations where he is right. |
| 23572 | Just wars are self-defence, or a rightful intercession in another's troubles [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Just wars may not be self-defence, if they are to help an independence struggle, or it is to save another country being invaded, or to prevent enslavement or massacre. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 06) | |
| A reaction: [summary] Modern wars support some examples of these, but also suggest that without a long-term plan, or an understanding of the country they are entering, such intercessions may worsen the situation. |
| 23581 | The aim of reprisals is to enforce the rules of war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The purpose of reprisals is not to win the war or prevent defeat, but simply to enforce the rules [of war]. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
| A reaction: That may be wishful thinking, since reprisals are often vastly more ruthless than the original offence, and there is often injustice in the nature of the reprisals, since they cannot be precise. |
| 23582 | Reprisal is defensible, as an alternative to war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Reprisal is the first resort of force. It is an alternative to war, and that description is an important argument in its favour. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
| A reaction: Enduring wrongs with dignity might be another alternative. Successful reprisals may be acceptable, but how do you assess their prospects? |
| 23588 | With nuclear weapons we have a permanent supreme emergency (which is unstable) [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: With nuclear weapons, supreme emergency has become a permanent condition. …[283] But supreme emergency is never a stable position. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
| A reaction: The obvious instability of balanced mutual threat is a nuclear state which finds itself losing a war. |
| 23580 | States need not endure attacks passively, and successful reprisals are legitimate [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Whenever there is some substantial chance of success, reprisals are the legitimate resort of a victim state; for no state can be required passively to endure attacks upon its citizens. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
| A reaction: My concern is whether the reprisals have any direct connection to the attacks. They killed some of ours, so we will kill some of theirs is immoral. E.g. bombing Tripoli as reprisal for crashing the Lockerbie plane. |
| 23587 | Nuclear bombs are not for normal war; they undermine the 'just war', with a new morality [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Nuclear weapons are not designed for war at all. …They explode the idea of a just war. They are the first technological innovations that are simply not encompassable within the familiar moral world. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
| A reaction: A nuclear war can hardly lead to normal victory, if it destroys the thing you are trying to conquer. It is like bringing a machine gun to a boxing match. |
| 23567 | Even non-violent intrusive acts between states count as aggression, if they justify resistance [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Every violation of an independent state is called aggression, which fails to differentiate between a seizure or imposition, and an actual conquest. …But what they have in common is that all aggressive acts justify forceful resistance. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Walzer concedes that this makes 'aggression' rather imprecise, and small acts can be used as an excuse for desired violent resistance. Each entrant in August 1914 seems to have had a slightly different motive. |
| 23570 | The only good reason for fighting is in defence of rights [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The defence of rights is a reason for fighting. I want now to stress again, and finally, that it is the only reason. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
| A reaction: Walzer states at the beginning, without discussion, that his moral assumptions are based on the notion of rights. This is tricky because rights are assigned by some people to other people, and claims of rights can be challenged. |
| 23573 | For moral reasons, a just war must be a limited war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Just wars are limited wars; there are moral reasons for the statesmen and soldiers who fight them to be prudent and realistic. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 07) | |
| A reaction: This is rather profound, I think. Watch closely the behaviour of the good guys when they are winning the war. In general, to know someone's moral principles, the best indicator is how they behave when they have power. |
| 23577 | Napoleon said 'I don't care about the deaths of a million men' [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Napoleon said 'Soldiers are made to be killed. …I do not care a fig for the lives of a million men'. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: [Two separate remarks attributed to Napoleon] He apparently often said things like this this later in his career. It strikes me as despicable, and anyone who still tries to present Napoleon as admirable should be ashamed. |
| 23593 | Jus ad bellum and Jus in bello are independent; unjust wars can be fought in a just way [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Justice of war [ad bellum] and justice in war [in bello] are logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought unjustly, and for an unjust war to be fought in strict accordance with the rules. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 02) | |
| A reaction: The perfect decorum of an unjust firing squad might even make the crime worse. There is something chilling about an evil army conducting itself perfectly within the ethics of warfare. Better than the other thing, though. McMahan disagrees. |
| 23574 | The duties and moral status of loyal and obedient soldiers is the same in defence and aggression [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The duties of individual soldiers …are precisely the same in wars of aggression and wars of defence. …The moral status of soldiers on both sides is very much the same; they are led to fight by their loyalty and their lawful obedience. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: He excludes war crimes. This is the thesis which Jeff McMahan objects to. It would be very odd to think that mafiosi and the legitimate police were morally equal, because the former are loyal. We should all try hard to avoid supporting unjust causes. |
| 23575 | We can't blame soldiers for anything they do which clearly promotes victory [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: It would be difficult to condemn soldiers for anything they did in the course of a battle or a war that they honestly believed, and had good reason to believe, was necessary, or important, or simply useful in determining the outcome. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: We can't blame unjust aggressors if their own lives are at stake, but what about in a surprise attack on the first day of the war (such as Pearl Harbour)? Or if they massacre the enemy with safe and overwhelming superiority? |
| 23584 | Rejecting Combatant Equality allows just soldiers to be harsher, even to the extreme [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Objections to combatant equality appeal to a sliding scale of 'the more justice, the more right'. …It allows the justice of one's cause to make a difference in the way one fights. …The extreme says soldiers fightly justly can do anything that is useful. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 14) | |
| A reaction: This slippery slope fear seems to be Walzer's main argument in favour of the moral equality of combatants. See Jeff McMahan for the opposing view. |
| 23589 | Kidnapped sailors and volunteers have different obligations to the passengers [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Soldiers may stand to civilians like the crew of a liner to its passengers, for whom they must risk their lives. …But would they be so bound if the sailors had been kidnapped? | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 19) | |
| A reaction: The point, I assume, is that a conscripted army does not have the same obligations as volunteers. I can't imagine that principle being accepted in an army which is a mixture of the two. |
| 23614 | Even aggressor soldiers are not criminals, so they have equal rights with their opponents [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Soldiers fighting for an aggressor state are not themselves criminals: hence their war rights are the same as those of their opponents. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
| A reaction: Walzer's main support for this is that opposing armies never regard one another as intrinsically criminal. It seems inevitable, though, that even the invaders themselves see that they are a bit more criminal than the defenders. |
| 23579 | Soldiers will only protect civilians if they feel safe from them [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: Soldiers must feel safe among civilians if civilians are ever to be safe from soldiers. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 11) | |
| A reaction: This is the great dilemma of any resistance movement. It is very easy for the soldiers to abuse their power, even if they do feel safe. Then what? |
| 23586 | What matters in war is unacceptable targets, not unacceptable weapons [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: The crucial distinction in the theory and practice of war is not between prohibited and acceptable weapons but between prohibited and acceptable targets. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
| A reaction: Walzer presents this idea as arising out of discussions about nuclear deterrence. Gas attacks were accepted in WW1 trenches, but modern gas attacks on civilians are a crime. Are nuclear attacks on strictly military targets OK? E.g a fleet. |
| 23591 | If the oppressor is cruel, nonviolence is either surrender, or a mere gesture [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: When one cannot count on the moral code of the oppressor, nonviolence is either a disguised form of surrender or a minimalist way of upholding communal values after a military defeat. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Afterword) | |
| A reaction: The point is that ruthless conquerors may just kill the nonviolent, so it would achieve nothing. Nonviolence is only a plausible strategy in a fairly civilised world. Hard to disagree. |
| 23592 | We can only lead war towards peace if we firmly enforce the rules of war [Walzer] |
| Full Idea: We must begin by insisting upon the rules of war and by holding soldiers rigidly to the norms they set. The restraint of war is the beginning of peace. | |
| From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Afterword) | |
| A reaction: Last sentence of his book. Some cultures have a much greater tradition of ruthless cruelty than others, it seems. Most war ethics seems to concern how the good guys should respond to the bad guys (since the latter hardly care). |
| 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 |