7 ideas
| 291 | Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age. | |
| From: Plato (Laches [c.381 BCE], 188b) | |
| A reaction: I have taught teenagers who seemed to me wiser than nearly all the adults I have ever met. |
| 19382 | Abstracta are abbreviated ways of talking; there are just substances, and truths about them [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I consider abstracta not as real things but as abbreviated ways of talking ...and to that extent I am a nominalist, at least provisionally ...It suffices to posit only substances as real things, and, to assert truths about these. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On the Reality of Accidents [1688]), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz | |
| A reaction: I am a modern nominalist, in my hostility to a serious ontological commitment to abstracta. You get into trouble, though, if you say there are only objects or substances. Physics says reality may all be 'fields', or something.... 'Truths' is good. |
| 293 | Being unafraid (perhaps through ignorance) and being brave are two different things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To be unafraid (like a small child who doesn't understand the danger) and to be brave are two quite different things. | |
| From: Plato (Laches [c.381 BCE], 197b) |
| 22265 | I can't defend the view that the majority values of a community are thereby right [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Insofar as 'communitarian' is another name for majoritarianism, or for the idea that rights should rest on the values that predominate in any given community at any given time, it is not a view I would defend. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Where') | |
| A reaction: I should hope not. You could soon end up as a good nazi if you follow that route. Sandel defends a critical view of community values (implying a role for philosophy?). The community good must be continually negotiated. Sounds fine to me. |
| 22268 | If persons define themselves by a group membership, insults to that group are a real harm [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For persons who understand themselves as defined by the ethnic or religious group to which they belong, an insult to the group can inflict a harm as real and as damaging as some physical harms. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Free speech') | |
| A reaction: In Britain many people fully define themselves by their allegiance to a football club. Really! They usually learn to laugh off an insult to their club, but it hurts. Laughing off an insult is an essential modern skill - up to a point. |
| 22267 | In the liberal view an insult to my group doesn't hurt me, since I'm defined by choices not groups [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: By the liberal conception of a person, my dignity could never be damaged by an insult to a group with which I identify, because what matters is not my social role, but my capacity to choose that role. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Free speech') | |
| A reaction: If I'm defined by my capacity to choose, and I choose to join some group, why is an insult to that group not an insult to my capacity to choose? How do you insult a liberal? 'I despise your individual freedom!'. |
| 22266 | The case for religious liberty depends on the religion contributing to a morally good life [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Unless there were reason to believe that religious beliefs and practices contribute to morally admirable ways of life, the case for a right to religious liberty would be weakened. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (The Limits of Communitarianism [1998], 'Religious') | |
| A reaction: I think many religious people would deny that their religion is primarily moral. (W.Blake: 'If morality is Christianity, then Socrates was the saviour'). Whose concept of a morally good life is Sandel referring to? |