87 ideas
5278 | Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At best it is a summing up of general results, abstractions which arise from observation of the historical development of man. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense, based on a bogus Hegelian notion that history is following some sort of pattern, and that mental reality is fixed by physical conditions. The philosophy of mathematics, for one, won't fit into this definition. |
224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
15879 | The Square of Opposition has two contradictory pairs, one contrary pair, and one sub-contrary pair [Harré] |
Full Idea: Square of Opposition: 'all A are B' and 'no A are B' are contraries; 'some A are B' and 'some A are not B' are sub-contraries; the pairs 'all A are B'/'some A are B' and 'no A are B'/'some A are B' are contradictories. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 3) | |
A reaction: [the reader may construct his own diagram from this description!] The contraries are at the extremes of contradiction, but the sub-contraries are actual compatible. You could add possible worlds to this picture. |
15891 | Traditional quantifiers combine ordinary language generality and ontology assumptions [Harré] |
Full Idea: The generalising function and the ontological function of discourse are elided in the traditional quantifier. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 5) | |
A reaction: This simple point strikes me as helping enormously to disentangle the mess created by over-emphasis on formal logic in ontology, and especially in the Quinean concept of 'ontological commitment'. |
15878 | Some quantifiers, such as 'any', rule out any notion of order within their range [Harré] |
Full Idea: The quantifier 'any' unambiguously rules out any presupposition of order in the members of the range of individuals quantified. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 3) | |
A reaction: He contrasts this with 'all', 'each' and 'every', which are ambiguous in this respect. |
13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) | |
A reaction: This seems to be rhetorical, rather a precise theory, given that the One is said to be eternal and unchanging. The One is not just what we call 'reality'. |
21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) | |
A reaction: These seems to thoroughly pre-empt Plato's Theory of Forms a century before he created it. Which shows (as Simone Weil says) that Plato was just part of a long tradition. |
5287 | Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Every profound philosophical problem is resolved quite simply into an empirical fact. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This shows that empirical accounts of metaphysics are not just a branch of British empiricism, but are a basic fact of any materialist view of the world. The influence of David Hume, however, hovers behind this Marxist doctrine. |
15874 | Scientific properties are not observed qualities, but the dispositions which create them [Harré] |
Full Idea: The properties of material things with which the sciences deal are not the qualities we observe them to have, but the dispositions of those things to engender the states and qualities we observe. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: I take this to be the correct use of the word 'qualities', so that properties are not qualities (in the way Heil would like). |
223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
15884 | Laws of nature remain the same through any conditions, if the underlying mechanisms are unchanged [Harré] |
Full Idea: A statement is a law of nature if it is true in all those worlds which differ only as to their initial conditions, that is in which the underlying mechanisms of nature are the same. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 4) | |
A reaction: Harré takes it that laws of nature have to be necessary, by definition. I like this way of expressing natural necessity, in terms of 'mechanisms' rather than of 'laws'. Where do the mechanisms get their necessity? |
15880 | In physical sciences particular observations are ordered, but in biology only the classes are ordered [Harré] |
Full Idea: In the physical sciences the particular observations and experimental results are usually orderable, while in the biological sciences it is the classes of organism which are ordered, not the particular organisms. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 3) | |
A reaction: Harré is interesting on the role of ordering in science. Functions can be defined by an order. Maths feeds on orderings. Physics, he notes, focuses on things which vary together. |
15869 | Reports of experiments eliminate the experimenter, and present results as the behaviour of nature [Harré] |
Full Idea: In accounts of experiments, by Faraday and others, the role of the guiding hand of the actual experimenter is written out in successive accounts. The effect is to display the phenomenon as a natural occurrence, existing independently of the experiments. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: He records three stages in Faraday's reports. The move from active to passive voice is obviously part of it. The claim of universality is thus implicit rather than explicit. |
15881 | We can save laws from counter-instances by treating the latter as analytic definitions [Harré] |
Full Idea: When we come upon a counter-instance to a generalisation we can save the putative law, by treating it as potentially analytic and claiming it as a definition. ...Thus magnetism doesn't hold for phosphorus, so we say phosphorus is not a magnetic substance. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 3) | |
A reaction: He notes this as being particularly true when the laws concern the dispositions of substances, rather than patterns of events. |
15882 | Since there are three different dimensions for generalising laws, no one system of logic can cover them [Harré] |
Full Idea: Since there are three different dimensions of generality into which every law of nature is generalised, there can be no one system of logic which will govern inference to or from every law of every kind. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 3) | |
A reaction: This is aimed at the covering-law approach, which actually aims to output observations as logical inferences from laws. Wrong. |
15888 | The grue problem shows that natural kinds are central to science [Harré] |
Full Idea: The grue problem illustrates the enormous importance that the concept of a natural-kind plays in real science. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 5) | |
A reaction: The point is that we took emeralds to be a natural kind, but 'grue' proposes that they aren't, since stability is the hallmark of a natural kind. |
15887 | 'Grue' introduces a new causal hypothesis - that emeralds can change colour [Harré] |
Full Idea: In introducing the predicate 'grue' we also introduce an additional causal hypothesis into our chemistry and physics; namely, that when observed grue emeralds change from blue to green. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 5) | |
A reaction: [The 'when observered' is a Harré addition] I hate 'grue'. Only people who think our predicates have very little to do with reality are impressed by it. Grue is a behaviour, not a colour. |
15889 | It is because ravens are birds that their species and their colour might be connected [Harré] |
Full Idea: It is because ravens are birds that it makes sense to contemplate the possibility of a lawful relation between their species and their colour. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 5) | |
A reaction: Compare the 'laws' concerning leaf colour in autumn, and the 'laws' concerning packaging colour in supermarkets. Harré's underlying point is that raven colour concerns mechanism. |
15890 | Non-black non-ravens just aren't part of the presuppositions of 'all ravens are black' [Harré] |
Full Idea: Non-black non-ravens have no role to play in assessing the plausibility of 'All ravens are black' because their existence is not among the existential presuppositions of that statement. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 5) | |
A reaction: [He cites Strawson for the 'presupposition' approach] |
15885 | The necessity of Newton's First Law derives from the nature of material things, not from a mechanism [Harré] |
Full Idea: The 'must' of Newton's First Law is different. There is no deeper level relative to the processes described to give a mechanism which generates uniform motion. There is no such mechanism. ..It specifies what it is for something to be a material thing. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 4) | |
A reaction: Harré says the law can only exist as part of a network of other ideas. |
23872 | 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In the Marxist formula 'social existence determines consciousness' there are more contradictions than words. Since 'social' can only exist in human minds, 'social existence' is already consciousness. It cannot determine consciousness, which is undefined. | |
From: comment on K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846]) by Simone Weil - Fragments p.126 | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced that society only exists in minds. Many children in Victorian London had never heard of 'London', but that didn't stop it existing. Our problems are often social substrata of which we are unaware. |
5277 | Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This slogan is the heart of Marxism. It begs the obvious question of what determines (social) life? Aristotle is at least partly right - that some activities and social organisation are 'unnatural', going against the grain of the human 'given'. |
15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
Full Idea: An 'idealisation' preserves all the properties of the source but it possesses these properties in some ideal or perfect form. ...An 'abstraction', on the other hand, lacks certain features of its source. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: Yet another example in contemporary philosophy of a clear understanding of the sort of abstraction which Geach and others have poured scorn on. |
5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: Dennett takes a similar view - that consciousness is more-or-less a consequence of the development of consciousness. This is understandable if you make intentional rather than phenomenal consciousness central. Otherwise ants may well have it. |
5276 | The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: As individuals express their life, so they are; what they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This appears to be contradicted by their subsequent idea that 'alienation' from the means of production is possible. Presumably intellectuals (in all ages) are to some extent exempt from this rule. It is, in fact, not true. |
5281 | Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Consciousness is from the very beginning a social product. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This slogan has produced the sociological view of truth which has stood opposed to philosophy for the last 150 years. It would be silly to deny that there is a good point here, but equally silly to think that all consciousness is explicable in this way. |
5289 | When aristocracy or the bourgeoisie dominate, certain values dominate with them [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: During the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty etc. were dominant, and during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts of freedom, equality etc. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This is a very anti-Aristotelian view, based on a very different idea of human nature. It must, to some extent, be true, but freedom and equality will be a value for the proletariat, and loyalty will be a key value if the family is central. |
5274 | Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The Young Hegelians logically put to men the moral postulate of exchanging their present consciousness for human, critical or egoistic consciousness, and thus removing their limitations. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: It seems there are three views here: this one (that we can change our consciousness), the Aristotelian view (that consciousness is 'given'), and the Marxist view (that society determines consciousness). The truth is somewhere between them. |
5275 | Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This seems a rather external criterion. Presumably we can ask what biological or mental feature made it possible for men to produce their own means of subsistence, and why it evolved. Darwin puts a different perspective on this idea. |
5292 | Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
A reaction: Beneath the Marxist view that consciousness is a social creation lies a Hobbesian pessimism about basic human nature. This idea bodes ill for ultimate communism, because class struggle will have been abolished. What, then, can unite people? |
21992 | Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Men begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], p.160), quoted by Sydney Shoemaker - Some varieties of functionalism 6 | |
A reaction: At the very least, we must say that there had to be some intrinsic distinctiveness in place before men could do this. I like meta-thought. |
5293 | Only in community are people able to cultivate their gifts, and therefore be free [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
A reaction: This is where Aristotle and Marx agree, and I agree too. I think we could drop the word "free", which is to some degree a necessary right and precondition of human happiness, but is not the real target. |
5273 | Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men (just as the Old Hegelians declared them the true bonds of human society). | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: Marx and Engels will attack both views. The Young Hegelians seem potential existentialists, and the Old Hegelians followers of Aristotle. The correct view is somewhere in the middle. Self-criticism is an option given to us by our culture. |
5283 | In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates production, and I can hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and criticise after dinner. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a hopeless daydream, and Plato would be appalled. It now (2004) looks as if this aspiration is more likely to be met in a liberal capitalist democracy than it is under any state-controlled communism. |
5282 | If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: As long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: An isolated individual could feel 'alienated' doing menial tasks for themselves when they yearned to get on with their poetry. Alienation is not all-or-nothing. Compare working for a good employer with working for Nazi conquerors. |
5288 | The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This is mostly true, because the wealthy will control both the media and most of the educational institutions, but in a world of universal education and underground presses it doesn't seem to be a necessary truth. Wide dissemination of ideas needs money. |
5290 | The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a 'class', not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: This appears to be the source of most of the troubles of the last 150 years. Aristotle thought a benevolent tyrant could represent all of society. It looks to me as if a representative democracy has the best chance, but control of the media is tricky. |
5294 | To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In order to assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.D) | |
A reaction: By the 'State' is here meant the centralised power of the owners of the means of production. They are not aiming at anarchism, but at a more fluid 'society' or 'community'. Most of us have an Orwellian fear of violent 'overthrowing'. |
5285 | Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: In Britain and its colonies it does appear that the rise of factories and the abolition of slavery coincided. It is hard to see why this should be a necessity, though. Did the early Christians keep slaves? Some ancient Greeks objected to slavery. |
5284 | Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: It is empirically established that by the overthrow of the existing state of society by the communist revolution, and the abolition of private property, which is identical with it, the power of the world market will be dissolved. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: They later dropped the abolition of private property as an aim. They were very early in spotting the problem of global capitalism. As long as there are scarcities of anything (e.g. Rembrandts) it is hard to imagine the disappearance of the market. |
5291 | The law says private property is the result of the general will [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: In civil law the existing property relations are declared to be the result of the general will. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.C) | |
A reaction: In other words, the 'general will' is open to endless abuse, because it is defined by the current power group, which nowadays is whoever controls the mass media. Even a 'free' election doesn't prove the general will, which is a cultural thing. |
222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
5279 | Human history must always be studied in relation to industry and exchange [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: The 'history of humanity' must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of industry and exchange. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: There is a lot of truth in this, but why did the Greeks produce Pythagoras, or the Jews produce Jesus, or the British produce Sid Vicious? Two very similar industrial societies can produce very different cultures. Individuals can make a difference. |
5286 | Most historians are trapped in the illusions of their own epoch [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Most historians see in history just the political actions of princes and states, religious and all sorts of theoretical struggles, and in particular in each historical epoch have had to share the illusion of that epoch. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.B) | |
A reaction: Is it an illusion of our epoch that we share the illusions of our epoch? It seems unfair to say that Marx and Engels can see beyond the illusions of their epoch, but some historian writing about the Wars of the Roses can't. Princes were important. |
225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
15886 | Science rests on the principle that nature is a hierarchy of natural kinds [Harré] |
Full Idea: The animating principle behind the material and discursive practices of science is the thesis that nature exemplifies multiple hierarchies of natural kinds. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 5) | |
A reaction: I agree. I take it to be a brute fact that there seem to be lots of stable natural kinds, which are worth investigating as long as they stay stable. If they are unstable, there needs to be something stable to measure that by - or we give up. |
15864 | Classification is just as important as laws in natural science [Harré] |
Full Idea: Classification systems, or taxonomies, are as important a part of the natural sciences as are the laws of nature. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: This illustrates how our view of science is radically shifted if we give biology equal prominence with physics. |
15865 | Newton's First Law cannot be demonstrated experimentally, as that needs absence of external forces [Harré] |
Full Idea: We can never devise an experimental situation in which there are no external forces to act on a body. It follows that Newton's First Law could never be demonstrated by means of experiment or observation. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: It can't be wholly demonstrated, but certain observations conform to it, such as the movement of low friction bodies, or the movements of planetary bodies. |
15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
Full Idea: Boyle's Law generalises a mass of messy data culled from an apparatus; Snell's Law is an experimentally derived law deducible from theory; Newton's First Law derives from concepts and thought experiments; Mendel's Law used an experimental procedure. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: Nice examples, especially since Boyle's and Newton's laws are divided by a huge gulf, and arrived at about the same time. On p.35 Harré says these come down to two: abstraction from experiment, and derivation from deep assumptions. |
15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
Full Idea: What is Newton's First Law about? Is it about events? Is it about types or universals? Is it about dispositions? Or is it, in some peculiar way, about all three? | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: If laws merely chart regularities, then I suppose they are about events (which exhibit the regular patterns). If laws explain, which would be nice, then they are only about universals if you are a platonist. Hence laws are about dispositions. |
15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
Full Idea: Is Newton's First Law about what has actually happened or is it about what might, or could possibly happen? Is it about the actual events and states of the world, or possible events and states? | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: I presume the first sentence distinguishes between what 'might (well)' happen, and what 'could (just) possibly happen'. I take it for granted that laws predict the actual future. The question is are they true of situations which will never occur? |
15876 | Maybe laws of nature are just relations between properties? [Harré] |
Full Idea: The idea of the Dretske-Armstrong-Tooley view is very simple: the laws of nature relate properties to properties. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: Presumably the relations are necessary ones. I don't see why we need to mention these wretched 'universals' in order to expound this theory. It sounds much more plausible if you just say a property is defined by the way it relates to other properties. |
15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
Full Idea: Is a law of nature about everything in the universe or just about a restricted group of things? | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: I presume the answer is that while a law may only refer to a small group of things, the law would still have to apply if that group moved or spread or enlarged, so it would have to be universals. A laws confined to one time or place? Maybe. |
15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
Full Idea: We do not take laws to be recordings of what happens perchance or for the most part, but specifications of what happens necessarily | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a plausible necessary condition for a law, but it may not be a sufficient one. Are trivial necessities laws? On this view if there are no necessities then there are no laws. |
15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
Full Idea: The laws of nature are not simple descriptions of what can be seen to happen. They are descriptions of abstractions and idealisations from a somewhat messy reality. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: This view seems to have increasingly gripped modern philosophers, so that the old view of God decreeing a few simple equations to run the world has faded away. |
15892 | Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms [Harré] |
Full Idea: A law of nature tells us what kinds of things, events and properties (all else being equal) go along with what. The 'must' of natural necessity has its place here because it is bound up with a model or analogy representing generative mechanisms. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 5) | |
A reaction: This is Harré's final page summary of laws. I agree with it. I would say that the laws are therefore descriptive, of the patterns of behaviour that arise when generative mechanisms meet. Maybe laws concern 'transformations'. |
15875 | In counterfactuals we keep substances constant, and imagine new situations for them [Harré] |
Full Idea: In drawing 'countefactual' conclusions we can be thought imaginatively to vary the conditions under which the substance, set-up etc. is manipulated or stimulated, while maintaining constant our conception of the nature of the being in question. | |
From: Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: Presumably you could vary the substance and keep the situation fixed, but then the counterfactual seems to be 'about' something different. Either that or the 'situation' is a actually a set of substances to be tested. |
234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |