68 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. |
| 6200 | Wisdom is knowing the highest good, and conforming the will to it [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom, theoretically regarded, means the knowledge of the highest good and, practically, the conformability of the will to the highest good. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: This seems a narrow account of wisdom, focusing entirely on goodness rather than truth. A mind that valued nothing but understood everything would have a considerable degree of wisdom, in the normal use of that word. |
| 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 |
| 6207 | What fills me with awe are the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Concl) | |
| A reaction: I am beginning to think that the two major issues of all philosophy are ontology and metaethics, and Kant is close to agreeing with me. He certainly wasn't implying that astronomy was a key aspect of philosophy. |
| 6184 | Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher and yet the most rarely found. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§3) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this, and it also strikes me as the single most important principle of Kant's philosophy, which is the key to his whole moral theory. |
| 6203 | Metaphysics is just a priori universal principles of physics [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics only contains the pure a priori principles of physics in their universal import. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI) | |
| A reaction: 'Universal' seems to imply 'necessary'. If you thought that no a priori universal principles were possible, you would be left with physics. I quite like the definition, except that I think there would still be metaphysics even if there were no physics. |
| 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 |
| 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! |
| 18617 | Substances, unlike aggregates, can survive a change of parts [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Substances can survive a change in their parts in a way that a mere aggregate of parts. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: A simple but very important idea. If we then distinguish between 'substances' and 'aggregates' we get a much clearer grip on things. Is the Ship of Theseus a substance or an aggregate? There is no factual answer to that. What do you want to explain? |
| 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 |
| 18618 | Maybe possibilities are recombinations of the existing elements of reality [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It has been suggested that we could think of possibilities as recombinations of all the existing elements of reality. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8) | |
| A reaction: [Armstrong 1989 is the source] The obvious problem would be that the existence of an entirely different reality would be impossible, if this was all possibility could be. It seems to cramp the style of the possible too much. Are properties elements? |
| 18619 | Combinatorial possibility has to allow all elements to be combinable, which seems unlikely [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The combinatorial account only works if you allow that the elements are recombinable. ...But could Lincoln really have been green? It seems possible that you could jump to the moon, unless we impose some restrictions. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8) | |
| A reaction: Mumford suggests different combination rules for logical and natural possibility. The general objection is that combinatorial possibility is too permissive - which it clearly is. |
| 18620 | Combinatorial possibility relies on what actually exists (even over time), but there could be more [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Can combinatorial possibility deliver enough possibilities? It uses the existing elements, but there might have been one more particular or one more property. Even extended over time, the elements seem finite, yet there could have been more. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] One objection is that the theory allows too much, and now the objection is that it allows too little. Both objections are correct, so that's the end of that. But I admire the attempt to base modality on actuality. |
| 6181 | Necessity cannot be extracted from an empirical proposition [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is a clear contradiction to try to extract necessity from an empirical proposition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely the idea which Kripke challenged, claiming that the necessary essences of natural kinds such as gold have to be discovered empirically. All my intuitions are with Kant (and Hume) on this, but it is a complex issue… |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 6183 | Can pure reason determine the will, or are empirical conditions relevant? [Kant] |
| Full Idea: This is the first question: Is pure reason sufficient of itself to determine the will, or is it only as empirically conditioned that it can do so? | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core question of intellectualism, which goes back to Socrates. You can only accept the question if you accept the concept of 'pure' reason. Values seem to be needed for action, as well as empirical circumstances. |
| 6191 | The will is the faculty of purposes, which guide desires according to principles [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The will could be defined as the faculty of purposes, since they are always determining grounds of the faculty of desire according to principles. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II) | |
| A reaction: Do animals have wills? Kant implies that you can only have a will if you have principles. Compare Hobbes' rather less elevated definition of the will (Idea 2362). |
| 6190 | The sole objects of practical reason are the good and the evil [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The sole objects of a practical reason are thus those of the good and the evil. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II) | |
| A reaction: Of course, you may aim to achieve x because it is good, while I judge x to be evil. |
| 18235 | Only human reason can confer value on our choices [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: Kant argues that only human reason is in a position to confer value on the objects of human choice. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant' | |
| A reaction: If the source of value is humans, then it is not immediately clear why it is only our reason that does the conferring. What is the status of a choice on which reason fails to confer value? The idea is that reason, unlike desire, has intrinsic value. |
| 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). |
| 6196 | People cannot come to morality through feeling, because morality must not be sensuous [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In the subject there is no antecedent feeling tending to morality; that is impossible, because all feeling is sensuous, and the drives of the moral disposition must be free from every sensuous condition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite clear (even after reading Kant) why moral drives 'must' be free of sensuousness. Aristotle gives a much better account, when he tells us that the sensuous drives must be trained in the right way, and must be in harmony with the reason. |
| 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 |
| 18675 | Kant may rate two things as finally valuable: having a good will, and deserving happiness [Orsi on Kant] |
| Full Idea: In some interpretations it appears that for Kant two things are finally valuable: good will (unconditionally), and deserved happiness (conditionally on the value of good will). | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 2.2 | |
| A reaction: It doesn't sound difficult to reconcile these two. Just ask 'what is required of someone to deserve happiness?'. |
| 22007 | An autonomous agent has dignity [Würde], which has absolute worth [Kant, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: For Kant, there is something about beings that can act autonomously that is itself of 'absolute worth', which Kant calls the 'dignity' [Würde] of each such agent. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 02 | |
| A reaction: This answers my puzzle about where Kant's fundamental values come from. Surely wicked actions can be autonomous? Autonomous actions aren't thereby good actions. A 'good' will, course, whatever that is. Rational? My problem with existentialist ethics. |
| 18234 | The good will is unconditionally good, because it is the only possible source of value [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: Kant argues that the good will is unconditionally good because it is the only thing able to be a source of value. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant' | |
| A reaction: The obvious worry is the circularity of resting a theory of value on identifying a 'good' will as its source. |
| 6192 | Good or evil cannot be a thing, but only a maxim of action, making the person good or evil [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If something is held to be absolutely good or evil in all respects and without qualification, it could not be a thing but only the manner of acting, i.e., it could only be the maxim of the will, and consequently the acting person himself is good or evil. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II) | |
| A reaction: It goes on to deny that pain is intrinsically evil, but his reason for the claim is not clear. Nevetheless, I think he is right. This remark is an important bridge between Enlightenment concerns with law and Greek concerns with character. |
| 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? |
| 6197 | Morality involves duty and respect for law, not love of the outcome [Kant] |
| Full Idea: All the morality of actions may be placed in their necessity from duty and from respect for the law, and not from love for or leaning toward that which the action is to produce. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III) | |
| A reaction: Kant tries to reject consequentialism, but you cannot assess your duty or the universal law without an assessment of probable consequences, and we could never choose between laws if we did not already see value in the outcome. |
| 6193 | Our happiness is all that matters, not as a sensation, but as satisfaction with our whole existence [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Our happiness is the only thing of importance, provided this is judged, as reason requires, not according to transitory sensation but according to the influence which this contingency has on our whole existence and our satisfaction with it. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II) | |
| A reaction: This is closer to the Greek eudaimonia than to the modern conception of happiness, which is largely just a feeling. Kant's view seems more like a private judgement on your whole life, where the Greek idea seems more public and objective. |
| 1452 | Happiness is the condition of a rational being for whom everything goes as they wish [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes according to his wish and will. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: For such a sophisticated and rational philosopher this seems a rather crude notion. Reluctant alcoholics don't fit. Bradley has a much better definition (Idea 5655). |
| 1454 | Morality is not about making ourselves happy, but about being worthy of happiness [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: Whatever else you think of Kant's moral theory, this remark is a clarion call we can all recognise. Suppose we all somehow ended up in a state of maximal happiness by systematically betraying one another. |
| 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. |
| 6194 | The highest worth for human beings lies in dispositions, not just actions [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The highest worth which human beings can and should procure for themselves lies in dispositions and not in actions only. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II) | |
| A reaction: This leaves the problem of the well-meaning fool, who has wonderful dispositions but poor judgement. What Kant is describing here is better known as virtue. See Idea 58. |
| 6198 | Virtue is the supreme state of our pursuit of happiness, and so is supreme good [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Virtue (as the worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of whatever appears to us to be desirable and thus of all our pursuit of happiness and, consequently, the supreme good. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II) | |
| A reaction: Thus Kant can claim to be a virtue theorist, but giving us a very different account of how virtue arises. He emphasises elsewhere (Idea 6197) that the supreme good must be in the will, not in the outcome. 'Virtue' is here a rather thin concept. |
| 1456 | Moral law is holy, and the best we can do is achieve virtue through respect for the law [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The moral law is holy (unyielding), although all the moral perfection to which man can attain is still only virtue, that is, a rightful disposition arising from respect for the law. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: In comparison with Aristotle's view of virtue this is very passive and external. Aristotle doesn't need laws for virtue, he needs inner harmony and a grasp of what has high value. |
| 6185 | No one would lend money unless a universal law made it secure, even after death [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If my maxim is 'augment my property by all safe means', I can't make that a law allowing me to keep a dead man's loan, because no one would make a loan if that were the moral law. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§4) | |
| A reaction: This is a simple illustration of Kant's strategy and it shows clearly how, for all his talk of 'pure reason', his moral law is strongly guided by consequences, and that these can only judged by prior values - for example, that loans are a good thing. |
| 6187 | Universality determines the will, and hence extends self-love into altruism [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The form of universality is itself the determining ground of the will, …and from this limitation alone, and not from the addition of any exernal drive, the concept of obligation arises to extend the maxim of self-love also to the happiness of others. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§8) | |
| A reaction: This is the heroic and optimistic part of Kant's philosophy, the attempt to derive altruism from pure reason. The claim seems to be that maxims don't motivate until they have been universalised. I fear that only altruism could add such motivation. |
| 6201 | Everyone (even God) must treat rational beings as ends in themselves, and not just as means [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In the order of ends, man (and every rational being) is an end in himself, i.e., he is never to be used merely as a means for someone (even for God) without at the same time being himself an end. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: The worry here is that Kant has set up an exam that you have to pass before you can be treated as a moral end. Animals and the ecosystem will fail the exam, and even some human beings will be borderline cases. We should respect everything. |
| 6186 | A holy will is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A holy will is one which is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§7) | |
| A reaction: If such a will is 'incapable' of conflicting with moral law, it will not need to think or assess before action. This means that Kant's moral ideal can ultimately exclude the free-thinking intellect. Kant is describing a state of true Aristotelian virtue. |
| 6195 | Reason cannot solve the problem of why a law should motivate the will [Kant] |
| Full Idea: How a law in itself can be the direct motive of the will (which is the essence of morality) is an insoluble problem for the human reason. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III) | |
| A reaction: If that is the great man's final word, then it is tempting to switch to an empirical moral theory, such as that of Hobbes or Hume or E.O. Wilson, which starts from what motivations are available, and builds morality up from that. |
| 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 |
| 6188 | A permanent natural order could not universalise a rule permitting suicide [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The maxim of freely disposing of my life could not hold as a universal law of nature, …because no one could choose to end his life, for such an arrangement could not constitute a permanent natural order. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.I) | |
| A reaction: This sort of claim brings out the advantanges of Aristotelian 'particularism' (expounded by Dancy). Obviously universal suicide isn't promising, but no one wants that. A few suicides in extreme cases will have no effect at all on the natural order. |
| 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 |
| 6199 | Obligation does not rest on the existence of God, but on the autonomy of reason [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is not to be understood that the assumption of the existence of God is necessary as a ground for all obligation in general (for this rests, as has been shown, solely on the autonomy of reason itself). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: This shows that Kant agrees with Plato about the Euthyphro Question - that is, they both think that morality is logically and naturally prior to any gods. I agree. Why would we admire or worship or obey gods if we didn't think they were good? |
| 1453 | We have to postulate something outside nature which makes happiness coincide with morality [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The existence must be postulated of a cause of the whole of nature, itself distinct from nature, which contains the ground of the exact coincidence of happiness with morality. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) | |
| A reaction: I can see that we need a concept of how happiness could be made proportional to morality, but I can't make sense of the assumption that it is actually possible, and hence something must exist that would achieve it. |
| 1455 | Belief in justice requires belief in a place for justice (heaven), a time (eternity), and a cause (God) [Kant, by PG] |
| Full Idea: To believe in justice in an unjust world, you have to believe in a place of perfect justice (heaven), a time for perfect justice (eternity), and a cause of perfect justice (God). | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: Compare Boethius in Idea 5765. I can see that we might need to grasp the ideals of eternal justice in order to understand morality, but belief in their genuine possibility, or even actuality, doesn't seem to follow. |
| 6205 | To know if this world must have been created by God, we would need to know all other possible worlds [Kant] |
| Full Idea: We can't infer the existence of God from knowledge of this world, because we should have to know all possible worlds in order to compare them - in short, we should have to be omniscient - in order to say that it is possible only through a God. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI) | |
| A reaction: A nice remark, but not wholly convincing. This argument would block all attempts to work out necessities a priori, such as those of maths and logic. Must we know all possible worlds intimately to know that 2+2 is always 4? |
| 6204 | Using God to explain nature is referring to something inconceivable to explain what is in front of you [Kant] |
| Full Idea: To have recourse to God in explaining the arrangements of nature is not a physical explanation but a confession that one has come to the end of philosophy, since one assumes something of which one has no concept to conceive what is before one's eyes. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI) | |
| A reaction: Hume had many objections to the design argument, some of them positively sarcastic, but none as ruthless as this, since Kant (here) seems to find God to be a totally empty concept, and hence a complete non-starter as explanation for anything. |
| 6206 | From our limited knowledge we can infer great virtues in God, but not ultimate ones [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Since we know only a small part of the world, and cannot compare it with all possible worlds, we can infer from the order, design and magnitude to a wise, beneficent and powerful Author, but not that He is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI) | |
| A reaction: This is very much in the spirit of David Hume, who inferred from the flaws in the world that God did not seem to be entirely competent. Hume is also more imaginative, in seeing that God might be a committee, or a hired workman. |
| 6202 | In all naturalistic concepts of God, if you remove the human qualities there is nothing left [Kant] |
| Full Idea: One can confidently challenge all pretended natural theologians to cite one single definitive attribute of their object, of which one could not irrefutably show that, when everything anthropomorphic is removed, only the word remains. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI) | |
| A reaction: This idea derives from Hume's very empiricist view of our understanding of God (Idea 2185), but Kant is (remarkably) more hostile than Hume, because he actually implies that most people's concept of God is totally vacuous. |