12 ideas
5960 | When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch] |
Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance. | |
From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001) | |
A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason. |
2176 | There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: There is a problem of free will only for those who think that the notion of voluntary can be metaphysically deepened. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.68) | |
A reaction: Years later, I now see that his refers to a pet hate of mine in discussions of free will, which is the idea that a person can have something called 'ultimate' responsibility for an action (which is the 'deep' version of 'you did it'). |
2181 | It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: There is a deluded Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom will totally coincide. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], VI - p.158) |
9145 | We form the image of a cardinal number by a double abstraction, from the elements and from their order [Cantor] |
Full Idea: We call 'cardinal number' the general concept which, by means of our active faculty of thought, arises when we make abstraction from an aggregate of its various elements, and of their order. From this double abstraction the number is an image in our mind. | |
From: George Cantor (Beitrage [1915], §1), quoted by Kit Fine - Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence Intro | |
A reaction: [compressed] This is the great Cantor, creator of set theory, endorsing the traditional abstractionism which Frege and his followers so despise. Fine offers a defence of it. The Frege view is platonist, because it refuses to connect numbers to the world. |
4317 | We judge weakness of will by an assessment after the event is concluded [Williams,B, by Cottingham] |
Full Idea: Williams has shown that whether an action was weakness of will depends on an evaluation after the event, as in the question of whether Gauguin was right to abandon his family to pursue his art. | |
From: report of Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993]) by John Cottingham - Reason, Emotions and Good Life p.1 | |
A reaction: The 'Gauguin Problem' is that Gauguin's actions only become weakness of will if the pictures are no good, and he can't know that till he's painted them. Good point. |
2174 | Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: The four elements of any conception of responsibility are cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.53) |
2178 | In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: In what I have done, the guilt points in one direction towards what has happened to others, and the shame in another direction to what I am. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.92) | |
A reaction: Not convinced. I think shame has the fear of being observed as an inescapable component. Even when alone shame involves imagining what others might think. |
2169 | Greek moral progress came when 'virtue' was freed from social status [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: There was moral progress in the ancient Greek world, notably to the extent that the idea of areté, human excellence, was freed to some extent from determination by social position. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], I - p.7) |
2172 | The modern idea of duty is unknown in archaic Greece [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Duty in some abstract modern sense is largely unknown to the Greeks, in particular to archaic Greeks. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], II - p.41) |
2180 | If reason cannot lead people to good, we must hope they have an internal voice [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: If we think the power of reason is not enough by itself to distinguish good and bad, then we would hope that people have limited autonomy, that there is an internalised other in them that carries some social weight. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.100) |
2179 | If the moral self is seen as characterless, then other people have a very limited role in our moral lives [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: The conception of the moral self as characterless leaves only a limited positive role to other people in one's moral life. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], IV - p.95) |
2175 | There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B] |
Full Idea: There is a "problem of evil" only for those who expect the world to be good. | |
From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.68) |