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All the ideas for '74: Reply to Colotes', 'Conceptions of Consequence' and 'Difference and Repetition'

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12 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
21901 'Difference' refers to that which eludes capture [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: 'Difference' is a term which Deleuze uses to refer to that which eludes capture.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
     A reaction: Presumably its ancestor is Kant's noumenon. This is one of his concepts used to 'palpate' our ossified conceptual scheme.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
21902 'Being' is univocal, but its subject matter is actually 'difference' [Deleuze]
     Full Idea: Being is said in a single and same sense of everything of which it is said, but that of which it is said differs: it is said of difference itself.
     From: Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968], p.36), quoted by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
     A reaction: This is an attempt to express the Heraclitean view of reality, as process, movement, multiplicity - something which always eludes our attempts to pin it down.
21908 Ontology can be continual creation, not to know being, but to probe the unknowable [Deleuze]
     Full Idea: Ontology can be an ontology of difference ....where what is there is not the same old things but a process of continual creation, an ontology that does not seek to reduce being to the knowable, but widens thought to palpate the unknowable.
     From: Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]), quoted by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 5.05
     A reaction: I'm inclined to think that the first duty of ontology is to face up to the knowable. I'm not sure that probing the unknowable, with no success or prospect of it, is a good way to spend a life. Probing ('palpating') can sometimes discover things.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / i. Deflating being
21903 Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: In Deleuze's hands ontology is not a matter of telling us what there is, but of taking us on strange adventures.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
     A reaction: Presumably you only indulge in the strange adventure because you have no idea how to specify what there is. This sounds like the essence of post-modernism, in which life is just a game.
21904 Being is a problem to be engaged, not solved, and needs a new mode of thinking [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: In Deleuze, Being is not a puzzle to be solved but a problem to be engaged. It is to be engaged by a thought that moves as comfortably among problems as it does among solutions, as fluidly among differences as it does among identities.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 4.01
     A reaction: This sounds like what I've always known as 'negative capability' (thanks to Keats). Is philosophy just a hobby, like playing darts? It seems that the aim of the process is 'liberation', about which I would like to know more.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
18810 Aristotle's proofs give understanding, so it can't be otherwise, so consequence is necessary [Smiley, by Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: The ingredient of necessity [in Aristotle's account of consequence] is required by his demand that proof should produce 'understanding' [episteme], coupled with his claim that understanding something involves seeing that it cannot be otherwise.
     From: report of Timothy Smiley (Conceptions of Consequence [1998], p.599) by Ian Rumfitt - The Boundary Stones of Thought 3.2
     A reaction: An intriguing reverse of the normal order. Not 'necessity in logic delivers understanding', but 'reaching understanding shows the logic was necessary'.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 7. Self and Body / c. Self as brain controller
5952 Rather than being the whole soul, maybe I am its chief part? [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Is each of us not the soul, but the chief part of the soul, by which we think and reason and act, all the other parts of soul as well as of body being mere instruments of its power?
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1119)
     A reaction: Socrates is associated with the idea that I am my whole soul (Idea 1650). Plutarch represents an interesting development, which may lead both to the Christian 'soul' and to the Cartesian 'ego'. I think Plutarch is right, but what is the 'soul'?
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique
5951 If atoms have no qualities, they cannot possibly produce a mind [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Perception, mind, intelligence and thought cannot so much as be conceived, even with the best will, as arising among void and atoms, things which taken separately have no quality.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1112)
     A reaction: A nice articulation of the intuition of all anti-physicalists. Plutarch would have to rethink his position carefully if he learned of the sheer number of connections in the brain, and of the theory of natural selection. His challenge remains, though.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
20796 Action needs an affinity for a presentation, and an impulse toward the affinity [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: The sceptics say there are three movements of the soul: presentation, impulse and assent. …And action requires two things: a presentation of something to which one has an affinity, and an impulse toward what is presented as an object of affinity.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], 1122c)
     A reaction: Not much reasoning involved in this account, which the sceptics say is compatible with suspension of judgement.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
5948 The good life involves social participation, loyalty, temperance and honesty [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: To live the good life is to live a life of participation in society, of loyalty to friends, of temperance and honest dealing.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1108)
     A reaction: 'Participation in society' is the interesting one. This might translate as 'doing your duty', or as 'leading a well-rounded life'. Solitude is wrong if you are indebted to others, and it is unhealthy if you are not. Is solitude really immoral, though?
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism
5950 If only atoms exist, how do qualities arise when the atoms come together? [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: If you accept atomism, you must show how bodies without quality have given rise to qualities of every kind by the mere fact of coming together. For example, how has the quality called 'hot' been imposed on the atoms?
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1111)
     A reaction: This argument is still significant in current philosophy of mind. If temperature is 'mean kinetic energy', you are left wondering where the energy came from, and why minds experience the heat. This is the 'Hard Question'.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief
5955 No one will ever find a city that lacks religious practices [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: A city without holy places and gods, without any observance of prayers, oaths, oracles, sacrifices for blessings received or rites to avert evils, no traveller has ever seen or will ever see.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1125)
     A reaction: The nearest you might get would be Soviet Moscow, but in 1973 I saw a man there jeering at a woman who was kneeling in the street outside a closed church. Plutarch would be stunned at the decline in religious practices in modern Europe.