24 ideas
8093 | Seek wisdom rather than truth; it is easier [Joubert] |
Full Idea: To seek wisdom rather than truth. It is more within our grasp. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1797) | |
A reaction: A nice challenge to the traditional goal of philosophy. The idea that we should 'seek truth' only seems to have emerged during the Reformation. The Greeks may well never have dreamed of such a thing. |
8095 | We must think with our entire body and soul [Joubert] |
Full Idea: Everything we think must be thought with our entire being, body and soul. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1798) | |
A reaction: Not just that thinking must be a whole-hearted activity, but that the very contents of our thinking will be better if it arises out of being a physical creature, and not just a disembodied reasoner. Maybe the bowels are not needed to analyse set theory. |
8107 | The love of certainty holds us back in metaphysics [Joubert] |
Full Idea: What stops or holds us back in metaphysics is a love of certainty. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1814) | |
A reaction: This is a prominent truth from the age of Descartes, but may have diminished in the twenty-first century. The very best metaphysicians (e.g. Aristotle and Lewis) always end in a trail of dots when things become unsure. |
8099 | The truths of reason instruct, but they do not illuminate [Joubert] |
Full Idea: There are truths that instruct, perhaps, but they do not illuminate. In this class are all the truths of reasoning. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1800) | |
A reaction: A rather romantic view, which strikes me as false. An inspiring truth can suddenly collapse when you see why it must be false. Equally a line of reasoning can lead to a truth which need becomes an illumination. |
8098 | Truth consists of having the same idea about something that God has [Joubert] |
Full Idea: Truth consists of having the same idea about something that God has. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1800) | |
A reaction: Presumably sceptics about the existence of objective truth must also be sceptical about the possibility of such a God. I think Joubert is close to the nature of truth here. It is a remote and barely imaginable ideal. |
16066 | Additional or removal of any part changes a thing, so people are never the same person [Epicharmus] |
Full Idea: If you add or take away a pebble, the same number does not remain. If you add to a length or cut off from it, the former measure does not remain. So human beings grow or waste away. Both you and I were, and shall be, other men. | |
From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B02), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.12 | |
A reaction: [The original is in dialogue form from a play. The context is a joke about not paying a debt.] Note the early date for this metaphysical puzzle. My new favourite reply is Chrysippus's Idea 16059; identity actually requires change. |
8101 | To know is to see inside oneself [Joubert] |
Full Idea: To know: it is to see inside oneself. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1800) | |
A reaction: Extreme internalism about justification! Personally I am becoming convinced that 'know' (unlike 'believe' and 'true') is an entirely social concept. Fools spend a lot of time instrospecting; wise people ask around, and check in books. |
436 | A dog seems handsome to another a dog, and even a pig to another pig [Epicharmus] |
Full Idea: Dog seems very handsome to dog, and ox to ox, and donkey very handsome to donkey, and even pig to pig. | |
From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B05), quoted by (who?) - where? |
8094 | The imagination has made more discoveries than the eye [Joubert] |
Full Idea: The imagination has made more discoveries than the eye. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1797) | |
A reaction: As a fan of the imagination, I love this one. I suspect that imagination, which was marginalised by Descartes, is actually the single most important aspect of thought (in slugs as well as humans). Abstraction requires imagination. |
8103 | A thought is as real as a cannon ball [Joubert] |
Full Idea: A thought is a thing as real as a cannon ball. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1801) | |
A reaction: Nice. The realisation of a thought can strike someone as if they have been assaulted, and hearing some remarks can be as bad as being stabbed. That is quite apart from political consequences. Joubert is good on the physicality of thinking. |
8100 | Where does the bird's idea of a nest come from? [Joubert] |
Full Idea: The idea of the nest in the bird's mind, where does it come from? | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1800) | |
A reaction: I think this is a very striking example in support of innate ideas. Most animal behaviour can be explained as responses to stimuli, but the bird seems to hold a model in its mind while it collects its materials. |
8096 | He gives his body up to pleasure, but not his soul [Joubert] |
Full Idea: He gives his body up to pleasure, but not his soul. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1799) | |
A reaction: A rather crucial distinction in the world of hedonism. There seems something sincere about someone who pursues pleasure body and soul, and something fractured about the pursuit of pleasure without real commitment. The split seems possible. |
8104 | What will you think of pleasures when you no longer enjoy them? [Joubert] |
Full Idea: What will you think of pleasures when you no longer enjoy them? | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1802) | |
A reaction: A lovely test question for aspiring young hedonists! It doesn't follow at all that we will despise past pleasures. The judgement may be utilitarian - that we regret the pleasures that harmed others, but love the harmless ones. Shame is social. |
442 | Pleasures are like pirates - if you are caught they drown you in a sea of pleasures [Epicharmus] |
Full Idea: Pleasures for mortals are like impious pirates, for the man who is caught by pleasures is immediately drowned in a sea of them. | |
From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B44), quoted by (who?) - where? | |
A reaction: Not all slopes are slippery. Plenty of people hold themselves to strict rules about alcohol or gambling. People have occasional treats. |
440 | Hands wash hands; give that you may get [Epicharmus] |
Full Idea: The hand washes the hand; give something and you may get something. | |
From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B30), quoted by (who?) - where? |
8097 | Virtue is hard if we are scorned; we need support [Joubert] |
Full Idea: It would be difficult to be scorned and to live virtuously. We have need of support. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1800) | |
A reaction: He seems to have hit on what I take to be one of the keys to Aristotle: that virtue is a social matter, requiring both upbringing and a healthy culture. But we can help to create that culture, as well as benefiting from it. |
441 | Against a villain, villainy is not a useless weapon [Epicharmus] |
Full Idea: Against a villain, villainy is not a useless weapon. | |
From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B32), quoted by (who?) - where? |
8106 | In raising a child we must think of his old age [Joubert] |
Full Idea: In raising a child we must think of his old age. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1809) | |
A reaction: Very nice, and Aristotle would approve. If educators think much about the future, it rarely extends before the child's first job. We should be preparing good grand-parents, as well as parents and employees. Educate for retirement! |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |
439 | God knows everything, and nothing is impossible for him [Epicharmus] |
Full Idea: Nothing escapes the divine, this you must realise. God himself is our overseer, and nothing is impossible for him. | |
From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B23), quoted by (who?) - where? |
8105 | We can't exactly conceive virtue without the idea of God [Joubert] |
Full Idea: If we exclude the idea of God, it is impossible to have an exact idea of virtue. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1808) | |
A reaction: I suspect that an 'exact' idea is impossible even with an idea of God. This is an interesting defence of the importance of God in moral thinking, but it only requires the concept of a supreme being, and not belief. |
8102 | We cannot speak against Christianity without anger, or speak for it without love [Joubert] |
Full Idea: We cannot speak against Christianity without anger, or speak for it without love. | |
From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1801) | |
A reaction: This seems to be rather true at the present time, when a wave of anti-religious books is sweeping through our culture. Presumably this remark used to be true of ancient paganism, but it died away. Christianity, though, is very personal. |
443 | Human logos is an aspect of divine logos, and is sufficient for successful living [Epicharmus] |
Full Idea: Man has calculation, but there is also the divine logos. But human logos is sprung from the divine logos, and it brings to each man his means of life, and his maintenance. | |
From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B57), quoted by (who?) - where? |