64 ideas
| 13886 | Later Frege held that definitions must fix a function's value for every possible argument [Frege, by Wright,C] |
| Full Idea: Frege later became fastidious about definitions, and demanded that they must provide for every possible case, and that no function is properly determined unless its value is fixed for every conceivable object as argument. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903]) by Crispin Wright - Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects 3.xiv | |
| A reaction: Presumably definitions come in degrees of completeness, but it seems harsh to describe a desire for the perfect definition as 'fastidious', especially if we are talking about mathematics, rather than defining 'happiness'. |
| 9845 | We can't define a word by defining an expression containing it, as the remaining parts are a problem [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Given the reference (bedeutung) of an expression and a part of it, obviously the reference of the remaining part is not always determined. So we may not define a symbol or word by defining an expression in which it occurs, whose remaining parts are known | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §66) | |
| A reaction: Dummett cites this as Frege's rejection of contextual definitions, which he had employed in the Grundlagen. I take it not so much that they are wrong, as that Frege decided to set the bar a bit higher. |
| 10019 | Only what is logically complex can be defined; what is simple must be pointed to [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Only what is logically complex can be defined; what is simple can only be pointed to. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §180), quoted by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic p.137 | |
| A reaction: Frege presumably has in mind his treasured abstract objects, such as cardinal numbers. It is hard to see how you could 'point to' anything in the phenomenal world that had atomic simplicity. Hodes calls this a 'desperate Kantian move'. |
| 9886 | Cardinals say how many, and reals give measurements compared to a unit quantity [Frege] |
| Full Idea: The cardinals and the reals are completely disjoint domains. The cardinal numbers answer the question 'How many objects of a given kind are there?', but the real numbers are for measurement, saying how large a quantity is compared to a unit quantity. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §157), quoted by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.19 | |
| A reaction: We might say that cardinals are digital and reals are analogue. Frege is unusual in totally separating them. They map onto one another, after all. Cardinals look like special cases of reals. Reals are dreams about the gaps between cardinals. |
| 9889 | Real numbers are ratios of quantities [Frege, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Frege fixed on construing real numbers as ratios of quantities (in agreement with Newton). | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.20 | |
| A reaction: If 3/4 is the same real number as 6/8, which is the correct ratio? Why doesn't the square root of 9/16 also express it? Why should irrationals be so utterly different from rationals? In what sense are they both 'numbers'? |
| 10553 | A number is a class of classes of the same cardinality [Frege, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: For Frege, in 'Grundgesetze', a number is a class of classes of the same cardinality. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903]) by Michael Dummett - Frege Philosophy of Language (2nd ed) Ch.14 |
| 10020 | Frege's biggest error is in not accounting for the senses of number terms [Hodes on Frege] |
| Full Idea: The inconsistency of Grundgesetze was only a minor flaw. Its fundamental flaw was its inability to account for the way in which the senses of number terms are determined. It leaves the reference-magnetic nature of the standard numberer a mystery. | |
| From: comment on Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903]) by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic p.139 | |
| A reaction: A point also made by Hofweber. As a logician, Frege was only concerned with the inferential role of number terms, and he felt he had captured their logical form, but it is when you come to look at numbers in natural language that he seem in trouble. |
| 9887 | Formalism misunderstands applications, metatheory, and infinity [Frege, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Frege's three main objections to radical formalism are that it cannot account for the application of mathematics, that it confuses a formal theory with its metatheory, and it cannot explain an infinite sequence. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §86-137) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics | |
| A reaction: The application is because we don't design maths randomly, but to be useful. The third objection might be dealt with by potential infinities (from formal rules). The second objection sounds promising. |
| 8751 | Only applicability raises arithmetic from a game to a science [Frege] |
| Full Idea: It is applicability alone which elevates arithmetic from a game to the rank of a science. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §91), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 6.1.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the basic objection to Formalism. It invites the question of why it is applicable, which platonists like Frege don't seem to answer (though Plato himself has reality modelled on the Forms). This is why I like structuralism. |
| 9891 | The first demand of logic is of a sharp boundary [Frege] |
| Full Idea: The first demand of logic is of a sharp boundary. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §160), quoted by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.22 | |
| A reaction: Nothing I have read about vagueness has made me doubt Frege's view of this, although precisification might allow you to do logic with vague concepts without having to finally settle where the actual boundaries are. |
| 9890 | The modern account of real numbers detaches a ratio from its geometrical origins [Frege] |
| Full Idea: From geometry we retain the interpretation of a real number as a ratio of quantities or measurement-number; but in more recent times we detach it from geometrical quantities, and from all particular types of quantity. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §159), quoted by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics | |
| A reaction: Dummett glosses the 'recent' version as by Cantor and Dedekind in 1872. This use of 'detach' seems to me startlingly like the sort of psychological abstractionism which Frege was so desperate to avoid. |
| 11846 | If we abstract the difference between two houses, they don't become the same house [Frege] |
| Full Idea: If abstracting from the difference between my house and my neighbour's, I were to regard both houses as mine, the defect of the abstraction would soon be made clear. It may, though, be possible to obtain a concept by means of abstraction... | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §99) | |
| A reaction: Note the important concession at the end, which shows Frege could never deny the abstraction process, despite all the modern protests by Geach and Dummett that he totally rejected it. |
| 19906 | All countries are in a mutual state of nature [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All commonwealths are in a state of Nature one with another. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 153) | |
| A reaction: A striking remark. It is easy to think that the state of nature no longer exists. International law attempts to rectify this, but diplomacy is much more like negotiations in nature than it is like obedience to laws. |
| 19882 | We are not created for solitude, but are driven into society by our needs [Locke] |
| Full Idea: God, having made man such a creature that, in His own judgement, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination, to drive him into society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 077) | |
| A reaction: This is almost Aristotelian, apart from the individualistic assumption that we are 'driven' into society. The only time I see other people looking generally happy is when they are sitting around at leisure and talking to other people. |
| 19864 | In nature men can dispose of possessions and their persons in any way that is possible [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The estate all men are naturally in is perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the laws of nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 004) | |
| A reaction: Note that they have possessions, so property is not an invention of society, but something which society should protect. Presumably Locke thinks they could sell themselves into slavery, which Rousseau rejects. |
| 19865 | There is no subjection in nature, and all creatures of the same species are equal [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, are also equal one among another, without subordination or subjection. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 004) | |
| A reaction: The birds in my garden don't behave as if that were true. Physical strength is surely a natural inequality. |
| 19866 | The rational law of nature says we are all equal and independent, and should show mutual respect [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason, which is that law, teaches mankind that all being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 006) | |
| A reaction: He adds that this is because we are all the property of God. Locke is more optimistic than Hobbes or Rousseau about this, since he thinks we have a natural obligation to be nice. |
| 19872 | The animals and fruits of the earth belong to mankind [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All the fruits the earth naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 026) | |
| A reaction: Not a popular view among 21st century ecologists, I guess, but this remains the implicit belief of anyone who goes hunting in the woods, and our enclosed gardens seem to endorse the idea. |
| 19907 | There is a natural right to inheritance within a family [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man is born with a right before any other man, to inherit, with his brethren, his father's goods. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 190) | |
| A reaction: If a child is fully grown, they may well have drifted into a state of partial ownership of the goods of the parent, of which it would be hard then to deprive them. It is hard to see this as a natural right of tiny orphaned infants. |
| 19863 | Politics is the right to make enforceable laws to protect property and the state, for the common good [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Political power is the right of making laws, with penalties up to death, for the preserving of property, employing the force of community in the execution of such laws, in defence of the commonwealth, and only for the common good. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 003) | |
| A reaction: Since political power can be used for selfish corruption and genocide, this isn't very accurate, so I take it this is how power ought to be exercised! Notice that defence gets equal billing with his famous defence of property. |
| 5654 | The Second Treatise explores the consequences of the contractual view of the state [Locke, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: In his second Treatise, Locke gave us perhaps the first extended account of the true logical consequences of Hobbes's contractual view of the state. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.14 | |
| A reaction: The issue seems to boil down to an opposition between the Cartesian and the Aristotelian view of the individual, with Locke following Descartes. The alternative, endorsed by Hegel, which I prefer, is that the state is part of human nature. |
| 19888 | A society only begins if there is consent of all the individuals to join it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals to join into and make one society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 106) | |
| A reaction: This is the dramatic new political idea (originating with Hobbes), that all of the members must (at some point) consent to the state. In practice we are all born into a state, so it is not clear what this means in real life. |
| 6702 | If anyone enjoys the benefits of government (even using a road) they give tacit assent to its laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man, that hath an possession, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is obliged to obedience to the laws, ..whether it be barely travelling on the highway. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 119), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: Locke's famous assertion of an unspoken and inescapable contract, to which we are all subject. Hume gave an effective reply (Idea 6703). Locke has a point though. The more you accept, the more obliged you are. I accept the law more as I get older. |
| 19909 | A politic society is created from a state of nature by a unanimous agreement [Locke] |
| Full Idea: That which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of Nature into one politic society, is the agreement that everyone has with the rest to incorporate and act as one body. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 211) | |
| A reaction: Geography usually keeps commonwealths in place once they have been established, but some of them become disfunctional hell holes because they are trapped in perpetual disagreement. |
| 19910 | A single will creates the legislature, which is duty-bound to preserve that will [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The essence and union of the society consisting in having one will; the legislative, when once established by the majority, has the declaring and, as it were, keeping of that will. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 212) | |
| A reaction: Not far from Rousseau's big idea, apart from the emphasis on the 'majority'. Rousseau reduced the role of the general will to preliminaries and basics, but wanted close to unanimity, so that everyone accepts being a subject, to government and law. |
| 19893 | Anyone who enjoys the benefits of a state has given tacit consent to be part of it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man that hath any possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of any government doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 119) | |
| A reaction: I wondered at the age of about 18 whether I had given tacit consent to be a British citizen. Locke says you only have to travel freely down the highways to give consent! We are all free, of course, to apply for citizenship elsewhere. But Idea 19894. |
| 19894 | You can only become an actual member of a commonwealth by an express promise [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can make any man a subject or member of a commonwealth but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 122) | |
| A reaction: In practice the indigenous population never do this. But it a clear distinction for foreign residents in any country. States cannot induct resident foreigners into their army, or allow them to vote. |
| 19892 | Children are not born into citizenship of a state [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is plain, by the practices of governments themselves, as well as by the laws of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country nor government. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 118) | |
| A reaction: At what age do they become citizens, given that there is no induction ceremony? If a small British child were attacked overseas, we would expect the British government to defend its rights. |
| 19885 | Absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil society [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted for the only government in the world, is inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 090) | |
| A reaction: This is because citizens do not have a 'decisive' power to appeal for redress of injuries. Rousseau thought that there could be an absolute monarchy, as long as the general will agreed it, and its term of office could be brought to an end by the assembly. |
| 19886 | The idea that absolute power improves mankind is confuted by history [Locke] |
| Full Idea: He that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need but read the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 092) | |
| A reaction: I can't imagine who proposed the view that Locke is attacking, but it will have been some real 17th century thinker. Attitudes to monarchy changed drastically in England, but Louis XIV was still ruling in France. |
| 19903 | Despotism is arbitrary power to kill, based neither on natural equality, nor any social contract [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one man over another, to take away his life whenever he pleases; and this is a power which neither Nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between one man and another, nor compact can convey. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 172) | |
| A reaction: Colonies of seals, walruses and apes seem to display despotism, based on physical strength, though that is largely to do with mating. There could be such a compact, but Locke would regard it as invalid. |
| 19905 | People stripped of their property are legitimately subject to despotism [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Forfeiture gives despotical power to lords for their own benefit over those who are stripped of all property. ...Despotical power is over such as have no property at all. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 173) | |
| A reaction: Nasty! Shylock is stripped of his property by Venice, so these things happened. This is taking the significance of property a long way beyond its role at the beginning of Locke's book. Property is the start of society, but then becomes your passport. |
| 19904 | Legitimate prisoners of war are subject to despotism, because that continues the state of war [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are subject to a despotical power, which, as it arises not from compact, so neither is it capable of any, but is the state of war continued. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 205) | |
| A reaction: How long after a war finishes is such despotism legitimate? What happened to the German prisoners in Russia in 1945? Locke defined despotism as the right to kill, but that is expressly contrary to the rules of war, look you. |
| 19895 | Even the legislature must be preceded by a law which gives it power to make laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power, as the first and fundamental natural law which is to govern even the legislative. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 134) | |
| A reaction: I think Rousseau says that there cannot be a law which enables the general will to set up legislative powers. It just seems to be something which happens. Locke is threatened with an infinite regress. What legitimises the enabling law? |
| 19900 | The executive must not be the legislature, or they may exempt themselves from laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It may be too great temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons to have the power of making laws to also have in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 143) | |
| A reaction: The main principles of modern constitutions are devised to avoid corruption. If people were incorruptible (yeah, right) the world would presumably be run very differently, and rather more efficiently, like a good family. |
| 19902 | Any obstruction to the operation of the legislature can be removed forcibly by the people [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Having erect a legislative with the power of making laws, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 155) | |
| A reaction: I doubt if he was thinking of the French Revolution, but this will clearly have application to the English events of 1642. The Speaker of the Commons was held down in his chair in the 1620s, so that some legislation could be enacted. |
| 19908 | Rebelling against an illegitimate power is no sin [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is plain that shaking off a power which force, and not right, hath set over any one, though it have the name of rebellion, yet it is no offence against God. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 196) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hezekiah at 2 Kings 18.7] At this time the English Civil War was referred to as the 'Great Rebellion' (so this is an interesting and brave remark of Locke's), though few people would think that Charles I had illegitimate power. |
| 19911 | If legislators confiscate property, or enslave people, they are no longer owed obedience [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 222) | |
| A reaction: This might fit Louis XVI in 1788. Locke was certainly not averse to consideration the situations in which revolution might be justified. He was trying to be even-handed about 1642. Locke seems to think that without property you ARE a slave. |
| 19901 | The people have supreme power, to depose a legislature which has breached their trust [Locke] |
| Full Idea: There remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 149) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the most important aspect of representative democracy. It is not the power of people to make decisions, but the power to get rid of bad rulers. |
| 19887 | Unanimous consent makes a united community, which is then ruled by the majority [Locke] |
| Full Idea: When any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community into one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 096) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be presume democracy without discussion, although the formation of the community is by universal consent, which is the 'general will'. Rousseau has the constitution also made almost unanimously, not by a majority. |
| 19913 | A master forfeits ownership of slaves he abandons [Locke] |
| Full Idea: A master forfeits the dominion over his slaves whom he hath abandoned. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 237) | |
| A reaction: How often did slave owners take a day off, I wonder? Presumably slaves will take back their freedom, even if the masters haven't 'forfeited' their ownership, so Locke's point is fairly academic. |
| 19883 | Slaves captured in a just war have no right to property, so are not part of civil society [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Slave are captives taken in a just war, and by right of Nature subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. ...Being not capable of any property, they cannot in that state be considered any part of civil society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 085) | |
| A reaction: If the test of citizenship is being capable of holding property, presumably children and mentally damaged people (including the very old) will also fail to qualify. I see no principled reason why slaves should not be allowed to vote. Note 'just' war. |
| 19870 | If you try to enslave me, you have declared war on me [Locke] |
| Full Idea: He who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 017) | |
| A reaction: So presumably actual slaves are in a state of permanent war with their owners. What of a woman who is enslaved by her husband? |
| 19871 | Freedom is not absence of laws, but living under laws arrived at by consent [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth. Freedom is not (as Filmer suggests) doing what you please while not tied by any laws. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 022) | |
| A reaction: That sounds plausible if the consent is unanimous, but a minority is not free if the laws made by a large majority are a sort of persecution. |
| 19880 | All value depends on the labour involved [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is labour that puts the difference of value on everything. ...Whatever bread is worth more than acorns, wine than water, that is wholly owing to labour and industry. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 040) | |
| A reaction: In capitalism this is nonsense. Supply and demand fix all the values. Locke has slid from labour bestowing ownership to labour bestowing value. No one gets paid on the basis of how hard they work, except on piece rates. |
| 19884 | There is only a civil society if the members give up all of their natural executive rights [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Wherever any number of men so unite into one society as to quite every one his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a civil society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 089) | |
| A reaction: This seems to mean that you must give up your active ('executive') natural rights, but not your passive ones (which are inviolable). |
| 19873 | We all own our bodies, and the work we do is our own [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man has a 'property' in his own 'person'. This nobody has any right to it but himself. The 'labour' of his body and the 'work' of his hands, we may say, are properly his. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't have any grounds for this claim. Why doesn't a cow own its body? He slides from my ownership of my laborious efforts to my ownership of what I have been working on. I can't acquire your car by servicing it. |
| 6580 | Locke (and Marx) held that ownership of objects is a natural relation, based on the labour put into it [Locke, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Locke thought that property ownership reflected a natural relationship; for him the primordial notion of the ownership of an object is a function of the labour that one puts into it; Marx held a similar view. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Marx would have to think that, in order to believe that capitalist ownership of the means of production used by the workers was a fundamental injustice. A deeper Marxism might see the whole idea of 'ownership' as a capitalist (or feudal) conspiracy. |
| 20520 | Locke says 'mixing of labour' entitles you to land, as well as nuts and berries [Wolff,J on Locke] |
| Full Idea: The great advantage of Locke's 'labour-mixing' argument is that it seems it can justify the appropriation of land, as well as nuts and berries. | |
| From: comment on John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 5 'Locke' | |
| A reaction: The argument is dubious at best, and plausibly downright wicked. How much labour achieves ownership? What of previous people who worked the land but never thought to claim 'ownership'? Suppose I do more labour than you on 'your' land? |
| 19875 | A man's labour gives ownership rights - as long as there are fair shares for all [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The 'labour' being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: The qualification at the end is a crucial (and problematic) addition to his theory. What is the situation when an area of wilderness is 98% owned? What of the single source of water? Who gets the best parts? Getting there first seems crucial. |
| 19874 | If a man mixes his labour with something in Nature, he thereby comes to own it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whatever a man removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. ...This excludes the common right of other men. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: This is Locke's famous Labour Theory of Value. Does picking it up count as labour? Putting a fence round it? Paying someone else to do the labour? Do bees own their honey? Settlers in the wilderness own nothing on day one? |
| 19877 | Fountain water is everyone's, but a drawn pitcher of water has an owner [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 029) | |
| A reaction: This would certainly be the normal consensus of a community, as long as there is plenty of water. The strong and fit gatherers get all the best firewood, so I suppose that is just tough on the others. |
| 19876 | Gathering natural fruits gives ownership; the consent of other people is irrelevant [Locke] |
| Full Idea: If the first gathering of acorns and apples made them not a man's, nothing else could. ...Will anyone say he had no right to them because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 028) | |
| A reaction: The ideas of Nozick are all in this sentence. Does this idea justify the enclosure of common land? The first member of the community who thought of Locke's labour theory had a huge head's start. Liberal individualism rampant. |
| 19878 | Mixing labour with a thing bestows ownership - as long as the thing is not wasted [Locke] |
| Full Idea: How far has God given us all things 'to enjoy'? As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of his life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 031) | |
| A reaction: This adds a very different value to Locke's theory, because the person seems to be answerable to fellow citizens if they harvest important resources and then waste them. Where do luxuries fit in? |
| 19879 | A man owns land if he cultivates it, to the limits of what he needs [Locke] |
| Full Idea: As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 032) | |
| A reaction: Industrial farming rather changes this picture. Does the man himself decide how much he can use the product of, or do the neighbours tell him where his boundaries must be? 'Reason not the need', as King Lear said. What if he stops cultivating it? |
| 19898 | Soldiers can be commanded to die, but not to hand over their money [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The sergeant that can command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon ...cannot command that soldier to give him one penny of his money. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 139) | |
| A reaction: A very nice and accurate illustration of a principle which runs so deep that it does indeed look like a basis of society. |
| 19881 | The aim of law is not restraint, but to make freedom possible [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom, for where there is no law there is no freedom. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 057) | |
| A reaction: This fits both the liberal and the communitarian view of the matter. Talk of 'freedom' is commonplace in England by this date, where it is hardly mention 60 years earler. John Lilburne almost single-handedly brought this about. |
| 19868 | It is only by a law of Nature that we can justify punishing foreigners [Locke] |
| Full Idea: If by the law of Nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against [the state], as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 009) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice point. You can't expect to be above the law in a foreign country, but you have entered into no social contract, unless visiting a place is a sort of contract. Intrusions into air space are often accidental visits. |
| 19867 | Reparation and restraint are the only justifications for punishment [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Reparation and restraint are the only two reasons why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 008) | |
| A reaction: But by 'reparation' does be mean retribution, or compensation? He doesn't rule out capital punishment, but that may qualify as maximum restraint. |
| 19912 | Self-defence is natural, but not the punishment of superiors by inferiors [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should punish a superior is against nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 236) | |
| A reaction: He is obliquely referring to the execution of Charles I, even though he may have been legitimately overthrown. I wonder what exactly he means by 'superior' and 'inferior'. An idea from another age! |
| 19869 | Punishment should make crime a bad bargain, leading to repentance and deterrence [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 012) | |
| A reaction: I gather that the consensus among experts is that the biggest deterrence is a high likelihood of being caught, rather than the severity of the punishment. |
| 19899 | The consent of the people is essential for any tax [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The legislative power must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people given by themselves or their deputies. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 142) | |
| A reaction: He will be thinking of the resistance to Ship Money in the 1630s, which was a step towards civil war. The people of Boston, Ma, may have read this sentence 80 years later! |
| 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. |