Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Autobiography' and 'Henry V'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

4 ideas

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
7076 Mill wondered if he would be happy if all his aims were realised, and answered no [Mill, by Critchley]
     Full Idea: Mill, in his crisis of 1827, asked himself whether he would be happy if all his objects in life were realised, and had to answer that he would not.
     From: report of John Stuart Mill (Autobiography [1870]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.3
     A reaction: The reply is either that happiness is in the striving, or that his aims in life were wrong, or that happiness is impossible. It seems to contradict Kant's definition (Idea 1452).
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / b. Justice in war
23565 Our obedience to the king erases any crimes we commit for him [Shakespeare]
     Full Idea: We know enough if we know we are the king's men. Our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.
     From: William Shakespeare (Henry V [1599]), quoted by Michael Walzer - Just and Unjust Wars 03
     A reaction: He is referring to the slaughter of the French servants behind the lines at Agincourt. A classic expression of 'I was just obeying orders', which was rejected at Nurnberg in 1946. Depends on the seriousness of the crime.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
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.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
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.