44 ideas
| 3656 | The greatest good for a state is true philosophers [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The greatest good which can exist in a state is to have true philosophers. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
| A reaction: …because they understand true reality, especially the Good. |
| 21032 | Speak truth only to those who deserve the truth [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The duty to tell the truth applies only to those who deserve the truth. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: [from Benjamin Constant, in opposition to Kant] I prefer the idea that we should use people 'after our own honour and dignity' (Hamlet), which means speaking the truth even to Donald Trump (for those of you who remember 2018). But not always. |
| 21033 | Careful evasions of truth at least show respect for it [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: A carefully crafted evasion pays homage to truth-telling in a way that an outright lie does not. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: Nicely put. He refers to an incident in Kant's life. I think of the great equivocation controversy at the time of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. See the porter in Macbeth. All I ask is that people care about the truth. Many people don't. Why? |
| 16744 | All powers can be explained by obvious features like size, shape and motion of matter [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There are no powers in stones and plants that are not so mysterious that they cannot be explained …from principles that are known to all and admitted by all, namely the shape, size, position, and motion of particles of matter. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], IV.187), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6 | |
| A reaction: This is an invocation of 'categorical' properties, against dispositions. I take this to be quite wrong. The explanation goes the other way. What supports the structures; what drives the motion; what initiates anything? |
| 5016 | Five universals: genus, species, difference, property, accident [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The five commonly enumerated universals are: genus, species, difference, property and accident. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, this seems to be Descartes passing on his medieval Aristotelian inheritance, in which things are defined by placing them in a class, and then noting what distinguishes them within that class. |
| 5015 | A universal is a single idea applied to individual things that are similar to one another [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Universals arise solely from the fact that we avail ourselves of one idea in order to think of all individual things that have a certain similitude. When we understand under the same name all the objects represented by this idea, that name is universal. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59) | |
| A reaction: Judging by the boldness of the pronouncement, it looks as if Descartes hasn't recognised the complexity of the problem. How do we spot a 'similarity', especially an abstraction like 'tool' or 'useful'? This sounds like Descartes trying to avoid Platonism. |
| 16630 | If we perceive an attribute, we infer the existence of some substance [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Based on perceiving the presence of some attribute, we conclude there must also be present an existing thing or substance to which it can be attributed. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.52), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.1 | |
| A reaction: A rainbow might be a tricky case. This illustrates the persistent belief in substances, even among philosophers who embraced the new corpuscular and mechanistic view of matter. |
| 5013 | A substance needs nothing else in order to exist [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: By substance we can understand nothing else than a thing which so exists that it needs no other thing in order to exist. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.51) | |
| A reaction: Properties, of course, are the things which have dependent existence. Can properties be reduced to substances (e.g. by adopting a materialist theory of mind)? Note that Descartes does not think that substances depend on God for existence. |
| 16633 | A substance has one principal property which is its nature and essence [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Each substance has one principal property that constitutes its nature and essence, to which all its other properties are referred. Extension in length, breadth, and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought of thinking substances. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.3 | |
| A reaction: Property is likely to be 'propria', which is a property distinctive of some thing, not just any old modern property. This is quite a strikingly original view of the nature of essence. Descartes despised 'substantial forms'. |
| 3658 | Total doubt can't include your existence while doubting [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: He who decides to doubt everything cannot nevertheless doubt that he exists while he doubts. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) |
| 5005 | I think, therefore I am, because for a thinking thing to not exist is a contradiction [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There is a contradiction in conceiving that what thinks does not (at the same time as it thinks) exist. Hence this conclusion I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophises in an orderly way. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.07) | |
| A reaction: The classic statement of his argument. The significance here is that it seems to have the structure of an argument, as it involves 'philosophising', which leads to a 'contradiction', and hence to the famous conclusion. It is not just intuitive. |
| 5006 | 'Thought' is all our conscious awareness, including feeling as well as understanding [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: By the word 'thought' I understand everything we are conscious of as operating in us. And that is why not only understanding, willing, imagining, but also feeling, are here the same thing as thinking. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.09) | |
| A reaction: There is a bit of tension here between Descartes' correct need to include feeling in thought for his Cogito argument, and his tendency to dismiss animal consciousness, on the grounds that they only sense things, and don't make judgements. |
| 5012 | 'Nothing comes from nothing' is an eternal truth found within the mind [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The proposition 'nothing comes from nothing' is not to be considered as an existing thing, or the mode of a thing, but as a certain eternal truth which has its seat in our mind and is a common notion or axiom. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.49) | |
| A reaction: There is a tension here, in his assertion that it is 'eternal', but 'not existing'. How does one distinguish an innate idea from an innate truth? 'Eternal' sounds like an external guarantee of truth, but being 'in our mind' sounds less reliable. |
| 5004 | We can know basic Principles without further knowledge, but not the other way round [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: It is on the Principles, or first causes, that the knowledge of other things depends, so the Principles can be known without these last, but the other things cannot reciprocally be known without the Principles. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
| A reaction: A particularly strong assertion of foundationalism, as it says that not only must the foundations exist, but also we must actually know them. This sounds false, as elementary knowledge then seems to require far too much sophistication. |
| 5014 | We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: We can understand thinking without imagination or sensation, as is quite clear to anyone who attends to the matter. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53) | |
| A reaction: We may certainly take it that Descartes means if it is understandable then it is logically possible. To believe that thinking could occur without imagination strikes me as an astonishing error. I take imagination to be more central than understanding. |
| 5017 | In thinking we shut ourselves off from other substances, showing our identity and separateness [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Because each one of us understands what he thinks, and that in thinking he can shut himself off from every other substance, we may conclude that each of us is really distinct from every other thinking substance and from corporeal substance. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.60) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a novel argument which requires elucidation. I can 'shut myself off from every other substance'? If I shut myself off from thinking about food, does that mean hunger is not part of me? Or convince yourself that you don't have a brother? |
| 5010 | Our free will is so self-evident to us that it must be a basic innate idea [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: It is so evident that we are possessed of a free will that can give or withhold its assent, that this may be counted as one of the first and most common notions found innately in us. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.39) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me plausible to say that we have an innate conception of our own will (our ability to make decisions), though Hume says we only learn about the will from experience, but the idea that it is absolutely 'free' might never cross our minds. |
| 5011 | There are two ultimate classes of existence: thinking substance and extended substance [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I observe two ultimate classes of things: intellectual or thinking things, pertaining to the mind or to thinking substance, and material things, pertaining to extended substance or to body. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.48) | |
| A reaction: This is clear confirmation that Descartes believed the mind is a substance, rather than an insubstantial world of thinking. It leaves open the possibility of a different theory: that mind is not a substance, but is a Platonic adjunct to reality. |
| 5018 | Even if tightly united, mind and body are different, as God could separate them [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Even if we suppose God had united a body and a soul so closely that they couldn't be closer, and made a single thing out of the two, they would still remain distinct, because God has the power of separating them, or conserving out without the other. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.60) | |
| A reaction: If Descartes lost his belief in God (after discussing existence with Kant) would he cease to be a dualist? This quotation seems to be close to conceding a mind-body relationship more like supervenience than interaction. |
| 5007 | Most errors of judgement result from an inaccurate perception of the facts [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: What usually misleads us is that we very frequently form a judgement although we do not have an accurate perception of what we judge. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.33) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a generally accurate observation, particularly in the making of moral judgements (which was probably not what Descartes was considering). The implication is that judgements are to a large extent forced by our perceptions. |
| 5009 | We do not praise the acts of an efficient automaton, as their acts are necessary [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: We do not praise automata, although they respond exactly to the movements they were designed to produce, since their actions are performed necessarily | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.37) | |
| A reaction: I say we attribute responsibility when we perceive something like a 'person' as causing them. We don't blame small animals, because there is 'no one at home', but we blame children as they develop a full character and identity. We can ignore free will. |
| 5008 | The greatest perfection of man is to act by free will, and thus merit praise or blame [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: That the will should extend widely accords with its nature, and it is the greatest perfection in man to be able to act by its means, that is, freely, and by so doing we are in peculiar way masters of our actions, and thereby merit praise or blame. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.37) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be a deep-rooted and false understanding which philosophy has inherited from theology. It doesn't strike me that there must an absolute 'buck-stop' to make us responsible. Why is it better for a decision to appear out of nowhere? |
| 21036 | Not all deals are fair deals [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The mere fact that you and I make a deal is not enough to make it fair. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) |
| 21038 | Does consent create the obligation, or must there be some benefit? [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Legal thinkers have debated this question for a long time: can consent create an obligation on its own, or is some element of benefit or reliance required? | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: Clearly mere consent could be under some compulsion, either by the other party, or by some other forces. Keeping a deathbed promise usually brings no benefit, but is a matter of honour. Ah, honour! Can anyone remember what that is? |
| 21039 | Moral contracts involve both consent and reciprocity; making the deal, and keeping it [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Despite a tendency to read consent into moral claims, it is hard to make sense of our morality without acknowledging the independent weight of reciprocity. If my wife is unfaithful I have two different grounds of outrage: our promise, and my loyalty. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: The point is that Hobbes and co over-simplify what a contract is. Compare a contract with a promise. One must be two-sided, the other can be one-sided. |
| 21030 | The categorical imperative is not the Golden Rule, which concerns contingent desires [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The Golden Rule depends on contingent facts about how people like to be treated. The categorical imperative asks that we abstract from such contingencies and respect persons as rational beings, regardless of what they might want in particular situations. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: I think the Golden Rule is wrong for a different reason. It assumes that we all want similar things, which we don't. Focus on other people's needs, not yours. |
| 21031 | Man cannot dispose of himself, because he is not a thing to be owned [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Man cannot dispose over himself because he is not a thing; he is not his own property. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: [Kant lecture note] This is an important qualification to persons as ends. If a person owned themselves, that would separate the person from what they owned. Sandel mentions selling your own organs. Kant is considering prostitution. Why is slavery wrong? |
| 21035 | Just visiting (and using roads) is hardly ratifying the Constitution [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to see how just passing through town is morally akin to ratifying the Constitution. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: They say that philosophical ideas are never refuted, and no progress is made, but this sure put paid to John Locke. |
| 21037 | A ratified constitution may not be a just constitution [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The fact that a constitution is ratified by the people does not prove that its provisions are just. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: Yes indeed. And the fact that a majority won a referendum does not make their decision wise. Hence all constitutions must be open to evaluation. Gun laws in the US are the obvious example. |
| 21034 | A just constitution harmonises the different freedoms [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: As Kant sees it, a just constitution aims at harmonising each individual's freedom with that of everyone else. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 05) | |
| A reaction: [source?] Nice statement of the project. I increasingly see political philosophy as constitution design. I say philosophers have got fifty years to design an optimum constitution, and they should then down tools and promote it, in simple language. |
| 21049 | Liberal freedom was a response to assigned destinies like caste and class [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Liberal freedom developed as an antidote to political theories that consigned persons to destinies fixed by caste or class, station or rank, custom, tradition or inherited status. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 09) | |
| A reaction: Virtually all human beings before modern times found that they had been 'assigned destinies'. The huge exception is war, especially civil war, which must be a huge liberation for many people, despite the danger. |
| 21040 | Libertarians just want formal equality in a free market; the meritocratic view wants fair equality [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: The libertarian view of distributive justice is a free market with formal equality of opportunity. The meritocratic view is a free market with fair equality of opportunity. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 06) | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is what has to be done, by intervention, to make the market fair. There are two major rival views of equality here. Is the starting point fair, and is the race itself fair? |
| 21043 | Distributive justice concern deserts, as well as who gets what [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Debates about distributive justice are about not only who gets what but also what qualities are worthy of honour and reward. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 07) | |
| A reaction: So the 'undeserving poor' get nuffink? Does just being a human being deserve anything? Obviously yes. That said, we can't deny the concept of 'appropriate reward'. |
| 21028 | We can approach justice through welfare, or freedom, or virtue [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: We have identified three ways of approaching the distribution of goods: welfare, freedom and virtue. ...and these are three ways of thinking about justice. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 01) | |
| A reaction: Virtue is Sandel's distinctively Aristotelian contribution to the problem. The best known instance of justice is punishment, which is a distribution of harms. |
| 21027 | Justice concerns how a society distributes what it prizes - wealth, rights, power and honours [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: To ask whether a society is just is to ask how we distribute the things we prize - income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honours. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 01) | |
| A reaction: There is, of course, the prior question of what things should be controlled by a society for distribution. But there is also justice in the promotional and pay structure of institutions within a society, including private institutions. |
| 21042 | Should we redress wrongs done by a previous generation? [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Can we ever have a moral responsibility to redress wrongs committed by a previous generation? | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 07) | |
| A reaction: Just asking for a friend. It seems to depend on how close we feel to the previous generation. Regretting the crime committed by a beloved parent is one thing. Despising the crime committed by some right bastard who shares my nationality is another. |
| 21048 | Work is not fair if it is negotiated, even in a fair situation, but if it suits the nature of the worker [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: For the libertarian free exchange for labour is fair; for Rawls it requires fair background conditions; for Aristotle, for the work to be just it must be suited to the nature of the workers who perform it. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Aristotle's idea is powerful, and Sandel performs a great service in drawing attention to it. Imagine the key negotiation in an interview being whether this particular work suits your nature! |
| 21052 | Justice is about how we value things, and not just about distributions [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Justice is not only about the right way to distribute things. It is also about the right way to value things. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 10) | |
| A reaction: This is Sandel's distinctively Aristotelian contribution to the justice debate - with which I have great sympathy. And, as he argues, the values of things arise out of assessing their essential natures. |
| 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. |
| 15987 | Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I do not accept or desire any other principle in physics than in geometry or abstract mathematics, because all the phenomena of nature may be explained by their means, and sure demonstrations can be given of them. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.64), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 7 | |
| A reaction: This is his famous and rather extreme view, which might be described as hyper-pythagoreanism (by adding geometry to numbers). It seems to leave out matter, forces and activity. |
| 21045 | Teleological thinking is essential for social and political issues [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: It is not easy to dispense with teleological reasoning in thinking about social institutions and political practices. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Justice: What's the right thing to do? [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: I think teleological thinking is also indispensable in biology. You can't understand an ear or an eye if you don't know what it is FOR. If it relates to a mind, it is teleological. The eye of a dead person is for nothing. |
| 12730 | We will not try to understand natural or divine ends, or final causes [Descartes] |
|
Full Idea:
We will not seek for the reason of natural things from the end which God or nature has set before him in their creation |
|
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], §28) | |
| A reaction: Teleology is more relevant to biology than to the other sciences, and it is hard to understand an eye without a notion of 'what it is for'. Planetary motion reveals nothing about purposes. If you demand a purpose, it becomes more baffling. |
| 16601 | Matter is not hard, heavy or coloured, but merely extended in space [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The nature of matter, or body viewed as a whole, consists not in its being something which is hard, heavy, or colored, or which in any other way affects the senses, but only in its being a thing extended in length, breadth and depth. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 04.5 |
| 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. |