8 ideas
| 20740 | Maybe humans are distinguished from other animals by feelings, rather than reason [Unamuno] |
| Full Idea: Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. | |
| From: Miguel de Unamuno (The Tragic Sense of Life [1912], p.3), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Problem' | |
| A reaction: Perfectly plausible, given that we presume that our feelings are startlingly different from other animals - even if we feel far more community with other mammals than we did in Unamuno's day. |
| 22808 | Liberalism is minimal government, or individual rights, or equality [Avineri/De-Shalit] |
| Full Idea: Liberalism has been defended as a theory of minimal government, or as a theory of basic individual rights, or as an egalitarian philosophy. | |
| From: Avineri,S/De-Shalit,A (Intro to 'Communitarianism and Individualism' [1992], §5) | |
| A reaction: Minimal government tends towards anarchist liberalism, but then what grounds the right to be free of government? Presumably any sensible theory of rights has to be egalitarian. What could ground unequal rights? |
| 22803 | Can individualist theories justify an obligation to fight in a war? [Avineri/De-Shalit] |
| Full Idea: How can an individualist theory justify an obligation to fight for the state in the case of war? | |
| From: Avineri,S/De-Shalit,A (Intro to 'Communitarianism and Individualism' [1992], §4) | |
| A reaction: The most dramatic example of obliging citizens to contribute to the state, the notable other case being taxes. Some imagined ancient 'social contract' doesn't seem sufficient for later generations. Does being naturally sociable create such obligations? |
| 22804 | Autonomy is better achieved within a community [Avineri/De-Shalit] |
| Full Idea: Communitarians often argue that personal autonomy is better achieved within the community. | |
| From: Avineri,S/De-Shalit,A (Intro to 'Communitarianism and Individualism' [1992], §4) | |
| A reaction: Hegel is the source of this view. The simplest version of the point is that autonomy can only be asserted if a person has rights, which can be asserted and defended, and only a society can provide that. That is plausible. |
| 22806 | Communitarians avoid oppression for the common good, by means of small mediating communities [Avineri/De-Shalit] |
| Full Idea: Because of the mediating structures of small communities, communitarians are less fearful [than liberals] of the emergence of an oppressive government as a result of the politics of the common good. | |
| From: Avineri,S/De-Shalit,A (Intro to 'Communitarianism and Individualism' [1992], §5) | |
| A reaction: A politics of the common good has an obvious implicit conservatism because the central consensus is always likely to disapprove of errant individuals, of all sorts. Only individual rights can block an oppressive government. |
| 22807 | If our values are given to us by society then we have no grounds to criticise them [Avineri/De-Shalit] |
| Full Idea: If communitarians are right that we are not free to choose, but rather that our values are determined by our community, the individualists say, then there is no reason to criticise the values of one's society. | |
| From: Avineri,S/De-Shalit,A (Intro to 'Communitarianism and Individualism' [1992], §5) | |
| A reaction: This is an obvious challenge, but if one's concept of community is a forum for free debate then it can be overcome. There is no avoiding the fact, though, that a good community always needs a high degree of consensus. |
| 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. |