8 ideas
22480 | Possessing the virtue of justice disposes a person to good practical rationality [Foot] |
Full Idea: If justice is a virtue it must make action good by disposing its possessor to goodness in practical rationality; the latter consisting of the right recognition of reasons, and corresponding action. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.174) | |
A reaction: This somewhat inverts Aristotle, who says the possessing of good practical reason is the key to acquiring the virtues. Foot suggests that possessing the virtue promotes the practical rationality. Someone can be sensible without being virtuous. |
12165 | Romantics say music expresses ideas, or the Will, or intuitions, or feelings [Scruton] |
Full Idea: According to the Romantic theory music was an expression of something, of an idea (Hegel), of the Will (Schopenhauer), of 'intuitions' (Croce), or of feelings (Collingwood). | |
From: Roger Scruton (The Nature of Musical Expression [1981], p.54) | |
A reaction: Deryck Cooke was the culmination of music as expression of feeling, and Stravinsky was the greatest rebel against the whole idea of expression in music. You can set out to create interesting music which does or does not grab the emotions. |
12164 | Expressing melancholy is a good thing, but arousing it is a bad thing [Scruton] |
Full Idea: To describe a piece of music as expressive of melancholy is to give a reason for listening to it; to describe it as arousing or evoking melancholy is to give a reason for avoiding it. | |
From: Roger Scruton (The Nature of Musical Expression [1981], p.49) | |
A reaction: Expressing sexual desire, while avoiding arousing it, is the nice challenge for a particular type of art. Would Scruton say that expressing joy is a good thing, but arousing it is bad? It is a nice observation, though. |
22477 | Calling a knife or farmer or speech or root good does not involve attitudes or feelings [Foot] |
Full Idea: No one thinks that calling a knife a good knife, a farmer a good farmer, a speech a good speech, a root a good root, necessarily expresses or even involves an attitude or feeling towards it. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.163) | |
A reaction: This is the Aristotelian idea (which I favour) that good derives from function. In such a case it seems obvious that it has nothing to do with expressing emotions. |
22478 | The essential thing is the 'needs' of plants and animals, and their operative parts [Foot] |
Full Idea: The key notion is the concept of need, …as when we say what a plant or animal of a certain species needs to have, …and what its operative features, such roots, leaves, hearts and lungs, need to do. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.164) | |
A reaction: Good. That takes it away from the idea of a function, which could be possessed by an inanimate machine (even though that still entails success and failure). Strictly, we need oxygen, but the goodness resides in the lungs. |
22479 | Observing justice is necessary to humans, like hunting to wolves or dancing to bees [Foot] |
Full Idea: The teaching and observing of the rules of justice is as necessary a part of the life of human beings as hunting together in packs with a leader is a necessary part of the lives of wolves, or dancing part of the life of the dancing bee. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.168) | |
A reaction: So why are some men unjust? All wolves hunt, and all appropriate bees dance. A few men even thrive on injustice. |
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. |