74 ideas
23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
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. |
23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70 | |
A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing. |
23853 | Truth is not a object we love - it is the radiant manifestation of reality [Weil] |
Full Idea: Love of truth is not a correct form of expression. Truth is not an object of love. It is not an object at all. …Truth is the radiant manifestation of reality. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: Wow! Love that one! |
23855 | Creation produced a network or web of determinations [Weil] |
Full Idea: What is sovereign in this world is determinateness, limit. Eternal Wisdom imprisons this universe in a network, a web of determinations. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growth') | |
A reaction: Love this, because I take 'determination' to be the defining relationship in ontology. It covers both physical causation and abstract necessities. |
14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: 'Structure' tends to be characterized by Plato as something that is mathematically expressed. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects V.3 iv | |
A reaction: [Koslicki is drawing on Verity Harte here] |
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. |
17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato's theory of Forms allowed him to claim that the sophists and other opponents were trapped in the world of appearance. What they therefore taught was only apparent wisdom and virtue. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.118 |
3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: When Diogenes told Plato he saw tables and cups, but not 'tableness' and 'cupness', Plato replied that this was because Diogenes had eyes but no intellect. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.2.6 |
20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The Platonists, on the basis of purely logical arguments, posit the existence of an indivisible 'triangle in itself'. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a15 | |
A reaction: A helpful confirmation that geometrical figures really are among the Forms (bearing in mind that numbers are not, because they contain one another). What shape is the Form of the triangle? |
556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: If there is the same Form for the Forms and for their participants, then they must have something in common. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: We say there is the form of man, horse and health, but nothing else, making the same mistake as those who say that there are gods but that they are in the form of men. They just posit eternal men, and here we are not positing forms but eternal sensibles. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 997b |
565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: The Forms could not be changeless if they were in changing things. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 998a |
557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
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. |
9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
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. |
593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b |
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. |
13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
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. |
17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
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. |
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
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. |
3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 | |
A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that. |
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? |
23848 | The aesthete's treatment of beauty as amusement is sacreligious; beauty should nourish [Weil] |
Full Idea: The aesthete's point of view is sacreligious, not only in matters of religion but even in those of art. It consists in amusing oneself with beauty by handling it and looking at it. Beauty is something to be eaten: it is a food. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Country') | |
A reaction: She is endorsing the 'food' view against the 'handling' view. Beauty should nourish, she says. |
23854 | Beauty is the proof of what is good [Weil] |
Full Idea: When the subject in question is the good, beauty is a rigorous and positive proof. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: Purest platonism! It is incomprehensible to say 'this thing is evil, but it is beautiful'. But there are plenty of things which strike me as beautiful, without connecting that in any way to moral goodness. |
7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
Full Idea: Plato never speaks of the examination of conscience - never! | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics p.276 | |
A reaction: Plato does imply some sort of self-evident direct knowledge about that nature of a healthy soul. Presumably the full-blown concept of conscience is something given from outside, from God. In 'Euthyphro', Plato asserts the primacy of morality (Idea 337). |
2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
Full Idea: Once gods and fate and social expectation were no longer there, Plato felt it necessary to discover ethics inside human nature, not just as ethical knowledge (Socrates' view), but in the structure of the soul. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.43 | |
A reaction: anti Charles Taylor |
9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8 | |
A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them. |
94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27 | |
A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence? |
17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117 | |
A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought. |
6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
Full Idea: Two virtues that are ordinarily kept distinct - theoretical and practical wisdom - are joined by Plato; he thinks that neither one can be fully possessed unless it is combined with the other. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Richard Kraut - Plato | |
A reaction: I get the impression that this doctrine comes from Socrates, whose position is widely reported as 'intellectualist'. Aristotle certainly held the opposite view. |
23837 | Respect is our only obligation, which can only be expressed through deeds, not words [Weil] |
Full Idea: Humans have only one obligation: respect. The obligation is only performed if the respect is effectively expressed in a real, not a fictitious, way; and this can only be done through the medium of Man's earthly needs. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
A reaction: She says man's 'eternal destiny' imposes this obligation. I read this as saying that you should not imagine that you treat people respectfully if you are merely polite to them. Col. Pickering and Eliza Doolittle! Respect is the supreme virtue. |
2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is boring. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols 9.2 |
23844 | The most important human need is to have multiple roots [Weil] |
Full Idea: To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul. …Every human being needs to have multiple roots. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Uprootedness') | |
A reaction: Agree. I think we are just like trees, in that we need roots to grow well, and plenty of space to fully flourish. Identifying those roots is the main task of parents and teachers. |
23838 | The need for order stands above all others, and is understood via the other needs [Weil] |
Full Idea: Order is the first need of all; it evens stands above all needs properly so-called. To be able to conceive it we must know what the other needs are. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Order') | |
A reaction: This may be music to conservative ears, but you should examine Weil's other ideas to see what she has in mind. |
23836 | Obligations only bind individuals, not collectives [Weil] |
Full Idea: Obligations are only binding on human beings. There are no obligations for collectivities, as such. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
A reaction: I take it that 'as such' excludes the institutions created by collectivities, such as parliaments and courts. A nomadic tribe seems to have no duties, as a tribe, apart from mutual obligations among its members. Does this excuse crimes by the tribe? |
23840 | A citizen should be able to understand the whole of society [Weil] |
Full Idea: A man needs to be able to encompass in thought the entire range of activity of the social organism to which he belongs. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Responsibility') | |
A reaction: She is urging the active involvement of citizens in decision making - for which they need appropriate knowledge. |
23843 | Even the poorest should feel collective ownership, and participation in grand display [Weil] |
Full Idea: Participation in collective possessions is important. Where real civic life exists, each feels he has a personal ownership in the public monuments, gardens, ceremonial pomp and circumstances; sumptuousness is thus place within the reach of the poorest. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Collective') | |
A reaction: OK with gardens. Dubious about fobbing the poor off with pomp. Monuments are a modern controversy, when they turn out to commemorate slavery and colonial conquest. I agree with her basic thought. |
23846 | Culture is an instrument for creating an ongoing succession of teachers [Weil] |
Full Idea: Culture - as we know it - is an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
A reaction: Lot of truth in this. We tend to view our greatest successes in students who become academics and teachers. Culture is very much seen as something which must be 'transmitted' to each new generation. |
23839 | A lifelong head of society should only be a symbol, not a ruler [Weil] |
Full Idea: Wherever a man is placed for life at the head of a social organism, he ought to be a symbol and not a ruler, as is the case with the King of England. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Obedience') | |
A reaction: Nice to hear a radical French thinker endorsing an ancient British tradition! She may not be endorsing a lifelong head of state. Lifelong rulers are the main agents of totalitarianism. |
23842 | Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil] |
Full Idea: A democracy where public life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable of preventing the formation of a party whose avowed aim is the overthrow of that democracy. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Opinion') | |
A reaction: We have seen this around 2020 in the USA and the UK. Freedom is compulsory? Weil hates political parties (as did Rousseau). |
23847 | Socialism tends to make a proletariat of the whole population [Weil] |
Full Idea: What is called Socialism tends to force everybody without distinction into the proletarian condition. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
A reaction: For example, Weil favours maximising private house ownership, rather than communally owned housing. She is describing wholesale nationalisation. I would incline towards nationalisation only of all basic central services. |
23845 | The capitalists neglect the people and the nation, and even their own interests [Weil] |
Full Idea: The capitalists have betrayed their calling by criminally neglecting not only the interests of the people, not only those of the nation, but even their own. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Towns') | |
A reaction: It is certainly true that the dedicated capitalist has little loyalty either to the people or to the nation. She doesn't spell out their failure of self-interest. I guess it produces a way of life they don't really want, deep down. |
23841 | By making money the sole human measure, inequality has become universal [Weil] |
Full Idea: By making money the sole, or almost the sole, motive of all actions, the sole, or almost the sole, measure of all things, the poison of inequality has been introduced everywhere. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Equality') | |
A reaction: Presumably this dates right back to the invention of money, and then increases with the endless rise of capitalism. |
23835 | People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them [Weil] |
Full Idea: A right is effectual only in relation to its corresponding obligation, springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from others who consider themselves under an obligation to him. In isolation a man only has duties, and only others have rights. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Needs') | |
A reaction: This seems correct, and obviously refutes the idea that people have intrinsic natural rights. However, it may be our sense of what nature requires which gives rise to the obligations we feel towards others. |
23852 | To punish people we must ourselves be innocent - but that undermines the desire to punish [Weil] |
Full Idea: In order to have the right to punish the guilty, we ought first of all to purify ourselves of their crimes. …But once this is accomplished we shall no longer feel the least desire to punish, or as little as possible and with extreme sorrow. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: Elsewhere she endorses punishment, as a social necessity, and a redemption for the wicked. This idea looks like a bit of a change of heart. She may be thinking of Jesus on the mote in someone's eye. |
23850 | The soldier-civilian distinction should be abolished; every citizen is committed to a war [Weil] |
Full Idea: The distinction between soldiers and civilians, which the pressure of circumstances has already almost obliterated, should be entirely abolished. Every individual in the population owes his country the whole of his strength, resources and life itself. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Nation') | |
A reaction: Written in London in 1943. The year carpet bombing seriously escalated. The facts of warfare can change the ethics. |
23851 | Education is essentially motivation [Weil] |
Full Idea: Education - whether its object be children or adults, individuals or an entire people, or even oneself - consists in creating motives. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growing') | |
A reaction: I can't disagree. Intellectual motivation is simply what we find interesting, and there is no formula for that. A teacher can teach a good session, and only 5% of the pupils find it interesting. A bad session could be life-changing for one student. |
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. |
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 |
1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: With a single exception (Plato) everyone agrees about time - that it is not generated. Democritus says time is an obvious example of something not generated. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 251b14 |
23849 | Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil] |
Full Idea: The proper function of religion is to suffuse with its light all secular life, public or private, without in any way dominating it. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], II 'Nation') | |
A reaction: Even for the non-religious there is something attractive about some view of the world which 'suffuses our lives with light'. It probably describes medieval Christendom, but that contained an awful lot of darkness. |