30 ideas
23755 | Genius and love of truth are always accompanied by great humility [Weil] |
Full Idea: Love of truth is always accompanied by humility, and real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.87) | |
A reaction: A striking and attractive thought, true of all the lovers of truth I have ever encountered. Socrates is the role model. She likens truth to an inarticulate plaintiff stammering before a judge who fluently manipulates opinions. |
4691 | If all mental life were conscious, we would be unable to see things, or to process speech [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If there were nothing more to our mind than our conscious awareness, then we would be unable to see anything or to process speech. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 6) | |
A reaction: A vital point. Traditional dualism has left us a simplistic exaggeration of the role of consciousness, and the misapprehension that most of what we do is conscious - which it clearly isn't, once you think about it. |
23747 | What is sacred is not a person, but the whole physical human being [Weil] |
Full Idea: There is something sacred in every man, but it is not his person. Nor yet is it the human personality. It is this man; no more and no less. …It is he. The whole of him. The arms, they eyes, the thoughts, everything. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p,70) | |
A reaction: I take her to be referring to exactly the concept of a 'person' which Locke introduced. It is important to remember that his concept is mainly forensic - as a concept of ownership and contracts. A person is an abstraction. Even a corpse is a human. |
23756 | The mind is imprisoned and limited by language, restricting our awareness of wider thoughts [Weil] |
Full Idea: At the very best, a mind is enclosed in language as in a prison. It is limited to the number of relations which words can make simultaneously present to it; and remains in ignorance of thoughts which involve the combination of a greater number. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.89) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a germ of the type of view of language which blossoms in Derrida. But she is on to something. None of us grasp fully, I think, the non-linguistic nature of good thinking. |
4690 | If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The importance of Grice's analysis of speaker meaning is that it offers the prospect of analysing the whole phenomenon of linguistic meaning in terms of propositional attitudes… thus turning semantics into a department of the philosophy of mind. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 5) | |
A reaction: Although meaning being truth conditions is the most cited theory, the reduction of semantics to an aspect of mind also seems almost orthodox now. But how do the symbols 'represent' the attitudes? |
23758 | Beauty is an attractive mystery, leaving nothing to be desired [Weil] |
Full Idea: Beauty is the supreme mystery of the world. It is a gleam which attracts the attention and yet does nothing to sustain it. …While exciting desire, it makes clear that there is nothing in it to be desired, because what we want is that it should not change. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.92) | |
A reaction: She attributes beauty to a supernatural source. I catalogue this idea under 'the sublime', rather than 'beauty'. It may be better to say that beauty inspires love, rather than desire. |
2705 | How can intuitionists distinguish universal convictions from local cultural ones? [Hare] |
Full Idea: There are convictions which are common to most societies; but there are others which are not, and no way is given by intuitionists of telling which are the authoritative data. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.454) | |
A reaction: It seems unfair on intuitionists to say they haven't given a way to evaluate such things, given that they have offered intuition. The issue is what exactly they mean by 'intuition'. |
2712 | You can't use intuitions to decide which intuitions you should cultivate [Hare] |
Full Idea: If it comes to deciding what intuitions and dispositions to cultivate, we cannot rely on the intuitions themselves, as intuitionists do. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.461) | |
A reaction: Makes intuitionists sound a bit dim. Surely Hume identifies dispositions (such as benevolence) which should be cultivated, because they self-evidently improve social life? |
2706 | Emotivists mistakenly think all disagreements are about facts, and so there are no moral reasons [Hare] |
Full Idea: Emotivists concluded too hastily that because naturalism and intuitionism are false, you cannot reason about moral questions, because they assumed that the only questions you can reason about are factual ones. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
A reaction: Personally I have a naturalistic view of ethics (based on successful functioning, as indicated by Aristotle), so not my prob. Why can't we reason about expressive emotions? We reason about art. |
2709 | Prescriptivism sees 'ought' statements as imperatives which are universalisable [Hare] |
Full Idea: Universal prescriptivists hold that 'ought'-judgements are prescriptive like plain imperatives, but differ from them in being universalisable. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.457) | |
A reaction: Sounds a bit tautological. Which comes first, the normativity or the universalisability? |
2708 | An 'ought' statement implies universal application [Hare] |
Full Idea: In any 'ought' statement there is implicit a principle which says that the statement applies to all precisely similar situations. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.456) | |
A reaction: No two situations can ever be 'precisely' similar. Indeed, 'precisely similar' may be an oxymoron (at least for situations). Kantians presumably like this idea. |
2704 | If morality is just a natural or intuitive description, that leads to relativism [Hare] |
Full Idea: Non-descriptivists (e.g. prescriptivists) reject descriptivism in its naturalist or intuitionist form, because they are both destined to collapse into relativism. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.453) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear from this why prescriptism would not also turn out to be relativist, if it includes evaluations along with facts. |
2703 | Descriptivism say ethical meaning is just truth-conditions; prescriptivism adds an evaluation [Hare] |
Full Idea: Ethical descriptivism is the view that ethical sentence-meaning is wholly determined by truth-conditions. …Prescriptivists think there is a further element of meaning, which expresses prescriptions or evaluations or attitudes which we assent to. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.452) | |
A reaction: Not sure I understand either of these. If all meaning consists of truth-conditions, that will apply to ethics. If meaning includes evaluations, that will apply to non-ethics. |
2707 | If there can be contradictory prescriptions, then reasoning must be involved [Hare] |
Full Idea: Prescriptivists claim that there are rules of reasoning which govern non-descriptive as well as descriptive speech acts. The standard example is possible logical inconsistency between contradictory prescriptions. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455) | |
A reaction: The example doesn't seem very good. Inconsistency can appear in any area of thought, but that isn't enough to infer full 'rules of reasoning'. I could desire two incompatible crazy things. |
2711 | Prescriptivism implies a commitment, but descriptivism doesn't [Hare] |
Full Idea: Prescriptivists hold that moral judgements commit the speaker to motivations and actions, but non-moral facts by themselves do not do this. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.459) | |
A reaction: Surely hunger motivates to action? I suppose the key word is 'commit'. But lazy people are allowed to make moral judgements. |
23760 | All we need are the unity of justice, truth and beauty [Weil] |
Full Idea: Justice, truth, and beauty are sisters and comrades. With three such beautiful words we have no need to look for any others. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.93) | |
A reaction: The embodiment of platonist values. Without the platonist ontology, I like the identification of a few core values, and have always thought that Beauty, Goodness and Truth were a well chosen trio. Swapping 'justice' for 'goodness' is interesting. |
23748 | The sacred in every human is their expectation of good rather than evil [Weil] |
Full Idea: At the bottom of every human heart …there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all crimes committed, suffered and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.71) | |
A reaction: I'm thinking that this expectation may come from having at least one loving parent, and failing that there are people who have no such expectation as adults. Simone obviously thinks the hope runs deeper than that. |
23759 | Everything which originates in love is beautiful [Weil] |
Full Idea: Everything which originates from pure love is lit with the radiance of beauty. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.93) | |
A reaction: I suppose if I found a counterexample, she would say that is not 'pure' love. This sentence leaves open the possibility of beauty in the absence of love (such as a beautiful face noticed in the street). In her case, can beauty and love be separated? |
23762 | Evil is transmitted by comforts and pleasures, but mostly by doing harm to people [Weil] |
Full Idea: One may transmit evil to a human being by flattering him or giving him comforts and pleasures; but most often men transmit evil to other men by doing them harm. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.94) | |
A reaction: Some people receive harm very passively, especially if it is normal. What of tough love, which is erroneously seen as harm? |
2710 | Moral judgements must invoke some sort of principle [Hare] |
Full Idea: To make moral judgements is implicitly to invoke some principle, however specific. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.458) |
23750 | It is not more money which the wretched members of society need [Weil] |
Full Idea: Suppose the devil were bargaining for the soul of some wretch, and some pitying person said to the devil 'Shame on you, that commodity is worth twice as much'. Such is the sinister farce played by the working class unions, parties and intellectuals. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.80) | |
A reaction: A striking thought. It is paradoxical when the working classes despise the middle classes, and yet aspire to be like them. It's hard to know what a mystic like Weil has in mind. An obvious thought is that the aspiration should be freedom, not money. |
23749 | The problem of the collective is not suppression of persons, but persons erasing themselves [Weil] |
Full Idea: The chief danger does not lie in the collectivity's tendency to circumscribe the person, but in the person's tendency to immolate himself in the collective. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.78) | |
A reaction: I'm guessing that in 1943 she had in mind both Nazis and Communists. She seems to articulate a strong form of liberalism in an interesting way. It sounds like a form of Bad Faith. |
23753 | People absurdly claim an equal share of things which are essentially privileged [Weil] |
Full Idea: To the dimmed understanding of our age there seems nothing odd in claiming an equal share of privilege for everybody - an equal share in things whose essence is privilege. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.84) | |
A reaction: Not sure what she has in mind. Probably not the finest food and drink. I suppose she is attacking the modern egalitarian view of democratic society. What things have privilege as their 'essence'? Being a 'winner'? Interesting, though. |
23751 | Rights are asserted contentiously, and need the backing of force [Weil] |
Full Idea: Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.81) | |
A reaction: This is the sort of observation which leads on to Foucault's account of all-pervasive power. Her observation may not be so sinister. It is obvious that introductions of new rights go against the grain of a conservative society - and so need a push. |
23752 | Giving centrality to rights stifles all impulses of charity [Weil] |
Full Idea: To place the notion of rights at the centre of social conflicts is to inhibit any possible impulse of charity on both sides. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.83) | |
A reaction: I think she exaggerates. To place personal charity at the centre of social conflicts strikes me as extremely conservative, and unlikely to improve the situation very much. I'm unsure how to reconcile this with Idea 23750. What sort of charity? |
23757 | The spirit of justice needs the full attention of truth, and that attention is love [Weil] |
Full Idea: Because affliction and truth need the same kind of attention …the spirit of justice and the spirit of truth are one. The spirit of justice and truth is nothing else be a certain kind of attention, which is pure love. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.92) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure about this as an observation, but as an inspiration it is very appealing, and (as so often with Weil) strikingly and attractively independent. I prefer love to arise naturally, rather than be a product of exhortation. |
23761 | Justice (concerning harm) is distinct from rights (concerning inequality) [Weil] |
Full Idea: Justice is seeing that no harm is done to men. When a man cries inwardly 'Why am I being hurt?' he is being harmed. The other cry of 'Why have others got more than me?' refers to rights. We must distinguish them, and hush the second with law. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.93) | |
A reaction: Her great passion is for justice, and so she downplays rights. The simple 'why am I being hurt?' has a horrible resonance in 1943. What of the hurts of disease? Are they unjust? |
23764 | The only thing in society worse than crime is repressive justice [Weil] |
Full Idea: There is one, and only one, thing in society more hideous than crime - namely, repressive justice. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.95) | |
A reaction: Presumably fans of 'repressive' justice would describe it as 'reformative' justice. In general, one of the most hideous parts of historical human societies has been the punishments they dished out (simply because they had the power to do it). |
23763 | Punishment aims at the good for men who don't desire it [Weil] |
Full Idea: Punishment is solely a method of procuring pure good for men who do not desire it. The art of punishing is the art of awakening in a criminal, by pain or even death, the desire for pure good. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.95) | |
A reaction: I know Weil is seen as some sort of saint, but this remark could have come from the Inquisition. I'm always alarmed by talk of 'pure' good and 'pure' evil, which seem to need a superior insight the rest of us lack. But see Idea 23764. |
23754 | The only choice is between supernatural good, or evil [Weil] |
Full Idea: In all the crucial problems of human existence the only choice is between supernatural good on the one hand and evil on the other. | |
From: Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.86) | |
A reaction: This idea strikes me as absurd, but I include it for a fuller picture of Simone Weil. Aristotle (my hero) is referred to, and labelled as more stupid than a village idiot. |