37 ideas
| 6961 | An analogy begins to break down as soon as the two cases differ [Hume] |
| Full Idea: But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 18946 | Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer] |
| Full Idea: As speakers of the language, we unreflectively assume that there are nonexistents, and that reference to them is possible. | |
| From: Marga Reimer (The Problem of Empty Names [2001], p.499), quoted by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 4 | |
| A reaction: Sarah Swoyer quotes this as a good solution to the problem of empty names, and I like it. It introduces a two-tier picture of our understanding of the world, as 'unreflective' and 'reflective', but that seems good. We accept numbers 'unreflectively'. |
| 21285 | Events are baffling before experience, and obvious after experience [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Every event, before experience, is equally difficult and incomprehensible; and every event, after experience, is equally easy and intelligible. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: If you don't believe this, spend some time watching documentaries about life in the deep oceans. Things beyond imagination swim around in front of you. But we can extrapolate, once the possibilities are revealed by experience. |
| 20429 | Most of us are too close to our own motives to understand them [Fry] |
| Full Idea: The motives we actually experience are too close to us to enable us to feel them clearly. They are in a sense unintelligible. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.30) | |
| A reaction: Fry is defending the role of art in clarifying and highlighting such things, but I am not convinced by his claim. We can grasp most of our motives with a little introspection, and those we can't grasp are probably too subtle for art as well. |
| 20424 | Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art [Fry] |
| Full Idea: In the imaginative life no action is necessary, so the whole consciousness may be focused upon the perceptive and the emotional aspects of the experience. Hence we get a different set of values, and a different kind of perception | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.24) | |
| A reaction: Good. A huge range of human activities are like scientific experiments, where you draw on our evolved faculties, but put them in controlled conditions, where the less convenient and stressful parts are absent. War and sport. Real and theatrical tragedy. |
| 20427 | Everyone reveals an aesthetic attitude, looking at something which only exists to be seen [Fry] |
| Full Idea: It is only when an object exists for no other purpose than to be seen that we really look at it, …and then even the most normal person adopts to some extent the artistic attitude of pure vision abstracted from necessity. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.29) | |
| A reaction: A painter of still life looks at things which exist for other purposes, with just the attitude which Fry attributes to the viewers of the paintings. We can encourage a child to look at a flower with just this attitude. |
| 20433 | 'Beauty' can either mean sensuous charm, or the aesthetic approval of art (which may be ugly) [Fry] |
| Full Idea: There is an apparent contradiction between two distinct uses of the word 'beauty', one for that which has sensuous charm, and one for the aesthetic approval of works of imaginative art where the objects presented to us are often of extreme ugliness. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.33) | |
| A reaction: The gouging of eyes in 'King Lear' was always the big problem case for aesthetics, just as nowadays it is Marcel Duchamp's wretched 'Fountain'. |
| 20430 | In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry] |
| Full Idea: Those feelings unhappily named cosmic emotion find almost no place in life, but, since they seem to belong to certain very deep springs of our nature, do become of great importance in the arts. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.31) | |
| A reaction: Focus on the sublime was big in the romantic era, but Fry still sees its importance, and I don't think it ever goes away. Art styles which scorn the sublime are failing to perform their social duty, say I. |
| 20431 | Art needs a mixture of order and variety in its sensations [Fry] |
| Full Idea: The first quality that we demand in our [artistic] sensations will be order, without which our sensations will be troubled and perplexed, and the other will be variety, without which they will not be fully stimulated. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.32) | |
| A reaction: He makes good claims, but gives unconvincing reasons for them. Some of us rather like 'troubled and perplexed' sensations. And a very narrow range of sensations could still be highly stimulated. Is Fry a good aesthetician but a modest philosopher? |
| 20423 | If graphic arts only aim at imitation, their works are only trivial ingenious toys [Fry] |
| Full Idea: If imitation is the sole purpose of the graphic arts, it is surprising that the works of such arts are ever looked upon as more than curiosities, or ingenious toys, and are ever taken seriously by grown-up people. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.23) | |
| A reaction: But then you might say that same about fine wines. A mere nice taste is hardly worthy of grown ups, and yet lots of grown ups feeling quite passionately about it. What about Fabergé eggs? |
| 20428 | Popular opinion favours realism, yet most people never look closely at anything! [Fry] |
| Full Idea: Ordinary people have almost no idea of what things really look like, so that the one standard that popular criticism applies to painting (whether it is like nature or not) is the one which most people are prevented frm applying properly. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.29) | |
| A reaction: A nice remark, though there is a streak of Bloomsbury artistic snobbery running through Fry. Ordinary people recognise photographic realism, so they can study things closely either in the reality or the picture, should they so choose. |
| 20432 | When viewing art, rather than flowers, we are aware of purpose, and sympathy with its creator [Fry] |
| Full Idea: In our reaction to a work of art (rather than a flower) there is the consciousness of purpose, of a peculiar relation of sympathy with the man who made this thing in order to arouse precisely the sensations we experience. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.33) | |
| A reaction: I think this is entirely right. I like the mention of 'sympathy' as well as 'purpose'. |
| 20425 | In the cinema the emotions are weaker, but much clearer than in ordinary life [Fry] |
| Full Idea: One notices in the visions of the cinematograph that whatever emotions are aroused by them, though they are likely to be weaker than those of ordinary life, are presented more clearly to the conscious. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.25) | |
| A reaction: Fry had probably only seen very simple melodramas, but the general idea that artistic emotions are weaker than real life, but much clearer, is quite plausible. |
| 20426 | For pure moralists art must promote right action, and not just be harmless [Fry] |
| Full Idea: To the pure moralist, accepting nothing but ethical values, to be justified, the life of the imagination must be shown not only not to hinder but actually to forward right action, otherwise it is not only useless but, by absorbing energies, harmful. | |
| From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.26) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the sort of attitude you find in Samuel Johnson. Puritans even reject light music, which seems pleasantly harmless to the rest of us. 'Absorbing energies' doesn't sound much of an objection, and may not be the actual objection. |
| 6959 | We can't assume God's perfections are like our ideas or like human attributes [Hume] |
| Full Idea: But let us beware, lest we think, that our ideas anywise correspond to his perfections, or that his attributes have any resemblance to these qualities among men. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 6957 | The objects of theological reasoning are too big for our minds [Hume] |
| Full Idea: But in theological reasonings … we are employed upon objects, which, we must be sensible, are too large for our grasp. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 1) |
| 21255 | No being's non-existence can imply a contradiction, so its existence cannot be proved a priori [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive of as existent we can also conceive as non-existent. So there is no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction. So no being's existence is demonstrable. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: I totally subscribe to this idea, and take claims that nature actually contains contradictions (based on the inevitable quantum mechanics) to be ridiculous. Nature is the embodiment, chief exemplar and prime test of consistency. |
| 21254 | A chain of events requires a cause for the whole as well as the parts, yet the chain is just a sum of parts [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The whole chain or succession [of causes and effects], taken together, is not caused by anything, and yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much as any particular object which begins to exist in time. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: This is such a major and significant idea. With blinkers on we think our questions are answered. Then someone (a philosopher, inevitably) makes you pull back and ask a much wider and more difficult question. |
| 1435 | If something must be necessary so that something exists rather than nothing, why can't the universe be necessary? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: What was it that determined something to exist rather than nothing? ...This implies a necessary being… But why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent being? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: There certainly seems no need for whatever the necessary thing is that it qualify as a 'god'. If could be a necessary subatomic particle that suddenly triggers reactions. |
| 6962 | The thing which contains order must be God, so see God where you see order [Hume] |
| Full Idea: By supposing something to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that divine being, so much the better. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 4) |
| 6964 | From our limited view, we cannot tell if the universe is faulty [Hume] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether this system contains any great faults. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) |
| 21279 | If the divine cause is proportional to its effects, the effects are finite, so the Deity cannot be infinite [Hume] |
| Full Idea: By this method of reasoning you renounce all claim to infinity in any of the attributes of the Deity. The cause ought to be proportional to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: You cannot deny that the Deity MAY be infinite, be only accept that your evidence is not enough to prove it. But if nothing infinite has been observed, it is a reasonable provisional inference that nothing infinite exists. |
| 21282 | Design cannot prove a unified Deity. Many men make a city, so why not many gods for a world? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: How can you prove the unity of a Deity? A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: You might look at the Cistine Chapel ceiling and conclude that only a team could have achieve such a thing. Since there is no way to infer how many gods might be involved, then one god is a possible theory. |
| 21280 | From a ship you would judge its creator a genius, not a mere humble workman [Hume] |
| Full Idea: It is uncertain whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter ...and what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: You can at least infer that the ship was not made entirely by makers who are ignorant of carpentry. Somewhere in the divine team there must exist the skills that produce whatever we observe? |
| 21281 | This excellent world may be the result of a huge sequence of trial-and-error [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; many fruitless trials made, and a slow but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: Lee Smolin, a modern cosmographer, suggests that this evolution may have led to the current universe, after a long train of selective creations. The idea of natural selection was waiting to happen in 1760. |
| 21283 | Humans renew their species sexually. If there are many gods, would they not do the same? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Men are mortal and renew their species by generation. Why must this circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded from those numerous and limited deities? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: Hume observes that this would be like the Greek gods. Hume makes mincemeat of attempts to prove the existence of God merely by analogy with human affairs. |
| 6966 | Creation is more like vegetation than human art, so it won't come from reason [Hume] |
| Full Idea: If the universe is more like animal bodies and vegetables than works of human art, it is more probable that its cause resembles the cause of the former than of the latter, and its cause should be ascribed to generation rather than to reason of design. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 7) |
| 21284 | This Creator god might be an infant or incompetent or senile [Hume] |
| Full Idea: [Maybe] this world ...was only the first essay of some infant deity ...or it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity, the object of derision to his superiors ...or it is the product of the dotage of some superannuated deity... | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: His opponent in the dialogue rejoices that, in the face of these sacreligious fantasies, Hume still accepts the likelihood of some sort of design. Hume is right that it is not much of a theory if nothing can be said about the Designer. |
| 21286 | Motion often begins in matter, with no sign of a controlling agent [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Motion in many instances begins in matter, without any known voluntary agent; to suppose always, in these cases, an unknown voluntary agent is mere hypothesis, attended with no advantages. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern 'powers' view of science, and a direct contradiction of Plato's claims in The Laws. It seems a bit primitive to assume that magnetism must be the work of some god. |
| 21287 | The universe could settle into superficial order, without a designer [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The universe goes on in a succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it may settle at last, so as not to lose its inherent motion and active force, yet so as to produce a uniformity of appearance, amidst the continual fluctuation. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: From what I know of the constant fluctuation of virtual particles (e.g. inside protons) this is exactly what actually is happening. There is an 'appearance' of order, but at the lowest level this is not the case. |
| 21288 | Ideas arise from objects, not vice versa; ideas only influence matter if they are linked [Hume] |
| Full Idea: In all known instances, ideas are copied from real objects. You reverse this order and give thought the precedence. ...Thought has no influence upon matter except where that matter is so conjoined with it as to have an equal reciprocal influence upon it. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: He allows something like mental causation, provided mind and brain are closely linked. Hume brings out the close relationship between divine design theories, and the mind-body problem. |
| 21256 | A surprise feature of all products of 9 looks like design, but is actually a necessity [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The products of 9 always compose either 9 or some lesser product of 9, if you add the characters of the product. To a superficial observer this regularity appears as chance or design, but a skilful algebraist sees it as necessity. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: An example of this universal generality is that 369 is a product of 9 (9x41), and if you add 3, 6 and 9 you get 18, which is 2x9. Similar examples occur in nature, such as crystals, which are necessary once the atomic structure is known. |
| 6958 | How can we pronounce on a whole after a brief look at a very small part? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us: and do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 6963 | Why would we infer an infinite creator from a finite creation? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: By this method of reasoning, you renounce all claim to infinity in any of the attributes of the deity. For … the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) |
| 6960 | Analogy suggests that God has a very great human mind [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Since the effects resemble, we must infer by analogy that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of his work. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 6965 | The universe may be the result of trial-and-error [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) |
| 6967 | Order may come from an irrational source as well as a rational one [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Why an orderly system may not be spun from the belly as well as from the brain, it will be difficult … to give a satisfactory reason. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 7) |