Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Philosophical Fragments', 'MacIntyre versus the Enlightenment' and 'Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence

16007	I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard]
	Full Idea: I always reason from existence, not towards existence.
	From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.40)
	A reaction: Kierkegaard's important premise to help show that theistic proofs for God's existence don't actually prove existence, but develop the content of a conception. [SY]

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity

16013	Nothing necessary can come into existence, since it already 'is' [Kierkegaard]
	Full Idea: Can the necessary come into existence? That is a change, and everything that comes into existence demonstrates that it is not necessary. The necessary already 'is'.
	From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.74)
	A reaction: [SY]

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 4. Cultural relativism

1490	You would have to be very morally lazy to ignore criticisms of your own culture [Nagel]
	Full Idea: One would have to be very morally lazy to be unconcerned with the possibility that the prevailing morality of one's culture had something fundamentally wrong with it.
	From: Thomas Nagel (MacIntyre versus the Enlightenment [1988], 203)

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation

22591	We know perfection when we see what is imperfect [Murdoch]
	Full Idea: We know of perfection as we look upon what is imperfect.
	From: Iris Murdoch (Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals [1992], 13)
	A reaction: This is in the context of a discussion of the ontological argument for God's existence, but I seize on it as a nice expression of the idealisation capacity of our minds. The alternative is that perfection is innate idea, since we aren't seeing it.