22 ideas
| 343 | The unexamined life is not worth living for men [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: The unexamined life is not worth living for men. | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 38a | |
| A reaction: I wonder why? I can see Nietzsche offering aristocratic heroes and dancers as counterexamples. Compare Idea 3798. |
| 13099 | Analysing right down to primitive concepts seems beyond our powers [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: An analysis of concepts such that we can reach primitive concepts...does not seem to be within human power. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Introduction to a Secret Encyclopaedia [1679], C513-14), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz | |
| A reaction: Leibniz is nevertheless fully committed, I think, to the existence of such primitives, and is in the grip of the rationalist dream that thoughts can become completely clear, and completely well-founded. |
| 18543 | Do aesthetic reasons count as reasons, if they are rejectable without contradiction? [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The judgement of beauty makes a claim about its object, and can be supported by reasons. But the reasons do not compel the judgement and can be rejected without contradiction. So are they reasons or aren't they? | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that what he is really referring to is evidence rather than reasons. |
| 18542 | Defining truth presupposes that there can be a true definition [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: How can you define truth, without already assuming the distinction between a true definition and a false one? | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: Don't say we have to accept truth as yet another primitive! Philosophers are out of business if all the basic concepts are primitive. The axiomatic approach to truth is an alternative - by specifying how the primitive should be used. |
| 5022 | We hold a proposition true if we are ready to follow it, and can't see any objections [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: A proposition is held to be true by us when our mind is ready to follow it and no reason for doubting it can be found. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Introduction to a Secret Encyclopaedia [1679], p.7) | |
| A reaction: This follows on from Descartes' view, but it now sounds more like psychology than metaphysics. Clearly a false proposition could fit this desciption. Personally I follow propositions to which I can see no objection, without actually holding them true. |
| 18546 | The pleasure taken in beauty also aims at understanding and valuing [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Like the pleasure in friendship, the pleasure in beauty is curious: it aims to understand its object, and to value what it finds. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: At least he is trying to pin down the way in which aesthetic pleasure is phenomenologically different from other kinds of pleasure. |
| 18550 | Art gives us imaginary worlds which we can view impartially [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: One aim of art is to present imaginary worlds, towards which we can adopt, as part of the integral aesthetic attitude, a posture of impartial concern. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 5) | |
| A reaction: It connects to the pleasure of watching people when they don't know they are being watched (such as watching the street from a restaurant window). Scruton's suggestion makes art resemble examples in philosophy. Cf the Frege-Geach problem in ethics. |
| 18544 | Maybe 'beauty' is too loaded, and we should talk of fittingness or harmony [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Maybe we can understand the 'beauty' of a building better if we describe it in another and less loaded way, as a form of fittingness or harmony. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: Almost everyone accepts the word 'beauty' for some things, such as a beautiful face, or goal, or steak. I remember a female interviewer writing that, reluctantly, the only appropriate word she could find for Nureyev's face was 'beautiful'. |
| 18553 | Beauty shows us what we should want in order to achieve human fulfilment [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Beauty speaks to us of human fulfilment: not of things that we want, but of things that we ought to want, because human nature requires them. Such, at least, is my belief. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 7) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how this works with a beautiful natural landscape. And what should I see that I ought to desire after viewing a great Rembrandt self-portrait? That I don't want to end up looking as bleak as that? Hm. Lofty words. |
| 18556 | Beauty is rationally founded, inviting meaning, comparison and self-reflection [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Beauty is rationally founded; it challenges us to find meaning in its object, to make critical comparisons, and to examine our own lives and emotions in the light of what we find. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 9) | |
| A reaction: This is the Kantian tradition, and I'm not finding it very persuasive. It seems to place the value of beauty in what we do with it afterwards, and he seems to make beauty a necessary stepping stone to virtue. I see beauty as more sui generis. |
| 18548 | Natural beauty reassures us that the world is where we belong [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The experience of natural beauty is not a sense of 'how nice!' or 'how pleasant!' It contains a reassurance that this world is a right and fitting place to be - a home in which our human powers and prospects find confirmation. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 2) | |
| A reaction: To call it a 'reassurance' and 'confirmation' sounds like theism, anthropomorphism, or the pathetic fallacy. That said, this is certainly a heart-warming idea, and hence must contain a grain of truth. |
| 18551 | Croce says art makes inarticulate intuitions conscious; rival views say the audience is the main concern [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The Croce model is of an inarticulate inner state (an 'intuition') becoming articulate and conscious through artistic expression. The rival model is fitting thing together so as to create links which resonate in the audience's feelings. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 5) | |
| A reaction: The first model tells you nothing about how the artist imagines the audience reacting. The second model tells you nothing about what matters personally to the artist. A good theory must do both! |
| 18541 | Beauty (unlike truth and goodness) is questionable as an ultimate value [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The status of beauty as an ultimate value is questionable, in the way that the status of truth and goodness are not. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: We suspect that a love of beauty may be a bit parochial, where it is hard to conceive of living creatures anywhere in the cosmos who don't value the other two. |
| 344 | If death is like a night of dreamless sleep, such nights are very pleasant [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: If death is like a night of dreamless sleep it is an advantage, for such nights are very pleasant, and eternity would seem like a single night. | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 40d | |
| A reaction: Dreamless sleep is only pleasant if being awake is unpleasant. Very quiet days are only pleasant if the active days are horrible. A desire for a totally quiet life is absurd. |
| 339 | Men fear death as a great evil when it may be a great blessing [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 29a | |
| A reaction: As a neutral observer, I see little sign of it being a blessing, except as a relief from misery. It seem wrong to view such a natural thing as evil, but it is the thing most of us least desire. |
| 2 | We should not even harm someone who harms us [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: One should never return an injustice nor harm another human being no matter what one suffers at their hands. | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 49c | |
| A reaction: Jesus of Nazareth was not the first person to make this suggestion. |
| 345 | A good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: A good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death. | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 41d |
| 346 | One ought not to return a wrong or injury to any person, whatever the provocation [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: One ought not to return a wrong or an injury to any person, whatever the provocation is. | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 49b | |
| A reaction: The same as the essential moral teachings of Jesus (see Idea 6288) and Lao Tzu (Idea 6324). The big target is not to be corrupted by the evil of other people. |
| 341 | Wealth is good if it is accompanied by virtue [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men. | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 30b |
| 347 | Will I stand up against the law, simply because I have been unjustly judged? [Socrates] |
| Full Idea: Do I intend to destroy the laws, because the state wronged me by passing a faulty judgement at my trial? | |
| From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 50c |
| 18554 | Prostitution is wrong because it hardens the soul, since soul and body are one [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The condemnation of prostitution was not just puritan bigotry; it was a recognition of a profound truth, that you and your body are not two things but one, and by selling the body you harden your soul. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Beauty: a very short introduction [2011], 7) | |
| A reaction: No one, I imagine, who condones or even enthuses about prostitution would hope that their own daughter followed the profession, so there is something wrong with it. But must an enthusiastic and cheerful prostitute necessarily have a hard soul? |
| 338 | Socrates is accused of denying the gods, saying sun is stone and moon is earth [Socrates, by Plato] |
| Full Idea: Socrates denies the gods, because he says the sun is stone and the moon is earth. | |
| From: report of Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]) by Plato - The Apology 26d |