7 ideas
| 7500 | Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: For early Greeks their techné for life was to take care of the city, of companions (see Plato's 'Alcibiades'). Taking care of yourself for its own sake starts with the Epicureans, and becomes very general in Seneca and Pliny. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.260) | |
| A reaction: In Aristotle the two strike me as ideally balanced - to become a wonderful citizen by looking after yourself. Presumably the destruction of the city-states by Alexander took away the motive, and the aim became more private. |
| 9198 | It is no longer possible to be a sage, but we can practice the exercise of wisdom [Hadot] |
| Full Idea: Personally I firmly believe, perhaps naively, that it is possible for modern man to live, not as a sage (sophos) - most of the ancients did not hold this to be possible - but as a practitioner of the ever-fragile exercise of wisdom. | |
| From: Pierre Hadot (Philosophy as a way of life [1987], 7) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me quite plausible that the philosophical life might yet become a widespread ideal, even though philosophers seem to still be sheltering from storms two thousand years after Plato gave us that image. |
| 9197 | The logos represents a demand for universal rationality [Hadot] |
| Full Idea: The logos represents a demand for universal rationality. | |
| From: Pierre Hadot (Philosophy as a way of life [1987], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: That is at one end of the spectrum. At the other, in parts of 'Theaetetus', it is just a polite request to be given a few reasons, instead of a splattering of hopes and prejudices. |
| 19699 | A Gettier case is a belief which is true, and its fallible justification involves some luck [Hetherington] |
| Full Idea: A Gettier case contains a belief which is true and well justified without being knowledge. Its justificatory support is also fallible, ...and there is considerable luck in how the belief combnes being true with being justified. | |
| From: Stephen Hetherington (The Gettier Problem [2011], 5) | |
| A reaction: This makes luck the key factor. 'Luck' is a rather vague concept, and so the sort of luck involved must first be spelled out. Or the varieties of luck that can produce this outcome. |
| 7501 | Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Couldn't everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life? | |
| From: Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.261) | |
| A reaction: This sounds wonderfully appealing until I try to think how I would implement it. The Augustine move, from sinner to saint, is a possibility, but there is nothing good about sin. The Christian ideal, of colossal self-sacrifice, can be very heroic. |
| 9196 | The pleasure of existing is the only genuine pleasure [Hadot] |
| Full Idea: For epicureans, the only genuine pleasure there is is the pleasure of existing. | |
| From: Pierre Hadot (Philosophy as a way of life [1987], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: I don't know Hadot's source for this claim, but it is a nice idea, which I shall endeavour to incorporate into my own attitude to daily living. I'm not quite clear, though, why the pleasure of music is not a 'genuine' one. |
| 7498 | Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: It is interesting to see the very slow move from the privileging of food, which was overwhelming in Greece, to interest in sex. Early Christians (and rules for monks) were more concerned with food. Sex only dominates from the seventeenth century. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.253) | |
| A reaction: Certainly the Greeks were obsessed with food, and the Sicilian Greeks were notorious for their love of it. Is it simply that food becomes more plentiful, or does female freedom lead to more sex? Puritanism hates the greatest pleasures the most. |