26 ideas
| 22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte 'subjectivity' came first, and he was then stuck with the (impossible) task of showing how 'objectivity' arose out of it. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: The best available answer to this problem (for idealists) is, I think, Nietzsche's perspectives, in which multiple subjectivities are summed to produce a blurred picture which has a degree of consensus. Fichte later embraced other minds. |
| 22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: To adopt any kind of normative stance is to commit oneself necessarily to the possibility of negation. It involves doing something correctly or incorrectly, so there must exist the possibility of denying or affirming. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key idea for understanding Hegel's logic. Personally I think animals have a non-verbal experience of negation - when a partner dies, for example. |
| 22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte thought that everything that involves necessary truths - even mathematics and logic - should be shown to follow from the more basic principles involved in assertion and negation. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: An interesting proposal, though I am struggling to see how it works. Fichte sees assertion and negation as foundational (Idea 22017), but I take them to be responses to the real world. |
| 22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Only Fichte's principles are deduced in his book, that is, the logical ones, and not even these completely. And what about the practical, the moral and ethical ones. Society, learning, wit, art, and so on are also entitled to be deduced here. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works Vol 18 p.34 | |
| A reaction: This is the beginnings of the romantic rebellion against a rather narrowly rationalist approach to philosophy. Schlegel also objects to the fact that Fichte only had one axiom (presumably the idea of the not-Self). |
| 22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte's key claim was that the difference between the subjective and the objective points of view had to be itself a subjective distinction, something that the 'I' posits. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 09 | |
| A reaction: This seems to lock us firmly into the idealist mental prison and throw away the key. |
| 22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: A rational creature cannot posit itself as such a creature with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among many rational creatures. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.8), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 n25 | |
| A reaction: [1796 book about his Wissenschaftlehre] This is the transcendental (Kantian) approach to other minds. Wittgenstein's private language argument is similar. Hegel was impressed by this idea (I think). |
| 22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: According to Fichte, spontaneity, self-relatedness, and unity are the basic traits of knowledge (which includes conscience). ...This principle of all knowledge is what he calls the 'I' or the Self. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.58 | |
| A reaction: This is the idealist view. He gets 'spontaneity' from Kant, which is the mind's contribution to experience. Self-relatedness is the distinctive Fichte idea. Unity presumably means total coherence, which is typical of idealists. |
| 22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Novalis aimed to create a theory of the ego with a much wider scope than Fichte's doctrine of knowledge had been able to establish. ....Without philosophy, imperfect poet - without poetry, imperfect thinker. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Novalis - Logological Fragments I vol.3 p.531 | |
| A reaction: [in his 'Fichte Studies] Since this is at the heart of early romanticism, I take the concept to embrace nature, as well as creative imagination. There is a general rebellion against the narrowness of Fichte. |
| 22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte said the self is not a natural 'thing' but is itself a normative status, and 'it' can obtain this status, so it seems, only by an act of attributing it to itself. ...He continually identified the 'I' with 'reason' itself. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: Pinkard says Fichte gradually qualified this claim. Fichte struggled to state his view in a way that avoided obvious paradoxes. 'My mind produces decisions, so there must be someone in charge of them'? Is this transcendental? |
| 22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: I can be conscious of any object only on the condition that I am also conscious of myself, that is, of the conscious subject. This proposition is incontrovertible. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.112), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 | |
| A reaction: [from the 1797/8 version of Wissenschaftslehre] Russell might be cross to find that his idea on this was anticipated by Fichte. I still approve of the idea. |
| 22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
| Full Idea: For Fichte, to judge means to distinguish concepts from one another and to place them in relationship to one another. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Ludwig Siep - Fichte p.59 | |
| A reaction: This idea of Fichte's seems to be the key one for Hegel, and hence (I presume) it is the lynchpin of German Idealism. It seems to describe mathematical knowledge quite well. I don't think it fits judging whether there is a snake in the grass. |
| 23814 | Every human yearns for an unattainable transcendent good [Weil] |
| Full Idea: There is a reality outside the world …outside any sphere that is accessible to human faculties. Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, which is always there and never appeased by this world. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.221) | |
| A reaction: I don't believe in any sort of transcendent reality, but I can identify with this. Even if you have a highly naturalistic view of what is valuable (see late Philippa Foot), there is this indeterminate yearning for that value. |
| 23824 | Where human needs are satisfied we find happiness, friendship and beauty [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Any place where the needs of human beings are satisfied can be recognised by the fact that there is a flowering of fraternity, joy, beauty, and happiness. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.230) | |
| A reaction: Weil writes a lengthy analysis of what she sees as the basic human needs, beyond the obvious food, water etc. An excellent place to start a line of political thought. |
| 22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Fichte placed emphasis on human spontaneity, on nothing 'counting' for us unless we somehow bestowed some kind of status on it. | |
| From: report of Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 06 | |
| A reaction: This idea evidentally arises from Kant's account of thought. Pinkard says this idea inspired the early Romantics. I would have thought the drive to exist (Spinoza's conatus) would make things count whether we liked it or not. |
| 23815 | We cannot equally respect what is unequal, so equal respect needs a shared ground [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to feel equal respect for things that are in fact unequal unless the respect is given to something that is identical in all of them. Men are all unequal in all their relations with things of this world. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.223) | |
| A reaction: Weil votes for some link to transcendence in each of us, but I would prefer some more naturalistic proposal for what we all have in common. There are plenty of aspects which unite all human beings, which grounds this unconditional respect. |
| 23823 | Life needs risks to avoid sickly boredom [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is a sickness of the human soul. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.229) | |
| A reaction: An unusual analysis of boredom. I think it is probably purposeful activity that we need, rather than actual risk, with all the stresses that involves. Risks are justified by their rewards. |
| 23822 | We all need to partipate in public tasks, and take some initiative [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The human soul has need of disciplined participation in a common task of public value, and it has need of personal initiative within this participation. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.229) | |
| A reaction: The intrusion of competitive capitalism into almost every area of modern life has more or less eliminated such activities. Only state employees now have such satisfactions, on the whole. I admire Weil's approach here. |
| 23817 | We need both equality (to attend to human needs) and hierarchy (as a scale of responsibilities) [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The human soul has need of equality and of hierarchy. Equality is the public recognition …of the principal that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings. Hierarchy is the scale of responsibilities. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.228) | |
| A reaction: This is the conservative aspect of Weil's largely radical political thinking. Presumably what we respect in these people is their responsibilies, and not their mere rank. Idle members of the British House of Lords have no rank in this hierarchy. |
| 23819 | Deliberate public lying should be punished [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Every avoidable material falsehood publicly asserted should become a punishable offence. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.228) | |
| A reaction: Yes please! The early 21st century has become the time when truth lost all value in public life. Lying to the House of Commons in the UK required instant resignation 50 years ago. Now it is just a source of laughter. No freedom to lie! |
| 23818 | We have liberty in the space between nature and accepted authority [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Liberty is the power of choice within the latitude left between the direct constraint of natural forces and the authority accepted as legitimate. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.228) | |
| A reaction: Accepting legitimate authority is a nicely softened version of the social contract. We often find that the office and rank are accepted as legitimate, but then are unable to accept the appalling individual who holds the office. |
| 23820 | People need personal and collective property, and a social class lacking property is shameful [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The human soul has need of both personal property and collective property. …The existence of a social class defined by the lack of personal and collective property is as shameful as slavery. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.229) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Particularly the idea that we all need collective property, such as parks and beaches and public buildings. |
| 23821 | Crime should be punished, to bring the perpetrator freely back to morality [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The human soul needs punishment and honour. A committer of crime has become exiled from good, and needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. This aims to bring the soul to recognise freely some day that is infliction was just. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.229) | |
| A reaction: The Scanlon contractualist approach to punishment - that the victim of it accepts its justice. Given her saintly character, Simone had a very tough view of this issue. |
| 22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| Full Idea: Fichte reduces the non-Ego or nature to a state of constant calm, standstill, immobility, lack of all change, movement and life, that is death. | |
| From: comment on Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794]) by Friedrich Schlegel - works vol 12 p.190 | |
| A reaction: The point is that Fichte's nature is a merely logical or conceptual deduction from the spontaneous reason of the self, so it can't have the lively diversity we find in nature. |
| 23816 | Attention to a transcendent reality motivates a duty to foster the good of humanity [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Anyone whose attention and love are directed towards the reality outside the world recognises that he is bound by the permanent obligation to remedy …all the privations of soul and body which are liable to destroy or damage any human being whatsoever. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.225) | |
| A reaction: [abridged] An interesting attempt to articulate the religious motivation of morality. The Euthyphro question remains - of why this vision of a wholly good higher morality should motivate anyone, unless they already possess a desire for that good. |
| 16713 | Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics [Tertullian] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics. | |
| From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.2 |
| 6610 | I believe because it is absurd [Tertullian] |
| Full Idea: I believe because it is absurd ('Credo quia absurdum est'). | |
| From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason n4.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a rather desperate remark, in response to what must have been rather good hostile arguments. No one would abandon the support of reason if it was easy to acquire. You can't deny its engaging romantic defiance, though. |