26 ideas
| 1848 | We are coerced into assent to a truth by reason's violence [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: We are coerced into assent to a truth by reason's violence. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.10) |
| 1858 | The mind is compelled by necessary truths, but not by contingent truths [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Mind is compelled by necessary truths that can't be regarded as false, but not by contingent ones that might be false. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 12) |
| 1852 | For the mind Good is one truth among many, and Truth is one good among many [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Good itself as taken in by mind is one truth among others, and truth itself as goal of mind's activity is one good among others. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) |
| 1860 | Knowledge may be based on senses, but we needn't sense all our knowledge [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: All our knowledge comes through our senses, but that doesn't mean that everything we know is sensed. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 18) |
| 5303 | For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Law, morality, religion are to the proletarian so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This Marxist idea has been the main driving force in spreading relativist views through modern culture. There is a lot of truth here, but philosophy is plausibly the search for truths which both the bourgeois and the proletarian will accept. |
| 1855 | If we saw something as totally and utterly good, we would be compelled to will it [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Something apprehended to be good and appropriate in any and every circumstance that could be thought of would compel us to will it. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) |
| 1856 | Nothing can be willed except what is good, but good is very varied, and so choices are unpredictable [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can be willed except good, but many and various things are good, and you can't conclude from this that wills are compelled to choose this or that one. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 05) |
| 1862 | However habituated you are, given time to ponder you can go against a habit [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: However habituated you are, given time to ponder you can go against a habit. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 24) |
| 1849 | Since will is a reasoning power, it can entertain opposites, so it is not compelled to embrace one of them [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning powers can entertain opposite objects. Now will is a reasoning power, so will can entertain opposites and is not compelled to embrace one of them. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.x2) |
| 1861 | The will is not compelled to move, even if pleasant things are set before it [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The will is not compelled to move, for it doesn't have to want the pleasant things set before it. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 21) |
| 1853 | Because the will moves by examining alternatives, it doesn't compel itself to will [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Because will moves itself by deliberation - a kind of investigation which doesn't prove some one way correct but examines the alternatives - will doesn't compel itself to will. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) |
| 1854 | We must admit that when the will is not willing something, the first movement to will must come from outside the will [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: We are forced to admit that, in any will that is not always willing, the very first movement to will must come from outside, stimulating the will to start willing. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) | |
| A reaction: cf Nietzsche |
| 1847 | The will must aim at happiness, but can choose the means [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The will is compelled by its ultimate goal (to achieve happiness), but not by the means to achieve it. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.07) |
| 1857 | We don't have to will even perfect good, because we can choose not to think of it [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The will can avoid actually willing something by avoiding thinking of it, since mental activity is subject to will. In this respect we aren't compelled to will even total happiness, which is the only perfect good. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 07) |
| 1846 | The will can only want what it thinks is good [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Will's object is what is good, and so it cannot will anything but what is good. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.06) |
| 1850 | Without free will not only is ethical action meaningless, but also planning, commanding, praising and blaming [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: If we are not free to will in any way, but are compelled, everything that makes up ethics vanishes: pondering action, exhorting, commanding, punishing, praising, condemning. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) | |
| A reaction: If doesn't require some magical 'free will' to avoid compulsions. All that is needed is freedom to enact your own willing, rather than someone else's. |
| 21998 | Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Morality, law and religion are bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], p.230), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is whether this creation of values is conscious or unconscious. Personally I believe in conspiracies. Some cynical conversations go on behind the scenes, of which historians will never hear. |
| 1851 | Good applies to goals, just as truth applies to ideas in the mind [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Good applies to all goals, just as truth applies to all forms mind takes in. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.reply) | |
| A reaction: In danger of being tautological, if good is understood as no more than the goal of actions. It seems perfectly possibly to pursue a wicked end, and perhaps feel guilty about it. |
| 5302 | Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: In Britain the Labour Party and the Trade Unions have appeared since 1848, but bourgeoisie control of the media has pushed us a long way back towards Marx's time. Government will always be someone's management committee. |
| 5304 | Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is a sinister remark which has led to huge numbers of murders in the Soviet Union and China. People resent having their property 'abolished', especially if they have worked hard for it. But most of our wealth is owned by about 2% of our people. |
| 5307 | Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §3.II) | |
| A reaction: …so don't try being nice to us. No TRUE bourgeois would actually want to help the proletariate… Nevertheless, he is probably largely right. Do we want the poor to suffer? No. Do we want them to be as rich as us? No! |
| 5306 | The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In a communist society we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This ringing slogan is remarkably close to John Stuart Mill's defence of liberalism, where liberty is an absolute, as long as it avoids the liberty of others. Personally I think freedom is marginal in political philosophy, like food and shelter. |
| 5305 | Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Communists seek to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: Someone has to control education, and I would personally prefer it if the controllers were well educated themselves. Neutral education is an idle dream. We must educate for democracy, if we really want democracy. |
| 5301 | The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to make, say, the English Peasants' Revolt of 1481 crucial, and the building of Lincoln Cathedral fairly minor. Where does the advent of the telephone figure? Etc. Still, we must concede his point. Most medieval history is about power. |
| 1859 | Even a sufficient cause doesn't compel its effect, because interference could interrupt the process [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Even a sufficient cause doesn't always compel its effect, since it can sometimes be interfered with so that its effect doesn't happen | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 15) |
| 12709 | Motion is not absolute, but consists in relation [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In reality motion is not something absolute, but consists in relation. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Motion [1677], A6.4.1968), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3 | |
| A reaction: It is often thought that motion being relative was invented by Einstein, but Leibniz wholeheartedly embraced 'Galilean relativity', and refused to even consider any absolute concept of motion. Acceleration is a bit trickier than velocity. |