45 ideas
125 | Is a gifted philosopher unmanly if he avoids the strife of the communal world? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: Even a naturally gifted philosopher isn't going to develop into a real man, because he's avoiding the heart of his community and the thick of the agora. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 485d) | |
A reaction: A serious charge against philosophy. An attraction of the subject is its purity, its necessity, its timelessness, and in some ways these are just nicer and easier and more understandable than the hard mess of real life. But understanding has to be good. |
1654 | In "Gorgias" Socrates is confident that his 'elenchus' will decide moral truth [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: In the 'Gorgias' Socrates is still supremely confident that the elenchus is the final arbiter of moral truth. | |
From: comment on Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.117 |
4321 | We should test one another, by asking and answering questions [Plato] |
Full Idea: Test me, and let yourself be tested as well, by asking and answering questions. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 462a) | |
A reaction: The idea must be to avoid wild speculation, by continually filtering ideas through rival critical intelligences. The best philosophical method ever devised. |
23647 | Objects have an essential constitution, producing its qualities, which we are too ignorant to define [Reid] |
Full Idea: Individuals and objects have a real essence, or constitution of nature, from which all their qualities flow: but this essence our faculties do not comprehend. They are therefore incapable of definition. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1) | |
A reaction: Aha - he's one of us! I prefer the phrase 'essential nature' of an object, which is understood, I think, by everyone. I especially like the last bit, directed at those who mistakenly think that Aristotle identified the essence with the definition. |
11958 | Impossibilites are easily conceived in mathematics and geometry [Reid, by Molnar] |
Full Idea: Reid pointed out how easily conceivable mathematical and geometric impossibilities are. | |
From: report of Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], IV.III) by George Molnar - Powers 11.3 | |
A reaction: The defence would be that you have to really really conceive them, and the only way the impossible can be conceived is by blurring it at the crucial point, or by claiming to conceive more than you actually can |
23646 | Reference is by name, or a term-plus-circumstance, or ostensively, or by description [Reid] |
Full Idea: An individual is expressed by a proper name, or by a general word joined to distinguishing circumstances; if unknown, it may be pointed out to the senses; when beyond the reach of the senses it may be picked out by an imperfect but true description. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1) | |
A reaction: [compressed] If Putnam, Kripke and Donnellan had read this paragraph they could have save themselves a lot of work! I take reference to be the activity of speakers and writers, and these are the main tools of the trade. |
23645 | A word's meaning is the thing conceived, as fixed by linguistic experts [Reid] |
Full Idea: The meaning of a word (such as 'felony') is the thing conceived; and that meaning is the conception affixed to it by those who best understand the language. | |
From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1) | |
A reaction: He means legal experts. This is precisely that same as Putnam's account of the meaning of 'elm tree'. His discussion here of reference is the earliest I have encountered, and it is good common sense (for which Reid is famous). |
114 | Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato] |
Full Idea: Rhetoric is an agent of the kind of persuasion which is designed to produce conviction, but not to educate people about right and wrong. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 455a) | |
A reaction: Surely there must be good rhetoric (or at least it is an open question)? |
116 | Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato] |
Full Idea: Rhetoric is a knack, because it lacks rational understanding of its object or what it dispenses (and can't explain the reason anything happens). | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 465a) | |
A reaction: If there are cunning people who have the wrong sort of intelligence for morality, there must be cunning users of rhetoric who know exactly what they are doing. |
135 | All activity aims at the good [Plato] |
Full Idea: All activity aims at the good. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 499e) | |
A reaction: He includes non-conscious activity, so this is the 'teleological' view of nature, which seems a bit optimistic to the modern mind. |
12157 | Kant gave form and status to aesthetics, and Hegel gave it content [Kant, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: Kant gave form and status to aesthetics, and Hegel endowed it with content. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Recent Aesthetics in England and America p.3 |
20346 | The aesthetic attitude is a matter of disinterestedness [Kant, by Wollheim] |
Full Idea: The aesthetic attitude is defined by Kant in terms of disinterestedness. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Richard Wollheim - Art and Its Objects 54 | |
A reaction: This is presumably, mainly, to explain our enjoyment of the miseries of tragedy. We just give ourselves up to a merry jig by Haydn. |
18547 | Only rational beings can experience beauty [Kant, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: Kant is surely right that the experience of beauty, like the judgements in which it issues, is the prerogative of rational beings. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction 1 | |
A reaction: I'm not sure how Scruton can say that Kant is 'surely right'. It is an interesting speculation. Are we to dogmatically affirm that bees get no aesthetic thrill when they spot a promising flower? Something in their little brains attracts them. |
24172 | It is hard to see why we would have developed Kant's 'disinterested' aesthetic attitude [Cochrane on Kant] |
Full Idea: The Kantian notion of disinterest isolated aesthetic value from the rest of our lives. It is hard to understand why we should have developed a tendency that is detached from our everyday practical purposes. | |
From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], §2) by Tom Cochrane - The Aesthetic Value of the World 1.4 | |
A reaction: Cochrane always seeks an evolutionary framework for accounts of aesthetics, and I agree with him. That doesn't devalue them. The best things in life, like piano music, are obviously offshoots of things which evolved for other reasons. |
20408 | With respect to the senses, taste is an entirely personal matter [Kant] |
Full Idea: With regard to the agreeable, the principle Everyone has his own taste (of the senses) is valid. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 7 5:212), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 1 | |
A reaction: This is a preliminary concession, and he goes on to defend more objective views of taste. |
20409 | When we judge beauty, it isn't just personal; we judge on behalf of everybody [Kant] |
Full Idea: It is ridiculous if someone justifies his tast by saying 'this object is beautiful for me'. . .If he pronounces that something is beautiful, then he expects the very same satisfaction of others: he judges not merely for himself, but for everyone. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 7 5:213), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 1 | |
A reaction: For Kant this would also be the hallmark of rationality - that we expect, or hope for, a consensus when we express a rational judgement. But this expectation is far less in cases of beauty. We do not expect total agreement from very tasteful people. |
20411 | Saying everyone has their own taste destroys the very idea of taste [Kant] |
Full Idea: To say thast 'Everyone has his special taste' would be to dismiss the very possibility of aesthetic taste, and to deny that there could be aesthetic judgement 'that could make a rightful claim to the assent of everyone'. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 7 5:213), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.2 | |
A reaction: I am a great believer in the objectivity of taste (within sensible reason). But the great evidence against it is the shifting standards of taste over the centuries. Nineteenth century collectors wasted fortunes on inferior works, it seems to us. |
24170 | Kant thinks beauty ignores its objects, because it is only 'form' engaging with mind [Cochrane on Kant] |
Full Idea: Kant thinks that the ideal of beauty requires no concept of what the object is. Universality demands that appreciation be purely a matter of the way the form of the object fits one's cognitive machinery. | |
From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Tom Cochrane - The Aesthetic Value of the World 1.3 | |
A reaction: This confirms further my increasingly negative view of Kant. Everything in him points to idealism (despite denials by his fans), and via Hegel we arrive at the idea that our values are all 'cultural constructs', rather than responses to reality. |
22711 | The beautiful is not conceptualised as moral, but it symbolises or resembles goodness [Kant, by Murdoch] |
Full Idea: Kant insists that the beautiful must not be tainted with the good (that is, not conceptualised in any way which would bring it into the sphere of moral judgement) yet he says that the beautiful symbolises the good, it is an analogy of the good. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Iris Murdoch - The Sublime and the Good p.209 | |
A reaction: Kant evidently wanted a very pure view of the aesthetic experience, drained of any overlapping feelings or beliefs. I'm not sure I understand how the beautiful can symbolise or be analogous to the good, while being devoid of it. |
4025 | Kant saw beauty as a sort of disinterested pleasure, which has become separate from the good [Kant, by Taylor,C] |
Full Idea: Kant, in his third critique, defined beauty in terms of a certain kind of disinterested pleasure;….this is the basis for a declaration of independence of the beautiful relative to the good. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §23.1 | |
A reaction: This is a rebellion against the Greeks, especially Plato, and prepares the ground for the idea of 'art for art's sake'. Personally, I'm with Plato. |
20412 | Beauty is only judged in pure contemplation, and not with something else at stake [Kant] |
Full Idea: If the question is whether something is beautiful, one does not want to know whether there is something that is or that could be at stake, for us or for someone else, in the existence of the thing, but rather how we judge it in mere contemplation. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 2 5:204), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.3 | |
A reaction: This evidently denies that function has anything to do with beauty, and seems to be a prelude to 'art for art's sake'. But a running cheetah cannot be separated from the sheer efficiencey and focus of the performance. |
22046 | The mathematical sublime is immeasurable greatness; the dynamical sublime is overpowering [Kant, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Kant distinguished the 'mathematical' and 'dynamical' sublime. The former involves immeasurable greatness (or smallness) such that we cannot even present them to ourselves. The latter is of something large and overpowering, which we can morally resist. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 13 | |
A reaction: Presumably Cantor revealed the full extent of the mathematical sublime ('heaven', according to Hilbert). We await the comet that destroys the Earth to fully experience the other one. |
21458 | The sublime is a moral experience [Kant, by Gardner] |
Full Idea: The sublime is understood by Kant as a moral experience. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], 28-9) by Sebastian Gardner - Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason 09 'Judgment' | |
A reaction: Gardner give the source in Kant. I can't accept that the initial experience of the sublime is moral in character. It could easily acquire a moral character after contemplation by someone who had such inclinations. |
5643 | Aesthetic values are not objectively valid, but we must treat them as if they are [Kant, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: The 'Critique of Judgement' argues, then, not for the objective validity of aesthetic values, but for the fact that we must think of them as objectively valid. | |
From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy §11.7 | |
A reaction: The trouble with these transcendental arguments of Kant is that they render you powerless to discuss the question of whether values are actually objective. We are all trapped in presuppositions, instead of testing suppositions. |
20410 | The judgement of beauty is not cognitive, but relates, via imagination, to pleasurable feelings [Kant] |
Full Idea: In order to understand whether or not something is beautiful, we do not relate the representation by means of understanding to the object for cognition, but relate it by means of the imagination ..to the subject and its feeling of pleasure or displeasure. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 1 5:203), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.1 | |
A reaction: This is to distinguish the particular type of judgement which counts as 'aesthetic' - the point being that it is not cognitive - it is not a matter of knowledge and facts, but a cool judgement made about a warm feeling of pleasure. I think. |
122 | Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: It's the weaklings who constitute the majority of the human race who make the rules. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483b) | |
A reaction: An aristocrat bemoans democracy. Presumably the qualification for being a 'weakling' is shortage of money. How strong are the scions of the aristocrats? |
139 | A good person is bound to act well, and this brings happiness [Plato] |
Full Idea: A good person is bound to do whatever he does well and successfully, and success brings fulfilment and happiness. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 507c) | |
A reaction: Not how we would see it, I guess, but this is the Greek idea that a good person is one who functions well. Anyone who functions well is probably having a good time. |
128 | Is it natural to simply indulge our selfish desires? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: Nature says the only authentic way of life is to do nothing to hinder or restrain the expansion of one's desires. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 491e) | |
A reaction: Sounds like the natural desires of a young single man. Parents and spouses have natural desires that focus on other people's desires. |
136 | Good should be the aim of pleasant activity, not the other way round [Plato] |
Full Idea: Good should be the goal of pleasant activities, rather than pleasure being the goal of good activities. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 500a) | |
A reaction: Nice. Not far off what Aristotle says on the topic. So what activities should we seek out? Narrow the pleasures down to the good ones, or narrow the good ones down to the pleasurable? |
4322 | In slaking our thirst the goodness of the action and the pleasure are clearly separate [Plato] |
Full Idea: When we drink to quench thirst, we lose the distress of the thirst and the pleasure of drinking at the same moment, but one loss is good and the other bad, so the pleasure and the goodness must be separate. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 497d) | |
A reaction: This is open to the objection that the good of slaking one's thirst is a long-term pleasure, where the drinking is short-term, so pleasure is still the good. |
134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
Full Idea: There is little to tell between good and bad people (e.g. cowards) in terms of how much pleasure and distress they experience. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 498c) | |
A reaction: A very perceptive remark. If the good are people with empathy for others, then they may suffer more distress than the insensitive wicked. |
4319 | In a fool's mind desire is like a leaky jar, insatiable in its desires, and order and contentment are better [Plato] |
Full Idea: In a fool's mind desire is a leaky jar, …which is an analogy for the mind's insatiability, showing we should prefer an orderly life, in which one is content with whatever is to hand, to a self-indulgent life of insatiable desire. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 493b) | |
A reaction: This points to an interesting paradox, that pleasure requires the misery of desire. And yet absence of desire is like death. An Aristotelian mean, of living according to nature, seems the escape route. |
132 | If happiness is the satisfaction of desires, then a life of scratching itches should be happiness [Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates: I want to ask whether a lifetime spent scratching, itching and scratching, no end of scratching, is also a life of happiness. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 494c) | |
A reaction: There are plenty of people who think 'fun' is the main aim of life, and who fit what Socrates is referring to. We don't admire such a life, but not many people can be admired. |
130 | Is the happiest state one of sensual, self-indulgent freedom? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: If a person has the means to live a life of sensual, self-indulgent freedom, there's no better or happier state of existence. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 492c) |
120 | Should we avoid evil because it will bring us bad consequences? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates: We should avoid doing wrong because of all the bad consequences it will bring us. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 480a) |
118 | I would rather be a victim of crime than a criminal [Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates: If I had to choose between doing wrong and having wrong done to me, I'd prefer the latter to the former. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 469c) | |
A reaction: cf Democritus 68B45 |
140 | Self-indulgent desire makes friendship impossible, because it makes a person incapable of co-operation [Plato] |
Full Idea: Self-indulgent desire makes a person incapable of co-operation, which is a prerequisite of friendship. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 507e) |
131 | If absence of desire is happiness, then nothing is happier than a stone or a corpse [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: If people who need nothing are happy, there would be nothing happier than a stone or a corpse. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 492e) | |
A reaction: We aren't really supposed to approve of Callicles, but to me this is a splendidly crushing western response to many of the ideals found in eastern philosophy. |
119 | A criminal is worse off if he avoids punishment [Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates: A criminal is worse off if he doesn't pay the penalty, and continues to do wrong without getting punished. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 472e) |
129 | Do most people praise self-discipline and justice because they are too timid to gain their own pleasure? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: Why do most people praise self-discipline and justice? Because their own timidity makes them incapable of satisfying their pleasures. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 492a) |
4320 | The popular view is that health is first, good looks second, and honest wealth third [Plato] |
Full Idea: I'm sure you know the list of human advantages in the party song: 'The very best is health, Second good looks, and third honest wealth'. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 451e) | |
A reaction: This invites the obvious question of why anyone wants these three things, with the implied answer of 'pleasure'. But we might want them even if we couldn't use them, implying pluralism. |
137 | As with other things, a good state is organised and orderly [Plato] |
Full Idea: As in every case (an artefact, a body, a mind, a creature), a good state is an organised and orderly state. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 506e) |
141 | A good citizen won't be passive, but will redirect the needs of the state [Plato] |
Full Idea: The only responsibility of a good member of a community is altering the community's needs rather than going along with them. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 517b) |
123 | Do most people like equality because they are second-rate? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: It's because most people are second-rate that they are happy for things to be distributed equally. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483c) |
124 | Does nature imply that it is right for better people to have greater benefits? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Callicles: We only have to look at nature to find evidence that it is right for better to have a greater share than worse. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 483d) |