56 ideas
| 23064 | So-called wisdom is just pondering things instead of acting [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: What is known as 'wisdom' is ultimately only a perpetual 'thinking it over', i.e. non-action as first impulse. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
| A reaction: This may be how most people view wisdom. Wisdom is for the spectators, not the actors (perhaps). Wisdom needs a lot of thought, and I don't associate it with extremely active people. |
| 23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel - three enslavers of the mind. The worst form of despotism is the system, in philosophy and in everything. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 07) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite clear why intellectual 'despotism' is a dreadful crime. I revere Aristotle, partly because he is systematic, but I reject about 30% of what he says. Still, many people agree with this idea. |
| 6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Quine has aimed at a naturalistic and empirical world-view, and claims that first-order logic and set theory provide a framework sufficient for the articulation of our knowledge of the world. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.465 | |
| A reaction: Consequently he is fairly eliminativist about meaning and mental states, and does without universals in his metaphysics. An impressively puritanical enterprise, taking Ockham's Razor to the limit, but I find it hard to swallow. |
| 6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
| Full Idea: No enquiry is possible without some conceptual scheme, so we may as well retain and use the best one we know. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §01) | |
| A reaction: This remark leads to Davidson's splendid paper 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme'. Quine's remark raises the question of how we know which conceptual scheme is 'best'. |
| 23075 | A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Why embroider upon what excludes commentary? A text explained is not longer a text. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
| A reaction: I like that. I'm not a great fan of explicating texts, especially if they are literary, where the whole point is the primary experience, of a novel, poem or play. Philosophy is different, because that is a dialogue between writer and reader. |
| 15647 | Truth definitions don't produce a good theory, because they go beyond your current language [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: It is far from clear that a definition of truth can lead to a philosophically satisfactory theory of truth. Tarski's theorem on the undefinability of the truth predicate needs resources beyond those of the language for which it is being defined. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: The idea is that you need a 'metalanguage' for the definition. If I say 'p' is a true sentence in language 'L', I am not making that observation from within language L. The dream is a theory confined to the object language. |
| 15649 | In semantic theories of truth, the predicate is in an object-language, and the definition in a metalanguage [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: In semantic theories of truth (Tarski or Kripke), a truth predicate is defined for an object-language. This definition is carried out in a metalanguage, which is typically taken to include set theory or another strong theory or expressive language. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the metalanguage includes set theory because that connects it with mathematics, and enables it to be formally rigorous. Tarski showed, in his undefinability theorem, that the meta-language must have increased resources. |
| 15655 | Should axiomatic truth be 'conservative' - not proving anything apart from implications of the axioms? [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: If truth is not explanatory, truth axioms should not allow proof of new theorems not involving the truth predicate. It is hence said that axiomatic truth should be 'conservative' - not implying further sentences beyond what the axioms can prove. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] |
| 15654 | If truth is defined it can be eliminated, whereas axiomatic truth has various commitments [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: If truth can be explicitly defined, it can be eliminated, whereas an axiomatized notion of truth may bring all kinds of commitments. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: The general principle that anything which can be defined can be eliminated (in an abstract theory, presumably, not in nature!) raises interesting questions about how many true theories there are which are all equivalent to one another. |
| 15650 | Axiomatic theories of truth need a weak logical framework, and not a strong metatheory [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Axiomatic theories of truth can be presented within very weak logical frameworks which require very few resources, and avoid the need for a strong metalanguage and metatheory. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1) |
| 15648 | Instead of a truth definition, add a primitive truth predicate, and axioms for how it works [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: The axiomatic approach does not presuppose that truth can be defined. Instead, a formal language is expanded by a new primitive predicate of truth, and axioms for that predicate are then laid down. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: Idea 15647 explains why Halbach thinks the definition route is no good. |
| 15656 | Deflationists say truth merely serves to express infinite conjunctions [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: According to many deflationists, truth serves merely the purpose of expressing infinite conjunctions. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: That is, it asserts sentences that are too numerous to express individually. It also seems, on a deflationist view, to serve for anaphoric reference to sentences, such as 'what she just said is true'. |
| 15657 | To prove the consistency of set theory, we must go beyond set theory [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: The consistency of set theory cannot be established without assumptions transcending set theory. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 2.1) |
| 15652 | We can use truth instead of ontologically loaded second-order comprehension assumptions about properties [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: The reduction of 2nd-order theories (of properties or sets) to axiomatic theories of truth may be conceived as a form of reductive nominalism, replacing existence assumptions (for comprehension axioms) by ontologically innocent truth assumptions. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: I like this very much, as weeding properties out of logic (without weeding them out of the world). So-called properties in logic are too abundant, so there is a misfit with their role in science. |
| 23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Negation never proceeds from reasoning but from something much more obscure and old. Arguments come afterward, to justify and sustain it. Every no rises out of the blood. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears. In the Fregean era no one is allowed to talk about the origins of logical relations in the universal facts of physical existence. You can watch dogs saying no. |
| 15651 | Instead of saying x has a property, we can say a formula is true of x - as long as we have 'true' [Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Quantification over (certain) properties can be mimicked in a language with a truth predicate by quantifying over formulas. Instead of saying that Tom has the property of being a poor philosopher, we can say 'x is a poor philosopher' is true of Tom. | |
| From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: I love this, and think it is very important. He talks of 'mimicking' properties, but I see it as philosophers mistakenly attributing properties, when actually what they were doing is asserting truths involving certain predicates. |
| 12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
| Full Idea: By certain standardizations of phrasing the contexts that call for plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §19) | |
| A reaction: Laycock, who quotes this, calls it 'unduly optimistic', but I presume that it was the standard view of plural reference until Boolos raised the subject. |
| 17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The condition on an explication of number can be put succinctly: any progression will do nicely. Russell once held that one must also be able to measure multiplicity, but this was a mistake; any progression can be fitted to that further condition. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §54) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the strongest possible statement that the numbers are the ordinals, and the Peano Axioms will define them. The Fregean view that cardinality comes first is redundant. |
| 9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics, except for very trivial portions such as very elementary arithmetic, is irredeemably committed to quantification over abstract objects. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §55) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would say that we are no more committed to such things than actors in 'The Tempest' are committed to the existence of Prospero and Caliban (which is quite a strong commitment, actually). |
| 23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Whether it is spoken by a grocer or a philosopher, the word 'being', apparently so rich, so tempting, so charged with significance, in fact means nothing at all; incredible that a man in his right mind can use it on any occasion whatever. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12) | |
| A reaction: I entirely agree. It resembles the redundancy view of 'true' (with which I do not agree). |
| 23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: Does the same apply to realists? There are at least genuine arguments in both directions. Presumably the thought is that realists have something they care about, but true anti-realists don't. |
| 16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The quest of a simplest, clearest overall pattern of canonical notation is not to be distinguished from a quest of ultimate categories, a limning of the most general traits of reality. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §33) | |
| A reaction: I won't disagree, as long as we recognise that reality calls the shots, not the notation, and that even animals must have some sort of system of categories, achieved without 'notation'. |
| 15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The further a disposition is from those that can confidently be pinned on molecular structure or something comparably firm, the more our talk of it tends to depend on a vague factor of 'caeteris paribus' | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) | |
| A reaction: I approve of this. It is precisely the point of scientific essentialism, I take it. We are faced with innumerable uncertain dispositions, but once the underlying mechanisms are known, their role in nature becomes fairly precise. |
| 15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Quine claims that an unmanifested disposition is explicable in terms of an object having a structure similar to a structure of an object that has manifested the supposed disposition. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) by C.B. Martin - The Mind in Nature 07.4 | |
| A reaction: This is probably the best account available for the firm empiricist who denies modal features in the actual world. In other words, a disposition is the result of an induction, not a conditional statement. |
| 8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
| Full Idea: Quine is not an 'ostrich', because his strategy for dealing with property sentences is clear enough: all talk of attributes is to be dispensed with in favour of talk of eternal open sentences or talk of classes. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §43) by Michael Devitt - 'Ostrich Nominalism' or 'Mirage Realism'? p.100 | |
| A reaction: [See p.209 'Word and Object'] The proposal seems to be that a property like being-human (a category) would be dealt with by classes, and qualitative properties would be dealt with simply as predicates. I like the split, and the first half, not the second. |
| 8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Physical objects, conceived four-dimensionally in space-time, are not to be distinguished from events or concrete processes. Each comprises simply the content, however heterogeneous, of a portion of space-time, however disconnected and gerrymandered. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §36) | |
| A reaction: I very much like the suggestion that objects should be thought of as 'processes', but I dislike the idea that they can be gerrymandered. This is a refusal to cut nature at the joints (Idea 7953), which I find very counterintuitive. |
| 7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
| Full Idea: In a contest of sheer systematic utility to science, the notion of physical object still leads the field. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §48) | |
| A reaction: A delightful circumlocution from someone who seems terrified to assert that there just are objects. Not that I object to Quine's caution. It would be disturbing if his researches had revealed that we could manage without objects. But compare Idea 6124. |
| 8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Mathematicians are necessarily rational, and not necessarily two-legged; cyclists are the opposite. But what of an individual who counts among his eccentricities both mathematics and cycling? | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §41) | |
| A reaction: Quine's view is that the necessity (and essence) depends on how this eccentric is described. If he loses a leg, he must give up cycling; if he loses his rationality, he must give up the mathematics. Quine is wrong. |
| 12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Cyclists are not essentially two-legged (a one-legged cyclist exists, but can't cycle any more), and mathematicians are not essentially rational (as they can lose rationality and continue to exist, though unable to do mathematics). | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §41.5) by Baruch Brody - Identity and Essence 5.1 | |
| A reaction: Was Quine thinking of the nominal essence of this person - that 'cyclists' necessarily cylce, and 'mathematicians' necessarily do some maths? It is as bad to confuse 'necessary' with 'essential' as to confuse 'use' with 'mention'. |
| 17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
| Full Idea: For general terms write 'if Fx then Fy' and vice versa, and 'if Fxz then Fyz'..... The conjunction of all these is coextensive with 'x=y' if any formula constructible from the vocabulary is; and we can adopt that conjunction as our version of identity. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §47) | |
| A reaction: [first half compressed] The main rival views of equality are this and Wiggins (1980:199). Quine concedes that his account implies a modest version of the identity of indiscernibles. Wiggins says identity statements need a sortal. |
| 15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
| Full Idea: In its unquantified form 'If p then q' the indicative conditional is perhaps best represented as suffering a truth-value gap whenever its antecedent is false. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) | |
| A reaction: That is, the clear truth-functional reading of the conditional (favoured by Lewis, his pupil) is unacceptable. Quine favours the Edgington line, that we are only interested in situations where the antecedent might be true. |
| 15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The ordinary conditional loses its point when the truth value of its antecedent is known. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) | |
| A reaction: A beautifully simple point that reveals a lot about what conditionals are. |
| 15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The subjunctive conditional depends, like indirect quotation and more so, on a dramatic projection: we feign belief in the antececent and see how convincing we then find the consequent. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) | |
| A reaction: This seems accurate. It means that we are only interested in when the antecedent is true, and when it is false is irrelevant. |
| 15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The subjunctive conditional is seen at its most respectable in the disposition terms. ...The reason is that they are conceived as built-in, enduring structural traits. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) | |
| A reaction: Surprisingly, this is very sympathetic to a metaphysical view that seems a long way from Quine, since dispositions seem to invite commitment to modal features of reality. But the structural traits are not, of course, modal, in any way! |
| 15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The traits to suppose preserved in a counterfactual depend on sympathy for the fabulist's purpose. Compare 'If Caesar were in command, he would use the atom bomb', and 'If Caesar were in command, he would use catapults'. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be an important example for the Lewis approach, since you are asked to consider the 'nearest' possible world, but that will depend on context. |
| 15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The subjunctive conditional has no place in an austere canonical notation for science - but that ban is less restrictive than would at first appear. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §46) | |
| A reaction: Idea 15723 shows what he has in mind - that what science aims for is accounts of dispositional mechanisms, which then leave talk of other possible worlds (in Lewis style) as unnecessary. I may be with Quine one this one. |
| 23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 08) | |
| A reaction: Excellent! I cannot imagine studying anything at all in great depth without it resulting in a dwindling expectation of full understanding. Philosophy in spades, but also probably any topic in history. |
| 23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: To have opinions is inevitable, is natural; to have convictions is less so. Each time I meet someone who has convictions, I wonder what intellectual vice, what flaw has caused him to acquire such a thing. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 12) | |
| A reaction: 'The best lack all conviction/ While the worst are full of passionate intensity' (Yeats). I agree with this. Convictions are so often accompanied by anger. |
| 4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
| Full Idea: Duhem and Quine have maintained that it may be possible to develop two or more theories that are 1) internally consistent, 2) inconsistent with one another, and 3) perfectly consistent with all the data we can muster. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960]) by J Baggini / PS Fosl - The Philosopher's Toolkit §1.06 | |
| A reaction: Obviously this may be a contingent truth about our theories, but why not presume that this is because we are unable to collect the crucial data (e.g. about prehistoric biology), rather than denigrate the whole concept of a theory, and undermine science? |
| 23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: It is because of speech that men give the illusion of being free. If they did - without a word - what they do, we would take them for robots. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
| A reaction: Love this one. Though it might be said that the power of speech does add an extra dimension of freedom to an action, beyond what any animal could attain. I take the absolute idea of 'being free' to be nonsense. |
| 3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
| Full Idea: Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind Int.3 |
| 23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: If only we could reach back before the concept, could write on a level with the senses, record the infinitesimal variations of what we touch, do what a reptile would do if it were to set about writing! | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: A lovely thought. It is a huge effort for us to try to imagine a mental life without concepts. And then to express that mental life in words…..! |
| 3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of radical translation carries all the way in, as the thesis of the indeterminacy of radical interpretation of mental states and processes. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Daniel Dennett on himself p.239 | |
| A reaction: Strong scepticism seems wrong here. Davidson's account of charity in interpretation, and the role of truth, seems closer. |
| 6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The firmer the direct links of a sentence with non-verbal stimulation, the less drastically its translations can diverge from one another from manual to manual. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §07) | |
| A reaction: This implies (plausibly) that talk about farming will have fairly determinate translations into foreign languages, but talk of philosophy will not. An interesting case is logic, where we might expect tight translation with little non-verbal stimulation. |
| 6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
| Full Idea: There is no evident criterion whereby to strip extraneous effects away and leave just the meaning of 'Gavagai' properly so-called - whatever meaning properly so-called may be. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §09) | |
| A reaction: Quine's famous assertion that translation is ultimately 'indeterminate'. Huge doubts about meaning and language and truth follow from his claim. Personally I think it is rubbish. People become fluent in very foreign languages, and don't have breakdowns. |
| 6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Stimulus synonymy of the occasion sentences 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee that 'gavagai' and 'rabbit' are coextensive terms, terms true of the same things. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §12) | |
| A reaction: Since this scepticism eventually seems to result in the reader no longer knowing what they mean themselves by the word 'rabbit', I doubt Quine's claim. Problems after hearing one word of a foreign language disappear after years of residence. |
| 6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Rival systems of analytical hypotheses can fit the totality of speech behaviour to perfection, and can fit the totality of dispositions to speech behaviour as well, and still specify mutually incompatible translations of countless sentences. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §15) | |
| A reaction: This is Quine's final assertion of indeterminacy, having explored charity, bilingual speakers etc. It seems to me that he is a victim of his underlying anti-realism, which won't allow nature to dictate ways of cutting up the world. |
| 6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The more absurd or exotic the beliefs imputed to a people, the more suspicious we are entitled to be of the translations. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §15) | |
| A reaction: Quine is famous for his relativist and indeterminate account of translation, but he gradually works his way towards the common sense which Davidson later brought out into the open. |
| 6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Wanton translation can make natives sound as queer as one pleases; better translation imposes our logic upon them. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §13) | |
| A reaction: This begins to point towards the principle of charity, on which Davidson is so keen, and even on doubts whether two different conceptual schemes are possible. Personally I think there is only one logic (deep down), and the natives will have it. |
| 23071 | We could only be responsible if we had consented before birth to who we are [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: The problem of responsibility would have a meaning only if we had been consulted before our birth and had consented to be precisely who we are. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 06) | |
| A reaction: The question could still be asked retrospectively, like agreeing to be in an army into which you have been conscripted. People gripped by deeply anti-social desires would probably welcome the chance to become different. |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Moral disintegration when we spend time in a place that is too beautiful: the self dissolves upon contact with paradise. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 06) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure whether that is true, but it is worth thinking about the value of experiences which are overwhelming. |
| 23074 | In anxiety people cling to what reinforces it, because it is a deep need [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: In anxiety, a man clings to whatever can reinforce, can stimulate his providential discomfort: to try to cure him of it is to destroy his equilibrium, anxiety being the basis of his existence and his prosperity. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 09) | |
| A reaction: A report from the front line of the age of anxiety, on which I am not qualified to comment. I assume that some anxiety can be a good thing, like nerves before a public performance. |
| 23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Fear is the antidote to boredom: the remedy must be stronger than the disease. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 05) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that this is the motivation of people who indulge in dangerous sports. Maybe all that is need is something daunting, rather than frightening. |
| 23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
| A reaction: As Nietzsche would have pointed out, this came from a man who regularly wrote books. It is, though, certainly worth asking whether the way we fill our time is better than doing nothing. |
| 23067 | Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: A neat thought, but unlikely to be true for those who commit suicide, which presumably results from a sustained and apparently incurable situation. |
| 23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01) | |
| A reaction: Seems a bit harsh. There was evidently one aspect that was missing (knowledge), and he was surprised to find himself ejected for wanting it. Like a holiday in a Mediterranean hotel, with good food. |