Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Symposium', 'Hippocrates of Cos on the mind' and 'Implications'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 6. Deconstruction
Deconstructing philosophy gives the history of concepts, and the repressions behind them [Derrida]
     Full Idea: To 'deconstruct' philosophy would be to think the structured genealogy of philosophy's concepts, but at the same time determine what this history has been able to dissimulate or forbid, making itself into history by this motivated repression.
     From: Jacques Derrida (Implications [1967], p.5)
     A reaction: All of this type of philosophy is motivated by what I think of as (I'm afraid!) a rather adolescent belief that we are all being 'repressed', and that somehow, if we think hard enough, we can all become 'free', and then everything will be fine.
The movement of 'différance' is the root of all the oppositional concepts in our language [Derrida]
     Full Idea: The movement of 'différance', as that which produces different things, that which differentiates, is the common root of all the oppositional concepts that mark our language, such as sensible/intelligible, intuition/signification, nature/culture etc.
     From: Jacques Derrida (Implications [1967], p.7)
     A reaction: 'Différance' is a word coined by Derrida, and his most famous concept. At first glance, the concept of a thing which is the source of all differentiation sounds like a fiction.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates]
     Full Idea: Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pains, griefs and tears.
     From: Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos on the mind [c.430 BCE], p.32)
     A reaction: If this could be assertedly so confidently at that date, why was the fact so slow to catch on? Brain injuries should have convinced everyone.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / h. Fine deeds
Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon]
     Full Idea: Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'.
     From: Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5)
     A reaction: This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue