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23531
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Philosophers should interpret the world, by expressing its possibilities [Berardi]
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Full Idea:
The philosopher's task is to interpret the world, that is, to capture its tendency and above all to enunciate the possibilities inscribed therein. …The politician's eye does not see the possible, being attracted instead by the probable.
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From:
Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], How to)
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A reaction:
An inspiring idea! He is rejecting Marx's aim of changing the world, which had 'catastrophic' results. But I love his view of interpretation as spotting tendencies and possibilities. This fits my preferred ontology of dispositions and powers.
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14629
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If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary [Blackburn]
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Full Idea:
If we ask why A must be the case, and A is then proved from B, that explains it if B must be so. If the eventual source cites some truth F, then if F just is so, there is strong pressure to feel that the original necessity has not been explained.
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From:
Simon Blackburn (Morals and Modals [1987], 1)
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A reaction:
[compressed] Ross Cameron wrote a reply to this which I like. I'm fishing for the idea that essence is the source of necessity (as Kit Fine says), but that essence itself is not necessary (as only I say, apparently!).
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14529
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If something underlies a necessity, is that underlying thing necessary or contingent? [Blackburn, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
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Full Idea:
Blackburn asks of what theorists propose as underlying the necessity of a proposition, the question whether they themselves are conceived as obtaining of necessity or merely contingently.
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From:
report of Simon Blackburn (Morals and Modals [1987], p.120-1) by Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann - Introduction to 'Modality' 1
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A reaction:
I've seen a reply to this somewhere: I think the thought was that a necessity wouldn't be any less necessary if it had a contingent source, any more than the father of a world champion boxer has to be a world champion boxer.
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5845
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Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon]
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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'.
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From:
Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5)
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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
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23537
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American white men trusted the philosophy of winning, and then discovered losing [Berardi]
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Full Idea:
American white men trusted the promises of neoliberal selfishness, they trusted the philosophy of winning, then discovered losing.
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From:
Franco 'Bifo' Berardi (The Second Coming [2019], I 'Fascism')
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A reaction:
The most pernicious terminology in the English-speaking world is the labelling of people as 'winners' and 'losers'. We celebrate the one winner, and ignore everyone else. Celebrity, excessive wealth, honourable titles.
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