Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Maxims and Reflections' and 'Shame and Necessity'

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19 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
Many people imagine that to experience is to understand [Goethe]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 3. Subjectivism
Man never understands how anthropomorphic he is [Goethe]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self
We gain self-knowledge through action, not thought - especially when doing our duty [Goethe]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide [Williams,B]
There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened [Williams,B]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
We judge weakness of will by an assessment after the event is concluded [Williams,B, by Cottingham]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 4. Responsibility for Actions
Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event [Williams,B]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty
Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws [Goethe]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent [Williams,B]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
The happiest people link the beginning and end of life [Goethe]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / a. Nature of virtue
Greek moral progress came when 'virtue' was freed from social status [Williams,B]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 2. Duty
The modern idea of duty is unknown in archaic Greece [Williams,B]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 6. Motivation for Duty
If the moral self is seen as characterless, then other people have a very limited role in our moral lives [Williams,B]
If reason cannot lead people to good, we must hope they have an internal voice [Williams,B]
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
The best form of government teaches us to govern ourselves [Goethe]
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
To get duties from people without rights, you must pay them well [Goethe]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B]