59 ideas
| 19635 | Hegel produced modern optimism; he failed to grasp that consciousness never progresses [Hegel, by Cioran] |
| 8215 | Hegel was the last philosopher of the Book [Hegel, by Derrida] |
| 6211 | Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly [Hobbes] |
| 16011 | Hegel doesn't storm the heavens like the giants, but works his way up by syllogisms [Kierkegaard on Hegel] |
| 5433 | For Hegel, things are incomplete, and contain external references in their own nature [Hegel, by Russell] |
| 3301 | On the continent it is generally believed that metaphysics died with Hegel [Benardete,JA on Hegel] |
| 19917 | Without reason and human help, human life is misery [Spinoza] |
| 19661 | Making sufficient reason an absolute devalues the principle of non-contradiction [Hegel, by Meillassoux] |
| 20952 | Rather than in three stages, Hegel presented his dialectic as 'negation of the negation' [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 21777 | Negation of negation doubles back into a self-relationship [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 5645 | The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 5646 | Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 21755 | For Hegel, categories shift their form in the course of history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21754 | Our concepts and categories disclose the world, because we are part of the world [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 22079 | Hegel said Kant's fixed categories actually vary with culture and era [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 9225 | Hegel reputedly claimed to know a priori that there are five planets [Hegel, by Field,H] |
| 19922 | People are only free if they are guided entirely by reason [Spinoza] |
| 6213 | A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd [Hobbes] |
| 6208 | Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes] |
| 6209 | There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us [Hobbes] |
| 6210 | Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes] |
| 21758 | Humans have no fixed identity, but produce and reveal their shifting identity in history [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 19935 | Peoples are created by individuals, not by nature, and only distinguished by language and law [Spinoza] |
| 20414 | Hegel's Absolute Spirit is the union of human rational activity at a moment, and whatever that sustains [Hegel, by Eldridge] |
| 19914 | In nature everything has an absolute right to do anything it is capable of doing [Spinoza] |
| 19915 | Natural rights are determined by desire and power, not by reason [Spinoza] |
| 7487 | Society exists to extend human awareness [Spinoza, by Watson] |
| 19943 | The state aims to allow personal development, so its main purpose is freedom [Spinoza] |
| 19930 | Sovereignty must include the power to make people submit to it [Spinoza] |
| 3909 | Society isn’t founded on a contract, since contracts presuppose a society [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 19936 | Kings tend to fight wars for glory, rather than for peace and liberty [Spinoza] |
| 19940 | Deposing a monarch is dangerous, because the people are used to royal authority [Spinoza] |
| 19937 | Monarchs are always proud, and can't back down [Spinoza] |
| 19931 | Every state is more frightened of its own citizens than of external enemies [Spinoza] |
| 19920 | Democracy is a legitimate gathering of people who do whatever they can do [Spinoza] |
| 19938 | Allowing religious ministers any control of the state is bad for both parties [Spinoza] |
| 19933 | If religion is law, then piety is justice, impiety is crime, and non-believers must leave [Spinoza] |
| 19923 | Slavery is not just obedience, but acting only in the interests of the master [Spinoza] |
| 19939 | Government is oppressive if opinions can be crimes, because people can't give them up [Spinoza] |
| 19944 | Without liberty of thought there is no trust in the state, and corruption follows [Spinoza] |
| 19942 | Treason may be committed as much by words as by deeds [Spinoza] |
| 19924 | The freest state is a rational one, where people can submit themselves to reason [Spinoza] |
| 7827 | Spinoza wanted democracy based on individual rights, and is thus the first modern political philosopher [Stewart,M on Spinoza] |
| 19926 | The sovereignty has absolute power over citizens [Spinoza] |
| 19918 | Forming a society meant following reason, and giving up dangerous appetites and mutual harm [Spinoza] |
| 19919 | People only give up their rights, and keep promises, if they hope for some greater good [Spinoza] |
| 19921 | Once you have given up your rights, there is no going back [Spinoza] |
| 19925 | In democracy we don't abandon our rights, but transfer them to the majority of us [Spinoza] |
| 19928 | No one, in giving up their power and right, ceases to be a human being [Spinoza] |
| 19929 | Everyone who gives up their rights must fear the recipients of them [Spinoza] |
| 19932 | The early Hebrews, following Moses, gave up their rights to God alone [Spinoza] |
| 19916 | The order of nature does not prohibit anything, and allows whatever appetite produces [Spinoza] |
| 19927 | State and religious law can clash, so the state must make decisions about religion [Spinoza] |
| 6212 | Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others [Hobbes] |
| 4347 | When man wills the natural, it is no longer natural [Hegel] |
| 4188 | Hegel's entire philosophy is nothing but a monstrous amplification of the ontological proof [Schopenhauer on Hegel] |
| 19934 | Hebrews were very hostile to other states, who had not given up their rights to God [Spinoza] |
| 6686 | Hegel said he was offering an encyclopaedic rationalisation of Christianity [Hegel, by Graham] |
| 4300 | The Bible has nothing in common with reasoning and philosophy [Spinoza] |