Philosophus dixit #15

Seventhly, language is often abused by figurative speech. Since wit and fancy find easier entertainment in the world than dry truth and real knowledge, figurative speeches and allusion in language will hardly be admitted as an imperfection or abuse of it. I confess, in discourses where we seek rather pleasure and delight than information and improvement, such ornaments as are borrowed from them can scarce pass for faults. But yet if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness; all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats: and therefore, however laudable or allowable oratory may render them in harangues and popular addresses, they are certainly, in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided; and where truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a great fault, either of the language or person that makes use of them.

(John Locke: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III, Chapter X, 34.)

Philosophus dixit #14

Das “Innere” ist eine Täuschung. D.h.: Der ganze Ideenkomplex, auf den mit diesem Wort angespielt wird, ist wie ein gemalter Vorhang vor die Szene der eigentlichen Wortverwendung gezogen.

(Ludwig Wittgenstein: Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie. Das Innere und das Äußere, hrsg. von G.H. von Wright und Heikki Nyman, Frankfurt am Main 1993, S.113.)

Philosophus dixit #13

Much of the appeal of the “method of [empathetic] understanding” seems to be due to the fact that it tends to present the phenomena in question as somehow “plausible” or “natural” to us; this is often done by means of attractively worded metaphors. But the kind of “understanding” thus conveyed must clearly be separated from scientific understanding. In history as anywhere else in empirical science, the explanation of a phenomenon consists in subsuming it under general empirical laws; and the criterion of its soundness is not whether it appeals to our imagination, whether it is presented in suggestive analogies, or is otherwise made to appear plausible – all this may occur in pseudo-explanations as well – but exclusively whether it rests on empirically well confirmed assumptions concerning initial conditions and general laws.

[aus: Carl G. Hempel: The Function of General Laws in History, in: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 39, No. 2 (1942), S.35-48, hier S.45.]

Philosophus dixit #12

Mathematik, Naturwissenschaft, Gesetze, Künste, selbst Moral etc. füllen die Seele noch nicht gänzlich aus; es bleibt immer noch ein Raum in ihr übrig, der für die bloße reine und speculative Vernunft abgestochen ist, und dessen Leere uns zwingt, in Fratzen oder Tändelwerk oder auch Schwärmerei dem Scheine nach Beschäftigung und Unterhaltung, im Grunde aber nur Zerstreuung zu suchen, um den beschwerlichen Ruf der Vernunft zu übertäuben, die ihrer Bestimmung gemäß etwas verlangt, was sie für sich selbst befriedige und nicht blos zum Behuf anderer Absichten oder zum Interesse der Neigungen in Geschäftigkeit versetze.

(Kant: Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, in: Ders, Werke in zwölf Bänden, hg. von Wilhelm Weischedel, Frankfurt am Main 1977, Bd. 5, S. 260f.)

Philosophus dixit #11

At a certain moment yesterday evening I coughed and at a certain moment yesterday I went to bed. It was therefore true on Saturday that on Sunday I would cough at the one moment and go to bed at the other. [...] But if it was true beforehand [...] that I was to cough and go to bed at those two moments on Sunday, 25 January 1953, then it was impossible for me not to do so.

(Gilbert Ryle: ‘It was to be’, in: Ders.: Dilemmas, Cambridge 1954, S.15)

Allen ein gutes Jahr 2013, auch wenn sich am Kommenden anscheinend nicht mehr viel ändern lässt!

Philosophus dixit #10

Der Gruß der Philosophen unter einander sollte sein: “Laß dir Zeit!”

(Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1984: Vermischte Bemerkungen, in: Ders.: Über Gewissheit [=Werkausgabe Bd.8], Frankfurt am Main,  S.563.)

Philosophus dixit #9

Eine der ersten Beschreibungen einer Massenhysterie:

WE may with good reason call every Passion Pannick which is rais’d in a Multitude, and convey’d by Aspect, or as it were by Contact, or Sympathy. Thus popular Fury may be call’d Pannick, when the Rage of the People, as we have sometimes known, has put them beyond themselves; especially where Religion has had to do. And in this state their very Looks are infectious. The Fury flies from Face to Face: and the Disease is no sooner seen than caught. Those who in a better Situation of Mind have seen a Multitude under the power of this Passion, have own’d that they saw in the Countenances of Men something more ghastly and terrible, than at other times is express’d on the most passionate occasions. Such force has Society in ill, as well as in good Passions: and so much stronger any Affection is for being social and communicative.

(Shaftesbury: A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, Sektion II. [erschienen 1708])

Philosophus dixit #8

Nachdem Ayn Rand in der letzten Zeit wieder viel Aufmerksamkeit bekam, hat es mich überrascht, ihren Namen in einem älteren Überblickstext über Formen der Ethik zu finden: in Peter Singers Artikel Ethics für die Encyclopaedia Britannica. Singer unterscheidet darin zwei Formen des Egoismus, einen nicht-ethischen individualistischen Egoismus und einen ethischen universellen Egoismus. (“Ethisch” heißt in diesem Zusammenhang nicht, dass Singer den Egoismus gutheißt, sondern hängt mit seinem “Ethik”-Begriff zusammen, der ethische Positionen an die Möglichkeit ihrer Universalisierbarkeit knüpft.) Den universalisierbaren Egoismus findet er am klarsten bei Rand ausgedrückt:

We can distinguish two forms of egoism. The individual egoist says, “Everyone should do what is in my interests.” This indeed is egoism, but it is incapable of being couched in a universalizable form, and so it is arguably not a form of ethical egoism. Nor is the individual egoist likely to be able to persuade others to follow a course of action that is so obviously designed to benefit only the person who is advocating it.

Universal egoism is based on the principle “Everyone should do what is in her or his own interests.” This principle is universalizable, since it contains no reference to any particular individual and it is clearly an ethical principle. Others may be disposed to accept it because it appears to offer them the surest possible way of furthering their own interests. Accordingly, this form of egoism is from time to time seized upon by some popular writer who proclaims it the obvious answer to all our ills and has no difficulty finding agreement from a segment of the general public. The U.S. writer Ayn Rand is perhaps the best 20th-century example. Rand’s version of egoism is expounded in the novel Atlas Shrugged (1957) by her hero, John Galt, and in The Virtue of Selfishness (1965), a collection of her essays. It is a confusing mixture of appeals to self-interest and suggestions that everyone will benefit from the liberation of the creative energy that will flow from unfettered self-interest. Overlaying all this is the idea that true self-interest cannot be served by stealing, cheating, or similarly antisocial conduct.

(Quelle: http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1985—-.htm)

Philosophus dixit #7

Das Lachen entsteht jedesmal aus nichts Anderm, als aus der plötzlich wahrgenommenen Inkongruenz zwischen einem Begriff und den realen Objekten, die durch ihn, in irgend einer Beziehung, gedacht worden waren, und es ist selbst eben nur der Ausdruck dieser Inkongruenz. Sie tritt oft dadurch hervor, daß zwei oder mehrere reale Objekte durch einen Begriff gedacht und seine Identität auf sie übertragen wird; darauf aber eine gänzliche Verschiedenheit derselben im Uebrigen es auffallend macht, daß der Begriff nur in einer einseitigen Rücksicht auf sie paßte. Eben so oft jedoch ist es ein einziges reales Objekt, dessen Inkongruenz zu dem Begriff, dem es einerseits mit Recht subsumirt worden, plötzlich fühlbar wird. Je richtiger nun einerseits die Subsumtion solcher Wirklichkeiten unter den Begriff ist, und je größer und greller andererseits ihre Unangemessenheit zu ihm, desto stärker ist die aus diesem Gegensatz entspringende Wirkung des Lächerlichen. Jedes Lachen also entsteht auf Anlaß einer paradoxen und daher unerwarteten Subsumtion; gleichviel ob diese durch Worte, oder Thaten sich ausspricht. Dies ist in der Kürze die richtige Erklärung des Lächerlichen.

(Schopenhauer, Arthur: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Erster Band, Erstes Buch, §13)

Philosophus dixit #6

[I]m Schlafe aber sind der Gute und der Schlechte am wenigsten zu erkennen. Daher auch das Sprichwort: Zwischen den Glücklichen und den Unglücklichen ist ihr halbes Leben lang kein Unterschied.

(Aristoteles: Nikomachische Ethik, Buch I, Kap. 13, 1102b)

Philosophus dixit #5

I said that deconstruction had found little appeal among professional philosophers. But there are some notable exceptions, much prized by deconstructionists. They tend to be ambiguous allies. One of these characterized Derrida as “the sort of philosopher who gives bullshit a bad name.” We cannot, of course, exclude the possibility that this may be an expression of praise in the deconstructionist vocabulary.

[John Searle: The Word Turned Upside Down [A Review of Jonathan Culler's On Deconstruction], in: New York Review of Books, Volume 30, Number 16 (October 27, 1983).]

Weiß zufällig jemand, wer dieser Philosoph war? Man findet im Netz leider ganz unterschiedliche Angaben.

Philosophus dixit #4

In past ages, these masses had no access to great works of art; music and painting and even books were the pleasures of the wealthy; it could be assumed that the poor and vulgar would enjoy art if they could have it. But now, since everybody can read, visit museums, and hear great music at least over the radio, the judgement of the masses on these things has become a reality, and has made it quite obvious that great art is not a direct sensuous pleasure.

(Susanne K. Langer 1969: Philosophy in a new Key. A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, 3. Auflage, Cambridge/MA, S.205.)

 

Philosophus dixit #3

Was haben Jimmy Carter, ein Shirt, der Mann zu meiner Rechten und Du, geneigter Leser, gemeinsam? Richtig, sie alle sind unvollständige Gegenstände und nicht absolut mit sich selbst identisch:

I do not deny that ontologically complete objects exist, and that the concept of absolute Leibnizian identity applies to them. But [...] the overwhelming majority of the objects actually referred to, objects such as Jimmy Carter, this shirt, the man on my right, etc., are not ontologically complete. The concept of identity which applies to them is not absolute identity.

(Eddy M. Zemach 1982: Schematic Objects and Relative Identity, in: Nous 16, S.295.)

Wieder was gelernt.

Philosophus dixit #2

“Frequently the meaning is buried so deeply that readers need a heidegger to get it out”.

(James O. Young über ein Buch von Keith Lehrer)

Philosophus dixit #1

A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative,’ is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.

(Roger Scruton: Modern Philosophy, Random House UK 2004, S.6.)