Summary Notes on Philosophers Flashcards
Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
German 19th century philosopher
Lived alone and followed a set routine every day. Up at seven, bath, coffee, write till midday, flute practice, lunch at the inn, read at home till four, daily walk, library, concert or theatre, then home early to bed. He carried this out for 27 years.
Great work: The World as Will and Representation
Interested in Buddhism: his work is a Western interpretation of the this enlightened pessimism. A reaction to the hopeless cycle of wanting things.
Gripped by the misery of life from a young age
Will-to-Life - constant force which makes us focus on sex. It’s underlying project is to have children. Intellect remains excluded from the secret decisions of its own will.
To lead a happy and considered life we should use our intellect to rise above our instincts. We must take back authorship of our narratives.
We could never reproduce if we had not ‘lost our minds’.
“Love is a trick of nature designed to ensure the reproduction of the species. Any higher feelings are illusory.”
Deeply resented infatuations and crushes.
His theory of attraction says we pick the wrong partners
“Directly after copulation the devil’s laughter is heard’
Comically gloomy re human nature - we do not exist to be happy. Every life history is the history of suffering. It would have been better not to have been born. Life has no intrinsic worth, but is kept in motion merely by want and illusion.
Looked on ultimate reality as perfectly revolting. The world of nature is a world of perpetual screaming.
2 solutions to problems of existence:
1/ Become a monk or what he calls a ‘sage’: overcome desires, live alone, never marry, and quell appetite for fame and status
2/ Spend as long as you can with art and philosophy (aesthetic contemplation) - try to look at life without illusion. Experiences that make life bearable mostly come from art. Art provides a still point so that, for a short time, we can escape the endless cycle of striving and desire. Music is the best art form for this. He ascribed far more importance to leisure time than work. This is where our sense of self-worth should originate.
His work is deeply consoling in its morbid pessimism. Nietzsche never ceased to admire him. Freud also influenced by him in 2 ways: 1/ Notion of the unconscious 2/ Omnipresence of sexual motivation.
Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
German 19th century philosopher
First philosopher to face up to Western man’s loss of faith in religion. ‘God is Dead’. Not a celebration. The gap must be replaced with culture
Deeply influenced by the ideas of Schopenhauer
Central task of philosophy was to teach us how to ‘become who we are’.
Tragedy of Ancient Greece was the HIGHEST form of art (he wrote Birth of Tragedy under spell of Schopenhauer). A way of facing the worst aspects of human life, its transitoriness (short-lived), its impermanence, its corruptness, its dependence upon forces greater than ourselves. The art form transcended the pessimism and nihilism of a fundamentally meaningless world. Greek tragedy declined when rationalism became dominant in Athens. Implacably hostile towards Socrates. Never forgave Plato for setting up a ‘hero’.
Art-obsessed - the function of art, music and theatre was to give us a hint of a truth: the world was chaotic and meaningless.
2 Gods representing metaphysical truths: Apollo (reason, rationality, calm) vs Dionysus (instinct, emotion, passion, chaos)
Eternal recurrence - a concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur infinitely (The Gay Science)
The Genealogy of Morals: examines humankind’s transformation from barbarous creatures into civilised beings who feel compassion, but deny instinct and freedom. If human values are ‘made by us’ and not derived from God, the question of how we get them becomes of fundamental importance. A guilty conscience and perpetual self-loathing is the price we pay for becoming civilised.
Nietzsche (Part 2)
Claims that weak people had to invent God so they could believe their suffering meant something. He wants to recalibrate the meaning of suffering.
Resented Christianity - ‘The one great curse, the one intrinsic depravity. It’s an attack on Christianity rather than on Christ. Hypocritical creed denouncing what weak people really wanted. Giant justification for passivity and draining life of its potential.
Never drank alcohol - it numbed pain.
Criticism of German idealism - fails to take account of the unconscious drives which determine our actions to build a civilisation on their suppression. Very close to the Freud (1856-1939) of Civilisation and its Discontents.
We’ve lost belief in the very foundations of our value system (God). We’ve failed to live up to this fact. It makes our lives and us inauthentic.
Whereas Schopenhauer regarded the Will as the source of all evil in the world, and man’s unhappiness, Nietzsche regarded it as the origin and source of man’s strength.
Ubermensch (Superman) - much misunderstood concept; it’s abuse buy the Nazis is one example. He was trying to get at notion of an unrepressed man, uninhibited, untrammelled and free-spirited - not living his life according to FALSE values.
The Socratic/Christian worldview is a dangerous fantasy because they tell big wholesale lies to make the inconvenient truth more palatable.
We must own up to envy to become conscious of our true potential.
The Stoics
Stoicism: a philosophy that flourished for 400 years in ancient Greece/Rome: to teach people how to be calm and brave in the face of overwhelming anxiety and pain.
Founded by Zeno of Cilium.
3 figures stand out: Roman politician Seneca (4 BC - AD65), Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) and Roman slave Epictetus (AD 50-135)
Can help us address 4 particular problems:
1/ Anxiety - to regain calm, we must systematically and intelligently crush every last vestige of hope. Come to terms with very worst possibilities and realise: WE WILL COPE. Assume the worst is going to happen. ‘Mortals have you been born, to mortals you have given birth. Reckon on everything, expect everything’ Seneca
Stoicism is nothing less than an elegant, intelligent dress rehearsal for catastrophe.
2/ Fury - anger is a dangerous indulgence. Caused by the violent collision of hope and reality. To be calmer, we must EXPECT FAR LESS from life. The wise person aims for a state where nothing could disturb their state of mind.
3/ Paranoia - easy to think we’ve been singled out for terrible things. Stoics thought that the Roman Goddess of fortune Fortuna, was the perfect metaphor for destiny. She was a terrifying mixture of the generous and the randomly wilful and spiteful. She was no meritocrat. Urgent priority for a Stoic to respect how much of life is in the hands of this demented character. ‘There is nothing which Fortune does not dare’ warned Seneca.
This should make us both suspicious of success and gentle around failure. Our grip on the gifts of fortune must be at all times light and deeply wary.
4/ Loss of perspective - we naturally exaggerate our own importance. We must regularly be reduced in our own eyes. Stoics were keen astronomers and recommended the contemplation of the heavens. Against such a backdrop, we realise that none of our troubles or hopes have any relevance / or is of any consequence whatsoever from the cosmic perspective.
‘Look at your wrists. There - at any time - lies freedom.’
Epicurus (341 - 270 BC)
Focussed on happiness. He said it was a question of tranquillity. Epicureans lived a simple, ascetic life. He had a prolific literary output but did not share Aristotle’s vision of transforming society. He chose to opt out, the ‘Garden’ becoming a prototype for the 1960s hippie communes.
He said we make 3 mistakes:
1/ We think we need romantic relationships. People are obsessed with love. Happiness and love (let alone marriage) rarely go together. Too much jealousy and bitterness. Friendships are far more rewarding: we are polite, we seek agreement, we don’t scold and we are not too possessive.
2/ We think we need lots of money - people are motivated by a desire for applause. What makes work really satisfying is when it is meaningful.
3/ We put too much faith in luxury - he disagreed with our longings. We really just want calm. Calm is an internal quality that is the result of analysis. We need ample time to read, to write and benefit from the support of a good listener.
Karl Marx did his Phd thesis on Epicurus and thought of him as his favourite philosopher. What we call communism is at heart just a bigger - and rather more authoritarian and joyless - version of Epicureanism.
Advertising functions on cleverly muddling people up about what they think they need to be happy. Adverts focus on the very things Epicurus identified as false lures of happiness: romantic love, professional status and luxury.
Epicurus invites us to change our understanding of ourselves and to alter society accordingly.
Plato (428BC to 348BC)
Arguably world’s greatest philosopher. Devoted life to one goal: help people reach EUDAIMONIA (fulfilment). 4 central ideas stand out:
1/ Think harder - Common sense or what the Greeks called ‘dosa’ is riddled with errors, prejudice and superstition. Popular ideas about love, fame and money don’t stand up to reason. Freud happily acknowledged that Plato was the inventor of therapy (we must submit our thoughts/feelings to reason). Essence of philosophy came down to his command to ‘know yourself’.
2/ Love more wisely - his book, the Symposium, is an attempt to explain what love really is. In Plato’s eyes, love is an education: you couldn’t really love someone if you didn’t want to be improved by them. We must enter relationships in a far less combative and proud way. Love should be two people trying to grow together.
3/ The importance of beauty - it really matters what sorts of houses or temples or sculptures you have around you. We get moved and excited when we find in objects the qualities we need but are missing in our lives. Beauty can educate our souls. He sees art as therapeutic: it is the duty of poets and painters to help us lead good lives.
4/ Changing society - he was the world’s first utopian thinker. In his book, the Republic, he identified a number of changes that should be made:
a) We need new heroes - not necessarily the rich or sports celebrities but those distinguished by public service, modesty and simple habits
b) We need censorship - no free-for-all for the worst opinion sellers and crazy religious notions. We must limit the activities of dangerous preachers.
c) We need better education - we must reform the curriculum: how to be good, courage, self-control, independence and calm. He founded the The Academy in Athens.
d) We need better childhoods - many children would be better off if they take their vision of life - not from parents - but from wise guardians (paid for by the state).
Aristotle (384 - 322BC)
Tutor to Alexander the Great
For him, philosophy was about practical wisdom. Here are 4 questions he answered:
1/ What makes people happy?
In the Nicomachean Ethics, he suggested that good, successful people all possess distinct virtues. Every virtue is in the middle of 2 vices. e.g.buffoonery (carry humour to excess), wit (humorous but tactful) and boorishness (contributes nothing and takes offence at everything). See Table of Virtues and Vices
2/ What is art for?
Blockbuster art at the time was tragedy. What is tragedy for? Catharsis says Aristotle. It’s a kind of cleaning: you get rid of the bad stuff. Tragedy reminds us that terrible things can befall decent people, including ourselves. We should have more compassion/pity for those whose actions go disastrously wrong. The task of art is to make profound truths about life stick in our minds.
Claimed that virtue and moral judgement are not abstract knowledge, but practical skills learnt through example and practice. ‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer’ - this comes from Aristotle’s book Nicomachean Ethics. He is making the point that a few moments of pleasure don’t add up to true happiness.
Plato would have been content to philosophise from an armchair; but Aristotle wanted to explore the reality we experience through the senses. He rejected his teacher’s Theory of Forms, believing instead that the way to understand any general category was to examine particular examples of it.
The Greek word he used was ‘eudaemonia’, sometimes translated as ‘flourishing’ or ‘success’ rather than ‘happiness’. The central question is :’What can we do to increase our chance of eudaemonia?’ Aristotle’s answer was to ‘Develop the right kind of character’. The best way to develop good habits is to practise from an early age.
Instead of looking to increase our pleasure in life, we should try to become better people and do the right thing. This is what makes a life go well.
Aristotle was not just interested in individual personal development. Human beings are political animals, he argued. We need a system of justice to cope with the darker side of our nature.
Thomas Hobbes (1588 to 1679)
Died at 91 (when average life expectancy was 35). Had a low view of human beings. English Civil War (1642-51) - a series of armed conflicts between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers) over how to govern - coloured all his subsequent thinking. Led to deaths of some 200,000 people.
Leviathan was published in 1651 - an eloquent statement of why one should obey government authority, even of a very imperfect kind, in order to avoid risk of chaos and bloodshed. For centuries, the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ had been the answer to this.
Hobbes thought this theory was nonsense. He was privately an atheist and materialist (no soul)
His solution was for individuals to enter into a ‘social contract’, an agreement to give up some of their dangerous freedoms for the sake of safety. Without a ‘sovereign’, life would be a kind of hell. Laws are no good if there is not someone strong enough to make everyone follow them.
In Leviathan, he argued that we should marry social contract theory with a defence of total obedience and submission to traditional authority. He took his readers back to the ‘state of nature’ - humans were cold machines and left to own devices would descend into fighting and war. Out of fear and dread of chaos, governments were formed.
Thomas Hobbes (Part 2)
The only right people have to protest about an absolute ruler or ‘Leviathan’ was if he directly threatened to kill them.
Even if the ruler stifled opposition, imposed onerous taxes and crippled the economy, people would still have a duty to obey. ‘Human affairs cannot be without some inconvenience.’ This inconvenience is the fault of the people, not the sovereign because: ‘if men could rule themselves there would be no need for a common coercive power’.
Hobbes’s theory was dark, cautious and not especially hopeful about government. He maintained in the preface to Leviathan, that he felt compelled: to set before men’s eyes the mutual relation between protection and obedience.
Critics of Hobbes think he went too far in allowing the sovereign to have such power over individuals. The state is an authoritarian one: one in which the sovereign has unlimited powers over citizens. He did not believe in democracy.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778)
Prepared to vigorously question the ‘Idea of Progress’. It struck him that civilisation and progress had not in fact improved people. He offered a scathing critique of modern society that challenged the central precepts of Enlightenment thought: individuals had once been good and happy, but as man emerged from his pre-social state, he had become plagued by vice and reduced to pauperism (poverty).
In Rousseau’s ‘state of nature’, in stark contrast to Hobbes, the philosopher pictured people more easily understanding their own minds, and being drawn towards features of a satisfied life: a love of family, a respect for nature, an awe at the beauty of the Universe. The state of nature was moral, guided by pity for others and their suffering. It was from this state that modern commercial ‘civilisation’ has pulled us.
The root of his hostility was his claim that the march towards civilisation had awakened in man a form of ‘self-love’ or amour-propre - that was artificial and centred on pride, jealousy and vanity. People begun to look to others in order to glean their very sense of self. Civilised people began entering into ruinous competition for status and money.
In our own age, Rousseau’s musings continue to reverberate. He encourages us to sidestep jealousy and competition and instead look solely to ourselves in identifying our self-worth.
It is only by resisting the evil of comparison, that we can avoid feelings of misery and inadequacy.
Rousseau (continued)
David Hume (1711 - 1776) invited Rousseau to London.
Catholic Church banned several of Rousseau’s books as they contained unconventional religious ideas.
‘Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains,’ he declared at the beginning of his book, the Social Contract.
According to Rousseau, human beings are naturally good. Take us out of the ‘state of nature’, put us in cities and things start to go wrong. We become obsessed with trying to get other people’s attention.
This competitive approach to life has terrible psychological effects - invention of money makes it far worse.
Envy and greed were the result of living together in cities.
Problem he set himself in the Social Contract was to find a way for people to live together that allows everyone to be free, while still obeying state laws. His solution was based on the idea of the General Will.
General Will is whatever is best for the whole community/state. Ideas of freedom and obedience can combine. The General Will is what people in society (as a group) OUGHT to want, not just each person thinking selfishly i.e. taxes should be high enough to provide a good level of services to all. He famously declared that if someone failed to recognise that obeying a law was in the interest of the community, they should be ‘forced to be free’. Later thinkers, including John Stuart Mill argued that political freedom should be freedom for the individual to make his own choices as far as possible.
