What is history part II
To add to the what is history post
Isaiah Berlin left philosophy to be a"historian of ideas" to use his words (these thoughts came from a review in the New York Review of Books, see citation below). He was more interested in how ideas can relate to the human good. Not ideas for ideas sake. Kind of like Socrates who said that philosophy is a way of life (and Montaigne echoed when he said, philosophy is learning how to live). Berlin was looking at work that seemed to ask, what are knowledge and science good for? What role can they play in the lives we actually live, rather than the imagined lives? Very related to Margaret Fuller attempting to parse out the lived world and the world that should be and how to bridge the gap between them.
One of the questions he asked is, " can whole societies . . . Live with uncertainty about ultimate matters?" A very pressing question that seems to be emphatically answered again and again, "no!" But can they learn to do so more than they currently do? Can they move towards uncertainty instead of away? And, how can books and reading and ideas helps them to do so instead of encouraging them to reject the process all together?
A wonderful list of questions on this review, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/apr/25/isaiah-berlin-against-current/
Fantastic quote from Proust
"As soon as I read an author, I quickly made out beneath the words a kind of tune that in each author is different from that of others, and without realizing it I began to “sing along,” speeding or slowing or interrupting the notes as I read, marking their measures and returns as one does when singing, and waiting a certain time, depending on the song’s pace, before finally uttering the end of a word…. And I think that the boy in me who amused himself this way must be the same one who has a sensitive and accurate ear for hearing the subtle harmony that others don’t hear between two impressions or ideas."
Lilla, the author of the review states,
"By making the question What can we know? paramount, they suppressed the more unsettling one, Why and what should we want to know?"
Another quote from Lilla
"One of the guilty pleasures of reading Plato comes from recognizing human types who claim to want truth, when all they really are after is comfort or recognition or domination or revenge or support for their moral and political prejudices. And the discomfort experienced in reading about them is that you occasionally run across yourself. The dialogues force anyone who thinks he cares about philosophy to take a look in the mirror and ask, et tu?"
Isaiah Berlin left philosophy to be a"historian of ideas" to use his words (these thoughts came from a review in the New York Review of Books, see citation below). He was more interested in how ideas can relate to the human good. Not ideas for ideas sake. Kind of like Socrates who said that philosophy is a way of life (and Montaigne echoed when he said, philosophy is learning how to live). Berlin was looking at work that seemed to ask, what are knowledge and science good for? What role can they play in the lives we actually live, rather than the imagined lives? Very related to Margaret Fuller attempting to parse out the lived world and the world that should be and how to bridge the gap between them.
One of the questions he asked is, " can whole societies . . . Live with uncertainty about ultimate matters?" A very pressing question that seems to be emphatically answered again and again, "no!" But can they learn to do so more than they currently do? Can they move towards uncertainty instead of away? And, how can books and reading and ideas helps them to do so instead of encouraging them to reject the process all together?
A wonderful list of questions on this review, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/apr/25/isaiah-berlin-against-current/
Fantastic quote from Proust
"As soon as I read an author, I quickly made out beneath the words a kind of tune that in each author is different from that of others, and without realizing it I began to “sing along,” speeding or slowing or interrupting the notes as I read, marking their measures and returns as one does when singing, and waiting a certain time, depending on the song’s pace, before finally uttering the end of a word…. And I think that the boy in me who amused himself this way must be the same one who has a sensitive and accurate ear for hearing the subtle harmony that others don’t hear between two impressions or ideas."
Lilla, the author of the review states,
"By making the question What can we know? paramount, they suppressed the more unsettling one, Why and what should we want to know?"
Another quote from Lilla
"One of the guilty pleasures of reading Plato comes from recognizing human types who claim to want truth, when all they really are after is comfort or recognition or domination or revenge or support for their moral and political prejudices. And the discomfort experienced in reading about them is that you occasionally run across yourself. The dialogues force anyone who thinks he cares about philosophy to take a look in the mirror and ask, et tu?"
In The Information, Glick argues that Plato doubted our ("everyman's") ability to categorize and thus to abstract and philosophize. But, Plato seemed to conflate Truth with Categories in an absolute sense. Beauty is a form--a "real" thing, though abstract. But doesn't Socrates constantly battle the notion that such truths exist? Or in this situation are they different kinds of truths? Because the people who hang onto truths seem to be supported in their myopic and unwavering views by the notion of categorization--as if they are stumped there and can't think beyond it. So maybe people can categorize, they just can't do much else after that?
Good definition of traditional conservativism
society is an inheritance “best passed on implicitly through slow changes in custom and tradition, not through explicit political action", corey robin quoting mark lilla
Sent from my iPad
Good definition of traditional conservativism
society is an inheritance “best passed on implicitly through slow changes in custom and tradition, not through explicit political action", corey robin quoting mark lilla
Sent from my iPad
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