idealism vs realism

Ironically, Kant's " idealism" is more empirically grounded than his "realism" which seems much more speculative, being, as it is, based on imagination.

More on this soon.

(Hist. of Philosophy, 3.27.06)

the purpose of it

Education makes me more conscious of everything around me and makes life richer.

(Hum class, Fall quarter)

selfishness/love

There is a place between sympathy and selfishness where you start to feel sorry for yourself because you're feeling sorry for someone else.

There is a place between remorse and selfishness where it starts to matter more that you're forgiven than that you're truly apologetic.

There is a place between regret and selfishness where you hold onto things you ought to go in order to use them as canon fodder in the war of "who has had the worst time of it."

Is love a truly selfish act? Do we simply strive for that connection because of the way it makes us feel and not at all for how it might affect the other person? Of course, we can never exactly know how the other feels, and even if we make them feel the way we want them to, how can we help but get something out of it? I could argue the mutuality of it, but one might in response point to symbiosis--a mutual relationship, but would we want to call it love?

So, perhaps the sign of true, selfless love is the willingness to give one's life for the other.

There is a place between willingness to self-sacrifice and using someone to get want you want where all you want is for them to feel the same way about you that you do about them, where you want to evoke the same feelings in them that they do in you.

(Hitchcock 421, 3.7.06)

still arguing with Descartes

In his Third Meditation, Descartes argues that existence cannot be separated from the essence of God, because God is perfection and it is more perfect to exist out of the intellect as well as in, and because God possesses this necessary quality of existence, God must exist. Descartes compares the quality of existence in God to the quality of having three angles that equal 180 degrees in a triangle.

This is a misleading analogy because of the two examples, only the triangle works both ways. If one refers to the quality of having three angles that equal 180 degrees you are necessarily talking about a triangle; that is its definition and works both ways. 180 degrees implies traingle.

However, existence does not necessarily imply God, because I have certainly determined that I exist (by the cogito), but just because I exist does not mean that I am God.

Therefore the analogy is false, and the quality of 180 degrees in a triangle is even less separable than existence in God because a triangle is the only being with three angles equaling 180 degrees but God is not the only being that exists.

(Hitchcock 421, 2.20.06)

arguing with Descartes

To say, "I want the perfect dinner party" implies the desire for a concept of a finite experience, since it is something you can have or will to have.

To think of a perfect being also implies finiteness because I cannot have a concept of inifinity (being a supposed element of perfection); because I can grasp the concept of a perfect being, it cannot be finite. (or, is merely my idea what is finite and the content of the idea inifinte? No, because the finite cannot contain the infinite.)

So, Descartes would say that this containment issue implies that the perfect being must exist outside of my idea: there is a God.

But, if something finite cannot contain something infinite, where can this perfect being exist? The universe must either be infinite, exist within an infinite dimension, or else the perfect being cannot be infinite.

If the perfect being is not infinite, then we could in fact draw a list of qualities to describe it, because if we couldn't make such a list that would imply the being was infinite after all.

(Hum class, 2.22.06)

growth

While I believe that we hone our characters and judgments as we age, I would hope that my views are less rigid now than they were when I was little and that I am more open to contemplation know. So, it's not that I believe I have better developed judgments but rather that my capacity for judgment is more developed.

(Ethics Conference, 3.4.06)