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52 Cards in this Set
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"Every animal has ideas, since it has senses; up to a certain point it even combines its ideas, and in this regard man differs from an animal only in degree. Some philosophers have even suggested that there is a greater difference between two given men than between a given man and an animal. Therefore it is not so much understanding which causes the specific distinction of man from all other animals as it is his being a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and beasts obey. Man feels the same impetus, but he knows he is free to go along or to resist; and it is above all the awareness of this freedom that the spirituality of his soul is made manifest."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"But if the difficulties surrounding all these questions should leave some room for dispute on this difference between man and animal, there is another very specific quality which distinguishes them and about which there can be no argument: the faculty of self-perfection, a faculty which, which the aid of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides among us as much in the species as in the individual."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"It would be sad for us to be forced to agree that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all man's misfortunes; that this is what, by dint of time, draws him out of that original condition in which he woudl pass tranquil and innocent days; that this is what, through centuries of giving rise to his enlightenment and his errors, his vices and his virtues, eventually makes him a tyrant over himself and nature."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"O man, whatever country you may be from, whatever your opinions may be, listen: here is your history, as I have thought to read it, not in the books of your fellowmen, who are liars, but in nature, who never lies. Everything that comes from nature will be true; there will be nothing false except what I have unintentionally added."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"Hobbes has very clearly seen the defect of all modern definitions of natural right, but the consequences he draws from his own definition show that he takes it in a sense that is no less false. Were he to have reasoned on the basis of the principles he establishes, this author should have said that since the state fo nature is the state in which the concern for our self-preservation is the least prejudicial to that of others, that state was consequently the most appropriate for peace and the best suited for the human race."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"the same cause preventing savages from using their reason, as our jurists claim, is what prevents them at the same time from abusing their faculties, as he himself maintains. Hence we could say that savages are not evil precisely because they do not know what it is to be good; for it is neither the development of enlightenment nor the restraint imposed by the law, but the calm of the passions and the ignorance of vice which prevents them from doing evil."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"I do not believe I have any contradiction to fear in granting the only natural virtue that the most excessive detractor of human virtues was forced to recognize. I am referring to pity, a disposition that is fitting for beings that are as weak and as subject to ills as we are; a virtue all the more universal and all the more useful to man in that it precedes in him any kind of reflection, and so natural that even animals sometimes show noticeable signs of it."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making, and that we could have avoided nearly all of them by preserving the simple, regular, and solitary lifestyle prescribed to us by nature."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"In proportion as ideas and sentiments succeed one another and as the mind and heart are trained, the human race continues to be tamed, relationships spread and bonds are tightened. People grew accustomed to gather in front of their huts or around a large tree; song and dance, true children of love and leisure, became the amusement or rather the occupation of idle men and women who had flocked together. Each one began to look at the others and to want to be looked at himself, and the public esteem had a value. The one who sang or danced the best, the handsomest, the strongest, the most adroit or the most eloquent became the most highly regarded. And this was the first step toward inequality and, at the same tie, toward vice. From these first preferences were born vanity and contempt on the one hand, and shame and envy on the other. And the fermentations caused by these new leavens eventually produced compounds fatal to happiness and innocence."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"But in order to see the purpose of so many cares, the words power and reputation would have to have a meaning in his mind; he would have to learn that there is a type of men who place some value on the regard the rest of the world has for them, and who know how to be happy and content with themselves on the testimony of others rather than on their own. Such, in fact, is the true cause of all these differences; the savages lives in himself; the man accustomed to the ways of society is always outside himself and knows how to live only in the opinion of others."
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"Moreover, citizens allow themselves to be oppressed only insofar as they are driven by blind ambition; and looking more below than above them, domination becomes more dear to them than independence, and they consent to wear chains in order to be able to give them in turn to others. It is very difficult to reduce to obedience someone who does not seek to command"
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Rousseau
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality |
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"If he exalts himself, I humble him. If he humbles himself, I exalt him. And I go on contradicting him until he understands that he is a monster that passes all understanding."
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Pascal
Pensees |
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"Man's greatness comes from knowing he is wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. Thus it is wretched to know that one is wretched, but there is greatness in knowing one is wretched."
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Pascal
Pensees |
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"That is why gaming and feminine society, war and high office are so popular. It is not that they really bring happiness, nor that anyone imagines that true bliss comes form possessing the money to be won at gaming or the hard that is hunted: no one would take it as a git. What people want is not the easy peaceful life that allows us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the burdens of office, but the agitation that takes our mind off it and diverts us. That is why we prefer the hunt to the capture."
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Pascal
Pensees |
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"tell a man to rest and you tell him to live unhappily"
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Pascal
Pensees |
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"Since men in their endeavors do not act like animals merely according to instinct, nor like rational citizens according to an agreed plan, no planned history seems to be possible. It is hard to suppress a certain disgust when contemplating men's action upon the world stage. For one finds, in spite of apparent wisdom in detail tat everything, taken as a whole, is interwoven with stupidity, childish vanity, often with childish viciousness and destructiveness."
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Kant
"Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent" |
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"In the end, one does not know what kind of conception one should have of our species which is so conceited about its superior qualities. Since the philosopher must assume that men have a flexible purepose of thier own, it is left ot him to attempt to discover an end of nature in this senseless march of human events. A history of creatures who proceed without a plan would be possible in keeping with such an end; the history would proceed according to such an end of nature."
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Kant
"Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent" |
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"The means which nature employs to accomplish the development of all faculties is the antagonism of men in society, since this antagonism becomes, in the end, the cause of a lawful order of this society"
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Kant
"Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent" |
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"Man has an inclination to associate himself, because in such a state he feels himself more like a man capable of developing his natural faculties. Man has also marked propensity to isolate himself, because he finds in himself the asocial quality to want to arrange everything according to his own ideas. He therefore expects resistance everywhere, just as he knows of himself that he is inclined to resist others."
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Kant
"Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent" |
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"impelled by vainglory, ambition, and avarice, he seeks to achieve a standing among his fellows, who he does not suffer gladly, but whom he cannot leave. Thus the first steps from barbarism to culture are achieved; for culture actually consists in the social value of man."
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Kant
"Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent" |
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“Thus a pathologically enforced coordination of society finally transforms it into a moral whole. Without theses essentially unlovely qualities of associability, from which springs the resistance which everyone must encounter in his egoistic pretensions, all talents would have remained hidden germs.”
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Kant
Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent |
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"This problem is the most difficult and at the same time the one which mankind wolves last. The difficulty which even the mere idea of this task clearly reveals is the following: Man is an animal who, if he lives among others of his kind, needs a mater, for man certainly misuses his freedom in regard to others of his kind and, even tough as a rational being he desires a law which would provide limits for the freedom of all, his egoistic animal inclination misguides him into excluding himself where he can"
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Kant
Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent |
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"For each of these will always abuse his freedom if he has no one over him who wields power according to the laws. Yet the highest master is supposed to be just in himself and yet a man. The task involved is therefore most difficult; indeed, a complete solution is impossible."
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Kant
Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent |
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"We are highly civilized by art and science, we are civilized in all kinds of social graces and decency to the point where it becomes exasperating, but must before we can consider ourselves truly ethicized. For teh ideas of morality is part of culture by the use that has been made of this idea which amounts only to something similar to ethics in the form of a love of honor and external decency which constitutes civilization."
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Kant
Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent |
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"As long as states will use all their resources for their vain and violent designs for expansion and thus will continually hinder the slow efforts toward the inner shaping of the minds of their citizens, and even withdraw from their citizens all the encouragement in this respect, we cannot hope for much because a great exertion by each commonwealth on behalf of the education of their citizens is required for this goal."
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Kant
Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent |
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“The method adopted in this work is, I believe, one that is most suitable if we proceed analytically form ordinary knowledge to a determination of the supreme principle and then back against synthetically from an examination of this principle and its sources to ordinary knowledge where its application is found.”
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"All rational knowledge is either material and concerned with some object, or formal and concerned only with the form of understanding and of reason themselves and with the universal rules of thought in general without regard to differences of its objects. Formal philosophy is called logic.""
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can each have an empirical part. The former has to because it must determine the laws of nature as an object of experience, and the latter because ti must determine the will of man insofar as the will is affected by nature. The laws fo the former re those according to which everything does happen, while the laws of the latter are those according to which everything ought to happen, although these moral laws also consider the conditions under which what ought to happen frequently does not."
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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""the ground of obligation here must therefore be sought not in the nature of man nor in the circumstances of the world in which man is placed, but must be sought a priori solely in the concepts of pure reason."
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as good without qualification, except a good will."
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"The will stands at a crossroads between its priori principle, which is formal, and it’s a posteriori incentive, which is material; and since it must be determined by something, it must be determined by the formal principle of volition, if the action is done from duty - and in that case every material principle is taken away from it”
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"This concept already dwells in the natural sound understanding an needs not so much to be taught as merely to be elucidated. It always holds first place in estimating the total worth of our actions and constitutes the condition of all the rest. Therefore, we shall take up the concept of duty, which includes that of a good will, though with certain subjective restrictions and hindrances, which far from hiding a good will or rendering it unrecognizable, rather bring it out by contrast and make ti shine forth more brightly."
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"I am wiling to admit out of love for humanity that most of our actions are in accordance with duty; but if we look more closely at our planning and striving, we everywhere come upon the dear self, which is always turning up, and upon which the intent of our actions is based rather than upon the strict command of duty (which would often require self-denial)"
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"Even the Holy One of the gospel must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before he is recognized as such. Even he says of himself, "Why do you call me good? None is good except God only." But whence have we the concept of God as the highest good? Solely form the idea of moral perfection, which reason frames a priori and connects inseparably with the concept of a free will. Imitations has no place at all in moral matters. And examples serve only for encouragement."
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"If we now attend to ourselves in any transgression of a duty, we find that we actually do not will that our maxim should become a unviersal law _ because this is impossible for us - but rather that the opposite of this maxim should remain a law universally. We only take the liberty of making an exception to the law for ourselves (or just for this one time) to that advantage of our inclination"
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"Now I say that man, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will. He must in all his actions, whether directed to himself or to other rational beings, always be regarded at the same time as an end."
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"The practical imperative will therefore be the following: Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means."
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Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals |
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"The True, however, does not just achieve representation and feeling (as in religion), and the visual (as in art); it also comes to the thinking spirit - and we thereby arrive at the third form of the unification: philosophy, the highest, the freest, and the wisest configuration of the Spirit."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"The relation of the individual to the Spirit of a people is such that he appropriates to himself this substantive being, so that it becomes his character and capability, enabling him to be something in the world. The individual discovers the being of his people as a firm world, already there, into which he must incorporate himself. The Spirit of a people itself rejoices and finds its satisfaction in this work, its world."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"But as we contemplate history as this slaughter-bench, upon which the happiness of nations, the wisdom of states, and the virtues of individuals were sacrificed, the question necessarily comes to mind: What was the ultimate goal for which these monstrous sacrifices were made? And from this there were usually follows the question, which we made the starting-point of our consideration. And in this perspective the events that present such a grim picture for our troubled feeling and thoughtful reflection have to be seen as the means for what we claim is the substantial definition, the absolute end-goal or, equally, the true result of world history."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"Spirit is the result of its own activity: its activity is the transcending of what is immediately there, by negating it and returning into itself. We can compare it with the seed of a plant: the plant begins with the seed, but the seed is also the result of the plant's entire life....because of its unquenchable thirst of it, the people cannot let the cup pass form it, even though the drinking means its own destruction - and this leads to the rise of a new principle"
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"This union of the two poles - the realization of the universal Idea in immediate actuality, and the elevation of the singular into universal truth - occurs, first of all, under the presupposition of the distinctness of the two dies and their indifference toward one another"
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"But as for the question of just what is good or not good, right or not right - in the ordinary situations of private life, that question is answered by the laws and customs of a state. There is no great difficulty in knowing what these are. Every individual has his station in life, and he knows, on the whole, what the right and honorable course of action is."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"There is much to find fault with, therefore, in the details of world appearances. This subjective fault-finding - which is concerned only with the detail and its shortcomings, and does not recognize the universal Reason in it - is all too easy. Having the assurance of its good intentions for the well-being of the totality, together with the appearance of good-heartedness, it can give itself airs and make much of itself."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"The insight to which philosophy ought to lead, therefore is that the real world is as it ought to be, that the truly good, the universal divine Reason is also the power capable fo actualizing itself. This good, this Reason - in its most concrete representation - is God. God governs the world: the content of His governance, the fulfillment of is plan, is world history."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"But world history is not the place for happiness. Period of happiness are empty pages in history, for they are the periods of harmony, times when the antithesis is missing."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"The great men in history are those whose own particular aims contain the substantial will that is the will of the World Spirit. They can be called heroes, because they have drawn their aim and their vocation not merely from the calm and orderly system that is the sanctified course of things, but rather from a source whose content is hidden and has not yet matured into present existence."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"These heroic individuals, in fulfilling these aims of theirs, had no consciousness of the Idea at all. On the contrary, they were practical and political men. Yet at the same time they were thoughtful men, with insight into what was needed and what was timely: their insight was the very truth of their time and their world"
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"If we take another look at the final destiny of these world-historical individuals who had the calling to manage the affairs of the World Spirit, we find that their destiny was by no means happy. They attained no calm enjoyment, their entire life was toil and trouble; their entire nature was nothing but their master-passion."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"But so great a figure must necessarily trample on many an innocent flower, crushing much that gets in his way. The particular interest linked to passion is thus inseparable form the actualization of the universal principle."
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Hegel
Introduction to the Philosophy of History |
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"I am in inquirer by inclination. I feel a consuming thirst for knowledge, the unrest which goes with the desire to progress in it, and satisfaction at every advance in it. There was a time when I believed this constituted the honor of humanity, and I despised the people , who know nothing. Rousseau set me right about this. This binding prejudice disappeared. I learned to honor humanity, and I would find myself more useless than the common laborer if I did not believe that this attitude of mine can give worth to all others in establishing the rights of humanity"
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Kant
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime |
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"The opinion of inequality makes people unequal. On the teaching of M. Rousseau can bring it about that even the most learned philosopher with his knowledge holds himself, uprightly and without the help of religious, no better than the common human being"
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Kant
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime |
