Our most abstract concepts emerged as solutions to our needs | Aeon Essays - Deepstash
The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci

Learn more about religionandspirituality with this collection

Leonardo da Vinci's creative process

How to approach problem-solving like da Vinci

The importance of curiosity and observation

The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci

Discover 46 similar ideas in

It takes just

6 mins to read

<p>Truth, knowledge, justice ā€“...

Truth, knowledge, justice ā€“ to understand how our loftiest abstractions earn their keep, trace them to their practical origins

"Ideas, Mr Carlyle, ideas, nothing but ideas!ā€™ scoffed a hard-headed businessman over dinner with Thomas Carlyle, the Victorian essayist and historian of the French Revolution. The businessman had had enough of Carlyleā€™s endless droning on about ideas ā€“ what do ideas matter anyway? Carlyle shot back: ā€˜There was once a man called Rousseau who wrote a book containing nothing but ideas.Ā 

1

3 reads

The second edition was bound in the skins of those who laughed at the first.ā€™ Ideas have consequences. Of course, Carlyle picked an easy case. He was referring to Jean-Jacques Rousseauā€™s On the Social Contract (1762), a book brimming with incendiary political ideas that went on to fire up the leaders of the French Revolution. But the case for the practical importance of ideas is much harder to make for ideas that are more redolent of idle magniloquence than of revolutionary action. What of grand abstractions, with which our minds are stocked, such as knowledge, truth or justice?Ā 

1

2 reads

These are so entrenched that it is difficult to imagine doing without them. Yet itā€™s even more difficult to pin down just what useful practical difference they make to our lives. What exactly is the point of these ideas? Unlike ideas of air, food and water that allow us to think about the everyday resources we need to survive, the venerable notions of knowledge, truth or justice donā€™t obviously cater to practical needs. On the contrary, these exalted ideals draw our gaze away from practical pursuits. They are imbued with grandeur because of their superb indifference to mundane human concerns.Ā 

1

1 read

Having knowledge is practically useful, but why would we also need the concept of knowledge? The dog who knows where his food is seems fine without the concept of knowledge, so long as heā€™s not called upon to give a commencement address. And yet the concepts of knowledge, truth or justice appear to have been important enough to emerge across different cultures and endure over the ages. Why, then, did we ever come to think in these terms?Ā 

1

1 read

Friedrich Nietzsche grumbled that, when it came to identifying the origins of lofty ideas, philosophers had a tendency to be led astray by their own respect for them. In dealing with what they felt were the ā€˜highest conceptsā€™, the ā€˜last wisps of smoke from the evaporating end of realityā€™, they had reverently placed them ā€˜at the beginning as the beginningā€™, convinced that the higher could never have grown out of the lower: Platoā€™s eternal Forms, the mind of God, Immanuel Kantā€™s noumenal world ā€“ they had all served as cradles to higher concepts, offering them a suitably distinguished pedigree.

1

1 read

But to insist that higher concepts were bound to have higher origins, Nietzsche thought, was to let oneā€™s respect for those ideas get in the way of a truthful understanding of them. If, after the ā€˜Death of Godā€™ and the advent of Darwinism, we were successfully to ā€˜translate humanity back into natureā€™, as Nietzscheā€™s felicitous rallying cry had it, we needed to trace seemingly transcendent ideas such as knowledge, truth or justice to their roots in human concerns ...

1

1 read

CURATED BY

antoniogallo

bibliomania

stash-superman-illustration

Explore the Worldā€™s

Best Ideas

200,000+ ideas on pretty much any topic. Created by the smartest people around & well-organized so you can explore at will.

An Idea for Everything

Explore the biggest library of insights. And we've infused it with powerful filtering tools so you can easily find what you need.

Knowledge Library

Powerful Saving & Organizational Tools

Save ideas for later reading, for personalized stashes, or for remembering it later.

# Personal Growth

Take Your Ideas

Anywhere

Organize your ideas & listen on the go. And with Pro, there are no limits.

Listen on the go

Just press play and we take care of the words.

Never worry about spotty connections

No Internet access? No problem. Within the mobile app, all your ideas are available, even when offline.

Get Organized with Stashes

Ideas for your next work project? Quotes that inspire you? Put them in the right place so you never lose them.

Join

2 Million Stashers

4.8

5,740 Reviews

App Store

4.7

72,690 Reviews

Google Play

samz905

Donā€™t look further if you love learning new things. A refreshing concept that provides quick ideas for busy thought leaders.

ā€œ

Shankul Varada

Best app ever! You heard it right. This app has helped me get back on my quest to get things done while equipping myself with knowledge everyday.

ā€œ

Ashley Anthony

This app is LOADED with RELEVANT, HELPFUL, AND EDUCATIONAL material. It is creatively intellectual, yet minimal enough to not overstimulate and create a learning block. I am exceptionally impressed with this app!

ā€œ

Sean Green

Great interesting short snippets of informative articles. Highly recommended to anyone who loves information and lacks patience.

ā€œ

Jamyson Haug

Great for quick bits of information and interesting ideas around whatever topics you are interested in. Visually, it looks great as well.

ā€œ

Laetitia Berton

I have only been using it for a few days now, but I have found answers to questions I had never consciously formulated, or to problems I face everyday at work or at home. I wish I had found this earlier, highly recommended!

ā€œ

Giovanna Scalzone

Brilliant. It feels fresh and encouraging. So many interesting pieces of information that are just enough to absorb and apply. So happy I found this.

ā€œ

Ghazala Begum

Even five minutes a day will improve your thinking. I've come across new ideas and learnt to improve existing ways to become more motivated, confident and happier.

ā€œ

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Access to 200,000+ ideas

ā€”

Access to the mobile app

ā€”

Unlimited idea saving & library

ā€”

ā€”

Unlimited history

ā€”

ā€”

Unlimited listening to ideas

ā€”

ā€”

Downloading & offline access

ā€”

ā€”

Personalized recommendations

ā€”

ā€”

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates