Ideas Have Consequences
First edition
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| Author | Richard M. Weaver |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Philosophical |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
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Publication date
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1948 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 190 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 11120554 |
Ideas Have Consequences is a philosophical work by Richard M. Weaver, published in 1948 by the University of Chicago Press. The book is largely a treatise on the harmful effects of nominalism on Western Civilization since this doctrine gained prominence in the High Middle Ages, followed by a prescription of a course of action through which Weaver believes the West might be rescued from its decline.
Weaver's philosophy shares an epistemological orientation with some forms of existentialism in that it posits that the axioms underlying all human belief systems are ultimately arbitrary (in the sense that they cannot be derived, or anchored in something anterior) and are thus a product of the exercise of ultimate choice rather than empirical evidence.
Weaver thus bases his attack against nominalism on historical analogy and the teleological implications, or "consequences" of such a world view.
It is important, however, to distinguish this approach from that of historicism, which contends that history develops in organic, deterministic cycles. Weaver emphasizes his position that the cause of apparent patterns in the decline of civilizations is recurrent, unintelligent choice.
Weaver attributes the beginning of the Western decline to the adoption of nominalism (or the rejection of the notion of absolute truth) in the late Scholastic period. The chief proponent of this philosophical revolution was William of Ockham.
The consequences of this revolution, Weaver contends, were the gradual erosion of the notions of distinction and hierarchy, and the subsequent enfeebling of the Western mind's capacity to reason. These effects in turn produced all manner of societal ills, decimating Western art, education and morality.
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