| 24261 | Devotion to learning and applied intelligence leads to divine wisdom - if truth is available [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anyone who has devoted himself to learning and has genuinely applied his intelligence cannot fail to attain immortal, divine wisdom, if the truth should come within his grasp. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 90b) | |
| A reaction: Quite a significant proviso about truth coming within his grasp. A very scholarly view of wisdom. Anyone in academic life is certain to know people who are immensely learned but not very wise. That said, I sort of agree with this. |
| 24224 | An unexamined life is not worth living. [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unexamined life is not worth living for men. | |
| From: Plato (The Apology [c.398 BCE], 38a) | |
| A reaction: Since 'Apology' is an early work, this idea seems certainly to originate in Socrates, rather than Plato. Until recently no one doubted it, but there have recently been some nice teasing protests against endless examination. |
| 24226 | The soul on its own enters a pure, unchanging and eternal realm, and experiences wisdom [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When the soul investigates by itself it passes into the realm of the pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, …and its experience is then what is called wisdom | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 79d) | |
| A reaction: Plato is probably the main source of something we can call 'pure' reason. It is a bit surprising that it took 2,000 years before someone thought to attempt a critique of it. |
| 24250 | We should not pick out 'this' water, but only 'something of this sort' [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We should never say 'this' water, but 'something of this sort', and the same goes for everything else that we indicate by means of expressions such as 'that' and 'this'. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 49d) | |
| A reaction: [translation disputed] The point seems to be that 'this' does not say what is being picked out, even with pointing, so the type must be specified. This connects to Geach's claim that identity can only be asserted under some embracing concept. |
| 24232 | Truth is speaking what is and things that are [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The person who speaks what is and the things that are speaks the truth. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.385 BCE], 284a) | |
| A reaction: We now use 'facts' for what is, and 'real' or 'actual' things for what are. I'm perfectly happy with that conception of truth. Demanding something more precise called 'correspondence' looks hopeless. You have to believe there are facts. |
| 24233 | If speech is making something, then lies are impossible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If speaking is doing and making then nobody speaks things that are not, since he would then be making something, and no one is capable of making something that is not. So according to your own statement, nobody tells lies. | |
| From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.385 BCE], 284c) | |
| A reaction: This problem pops up again in the twentieth century, with the quest for logical form. How can a lie be meaningful if it doesn't refer to anything? |
| 24246 | The sun was made for light, so we could learn numbers from astronomical movement [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The god created the sun to illuminate as much of the universe as it could, and to enable all suitably endowed creatures to become numerate by studying the revolution of identity and sameness. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 39b) | |
| A reaction: Note that the sun has a specific purpose. All numbers are Forms, and are therefore eternal, the learning of numbers is empirical. It is regular movement (rather than quantities) which reveals number. |
| 24230 | The Forms arise whenever we talk of something 'in itself'. [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Our present argument is about …the Equal, the Beautiful itself, the Good itself, the Just, the Pious, and about all those things to which we can attach the word 'itself', both when we are putting questions and when we are answering them. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 75d) | |
| A reaction: This identifies the Forms with ideas which emerge during philosophical conversation (either the 'elenchus' interrogation or the 'dialectic' discussion). So they arise from using language. The 'itself' test works quite well in English. Cf essentialism. |
| 24225 | Things like the Equal and the Beautiful, which are real, must be unchanging [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are these things ever the same …or do they vary from one time to another; can the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, …the real, ever be affected by any change? - It must remain the same. …They can only be grasped by the reasoning part of the mind. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 78d) | |
| A reaction: Note the assertion that they are 'real', as well as unchanging. It is hard to make sense of 'the Equal' as a Form. We can more easily see what is in common among beautiful things. The number three is equal and unequal. But see 74d. |
| 24229 | The true reality is organised and harmonised in a rational order [Plato] |
| Full Idea: One whose thoughts are truly directed to the things that are …looks at and studies things that are organised and always the same, that neither do injustice to one another nor suffer it, being all in a rational order. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.371 BCE], 500c) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the source of the belief of the Stoics (and later of Frege) that nature has an intrinsic rational order, which our intellect can grasp with discipline and training. The idea starts, of course, with Pythagoras. The Forms have structure. |
| 24227 | One and one can only become two by sharing in Twoness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You do not know how else [when one is added to one it becomes two] except by sharing in a particular reality, which does not have any other cause of becoming two except by sharing in Twoness, …as that which is one must share in Oneness. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedo [c.374 BCE], 101c) | |
| A reaction: Close readers of such passages have always been baffled by what sharing [partaking, metechein] could actually mean. How can two apples 'share' a pure eternal idea? The best approach is, I'm afraid, mental files. |
| 24228 | Believers in the beautiful see that it is separate from things that participate in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Someone who believes in the beautiful itself, can see both it and the things that partipate in it, and doesn't believe that the participants are it or that it itself is the participants. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.371 BCE], 476c) | |
| A reaction: Note that you required to 'believe in' the beautiful. It is hard to see much connection between a beautiful football goal, a beautiful bird and a beautiful maths proof. Someone suggested that Greek 'kalon' just means 'wow!'. |
| 24254 | Two existing entities can never strictly coincide [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anything that genuinely exists is supported by the true and rigorous argument that neither of two distinct entities can ever occur in the other, because that would simultaneously make them one and two. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 52c) | |
| A reaction: A pair of boots is one and two, but maybe our seeing them or naming them that way cannot be precisely simultaneous. If a salt molecule is two things, does it therefore not exist? On the whole I agree with Plato! |
| 24236 | Some statements about what is obvious and stable are as irrefutable as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Statements about that which is stable, secure and manifest to the intellect are themselves stable and reliable (and it's important for statements about such things to be just as irrefutable and unassailable as statements can possibly be). | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 29b) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice thoughtful account of what we mean by a necessary truth, without attributing to it an absolute character. |
| 24252 | Knowledge is taught, has logos, is unshakeable, and is rare [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unlike true belief, knowledge is the result of instruction, …it is always accompanied by a true account [logos], …it is unmoved by persuasion, …and it is the property of scarcely any human beings. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 51e) | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we are most likely to challenge the unshakeable condition, since science depends on critical challenges. Indeed Greek dialectic seem to require continual openness to the possibility of error. I like the account/logos. Those who know can teach. |
| 24251 | If knowledge is just true belief, we are forced to rely on the senses [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If true belief is no different from knowledge, then we must count all the things we perceive with our bodily senses as the most reliable thing in existence. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 51d) | |
| A reaction: Timaeus goes on to explain how knowledge differs from true belief, roughly in the way outlined in 'Theaetetus'. |
| 24244 | The soul is a complex mixture of pure mind and changing matter [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To create the soul the god combined two kinds of substance - one indivisible and never changing, the other the divided and created substance of the physical world - with intermediates between them, and then a homogeneous mixture. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 35a) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, this does not imply simple mind-matter dualism, but includes bridging intermediates, ending in what seems to be a continuum between physical and mental. Not to be taken too seriously, though. Plato admits it is all speculation. |
| 24258 | The gods placed the mortal soul in the chest [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The gods bound the mortal soul within the chest - the thorax, as it is called. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 69e) | |
| A reaction: Timaeus recognises the importance of the head, and the fact that the main senses pass into the brain, but they had no indication of where thought and reason occur. |
| 24240 | Intelligence requires soul [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can have intelligence unless it has soul. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 30b) | |
| A reaction: Not the last word on the subject, but perhaps the first. If we allow a powerful chess playing computer to have intelligence, how can we not also attribute intelligence to a thermostat? Does it matter? |
| 24241 | Beauty must always be perfect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Nothing touched by imperfection can ever be beautiful. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 30c) | |
| A reaction: Beautiful may also be 'noble'. In human experience this seems obviously false, though it may be true in Plato's world of ideals. |
| 24260 | The best part of the soul raises us up to the heavens, to which we are naturally akin [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The most important type of soul …raises us up from the earth towards the heavenly region to which we are naturally akin, since we are not soil-bound plants but, properly speaking, creatures rooted in heaven. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 90a) | |
| A reaction: An early example of human exceptionalism, which is still with us. Personally I think life goes much better if we acknowledge that we have more affinity with plants than with angels. |
| 24259 | Death in old age is a natural end, untroubled, and more pleasure than distress [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Therre's no death less troublesome than the one which accompanies old age on its journey to it natural end. Such a death comes with more pleasure than distress. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 81e) | |
| A reaction: You have to be more in tune with nature than we are to believe this. We only really think this way about extreme old age. Before that we are usually hoping for more. Quite a lot of people seem to welcome death in old age. |
| 24239 | Perfect goodness always produces perfect beauty [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What is perfectly good can accomplish only what is perfectly beautiful; this was and is a universal law. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 30a) | |
| A reaction: Beautiful must be 'kalon', which is better understood here as fine and noble, rather than looking pretty. This is a quintessential Plato opinion. At the highest level, the supreme Forms endorse one another. He is discussing cosmic creation. |
| 24223 | Admirable people are happy, and unjust people are miserable [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I say that the admirable and good person, man or woman, is happy [eudaimon], but that the one who's unjust and wicked is miserable. | |
| From: Plato (Gorgias [c.378 BCE], 470e) | |
| A reaction: This is eudaimonia, which is flourishing. So Socrates might consider them to be flourishing, when they saw themselves as failure. Parents said make money, but instead they lived altruistically, but guiltily. Note 'woman'. |
| 24257 | Unnatural modifications are painful, and restoring normality is pleasant [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Any modification that is unnatural (that is, forced) and sudden is painful, while any modification that restores the normal condition and is sudden is pleasant. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 64d) | |
| A reaction: [see also 65a] Possibly circular, if the painful is defined as unnatural, but the unnatural is defined as painful. Nowadays we find it very hard to specify what counts as 'unnatural', but our ancestors used that label all the time. Not convincing. |
| 24234 | I have discussed the best constitution, and the kind of citizens it requires [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Yesterday I explained my views on what the best kind of constitution might be and what kind of citizens should make up such a state. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 17c) | |
| A reaction: This seems to refer back to 'Republic'. I include this because it says political thought should cover what good citizens ought to be like, as well as how they are organised. This is the key link between ethics and politics. |
| 24235 | Female Guardians will have identical duties to the men [Plato] |
| Full Idea: We said that the characters of the female Guardians were to be made to match the men's more or less exactly, and that in every aspect of life, including warfare, all the women were to be assigned all the same tasks as the men | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 18c) | |
| A reaction: Refers to 'Republic'. This is despite the fact that Timaeus firmly says (at 42a) that men are superior to women. Either there is an overlap in ability, or the highest ability is not essential for be a guardian. Or (best) Plato disagrees with Timaeus. |
| 24248 | The god said human nature comes as the superior male, and inferior female [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The god explained that human nature comes in two forms, and the superior kind was that which would come to be called 'male'. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 42a) | |
| A reaction: Since this contradicts what Plato says about women as Guardians, I surmise that this is the view of Timaeus, rather than of Plato. This view is presumably the more common one in its time. |
| 24249 | The elements seem able to transmute into each other [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It looks as if there is a cyclical process whereby the elements generate one another. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 49c) | |
| A reaction: He gives examples of elements turning into one another, such as air turning into rain. But originally it sounds as if they were immutable, since creation was from the distinct four elements, and not from a mixture of them. This is Timaeus speculating. |
| 24231 | The One is timeless, has no being or identity, and cannot be known [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One has no share of time, nor is it in any time. …The One in no way partakes of being, so the One in no way is. …The One neither is one nor is. …It is not named or spoken of, nor is it the object of opinion, nor does anything that is perceive it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.366 BCE], 141d-142a) | |
| A reaction: [Phrases lifted from a page-long detailed argument] Given all of this, it is surprising that the One is not dismissed entirely. That leaves it as an object of mystical belief. |
| 24243 | The world-maker used the four elements and their properties in entirety [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The formation of the world occupied each of the four in its entirety; the maker made it out of the totality of fire, water, air and earth, leaving unused no part or property of any of them. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 32c) | |
| A reaction: So all of the four elements entirely pre-existed (presumably for eternity), before the ordering of the cosmos. There seems to be no reference to a first creation of this chaotic collection. Interesting that all properties are used. That is a constraint. |
| 24255 | Motion needs differing moved and mover, so it originates in diversity [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the absence of a mover and a moved there's no such thing as motion, and mover and moved cannot possibly be uniform with each other. It follows that we should always associate rest with uniformity and attribute motion to diversity. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 57e) | |
| A reaction: Newtonian inertia allows movement without a mover. Perhaps Plato means acceleration rather than movement. Newton ignores the question of what got the inertial movement started. The full picture needs powers! |
| 24256 | The spherical universe composed of four elements squeezes out every bit of void [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Once the vault of the universe has gathered the four bodies [elements] together inside itself, it compresses everything and and squeezes out every last bit of void, because, being spherical, it is in its nature to want to close itself. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 58a) | |
| A reaction: Notice the explanation by 'its nature'. This thought is in opposition to the atomists, who needed a perfect void to explain the movement of the atoms. Maybe the fields of modern physics squeeze out any void? |
| 24253 | Space is eternal and indestructible, but is only known by barely credible reasoning [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Space exists for ever and is indestructible, and acts as the arena for everything that is subject to creation. It is grasped by a kind of bastard reasoning, without the support of sensation, and is hardly credible. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 52b) | |
| A reaction: I'm struck by the thought that space and time are features of nature which are indestructible. Space seems to resemble what Timaeus calls the 'receptacle' for creation. When we move don't we have a spatial sensation? |
| 24245 | The god created eternity in the sequence of the universe, and its image we call 'time' [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the very act of ordering the universe the god created a likeness of eternity, a likeness that progresses eternally through the sequence of numbers, while eternity abides in oneness. This image of eternity is what we have come to call 'time'. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 37d) | |
| A reaction: As in Aristotle, the Greek view is usually that movement creates time. But it is hard to conceive movement without a prior conception of time. |
| 24222 | If we ignore all our thoughts of the past and the future, there is nothing left of the present [Weil] |
| Full Idea: What would be left of our thought if we were to leave out of the account all the thoughts which have to do with the future and the past? Nothing would be left. So what we do possess, the present, is something non-existent. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Lect 4: Ethics and Aesthetics [1933], p.198) | |
| A reaction: Yet another paradox of the weirdness of the present moment. For idealists that means the present doesn't exist, so either time is eternal, or non-existent. Or fragmentary, if it only consists of our thoughts. |
| 24238 | The god found chaos, and led it to superior order [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The god found everything visible in a state of turmoil, moving in a discordant and chaotic manner, so he led it from chaos to order, which he regarded as in all ways better. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 30a) | |
| A reaction: This god is usually referred to as the 'demiurge', who creates the ordered nature which is itself a god. I find this view more appealing than the creation of the cosmos ex nihilo, our of nothing. |
| 24242 | Is there a plurality (or even an infinity) of universes? No, because the model makes it unique [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Is there a single universe, or would it be more correct to speak of a plurality, even an infinite plurality, of universes? No, there can be only one, if it is to be created by the craftsman-god so as to correspond to its model. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 30d) | |
| A reaction: Democritus believed there was an infinite plurality of universes. Does this entail that there could only be one horse, and one thing of beauty, and one truth - to correspond to their Forms? Presumably not! |
| 24247 | The universe has four types of living being: gods, birds, fish, and land animals [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There are four kinds of living being in the universe: the heavenly gods, winged creatures that travel through the air, those that live in water, and finally those that go on foot on dry land. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 39e) | |
| A reaction: So while the original gods are a different order of existence, the famous Olympian gods are living beings, distinguished only by their power and their immortality. |
| 24237 | The divine organiser of the world wanted it to have as little imperfection as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The god wanted everything to be good, marred by as little imperfection as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 30a) | |
| A reaction: The god is the demiurge which brings order to the original chaos of the cosmos. This is the trade-off view of what is bad in the world, equivalent to Leibniz's best of all possible worlds. |