Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Cardinal/Hayward/Jones, Plato and Bernard Williams

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7 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato]
     Full Idea: When appearance and measure conflict…it is the best part of the mind which accepts measurements and calculations, and the part which opposes them, therefore, must be a low-grade part of the mind.
     From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 603a)
Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: If you can't apprehend being you can't apprehend truth, and so a thing could not be known. Therefore knowledge is not located in immediate experience but in thinking about it, since the latter makes it possible to grasp being and truth.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 186c)
True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato]
     Full Idea: True knowledge is concerned with the abode of true reality, without colour or shape, intangible but utterly real, apprehensible only to the intellect.
     From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 247c)
Only bird-brained people think astronomy is entirely a matter of evidence [Plato]
     Full Idea: Birds are empty-headed men who grew feathers instead of hair, because they were interested in astronomy but thought it was entirely a matter of physical evidence.
     From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 91d)
With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato]
     Full Idea: With what physical faculty do we perceive being and not-being, similarity and dissimilarity, identity and difference, oneness and many, odd and even and other maths, ….fineness and goodness?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 185d)
You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato]
     Full Idea: Sight or touch might make someone take eleven for twelve, but he could never form this mistaken belief about the contents of his mind.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 195e)
A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato]
     Full Idea: The soul that lacks understanding must be set down as ugly.
     From: Plato (The Sophist [c.359 BCE], 228d)
     A reaction: The teleological view of things understands their nature in things of their perfection. and the essence of beauty is perfection. It is the mind's nature to know. Failing to know is as ugly as allowing your crops to die.