Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Herodotus, Georg W.F.Hegel and M. Tullius Cicero

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3 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 2. Types of Scepticism
Humean scepticism, unlike ancient Greek scepticism, accepts the truth of experience as basic [Hegel]
     Full Idea: Humean scepticism should be very carefully distinguished from Greek scepticism. In Humean scepticism, the truth of the empirical, the truth of feeling and intuition is taken as basic. ..Greek scepticism turned itself against the sensible.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §39 Rem)
     A reaction: This seems right, and Hume himself was quite contemptuous of the sort of scepticism found in the ideas of Sextus Empiricus.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 3. Illusion Scepticism
Every true presentation can have a false one of the same quality [Cicero]
     Full Idea: [The sceptical Academics say] what is false cannot be perceived, but every true presentation is such that there can be a false presentation of the same quality.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (Academica [c.45 BCE], II.40)
     A reaction: It was the stoics who focused the discussion on 'presentations'. This claim is purely theoretical; no one has ever experienced a false presentation of talking to a family member that was as vivid as the real thing.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
It is a rejection of intellectual dignity to say that we cannot know the truth [Hegel]
     Full Idea: The assertion that human beings cannot know the truth, but have to do only with appearances …deprives the spirit of intellectual dignity.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 132)
     A reaction: It is a relief to find Hegel making this assertion. His later followers seem to have slid into an extreme cultural relativism. I'm not sure that 'intellectual dignity' is a very secure foundation for his claim.