Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, Chrysippus and Brian Ellis

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2 ideas

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / c. Agent causation
Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis]
     Full Idea: A Humean theory of causation (as observed regularities) makes it very difficult for anyone even to suggest a plausible theory of human agency.
     From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7)
     A reaction: I'm not quite sure what a 'theory' of human agency would look like. Hume himself said we only get to understand our mental powers from repeated experience (Idea 2220). How do we learn about the essence of our own will?
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his On Passions) that the passions are judgements; for greed is a supposition that money is honorable, and similarly for drunkennes and wantonness and others.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.111
     A reaction: This is an endorsement of Socrates's intellectualist reading of weakness of will, as against Aristotle's assigning it to overpowering passions.