Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Herodotus, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein

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4 ideas

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / b. Religious Meaning
Grammar tells what kind of object anything is - and theology is a kind of grammar [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar)
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §373)
     A reaction: A classic twentieth century blunder, originating in Frege and culminating in Quine, of thinking that the analysis of language is the last word in ontology.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus]
     Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born.
     From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2)
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
The human body is the best picture of the human soul [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], II.iv)
     A reaction: Nice. How did we imagine the soul before reading that remark? My soul requires fingernails and eyelids in order to fulfil its essential nature.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / d. Heaven
That our heaven is a dull place reflects the misery of excessive work in life [Russell]
     Full Idea: It is a sad evidence of the weariness mankind has suffered from excessive toil that his heavens have usually been places where nothing ever happened or changed.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Political Ideals [1917], 1)
     A reaction: Has any religion got an idea of heaven as a place full of lively activity and creative problem-solving? That is what suits us best.