20 ideas
| 23326 | In the third century Stoicism died out, replaced by Platonism, with Aristotelian ethics [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: By the second century CE Aristotelianism and Platonism had begun to eclipse Stoicism, and by the end of the third century Stoicism had no followers. All philosophers now opted for some form of Platonism, but including Aristotle's ethical principles. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 04) | |
| A reaction: The idea that Aristotelian ethics dominated that period is new to me. Stoic influence remained strong in Augustine, and hence in Christianity. |
| 23335 | In late antiquity nearly all philosophers were monotheists [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: I am inclined to think that almost all philosophers in late antiquity were monotheists. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 08) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure when late antiquity begins, in this remark. Maybe as early as 100 CE. Epictetus talks of Zeus as if he is supreme. |
| 16137 | Earlier views of Aristotle were dominated by 'Categories' [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: For centuries 'Categories' and 'De Interpretatione' (+ Porphyry's 'Isagoge') formed the core of the philosophical corpus still being seriously studied. It is hardly surprising that our received view of Aristotle was coloured substantially by 'Categories'. | |
| From: Michael Frede (Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' [1983], I) | |
| A reaction: He adds that doubts remain about the authenticity of the second part, and the whole thing bears marks of having been edited. |
| 23249 | The early philosophers thought that reason has its own needs and desires [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It is part of the notion of reason according to these philosophers [Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics] that reason has its own needs and desires. | |
| From: Michael Frede (Intro to 'Rationality in Greek Thought' [1996], p.5) | |
| A reaction: This sounds as if reason is treated as a separate person within a person. Anyone solving a logical puzzle feels that reason has its own compulsion. 'Boulesis' is the desire characteristic of reason. |
| 7306 | If the only property of a name was its reference, we couldn't explain bearerless names [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: If having a reference were the only semantic property in terms of which we could explain the functioning of names, we would be in trouble with respect to names that simply have no bearer. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 2.1.1) | |
| A reaction: (Miller is discussing Frege) 'Odysseus' is given as an example. Instead of switching to a bundle of descriptions, we could say that we just imagine an object which is stamped with the name. Names always try to refer. |
| 16157 | Insurance on the original ship would hardly be paid out if the plank version was wrecked! [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: No insurance company, presented with a policy written for 'Theoris' [the original ship] would pay for damages suffered if the ship contructed from the old planks had been shipwrecked. | |
| From: Michael Frede (Individuals in Aristotle [1978]) | |
| A reaction: A very nicely dramatic way of presenting what is taken to be the usual reading of the basic case - that the original identity tracks the continuity of the original structure, not the matter. |
| 7322 | Constitutive scepticism is about facts, and epistemological scepticism about our ability to know them [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: We should distinguish 'constitutive scepticism' (about the existence of certain sorts of facts) from the traditional 'epistemological scepticism' (which concedes that the sort of fact in question exists, but questions our right to claim knowledge of it). | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.7) | |
| A reaction: I would be inclined to call the first type 'ontological scepticism'. Miller is discussing Quine's scepticism about meaning. Atheists fall into the first group, and agnostics into the second. An important, and nicely simple, distinction. |
| 23334 | For Christians man has free will by creation in God's image (as in Genesis) [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The Christian view, following Genesis, is that man is created in the image of God, and this is understood as crucially involving the idea that man has a free will in the image of God's will. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 08) | |
| A reaction: The idea of free will evidently originated with Epictetus, but was taken up by Christians because it fitted doctrinal needs. Even Epictetus saw free will as originating in Zeus. |
| 23333 | The idea of free will achieved universal acceptance because of Christianity [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: There is no doubt that the notion of a free will found almost universal acceptance owing to the influence of Christianity. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 07) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably because a free will not only elevates us above the animals, qualifying us for immortality, but also gives us absolute and ultimate responsibility for our lives, which thus justifies either salvation or damnation. |
| 23337 | The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The Stoics said that everything happens according to a divine providential plan, so they had to explain how this was compatible with human choices. They tried to do this with their doctrine of freedom and a free will. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 10) | |
| A reaction: Epictetus made our ability to choose central to moral life, so he particularly needed (and thus created, it seems) this doctrine. |
| 7325 | Dispositions say what we will do, not what we ought to do, so can't explain normativity [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: Dispositional facts are facts about what we will do, not about what we ought to do, and as such cannot capture the normativity of meaning. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: Miller is discussing language, but this raises a nice question for all behaviourist accounts of mental events. Perhaps there is a disposition to behave in a guilty way if you do something you think you shouldn't do. (Er, isn't 'guilt' a mental event?) |
| 7324 | Explain meaning by propositional attitudes, or vice versa, or together? [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: Grice wants to explain linguistic meaning in terms of the content of propositional attitudes, Dummett has championed the view that propositional attitudes must be explained by linguistic meaning, while Davidson says they must be explained together. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: A useful map. My intuition says propositional attitudes come first, for evolutionary reasons. We are animals first, and speakers second. Thought precedes language. A highly social animal flourishes if it can communicate. |
| 7323 | If truth is deflationary, sentence truth-conditions just need good declarative syntax [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: On a deflationary concept of truth, for a sentence to possess truth-conditions it is sufficient that it be disciplined by norms of correct usage, and that it possess the syntax distinctive of declarative sentences. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Idea 6337 gives the basic deflationary claim. He mentions Boghossian as source of this point. So much the worse for the deflationary concept of truth, say I. What are the truth-conditions of "Truth rotates"? |
| 7315 | 'Jones is a married bachelor' does not have the logical form of a contradiction [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: The syntactic notion of contradiction (p and not-p) is well understood, but is no help in explaining analyticity, since "Jones is a married bachelor" is not of that syntactic form. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This point is based on Quine. This means we cannot define analytic sentences as those whose denial is a contradiction, even though that seems to be true of them. Both the Kantian and the modern logical versions of analyticity are in trouble. |
| 7328 | The principle of charity is holistic, saying we must hold most of someone's system of beliefs to be true [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: Properly construed, the principle of charity is a holistic constraint applying, not to individual beliefs, but rather to systems of belief: we must interpret a speaker so that most of the beliefs in his system are, by our lights, true. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
| A reaction: This is a lot more plausible than applying the principle to individual sentences, particularly if you are in the company of habitual ironists or constitutional liars. |
| 7329 | Maybe we should interpret speakers as intelligible, rather than speaking truth [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: A more sophisticated version of the principle of charity holds that we interpret speakers not as necessarily having beliefs that are true by our own lights, but as having beliefs that are intelligible by our own lights. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
| A reaction: Consider Idea 4161 in the light of this. Presumably this means that we treat them as having a coherent set of beliefs, even if they seem to us to fail to correspond to reality. I prefer the stronger version that there has to be some proper truth in there. |
| 23336 | There is no will for Plato or Aristotle, because actions come directly from perception of what is good [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle do not have a notion of a will, since for them a willing, a desire of reason, is a direct result of one's cognitive state: once one sees something to be good, one will it. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 09) | |
| A reaction: The point is that their decisions are 'direct', whereas the will introduces the concept of a final arbiter which weighs up the desires, reasons and drives. The historical steps were first the meta-choosing, then the will as entity, then the will as free. |
| 7333 | The Frege-Geach problem is that I can discuss the wrongness of murder without disapproval [Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: The main problem faced by non-cognitivism is known as the Frege-Geach problem: if I say "If murder is wrong, then getting your brother to murder people is wrong", that is an unasserted context, and I don't necessarily express disapproval of murder. | |
| From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: The emotivist or non-cognitivist might mount a defence by saying there is some second-order or deep-buried emotion involved. Could a robot without feelings even understand what humans meant when they said "It is morally wrong"? |
| 7810 | The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus shows blood feuds replaced by law [Aeschylus, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus tells how the old rule of revenge and blood feud was replaced by a due process of law before a civil jury. | |
| From: report of Aeschylus (The Eumenides [c.458 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 1659, where this revolution is attributed to Protagoras (a little later than Aeschylus). I take the rule of law and of society to be above all the rule of reason, because the aim is calm objectivity instead of emotion. |
| 23313 | The Gnostic demiurge (creator) is deluded, and doesn't care about us [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The Gnostics thought the demiurge or creator pursues its own interests without regard for what this does to us, a being lacking in wisdom and goodness, as seen by its deluding itself into thinking that it is God, and demanding worship. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Frede mentions Irenaeus as a source of this view. The idea that the Great Being doesn't care about us seems a fairly accurate observation. |