27 ideas
8368 | A correct definition is what can be substituted without loss of meaning [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: A definition of a word is correct if the definition can be substituted for the word being defined in an assertion without in the least changing the meaning which the assertion is felt to have. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §1) | |
A reaction: This sounds good, but a very bland and uninformative rephrasing would fit this account, without offering anything very helpful. The word 'this' could be substituted for a lot of object words. A 'blade' is 'a thing always attached to a knife handle'. |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |
8143 | Self is the rider, intellect the charioteer, mind the reins, and body the chariot [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Know that the Self (Atman) is the rider, and the body the chariot; that the intellect is the charioteer, and the mind the reins. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha') | |
A reaction: This strikes me as exactly right. Even my intellectual powers are servants of the self. This suggests the view of the mind as a tool, which does not seem to occur in modern discussions. |
8147 | We have an apparent and a true self; only the second one exists, and we must seek to know it [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: There are two selves, the apparent self, and the real Self. Of these it is the real Self (Atman), and he alone, who must be felt as truly existing. To the man who has felt him as truly existing he reveals his innermost nature. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha') | |
A reaction: A central Hindu doctrine against which Buddhism rebelled, by denying the self altogether. I prefer the Hindu view. A desire to abandon the self just seems to be a desire for death. Knowledge of our essential self is more interesting. But see Idea 2932! |
8155 | Without speech we cannot know right/wrong, true/false, good/bad, or pleasant/unpleasant [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: If there were no speech, neither right nor wrong would be known, neither the true nor the false, neither the good nor the bad, neither the pleasant nor the unpleasant. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Chandogya') | |
A reaction: This could stand as the epigraph for the whole of modern philosophy of language. However, the text goes on to say that mind is higher than speech. The test question is the mental capabilities of animals. Do they 'know' pleasure, or truth? |
8142 | The wise prefer good to pleasure; the foolish are drawn to pleasure by desire [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: The wise prefer the good to the pleasant; the foolish, driven by fleshly desires, prefer the pleasant ot the good. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha') | |
A reaction: If you consider appropriate diet, this is too obvious to be worth saying. The complication is that it is doubtful whether a life without pleasure is wholly good, and even the pleasure of food is not bad. Of two good foods, prefer the pleasant one. |
8151 | Let your teacher be a god to you [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Let your teacher be a god to you. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Taittiriya') | |
A reaction: Yes indeed. The problem in the west is that we are committed to encouraging a critical and questioning attitude. A high value for knowledge must precede a high value for a teacher. |
8153 | By knowing one piece of clay or gold, you know all of clay or gold [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: By knowing one lump of clay, all things made of clay are known; by knowing a nugget of gold, all things made of gold are known. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Chandogya') | |
A reaction: I can't think of a better basic definition of a natural kind. There is an inductive assumption, of course, which hits trouble when you meet fool's gold, or two different sorts of jade. But the concept of a natural kind is no more than this. |
8367 | Causation is defined in terms of a single sequence, and constant conjunction is no part of it [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: The correct definition of the causal relation is to be framed in terms of one single case of sequence, and constancy of conjunction is therefore no part of it. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is the thesis of Ducasse's paper. I immediately warm to it. I take constant conjunction to be a consequence and symptom of causation, not its nature. There is a classic ontology/epistemology confusion to be avoided here. |
8372 | We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: The part of a generalization concerning what is common to one individual concrete event and the causes of certain other events of the same kind is involved in the mere assigning of a name to the cause and its effect, but not in the perceiving them. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
A reaction: A nice point, that we should keep distinct the recognition of a cause, and the assigning of a general name to it. Ducasse is claiming that we can directly perceive singular causation. |
8369 | Causes are either sufficient, or necessary, or necessitated, or contingent upon [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: There are four causal connections: an event is sufficient for another if it is its cause; an event is necessary for another if it is a condition for it; it is necessitated by another if it is an effect; it is contingent upon another if it is a resultant. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §2) | |
A reaction: An event could be a condition for another without being necessary. He seems to have missed the indispensable aspect of a necessary condition. |
8373 | When a brick and a canary-song hit a window, we ignore the canary if we are interested in the breakage [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: If a brick and the song of a canary strike a window, which breaks....we can truly say that the song of the canary had nothing to do with it, that is, in so far as what occurred is viewed merely as a case of breakage of window. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
A reaction: This is the germ of Davidson's view, that causation is entirely dependent on the mode of description, rather than being an actual feature of reality. If one was interested in the sound of the breakage, the canary would become relevant. |
8370 | A cause is a change which occurs close to the effect and just before it [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: The cause of the particular change K was such particular change C as alone occurred in the immediate environment of K immediately before. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §3) | |
A reaction: The obvious immediately difficulty would be overdetermination, as when it rains while I am watering my garden. The other problem would coincidence, as when I clap my hands just before a bomb goes off. |
8371 | Recurrence is only relevant to the meaning of law, not to the meaning of cause [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: The supposition of recurrence is wholly irrelevant to the meaning of cause: that supposition is relevant only to the meaning of law. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §4) | |
A reaction: This sounds plausible, especially if our notion of laws of nature is built up from a series of caused events. But we could just have an ontology of 'similar events', out of which we build laws, and 'causation' could drop out (á la Russell). |
8374 | We are interested in generalising about causes and effects purely for practical purposes [Ducasse] |
Full Idea: We are interested in causes and effects primarily for practical purposes, which needs generalizations; so the interest of concrete individual facts of causation is chiefly an indirect one, as raw material for generalizations. | |
From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §6) | |
A reaction: A nice explanation of why, if causation is fundamentally about single instances, people seem so interested in generalisations and laws. We want to predict, and we want to explain, and we want to intervene. |
8154 | Originally there must have been just Existence, which could not come from non-existence [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: In the beginning there was Existence, One only, without a second. Some say that in the beginning there was non-existence only, and that out of that the universe was born. But how could such a thing be? How could existence be born of non-existence? | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Chandogya') | |
A reaction: A very rare instance of an argument in the Upanishads, arising out of a disagreement. The monotheistic religions have preferred to make God the eternal element, presumably because that raises his status, but is also explains the start as a decision. |
8148 | Brahma, supreme god and protector of the universe, arose from the ocean of existence [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Out of the infinite ocean of existence arose Brahma, first-born and foremost among the gods. From him sprang the universe, and he became its protector. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Mundaka') | |
A reaction: Brahma does not have eternal (or necessary) existence. Could Brahma cease to exist? I suppose we cannot ask what caused the appearance of Brahma? Is it part of a plan, or just luck, or some sort of necessity? |
8144 | Brahman is the Uncaused Cause [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Brahman is the Uncaused Cause. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha') | |
A reaction: This precedes Aquinas (Idea 1430) by over two thousand years. The theological trick is to admit one Uncaused Cause, but somehow exclude further instances, such as my bicycle getting a puncture. Does this undermine the Principle of Sufficient Reason? |
8152 | Earth, food, fire, sun are all forms of Brahman [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Earth, food, fire, sun - all these that you worship - are forms of Brahman. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Chandogya') | |
A reaction: In 'Taittiriya' food is named as the "chief of all things". Pantheism seems to arise from a desire that one's god should have every conceivable good, so in addition to power and knowledge, your god must keep you warm and healthy. |
8159 | Damayata - be self-controlled! Datta - be charitable! Dayadhwam - be compassionate! [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: The storm-clouds thunder: Da! Da! Da! Damayata - be self-controlled! Datta - be charitable! Dayadhwam - be compassionate! | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Brihadaranyaka') | |
A reaction: Compassion seems to imply charity, so it comes down to 'Be self-controlled and compassionate'. Only the wildest romantic could be against self-control. Only Nietzsche could be against compassion (Idea 4425). |
8156 | The gods are not worshipped for their own sake, but for the sake of the Self [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: It is not for the sake of the gods, my beloved, that the gods are worshipped, but for the sake of the Self (Atman). | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Brihadaranyaka') | |
A reaction: There is an uneasy selfish streak in all religions, which conflicts with their exhorations to altruism, and to the love of the gods. It also occurs in the exhortation of Socrates to be virtuous. 'Pure' altruism seems only to arise in the 18th century. |
8157 | A man with desires is continually reborn, until his desires are stilled [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: A man acts according to desires; after death he reaps the harvest of his deeds, and returns again to the world of action. Thus he who has desires continues subject to rebirth, but he in who desire is stilled suffers no rebirth. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Brihadaranyaka') | |
A reaction: I greatly prefer the Stoic idea (Idea 3066) that we should live according to nature, to this perverse longing to completely destroy our own nature and become something we are not. Play the cards you are dealt, which include desires. |
8145 | Those ignorant of Atman return as animals or plants, according to their merits [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Of those ignorant of the Self (Atman), some enter into beings possessed of wombs, others enter into plants - according to their deeds and the growth of their intelligence. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha') | |
A reaction: "I sigh and sigh, and wish I were a tree" wrote George Herbert. You probably need the snobbery of the Indian caste system to appreciate the horrors of low rebirth. I quite fancy being a dolphin, but a tulip would be all right. |
8149 | Charity and ritual observance distract from the highest good of religion [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Considering religion to be observance of rituals and performance of acts of charity, the deluded remain ignorant of the highest good. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Mundaka') | |
A reaction: An important reminder. In all the great religious texts the exhortation to love and charity is a minor aspect. The point is to live on a spiritual plain, attempting to relate the world of God/the gods. Daily life is either secondary or irrelevant. |
8158 | Do not seek to know Brahman by arguments, for arguments are idle and vain [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Do not seek to know Brahman by arguments, for arguments are idle and vain. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Brihadaranyaka') | |
A reaction: In the end all the religions seem to gravitate towards fideism and away from reasoned argument. The Catholic Church may be the last bastion of rational theology. Islam (10th cent), Protestantism (16th) and Judaism (17th) all rejected philosophy. |
8146 | The immortal in us is the part that never sleeps, and shapes our dreams [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: That which is awake in us even while we sleep, shaping in dream the objects of our desire - that indeed is pure, that is Brahman, and that verily is called the Immortal. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Katha') | |
A reaction: That is a more helpful view of what the soul might be than anything found in Christian theology. It makes it the essence of the everyday Self. It is left with the difficulty of lacking individuality, and being of limited interest to my wider Self. |
8150 | The immortal Self and the sad individual self are like two golden birds perched on one tree [Anon (Upan)] |
Full Idea: Like two birds of golden plumage, the individual self and the immortal Self perch on the branches of the same tree. The individual self, deluded by forgetfulness of his identity with the divine self, bewildered by his ego, grieves and is sad. | |
From: Anon (Upan) (The Upanishads [c.950 BCE], 'Mundaka') | |
A reaction: Hinduism gives a much clearer and bolder picture of the soul than Christianity does. I don't see much consolation in the immortality of the wonderful Self, if my individual self is doomed to misery and extinction. Which one is me? |