5 ideas
15833 | Tell cleverness from answers, but wisdom from questions [Mahfouz] |
Full Idea: You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. | |
From: Naguib Mahfouz (works [1998]) | |
A reaction: [Popped up on Twitter. I am adjusting to the 21st century] The observation is simplistic, of course, but very nice indeed. |
22626 | Process philosophy insists that processes are not inferior in being to substances [Rescher] |
Full Idea: Process philosophy diametrically opposes the view that denies processes or downgrades them in the order of being or of understanding by subordinating them to substantial things. | |
From: Nicholas Rescher (Process Metaphysics [1996]), quoted by R.D. Ingthorsson - A Powerful Particulars View of Causation 7 | |
A reaction: [No page cited - nr start?] Ingthorsson quotes this in order to challenge it, and says that substances are also processes, because change is essential to them. |
10650 | In the military, persons are parts of parts of large units, but not parts of those large units [Rescher] |
Full Idea: In military usage, persons can be parts of small units, and small units parts of large ones; but persons are never parts of large units. | |
From: Nicholas Rescher (Axioms for the Part Relation [1955]), quoted by Achille Varzi - Mereology 2.1 | |
A reaction: This much-cited objection to the transitivity of the 'part' relation seems very odd. There could hardly be an army or a regiment if there weren't soldiers to make up parts of it. |
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 |
20365 | We only see points in motion, and thereby infer movement [Rescher] |
Full Idea: We perceive motion only as isolated points, and then infer it without actually seeing it. | |
From: Nicholas Rescher (Scepticism [1980], §112) | |
A reaction: Note how writing suddenly becomes readable as you slow down on entering a railway station. Is that points suddenly becoming unified? This is an empiricist endorsement of Russell's 'at-at' account of motion. |