3 ideas
| 16629 | By comparing qualities and features, reason can gradually infer the nature of substance [Grosseteste] |
| Full Idea: Awakened reason distinguishes color from size and shape from body and then shape and size from the substance of body, and so by drawing distinctions and abstracting, it arrives at a grasp of the substance of body, which supports size, shape and color. | |
| From: Robert Grosseteste (Commentary on 'Posterior Analytics' [1226], I.14), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.4 | |
| A reaction: This optimistic view influenced Aquinas, and is called 'incrementalism' by Pasnau. It is the spirit of scientific essentialism, and a nice instance of inference to the best explanation (though 'substance' in itself explains virtually nothing). |
| 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 |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
| From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |