29 ideas
6601 | Science rules the globe because of colonising power, not inherent rationality [Feyerabend] |
Full Idea: Science now reigns supreme all over the globe; but the reason was not insight in its 'inherent rationality' but power play (the colonising nations imposed their way of living) and the need for weapons. | |
From: Paul Feyerabend (Against Method [1975], 3), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5 | |
A reaction: A nice clear statement of ridiculous relativism about science. What gave the colonisers their power if it was not more accurate knowledge of how to manipulate nature? |
6007 | If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
Full Idea: The 'undetected' or 'veiled' paradox of Eubulides says: if you know your father, and don't know the veiled person before you, but that person is your father, you both know and don't know the same person. | |
From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School | |
A reaction: Essentially an uninteresting equivocation on two senses of "know", but this paradox comes into its own when we try to give an account of how linguistic reference works. Frege's distinction of sense and reference tried to sort it out (Idea 4976). |
6006 | If you say truly that you are lying, you are lying [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
Full Idea: The liar paradox of Eubulides says 'if you state that you are lying, and state the truth, then you are lying'. | |
From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School | |
A reaction: (also Cic. Acad. 2.95) Don't say it, then. These kind of paradoxes of self-reference eventually lead to Russell's 'barber' paradox and his Theory of Types. |
6008 | Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
Full Idea: The 'sorites' paradox of Eubulides says: if you take one grain of sand from a heap (soros), what is left is still a heap; so no matter how many grains of sand you take one by one, the result is always a heap. | |
From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School | |
A reaction: (also Cic. Acad. 2.49) This is a very nice paradox, which goes to the heart of our bewilderment when we try to fully understand reality. It homes in on problems of identity, as best exemplified in the Ship of Theseus (Ideas 1212 + 1213). |
16661 | There are two sorts of category - referring to things, and to circumstances of things [Boethius] |
Full Idea: Is it not now clear what the difference is between items in the categories? Some serve to refer to a thing, whereas others serve to refer to the circumstances of a thing. | |
From: Boethius (Concerning the Trinity [c.518], Ch. 4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.5 |
15035 | If universals are not separate, we can isolate them by abstraction [Boethius, by Panaccio] |
Full Idea: Boethius argued that universals can be successfully isolated by abstraction, even if they do not exist as separate entities in the world. | |
From: report of Boethius (Second Commentary on 'Isagoge' [c.517]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Sources' | |
A reaction: Personally I rather like this unfashionable view. I can't think of any other plausible explanation, unless it is a less conscious psychological process of labelling. Boethius's idea led to medieval 'immanent realism'. |
14665 | We can call the quality of Plato 'Platonity', and say it is a quality which only he possesses [Boethius] |
Full Idea: Let the incommunicable property of Plato be called 'Platonity'. For we can call this quality 'Platonity' by a fabricated word, in the way in which we call the quality of man 'humanity'. Therefore this Platonity is one man's alone - Plato's. | |
From: Boethius (Librium de interpretatione editio secunda [c.516], PL64 462d), quoted by Alvin Plantinga - Actualism and Possible Worlds 5 | |
A reaction: Plantinga uses this idea to reinstate the old notion of a haecceity, to bestow unshakable identity on things. My interest in the quotation is that the most shocking confusions about properties arose long before the invention of set theory. |
23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
Full Idea: Boethius says that reasoning [ratiocinatio] is related to intellectual understanding [intellectus] as time to eternity, involving as it does movement from one stage to another. | |
From: report of Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], 4, prose 6) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Shifting' | |
A reaction: This gives true understanding a quasi-religious aura, as befits a subject which is truly consoling. |
2561 | For Feyerabend the meaning of a term depends on a whole theory [Feyerabend, by Rorty] |
Full Idea: For Feyerabend the meaning of a term depends on a whole theory containing the term. | |
From: report of Paul Feyerabend (Against Method [1975]) by Richard Rorty - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature 6.3 |
5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
Full Idea: Just as the knowledge of present things imposes no necessity on what is happening, so foreknowledge imposes no necessity on what is going to happen. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.IV) | |
A reaction: This, I think, is the key idea if you are looking for a theological answer to the theological problem of free will. Don't think of God as seeing the future 'now'. God is outside time, and so only observes all of history just as we observe the present. |
5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
Full Idea: There is freedom of the will, for it would be impossible for any rational nature to exist without it. Whatever by nature has the use of reason has the power of judgement to decide each matter. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.II) | |
A reaction: A view taken up by Aquinas (Idea 1849) and Kant (Idea 3740). The 'power of judgement' pinpoints the core of rationality, and it is not clear how a robot could fulfil such a power, if it lacked consciousness. Does a machine 'judge' barcodes? |
5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
Full Idea: God's universal foreknowledge and freedom of the will seem clean contrary and opposite. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
A reaction: The original source of the great theological and philosophical anguish over free will. The problem is anything which fixes future facts, be it oracular knowledge or scientific prediction. Personally I think free will was an invention by religions. |
5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
Full Idea: Does foreknowledge of the future cause the necessity of events, or necessity cause the foreknowledge? | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
A reaction: An intriguing question, though not one that bothers me. I don't understand how foreknowledge causes necessity, unless God's vision of the future is a kind of 'freezing ray'. Even the gods must bow to necessity (Idea 3016). |
5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
Full Idea: If the wicked obtained what they want - that is goodness - they could not be wicked. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.II) | |
A reaction: This is a nice paradox which arises from Boethius being, like Socrates, an intellectualist. The question is whether the wicked want the good de re or de dicto. If they wanted to good de re (as its true self) they would obviously not be wicked. |
5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
Full Idea: If there is no free will, then in vain is reward offered to the good and punishment to the bad, because they have not been deserved by any free and willed movement of the mind. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
A reaction: I just don't see why decisions have to come out of nowhere in order to have any merit. People are different from natural forces, because the former can be persuaded by reasons. A moral agent is a mechanism which decides according to reasons. |
5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
Full Idea: When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.III) | |
A reaction: This is a view I find quite sympathetic, but which is a million miles from the modern view. Today's paper showed a picture of a famous criminal holding a machine gun and a baby. We seem to delight in the idea that human nature is partly wicked. |
5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
Full Idea: Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.I) | |
A reaction: This sounds like the ancient 'eudaimonism' of Socrates and Aristotle, which might not be entirely compatible with orthodox Christianity. It is not true, though, that happy people lack ambition. To be happy, an unfilfilled aim may be needed. |
5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
Full Idea: The supreme good is the goal of good men and bad men alike, and the good seek it by means of a natural activity - the exercise of virtue - while the bad strive to acquire it by means of their desires, which is not a natural way of obtaining the good. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.II) | |
A reaction: Interesting here is the slightly surprising claim that the pursuit of virtue is 'natural', implying that the mere pursuit of desire is not. Doesn't nature have to be restrained to achieve the good? Boethius is in the tradition of Aristotle and stoicism. |
5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
Full Idea: The various things that men pursue are not perfect and good, because they differ from one another; ..when they differ they are not good, but when they begin to be one they become good, so it is through the acquisition of unity that these things are good. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XI) | |
A reaction: This is a criticism of Aristotle's pluralism about the good(s) for man. Boethius' thought is appealing, and ties in with the Socratic notion that the virtues might be unified in some way. I think it is right that true virtues merge together, ideally. |
5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
Full Idea: The only way one man can exercise power over another is over his body and what is inferior to it, his possessions. You cannot impose anything on a free mind. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], II.VI) | |
A reaction: Written, of course, in prison. Boethius had not met hypnotism, or mind-controlling drugs, or invasive brain surgery. He hadn't read '1984'. He hadn't seen 'The Ipcress File'. (In fact, he should have got out more…) |
16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
Full Idea: Divine eternity is the all-at-once [tota simul] and complete possession of unending life. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1 | |
A reaction: This is a famous definition, and 'tota simul' became the phrase used for 'entia successiva', such as a day, or the Olympic Games. |
5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
Full Idea: A philosopher (possibly Epicurus) asked where evil comes from if there is a god, and where good comes from if there isn't. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], I.IV) | |
A reaction: A nice question. The best known answer to the first question is 'Satan'. Some would say that in the second case good is impossible, but I would have thought that the only possible answer is 'mankind'. |
5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
Full Idea: That which by its own nature is something distinct from supreme good, cannot be supreme good. ..It is impossible for anything to be by nature better than that from which it is derived, so that which is the origin of all things is supreme good. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.X) | |
A reaction: This is the contortion early Christians got into once they decided God had to be 'supreme' in the moral world (and every other world). Boethius allows a possible external source of all morality, but then has to say that this source is morally inferior. |
5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
Full Idea: God is the good. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XI) | |
A reaction: This summary follows on from the rather dubious discussion in Idea 5757. If God IS the good, it is not clear how God could be usefully described as 'good'. We would know that he was good a priori, without any enquiry into his nature being needed. |
5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
Full Idea: For this power, whatever it is, through which creation remains in existence and in motion, I use the word which all people use, namely God. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XII) | |
A reaction: An interesting caution in the phrase 'whatever it is'. Boethius would have been very open-minded in discussion with modern science about the stability of nature. Personally I reject Boethius' theory, but don't have a better one. Cf Idea 1431. |
5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
Full Idea: I could never believe that events of such regularity as we find in this life are due to the haphazards of chance. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], I.VI) | |
A reaction: It depends what you mean by 'chance'. Boethius infers a conscious mind, and presumes this to be God, but that is two large and unsupported steps. Modern atheists must acknowledge Boethius' problem. Why is there order? |
5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
Full Idea: Goodness is happiness, ..but we agree that those who attain happiness are divine. The reward of the good, then, is to become gods. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.III) | |
A reaction: Kant offered a similar argument (see Idea 1455). Most of us are unlikely to agree with the second premise of Boethius' argument. The idea that we might somehow become gods gripped the imagination for the next thousand years. |
5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
Full Idea: 'There is nothing that an omnipotent power could not do?' 'No.' 'Then can God do evil?' 'No.' 'So evil is nothing, since that is what He cannot do who can do anthing.' | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XII) | |
A reaction: A lovely example of the contortions necessary once you insist that God must be 'omnipotent', in some absolute sense of the term. Saying that evil is 'nothing' strikes me as nothing more than a feeble attempt to insult it. |
5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |
Full Idea: If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere. | |
From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.VI) | |
A reaction: This brings out the verificationist in me. See Idea 1467, by Antony Flew. Presumably Boethius would retain his faith as Europe moved horribly from 1939 to 1945, and even if the whole of humanity sank into squalid viciousness. |