7 ideas
| 20771 | Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Cleanthes says there are six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, and theology. | |
| From: report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.41 | |
| A reaction: This was a minority view, as most stoics agreed with Zeno and Chrysippus that there are three main topics. Nowadays there is little discussion of the 'parts' of philosophy, but the recent revival of meta-philosophy should encourage it. |
| 6028 | Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius] |
| Full Idea: Cleanthes says no incorporeal interacts with a body, but one body interacts with another body; the soul interacts with the body when it is sick and being cut, and the body feels shame and fear, and turns red or pale, so the soul is a body. | |
| From: report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Nemesius - De Natura Hominis 78,7 | |
| A reaction: This is precisely the interaction problem with dualism, or, as we might now say, the problem of mental causation. The standard Stoic view is that the soul is a sort of rarefied fire, which disperses at death. |
| 20831 | The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes] |
| Full Idea: Nothing incorporeal shares an experience with a body …but the soul suffers with the body when it is ill and when it is cut, and the body suffers with the soul - when the soul is ashamed the body turns red, and pale when the soul is frightened. | |
| From: Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]), quoted by Nemesius - De Natura Hominis 2 | |
| A reaction: Aha - my favourite example of the corporeal nature of the mind - blushing! It is the conscious content of the thought which brings blood to the cheeks. |
| 20930 | The existence of law is one thing, its merits and demerits another [Austin,J] |
| Full Idea: The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard is a different enquiry. | |
| From: John Austin (Lectures on Jurisprudence [1858], p.214), quoted by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction 6 'Positivism' | |
| A reaction: It is impossible to contest this point, but the issue is whether there is nothing more to law than its written existence. |
| 1868 | The world was made as much for animals as for man [Celsus] |
| Full Idea: The world was made as much for the irrational animals as for men. | |
| From: Celsus (On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) [c.178], §V) | |
| A reaction: A good remark. It seems to be a classic distortion of European Christianity that the world is made for us, and that animals only exist to fill our sandwiches. |
| 5993 | The ascending scale of living creatures requires a perfect being [Cleanthes, by Tieleman] |
| Full Idea: Cleanthes tried to prove the existence of God, arguing that the ascending scale of living creatures requires there to be a perfect being. | |
| From: report of Cleanthes (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by Teun L. Tieleman - Cleanthes | |
| A reaction: Not a very good argument. Even if you accept its basic claim, it is not clear what has to exist. A perfect tree? If the being transcends the physical (in order to achieve perfection), does it cease to be a 'being'? |
| 1867 | Christians presented Jesus as a new kind of logos to oppose that of the philosophers [Celsus] |
| Full Idea: Christians put forth this Jesus not only as the son of God, but as the very Logos - not the pure and holy Logos known to the philosophers, but a new kind of Logos. | |
| From: Celsus (On the True Doctrine (Against Christians) [c.178], III) |