51 ideas
| 9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: To say that a class is natural is to say that when some of its members are shown to people they pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: He concedes a number of problems with his view, but I admire his attempt to at least begin to distinguish the natural (real!) classes from the ersatz ones. A mention of causal powers would greatly improve his story. |
| 9038 | We must distinguish what the speaker denotes by a name, from what the name denotes [Evans] |
| Full Idea: There are two related but distinguishable questions concerning proper names: what the speaker denotes (upon an occasion), and what the name denotes. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: I don't think any account of language makes sense without this sort of distinction, as in my favourite example: the password is 'swordfish'. So how does language gets its own meanings, independent of what speakers intend? |
| 5824 | How can an expression be a name, if names can change their denotation? [Evans] |
| Full Idea: We need an account of what makes an expression into a name for something that will allow names to change their denotations. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: Presumably an example would be 'The Prime Minister is in the building'. Evans proposes to discuss communication, rather than strict meanings and descriptions. |
| 9042 | A private intention won't give a name a denotation; the practice needs it to be made public [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Intentions alone don't bring it about that a name gets a denotation; without the intention being manifest there cannot be the common knowledge required for the practice. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: Well, I might have a private name for some hated colleague which I mutter to myself whenever I see her. The way names, and language generally, becomes ossified is by joining the great impersonal sea of the language. ..waves of bones, |
| 9041 | The Causal Theory of Names is wrong, since the name 'Madagascar' actually changed denotation [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Change of denotation is decisive against the Causal Theory of Names. Changes of denotation actually occur: a hearsay report misunderstood by Marco Polo transferred the name 'Madagascar' from a portion of the mainland to the African island. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't sound decisive, as you could give an intermediate causal account of Marco Polo's mistake. I might take the famous name Winston, and baptise my son with it. And I might have done it because I thought Winston was a German dictator. |
| 458 | Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: From what in no wise exists, it is impossible for anything to come into being; for Being to perish completely is incapable of fulfilment and unthinkable. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B012), quoted by Anon (Lyc) - On Melissus 975b1-4 |
| 5112 | Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles claims that things are alternately changing and at rest - that they are changing whenever love is creating a unity out of plurality, or hatred is creating plurality out of unity, and they are at rest in the times in between. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 250b26 | |
| A reaction: I suppose one must say that this an example of Ruskin's 'pathetic fallacy' - reading human emotions into the cosmos. Being constructive little creatures, we think goodness leads to construction. I'm afraid Empedocles is just wrong. |
| 16129 | Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Evans tries to derive a contradiction from the supposition that a given identity statement is of indeterminate truth-value. (As it happens, I consider that this argument is flawed) | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: A priori, I wouldn't expect to be able to settle the question of whether there are any vague objects simply by following some logical derivation. Empirical examination, and conceptual analysis (or stipulation) have to be involved. |
| 16459 | Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the world is vague, and vagueness is a necessary feature of any true description of it. Also identities may lack a determinate truth value because of their vagueness. Hence it is a fact that some objects have fuzzy boundaries. But is this coherent? | |
| From: Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Lewis quotes this introduction to the famous short paper, to show that Evans wasn't proposing a poor argument, but offering a reductio of the view that vagueness is 'ontic', or a feature of the world. |
| 16460 | Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The correct interpretation is that Evans trusts his reader (unwisely) to take for granted that there are vague identity statements, that a proof of the contrary cannot be right, and that the vagueness-in-describing view affords a diagnosis of the fallacy. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319 | |
| A reaction: [Lowe 199:11 is a culprit!] Lewis put this interpretation to Evans, who replied 'Yes, yes, yes!'. |
| 16457 | There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: One problem with Evans's argument that there are no such thing as vague identity statements is that its conclusion is plainly false. Example: 'Princeton = Princeton Borough', where it is unsettled what region 'Princeton' denotes. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319 | |
| A reaction: Lewis endorses the view that vagueness is semantic. I certainly don't endorse Evans's argument, which hinges on a weird example of a property, as applied to Leibniz's Law. |
| 15730 | Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: Pure, extreme nominalism sees all classification as the product of arbitrary convention. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what the word 'arbitrary' is doing there. Nominalists are not daft, and if they can classify any way they like, they are not likely to choose an 'arbitrary' system. Pragmatism tells the right story here. |
| 15728 | The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: The naturalness of a class depends as essentially on the nature of the observers who classify as it does on the nature of the objects that they classify. ...It depends on our perceptual apparatus, and on our relatively mutable needs and interests. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: This seems to translate 'natural' as 'natural for us', which is not much use to scientists, who spend quite a lot of effort combating folk wisdom. Do desirable sports cars constitute a natural class? |
| 9407 | Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: To say there are properties is to say there are natural classes, classes introduction to some of whose members enables people to pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: Aristotle would like this approach, but it doesn't find many friends among modern logician/philosophers. We should go on to ask why people agree on these things. Causal powers will then come into it. |
| 15729 | Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: Properties that have no concrete instances must be defined in terms of those that have. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: I wonder what the dodo used to smell like? |
| 8520 | An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K] |
| Full Idea: Quinton proposes that an individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position. | |
| From: report of Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], Pt I) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §5 | |
| A reaction: This seems the obvious defence of a bundle account of objects against the charge that indiscernibles would have to be identical. It introduces, however, 'positions' into the ontology, but maybe that price must be paid. Materialism needs space. |
| 13209 | There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says there is no coming-to-be of anything, but only a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314b08 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle comments that this prevents Empedocleans from distinguishing between superficial alteration and fundamental change of identity. Presumably, though, that wouldn't bother them. |
| 14484 | If a=b is indeterminate, then a=/=b, and so there cannot be indeterminate identity [Evans, by Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: We cannot accept the existence of vague objects, according to Evans's argument that there cannot be indeterminacy of identity. ...From the assumption that it is indeterminate whether a = b, we conclude, determinately, that it's not the case that a = b. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 05.6 | |
| A reaction: I think we should keep intrinsic identity separate from identity between entities. A cloud can be clearly identified, while being a bit fuzzy. It is only when you ask whether we saw the same cloud that Evans's argument seems relevant. |
| 457 | Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: There is no creation of substance in any one of mortal existence, nor any end in execrable death, but only mixing and exchange of what has been mixed. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1111f | |
| A reaction: also Aristotle 314b08 |
| 16224 | There can't be vague identity; a and b must differ, since a, unlike b, is only vaguely the same as b [Evans, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Two things can't be vaguely identical, because then a would have an indeterminacy which b lacks (namely, being perfectly identical to b), so by Leibniz's Law they can't be identical. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978], 4.7) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of Katherine Hawley's summary (2001:118) of Evans] Hawley considers the argument to be valid. I have grave doubts about whether b's identity with b is the sort of property needed for an application of Liebniz's Law. |
| 14895 | 'Superficial' contingency: false in some world; 'Deep' contingency: no obvious verification [Evans, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
| Full Idea: Evans says intuitively a sentence is 'superficially' contingent if the function from worlds to truth values assigns F to some world; it is 'deeply' contingent if understanding it does not guarantee that there is a verifying state of affairs. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Reference and Contingency [1979]) by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro - Introduction to 'Two-Dimensional Semantics' 2 | |
| A reaction: This distinction is used by Davies and Humberstone (1980) to construct an early version of 2-D semantics (see under Language|Semantics). The point is that part comes from understanding it, and another part from assigning truth values. |
| 11881 | Rigid designators can be meaningful even if empty [Evans, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Evans argues that there can be rigid designators that are meaningful even if empty. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Reference and Contingency [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.8 |
| 7639 | The Homunculus Fallacy explains a subject perceiving objects by repeating the problem internally [Evans] |
| Full Idea: The 'homunculus fallacy' attempts to explain what is involved in a subject's being related to objects in the external world by appealing to the existence of an inner situation which recapitulates the essential features of the original situation. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (Molyneux's Question [1978], p.397) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously right, but we aren't forced to settle for direct realism. Inner perception may be very different, or we may employ the idea of Dennett and Lycan, that the homunculi don't regress, they deteriorate steadily down into mechanisms. |
| 12580 | Experiences have no conceptual content [Evans, by Greco] |
| Full Idea: In Evans's work experiences are conceived of as not having a conceptual content at all. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by John Greco - Justification is not Internal | |
| A reaction: I presume it is this view which provoked McDowell's contrary view in 'Mind and World'. I say this is a job for neuroscience, and I struggle to see what philosophical questions hang on the outcome. I think I side with Evans. |
| 7643 | We have far fewer colour concepts than we have discriminations of colour [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Do we really understand the proposal that we have as many colour concepts as there are shades colour that we can sensibly discriminate? | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: This is the argument (rejected by McDowell) that experience cannot be conceptual because experience is too rich. We should not confuse lack of concepts with lack of words. I may have a concept of a colour between two shades, but no word for it. |
| 462 | One vision is produced by both eyes [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: One vision is produced by both eyes | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B088), quoted by Strabo - works 8.364.3 |
| 22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom and power of thought, know thou, are shared in by all things. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) II.286 | |
| A reaction: Sextus quotes this, saying that it is 'still more paradoxical', and that it explicitly includes plants. This may mean that Empedocles was not including inanimate matter. |
| 1524 | For Empedocles thinking is almost identical to perception [Empedocles, by Theophrastus] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles assumes that thinking is either identical to or very similar to sense-perception. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], A86) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 9 | |
| A reaction: Not to be sniffed at. We can, of course, control our thinking (though we can't control the controller) and we contemplate abstractions, but that might be seen as a sort of perception. Vision is not as visual as we think. |
| 23794 | Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Evans introduced the idea that there are some representational states, for example perceptual experiences, which have content that is nonconceptual. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 3.4 | |
| A reaction: McDowell famously disagree, and whether all experience is inherently conceptualised is a main debate from that period. Hard to see how it could be settled, but I incline to McDowell, because minimal perception hardly counts as 'experience'. |
| 16366 | The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans] |
| Full Idea: If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has conception. This condition I call the 'Generality Constraint'. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], p.104), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 5.3 | |
| A reaction: Recanati endorses the Constraint in his account of mental files. Apparently if I can entertain the thought of a circle being round, I can also entertain the thought of it being square, so I am not too sure about this one. |
| 12575 | Concepts have a 'Generality Constraint', that we must know how predicates apply to them [Evans, by Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Evans's 'Generality Constraint' says that if a thinker is capable of attitudes to the content Fa and possesses the singular concept b, then he is capable of having attitudes to the content Fb. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], 4.3) by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 1.1 | |
| A reaction: So having an attitude becomes the test of whether one possesses a concept. I suppose if one says 'You know you've got a concept when you are capable of thinking about it', that is much the same thing. Sounds fine. |
| 5825 | Speakers intend to refer to items that are the source of their information [Evans] |
| Full Idea: In general, a speaker intends to refer to the item that is the dominant source of his associated body of information. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a theory of reference which fully preserves the spirit of traditional empiricism. Speakers refer to ideas which connect to the source of their underlying impressions. |
| 5823 | The intended referent of a name needs to be the cause of the speaker's information about it [Evans] |
| Full Idea: A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for x's being the intended referent of S's use of a name is that x should be the source of the causal origin of the body of information that S has associated with the name. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: This is Evans's adaptation of Kripke's causal theory of names. This cries out for a counterexample. I say something about General Montgomery, having just listened to 'Monty's Double' give a talk, believing it was Montgomery? |
| 9039 | If descriptions are sufficient for reference, then I must accept a false reference if the descriptions fit [Evans] |
| Full Idea: The strong thesis (that descriptions are sufficient for reference) is outrageous. It would mean that if Mr X is wrongly introduced to me as Mr Y, then I truly say 'this is Mr Y' if X overwhelmingly satisfies descriptions of Y. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: [I omit some qualifying phrases] Evans says that probably no one ever held this view. It seems right. In the case of an electron it would seem that all the descriptions could be the same, except space-time location. Same electron as yesterday? |
| 9043 | We use expressions 'deferentially', to conform to the use of other people [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes we use expressions with the overriding intention to conform to the use made of them by some other person or persons. I shall say we use the expression 'deferentially'; examples might be 'viol' or 'minuet'. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §II) | |
| A reaction: I presume Evans wasn't very musical. This label sounds useful, if you wish to connect Grice's account of meaning with Putnam's externalist account of concepts, where deference to experts is crucial. Is all linguistic usage deferential? |
| 9040 | Charity should minimize inexplicable error, rather than maximising true beliefs [Evans] |
| Full Idea: I think the Principle of Charity (maximise true beliefs) is unacceptable. The acceptable principle enjoins minimizing the attribution of inexplicable error and cannot be operated without a theory of the causation of belief for the creatures investigated. | |
| From: Gareth Evans (The Causal Theory of Names [1973], §I) | |
| A reaction: The normal principle of charity certainly seems on shaky ground if you think you have encountered a fairly normal tribe, when they in fact are in possession of the weirdest belief system on the entire planet. |
| 552 | Empedocles said good and evil were the basic principles [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles was the first to give evil and good as principles. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 985a | |
| A reaction: Once you start to think that good and evil will only matter if they have causal powers, it is an easy step to the idea of a benevolent god, and a satanic anti-god. Otherwise the 'principles' could be ignored. |
| 589 | 'Nature' is just a word invented by people [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Nature is but a word of human framing. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1015a |
| 21823 | The principle of 'Friendship' in Empedocles is the One, and is bodiless [Empedocles, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: In Empedocles we have a dividing principle, 'Strife', set against 'Friendship' - which is the One and is to him bodiless, while the elements represent matter. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.09 | |
| A reaction: The first time I've seen the principle of Love in Empedocles identified with the One of Parmenides. Plotinus is a trustworthy reporter, I think, because he was well read, and had access to lost texts. |
| 2680 | Empedocles said that there are four material elements, and two further creative elements [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles holds that the corporeal elements are four, but that all the elements, including those which create motion, are six in number. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a16 |
| 6002 | Empedocles says bone is water, fire and earth in ratio 2:4:2 [Empedocles, by Inwood] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles used numerical ratios to explain different kinds of matter; for example, bone is two parts water, four parts fire, two parts earth; and blood is an equal blend of all four elements. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Brad Inwood - Empedocles | |
| A reaction: Why isn't the ration 1:2:1? This presumably shows the influence of Pythagoras (who had also been based in Italy, like Empedocles), as well as that of the earlier naturalistic philosophers. It was a very good theory, though wrong. |
| 13207 | Fire, Water, Air and Earth are elements, being simple as well as homoeomerous [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says that Fire, Water, Air and Earth are four elements, and are thus 'simple' rather than flesh, bone and bodies which, like these, are 'homoeomeries'. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a26 | |
| A reaction: The translation is not quite clear. I take it that flesh and bone may look simple, because they are homoeomerous, but they are not really - but what is his evidence for that? Compare Idea 13208. |
| 459 | All change is unity through love or division through hate [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: These elements never cease their continuous exchange, sometimes uniting under the influence of Love, so that all become One, at other times again moving apart through the hostile force of Hate. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B017), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 158.1- |
| 13218 | The elements combine in coming-to-be, but how do the elements themselves come-to-be? [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Empedocles says it is evident that all the other bodies down to the 'elements' have their coming-to-be and their passing-away: but it is not clear how the 'elements' themselves, severally in their aggregated masses, come-to-be and pass-away. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 325b20 | |
| A reaction: Presumably the elements are like axioms - and are just given. How do electrons and quarks come-to-be? |
| 13225 | Love and Strife only explain movement if their effects are distinctive [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: It is not an adequate explanation to say that 'Love and Strife set things moving', unless the very nature of Love is a movement of this kind and the very nature of Strife a movement of that kind. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 333b23 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be of interest for showing Aristotle's quest for explanations, and his unwillingness to be fobbed off with anything superficial. I take a task of philosophy to be to push explanations further than others wish to go. |
| 460 | If the one Being ever diminishes it would no longer exist, and what could ever increase it? [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Besides these elements, nothing else comes into being, nor does anything cease. For if they had been perishing continuously, they would Be no more; and what could increase the Whole? And whence could it have come? | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B017), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 158.1- |
| 5090 | Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Is it just an accident that teeth and other parts of the body seem to have some purpose, and creatures survive because they happen to be put together in a useful way? Everything else has been destroyed, as Empedocles says of his 'cow with human head'. | |
| From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], 61) by Aristotle - Physics 198b29 | |
| A reaction: Good grief! Has no one ever noticed that Empedocles proposed the theory of evolution? It isn't quite natural selection, because we aren't told what does the 'destroying', but it is a little flash of genius that was quietly forgotten. |
| 461 | God is a pure, solitary, and eternal sphere [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: God is equal in all directions to himself and altogether eternal, a rounded Sphere enjoying a circular solitude. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B028), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.15.2 |
| 466 | God is pure mind permeating the universe [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: God is mind, holy and ineffable, and only mind, which darts through the whole cosmos with its swift thought. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B134), quoted by Ammonius - On 'De Interpretatione' 4.5.249.6 |
| 1719 | In Empedocles' theory God is ignorant because, unlike humans, he doesn't know one of the elements (strife) [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: It is a consequence of Empedocles' view that God is the most unintelligent thing, for he alone is ignorant of one of the elements, namely strife, whereas mortal creatures are familiar with them all. | |
| From: comment on Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - De Anima 410b08 |
| 1522 | It is wretched not to want to think clearly about the gods [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: Wretched is he who cares not for clear thinking about the gods. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B132), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.140.5.1 |