54 ideas
| 6887 | Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Linguistic philosophy gives careful attention to actual linguistic usage as a method of dealing with problems of philosophy, resulting in either their solution or dissolution. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.318) | |
| A reaction: This approach is now deeply discredited and unfashionable, and, I think (on the whole), rightly so. Philosophy should aim a little higher in (say) epistemology than merely describing how people use words like 'know' and 'believe' and 'justify'. |
| 6881 | Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Critics of analytic philosophers accuse them of excessive attention to relatively unimportant matters, and of being more interested in sharpening tools than in using them. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.111) | |
| A reaction: The last part is a nice comment. Both criticisms seem to me to contain some justice, but recently things have improved (notably in the new attention paid by analytical philosophy to metaphysics). In morality analytic philosophy seems superior. |
| 5439 | The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The 'hermeneutic circle' consists in the fact that an interpretation of part of a text requires a prior understanding of the whole, and the interpretation of the whole requires a prior understanding of its parts. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.247) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a benign circle, solved the way Aristotle solves the good man/good action circle. You make a start somewhere, like a child learning to speak, and work your way into the circle. Not really a problem. |
| 9959 | 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A 'real definition' (as opposed to a linguistic one) is a statement which gives the essential properties of the things to which a given concept applies. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: This is often seen as old-fashioned, Aristotelian, and impossible to achieve, but I like it and aspire to it. One can hardly be precise about which properties are 'essential' to something, but there are clear cases. Your 'gold' had better not be brass. |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Usually in a definition the definiens (definition) can replace the definiendum (expression defined), but in a 'contextual definition' only the whole statement containing the definiens can replace the whole statement containing the definiendum. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: These definitions are crucial to Frege's enterprise in the 'Grundlagen'. Logicians always want to achieve definition with a single neat operation, but in ordinary language we talk around a definition, giving a variety of possibilities (as in teaching). |
| 9958 | Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: An example of a recursive definition is 'y is an ancestor of x' is defined as 'y is a parent of x, or y is a parent of an ancestor of x'. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: From this example I guess that 'ancestor' means 'friend'. Or have I misunderstood? I think we need to define 'grand-parent' as well, and then offer the definition of 'ancestor' with the words 'and so on...'. Essentially, it is mathematical induction. |
| 9960 | A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A stipulative definition lays down that a given linguistic expression is to have a certain meaning; this is why they cannot be said to be correct or incorrect. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: These are uncontroversial when they are explicitly made in writing by a single person. The tricky case is where they are implicitly made in conversation by a community. After a century or two these look like facts, their origin having been lost. |
| 9957 | Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Ostensive definitions explain what an expression means by pointing to an object, action, event, etc. denoted by the expression. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], 'definition') | |
| A reaction: These will need some context. If I define 'red' simply by pointing to a red square, you might conclude that 'red' means square. If I point to five varied red objects, you have to do the work of spotting the common ingredient. I can't mention 'colour'. |
| 6219 | The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The fallacy of composition is an inference relying on the invalid principle that whatever is true of every part is also true of the whole; thus, we cannot assume that because the members of a committee are rational, that the committee as a whole is. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.102) | |
| A reaction: This is a very common and very significant fallacy, which is perpetrated by major philosophers like Aristotle (Idea 31), unlike most of the other informal fallacies. |
| 6888 | Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Fuzzy logic is based upon fuzzy set-theory, in which the simple notion of membership of a set is replaced by a notion of membership to some degree. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.214) | |
| A reaction: The idea that something could be to some degree a 'heap of sand' sounds plausible, but Williamson and Sorensen claim that the vagueness is all in us (i.e. it is epistemological), and not in the world. This will scupper fuzzy logic. |
| 6877 | Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Entailment is the modern word saying that p logically follows from q. Its simplest definition is that you cannot have both p and not-q, but this has the problem that if p is impossible it will entail every possible proposition, which seems unacceptable. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.169) | |
| A reaction: The word 'entail' was introduced by G.E. Moore in 1920, in preference to 'imply'. It seems clear that we need terms for (say) active implication (q must be true if p is true) and passive implication (p must be false if q is false). |
| 6880 | Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Strict implication [not(p and not-q)] carries the paradoxes that a false proposition (p) implies any proposition (q), and a true proposition (q) is materially implied by any proposition (p). | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.270) | |
| A reaction: This seems to show that we have two drastically different notions of implication; one (the logician's) is boring and is defined by a truth table; the other (the ordinary interesting one) says if you have one truth you can deduce a second. |
| 6879 | 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: 'Material implication' is a term introduced by Russell which is defined as 'the conjunction of p and not-q is false', but carries a strong implication that p implies q, and so there must be some kind of connection between them, which is misleading. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.270) | |
| A reaction: Mautner says statements of the form 'if p then q' are better called 'conditionals' than 'material implications'. Clearly there is a need for more precise terminology here, as the underlying concepts seem simple enough. |
| 6878 | A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: 'Implying' is different from 'inferring', because a person who infers draws the conclusion, but a person who implies leaves it to the audience to draw the conclusion. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.279) | |
| A reaction: I had always taken it just that the speaker does the implying and the audience does the inferring. Of course a speaker may not know what he or she is implying, but an audience must be aware of what it is inferring. |
| 6889 | Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Vagueness is of great philosophical interest because it seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.585) | |
| A reaction: This would explain why Williamson and Sorensen are keen to argue that vagueness is an epistemological (rather than ontological) problem. In ordinary English we are happy to say that p is 'sort of true' or 'fairly true'. |
| 6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In formal logic, quantifiers are operators that turn an open sentence into a sentence to which a truth-value can be assigned. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.464) | |
| A reaction: The standard quantifiers are 'all' and 'at least one'. The controversy is whether quantifiers actually assert existence, or whether (as McGinn says) they merely specify the subject matter of the sentence. I prefer the latter. |
| 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. |
| 15312 | We get the idea of power by abstracting from ropes, magnets and electric shocks [Priestley] |
| Full Idea: A rope sustains weight, a magnet attracts iron, a charged electrical jar gives a shock, and from these and other similar observations, we get the idea of power, universally and abstractly considered. | |
| From: Joseph Priestley (Theological and other works [1790], p.191), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B | |
| A reaction: I agree with this, in that we appear to be observing powers directly, and are not observing something which can then be reduced to non-powers. Nature just can't be a set of inert structures, with forces 'imposed' on them. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 6882 | Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A conditional is called counterfactual because its use seems to presuppose that the user believes its antecedent to be false. Some insist that the antecedent must actually be false. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: I am inclined to favour the stricter second version. "If I am on Earth then I have weight" hardly sounds counterfactual. However, in "If there is a God then I will be saved" it is not clear whether it is counterfactual, so it had better be included. |
| 6886 | Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: One view of counterfactuals says they are not true, but are merely valid. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: This makes counterfactuals a branch of logic rather than of metaphysics. I find the metaphysical view more exciting as they are part of speculation and are beyond the capacity of computers (which I suspect they are). |
| 6885 | Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Another view of counterfactuals (Lewis, Pollock, Stalnaker) is that they are true if at every possible world at which it is the case that p, and which is otherwise as similar as possible to the actual world, it is also the case that q. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: This seems a good way if putting if, like Lewis, you actually believe in the reality of possible worlds, because then you are saying a counterfactual is made true by a set of facts. Otherwise it is not clear what the truth-maker is here. |
| 6884 | Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: A counterfactual conditional (or 'counterfactual') is a proposition or sentence of the form 'If it had been the case that p, then it would have been the case that q', or 'If it were the case that p, then it would be the case that q'. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: The first statement refers to the past, but the second (a subjunctive) refers to any situation at any time. We know more about inferences that we could have made in the past than we do about what is inferable at absolutely any time. |
| 6883 | Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: One view of counterfactuals (Chisholm, Goodman, Rescher) is that they are only true if there is a valid logical inference from p and some other propositions of certain kinds (controversial) to q. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.115) | |
| A reaction: The aspiration that counterfactual claims should reduce to pure logic sounds a bit hopeful to me. Logic is precise, but assertions about how things would be is speculative and imaginative. |
| 5449 | Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Many writers identify essentialism with the belief in 'de re' necessary truths | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.179) | |
| A reaction: I like essentialism, but I cautious about this. If I accept that I have an essential personal identity as I write this, but that it could change over time, the same principle might apply to other natural essences. |
| 6898 | Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Fallibilism is the view, proposed by Peirce, and found in Reichenbach, Popper, Quine etc that all knowledge-claims are provisional and in principle revisable, or that the possibility of error is ever-present. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.194) | |
| A reaction: I think of this as footnote to all thought which reads "Note 1: but you never quite know". Personally I would call myself a fallibilist, and am surprise at anyone who doesn't. The point is that this does not negate 'knowledge'. I am fairly sure 2+3=5. |
| 6452 | 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The term 'sense-data' gained currency around 1910, through writings of Moore and Russell, but it seems to denote at least some of the things referred to as 'ideas of sense' (Locke), or 'ideas' and 'sensible qualities' (Berkeley), or 'impressions' (Hume). | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.518) | |
| A reaction: See also Hobbes in Idea 2356 for an even earlier version. It looks as if the concept of sense-data is almost unavoidable for empiricists, and yet most modern empiricists have rejected them. You still have to give an account of perceptual illusions. |
| 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 |
| 4783 | Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Observing green emeralds can confirm 'all emeralds are green' or 'all emeralds are grue', where 'grue' is an arbitrary predicate meaning 'green until t and then blue'. Thus predictions are arbitrary, depending on how the property is described. | |
| From: report of Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.225) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This increasingly strikes me as the sort of sceptical nonsense that is concocted by philosophers who are enthralled to language instead of reality. It does draw attention to an expectation of stability in induction, both in language and in nature. |
| 4782 | 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG] |
| Full Idea: If observing a white sheet of paper confirms that 'all non-black things are non-ravens', and that is logically equivalent to 'all ravens are black' (which it is), then the latter proposition is confirmed by irrelevant observations. | |
| From: report of Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.105) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me more significant than the 'grue' paradox. If some observations can be totally irrelevant (except to God?), then some observations are much more relevant than others, so relevance is a crucial aspect of induction. |
| 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. |
| 6899 | The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Indexicals are expressions whose references depend on the circumstances of utterance, such as 'here', 'now', 'last month' 'I', 'you'. It was introduced by Peirce; Reichenbach called them 'token-reflexive', Russell 'ego-centric particulars'. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.272) | |
| A reaction: Peirce's terminology seems best. They obviously create great problems for any theory of reference which is rather theoretical and linguistic, such as by the use of descriptions. You can't understand 'Look at that!' without practical awareness. |
| 6896 | Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of double effect is that there is a moral distinction between what is foreseen by an agent as a likely result of an action, and what is intended. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.150) | |
| A reaction: Abortion for a pregnancy threatening the mother's life. What always intrigues me is the effects which you didn't foresee because you couldn't be bothered to think about them. How much obligation do you have to try to foresee events? |
| 6897 | Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: It is suggested the double effect act requires 1) the act is good, 2) the bad effect is not intended, and is avoided if possible, 3) the bad effect doesn't cause the good result, 4) the good must outweigh the bad side effect. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.151) | |
| A reaction: It is suggested that these won't work for permissibility of an action, but they might be appropriate for blameworthiness. Personally I am rather impressed by the four-part framework here, whatever nitpicking objections others may have found. |
| 5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In philosophical anthropology, the view that there is a human nature or essence is called 'essentialism'. It became current in 1946 as a contrast to Sartre's existentialist view. | |
| From: Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.179) | |
| A reaction: Being a fan of Aristotle, I incline towards the older view, but you cannot get away from the fact that the human brain has similarities to a Universal Turing Machine, and diverse cultures produce very different individuals. |
| 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- |
| 15311 | Attraction or repulsion are not imparted to matter, but actually constitute it [Priestley] |
| Full Idea: Attraction or repulsion appear to me not to be properly what is imparted to matter, but what really makes it what it is, in so much that, without it, it would be nothing at all. | |
| From: Joseph Priestley (Theological and other works [1790], p.237), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B | |
| A reaction: This is music to the ears of anyone who thinks that powers are the fundamentals of nature (like me). |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |