Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Eucleides, Numenius and Michael Strevens

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6 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding

14365	Scientific understanding is always the grasping of a correct explanation [Strevens]
	Full Idea: I defend what I call the 'simple view', that scientific understanding is that state produced, and only produced, by grasping a correct explanation.
	From: Michael Strevens (No Understanding without Explanation [2011], Intro)
	A reaction: I like this because it clearly states what I take to be the view of Aristotle, and the key to understanding the whole of that philosopher's system. I take the view to be correct.

14368	We may 'understand that' the cat is on the mat, but not at all 'understand why' it is there [Strevens]
	Full Idea: 'Understanding why' is quite separate from 'understanding that': you might be exquisitely, incandescently aware of the cat's being on the mat without having the slightest clue how it got there. My topic is understanding why.
	From: Michael Strevens (No Understanding without Explanation [2011], 2)
	A reaction: Can't we separate 'understand how' from 'understand why'? I may know that someone dropped a cat through my letterbox, but more understanding would still be required. (He later adds understanding 'with' a theory).

14369	Understanding is a precondition, comes in degrees, is active, and holistic - unlike explanation [Strevens]
	Full Idea: Objectors to the idea that understanding requires explanation say that understanding is a precondition for explanation, that understanding comes in degrees, that understanding is active, and that it is holistic - all unlike explanations.
	From: Michael Strevens (No Understanding without Explanation [2011], 4)
	A reaction: He works through these four objections and replies to them, in defence of the thesis in Idea 14365. I agree with Strevens on this.

19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories

1757	The Electra: she knows this man, but not that he is her brother [Eucleides, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: The 'Electra': Electra knows that Orestes is her brother, but not that this man is Orestes, so she knows and does not know her brother simultaneously.
	From: report of Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Eu.4
	A reaction: Hence we distinguish 'know of', 'know that' and 'know how'. Hence Russell makes 'knowledge by acquaintance' fundamental, and descriptions come later.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good

3028	The chief good is unity, sometimes seen as prudence, or God, or intellect [Eucleides]
	Full Idea: The chief good is unity, which is known by several names, for at one time people call it prudence, at another time God, at another intellect, and so on.
	From: Eucleides (fragments/reports [c.410 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.9.2
	A reaction: So the chief good is what unites and focuses our moral actions. Kant calls that 'the will'.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 1. God

6011	There is a remote first god (the Good), and a second god who organises the material world [Numenius, by O'Meara]
	Full Idea: Numenius argues that material reality depends on intelligible being, which depends on a first god - the Good - which is difficult to grasp, but which inspires a second god to imitate it, turning to matter and organizing it as the world.
	From: report of Numenius (fragments/reports [c.160]) by Dominic J. O'Meara - Numenius
	A reaction: The interaction problem comes either between the two gods, or between the second god and the world. The argument may have failed to catch on for long when people scented an infinite regress lurking in the middle of it.