Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Frances A. Yates, Amphis and Richard Montague

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these philosophers

---

4 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 4. Early European Thought

9288	The magic of Asclepius enters Renaissance thought mixed into Ficino's neo-platonism [Yates]
	Full Idea: The magic of Asclepius, reinterpreted through Plotinus, enters with Ficino's De Vita into the neo-platonic philosophy of the Renaissance, and, moreover, into Ficino's Christian Platonism.
	From: Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.4)
	A reaction: Asclepius is the source of 'Hermetic' philosophy. This move seems to be what gives the Renaissance period its rather quirky and distinctive character. Montaigne was not a typical figure. Most of them wanted to become gods and control the stars!

9291	The dating, in 1614, of the Hermetic writings as post-Christian is the end of the Renaissance [Yates]
	Full Idea: The dating by Isaac Casaubon in 1614 of the Hermetic writings as not the work of a very ancient Egyptian priest but written in post-Christian times, is a watershed separating the Renaissance world from the modern world.
	From: Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.21)
	A reaction: I tend to place the end of the Renaissance with the arrival of the telescope in 1610, so the two dates coincide. Simply, magic was replaced by science. Religion ran alongside, gasping for breath. Mathematics was freed from numerology.

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / b. Definite descriptions

18779	'The' is a quantifier, like 'every' and 'a', and does not result in denotation [Montague]
	Full Idea: The expression 'The' turns out to play the role of a quantifier, in complete analogy with 'every' and 'a', and does not generate (in common with common noun phrases) denoting expressions
	From: Richard Montague (English as a Formal Language [1970], p.216), quoted by Bernard Linsky - Quantification and Descriptions 4
	A reaction: Linsky says that it is now standard to interpret definite descriptions as quantifiers

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good

3032	I can form no notion of what the good is [Amphis]
	Full Idea: What the good is I no more can form a notion of, than of the good of Plato.
	From: Amphis (comedies (frags) [c.350 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.1.22
	A reaction: It was evidently a running joke in the ancient world that no one could define Plato's Form of the Good. He was said to have written a book on it, now lost.