Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hermarchus, Jos Ortega y Gassett and Gregory Vlastos

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4 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / h. Dasein (being human)

20752	For man, being is not what he is, but what he is going to be [Ortega y Gassett]
	Full Idea: Being consists not in what it is already, but in what it is not yet, a being that consists in not-yet-being. Everything else in the world is what it is….Man is the entity that makes himself….He has to determine what he is going to be.
	From: José Ortega y Gassett (Toward a Philosophy of History [1941], p.112,201-2), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 4 'Problem'
	A reaction: [p.112 and 201-2] This seems to be Ortega y Gasset's spin on Heidegger's concept, by adding a temporal dimension to it.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

20756	Instead of having a nature, man only has a history [Ortega y Gassett]
	Full Idea: Man lives in view of the past. Man, in a word, has no nature; what he has is history. Expressed differently: what nature is to things, history is to man.
	From: José Ortega y Gassett (Toward a Philosophy of History [1941], p.217), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 5 'Situated'
	A reaction: Makes explicit the existentialist denial of human nature. The foundation of ethics can only be total freedom, to choose both yourself and your actions. What is inescapable is the social and culture contexts. What is the role of the 'history'?

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / b. Retribution for crime

1658	In early Greece the word for punishment was also the word for vengeance [Vlastos]
	Full Idea: Down to the last third of the fifth century, 'timoria', whose original and always primary sense is "vengeance", is THE word for "punishment".
	From: Gregory Vlastos (Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher [1991], p.186)

25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights

6005	Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley]
	Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us.
	From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus
	A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts?