52 ideas
| 11147 | Naturalistic philosophers oppose analysis, preferring explanation to a priori intuition [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers who oppose conceptual analysis identify their approach as being 'naturalistic'. Philosophy is supposed to be continuous with science, and philosophical theories are to be defended on explanatory grounds, not by a priori intuitions. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Papineau 1993, Devitt 1996 aand Kornblith 2002] I think there is a happy compromise here. I agree that any philosophical knowledge should be continuous with science, but we shouldn't prejudge how the analytic branch of science is done. |
| 16554 | Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: Activities can be identified spatiotemporally, and individuated by rate, duration, and types of entity and property that engage in them. They also have modes of operation, directionality, polarity, energy requirements and a range. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is their attempt at making 'activity' one of the two central concepts of ontology, along with 'entity'. A helpful analysis. It just seems to be one way of slicing the cake. |
| 16556 | Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: It is not the penicillin that causes the pneumonia to disappear, but what the penicillin does. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a very neat example for illustrating how we slip into 'entity' talk, when the reality we are addressing actually concerns processes. Without the 'what it does', penicillin can't participate in causation at all. |
| 1212 | Replacing timbers on Theseus' ship was the classic illustration of the problem of growth and change [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: At intervals they removed old timbers from the preserved ship and replaced them with sound ones, so the ship became a classic illustration for the philosophers of the disputed question of growth and change, some saying it was the same, others different. | |
| From: Plutarch (Life of Theseus [c.85], 23) |
| 16562 | We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: The intelligibility of a phenomenon consists in the mechanisms being portrayed in terms of a field's bottom out entities and activities. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7) | |
| A reaction: In other words, we understand complex things by reducing them to things we do understand. It would, though, be illuminating to see a nest of interconnected activities, even if we understood none of them. |
| 5958 | The sun is always bright; it doesn't become bright when it emerges [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The sun doesn't become bright when it emerges from the clouds; it always is bright. | |
| From: Plutarch (26: Oracles in Decline [c.85], §39) | |
| A reaction: Not an argument, but a nice appeal to common sense, like Russell's example of the cat that disappears behind the furniture and then reappears. To disagree with Plutarch here strikes me as the road to philosophical absurdity. |
| 11141 | Modern empiricism tends to emphasise psychological connections, not semantic relations [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: A growing number of philosophers are attracted to modified forms of empiricism, emphasizing psychological relations between the conceptual system and perceptual and motor states, not semantic relations. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: I suddenly spot that this is what I have been drifting towards for some time! The focus is concept formation, where the philosophers need to join forces with the cognitive scientists. |
| 16563 | The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: It is not regularities that explain but the activities that sustain the regularities. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7) | |
| A reaction: Good, but we had better not characterise the 'activities' in terms of regularities. |
| 16555 | Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: It is common to speak of functions as properties 'had by' entities, …but they should rather be understood in terms of the activities by virtue of which entities contribute to the workings of a mechanism. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3) | |
| A reaction: I'm certainly quite passionately in favour of cutting down on describing the world almost entirely in terms of entities which have properties. An 'activity', though, is a bit of an elusive concept. |
| 16528 | Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: One should not think of mechanisms as exclusively mechanical (push-pull) systems. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1) | |
| A reaction: The difficulty seems to be that you could broaden the concept of 'mechanism' indefinitely, so that it covered history, mathematics, populations, cultural change, and even mathematics. Where to stop? |
| 16529 | Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular change from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is their initial formal definition of a mechanism. Note that a mere 'activity' can be included. Presumably the mechanism might have an outcome that was not the intended outcome. Does a random element disqualify it? Are hands mechanisms? |
| 16530 | A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: To give a description of a mechanism for a phenomenon is to explain that phenomenon, i.e. to explain how it was produced. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1) | |
| A reaction: To 'show how' something happens needs a bit of precisification. It is probably analytic that 'showing how' means 'revealing the mechanism', though 'mechanism' then becomes the tricky concept. |
| 16553 | Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: We emphasise the activities in mechanisms. This is explicitly dualist. Substantivalists speak of entities with dispositions to act. Process ontologists reify activities and try to reduce entities to processes. We try to capture both intuitions. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3) | |
| A reaction: [A quotation of selected fragments] The problem here seems to be the raising of an 'activity' to a central role in ontology, when it doesn't seem to be primitive, and will typically be analysed in a variety of ways. |
| 16559 | Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: Nested hierachical descriptions of mechanisms typically bottom out in lowest level mechanisms. …Bottoming out is relative …the explanation comes to an end, and description of lower-level mechanisms would be irrelevant. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me exactly the right story about mechanism, and it is a story I am associating with essentialism. The relevance is ties to understanding. The lower level is either fully understood, or totally baffling. |
| 16564 | There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: There are four bottom-out kinds of activities: geometrico-mechanical, electro-chemical, electro-magnetic and energetic. These are abstract means of production that can be fruitfully applied in particular cases to explain phenomena. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7) | |
| A reaction: I like that. It gives a nice core for a metaphysics for physicalists. I suspect that 'mechanical' can be reduced to something else, and that 'energetic' will disappear in the final story. |
| 5959 | Some philosophers say the soul is light [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers hold that the soul is in its essence light. | |
| From: Plutarch (75: Is 'Live Unknown' a Wise Precept? [c.85], §6) | |
| A reaction: A nice idea, to rival the stoic view that the soul is fire. It is understandable to propose that the soul is some sort of lightweight and fast moving matter. How else could thought be achieved physically? Nowadays, parallel processing is our only model. |
| 5960 | When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance. | |
| From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001) | |
| A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason. |
| 16561 | We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: Abstractions may be constructed by taking an exemplary case or instance and removing detail. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: I love 'removing detail'. That's it. Simple. I think this process is the basis of our whole capacity to formulate abstract concepts. Forget Frege - he's just describing the results of the process. How do we decide what is 'detail'? Essentialism! |
| 5952 | Rather than being the whole soul, maybe I am its chief part? [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Is each of us not the soul, but the chief part of the soul, by which we think and reason and act, all the other parts of soul as well as of body being mere instruments of its power? | |
| From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1119) | |
| A reaction: Socrates is associated with the idea that I am my whole soul (Idea 1650). Plutarch represents an interesting development, which may lead both to the Christian 'soul' and to the Cartesian 'ego'. I think Plutarch is right, but what is the 'soul'? |
| 11142 | Body-type seems to affect a mind's cognition and conceptual scheme [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: It is claimed, on the basis of empirical research, that the type of body that an organism has profoundly affects it cognitive operations and the way it conceptualises the world. We can't assume that human minds could inhere in wildly different body types. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Sounds interesting. They cite Lawrence Shapiro 2004. It needs a large effort of imagination to think how a snake or whale or albatross might conceptualise the world, in relation to their bodies. |
| 5951 | If atoms have no qualities, they cannot possibly produce a mind [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Perception, mind, intelligence and thought cannot so much as be conceived, even with the best will, as arising among void and atoms, things which taken separately have no quality. | |
| From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1112) | |
| A reaction: A nice articulation of the intuition of all anti-physicalists. Plutarch would have to rethink his position carefully if he learned of the sheer number of connections in the brain, and of the theory of natural selection. His challenge remains, though. |
| 5963 | Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers make the emotions varieties of reason, on the ground that all desire and grief and anger are judgments, while others declare that the virtues have to do with emotions, as when fear is the province of courage. | |
| From: Plutarch (68: Generation of the soul in 'Timaeus' [c.85], 1025d) | |
| A reaction: The second idea comes from Aristotle, but the second is interesting, and corresponds to the views coming from modern neuroscience, where even the most basic thought seems to involve emotion. What could be the motivation for 'pure' reason? |
| 11121 | Language of thought has subject/predicate form and includes logical devices [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The language of thought is taken to have subject/predicate form and include logical devices, such as quantifiers and variables. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 1.1) |
| 11120 | Concepts are either representations, or abilities, or Fregean senses [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The three main options for the ontological status of concepts are to identify them with mental representations, or with abilities, or with Fregean senses. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 1) |
| 11122 | A computer may have propositional attitudes without representations [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: It may be possible to have propositional attitudes without having the mental representations tokened in one's head. ...We may say a chess-playing computer thinks it should develop its queen early, though we know it has no representation with that content. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [Thye cite Dennett - who talks of the 'intentional stance'] It is, of course, a moot point whether we would attribute a propositional attitude (such as belief) to a machine once we knew that it wasn't representing the relevant concepts. |
| 11124 | Do mental representations just lead to a vicious regress of explanations [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: A standard criticism is that the mental representation view of concepts creates just another item whose significance bears explaining. Either we have a vicious regress, or we might as well explain external language directly. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Dummett, with Wittgenstein in the background] I don't agree, because I think that explanation of concepts only stops when it dovetails into biology. |
| 11123 | Maybe the concept CAT is just the ability to discriminate and infer about cats [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The view that concepts are abilities (e.g. found in Brandom, Dummett and Millikan) would say that the concept CAT amounts to the ability to discriminate cats from non-cats and to draw certain inferences about cats. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Feels wrong. The concept is what makes these abilities possible, but it seems rather behaviourist to identify the concept with what is enabled by the concept. You might understand 'cat', but fail to recognise your first cat (though you might suspect it). |
| 11125 | The abilities view cannot explain the productivity of thought, or mental processes [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The abilities view of concepts, by its rejection of mental representation, is ill-equipped to explain the productivity of thought; and it can say little about mental processes. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The latter point arises from its behaviouristic character, which just gives us a black box with some output of abilities. In avoiding a possible regress, it offers no explanation at all. |
| 11140 | Concept-structure explains typicality, categories, development, reference and composition [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The structures of concepts are invoked to explain typicality effects, reflective categorization, cognitive development, reference determination, and compositionality. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.5) |
| 11128 | Classically, concepts give necessary and sufficient conditions for falling under them [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The classical theory is that a concept has a definitional structure in that it is composed of simpler concepts that express necessary and sufficient conditions for falling under the concept, the stock example being unmarried and a man for 'bachelor'. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the background idea to philosophy as analysis, and it makes concepts essentially referential, in that they are defined by their ability to pick things out. There must be some degree of truth in the theory. |
| 11130 | Typicality challenges the classical view; we see better fruit-prototypes in apples than in plums [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The classical view is challenged by the discovery that certain categories are taken to be more typical, with typicality widely correlating with other data. Apples are judged to be more typical of (and have more common features with) fruit than plums are. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This discovery that people use prototypes in thinking has been the biggest idea to ever hit the philosophy of concepts, and simply cannot be ignored (as long as the research keeps reinforcing it, which I believe it does). The classical view might adapt. |
| 11129 | The classical theory explains acquisition, categorization and reference [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The appeal of the classical theory of concepts is that it offers unified treatments of concept acquisition (assembling constituents), categorization (check constituents against target), and reference determination (whether they apply). | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 11128 for the theory] As so often, I find myself in sympathy with the traditional view which has been relegated to ignominy by our wonderful modern philosophers. |
| 11131 | It may be that our concepts (such as 'knowledge') have no definitional structure [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: In the light of problems such as the definition of knowledge, many philosophers now take seriously the possibility that our concepts lack definitional structure. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This challenges the classical view, that there are precise conditions for each concept. That view would obviously be in difficulties with atomic concepts, so our account of those might be applied all the way up. |
| 11132 | The prototype theory is probabilistic, picking something out if it has sufficient of the properties [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: In the prototype theory of concepts, a lexical concept has probabilistic structure in that something falls under it if it satisfies a sufficient number of properties encoded by the constituents. It originates in Wittgenstein's 'family resemblance'. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: It would seem unlikely to be a matter of the 'number' of properties, and would have to involve some notion of what was essential to the prototype. |
| 11133 | Prototype theory categorises by computing the number of shared constituents [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: On the prototype theory, categorization is to be understood as a similarity comparison process, where similarity is computed as a function of the number of constituents that two concepts hold in common. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Again it strikes me that 'computing' similarity by mere 'number' of shared constituents won't do, as there is a prior judgement about which constituents really matter, or are essential. That may even be hard-wired. |
| 11134 | People don't just categorise by apparent similarities [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: When it comes to more reflexive judgements, people go beyond the outcome of a similarity comparison. Even children say that a dog surgically altered to look like a raccoon is still a dog. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: We can defend the theory by not underestimating people so much. Most categorisation is done on superficial grounds, but even children know there may be hidden similarities (behind the mask, under the bonnet) which are more important. |
| 11135 | Complex concepts have emergent properties not in the ingredient prototypes [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: An objection to the prototype view concerns compositionality. A complex concept often has emergent properties, as when it seems that 'pet fish' encodes for brightly coloured, which has no basis in the prototypes for 'pet' or 'fish'. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I would take 'pet fish' to work like a database query. 'Fish' has a very vague prototype, and then 'pet fish' narrows the search to fish which are appropriate to be pets. We might say that the prototype is refined, or the Mk 2 prototype appears. |
| 11136 | Many complex concepts obviously have no prototype [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: Many patently complex concepts don't even have a prototype structure, such as 'Chairs that were purchased on a Wednesday'. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: [The example seems to be from Fodor] I disagree. If we accept the notion of 'refining' the prototype (see Idea 11135), then the compositionality of the expression will produce a genuine but very unusual prototype. |
| 11137 | The theory theory of concepts says they are parts of theories, defined by their roles [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: The theory theory of concepts says that terms are related as in a scientific theory, and that categorization resembles theorising. It is generally assumed that scientific terms are interdefined so that content is determined by its role in the theory. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: I never like this sort of account. What are the characteristics of the thing which enable it to fulfil its role? You haven't defined a car when you've said it gets you from A to B. |
| 11138 | The theory theory is holistic, so how can people have identical concepts? [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: A problem with the theory theory of concepts is that it is holistic, saying a concept is determined by its role, not by its constituents. It then seems difficult for different people to possess the same concepts (or even the same person, over time). | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems a good objection to any holistic account of concepts or meaning - spotted by Plato in motivating his theory of Forms, to give the necessary stability to communication. |
| 11139 | Maybe concepts have no structure, and determined by relations to the world, not to other concepts [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: According to conceptual atomism, lexical concepts have no semantic structure, and the content of a concept isn't determined by its relation to other concepts but by its relations to the world. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Fodor 1998 and Millikan 2000] I like the sound of that, because I take the creation of concepts to be (in the first instance) a response to the world, not a response to other concepts. |
| 11146 | People can formulate new concepts which are only named later [Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: People seem to be able to formulate novel concepts which are left to be named later; the concept comes first, the name second. | |
| From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: [This seems to have empirical support, and he cites Pinker 1994] I do not find this remotely surprising, since I presume that human concepts are a continuous kind with animal concepts, including non-conscious concepts (why not?). |
| 20796 | Action needs an affinity for a presentation, and an impulse toward the affinity [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The sceptics say there are three movements of the soul: presentation, impulse and assent. …And action requires two things: a presentation of something to which one has an affinity, and an impulse toward what is presented as an object of affinity. | |
| From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], 1122c) | |
| A reaction: Not much reasoning involved in this account, which the sceptics say is compatible with suspension of judgement. |
| 1477 | Being manly and brave is the result of convention, not of human nature [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Manliness is not a natural human attribute, otherwise women would be just as brave. It is due to pressure from laws, and this pressure has no free will, but is a slave of convention and criticism. | |
| From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 988c) | |
| A reaction: This is the first glimmerings of seeing gender as a cultural creation, rather than as a fact. Presumably he takes the same view of some of the supposed feminine virtues. |
| 1478 | Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Animals of both sexes cease to have intercourse after impregnation; that shows how little animals value pleasure, and that nature is all that counts. | |
| From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d) | |
| A reaction: A famous monkey had an implant to stimulate pleasure, and a button to trigger it. It apparently would have starved to death rather than release the button. Animal sex is dull? |
| 5948 | The good life involves social participation, loyalty, temperance and honesty [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: To live the good life is to live a life of participation in society, of loyalty to friends, of temperance and honest dealing. | |
| From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1108) | |
| A reaction: 'Participation in society' is the interesting one. This might translate as 'doing your duty', or as 'leading a well-rounded life'. Solitude is wrong if you are indebted to others, and it is unhealthy if you are not. Is solitude really immoral, though? |
| 1479 | Animals have not been led into homosexuality, because they value pleasure very little [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Because animals value pleasure very little, they have not been led into sex between males or between females. | |
| From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d) |
| 5950 | If only atoms exist, how do qualities arise when the atoms come together? [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: If you accept atomism, you must show how bodies without quality have given rise to qualities of every kind by the mere fact of coming together. For example, how has the quality called 'hot' been imposed on the atoms? | |
| From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1111) | |
| A reaction: This argument is still significant in current philosophy of mind. If temperature is 'mean kinetic energy', you are left wondering where the energy came from, and why minds experience the heat. This is the 'Hard Question'. |
| 16558 | Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| Full Idea: The traditional notion of a law of nature has few, if any, applications in neurobiology or molecular biology. | |
| From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a simple and self-evident fact, and bad news for anyone who want to build their entire ontology around laws of nature. I take such a notion to be fairly empty, except as a convenient heuristic device. |
| 5974 | People report seeing through rocks, or over the horizon, or impossibly small works [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: It is said that Lynceus could see through rock and tree, and a lookout in Sicily saw Carthaginian ships a day and a half away, and Callicrates and Myrmecides are said to fashion carriages canopied with the wings of fly, and write on sesame seeds. | |
| From: Plutarch (72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions [c.85], 1083e) | |
| A reaction: A warning from Plutarch against believing everything you hear! |
| 5957 | Absurd superstitions make people atheist, not disharmony in nature [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Men have never thought the universe godless on the ground of detecting some fault in stars or seasons; ..it is the ridiculous things that superstition does that makes people say it would be better if there were no gods at all. | |
| From: Plutarch (14: Superstition [c.85], §12) | |
| A reaction: Not true, I would say. Absurd superstitions do discredit belief in the supernatural, but earthquakes are a disharmony in nature, and a nasty one at that. Nowadays we have other explanations to rival those of religion. |
| 5955 | No one will ever find a city that lacks religious practices [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: A city without holy places and gods, without any observance of prayers, oaths, oracles, sacrifices for blessings received or rites to avert evils, no traveller has ever seen or will ever see. | |
| From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1125) | |
| A reaction: The nearest you might get would be Soviet Moscow, but in 1973 I saw a man there jeering at a woman who was kneeling in the street outside a closed church. Plutarch would be stunned at the decline in religious practices in modern Europe. |