Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Roderick Firth, Metrodorus (Chi) and Bryan van Norden

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought

23392	The Dao (Way) first means the road, and comes to mean the right way to live [Norden]
	Full Idea: The 'Dao' (tr 'Way) has five meanings: 1) path or road, 2) mode of doing something, 3) account of how to do something, 4) the right way to live, and 5) the ultimate metaphysical entity responsible for nature, and how it should be.
	From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], 1.III)
	A reaction: [compressed] So it is essentially metaphorical, just like the English 'way to do a thing'. Number 5 seems a rather large leap from the others, and most discussion seems to centre on number 4. The Chinese hoped for consensus on the Dao.

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 3. Hermeneutics

23408	The hermeneutic circle is either within the text, or between text and biased reader [Norden]
	Full Idea: The first type of hermeneutic circle operates inside the text, studying relationships between sentences. …The second type is between the text and the reader, …who brings assumptions about what it means.
	From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App A.I)
	A reaction: The first kind is an essential aspect of reading well. Readers are biased, but I get very tired of those who do nothing but search for bias, and ignore the truth a text has to offer. If everything is bias, intellectual life is dead.

23407	Heremeneutics is either 'faith' (examining truth) or 'suspicion' (looking for hidden motives) [Norden]
	Full Idea: A 'hermeneutics of faith' treat a text as a candidate for truth. ….A 'hermeneutics of suspicion' looks not for truth but for explanations of why someone makes certain claims, …particularly to serve their ulterior interests.
	From: Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App I.1)
	A reaction: As far as I can see, the suspicious approach was a legitimate development in sociology, which studies the sources of ideas, but is absurdly offered by some philosophers as a total replacement of the faith approach.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence

527	Everything exists which anyone perceives [Metrodorus of Chios]
	Full Idea: Everything exists which anyone perceives.
	From: Metrodorus (Chi) (Natural Science (lost) [c.340 BCE], B2), quoted by (who?) - where?
	A reaction: cf Berkeley and Epicurus. This misses out the problem of perceptual error, such as a square tower looking round from a distance, or one person in a group thinking they have seen something. It is still a good criterion, though!

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems

6493	We are not conscious of pure liquidity, but of the liquidity of water [Firth]
	Full Idea: We are not conscious of liquidity, coldness, and solidity, but of the liquidity of water, the coldness of ice, and the solidity of rocks.
	From: Roderick Firth (Sense Data and the Percept Theory [1949]), quoted by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.7
	A reaction: A nice point, but it might not be entirely true in a blindfold test, where one might only report properties like 'sticky' or 'warm', without having any clear concept of the substance being experienced. Firth is proposing the 'percept theory'.