3 ideas
23123 | Basic to human culture are binary oppositions, such as eating raw or cooked [Levi-Strauss, by Green,TH] |
Full Idea: Lévi-Strauss made canonic to French structuralism the idea that human culture could be understood through a series of binary oppositionsn - the difference between what could be eaten raw and what cooked being one of the most fundamental. | |
From: report of Claude Lévi-Strauss (works [1950]) by T.H. Green - Prolegomena to Ethics 1 | |
A reaction: My guess is that such oppositions can often be illuminating, but will always be eventually judged as too simplistic. |
16697 | Time is independent of motion, because God could stop everything for a short or long time [Crathorn, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Suppose God annihilates everything, and then creates something new. The vacant interval could last a shorter or longer time, so there are facts about time independent of facts about motion. | |
From: report of William Crathorn (Sentences [1335], I.16, concl.2) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2 | |
A reaction: Not very persuasive if God is in some way 'timeless'. Crathorn would have loved Shoemaker's argument, where motionless time is the best explanation, rather than a possible explanation. |
3029 | Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Stilpo asked a man whether Athena is the daughter of Zeus, and when he said yes, said,"But this statue of Athena by Phidias is the child of Phidias, so it is not a god." | |
From: report of Stilpo (fragments/reports [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.10.5 |