91 ideas
13773 | For the truth you need Prodicus's fifty-drachma course, not his one-drachma course [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates: If I'd attended Prodicus's fifty-drachma course, I could tell you the truth about names straightway, but as I've only heard the one-drachma course, I don't know the truth about it. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Cratylus 384b |
343 | The unexamined life is not worth living for men [Socrates] |
Full Idea: The unexamined life is not worth living for men. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 38a | |
A reaction: I wonder why? I can see Nietzsche offering aristocratic heroes and dancers as counterexamples. Compare Idea 3798. |
7421 | A philosopher is one who cares about what other people care about [Socrates, by Foucault] |
Full Idea: Socrates asks people 'Are you caring for yourself?' He is the man who cares about the care of others; this is the particular position of the philosopher. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom p.287 | |
A reaction: Priests, politicians and psychiatrists also care quite intensely about the concerns of other people. Someone who was intensely self-absorbed with the critical task of getting their own beliefs right would count for me as a philosopher. |
1649 | Socrates opened philosophy to all, but Plato confined moral enquiry to a tiny elite [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: To confine, as Plato does in 'Republic' IV-VII, moral inquiry to a tiny elite, is to obliterate the Socratic vision which opens up the philosophic life to all. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.18 | |
A reaction: This doesn't mean that Plato is necessarily 'elitist'. It isn't elitist to point out that an activity is very difficult. |
5842 | Philosophical discussion involves dividing subject-matter into categories [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: Self-discipline and avoidance of pleasure makes people most capable of philosophical discussion, which is called 'discussion' (dialegesthai - sort out) because people divide their subject-matter into categories. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.5.12 | |
A reaction: This could be the original slogan for analytical philosophy, as far as I am concerned. I don't think philosophy aims at complete and successful analysis (cf. Idea 2958), but at revealing the structure and interconnection of ideas. This is wisdom. |
648 | Socrates began the quest for something universal with his definitions, but he didn't make them separate [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates began the quest for something universal in addition to the radical flux of perceptible particulars, with his definitions. But he rightly understood that universals cannot be separated from particulars. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1086b |
9978 | Analytic philosophy focuses too much on forms of expression, instead of what is actually said [Tait] |
Full Idea: The tendency to attack forms of expression rather than attempting to appreciate what is actually being said is one of the more unfortunate habits that analytic philosophy inherited from Frege. | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], IV) | |
A reaction: The key to this, I say, is to acknowledge the existence of propositions (in brains). For example, this belief will make teachers more sympathetic to pupils who are struggling to express an idea, and verbal nit-picking becomes totally irrelevant. |
164 | It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate [Socrates] |
Full Idea: It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Phaedrus 272c |
1647 | In Socratic dialogue you must say what you believe, so unasserted premises are not debated [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates' rule of "say only what you believe"….excluded debate on unasserted premises, thereby distinguishing Socratic from Zenonian and earlier dialectics. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.14 |
115 | Socrates was pleased if his mistakes were proved wrong [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates: I'm happy to have a mistaken idea of mine proved wrong. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Gorgias 458a |
22099 | The method of Socrates shows the student is discovering the truth within himself [Socrates, by Carlisle] |
Full Idea: Socrates tended to prefer the method of questioning, for this made it clear that the student was discovering the truth within himself. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 7 | |
A reaction: Sounds like it will only facilitate conceptual analysis, and excludes empirical knowledge. Can you say to Socrates 'I'll just google that'? |
5844 | Socrates always proceeded in argument by general agreement at each stage [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: When Socrates was setting out a detailed argument, he used to proceed by such stages as were generally agreed, because he thought that this was the infallible method of argument. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.6.16 | |
A reaction: This sounds right, and shows how strongly Socrates perceived philosophy to be a group activity, of which I approve. It seems to me that philosophy is clearly a spoken subject before it is a written one. The lonely speculator comes much later. |
11389 | Socrates sought essences, which are the basis of formal logic [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not surprising that Socrates sought essences. His project was to establish formal reasoning, of whose syllogisms essences are the foundations. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b22 | |
A reaction: This seems to reinforce the definitional view of essences, since definitions seem to be at the centre of most of Socrates's quests. |
639 | Socrates developed definitions as the basis of syllogisms, and also inductive arguments [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates aimed to establish formal logic, of whose syllogisms essences are the foundations. He developed inductive arguments and also general definitions. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b |
9986 | The null set was doubted, because numbering seemed to require 'units' [Tait] |
Full Idea: The conception that what can be numbered is some object (including flocks of sheep) relative to a partition - a choice of unit - survived even in the late nineteenth century in the form of the rejection of the null set (and difficulties with unit sets). | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], IX) | |
A reaction: This old view can't be entirely wrong! Frege makes the point that if asked to count a pack of cards, you must decide whether to count cards, or suits, or pips. You may not need a 'unit', but you need a concept. 'Units' name concept-extensions nicely! |
9984 | We can have a series with identical members [Tait] |
Full Idea: Why can't we have a series (as opposed to a linearly ordered set) all of whose members are identical, such as (a, a, a...,a)? | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], VII) | |
A reaction: The question is whether the items order themselves, which presumably the natural numbers are supposed to do, or whether we impose the order (and length) of the series. What decides how many a's there are? Do we order, or does nature? |
13416 | Mathematics must be based on axioms, which are true because they are axioms, not vice versa [Tait, by Parsons,C] |
Full Idea: The axiomatic conception of mathematics is the only viable one. ...But they are true because they are axioms, in contrast to the view advanced by Frege (to Hilbert) that to be a candidate for axiomhood a statement must be true. | |
From: report of William W. Tait (Intro to 'Provenance of Pure Reason' [2005], p.4) by Charles Parsons - Review of Tait 'Provenance of Pure Reason' §2 | |
A reaction: This looks like the classic twentieth century shift in the attitude to axioms. The Greek idea is that they must be self-evident truths, but the Tait-style view is that they are just the first steps in establishing a logical structure. I prefer the Greeks. |
1652 | Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates did not regard the universals or the objects of definitions as separate existents, while Plato did separate them, and called this sort of entity ideas/forms. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b30 |
13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Understanding is an extremely vague concept. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.3) | |
A reaction: True, I suppose, but we usually recognise understanding when we encounter it, and everybody has a pretty clear notion of an 'increase' in understanding. I suspect that the concept is perfectly clear, but we lack any scale for measuring it. |
13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Knowledge 'that' is descriptive, and knowledge 'why' is explanatory, and it is the latter that provides scientific understanding of our world. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], Intro) | |
A reaction: I agree, but of course, knowing 'why' may require a lot of knowing 'that'. People with extensive knowledge 'that' things are so tend to understand why something happens more readily than the rest of us ignoramuses. |
13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Various kinds of correlations exist that provide excellent bases for prediction, but because no suitable causal relations exist (or are known), these correlations do not furnish explanation. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.3) | |
A reaction: There may be problem cases for the claim that all explanations are causal, but I certainly think that this idea is essentially right. Prediction can come from induction, but inductions may be true and yet baffling. |
13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
Full Idea: There is a centuries-old philosophical tradition, sometimes referred to by the name of 'instrumentalism', that has denied the claim that science has explanatory power. For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.3) | |
A reaction: [He quotes Coffa] Presumably it is just a matter of matching the world to the readings on the instruments, aiming at van Fraassen's 'empirical adequacy'. If there are no scientific explanations, does that mean that there are no explanations at all? Daft! |
13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Inductive logicians have a 'requirement of total evidence': induction is strong if 1) it has true premises, 2) it has correct inductive form, and 3) no additional evidence that would change the degree of support is available at the time. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.4.2) | |
A reaction: The evidence might be very close at hand, but not quite 'available' to the person doing the induction. |
13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
Full Idea: I reject the view that scientific explanation involves reduction of the unfamiliar to the familiar. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], Pref) | |
A reaction: Aristotle sometimes seems to imply this account of explanation, and I would have to agree with Salmon's view of it. Aristotle is also, though, aware of real explanations, definitions and essences. People are 'familiar' with some peculiar things. |
13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
Full Idea: There are evidence-seeking why-questions, as well as explanation-seeking why-questions. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.2) | |
A reaction: Surely we would all prefer an explanation to mere evidence? It seems to me that they are all explanation-seeking, but that we are grateful for some evidence when no full explanation is available. Explanation renders evidence otiose. |
14366 | An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens] |
Full Idea: On Salmon's statistical relevance view, an explanation is a table of statistical information. | |
From: report of Wesley Salmon (Statistical Explanation [1970]) by Michael Strevens - No Understanding without Explanation 1 | |
A reaction: [He cites W.Salmon 1970] When put like that the view sounds incredibly implausible, but maybe a reading of Salmon would improve the case for it. |
13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
Full Idea: The 'inferential' conception of scientific explanation is the thesis that all legitimate scientific explanations are arguments of one sort or another. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 1.1) | |
A reaction: This seems to imply that someone has to be persuaded of something, and hence seems a rather too pragmatic view. I presume an explanation might be no more than dumbly pointing at conclusive evidence of a cause. Man with smoking gun. |
13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Proponents of the ontic conception of explanation can say that explanations exist in the world as facts, or that they are reports of such facts (as opposed to the view of explanations as arguments, or as speech acts). | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.2) | |
A reaction: [compressed] I am strongly drawn to the ontic approach, but not sure whether we want facts, or reports of them. The facts are the causal nexus, but which parts of the nexus provide the main aspect of explanation? I'll vote for reports, for now. |
13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
Full Idea: There are three basic conceptions of scientific explanation - modal, epistemic, and ontic - which can be discerned in Aristotle, and that have persisted down the ages. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.1) |
13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
Full Idea: The problem is to distinguish between laws and accidental generalizations, for laws have explanatory force while accidental generalizations, even if they are true, do not. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 1.1) | |
A reaction: [He is discussing Hempel and Oppenheim 1948] This seems obviously right, but I can only make sense of the explanatory power if we have identified the mechanism which requires the generalisation to continue in future cases. |
13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
Full Idea: The deductive-nomological view has an explanation/prediction symmetry thesis - that a correct explanation could be a scientific prediction, and that any deductive prediction could serve as a deductive-nomological explanation. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Of course, not all predictions will explain, or vice versa. Weird regularities become predictable but remain baffling. Good explanations may be of unrepeatable events. It is the 'law' in the account that ties the two ends together. |
13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
Full Idea: To provide an adequate explanation of any given fact, we need to provide information that is relevant to the occurrence of that fact - information that makes a difference to its occurrence. It is not enough to subsume it under a general law. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.2) | |
A reaction: [He cites Bromberger for this idea] Salmon is identifying this idea as the beginnings of trouble for the covering-law account of explanation, and it sounds exactly right. |
13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
Full Idea: The height of the flagpole explains the length of the shadow because the interaction between the sunlight and the flagpole occurs before the interaction between the sunlight and the ground. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.6) | |
A reaction: [Bromberger produced the flagpole example] This seems to be correct, and would apply to all physical cases, but there may still be cases of explanation which are not causal (in mathematics, for example). |
17093 | Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Causal processes, causal interactions, and causal laws provide the mechanisms by which the world works; to understand why certain things happen, we need to see how they are produced by these mechanisms. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 7 | |
A reaction: I don't think I've ever found a better quotation on explanation. That strikes me as correct, and (basically) there is nothing more to be said. I'm not sure about the 'laws'. This is later Wesley Salmon. |
17492 | Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon] |
Full Idea: While Salmon's mechanisms are processes involving interactions, the interactions are not necessarily regular, and they do not involve the operation of systems. | |
From: comment on Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]) by Stuart Glennan - Mechanisms 'hierarchical' | |
A reaction: This is why modern mechanistic philosophy only began in 2000, despite Wesley Salmon's championing of the roughly mechanistic approach. |
13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
Full Idea: My basic feeling about explanation in the quantum realm is that it will involve mechanisms, but mechanisms that are quite different from those that seem to work in the macrocosm. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], Pref) | |
A reaction: Since I take most explanation to be by mechanisms (or some abstraction analogous to mechanisms), then I think this is probably right (rather than being by new 'laws'). |
13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
Full Idea: In functional explanation, there is a disagreement over whether an item has a function the first time it occurs. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.8) | |
A reaction: This question arises particularly in evolutionary contexts, and would obviously not generally arise in the case of human artefacts. |
13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
Full Idea: I favour an ontic conception of explanation, that explanations reveal the mechanisms, causal or other, that produce the facts we are trying to explain. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.1) | |
A reaction: [He also cites Coffa and Peter Railton] A structure may explain, and only be supported by causal powers, but it doesn't seem to be the causal powers that do the explaining. Is a peg fitting a hole explained causally? |
16557 | Salmon's mechanisms are processes and interactions, involving marks, or conserved quantities [Salmon, by Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: For Salmon mechanisms are composed of processes and interactions. The interactions are identified in terms of transmitted marks and statistical relations, or (more recently) exchanges of conserved quantities. | |
From: report of Wesley Salmon (Causality and Explanation [1998], 3.1) by Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C - Thinking About Mechanisms 3.1 | |
A reaction: They say that Salmon has too little to say about the activities that constitute a mechanism. A 'mark' doesn't sound too promising, but I quite like the exchange of conserved quantities, which gets into the guts of what is going on. |
13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.6) | |
A reaction: I take this to be one of the reasons why explanation must ultimately reside at the level of individual objects and events, rather than residing with generalisations and laws. |
13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Statistical relevance, not high probability, is the key desideratum in statistical explanation. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.5) | |
A reaction: I suspect that this is because the explanation will not ultimately be probabilistic at all, but mechanical and causal. Hence the link is what counts, which is the relevance. He notes that relevance needs two values instead of one high value. |
13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Perhaps we should think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.2) | |
A reaction: [He cites Coffa 1974 for this] I find this suggestion very appealing, as it connects up with dispositions and powers, which I take to be the building blocks of all explanation. It is, of course, easier to render frequencies numerically. |
1650 | For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: For Socrates our soul is our self - whatever that might turn out to be. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.55 | |
A reaction: The problem with any broad claim like this is that we seem to be able to distinguish between essential and non-essential aspects of the self or of the soul. |
23252 | Socrates first proposed that we are run by mind or reason [Socrates, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: It would seem that historically the decisive step was taken by Socrates in conceiving of human beings as being run by a mind or reason.. …He postulated an entity whose precision nature and function then was a matter of considerable debate. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Intro to 'Rationality in Greek Thought' p.19 | |
A reaction: This is, for me, a rather revelatory idea. I am keen on the fact the animals make judgements which are true and false, and also that we exhibit rationality when walking across uneven ground. So pure rationality is a cultural construct! |
9981 | Abstraction is 'logical' if the sense and truth of the abstraction depend on the concrete [Tait] |
Full Idea: If the sense of a proposition about the abstract domain is given in terms of the corresponding proposition about the (relatively) concrete domain, ..and the truth of the former is founded upon the truth of the latter, then this is 'logical abstraction'. | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], V) | |
A reaction: The 'relatively' in parentheses allows us to apply his idea to levels of abstraction, and not just to the simple jump up from the concrete. I think Tait's proposal is excellent, rather than purloining 'abstraction' for an internal concept within logic. |
9982 | Cantor and Dedekind use abstraction to fix grammar and objects, not to carry out proofs [Tait] |
Full Idea: Although (in Cantor and Dedekind) abstraction does not (as has often been observed) play any role in their proofs, but it does play a role, in that it fixes the grammar, the domain of meaningful propositions, and so determining the objects in the proofs. | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], V) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This is part of a defence of abstractionism in Cantor and Dedekind (see K.Fine also on the subject). To know the members of a set, or size of a domain, you need to know the process or function which created the set. |
9985 | Abstraction may concern the individuation of the set itself, not its elements [Tait] |
Full Idea: A different reading of abstraction is that it concerns, not the individuating properties of the elements relative to one another, but rather the individuating properties of the set itself, for example the concept of what is its extension. | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], VIII) | |
A reaction: If the set was 'objects in the room next door', we would not be able to abstract from the objects, but we might get to the idea of things being contain in things, or the concept of an object, or a room. Wrong. That's because they are objects... Hm. |
9972 | Why should abstraction from two equipollent sets lead to the same set of 'pure units'? [Tait] |
Full Idea: Why should abstraction from two equipollent sets lead to the same set of 'pure units'? | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996]) | |
A reaction: [Tait is criticising Cantor] This expresses rather better than Frege or Dummett the central problem with the abstractionist view of how numbers are derived from matching groups of objects. |
9980 | If abstraction produces power sets, their identity should imply identity of the originals [Tait] |
Full Idea: If the power |A| is obtained by abstraction from set A, then if A is equipollent to set B, then |A| = |B|. But this does not imply that A = B. So |A| cannot just be A, taken in abstraction, unless that can identify distinct sets, ..or create new objects. | |
From: William W. Tait (Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind [1996], V) | |
A reaction: An elegant piece of argument, which shows rather crucial facts about abstraction. We are then obliged to ask how abstraction can create an object or a set, if the central activity of abstraction is just ignoring certain features. |
195 | No one willingly commits an evil or base act [Socrates] |
Full Idea: I am fairly certain that no wise man believes anyone sins willingly or willingly perpetrates any evil or base act. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 345e |
5843 | People do what they think they should do, and only ever do what they think they should do [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: There is no one who knows what they ought to do, but thinks that they ought not to do it, and no one does anything other than what they think they ought to do. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.6.6 | |
A reaction: This is Socrates' well-known rejection of the possibility of weakness of will (akrasia - lit. 'lack of control'). Aristotle disagreed, and so does almost everyone else. Modern smokers seem to exhibit akrasia. I have some sympathy with Socrates. |
5253 | Socrates was shocked by the idea of akrasia, but observation shows that it happens [Aristotle on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates thought it a shocking idea that when a man actually has knowledge in him something else should overmaster it, ..but this is glaringly inconsistent with the observed facts. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1145b24 | |
A reaction: Aristotle seems very confident, but it is not at all clear (even to the agent) what is going on when apparent weakness of will occurs (e.g. breaking a diet). What exactly does the agent believe at the moment of weakness? |
199 | The common belief is that people can know the best without acting on it [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Most people think there are many who recognise the best but are unwilling to act on it. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 352d |
1653 | Socrates did not accept the tripartite soul (which permits akrasia) [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Xenophon indirectly indicates that he does not associate Socrates in any way with the tripartite psychology of the 'Republic', for within that theory akrasia would be all too possible. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.102 |
5839 | For Socrates, wisdom and prudence were the same thing [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: Socrates did not distinguish wisdom from prudence, but judged that the man who recognises and puts into practice what is truly good, and the man who knows and guards against what is disgraceful, are both wise and prudent. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.9.3 | |
A reaction: Compare Aristotle, who separates them, claiming that prudence is essential for moral virtue, but wisdom is pursued at a different level, closer to the gods than to society. |
5867 | For Socrates, virtues are forms of knowledge, so knowing justice produces justice [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates thought that the virtues were all forms of knowledge, and therefore once a man knew justice, he would be a just man. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics 1216b07 | |
A reaction: The clearest possible statement of Socrates' intellectualism. Aristotle rejected the Socrates view, but I find it sympathetic. Smokers who don't want to die seem to be in denial. To see the victims is to condemn the crime. |
5069 | Socrates was the first to base ethics upon reason, and use reason to explain it [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates was the first significant thinker to try basing ethics upon reason, and to try uncovering its natural principles solely by the use of reason. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Richard Taylor - Virtue Ethics: an Introduction Ch.7 | |
A reaction: Interesting. It seems to me that Socrates overemphasised reason, presumably because it was a novelty. Hence his view that akrasia is impossible, and that virtue is simply knowledge. Maybe action is not just rational, but moral action is. |
5836 | All human virtues are increased by study and practice [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: If you consider the virtues that are recognised among human beings, you will find that they are all increased by study and practice. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 2.6.41 | |
A reaction: 'Study' is the intellectualist part of this remark; the reference to 'practice' fits with Aristotle view that virtue is largely a matter of good habits. The next question would be how theoretical the studies should be. Philosophy, or newspapers? |
5840 | The wise perform good actions, and people fail to be good without wisdom [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: It is the wise who perform truly good actions, and those who are not wise cannot, and, if they try to, fail. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.9.6 | |
A reaction: The essence of Socrates' intellectualism, with which Aristotle firmly disagreed (when he assert that only practical reason was needed for virtuous actions, rather than wisdom or theory). Personally I side more with Socrates than with Aristotle on this. |
185 | Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates despises good looks to an almost inconceivable extent. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Plato - The Symposium 216e |
5070 | Socrates conservatively assumed that Athenian conventions were natural and true [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates' moral philosophy was essentially conservative. He assumed that the principles the Athenians honoured were true and natural, so there was little possibility of conflict between nature and convention in his thinking. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Richard Taylor - Virtue Ethics: an Introduction Ch.8 | |
A reaction: Taylor contrasts Socrates with Callicles, who claims that conventions oppose nature. This fits with Nietzsche's discontent with Socrates, as the person who endorses conventional good and evil, thus constraining the possibilities of human nature. |
5838 | A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: A dung-basket is fine, and a golden shield contemptible, if the one is finely and the other badly constructed for carrying out its function. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.8.6 | |
A reaction: This is the basis of a key idea in Aristotle, that virtue (or excellence) arises directly from function. I think it is the most important idea in virtue theory, and seems to have struck most Greeks as being self-evident. |
339 | Men fear death as a great evil when it may be a great blessing [Socrates] |
Full Idea: No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 29a | |
A reaction: As a neutral observer, I see little sign of it being a blessing, except as a relief from misery. It seem wrong to view such a natural thing as evil, but it is the thing most of us least desire. |
344 | If death is like a night of dreamless sleep, such nights are very pleasant [Socrates] |
Full Idea: If death is like a night of dreamless sleep it is an advantage, for such nights are very pleasant, and eternity would seem like a single night. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 40d | |
A reaction: Dreamless sleep is only pleasant if being awake is unpleasant. Very quiet days are only pleasant if the active days are horrible. A desire for a totally quiet life is absurd. |
5837 | Things are both good and fine by the same standard [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: Things are always both good and fine by the same standard. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 3.8.5 | |
A reaction: This begs many questions, but perhaps it leads to what we call intuitionism, which is an instant ability is perceive a fine action (even in an enemy). This leads to the rather decadent view that the aim of life is the production of beauty. |
3017 | The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance [Socrates, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: There is only one good, namely knowledge, and there is only one evil, namely ignorance. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.4.14 | |
A reaction: Ignorance of how to commit evil sounds quite good. |
1646 | Socrates was the first to put 'eudaimonia' at the centre of ethics [Socrates, by Vlastos] |
Full Idea: Socrates' true place in the development of Greek thought is that he is the first to establish the eudaimonist foundation of ethical theory, which became the foundation of the schools which sprang up around him. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.10 | |
A reaction: I suspect that he was the first to fully articulate a widely held Greek belief. The only ethical question that they asked was about the nature of a good human life. |
2 | We should not even harm someone who harms us [Socrates] |
Full Idea: One should never return an injustice nor harm another human being no matter what one suffers at their hands. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 49c | |
A reaction: Jesus of Nazareth was not the first person to make this suggestion. |
1663 | By 'areté' Socrates means just what we mean by moral virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates uses the word 'areté' to mean precisely what we mean by moral virtue. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.200 |
345 | A good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death [Socrates] |
Full Idea: A good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 41d |
4323 | Socrates is torn between intellectual virtue, which is united and teachable, and natural virtue, which isn't [PG on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates worries about the unity and teachability of virtue because he is torn between virtue as intellectual (unified and teachable) and virtue as natural (plural and unteachable). | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: Admittedly virtue could be natural but still unified and teachable, but Socrates clearly had a dilemma, and this seems to make sense of it. |
8003 | Socrates agrees that virtue is teachable, but then denies that there are teachers [Socrates, by MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Socrates' great point of agreement with the sophists is his acceptance of the thesis that areté is teachable. But paradoxically he denies that there are teachers. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.3 | |
A reaction: This is part of Socrates's presentation of himself as 'not worthy'. Virtue would be teachable, if only anyone knew what it was. He's wrong. Lots of people have a pretty good idea of virtue, and could teach it. The problem is in the pupils. |
126 | We should ask what sort of people we want to be [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates: What sort of person should one be? | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Gorgias 487e |
4111 | Socrates believed that basically there is only one virtue, the power of right judgement [Socrates, by Williams,B] |
Full Idea: Socrates believed that basically there is only one virtue, the power of right judgement. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Ch.1 | |
A reaction: Which links with Aristotle's high place for 'phronesis' (prudence?). The essence of Socrates' intellectualism. Robots and saints make very different judgements, though. |
7808 | Socrates made the civic values of justice and friendship paramount [Socrates, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: In Socrates' thought, the expressly civic values of justice and friendship became paramount. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This is the key move in ancient ethics, away from heroism, and towards the standard Aristotelian social virtues. I say this is the essence of what we call morality, and the only one which can be given a decent foundational justification (social health). |
346 | One ought not to return a wrong or injury to any person, whatever the provocation [Socrates] |
Full Idea: One ought not to return a wrong or an injury to any person, whatever the provocation is. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 49b | |
A reaction: The same as the essential moral teachings of Jesus (see Idea 6288) and Lao Tzu (Idea 6324). The big target is not to be corrupted by the evil of other people. |
23907 | Courage is scientific knowledge [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Socrates thought that courage is scientific knowledge. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics 1230a06 | |
A reaction: Aristotle himself says that reason produces courage, but he also says it arises from natural youthful spirits. I favour the view that there is a strong rational component in true courage. |
341 | Wealth is good if it is accompanied by virtue [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men. | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - The Apology 30b |
7585 | Socrates emphasises that the knower is an existing individual, with existence his main task [Socrates, by Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: The infinite merit of the Socratic position was precisely to accentuate the fact that the knower is an existing individual, and that the task of existing is his essential task. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Søren Kierkegaard - Concluding Unscientific Postscript 'Inwardness' | |
A reaction: Always claim Socrates as the first spokesman for your movement! It is true that Socrates is always demanding the views of his interlocutors, and not just abstract theories. See Idea 1647. |
5841 | Obedience to the law gives the best life, and success in war [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: A city in which the people are most obedient to the laws has the best life in time of peace and is irresistible in war. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.4.15 | |
A reaction: This is a conservative view, with the obvious problem case of bad laws, but in general it seems to me clearly right. This is why it is so vital that nothing should be done to bring the law into disrepute, such as petty legislation or prosecution. |
347 | Will I stand up against the law, simply because I have been unjustly judged? [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Do I intend to destroy the laws, because the state wronged me by passing a faulty judgement at my trial? | |
From: Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Crito 50c |
1661 | Socrates was the first to grasp that a cruelty is not justified by another cruelty [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates was the first Greek to grasp the truth that if someone has done a nasty thing to me, this does not give the slightest moral justification for doing anything nasty to him. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.190 |
5846 | A lover using force is a villain, but a seducer is much worse, because he corrupts character [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: The fact that a lover uses not force but persuasion makes him more detestable, because a lover who uses force proves himself a villain, but one who uses persuasion ruins the character of the one who consents. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Symposium 8.20 | |
A reaction: A footnote says that this distinction was enshrined in Athenian law, where seduction was worse than rape. This is a startling and interest contrast to the modern view, which enshrines rights and freedoms, and says seduction is usually no crime at all. |
8412 | A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards [Salmon] |
Full Idea: When two processes intersect, and they undergo correlated modifications which persist after the intersection, I shall say that the intersection is a causal interaction. I take this as a fundamental causal concept. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Causality: Production and Propagation [1980], §4) | |
A reaction: There may be a problem individuating processes, just as there is for events. I like this approach to causation, which is ontologically sparse, and fits in with the scientific worldview. Change of properties sounds precise, but isn't. Stick to processes. |
8413 | Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous [Salmon] |
Full Idea: In a typical cause-effect situation (a 'propagation') cause must precede effect, for propagation over a finite time interval is an essential feature. In an 'interaction', an intersection of processes resulting in change, we have simultaneity. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Causality: Production and Propagation [1980], §8) | |
A reaction: This takes the direction of time as axiomatic, and quite right too. Salmon isn't addressing the real difficulty, though, which is that the resultant laws are usually held to be time-reversible, which is a bit of a puzzle. |
8411 | Instead of localised events, I take enduring and extended processes as basic to causation [Salmon] |
Full Idea: I propose to approach causality by taking processes rather than events as basic entities. Events are relatively localised in space and time, while processes have much greater temporal duration, and, in many cases, much greater spatial extent. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Causality: Production and Propagation [1980], §2) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as an incredibly promising proposal, not just in our understanding of causation, but for our general metaphysics and understanding of nature. See Idea 4931, for example. Vague events and processes blend into one another. |
4784 | Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Salmon, by Psillos] |
Full Idea: Salmon argues that processes rather than events should be the basic entities in a theory of physical causation. | |
From: report of Wesley Salmon (Causal Connections [1984]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §4.2 | |
A reaction: It increasingly strikes me that the concept of a 'process' ought to be ontologically basic. Edelman says the mind is a process. An 'event' is too loose, and a 'fact' too vague, and heaven knows what Hume meant by an 'object'. |
8409 | Probabilistic causal concepts are widely used in everyday life and in science [Salmon] |
Full Idea: Probabilistic causal concepts are used in innumerable contexts of everyday life and science. ...In causes of cancer, road accidents, or food poisoning, for example. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Probabilistic Causality [1980], p.137) | |
A reaction: [Second half compresses his examples] This strikes me as rather a weak point. No one ever thought that a particular road accident was actually caused by the high probability of it at a particular location. Causes are in the mechanisms. |
1657 | Socrates holds that right reason entails virtue, and this must also apply to the gods [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: It is essential to Socrates' rationalist programme in theology to assume that the entailment of virtue by wisdom binds gods no less than men. He would not tolerate one moral standard for me and another for gods. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.164 |
1662 | A new concept of God as unswerving goodness emerges from Socrates' commitment to virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Undeviating beneficent goodness guides Socrates' thought so deeply that he applies it even to the deity; he projects a new concept of god as a being that can cause only good, never evil. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.197 |
338 | Socrates is accused of denying the gods, saying sun is stone and moon is earth [Socrates, by Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates denies the gods, because he says the sun is stone and the moon is earth. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of last days [c.399 BCE]) by Plato - The Apology 26d |