Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Protagoras, H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim and Philolaus

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26 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry
No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification
No things would be clear to us as entity or relationships unless there existed Number and its essence [Philolaus]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism
Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras]
There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 3. Subjectivism
If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras]
Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras]
Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
Some reasonings are stronger than we are [Philolaus]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD]
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 1. Contractarianism
For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / d. Teaching virtue
Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras]
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / b. Retribution for crime
Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / a. Aims of education
Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 4. Mathematical Nature
There is no falsehood in harmony and number, only in irrational things [Philolaus]
Everything must involve numbers, or it couldn't be thought about or known [Philolaus]
Harmony must pre-exist the cosmos, to bring the dissimilar sources together [Philolaus]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / d. The unlimited
Existing things, and hence the Cosmos, are a mixture of the Limited and the Unlimited [Philolaus]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 6. Laws as Numerical
Self-created numbers make the universe stable [Philolaus]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology
Philolaus was the first person to say the earth moves in a circle [Philolaus, by Diog. Laertius]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras]