display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
| 20866 | Wise men participate in politics, especially if it shows moral progress [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: The wise man participates in political life, especially in the sort of governments which show some moral progress. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.11b | |
| A reaction: Nowadays this would probably involve belonging to a political party which offered moral progress. |
| 20854 | Wise men are never astonished at things which other people take to be wonders [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The wise man is astonished at none of the things which appear to be wonders, such as the caves of Charon or tidal ebbs or hot springs or fiery exhalations from the earth. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.123 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be correct. Wise people will have thought more extensively about what is possible, and when something they had never imagined occurs, they have the humility to recognise their own limitations. |
| 20815 | No wise man has yet been discovered [Stoic school, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: According to the Stoics the wise man is hitherto undiscovered. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.133 | |
| A reaction: This could plausibly be axiomatic for the whole of philosophy, since the subject is the 'love of wisdom', and not its acquisition. The subject is the pursuit of wisdom, which would be pointless if we already had it. |
| 13466 | We are all post-Kantians, because he set the current agenda for philosophy [Hart,WD] |
| Full Idea: We are all post-Kantians, ...because Kant set an agenda for philosophy that we are still working through. | |
| From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: Hart says that the main agenda is set by Kant's desire to defend the principle of sufficient reason against Hume's attack on causation. I would take it more generally to be the assessment of metaphysics, and of a priori knowledge. |
| 20806 | Stoic physics concerns cosmos, elements and causes (with six detailed divisions) [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics divide physics into topics on bodies, principles, elements, gods, limits, place and void. The general division is into three topics, concerning the cosmos, the elements and causal explanations. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.132 | |
| A reaction: Apart from the gods, not much has changed. |
| 20839 | Ethics studies impulse, good, passion, virtue, goals, value, action, appropriateness, encouragement [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoic divisions of ethics: on impulse, on good and bad things, on passions, on virtue, on the goal, on primary value, on actions, on appropriate actions, and on encouragements and discouragements to action. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.84 | |
| A reaction: A substantial part of this is covered by modern Action Theory, rather than by ethics. This describes later stoicism, from Chrysippus onwards. I like the study of 'appropriate actions', which could do with some modern analysis. |
| 20867 | True philosophising is not memorising ideas, but living by them [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: It is not the man who listens eagerly and memorises what philosophers say who is prepared for philosophising, but the man who is prepared to carry into action what is pronounced in philosophy and to live by it. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.11k | |
| A reaction: Hence stoicism was seen more as a way of life, and less as theorising. I aim to combine the two. There is a way of life which centres on theorising about life while living it. A life without enquiry is not worth living. |
| 13477 | The problems are the monuments of philosophy [Hart,WD] |
| Full Idea: The real monuments of philosophy are its problems. | |
| From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably he means '....rather than its solutions'. No other subject would be very happy with that sort of claim. Compare Idea 8243. A complaint against analytic philosophy is that it has achieved no consensus at all. |
| 21675 | Some facts are indispensable for an effect, and others actually necessitate the effect [Stoic school, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: The Stoics declare that there is a difference whether a thing is of such a kind that something cannot be effected without it, or such that something must necessarily be effected by it. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 16.36 | |
| A reaction: This points out that causal preconditions can be either necessary or sufficient for their effect. Because it is a very perceptive point, I surmise that it originated with Chrysippus. |
| 13515 | To study abstract problems, some knowledge of set theory is essential [Hart,WD] |
| Full Idea: By now, no education in abstract pursuits is adequate without some familiarity with sets. | |
| From: William D. Hart (The Evolution of Logic [2010], 10) | |
| A reaction: A heart-sinking observation for those who aspire to study metaphysics and modality. The question is, what will count as 'some' familiarity? Are only professional logicians now allowed to be proper philosophers? |