Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Fixation of Belief', 'On Duties ('De Officiis')' and 'Preface to 'Dorian Gray''

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
21405 Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long]
     Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom.
     From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5
     A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue.
1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 2. Wise People
20871 Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero]
     Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117)
     A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
6947 Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15)
     A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs.