display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Can he really mean that a mature culture doesn't need philosophy? |
| 20772 | Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: There are three kinds of philosophical theorems, logical, ethical, and physical; of these the logic should be placed first, ethics second, and physics third (and theology is the final topic in physics). | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035a | |
| A reaction: [in his lost 'On Lives' Bk 4] 'Theology is the final topic in physics'! That should create a stir in theology departments. Is this an order of study, or of importance? You come to theology right at the end of your studies. |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to climb outside of our own minds, an effort that some would regard as insane and that I regard as philosophically fundamental. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It is not only philosophers who do this. It is an essential feature of the mind, and is inherent in the concept of truth. |