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3 ideas
1771 | When shown seven versions of the mowing argument, he paid twice the asking price for them [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: When shown seven species of dialectic in the mowing argument, he asked the price, and when told 'a hundred drachmas', he gave two hundred, so devoted was he to learning. | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.20 | |
A reaction: Wonderful. I have a watertight proof that pleasure is not the good, which I will auction on the internet. |
20770 | Philosophy has three parts, studying nature, character, and rational discourse [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: They say that philosophical theory is tripartite. For one part of it concerns nature [i.e. physics], another concerns character [i.e. ethics], and another concerns rational discourse [i.e. logic] | |
From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.39 | |
A reaction: Surely 'nature' included biology, and shouldn't be glossed as 'physics'? And I presume that 'rational discourse' is 'logos', rather than 'logic'. Interesting to see that ethics just is the study of character (and not of good and bad actions). |
18559 | Philosophy is empty if it does not in some way depend on matters of fact [Machery] |
Full Idea: Save, maybe, for purely formal (e.g. logical) theories, philosophical claims whose correctness does not depend, however indirectly, on matters of fact are empty: they are neither true nor false. | |
From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], Intro) | |
A reaction: I subscribe to this view. I'd even say that logic is empty if it is not answerable to the facts. The facts are nature, so this is a naturalistic manifesto. |