display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
| 23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
| A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
| 3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
| 13876 | The syntactic category is primary, and the ontological category is derivative [Frege, by Wright,C] |
| Full Idea: For Frege it is the syntactic category which is primary, the ontological one derivative. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Crispin Wright - Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects 1.iii | |
| A reaction: I take the recent revival of metaphysics to be a rebellion against precisely this thought. Ontology disappeared for a hundred years into a hopeless miasma of linguistic complexity. Language is cludge, but the world isn't. |
| 8415 | Never lose sight of the distinction between concept and object [Frege] |
| Full Idea: Never lose sight of the distinction between concept and object. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], Intro p.x) | |
| A reaction: Along with 8414 and 7732, we have the three axioms of modern analytical philosophy. Russell uses this distinction from Frege to attack Berkeley's idealism (see Idea 1103). The idea is strong in causal theories of reference. We realists love it. |
| 9841 | Frege was the first to give linguistic answers to non-linguistic questions [Frege, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Frege was the first philosopher to ask a non-linguistic question, and return a linguistic answer. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: This is both heroic and infuriating. It is like erecting a road block in front of a beautiful valley. You say 'Is there a God?' and I reply 'Let us consider the semantics of that sentence'. |
| 9840 | Frege initiated linguistic philosophy, studying number through the sense of sentences [Frege, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: §62 of Frege's 'Grundlagen' is arguably the most pregnant philosophical paragraph ever written; ..it is the very first example of what has become known as the 'linguistic turn' in philosophy. His enquiry into numbers focuses on the sense of sentences. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §62) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics | |
| A reaction: Dummett is a great fan of this, possibly the last great fan. It is undeniable that Frege has found one way to get at the problem, but I doubt if it is the only way. |
| 15948 | Frege developed formal systems to avoid unnoticed assumptions [Frege, by Lavine] |
| Full Idea: Frege developed a formal system to make sure that he hadn't employed unnoticed assumptions about arithmetic. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Shaughan Lavine - Understanding the Infinite VIII.2 | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that Frege seems to have had far more influence on analytic philosophy than he ever had on mathematics. |