display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
5896 | Speak the truth, for this alone deifies man [Pythagoras, by Porphyry] |
Full Idea: Pythagoras advised above all things to speak the truth, for this alone deifies man. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Porphyry - Life of Pythagoras §41 | |
A reaction: Idea 4421 (of Nietzsche) stands in contrast to this. I am not quite sure why speaking the truth has such a high value. I am inclined to a minimalist view, which is just that philosophy is an attempt to speak the truth, as fishermen try to catch fish. |
3051 | Pythagoras discovered the numerical relation of sounds on a string [Pythagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Pythagoras discovered the numerical relation of sounds on a string. | |
From: report of Pythagoras (reports [c.530 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 08.1.11 |
2546 | Philosophy is a magnificent failure in its attempt to overstep the limits of our knowledge [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Philosophy marks the limits of human theoretical intelligence. Philosophy is an attempt to overstep our cognitive bounds, a kind of magnificent failure. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.209) | |
A reaction: No one attempts to overstep boundaries once they are confirmed as such. The magnificent attempts persist because failure is impossible to demonstrate (except, perhaps, by Gödel's Theorem). |