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 |
13099 | Analysing right down to primitive concepts seems beyond our powers [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: An analysis of concepts such that we can reach primitive concepts...does not seem to be within human power. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Introduction to a Secret Encyclopaedia [1679], C513-14), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz | |
A reaction: Leibniz is nevertheless fully committed, I think, to the existence of such primitives, and is in the grip of the rationalist dream that thoughts can become completely clear, and completely well-founded. |