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Ideas for 'works (fragments)', 'fragments/reports' and 'Human Nature'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
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.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 4. Divisions of Philosophy
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).
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.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour
Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly [Hobbes]
     Full Idea: The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.
     From: Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.IX.13)
     A reaction: Laughter tends to involve something unusual. We don't just burst out with a glory of vanity whenever we meet some inferiority in another person.