Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge' and 'Letter to Menoeceus'

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3 ideas

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection
All conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: I am inclined to think that all conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
     A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful suggestion, for eliminating lots of problem cases for introspective knowledge which have been triumphally paraded in recent times. It might, though, be tautological, if it is actually a definition of 'conscious states'.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / b. Fate
Sooner follow mythology, than accept the 'fate' of natural philosophers [Epicurus]
     Full Idea: It would be better to follow the stories told about the gods than to be a slave to the fate of the natural philosophers.
     From: Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus [c.291 BCE], 134)
     A reaction: At this point in history there is a blurring between autonomous decisions and what we now call free will, and also between fate and determinism, which we try to keep distinct.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 7. Compatibilism
We should not refer things to irresponsible necessity, but either to fortune or to our own will [Epicurus]
     Full Idea: The best men have no belief in necessity (set up by some as mistress of all), but refer some things to fortune, some to ourselves, because necessity is irresponsible, and fortune is unstable, while our own will is free.
     From: Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus [c.291 BCE], 133), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.27