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2 ideas
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
3987 | Like the 'centre of gravity', desires and beliefs are abstract concepts with no actual existence [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Like such abstracta as centres of gravity and parallelograms of force, the beliefs and desires posited by the highest intentional stance have no independent and concrete existence. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
A reaction: I don't see why we shouldn't one day have a physical account of the distinctive brain events involved in a belief or a desire |