Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Letters to Frege' and 'Symposium'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions
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.
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
We don't assert private thoughts; the objects are part of what we assert [Russell]
     Full Idea: I believe Mont Blanc itself is a component part of what is actually asserted in the proposition 'Mont Blanc is more than 4000 metres high'; we do not assert the thought, which is a private psychological matter, but the object of the thought.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Letters to Frege [1902], 1904.12.12), quoted by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude Ch.4
     A reaction: This would appear to be pretty much externalism about concepts, given that Russell would accept that other people know much more about Mont Blanc than he does, and their knowledge is included in what he asserts.