display all the ideas for this combination of texts
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. |
9917 | 'Abstract' is unclear, but numbers, functions and sets are clearly abstract [Field,H] |
Full Idea: The term 'abstract entities' may not be entirely clear, but one thing that does seem clear is that such alleged entities as numbers, functions and sets are abstract. | |
From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], p.1), quoted by JP Burgess / G Rosen - A Subject with No Object I.A.1.a | |
A reaction: Field firmly denies the existence of such things. Sets don't seem a great problem, if the set is a herd of elephants, but the null and singleton sets show up the difficulties. |