Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Short History of Modern Philosophy' and 'On Second-Order Logic'

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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 / 2. Ideas
Cartesian 'ideas' confuse concepts and propositions [Scruton]
     Full Idea: Cartesian 'ideas' seem to be both concepts and propositions at once.
     From: Roger Scruton (Short History of Modern Philosophy [1981], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This seems to be the simple reason why modern philosophers don't like this seventeenth century notion. There is something slightly too tidy about the modern notion of propositions built out of concepts. Animals see propositions in a flash.