Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Gorgias' and 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


3 ideas

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65
     A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition.
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato]
     Full Idea: Rhetoric is an agent of the kind of persuasion which is designed to produce conviction, but not to educate people about right and wrong.
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 455a)
     A reaction: Surely there must be good rhetoric (or at least it is an open question)?
Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato]
     Full Idea: Rhetoric is a knack, because it lacks rational understanding of its object or what it dispenses (and can't explain the reason anything happens).
     From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 465a)
     A reaction: If there are cunning people who have the wrong sort of intelligence for morality, there must be cunning users of rhetoric who know exactly what they are doing.