Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'fragments/reports' and 'Letter on Freedom'

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6 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason
All reasoning endlessly leads to further reasoning (Mode 12) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Twelfth mode: all reasoning leads on to further reasoning, and this process goes on forever.
     From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10
Proofs often presuppose the thing to be proved (Mode 15) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Fifteenth mode: proofs often presuppose the thing to be proved.
     From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10
Reasoning needs arbitrary faith in preliminary hypotheses (Mode 14) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Fourteenth mode: reasoning requires arbitrary faith in preliminary hypotheses.
     From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10
All discussion is full of uncertainty and contradiction (Mode 11) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Eleventh mode: all topics of discussion are full of uncertainty and contradiction.
     From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c
     A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'.
For every event it is possible for an omniscient being to give a reason for its occurrence [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Nothing ever takes place without its being possible for one who knew everything to give some reason why it should have happened rather than not.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letter on Freedom [1689], p.112)
     A reaction: Presumably there will be GOOD reason why genocide occurs. Note that there is a reason for every 'event'. Is there a reason for every truth? Presumably not, or there would have to be reasons for self-evident truths.