display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
| 12526 | Opposition to reason is mad [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Opposition to reason deserves the name of madness. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.33.04) | |
| A reaction: This may just be a tautology, based on the meaning of the word 'madness', but it sounds more like a clarion call for the Englightenment. |
| 5969 | 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'. |
| 12538 | Genus is a partial conception of species, and species a partial idea of individuals [Locke] |
| Full Idea: In this whole business of genera and species, the genus, or more comprehensive, but a partial conception of what is in the species, and the species but a partial idea of what is to be found in each individual. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.06.32) | |
| A reaction: This is my feeling on the subject, that any definition that stops short of the individual, whence all categorisation flows, is inadequate. |
| 16797 | Maybe Locke described the real essence of a person [Locke, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Locke may have gone a long way towards describing the real essence of a person. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.27.09) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 30.5 | |
| A reaction: Locke resisted the idea that we could know real essences, but this idea makes the point that if you give a good definition of something you can hardly fail to be invoking its essence. |
| 12573 | Ad Hominem: press a man with the consequences of his own principle [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The Argumentum ad Hominem is to press a man with consequences drawn from his own principles or concessions. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.17.21) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather more plausible account of it than the alternative I have met, that it is just to attack to speaker instead of what they say. This version is at least an attempt to derive a contradiction, rather than mere abuse. |
| 12491 | Asking whether man's will is free is liking asking if sleep is fast or virtue is square [Locke] |
| Full Idea: To ask whether man's will be free is as improper as to ask whether sleep be swift, or virtue square. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.21.14) | |
| A reaction: Beautiful illustrations of category mistakes, long before the actual phrase was coined. |