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6 ideas
| 4547 | Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value. | |
| From: comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 518d) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §572 | |
| A reaction: A most interesting comment. It epitomises the Nietzschean reading of Plato, in which the will to power leads the sense of value, which in turn creates the metaphysics. |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anything which has been endowed with a function also has a state of being good. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353b) | |
| A reaction: 'ought' from 'is'? |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The function of anything is what it alone can do, or what it can do better than anything else. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 353a) | |
| A reaction: I take this concept to be the lynchpin of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Note that it arises earlier, in Plato. Perhaps he should say what it is 'meant to do'. |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Goodness is a state of mental health, bloom and vitality; badness is a state of mental sickness, deformity and infirmity. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 444e) | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of the closeness of goodness to health for the Greeks. The key point is that health is a deeply natural concept, which bridges the fact-value divide. |
| 2168 | Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Clever criminals are exactly like those runners who do well on the way up the track, and then flag on the way back. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 613b) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there is some concept of natural justice lurking behind this comparison. Apart from the money, though, it is hard to imagine any professional criminal leading a flourishing life. |
| 12 | If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Glaucon: with a ring of invisibility 'the just man would differ in no way from the unjust'. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 360c) | |
| A reaction: I think a highly altruistic person would behave well with the ring, but I'm sure Glaucon would claim that these habits would wear off after a while. But I doubt that. |