display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
302 | What knowledge is required to live well? [Plato] |
Full Idea: What knowledge would enable us to live finely for the rest of our lives? | |
From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 293a) | |
A reaction: A successful grasp of other people's points of view might lead to respect for them. Also a realisation that we are not isolated individuals. We really are all in it together. |
301 | Only knowledge of some sort is good [Plato] |
Full Idea: Nothing is good except knowledge of some sort. | |
From: Plato (Euthydemus [c.379 BCE], 292b) | |
A reaction: I've heard it suggested that truth is the only value. This is the Socratic idea that moral goodness is a matter of successful rational judgement. Not convinced, but interesting. |
5049 | Intelligent pleasure is the perception of beauty, order and perfection [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: An intelligent being's pleasure is simply the perception of beauty, order and perfection. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (A Résumé of Metaphysics [1697], §18) | |
A reaction: Leibniz seems to have inherited this from the Greeks, especially Pythagoras and Plato. Buried in Leibniz's remark I see the Christian fear of physical pleasure. He should have got out more. Must an intelligent being always be intelligent? |