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20812
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Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus]
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Full Idea:
Just as the cover was made for the sake of the shield, and the sheath for the sword, in the same way everything else except the cosmos was made for the sake of other things.
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From:
Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37
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A reaction:
Chrysippus was wise to stop at the cosmos. Similarly, religious teleology had better not ask about the purpose of God. What does he think pebbles are for? Nature is the source of stoic value, so it needs to be purposeful.
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5975
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Stoics say earth, air, fire and water are the primary elements [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
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Full Idea:
The Stoics call the four bodies - earth and water and air and fire - primary elements.
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From:
report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 444) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1085c
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A reaction:
Elsewhere (fr 413) Chrysippus denies that they are all 'primary'. Essentially, though, he seems to be adopting the doctrine of Empedocles and Aristotle, in specific opposition to Epicurus' atomism.
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8433
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There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich]
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Full Idea:
Lewis claims that most events are over-determined by subsequent states of the world, but not by their history. That is, the future of every event contains many independent traces of its occurrence, with little prior indication that it would happen.
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From:
report of David Lewis (Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow [1979]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.209
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A reaction:
Lewis uses this asymmetry to deduce the direction of causation, and hence the direction of time. Most people (including me, I think) would prefer to use the axiomatic direction of time to deduce directions of causation. Lewis was very wicked.
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