Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Fixation of Belief', 'fragments/reports' and 'The Status of Content'

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3 ideas

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: All things are in a state of motion.
     From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b22
     A reaction: This seems right, I would say. It seems to make a 'process' the fundamental category of ontology, rather than an 'object'.
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 2. Eternal Universe
The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: This cosmos, which is the same for all, was not created by any one of the gods or of mankind, but it was ever and is and shall be ever-living fire, kindled and quenched in measure.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B030), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.1.103
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce]
     Full Idea: It is probably of more advantage to an animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8)
     A reaction: Note that this is a pragmatist saying that a set of beliefs might work fine but be untrue. So Peirce does not have the highly relativistic notion of truth of some later pragmatists. Good for him. Note the early date to be thinking about Darwin.