Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Brandom on Social Practices and Representations' and 'Treatise of Human Nature'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20
     A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul).
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
If all of my perceptions were removed by death, nothing more is needed for total annihilation [Hume]
     Full Idea: Were all my perceptions removed by death, and I could I neither think nor feel nor see nor love nor hate, after the dissolution of my body, I should be enitrely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is further requisite to make me a perfect non-entity.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6)
     A reaction: 'A perfect non-entity'. How about that for an eighteenth century rejection of immortality of the soul? In the context, his point is that the has no enduring self, apart from this range of experiences.