display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 21265 | The heavens must be full of gods, controlling nature either externally or from within [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A soul or souls have been shown to be cause of all the phenomena, and whether it is by their living presence in matter that they direct all the heavens, or by some other means, we insist that these souls are gods. So 'everything is full of gods'. | |
| From: Plato (The Laws [c.348 BCE], 899b) | |
| A reaction: This seems to have little to do with the pagan gods on Olympus. It is also notably not monotheistic. It is somewhere between animism and panpsychism. Does he think the rivers and woods contain gods? Probably not. Just the orderly heavens. |
| 21262 | There must be at least two souls controlling the cosmos, one doing good, the other the opposite [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be more than one soul (not fewer than two) controlling movement and the heavens: that which does good, and that which has the opposite capacity. | |
| From: Plato (The Laws [c.348 BCE], 896e) | |
| A reaction: [Wording compressed - as often with the dialogues] This idea of controlling opposites is found in Empedocles. Presumably this good soul defers to the Form of the Good, as implied by the Euthyphro Question. |
| 1782 | Stoics teach that God is a unity, variously known as Mind, or Fate, or Jupiter [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many names besides. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.68 |
| 20830 | Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Death is a separation of soul from body. But nothing incorporeal can be separated from a body. For neither does anything incorporeal touch a body, and the soul touches and is separated from the body. Therefore the soul is not incorporeal. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Tertullian - The Soul as an 'Astral Body' 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This is the classic interaction difficulty for substance dualist theories of mind. |
| 21404 | There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The evil which occurs in terrible disasters has a rationale [logos] peculiar to itself: for in a sense it occurs in accordance with universal reason, and is not without usefulness in relation to the whole. For without it there could be no good. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.5 | |
| A reaction: [a quotation from Chrysippus. Plutarch, Comm Not 1065b] A nice question about any terrible disaster is whether it is in some way 'useful', if we take a broader view of things. Almost everything has a good aspect, from that perspective. |