Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Nicomachean Ethics' and 'The Principles of Human Knowledge'

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3 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
Piety requires us to honour truth above our friends [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: While both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.
     From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a16)
     A reaction: Interesting that 'piety' requires it. Piety doesn't figure much in Aristotle. He has just been talking about Platonic Forms. It would be an odd person who sacrificed a friendship for a trivial truth.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth
A statement is true if all the data are in harmony with it [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: A statement is true if all the data are in harmony with it.
     From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1098b12)
     A reaction: I think being 'in harmony' is a better than 'corresponds' as an attempt at pinpointing the truth relationship. It seems impossible to pin down how 'the bus is coming' relates to the bus coming.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
An idea can only be like another idea [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: An idea can be like nothing but an idea.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §08), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 43 'Mean'
     A reaction: I take this to be relevant to the correspondence theory, but also to be one of Berkeley's best observations. We understand ideas, but we can't map them onto the world (because they are not maps!). ...But then how is one idea like another? Hm.