57 ideas
| 23350 | A wise philosophers uses reason to cautiously judge each aspect of living [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The sinews of a philosopher are desire that never fails in its achievement; aversion that never meets with what it would avoid; appropriate impulse; carefully considered purpose; and assent that is never precipitate. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.08.29) | |
| A reaction: This is a very individual view of wisdom and the philosopher, whereas wisdom is often thought to have a social role. Is it not important for a philosopher to at least offer advice? |
| 23355 | The task of philosophy is to establish standards, as occurs with weights and measures [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Things are judged and weighed, when we have the standards ready. This is the task of philosophy: to examine and establish the standards. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.11.24) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that this gives philosophers a very specific social role, and also that it seems to identify epistemology as First Philosophy. Other disciplines, of course, establish their own standards without reference to philosophy. |
| 21394 | Philosophy is knowing each logos, how they fit together, and what follows from them [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: [Philosophical speculation] consists in knowing the elements of 'logos', what each of them is like, how they fit together, and what follows from them. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.08.14), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.1 | |
| A reaction: [Said to echo Zeno] If you substitute understanding for 'logos' (plausibly), I think this is exactly the view of philosophy I would subscribe to. We want to understand each aspect of life, and we want those understandings to cohere with one another. |
| 20876 | Philosophy investigates the causes of disagreements, and seeks a standard for settling them [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The start of philosophy is perception of the mutual conflict among people, and a search for its cause, plus the rejection and distrust of mere opinion, an investigation to see if opinion is right, and the discovery of some canon, like scales for weighing. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.11.13) | |
| A reaction: So the number one aim of philosophy is epistemological, to find the criterion for true opinion. But it starts in real life, and would cease to trade if people would just agree. I think we should set the bar higher than that. |
| 23344 | Reason itself must be compounded from some of our impressions [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: What is reason itself? Something compounded from impressions of a certain kind. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.20.05) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the only escape from the dead end attempts to rationally justify reason. Making reason a primitive absolute is crazy metaphysics. |
| 23343 | Because reason performs all analysis, we should analyse reason - but how? [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Since it is reason that analyses and completes all other things, reason itself should not be left unanalysed. But by what shall it be analysed? ..That is why philosophers put logic first, just as when measuring grain we first examine the measure. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.17.01) | |
| A reaction: The problem of the definitive metre rule in Paris. I say we have to test reason against the physical world, and the measure of reason is truth. Something has to be primitive, but reason is too vague for that role. Idea 23344 agrees with me! |
| 15200 | How could change consist of a conjunction of changeless facts? [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart objects, to Russell 1903, that change cannot consist of a conjunction of changeless facts. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 (b) | |
| A reaction: I agree with McTaggart. Logicians like to model processes with domains of timeless entities, but it just won't do. |
| 14761 | Change is not just having two different qualities at different points in some series [McTaggart] |
| Full Idea: The fact that it is hot at one point in a series and cold at other points cannot give change, if neither of these facts change. If two points on a line have different properties, this doesn't give change. | |
| From: J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], 33.315-6), quoted by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 6.2 | |
| A reaction: [The second half compresses an example about the Meridian] This objection is aimed at Russell's view, that change is just different properties at different times. I (unlike Sider) am wholly with McTaggart on this one. Change is 'dynamic'. |
| 23359 | We can't believe apparent falsehoods, or deny apparent truths [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to assent to an apparent falsehood, or to deny an apparent truth. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.07.15) | |
| A reaction: The way some philosophers write you would think that most beliefs just result from private whims or social fashion. That happens, of course, but most beliefs result from direct contact with reality. |
| 23356 | Self-evidence is most obvious when people who deny a proposition still have to use it [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: It is about the strongest proof one could offer of a proposition being evident, that even he who contradicts it finds himself having to make use of it. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.20.01) | |
| A reaction: Philosophers sometimes make fools of themselves by trying, by the use of elaborate sophistry, to demolish propositions which are self-evidently true. Don't be one of these philosophers! |
| 23329 | We make progress when we improve and naturalise our choices, asserting their freedom [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Progress is when any of you turns to his own faculty of choice, working at it and perfecting it, so as to bring it fully into harmony with nature; elevated, free, unrestrained, unhindered, faithful, self-respecting. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.04.18) | |
| A reaction: [See also Disc.3.5.7] Rationality is the stoic concept of being in 'harmony with nature'. It appears (from reading Frede) that this may be the FIRST EVER reference to free will. Note the very rhetorical way in which it is presented. |
| 23342 | Freedom is acting by choice, with no constraint possible [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: He is free for whom all things happen in accordance with his choice, and whom no one can constrain. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.12.09) | |
| A reaction: Presumable this means that constraint is absolutely impossible, even by Zeus, and not just contingent possibility, when no one sees me raid the fridge. |
| 23330 | Freedom is making all things happen by choice, without constraint [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: He is free for whom all things happen in accordance with his choice, and whom no one can constrain. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.12.09) | |
| A reaction: The idea of 'free' will seems to have resulted from a wide extension of the idea of constraint, with global determinism lurking in the background. |
| 23332 | Zeus gave me a nature which is free (like himself) from all compulsion [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Zeus placed my good nature in my own power, and gave it to me as he has it himself, free from all hindrance, compulsion and restraint. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.03.10) | |
| A reaction: Although Frede traces the origin of free will to the centrality of choice in moral life (and hence to the elevation of its importance), this remark shows that there is a religious aspect to it. Zeus is supreme, and obviously has free will. |
| 23331 | Not even Zeus can control what I choose [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: You can fetter my leg, but not even Zeus himself can get the better of my choice. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.01.23) | |
| A reaction: This is the beginnings of the idea of free will. It is based on the accurate observation that the intrinsic privacy of a mind means that no external force can be assured of controlling its actions. Epictetus failed to think of internal forces. |
| 23338 | You can fetter my leg, but not even Zeus can control my power of choice [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: What are you saying, man? Fetter me? You will fetter my leg; but not even Zeus himself can get the better of my choice. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.01.23) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the beginning of the idea of 'absolute' freedom, which is conjured up to preserve perfect inegrity and complete responsibility. Obviously you can be prevented from doing what you choose, so this is not compatibilism. |
| 20875 | If we could foresee the future, we should collaborate with disease and death [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The philosophers are right to say that if the honorable and good person knew what was going to happen, he would even collaborate with disease, death and lameness. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.05) | |
| A reaction: The 'philosophers' must be the earlier stoics, founders of his school. |
| 23347 | If I know I am fated to be ill, I should want to be ill [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: If I really knew that it was ordained for me to be ill at this moment, I would aspire to be so. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.06.10) | |
| A reaction: The rub, of course, is that it is presumably impossible to know what is fated. Book 2.7 is on divination. I don't see any good in a mortally ill person desiring, for that reason alone, to die. Rage against the dying of the light, I say. |
| 23325 | Epictetus developed a notion of will as the source of our responsibility [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The notion of will in Epictetus is clearly developed to pinpoint the source of our responsibility for our actions and to identify precisely what it is that makes them our own doings. | |
| From: report of Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56]) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 3 | |
| A reaction: So the key move is that responsibility needs a 'source', rather than being a generalisation about how our actions arise. The next step is demand an 'ultimate' source, and this leads to the idea that this new will is 'free'. This will can be good or bad. |
| 20873 | Tragedies are versified sufferings of people impressed by externals [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Tragedies are nothing but the sufferings of people who are impressed by externals, performed in the right sort of meter. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.04.26) | |
| A reaction: The externals are things like honour, position and wealth. Wonderfully dismissive! |
| 23364 | Homer wrote to show that the most blessed men can be ruined by poor judgement [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Did not Homer write to show us that the noblest, the strongest, the richest, the handsomest of men may nevertheless be the most unfortunate and wretched, if they do not hold the judgements that they ought to hold? | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.10.36) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be right. He clearly wrote about the greatest and most memorable events of recent times, but not just to record triumphs, because almost every hero (in the Iliad, at least) ends in disaster. |
| 6237 | Fear of God is not conscience, which is a natural feeling of offence at bad behaviour [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: Conscience is to find horribly offensive the reflection of any unjust action or behaviour; to have awe and terror of the Deity, does not, of itself, imply conscience; …thus religious conscience supposes moral or natural conscience. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.II.I) | |
| A reaction: The reply from religion would be that the Deity has implanted natural conscience in each creature, though this seems to deny our freedom of moral judgment. Personally I am inclined to think that values are just observations of the world - such as health. |
| 23340 | We consist of animal bodies and god-like reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: We have these two elements mingled within us, a body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence in common with the gods. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.03.03) | |
| A reaction: This is what I call Human Exceptionalism, but note that it doesn't invoke a Christian soul or spiritual aspect. This separation of reason goes back at least to Plato. High time we stopped thinking this way. Animals behave very sensibly. |
| 23358 | Every species produces exceptional beings, and we must just accept their nature [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: In every species nature produces some exceptional being, in oxen, in dogs, in bees, in horses. We do not say to them 'Who are you?' It will tell you 'I am like the purple in the robe. Do not expect me to be like the rest, or find fault with my nature'. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.01.23) | |
| A reaction: This idea began with Aristotle's 'great soul', and presumably culminates in Nietzsche, who fills in more detail. In the modern world such people are mostly nothing but trouble. |
| 6234 | If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: If a creature wanting reason has many good qualities and affections, it is certain that if you give this creature a reflecting faculty, it will at the same instant approve of gratitude, kindness and pity. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.III.III) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful denunciation of the authority of reason, which must have influenced David Hume. I think, though, that the inverse of this case must be considered (if suddenly given feelings, they would fall in line with reasoning). We reason about feelings. |
| 23339 | I will die as becomes a person returning what he does not own [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: When the time comes, then I will die - as becomes a person who gives back what is not his own. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.01.32) | |
| A reaction: There is a tension between his demand that he have full control of his choices, and this humility that says his actual life is not his own. The things which can't be controlled, though, are 'indifferents' so life and death are indifferent. |
| 23345 | Don't be frightened of pain or death; only be frightened of fearing them [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: It is not pain or death that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.01.13) | |
| A reaction: These two cases are quite different, I would say. I'm much more frightened of pain than I am of the fear of pain, and the opposite view seems absurd. About death, though, I think this is right. Mostly I'm with Spinoza: think about life, not death. |
| 23357 | Knowledge of what is good leads to love; only the wise, who distinguish good from evil, can love [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Whoever has knowledge of good things would know how to love them; and how could he who cannot distinguish good things from evil still have to power to love? It follows that the wise man alone has the power to love. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.22.03) | |
| A reaction: A rather heartwarming remark, but hard to assess for its truth. Evil people are unable to love? Not even love a cat, or their favourite car? We would never call someone wise if they lacked love. |
| 23363 | The evil for everything is what is contrary to its nature [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Where is the paradox if we say that what is evil for everything is what is contrary to its nature? | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.01.125) | |
| A reaction: A very Greek view. For humans, it must rely on the belief that human nature is essentially good. If I am sometimes grumpy and annoying, why is that not part of my nature? |
| 23328 | The essences of good and evil are in dispositions to choose [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The essence of the good is a certain disposition of our choice, and essence of evil likewise. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.29.01) | |
| A reaction: This is the origin of Kant's famous view, that the only true good is a good will. This is the alternative to good character or good states of affairs as the good. It points towards the modern more legalistic view of morality, as concerning actions. |
| 6233 | A person isn't good if only tying their hands prevents their mischief, so the affections decide a person's morality [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: We do not say that he is a good man when, having his hands tied up, he is hindered from doing the mischief he designs; …hence it is by affection merely that a creature is esteemed good or ill, natural or unnatural. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.II.I) | |
| A reaction: Note that he more or less equates being morally 'ill' with being 'unnatural'. We tend to reserve 'unnatural' for extreme or perverse crimes. Personally I would place more emphasis on evil judgements, and less on evil feelings. |
| 6236 | People more obviously enjoy social pleasures than they do eating and drinking [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: How much the social pleasures are superior to any other may be known by visible tokens and effects; the marks and signs which attend this sort of joy are more intense and clear than those which attend the satisfaction of thirst and hunger. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.II.I) | |
| A reaction: He presumably refers to smiles and laughter, but they could be misleading as they are partly a means of social communication. You should ask people whether they would prefer a nice conversation or a good pork chop. Nice point, though. |
| 6235 | Self-interest is not intrinsically good, but its absence is evil, as public good needs it [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: Though no creature can be called good merely for possessing the self-preserving affections, it is impossible that public good can be preserved without them; so that a creature wanting in them is wanting in natural rectitude, and may be esteemed vicious. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], II.I.III) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle held a similar view (Idea 92). I think maybe Shaftesbury was the last call of the Aristotelians, before being engulfed by utilitarians and Kantians. This idea is at the core of capitalism. |
| 6232 | Every creature has a right and a wrong state which guide its actions, so there must be a natural end [Shaftesbury] |
| Full Idea: We know there is a right and a wrong state of every creature; and that his right one is by nature forwarded, and by himself affectionately sought. There being therefore in every creature a certain interest or good; there must also be a natural end. | |
| From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.II.I) | |
| A reaction: This is an early modern statement of Aristotelian teleology, just at the point where it was falling out of fashion. The underlying concept is that of right function. I agree with Shaftesbury, but you can't stop someone damaging their health. |
| 23362 | All human ills result from failure to apply preconceptions to particular cases [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The cause of all human ills is that people are incapable of applying their general preconceptions to particular cases. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 4.01.42) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure whether 'preconceptions' is meant pejoratively (as unthinking, and opposed to true principles). This sounds like modern particularism (e.g. Jonathan Dancy) to the letter. |
| 23353 | We have a natural sense of honour [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: What faculty do you mean? - Have we not a natural sense of honour? - We have. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.22) | |
| A reaction: This seems unlikely, given the lower status that honour now has with us, compared to two hundred years ago. But there may be a natural sense of status, and of humiliation and shame. |
| 23354 | If someone harms themselves in harming me, then I harm myself by returning the harm [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Since he has harmed himself by wronging me, shall not I harm myself by harming him? | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.26) | |
| A reaction: I am very keen on this idea. See Hamlet's remarks to Polonius about 'honour and dignity'. The best strategy for achieving moral excellence is to focus on our own characters, rather than how to act, and to respond to others. |
| 23324 | In the Discourses choice [prohairesis] defines our character and behaviour [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In Epictetus's 'Discourses' the notion of choice [prohairesis] plays perhaps the central role. It is our prohairesis which defines us a person, as the sort of person we are; it is our prohairesis which determines how we behave. | |
| From: report of Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56]) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 3 | |
| A reaction: Frede is charting the gradual move in Greek philosophy from action by desire, reason and habit to action by the will (which then turns out to be 'free'). Character started as dispositions and ended as choices. |
| 23361 | Health is only a good when it is used well [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Is health a good and sickness an evil? No. Health is good when used well, and bad when used ill. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.20.04) | |
| A reaction: Although I like the idea that health is a natural value, which bridges the gap from facts to values (as a successful function), there is no denying that the health of very evil people is not something the rest of us hope for. |
| 23346 | A person is as naturally a part of a city as a foot is part of the body [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Just as the foot in detachment is no longer a foot, so you in detachment are not longer a man. For what is a man? A part of a city, first. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.05.26) | |
| A reaction: It is, of course, not true that a detached foot ceases to be a foot (and an isolated human is still a human). This an extreme version of the Aristotelian idea that we are essentially social. It is, though, the sort of view favoured by totalitarianism. |
| 23351 | We are citizens of the universe, and principal parts of it [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: You are a citizen of the universe, and a part of it; and no subservient, but a principal part of it. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.03) | |
| A reaction: He got this view from Diogenes of Sinope, one of his heroes. What community you are a part of seems to be a choice as much as a fact. Am I British or a European? |
| 20874 | A citizen is committed to ignore private advantage, and seek communal good [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The commitment of the citizen is to have no private advantage, not to deliberate about anything as though one were a separate part. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.04) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern problem of whether democratic voters are choosing for themselves or for the community. I think we should make an active effort at every election to persuade voters to aim for the communal good. Cf Rawls. |
| 23352 | A citizen should only consider what is good for the whole society [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The calling of a citizen is to consider nothing in terms of personal advantage, never to deliberate on anything as though detached from the whole, but be like our hand or foot. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.10.04) | |
| A reaction: Fat chance of that in an aggressively capitalist society. I've always voted for what I thought was the common good, and was shocked to gradually realise that many people only vote for what promotes their own interests. Heigh ho. |
| 22604 | Punishing a criminal for moral ignorance is the same as punishing someone for being blind [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: You should ask 'Ought not this man to be put to death, who is deceived in things of the greatest importance, and is blinded in distinguishing good from evil?' …You then see how inhuman it is, and the same as 'Ought not this blind man to be put to death?' | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.18.6-7) | |
| A reaction: This is the doctrine of Socrates, that evil is ignorance (and weakness of will [akrasia] is impossible). Epictetus wants us to reason with the man, but what should be do if reasoning fails and he persists in his crimes? |
| 23349 | Asses are born to carry human burdens, not as ends in themselves [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: An ass is surely not born as an end in itself? No, but because we had need of a back that is able to carry burdens. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.08.07) | |
| A reaction: This is the absurd human exceptionalism which plagues our thinking. It would be somewhat true of animals which are specifically bred for human work, such as large cart horses. |
| 2608 | For McTaggart time is seen either as fixed, or as relative to events [McTaggart, by Ayer] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart says we can speak of events in time in two ways, as past, present or future, or as being before or after or simultaneous with one another. The first cannot be reduced to the second, as the second makes no provision for the passage of time. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], II.329-) by A.J. Ayer - The Central Questions of Philosophy 1.D |
| 22936 | A-series time positions are contradictory, and yet all events occupy all of them! [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart's proof of time's unreality: A-series positions (past, present and future) are mutually incompatible, so no event can exhibit more than one of them; but since A-series events change position, all events have all A-series posititions. Absurd! | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Travels in Four Dimensions 08 'McTaggart's' | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that this is any more contradictory than someone being married at one time and unmarried at another. No one is suggesting that an A-series event can be both past and future simultaneously. |
| 4231 | Time involves change, only the A-series explains change, but it involves contradictions, so time is unreal [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart argued that time involves change, only the A-series can explain change, the A-series involves contradictions (past, present and future), and hence time is unreal. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.313 | |
| A reaction: I doubt whether it is a logical contradiction to say Waterloo has been past, present and future, though it is odd. |
| 8591 | There could be no time if nothing changed [McTaggart] |
| Full Idea: It is universally admitted.... that there could be no time if nothing changed. | |
| From: J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], II p.11), quoted by Sydney Shoemaker - Time Without Change p.49 | |
| A reaction: This is set up alongside Aristotle (Idea 8590) to be attacked by Shoemaker. I think Shoemaker is right, and that the rejection of McTaggart's view is a key result in modern metaphysics. |
| 22935 | The B-series can be inferred from the A-series, but not the other way round [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart says the A-series is more fundamental than the B-series. An objective being could not deduce the present moment of the A-series from the B-series, but the B-series can be deduced from the A-series. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Travels in Four Dimensions 08 'McTaggart's' | |
| A reaction: [summarised] This has no ontological importance for McTaggart, since he thinks time is unreal either way. But giving the A-series priority because it reveals the present moment seems to nullify the B-series as incomplete. |
| 7802 | A-series uses past, present and future; B-series uses 'before' and 'after' [McTaggart, by Girle] |
| Full Idea: The A-series puts events into past, present and future. The B-series puts events into a series based on relationships of 'before' and 'after'. McTaggart said the A-series was contradictory, and the B-series failed to cope with essential features of time. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by Rod Girle - Modal Logics and Philosophy 8.10 | |
| A reaction: The A-series is indexical. |
| 4230 | A-series expressions place things in time, and their truth varies; B-series is relative, and always true [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A-series expressions include words like 'today' and 'five weeks ago', and can be true at one time and false at another; B-series expressions are like 'simultaneously', and are always true, if true at all. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.308 | |
| A reaction: A-series gives time separate existence, where B-series time is purely relational. Intuition favours the A-series, but how fast do events travel against this fixed background? |
| 15199 | The B-series must depend on the A-series, because change must be explained [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| Full Idea: McTaggart's argument is 1) B-series relations are temporal relations, 2) There cannot be temporal relations unless there is change, 3) There cannot be change unless there is real A-series ordering, so there can't be a B-series unless there is an A-series. | |
| From: report of J.M.E. McTaggart (The Nature of Existence vol.2 [1927], vol.ii) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 a |
| 23341 | God created humans as spectators and interpreters of God's works [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: God has introduced man into the world as a spectator of himself and of his works: and not only as a spectator of them, but an interpreter of them as well. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.06.19) | |
| A reaction: This idea (which strikes me as bizarre) was picked up directly by the Christians. I can't imagine every Johnson wanting to creating their own Boswell. If you think we are divinely created, you have to propose some motive for it, I suppose. |
| 23348 | Both god and the good bring benefits, so their true nature seems to be the same [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: God brings benefits; but the good also brings benefit. It would seem, then, that where the true nature of god is, there too is the true nature of good. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 2.08.01) | |
| A reaction: An enthymeme, missing the premise that there can only be one source of benefit (which sounds unlikely). Does god bring anything other than benefits? And does the good? I think this is an idea from later platonism. |
| 5642 | For Shaftesbury, we must already have a conscience to be motivated to religious obedience [Shaftesbury, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Shaftesbury argued that no morality could be founded in religious obedience, or piety. On the contrary, a man is motivated to such obedience only because conscience tells him that the divine being is worthy of it. | |
| From: report of 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a good argument. The only alternative is that we are brought to God by a conscience which was planted in us by God, but then how would you know you were being obedient to the right hypnotist? |
| 23360 | Each of the four elements in you is entirely scattered after death [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Whatever was in you of fire, departs into fire; what was of earth, into earth; what of air, into air; what of water, into water. There is no Hades, nor Acheron. | |
| From: Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 3.13.15) | |
| A reaction: This sort of remark may explain why so few of the great Stoic texts (such as those of Chrysippus) survived the Christian era. |