10 ideas
| 16066 | Additional or removal of any part changes a thing, so people are never the same person [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: If you add or take away a pebble, the same number does not remain. If you add to a length or cut off from it, the former measure does not remain. So human beings grow or waste away. Both you and I were, and shall be, other men. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B02), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.12 | |
| A reaction: [The original is in dialogue form from a play. The context is a joke about not paying a debt.] Note the early date for this metaphysical puzzle. My new favourite reply is Chrysippus's Idea 16059; identity actually requires change. |
| 21513 | We can no more expect a precise definition of coherence than we can of the moral ideal [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: I think it is wrong to tie down the advocates of the coherence theory to a precise definition. ...It would be altogether unreasonable to demand that the moral ideal should be exhaustively defined, and the same may be true of the ideal of thought. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.231), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 7.6 | |
| A reaction: I strongly agree. It is not a council of despair. I think the criteria of coherence can be articulated quite well (e.g by Thagard), and the virtues of enquiry can also be quite well specified (e.g. by Zagzebski). Very dissimilar evidence must cohere. |
| 21497 | If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2 | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues. |
| 436 | A dog seems handsome to another a dog, and even a pig to another pig [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Dog seems very handsome to dog, and ox to ox, and donkey very handsome to donkey, and even pig to pig. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B05), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 442 | Pleasures are like pirates - if you are caught they drown you in a sea of pleasures [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Pleasures for mortals are like impious pirates, for the man who is caught by pleasures is immediately drowned in a sea of them. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B44), quoted by (who?) - where? | |
| A reaction: Not all slopes are slippery. Plenty of people hold themselves to strict rules about alcohol or gambling. People have occasional treats. |
| 440 | Hands wash hands; give that you may get [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: The hand washes the hand; give something and you may get something. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B30), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 441 | Against a villain, villainy is not a useless weapon [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Against a villain, villainy is not a useless weapon. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B32), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 17366 | Virtually all modern views of speciation rest on relational rather than intrinsic features [Okasha] |
| Full Idea: On all modern species concepts (except the phenetic), the property in virtue of which a particular organism belongs to one species rather than another is a relational rather than an intrinsic property of the organism. | |
| From: Samir Okasha (Darwinian Metaphysics: Species and Essentialism [2002], p.201), quoted by Michael Devitt - Resurrecting Biological Essentialism 4 | |
| A reaction: I am in sympathy with Devitt's attack on this view, for the same reason that I take relational explanations of almost anything (such as the mind) to be inadequate. We need to know the intrinsic features that enable the relations. |
| 439 | God knows everything, and nothing is impossible for him [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Nothing escapes the divine, this you must realise. God himself is our overseer, and nothing is impossible for him. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B23), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 443 | Human logos is an aspect of divine logos, and is sufficient for successful living [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Man has calculation, but there is also the divine logos. But human logos is sprung from the divine logos, and it brings to each man his means of life, and his maintenance. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B57), quoted by (who?) - where? |