Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Individual, the State, and the Common Good' and 'Hippocrates of Cos on the mind'

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4 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / d. Location of mind
Alcmaeon was the first to say the brain is central to thinking [Alcmaeon, by Staden, von]
     Full Idea: Alcmaeon apparently was the first Greek to assign central cognitive and biological functions to the brain.
     From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE]) by Heinrich von Staden - Alcmaeon
     A reaction: The name of Alcmaeon should be remembered with honour. This was 200 years before Aristotle, who still hadn't worked it out. I presume Alcmaeon inferred the truth from head injuries, which is overwhelming evidence, if you notice it.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates]
     Full Idea: Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pains, griefs and tears.
     From: Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos on the mind [c.430 BCE], p.32)
     A reaction: If this could be assertedly so confidently at that date, why was the fact so slow to catch on? Brain injuries should have convinced everyone.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / g. Liberalism critique
Liberalism may fail because it neglects the shared nature of what we pursue and protect [Haldane]
     Full Idea: I am interested in the claim that liberalism fails inasmuch as it neglects, and cannot accommodate, the fact that some or all of the goods we pursue, and which a system of rights is concerned to protect, are goods possessed in common.
     From: John Haldane (The Individual, the State, and the Common Good [1996], III)
     A reaction: It depends how individualistic we take liberalism to be. Extreme individualism (Nozick) strikes me as crazy. If 'we' erect a statue to some dubious politicians, it might be presented as a common good, but actually be despised by many.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Alcmaeon says that the soul is immortal because it resembles immortal things and that this affection belongs to it because it is always in movement, like divine things, such the moon, the sun, the stars and the whole heaven.
     From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE], DK 24) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a30
     A reaction: Hm. Fish and rivers seem to be continually moving too. Presumably we are like gods, but then Greek gods seem awfully like humans. I don't know the history of belief in immortality; an interesting topic.