Combining Texts

All the ideas for '27: Book of Daniel', 'The soul's dependence on the body' and 'The Putney Debates'

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9 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
Philosophy must start from clearly observed facts [Galen]
     Full Idea: True philosophers concern themselves first and foremost to take clearly observed facts as their point of departure.
     From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170], Kiv.11.817)
     A reaction: I love this one, especially the desire that the facts be 'clearly observed'. That, thank goodness, eliminates quantum mechanics. If you don't love history and the physical sciences, you are not a philosopher. Oh, and reliable gossip.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
The spirit in the soul wants freedom, power and honour [Galen]
     Full Idea: The spirited part of the soul is desiderative of freedom, victory, power, authority, reputation, and honour.
     From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170], Kiv.2.772)
     A reaction: This is the concept of 'thumos' [spirit], taken straight from Plato's tripartite account of the soul, in 'Republic'. Note that it includes a desire for freedom (in an age of slavery).
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain
Stopping the heart doesn't terminate activity; pressing the brain does that [Galen, by Cobb]
     Full Idea: Even when an animals heart was stopped [by hand] it continued its muted whimpers, …but when the brain was pressed the animal stopped making a noise and became unconscious.
     From: report of Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170]) by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 1
     A reaction: It's not that the ancients didn't do science. It's that ancient people paid no attention to what their scientists discovered.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 1. Faculties
Philosophers think faculties are in substances, and invent a faculty for every activity [Galen]
     Full Idea: Philosophers conceive of faculties as things which inhabit 'substances' much as we inhabit houses, not realising that causes of events are conceived in relational terms. We therefore attribute as many faculties to a substance as activities.
     From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170], Kiv.2.769)
     A reaction: This seems to demolish speculative faculties, but they were revived during the Enlightenment. I am happy to talk of 'philosophical faculties' where they are presumed to originate a type of thought, without commitment to any neuroscience.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
The brain contains memory and reason, and is the source of sensation and decision [Galen]
     Full Idea: The brain is the principal organ of the psychical members. For within the brain is seated memory, reason and intellect, and from the brain is distributed the power, sensation and voluntary motion.
     From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170]), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 1
     A reaction: [not sure of ref] Interesting that he assigns the whole of mind to the brain, and not just some aspect of it. He had done experiments. Understanding the role of the brain was amazingly slow. Impeded by religion, I guess.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
The rational part of the soul is the desire for truth, understanding and recollection [Galen]
     Full Idea: That part of the soul which we call rational is desiderative: …it desires truth, knowledge, learning, understanding, and recollection - in short, all the good things.
     From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170], Kiv.2.772)
     A reaction: Truth is no surprise, but recollection is. Note the separation of knowledge from understanding. This is a very good characterisation of rationality. For the Greeks it has a moral dimension, of wanting what is good.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 2. State Legitimacy / c. Social contract
Even the poorest have a life to lead, and so should consent to who governs them [-]
     Full Idea: For really I think that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest hee; …and every Man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own Consent to put himself under that Government.
     From: - (The Putney Debates [1647])
     A reaction: [remark made by Thomas Rainsborough] This is the social contract idea which is explicit in Hobbes. I'm sure we can at least trace it back to John Lilburne in the 1630s.
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / a. Right to punish
We execute irredeemable people, to protect ourselves, as a deterrent, and ending a bad life [Galen]
     Full Idea: We kill the irredeemably wicked, for three reasons: that they may no longer harm us; as a deterrent to others like them; and because it is actually better from their own point of view to die, when their souls are so damaged they cannot be improved.
     From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170], Kiv.11.816)
     A reaction: The third one sounds like a dubious rationalisation, given that the prisoner probably disagrees. Nowadays we are not so quick to judge someone as irredeemable. The first one works when they run wild, but not after their capture.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
Resurrection developed in Judaism as a response to martyrdoms, in about 160 BCE [Anon (Dan), by Watson]
     Full Idea: The idea of resurrection in Judaism seems to have first developed around 160 BCE, during the time of religious martyrdom, and as a response to it (the martyrs were surely not dying forever?). It is first mentioned in the book of Daniel.
     From: report of Anon (Dan) (27: Book of Daniel [c.165 BCE], Ch.7) by Peter Watson - Ideas
     A reaction: Idea 7473 suggests that Zoroaster beat them to it by 800 years.