11 ideas
| 1564 | True and false statements can use exactly the same words [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: There is no difference between a true statement and a false statement, because they can use exactly the same words. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §4) |
| 3648 | Empiricists are collecting ants; rationalists are spinning spiders; and bees do both [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Empiricists are like ants; they collect and put to use; but rationalists, like spiders, spin threads out of themselves. (…and bees follow the middle way, of collecting material and transforming it). | |
| From: Francis Bacon (Cogitata et Visa [1607]) | |
| A reaction: Nice (and so concisely expressed). Bees seem to be just more intelligent and energetic empiricists. |
| 1561 | Anything can be acceptable in some circumstances and unacceptable in others [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: Anything can be acceptable under the right circumstances, and unacceptable under the wrong circumstances. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 1560 | Lydians prostitute their daughters to raise a dowery, but no Greek would marry such a girl [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: The Lydians find it acceptable for their daughters to work as prostitutes to raise money for getting married, but no one in Greece would be prepared to marry such a girl. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 1559 | Thracians think tattooing adds to a girl's beauty, but elsewhere it is a punishment [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: Thracians think that tattooing enhances a girl's beauty, whereas for everyone else tattooing is a punishment for a crime. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §2) |
| 1567 | How could someone who knows everything fail to act correctly? [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: If someone knows the nature of everything, how could he fail to be able also to act correctly in every case? | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §8) |
| 1563 | Every apparent crime can be right in certain circumstances [Anon (Diss), by PG] |
| Full Idea: It can be right, in certain circumstances, to steal, to break a solemn promise, to rob temples, and even (as Orestes did) to murder one's nearest and dearest. | |
| From: report of Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about the last one! I suppose you can justify any hideousness if the fate of the universe depends on it. It must be better to die than the perform certain extreme deeds. |
| 1562 | It is right to lie to someone, to get them to take medicine they are reluctant to take [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: It is right to lie to your parents, in order to get them to take a good medicine they are reluctant to take. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §3) | |
| A reaction: I dread to think what the medicines were which convinced the writer of this. A rule such as this strikes me as dangerous. Justifiable in extreme cases. House on fire etc. |
| 1566 | The first priority in elections is to vote for people who support democracy [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: A lottery is not democratic, because every state contains people who are not democratic, and if the lottery chooses them they will destroy the democracy. People should elect those who are observed to favour democracy. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §7) |
| 1565 | We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it [Anon (Diss)] |
| Full Idea: We learn language, and we don't know who teaches us it. | |
| From: Anon (Diss) (Dissoi Logoi - on Double Arguments [c.401 BCE], §6) |
| 8338 | A phenomenalist about objects has to be a regularity theorist about causation [Strawson,G] |
| Full Idea: If you are a phenomenalist about objects, then there is an important sense in which you ought to be a Regularity theorist about what causation is, in such objects. | |
| From: Galen Strawson (The Secret Connexion [1989], App C) | |
| A reaction: Strawson is denying that Hume is a phenomenalist. One might go a little further, and say that a phenomenalist should abandon the idea of causation (as Russell did). |