19 ideas
| 2676 | Didactic argument starts from the principles of the subject, not from the opinions of the learner [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Didactic arguments are those which reason from the principles appropriate to each branch of learning and not from the opinions of the answerer (for he who is learning must take things on trust). | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b01) |
| 2675 | Reasoning is a way of making statements which makes them lead on to other statements [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning is based on certain statements made in such a way as necessarily to cause the assertion of things other than those statements and as a result of those statements. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165a01) |
| 2677 | Dialectic aims to start from generally accepted opinions, and lead to a contradiction [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Dialectical arguments are those which, starting from generally accepted opinions, reason to establish a contradiction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b03) |
| 2674 | Competitive argument aims at refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism or repetition [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who compete and contend in argument aim at five objects: refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism, and the reduction of one's opponent to a state of babbling, that is, making him say the same thing over and over again. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b15) |
| 16967 | 'Are Coriscus and Callias at home?' sounds like a single question, but it isn't [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you ask 'Are Coriscus and Callias at home or not at home?', whether they are both at home or not there, the number of propositions is more than one. For if the answer is true, it does not follow that the question is a single one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 176a08) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Aristotle is saying that some questions should not receive a 'yes' or 'no' answer, because they are equivocal. Arthur Prior cites this passage, on 'and'. Ordinary use of 'and' need not be the logical use of 'and'. |
| 16149 | Generic terms like 'man' are not substances, but qualities, relations, modes or some such thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'Man', and every generic term, denotes not an individual substance but a quality or relation or mode or something of the kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a01) | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle's denial that species constitutes the essence of anything. I take 'man' to be a categorisation of individuals, and is ontologically nothing at all in its own right. |
| 11840 | Only if two things are identical do they have the same attributes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is only to things which are indistinguishable and one in essence [ousia] that all the same attributes are generally held to belong. | |
| From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a37) | |
| A reaction: This simply IS Leibniz's Law (to which I shall from now on quietly refer to as 'Aristotle's Law'). It seems that it just as plausible to translate 'ousia' as 'being' rather than 'essence'. 'Indistinguishable' and 'one in ousia' are not the same. |
| 21075 | The state of nature always involves the threat of war [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The state of nature is a state of war. For even if it does not involve active hostilities, it involves a constant threat of their breaking out. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 2) | |
| A reaction: Kant is siding with Hobbes against Rousseau, despite Rousseau's claim that Hobbes's pessimism concerns a more advanced situation that the true (and peaceful) state of nature. |
| 20569 | Kant made the social contract international and cosmopolitan [Kant, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: Kant developed the social contract theory into an international and cosmopolitan idea. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: That is, the contract both operates between states, and rises above them. I found this idea rather thrilling when I first met it (listening to Onora O'Neill). But then I remain a child of the Englightenment. |
| 21079 | The a priori general will of a people shows what is right [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is precisely the general will as it is given a priori, within a single people or in the mutual relationships of various peoples, which alone determines what is right among men. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], App 1) | |
| A reaction: The clearest quotation for showing Kant's debt to Rousseau. Why should Rousseau bother to have a real assembly of the people, if the General Will can be worked out a priori? Indeed, the a priori version must be deemed superior to any meeting. |
| 21077 | Each nation should, from self-interest, join an international security constitution [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Each nation, for the sake of its own security, can and ought to demand of the others that they should enter along with it into a constitution, similar to the civil one, within which the rights of each could be secured. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 2.2nd) | |
| A reaction: Not sure how close the United Nations takes us to this. You have to admire Kant for this one. |
| 21078 | A constitution must always be improved when necessary [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Changes for the better are necessary, in order that the constitution may constantly approach the optimum end prescribed by laws of right. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], App 1) | |
| A reaction: This should be a clause in every constitution. It is crazy to feel trapped by a misjudgement or outdated view of your ancestors. |
| 21076 | Equality is where you cannot impose a legal obligation you yourself wouldn't endure [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Rightful equality within a state is a relationship among citizens where no-one can put anyone else under a legal obligation without submitting simultaneously to a law which requires that he can be put under the same kind of obligation by the other person. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 2.1st n) | |
| A reaction: This appears only to be legal equality, rather than political or economic or social equality. |
| 20570 | There is now a growing universal community, and violations of rights are felt everywhere [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The peoples of the earth have entered in varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 'Third') | |
| A reaction: I hope slavery was at the forefront of his mind when he wrote that. It is only in very recent times (since about 1960?) that major violations of rights are felt to matter to the whole human race. A long way to go, though. |
| 20571 | There are political and inter-national rights, but also universal cosmopolitan rights [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a cosmopolitan right is not fantastic and overstrained; it is a necessary complement to the unwritten code of political and international right, transforming it into a universal right of humanity. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 'Third') | |
| A reaction: The interesting thought is that there are no 'natural rights', but there can be universal rights insofar as there exists a universal community. See the UN Declaration of Human Rights c.1948. |
| 21073 | Hiring soldiers is to use them as instruments, ignoring their personal rights [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The hiring of men to kill or be killed seems to mean using them as mere machines and insturments in the hands of someone else (the state), which cannot easily be reconciled with the rights of man in one's own person. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: Kant was not a pacificist, though this makes him sound like one. Some men go off to war with enthusiasm, and then regret it. Exploitation of rational beings may be the worst sin in Kant's Enlightenment world. |
| 21074 | Some trust in the enemy is needed during wartime, or peace would be impossible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It must remain possible, even in wartime, to have some sort of trust in the attitude of the enemy, otherwise peace could not be concluded and the hostilities would turn into a war of extermination. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace [1795], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: Consider the 'unconditional surrender' approach to the Nazis in 1944, and the peace of May 1945, made with very different Germans. How do you make peace with an enemy you cannot trust? |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |