4 ideas
16079 | De re modal predicates are ambiguous [Lewis, by Rudder Baker] |
Full Idea: Lewis is perhaps the most prominent proponent of the view that de re modal predicates are ambiguous. | |
From: report of David Lewis (Survival and Identity, with postscript [1983]) by Lynne Rudder Baker - Why Constitution is not Identity n25 |
4871 | A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: I say that a thing is free, which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letter to G.H. Schaller [1674], 1674.10) | |
A reaction: Of course, this isn't 'freedom' at all, but it seems to exactly right as an account of so-called freedom. In the case of a human being the 'necessity of our own nature' is character, and virtue and vice are the expressions of the necessities of character. |
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. |