5 ideas
| 21336 | Crates lived in poverty, and treated his whole life as a joke [Crates of Thebes, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Crates, with his bag and threadbare cloak, spent his whole life laughing and joking as though he were on holiday. | |
| From: report of Crates (Theb) (fragments/reports [c.325 BCE]) by Plutarch - 30: Quiet of Mind 266e | |
| A reaction: Crates sounds a little less alarming than Diogenes, while living a similar life. Was Crates the first ancestor of post-modernism? |
| 19456 | Philosophy is distinguished from other sciences by its complete lack of presuppositions [Feuerbach] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy does not presuppose anything. It is precisely in this fact of non-presupposition that its beginning lies - a beginning by virtue of which it is set apart from all the other sciences. | |
| From: Ludwig Feuerbach (On 'The Beginning of Philosophy' [1841], p.135) | |
| A reaction: Most modern philosophers seem to laugh at such an idea, because everything is theory-laden, culture-laden, language-laden etc. As an aspiration I love it, and think good philosophers get quite close to the goal (which, I admit, is not fully attainable). |
| 1767 | Everyone should study philosophy until they see all people in the same light [Crates of Thebes, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: A man should study philosophy up to the point of looking on generals and donkey-drivers in the same light. | |
| From: report of Crates (Theb) (fragments/reports [c.325 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.Cr.9 | |
| A reaction: This seems to reject Aristote's idea that some people are clearly superior to others. |
| 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. |