11 ideas
| 1813 | All reasoning endlessly leads to further reasoning (Mode 12) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Twelfth mode: all reasoning leads on to further reasoning, and this process goes on forever. | |
| From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10 |
| 1815 | Reasoning needs arbitrary faith in preliminary hypotheses (Mode 14) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Fourteenth mode: reasoning requires arbitrary faith in preliminary hypotheses. | |
| From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10 |
| 1812 | All discussion is full of uncertainty and contradiction (Mode 11) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Eleventh mode: all topics of discussion are full of uncertainty and contradiction. | |
| From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10 |
| 1811 | Proofs often presuppose the thing to be proved (Mode 15) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Fifteenth mode: proofs often presuppose the thing to be proved. | |
| From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10 |
| 8850 | Agrippa's Trilemma: justification is infinite, or ends arbitrarily, or is circular [Agrippa, by Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Agrippa's Trilemma offers three possible outcomes for a regress of justification: the chain goes on for ever (infinite); or the chain stops at an unjustified proposition (arbitrary); or the chain eventually includes the original proposition (circular). | |
| From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60], §2) by Michael Williams - Without Immediate Justification §2 | |
| A reaction: This summarises Ideas 1911, 1913 and 1914. Agrippa's Trilemma is now a standard starting point for modern discussions of foundations. Personally I reject 2, and am torn between 1 (+ social consensus) and 3 (with a benign, coherent circle). |
| 1814 | Everything is perceived in relation to another thing (Mode 13) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Thirteenth mode: everything is always perceived in relation to something else. | |
| From: report of Agrippa (fragments/reports [c.60]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Py.10 |
| 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 |
| 9423 | If simplicity and strength are criteria for laws of nature, that introduces a subjective element [Mumford on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's simplicity and strength criteria introduce an element of subjectivity into the laws, because the best system seems to be determined by what we take to be simple and strong in a system. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Psychophysical and theoretical identifications [1972]) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 3.5 | |
| A reaction: [Mumford cites Armstrong 1983:67 for this] |
| 9424 | A number of systematizations might tie as the best and most coherent system [Mumford on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Since the best system view is a coherence theory, the possibility could not be ruled out that a number of different systematizations of the same history might be tied for first place as equally best. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Psychophysical and theoretical identifications [1972]) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 3.5 | |
| A reaction: [Mumord cites Armstrong 1983:70] Personally I am a fan of coherence theories, and this problem doesn't bother me. |
| 9409 | Laws are the best axiomatization of the total history of world events or facts [Lewis, by Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The Mill-Ramsey-Lewis theory takes laws to be axioms (or theorems) of the best possible systematizations of the world's total history, where such a history is a history of events or facts. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Psychophysical and theoretical identifications [1972]) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 1.3 |
| 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. |