4 ideas
19413 | If we know what is good or rational, our knowledge is extended, and our free will restricted [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The more perfect one is, the more one is determined to the good, and so is more free at the same time. ...Our power and knowledge are more extended, and our will much the more limited within the bounds of perfect reason. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Pierre Bayle [1702], 1702) | |
A reaction: I like this idea, which seems to me to derive from Aquinas. When I choose to eat and drink each day, or agree that 7+5 is 12, I don't complain about my lack of freedom in the choices. Goodness and reason are constraints I welcome. |
19458 | Egoism is the only evil, love the only good; genuine love produces all the other virtues [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: There is only one evil - egoism; there is only one good - love. ...Love, but truly! All other virtues will automatically come to you. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Fragments on My Philosophical Development [1839], 1834-6) | |
A reaction: This is a rather Christian idea of virtue, coming from the great atheist. Does tough love come from love? |
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. |