18 ideas
7823 | Lucretius was rediscovered in 1417 [Grayling] |
Full Idea: Lucretius's 'De Rerum Natura' was rediscovered in 1417, after languishing forgotten for six centuries. | |
From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: A wonder. Is it the greatest book of the ancient world - because it partially preserves the lost philosophy of great Democritus? |
14329 | Some dispositional properties (such as mental ones) may have no categorical base [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: There is no a priori necessity for supposing that all disposition properties must have a 'categorical base'. In particular, there may be some mental dispositions which are ultimate. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.XI) | |
A reaction: I take the notion that mental dispositions could be ultimate as rather old-fashioned, but I agree with the notion that dispositions might be more fundamental that categorical (actual) properties. Personally I like 'powers'. |
9032 | Before we can abstract from an instance of violet, we must first recognise it [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: Abstraction is preceded by an earlier stage, in which we learn to recognize instances; before I can conceive of the colour violet in abstracto, I must learn to recognize instances of this colour when I see them. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.II) | |
A reaction: The problem here might be one of circularity. If you are actually going to identify something as violet, you seem to need the abstract concept of 'violet' in advance. See Idea 9034 for Price's attempt to deal with the problem. |
9035 | If judgement of a characteristic is possible, that part of abstraction must be complete [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: If we are to 'judge' - rightly or not - that this object has a specific characteristic, it would seem that so far as the characteristic is concerned the process of abstraction must already be completed. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.III) | |
A reaction: Personally I think Price is right, despite the vicious attack from Geach that looms. We all know the experiences of familiarity, recognition, and identification that go on when see a person or picture. 'What animal is that, in the distance?' |
9034 | There may be degrees of abstraction which allow recognition by signs, without full concepts [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: If abstraction is a matter of degree, and the first faint beginnings of it are already present as soon as anything has begun to feel familiar to us, then recognition by means of signs can occur long before the process of abstraction has been completed. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.III) | |
A reaction: I like this, even though it is unscientific introspective psychology, for which no proper evidence can be adduced - because it is right. Neuroscience confirms that hardly any mental life has an all-or-nothing form. |
9036 | There is pre-verbal sign-based abstraction, as when ice actually looks cold [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: We must still insist that some degree of abstraction, and even a very considerable degree of it, is present in sign-cognition, pre-verbal as it is. ...To us, who are familiar with northern winters, the ice actually looks cold. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IV) | |
A reaction: Price may be in the weak position of doing armchair psychology, but something like his proposal strikes me as correct. I'm much happier with accounts of thought that talk of 'degrees' of an activity, than with all-or-nothing cut-and-dried pictures. |
9037 | Intelligent behaviour, even in animals, has something abstract about it [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: Though it may sound odd to say so, intelligent behaviour has something abstract about it no less than intelligent cognition; and indeed at the animal level it is unrealistic to separate the two. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IV) | |
A reaction: This elusive thought strikes me as being a key one for understanding human existence. To think is to abstract. Brains are abstraction machines. Resemblance and recognition require abstaction. |
9033 | Recognition must precede the acquisition of basic concepts, so it is the fundamental intellectual process [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: Recognition is the first stage towards the acquisition of a primary or basic concept. It is, therefore, the most fundamental of all intellectual processes. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.II) | |
A reaction: An interesting question is whether it is an 'intellectual' process. Animals evidently recognise things, though it is a moot point whether slugs 'recognise' tasty leaves. |
9030 | Abstractions can be interpreted dispositionally, as the ability to recognise or imagine an item [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: An abstract idea may have a dispositional as well as an occurrent interpretation. ..A man who possesses the concept Dog, when he is actually perceiving a dog can recognize that it is one, and can think about dogs when he is not perceiving any dog. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IX) | |
A reaction: Ryle had just popularised the 'dispositional' account of mental events. Price is obviously right. The man may also be able to use the word 'dog' in sentences, but presumably dogs recognise dogs, and probably dream about dogs too. |
9029 | If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: There used to be a 'problem of Abstract Ideas' because it was assumed that an idea ought, somehow, to be a mental image; if some of our ideas appeared not to be images, this was a paradox and some solution must be found. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.VIII) | |
A reaction: Berkeley in particular seems to be struck by the fact that we are incapable of thinking of a general triangle, simply because there is no image related to it. Most conversations go too fast for images to form even of very visual things. |
9031 | The basic concepts of conceptual cognition are acquired by direct abstraction from instances [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: Basic concepts are acquired by direct abstraction from instances; unless there were some concepts acquired in this way by direct abstraction, there would be no conceptual cognition at all. | |
From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.II) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be correct. A key point is that not only will I acquire the concept of 'dog' in this direct way, from instances, but also the concept of 'my dog Spot' - that is I can acquire the abstract concept of an instance from an instance. |
7809 | In an honour code shame is the supreme punishment, and revenge is a duty [Grayling] |
Full Idea: An honour code is one in which the greatest punishment is shame, and in which revenge is a duty. | |
From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Is this really what Nietzsche wanted to revive? Shame isn't a private matter - it needs solidarity of values in the community, and contempt for dishonour, so that it becomes everyone's worst fear. |
7824 | If suicide is lawful, but assisting suicide is unlawful, powerless people are denied their rights [Grayling] |
Full Idea: An anomaly created by England's 1961 Suicide Act is that it is lawful to take one's own life, but unlawful to help anyone else to do it. This means anyone unable to commit suicide without help is denied one of their fundamental rights. | |
From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.8) | |
A reaction: There is a difference, not really captured either by law or by reason, between tolerating an activity, and encouraging and helping it. I think the test question is "this activity is legal, but would you want your child to do it?" |
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. |
7819 | Religion gives answers, comforts, creates social order, and panders to superstition [Grayling] |
Full Idea: The four standard explanations given for religion are that it provides answer, that it gives comfort, that it makes for social order, and that it rests on mere superstition. | |
From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: All four of these could be correct, though the first and fourth would be incompatible if religion gives correct answers. Why religion begins might be not the same as the reason why it continues. |
7817 | To make an afterlife appealing, this life has to be denigrated [Grayling] |
Full Idea: It is remarkable how much the life of this world has to be denigrated to make the promise of happiness after death appealing. | |
From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This seems to be true of most religions, but it could be otherwise. Surely you want such a wonderful life to continue after death? But then you would not be obliged to do anything difficult to achieve immortality. Power comes into it... |
7818 | In Greek mythology only heroes can go to heaven [Grayling] |
Full Idea: In Greek mythology only a hero like Hercules could hope to go to heaven (by becoming a god himself). | |
From: A.C. Grayling (What is Good? [2003], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This illustrates Nietsche's 'inversion of morality' most clearly, because Christianity says that the person most likely to go to heaven is the humblest person. |