7 ideas
22752 | Reasoning is impossible without a preconception [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: It is not possible either to seek or to doubt without a preconception. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.22) | |
A reaction: [Sextus quotes this from 'the sapient Epicurus'] I think this may be a message across the centuries to Hegel, who attempted this impossible feat. My picture of philosophy is a continual shift of the preconceptions, to explore thoroughly. |
22393 | I don't understand the idea of a reason for acting, but it is probably the agent's interests or desires [Foot] |
Full Idea: I am sure I do not understand the idea of a reason for acting, and I wonder whether anyone else does either. I incline to the view that all such reasons depend either on the agent's interests (meaning here what is in his interest) or else on his desires. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Reasons for Actions and Desires [1972], p.156 Post) | |
A reaction: It seems common to assume that a reason for an action must be something rational, but it makes sense to say that the reason for someone's action was an irrational whim. Is the reason for an action just the cause of the action? |
22754 | Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Asserting that the good is 'the useful', or 'what is choiceworthy for its own sake', or 'that which contributes to happiness', does not teach us what good is but states its accidental property. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.35) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a pretty accurate statement of Moore's famous Open Question argument. I read it in an Aristotelian way - that that quest is always for the essential nature of the thing itself, not for its role or function or use. |
22755 | Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Just as fire which is warmth-giving by nature warms all men, and does not chill some of them, so what is good by nature ought to be good for all, and not good for some but not good for others. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.69) | |
A reaction: This is going to confine the naturally good to the basics of life, which we all share. Is a love of chess a natural good? It seems to capture an aspect of human nature, without appealing to everyone. Sextus says nothing is good for everyone. |
22756 | If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it [Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: If the desire for wealth or health is desirable, we ought not to purse wealth or health, lest by acquiring them we cease to desire them any longer. | |
From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Ethicists (one book) [c.180], II.81) | |
A reaction: He is investigating whether desires can be desirable, and if so which ones. Roots of this are in Plato's 'Gorgias' on drinking water. Similar to 'if compassion is the highest good then we need lots of suffering'. Desire must be a means, not an end. |
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. |