54 ideas
| 23948 | Wisdom needs both thought and passion, with each reflecting on the other [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom is a matter of living both thoughtfully and passionately, bringing understanding to bear on every passion and forcing every passion into the light of reflection. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: His main point is that passion is a key part of wisdom, and the idea that wisdom is cold and detached is quite false. Good point. At the very least, wise people must relate sympathetically to others. |
| 23942 | Philosophy is creating an intellectual conceptual structure for life [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is conceptual sculpture, the shaping and developing of the intellectual structures within which we live our lives. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Intro.1) | |
| A reaction: Nice. I tend to see philosophy as conceptual analysis (though creating new concepts doesn't quite fit that), but the vision of creating a huge conceptual sculpture sounds good. I would call it a system. (See my book, 'Natural Ideas'!). |
| 23945 | Reason is actually passions, guided by perspicacious reflection [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: What is called 'reason' is the passions enlightened, 'illuminated' by reflection and supported by a perspicacious deliberation that the emotions in their urgency normally excluded. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Intro.4) | |
| A reaction: To suggest that reason more or less is emotions strikes me as missing the point of 'perspicacious', which takes in facts outside our emotional world. We excitedly climb a cliff, then stop when we see the rocks are crumbling. |
| 14415 | A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A ground does not merely necessitate its truth. A ground is also what its truth is appropriately about. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.II) |
| 14408 | Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: It is not always obvious what (if anything) a truth is about, in the sense of 'about' relevant to Truthmaker and truth-supervenient-on-being. Prior says 'Queen Anne is dead' is not about Queen Anne, and may be about the Earth. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.III) | |
| A reaction: A very nice and rather subtle objection to the Truthmaker thesis. Specifying the truthmaker for a given truth looks like a doddle in simple cases, but clearly it can become extremely elusive in other cases. |
| 14395 | If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: If a single ball goes from being red to being white, Truthmaker implies that something exists which makes it true that the second thing follows the first. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.V) |
| 14398 | Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Truthmaker makes it impossible simply to remove an entity. One must always replace it with something else; namely, a truthmaker for the claim that that entity does not exist. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.I-3) | |
| A reaction: This is a particularly strong and persuasive argument from Merricks against the truthmaker view. Clearly the truthmaker for non-existence can't be there when it exists, and the destruction bringing the negative truthmaker into existence sounds odd. |
| 14403 | If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Truthmaker says that, for each truth, there is something that, by its mere existence, makes that truth true, …so Truthmaker has de re modality at its core. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.III) | |
| A reaction: I have no problem with de re modality, so this doesn't bother me. Merricks brings out nicely the baggage which you must carry if you are a Truthmaker. |
| 14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The claim 'that Fido is brown' seems to demand only a brown Fido, but Truthmaker demands more. It demands both that a state of affairs along the lines of 'Fido's being brown' exists, and also that this state has its constituents essentially. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.I) | |
| A reaction: One would need to reread Merricks to get this clear, but my instinct is that the two scenarios are not very different. 'A brown Fido' would require Fido to be necessarily brown to do the job. |
| 14396 | If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: 'Truth supervenes on being' says that any two possible worlds alike with respect to what entities exist and which properties (and relations) each of those entities exemplifies are thereby alike with respect to what is true. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4) | |
| A reaction: Merricks says this view is found in early Wittgenstein, as well as in David Lewis. He suggests that this is a weaker and more plausible thesis than the full commitment to truthmakers. It still allows some truths to lack truthmakers. Sounds plausible. |
| 14400 | If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: If 'truth supervenes on being' aims to articulate the idea that truth depends on being, it must say more than that truth supervenes on being. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.VI) | |
| A reaction: This is a perennial problem with supervenience accounts, such as the supervenience of beauty on the object, or of mind on brain. |
| 14394 | It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: It is implausible that a claim asserting that a thing fails to exist is made true by - and so is appropriately about - some other, existing thing. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.V) |
| 14390 | Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Because Truthmaker offers no analysis of being true, Truthmaker is not the correspondence theory of truth. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 1.IV) | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that the correspondence theory offers an 'analysis' of truth. It doesn't seem to do much more than offer a word which suggests an analogy with some relation in the world. |
| 14412 | Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: That 'there might have been a dozen more fundamental particles' is true, but not appropriately about any existing entities or their properties. Since Truthmaker says that all truths are about existing entities, it must be false. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.VI) | |
| A reaction: Since I don't necessarily agree that 'there might have been a dozen more fundamental particles' (see Scientific Essentialism), and I take the disagreement to have some basis, I doubt this idea. What stops 'there could be circular squares' from being true? |
| 14414 | I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but it is not obvious that that proposition is thus about me. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.I) | |
| A reaction: This is part of the general rather good objection that it is often unclear what a truth is 'about' (Idea 14408). The original Gettier examples about justification illustrate this problem. They make things true, in a surprising way. |
| 14418 | Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Being true is not a relation. …Being true is a monadic property. …Being true is a primitive property. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 8.IV) | |
| A reaction: Even after reading Merricks on this, I am not sure I understand it. If a single sentence floats in the void, it is hard to see how the 'monadic' property of truth could accrue to it. |
| 14391 | If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Suppose for the sake of argument that the correspondence theory is correct. Then it is analytic that each necessary truth, in virtue of being true, corresponds to something. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 2.II) | |
| A reaction: The sort of nice simple observation for which I admire Merricks. You don't have to give up on the correspondence theory at this point, but you will have to go through with some substantial metaphysics to keep it afloat. |
| 14419 | Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I take 'deflationism' to be nothing other than the claim that there is no property of being true. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 8.V) |
| 14393 | The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The claim that the totality state is the sole truthmaker for negative existential truths emerges as the best position for a truthmaker theorist. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.III) |
| 14413 | Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Some properties (perhaps negative charge, or the relation of identity) admit of no analysis, and so are primitive. But others are analysable, and so not primitive | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.I) |
| 14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: It is possible for an object to have a disposition even though the relevant conditional is false. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.III) | |
| A reaction: This is the now standard observation that finks (killing the disposition) and antidotes (blocking the effect of the disposition) can intervene, as in safety mechanisms in electrical gadgets. There may be replies available here. |
| 14392 | Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A Fregean about existence claims would say that 'that hobbits do not exist' is nothing other than the claim that 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.II) | |
| A reaction: 'My passport has ceased to exist' seems to be a bit more dramatic than a relationship with a concept. |
| 14410 | You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Your belief that you existed in the year 2000 is true; the belief of a segment of you that it then existed is false; so, by the indiscernibility of identicals, there must be two beliefs here. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.IV n20) | |
| A reaction: Merricks may be begging the question here. But in the segment view there is nothing which can truly believe it existed a year ago, so therefore nothing here has continued existence, so the segments cannot be part of a single thing. |
| 14417 | Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A counterfactual is not appropriately about the way anything is, …but about how something would be, had other things differed from how they actually are. As a result, true counterfactuals have neither truthmakers nor a superveniece base. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.IV) | |
| A reaction: Might not the truthmakers for counterfactuals reside in the dispositional facts about actuality? We assess the truth of counterfactuals in degrees, so something must determine our views. |
| 14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: If Fido's being possibly black reduces (in Lewis's account) to the existence of black counterparts of Fido, then 'Fido is possibly black' is actually true, but it has no actually existing truthmaker. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.I) | |
| A reaction: This problem is increasingly the target of my views about dispositions and powers. Fido is not possibly a prize-winning novelist, but is possibly dead or in good health, because of the actual nature and dispositions of Fido. |
| 23957 | We often trust our intuitions as rational, despite their lack of reflection [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: We trust certain rational 'intuitions' in ourselves which dispense with reflection but seem to follow an indisputable logic. (note: it is thought ineffable because reflection is the paradigm of rationality. It is no less rational than reflection). | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Solomon uses the example to support that emotion is part of rationality. Since this view of intuition is more or less mine (that intuition can be knowledge, when the justification is obscure), it seems to support his claim. |
| 23943 | Distinguishing reason from passion is based on an archaic 'faculty' theory [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between reason and passion is based on an archaic 'faculty' psychology of the human soul. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Intro.2) | |
| A reaction: I like faculties, for philosophical purposes, as explanatory tools to account for our metaphysical and conceptual framework, but this point is well made. The danger is that we impose sharp divisions, where reality is more complex. |
| 23952 | I say bodily chemistry and its sensations have nothing to do with emotions [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: I shall be making the claim (sujectively) that the chemistry of the body and the sensations caused by that chemistry have nothing to do with the emotions. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: Surely an unexpected stabbing pain causes fear? Isn't pain supposed to trigger appropriate emotions? That is not to say that emotions are a feature of body chemistry. |
| 23954 | Emotions are judgements about ourselves, and our place in the world [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: An emotion is a basic judgement about our Selves and our place in the world, the projection of the values and ideals, structures and mythologies | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Solomon's main theory. What about the Frege-Geach problem - that I feel emotions (and judgements) about fictions and remote events, in which my personal concerns and involvement are zero? Presumably these emotions are parasitic on his primary type? |
| 23960 | Emotions are defined by their objects [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Direction, scope and focus set the stage, but the specific object is what defines the emotion. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably the main distinction between an emotion and a mood. He emphasises that the objects are subjective, rather than factual. |
| 23961 | The heart of an emotion is its judgement of values and morality [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: The heart of every emotion is its value judgements, its appraisals of gain and loss, its indictment of offences and its praise of virtue, its often Manichean judgement of 'good' and 'evil'. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: He adds blame and excuse. Some of our strongest emotions can just be identifications, rather than judgements, as when we learn of someone else's triumph or disaster. On the whole I agree, though. This is important for Aristotelian virtue theory. |
| 23965 | Emotions can be analysed under fifteen headings [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Emotions can be analysed by direction, scope/focus, object, criteria, status, evaluations, responsibility, intersubjectivity, distance, mythology, desire, power, strategy. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 8) | |
| A reaction: These are the headings Solomon actually applies in his breakdown of most of the main emotions. See his book for explanations of each of them. If people say philosophy makes no progress, I'd at least point to helpful thinking of this kind. |
| 23959 | Some emotions are externally directed, others internally [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: 'Outer-directed' emotions (such as fear) are about particular situations, objects, or other people. …The 'inner-directed' emotions (such as vanity or regret) take one's Self as their focal point. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: This is Solomon's own distinction. Some of the emotions he cites, such as vanity, seem to me more like long term virtues or vices, rather than emotions. He did say, though, that you can have emotions without feeling, such as long-term hate. |
| 23936 | It is only our passions which give our lives meaning [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: It is our passions, and our passions alone, which provide our lives with meaning. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This presumably entails that the lives of plants have no meaning. It also seems to be rather egotistical, since it is not clear why anyone else's life should have meaning for me, if I don't directly experience their passions. Interesting, though. |
| 23963 | Which emotions we feel depends on our sense of our own powers [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: An emotion depends on an estimation of our own power. If a lover is jealous they welcome confrontation, but if they are just envious they assume impotence from the start. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 7.12) | |
| A reaction: This seems particularly true of politics, where the possibility (or not) of influencing events makes a huge difference. We can picture a huge variety of emotions when a fight breaks out in public. |
| 23946 | The passions are subjective, concerning what is important to me, rather than facts [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: The passions are uniquely subjective, although they sometimes pretend to have a certain objective status. They are not concerned with the world, but with my world. They are not concerned with 'the facts', but with what is important. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Intro.5) | |
| A reaction: Values pick out what is 'important'. This idea sums up Solomon's rather solipsistic view of emotions. I accept that emotions are responses, rather than objective judgements, but there is objectivity in their social dimension. Why care about politics? |
| 23940 | Emotions are strategies for maximising our sense of dignity and self-esteem [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Every emotion is a strategy, a purposive attempt to structure our world in such a way as to maximise our sense of personal dignity and self-esteem. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This is the main thesis of Solomon's book. There doesn't seem to be much to admire in what he takes to be our chief motivation. I would put a much more social spin on it - that our underlying urge is not self-promotion, but to fit into a community. |
| 23949 | Passions exist as emotions, moods and desires, which all generate meaning [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: There are three fundamental species passions - emotions, moods, and desires. …What all passions have in common is their ability to bestow meaning to the circumstances of our lives. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Moods are said to be 'generalised emotions', where emotions are about something, and desires add objectives. Solomon criticises rigid divisions between mental faculties and states, but it is hard to disagree with this distinction. |
| 23956 | The Myth of the Passions says they are irrational, uncontrolled and damaging [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: The Myth of the Passions says emotions are irrational forces beyond our control, disruptive and stupid, unthinking and counterproductive, against our 'better interests', and often ridiculous. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: The Myth is very unlikely to be correct, for evolutionary reasons. How could there be a selection for a mental feature which distorts truths and leads to dangerous misjudgements? Most emotions motivate us to act successfully. So why do some run wild? |
| 23953 | Feeling is a superficial aspect of emotion, and may be indeterminate, or even absent [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Feeling is the ornamentation of emotion, not its essence. ...For example, what is the difference in feeling between embarrassment and shame? …We may also experience an emotion like subdued anger or envy with no feeling. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This is very persuasive, and supports the idea that what matters in an emotion is its content, rather than its phenomenology. He adds later that we are often mistaken about our own emotions. |
| 23964 | There are no 'basic' emotions, only socially prevalent ones [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: There are no 'basic' emotions, only those emotions which are prevalent in a particular society. This reduction to a small set makes it impossible to appreciate the richness of our emotional lives. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 8) | |
| A reaction: He cites Descartes as a culprit, and John Watson's famous list of fear, dependency and rage. I think Solomon is probably right. He suggests that the lists are usually individualistic and negative. Individuals may have their private basics! |
| 23937 | It is reason which needs the anchorage of passions, rather than vice versa [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: It is not the passions who require the controls and rationalisations of reason. Rather, it is reason that requires the anchorage and earthy wisdom of the passions. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I like the second half of this. We don't just follow the winds of arguments; we decide into which of the many conflicting winds we should steer the rational arguments, and that needs passions. Only a fool doesn't rationally control their passions. |
| 23947 | Dividing ourselves into confrontational reason and passion destroys our harmonious whole [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: To divide the soul into reason and passion …divides us against ourselves, forcing us each to be defensively half a person, instead of a harmonious whole. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the best aspect of Solomon's book. I'm not sure, though, how this works in practice. Should I allow the winds of emotion to alter the course of my reasoning, or stunt my feelings by always insisting that reason plays a part? That's too dualist! |
| 23958 | The supposed irrationality of our emotions is often tactless or faulty expression of them [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: What is often called the 'irrationality' of our emotions is rather the faulty timing or inept choice of their expressions. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: The irrationality can be pretty obvious when having a tantrum over trivia, or resenting some tiny slight, or falling in love with a dead film star. That said, his point is well made. |
| 23944 | Emotions are our life force, and the source of most of our values [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Emotions are the life force of the soul, the source of most of our values (not all: there is always hunger, thirst, and fatigue). | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Intro.4) | |
| A reaction: I am beginning to worry that Solomon's account is too individual and subjective. My personal values may derive from my emotions, but I think human and social values are based much more on objective observations and facts. We are social, not solipsists. |
| 23962 | Lovers adopt the interests of their beloved, rather than just valuing them [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: It is often said that love takes the interests of the lover as being more important than one's own; but here again we would rather say that love takes the lovers interests as its own. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 7.9) | |
| A reaction: This is because he sees emotions as almost entirely self-centred, and almost never altruistic. To me the evolutionary picture suggest a more social view. Many people want the lives of their ex- to go well, without knowing their new interests. |
| 23941 | 'Absurdity' is just the result of our wrong choices in life [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: The 'absurdity of life' is nothing than our own unsatisfactory choices, typically of defensiveness and resentment, competition, and 'meaningless' routines. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Pref) | |
| A reaction: He seems to have Camus particularly in mind. He sees love and co-operation as the cure. I sort of agree, but somewhere in all of our minds there lurks an abyss, with the good life looking like a distraction from it. |
| 23955 | Ideologies are mythologies which guide our actions [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Mythologies become ideologies when we play a role in them, live in them, take action and take sides. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This may well be a sceptical American attitude to ideology, since 'mythology' implies a fiction. But I think for most of us there exists the possibility of a good ideology, which correctly points us towards a better life. Dangerous things, though! |
| 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 |
| 14407 | Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I think presentists should deny that there is anything at all that is the present time, just as they should deny that there are past times or future times. They should say that existing at the present time is just 'existing'. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
| A reaction: The whole context is needed to understand Merrick's interesting claim. If there is no present, when can events happen? |
| 14411 | Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Maybe presentism alone allows for genuine change, by permitting the direct having of a property by something and then, later, the absolute lacking of that property by that same thing. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.IV n23) | |
| A reaction: Four-dimensionalism (perdurantism) is the view which is most often charged with not explaining change, and that tends to be associated with eternalism. Are there just two coherent packages of views here? |
| 14406 | Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Presentists deny that everything is instantaneous; they think that many objects not only exist, but also have existed and will exist. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
| A reaction: The second half is because presentists are committed to the truth of tensed existence claims (despite a lack of any theory as to how they work). Does anyone hold a theory of Instantaneousism? |
| 14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I am not sure what account presentists should give of an object's having existed. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am pretty puzzled by the eternalist and growing-block accounts of an object having existed, so we are all up a gum tree here. The best bet is to pull truth and existence apart, but heaven knows what that implies. See Idea 14399. |
| 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. |