13 ideas
| 3067 | A philosopher should have principles ready for understanding, like a surgeon with instruments [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: As physicians have always their instruments and knives ready for cases which suddenly require their skill, so should you have principles ready for the understanding of things divine and human. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 3.13) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Philosophy is the training ground where wisdom and good living are made possible, but it cannot be a substitute for living. |
| 12219 | Whether a modal claim is true depends on how the object is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Quine says if ∃x□(x>7) makes sense, then for which object x is the condition rendered true? Specify it as '9' and it is apparently rendered true, specify it as 'the number of planets' and it is apparently rendered false. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953]) by Kit Fine - Quine on Quantifying In p.105 | |
| A reaction: This is normally characterised as Quine saying that only de dicto involvement is possible, and not de re involvement. Or that that all essences are nominal, and cannot be real. |
| 10922 | Objects are the values of variables, so a referentially opaque context cannot be quantified into [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The objects of a theory are not properly describable as the things named by the singular terms; they are the values, rather, of the variables of quantification. ..So a referentially opaque context is one that cannot properly be quantified into. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.174) | |
| A reaction: The point being that you cannot accurately pick out the objects in the domain |
| 3072 | Everything is changing, including yourself and the whole universe [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: All things are changing; and you yourself are in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction, and the whole universe too. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 9.19) |
| 10923 | Aristotelian essentialism says a thing has some necessary and some non-necessary properties [Quine] |
| Full Idea: What Aristotelian essentialism says is that you can have open sentences Fx and Gx, such that ∃x(nec Fx.Gx.Źnec Gx). For example, ∃x(nec(x>5). there are just x planets. Źnec(there are just x planets)). | |
| From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.176) | |
| A reaction: This is a denial of 'maximal essentialism', that all of a things properties might be essential. Quine is thus denying necessity, except under a description. He may be equivocating over the reference of 'there are just 9 planets'. |
| 10921 | Necessity can attach to statement-names, to statements, and to open sentences [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Three degrees necessity in logic or semantics: first and least is attaching a semantical predicate to the names of statements (as Nec '9>5'); second and more drastic attaches to statements themselves; third and gravest attaches to open sentences. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.158) |
| 10924 | Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Necessity resides in the way in which we say things, and not in the things we talk about. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Three Grades of Modal Involvement [1953], p.176) | |
| A reaction: This is a culminating idea of Quine's thoroughgoing empiricism, as filtered through logical positivism. I would hardly dare to accuse Quine of a use/mention confusion (his own bęte noir), but one seems to me to be lurking here. |
| 3066 | Nothing is evil which is according to nature [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: Nothing is evil which is according to nature. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 2.17) | |
| A reaction: A bit hopeful. Sounds tautological. I.e. anything which is agreed to be evil is probably immediately labelled as 'unnatural'. What would he agree was evil? |
| 3071 | Justice has no virtue opposed to it, but pleasure has temperance opposed to it [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: In the constitution of the rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice; but I see a virtue which is opposed to pleasure, and that is temperance. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 8.39) | |
| A reaction: There are plenty of hideous things opposed to justice, but presumably that immediately disqualifies them from being virtues. |
| 3069 | The art of life is more like the wrestler's than the dancer's [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: The art of life is more like the wrestler's than the dancer's. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 7.61) |
| 3065 | Humans are naturally made for co-operation [Aurelius] |
| Full Idea: We are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature. | |
| From: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations (To Himself) [c.170], 2.1) |
| 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. |