13 ideas
| 1749 | If all laws were abolished, philosophers would still live as they do now [Aristippus elder] |
| Full Idea: If all laws were abolished, philosophers would still live as they do now. | |
| From: Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.4 | |
| A reaction: Presumably philosophers develop inner laws which other people lack. |
| 14221 | Serious essentialism says everything has essences, they're not things, and they ground necessities [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: Serious essentialism is the position that a) everything has an essence, b) essences are not themselves things, and c) essences are the ground for metaphysical necessity and possibility. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: If a house is being built, it might acquire an identity first, and only get an essence later. Essences can be physical, but if you extract them you destroy thing thing of which they were the essence. Does all of this apply to abstract 'things'. |
| 14222 | Essences are what it is to be that (kind of) thing - in fact, they are the thing's identity [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: The route into essentialism is, first, a recognition that the essence of a thing is "what it is to be" that (kind of) thing; the essence of a thing is just its identity. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Essent') | |
| A reaction: The first half sounds right, and very Aristotelian. The second half is dramatically different, controversial, and far less plausible. Slipping in 'kind of' is also highly dubious. This remark shows, I think, some confusion about essences. |
| 14226 | We distinguish objects by their attributes, not by their essences [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: In ordinary contexts, we distinguish objects not by their essences but by their attributes. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Ess and Know') | |
| A reaction: Hence we have a gap between what bestows identity intrinsically, and how we bestow identity conventionally. If you could grasp the essence of something, you might predict a new attribute, as yet unobserved. |
| 14225 | Critics say that essences are too mysterious to be known [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: According to critics, the thorniest problem for essentialism is the question of our knowledge of essence. It is usually at this point that terms of abuse such as 'dark', 'mysterious', and 'occult' are wheeled out. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Ess and Know') | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think that the existence of essences can be fairly conclusively inferred, but that attributing a precise identity to them is the biggest challenge. |
| 14223 | De dicto necessity has linguistic entities as their source, so it is a type of de re necessity [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: De dicto necessity is a species of de re necessity. Anyone prone to countenance de dicto necessity must recognise mental and/or linguistic entities, thus counting each of them as a res to which necessity attaches. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Essent') | |
| A reaction: This seems to rest on the Kit Fine thought that analytic necessities seem to derive from the essences of words such as 'bachelor'. I like this idea: all necessity is de re, but some of the 'things' are words. |
| 14224 | Equilateral and equiangular aren't the same, as we have to prove their connection [Shalkowski] |
| Full Idea: That 'all and only equilateral triangles are equiangular' required proof, and not for mere curiosity, is grounds for thinking that being an equilateral triangle is not the same property as being an equiangular triangle. | |
| From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Serious') | |
| A reaction: If you start with equiangularity, does equilateralness then require proof? This famous example is of two concepts which seem to be coextensional, but seem to have a different intension. Does a dependence relation drive a wedge between them? |
| 21378 | We clearly feel responsible for our deeds, because we are quite certain that we did them [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Another fact of consciousness ...is the wholly clear and certain feeling of responsibility for what we do, of the accountability of our actions, which rests on the unshakable certainty that we ourselves are the doers of our deeds. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (On the Freedom of the Will [1841], p.93-4), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 7 'Freedom' | |
| A reaction: The point is that we have this feeling even if we do not believe in free will. I am struck by the fact that responsibility is very obvious in our own case, even if it is not when we objectively consider other people. Even villains can feel guilty. |
| 3558 | Only the Cyrenaics reject the idea of a final moral end [Aristippus elder, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: The Cyrenaics are the most radical ancient moral philosophers, since they are the only school explicitly to reject the importance of achieving an overall final end. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 11.1 | |
| A reaction: This looks like dropping out, but it could also be Keats's 'negative capability', of simply participating in existence without needing to do anything about it. |
| 5835 | The road of freedom is the surest route to happiness [Aristippus elder, by Xenophon] |
| Full Idea: The surest road to happiness is not the path through rule nor through servitude, but through liberty. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 2.1.9 | |
| A reaction: The great anarchist slogan. Personally I don't believe it, because I agree a little with Hobbes that authority is required to make cooperation flourish, and that is essential for full happiness. If I were a slave, I would agree with Aristippus. |
| 3018 | People who object to extravagant pleasures just love money [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When blamed for buying expensive food he asked "Would you have bought it for just three obols?" When the person said yes, he said,"Then it is not that I am fond of pleasure, but that you are fond of money". | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.7.4 |
| 1751 | Pleasure is the good, because we always seek it, it satisfies us, and its opposite is the most avoidable thing [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is the good because we desire it from childhood, when we have it we seek nothing further, and the most avoidable thing is its opposite, pain. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.8 |
| 1755 | Errors result from external influence, and should be corrected, not hated [Aristippus elder, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Errors ought to meet with pardon, for a man does not err intentionally, but influenced by some external circumstances. We should not hate someone who has erred, but teach him better. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the elder (fragments/reports [c.395 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.9 |