11 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. |
| 18902 | Correspondence theories can't tell you what truths correspond to [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The real objection to correspondence theories is that such theories fail to provide entities to which truth vehicles (as statements, sentence, or utterances) can be said to correspond. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Structure and Content of Truth [1990], p.304), quoted by Fred Sommers - Intellectual Autobiography Notes 23 | |
| A reaction: This is the remark which provoked Sommers to come out with Idea 18901, which strikes me as rather profound. |
| 3539 | Personal identity is just causally related mental states [Parfit, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: For Parfit all personal identity really amounts to is a chain of experiences and other psychological features causally related to each other in 'direct' sorts of ways. | |
| From: report of Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 10.5 | |
| A reaction: When summarised like this, it strikes me that Parfit is just false to our experience, whatever Hume may say. I suspect that Parfit (and those like him) concentrate too much on rather passive perceptual experience, and neglect the will. |
| 1393 | One of my future selves will not necessarily be me [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: If I say 'It will not be me, but one of my future selves', I do not imply that I will be that future self. He is one of my later selves, and I am one of his earlier selves. There is no underlying person we both are. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §5) | |
| A reaction: The problem here seems to be explaining why I should care about my later self, if it isn't me. If the answer is only that it will be psychologically very similar to me, then I would care more about my current identical twin than about my future self. |
| 1392 | If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: In the case of the man who, like an amoeba, divides….we can suggest that he survives as two different people without implying that he is those people. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §1) | |
| A reaction: Maybe an amoeba is a homogeneous substance for which splitting is insignificant, but when a person has certain parts that are totally crucial, splitting them is catastrophic, and quite different. I'm not sure that splitting a self would leave persons. |
| 1391 | Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: Egoism, and the fear not of near but of distant death, and the regret that so much of one's life should have gone by - these are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are strengthened by a false belief in stable identity. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §6) | |
| A reaction: This raises some very nice questions, about the extent to which various aspects of self-concern are instinctive and natural, or culturally induced, and even totally misguided and false. I can worry about the distant death of my guinea pig, or my grandson. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |