59 ideas
19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro | |
A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea. |
21474 | Metaphysics studies the inexplicable ends of explanation [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The plummet touches the bottom of the sea now at a greater depth, now at a less, but is bound to reach it somewhere sooner or later; the study of this inexplicable devolves upon metaphysics. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:1) | |
A reaction: This definition of metapysics contains the germ of despair about the subject. Does he hope that metaphysicians can explain what nobody else can? |
1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26 |
1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos | |
From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95 |
8200 | Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine] |
Full Idea: A real definition, according to the Aristotelian tradition, gives the essence of the kind of thing defined. Man is defined as a rational animal, and thus rationality and animality are of the essence of each of us. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Vagaries of Definition p.51 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 4385. Personally I prefer the Aristotelian approach, but we may have to say 'We cannot identify the essence of x, and so x cannot be defined'. Compare 'his mood was hard to define' with 'his mood was hostile'. |
4385 | Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle, to give a definition one must first state the genus and then the differentia of the kind of thing to be defined. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.157 | |
A reaction: Presumably a modern definition would just be a list of properties, but Aristotle seeks the substance. How does he define a genus? - by placing it in a further genus? |
10017 | Truth in a model is more tractable than the general notion of truth [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Truth in a model is interesting because it provides a transparent and mathematically tractable model - in the 'ordinary' rather than formal sense of the term 'model' - of the less tractable notion of truth. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.131) | |
A reaction: This is an important warning to those who wish to build their entire account of truth on Tarski's rigorously formal account of the term. Personally I think we should start by deciding whether 'true' can refer to the mental state of a dog. I say it can. |
10018 | Truth is quite different in interpreted set theory and in the skeleton of its language [Hodes] |
Full Idea: There is an enormous difference between the truth of sentences in the interpreted language of set theory and truth in some model for the disinterpreted skeleton of that language. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.132) | |
A reaction: This is a warning to me, because I thought truth and semantics only entered theories at the stage of 'interpretation'. I must go back and get the hang of 'skeletal' truth, which sounds rather charming. [He refers to set theory, not to logic.] |
13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12 | |
A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit. |
10015 | Higher-order logic may be unintelligible, but it isn't set theory [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Brand higher-order logic as unintelligible if you will, but don't conflate it with set theory. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.131) | |
A reaction: [he gives Boolos 1975 as a further reference] This is simply a corrective, because the conflation of second-order logic with set theory is an idea floating around in the literature. |
10011 | Identity is a level one relation with a second-order definition [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Identity should he considered a logical notion only because it is the tip of a second-order iceberg - a level 1 relation with a pure second-order definition. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984]) |
4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4 | |
A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional. |
10016 | When an 'interpretation' creates a model based on truth, this doesn't include Fregean 'sense' [Hodes] |
Full Idea: A model is created when a language is 'interpreted', by assigning non-logical terms to objects in a set, according to a 'true-in' relation, but we must bear in mind that this 'interpretation' does not associate anything like Fregean senses with terms. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.131) | |
A reaction: This seems like a key point (also made by Hofweber) that formal accounts of numbers, as required by logic, will not give an adequate account of the semantics of number-terms in natural languages. |
10027 | Mathematics is higher-order modal logic [Hodes] |
Full Idea: I take the view that (agreeing with Aristotle) mathematics only requires the notion of a potential infinity, ...and that mathematics is higher-order modal logic. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984]) | |
A reaction: Modern 'modal' accounts of mathematics I take to be heirs of 'if-thenism', which seems to have been Russell's development of Frege's original logicism. I'm beginning to think it is right. But what is the subject-matter of arithmetic? |
10026 | Arithmetic must allow for the possibility of only a finite total of objects [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Arithmetic should be able to face boldly the dreadful chance that in the actual world there are only finitely many objects. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.148) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a basic requirement for any account of arithmetic, but it was famously a difficulty for early logicism, evaded by making the existence of an infinity of objects into an axiom of the system. |
10021 | It is claimed that numbers are objects which essentially represent cardinality quantifiers [Hodes] |
Full Idea: The mathematical object-theorist says a number is an object that represents a cardinality quantifier, with the representation relation as the entire essence of the nature of such objects as cardinal numbers like 4. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984]) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This a classic case of a theory beginning to look dubious once you spell it our precisely. The obvious thought is to make do with the numerical quantifiers, and dispense with the objects. Do other quantifiers need objects to support them? |
10022 | Numerical terms can't really stand for quantifiers, because that would make them first-level [Hodes] |
Full Idea: The dogmatic Frege is more right than wrong in denying that numerical terms can stand for numerical quantifiers, for there cannot be a language in which object-quantifiers and objects are simultaneously viewed as level zero. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.142) | |
A reaction: Subtle. We see why Frege goes on to say that numbers are level zero (i.e. they are objects). We are free, it seems, to rewrite sentences containing number terms to suit whatever logical form appeals. Numbers are just quantifiers? |
21470 | For me the objective thing-in-itself is the will [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Thing in itself signifies that which exists independently of our perception, that which actually is; …to Kant it was '= x'; to me it is will. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IV:61) | |
A reaction: Does he mean his own will, which is plausible since he has direct experience of it, or is he referring will in general - whatever that is? |
10023 | Talk of mirror images is 'encoded fictions' about real facts [Hodes] |
Full Idea: Talk about mirror images is a sort of fictional discourse. Statements 'about' such fictions are not made true or false by our whims; rather they 'encode' facts about the things reflected in mirrors. | |
From: Harold Hodes (Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic [1984], p.146) | |
A reaction: Hodes's proposal for how we should view abstract objects (c.f. Frege and Dummett on 'the equator'). The facts involved are concrete, but Hodes is offering 'encoding fictionalism' as a linguistic account of such abstractions. He applies it to numbers. |
13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle | |
A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap. |
21479 | Knowledge is not power! Ignorant people possess supreme authority [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Knowledge is power. The devil it is! One man can have a great deal of knowledge without its giving him the least power, while another possesses supreme authority but next to no knowledge. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:43) | |
A reaction: He is referring to Bacon's famous adage. Bacon may be right about military affairs, but not about politics. |
11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
21476 | A priori propositions are those we could never be seriously motivated to challenge [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: A dictate of reason is the name we give to certain propositions which we hold to be true without investigation, and of which we think ourselves so firmly convinced we should be incapable of seriously testing them even if we wanted to. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:12) | |
A reaction: This is closer to the cautious way modern thinkers are inclined to express the idea. Even Quine would be reasonably happy with this. |
23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
21473 | All knowledge and explanation rests on the inexplicable [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable. It is to this that every explanation, through few or many intermediary stages, leads. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:1) | |
A reaction: This is obviously true, and the only question is whether it is a necessary or a contingent truth. |
11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
21478 | Half our thinking is unconscious, and we reach conclusions while unaware of premises [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: One might almost believe that half our thinking takes place unconsciously.. Usually we arrive at a conclusion without having clearly thought about the premises which lead to it. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:40) | |
A reaction: Schopenhauer was a major pioneer of this crucial idea. I'm beginning to think it is much greater than a half. |
21477 | We don't control our own thinking [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Thoughts come not when we want but when they want. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:37) | |
A reaction: One of my favourite Nietzsche ideas originated in Schopenhauer! |
23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
21475 | All of our concepts are borrowed from perceptual knowledge [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The entire property of a concept consists in nothing more than what has been begged and borrowed from perceptual knowledge, which is the true and inexhaustible source of all insight. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], I:9) | |
A reaction: Schopenhauer is usually seen as a sort of idealist, but this is a full endorsement of the empirical view of concepts, to which I largely subscribe. Note that he talks of 'knowledge', rather than of 'experience'. |
11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
21372 | Aesthetics concerns how we can take pleasure in an object, with no reference to the will [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The central problem of aesthetics is how satisfaction with and pleasure in an object are possible without any reference thereof to our willing. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], II:415), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Aesthetic' | |
A reaction: This does seem a good distinction. We can divide pleasures into willed and unwilled. Compare thinking that some remote stranger (in a photograph) is very beautiful, with falling in love with someone. |
21488 | The beautiful is a perception of Plato's Forms, which eliminates the will [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: In the beautiful we always perceive the intrinsic and primary form of animate and inanimate nature, that is to say Plato's Ideas thereof. …When an aesthetic perception occurs the will completely vanishes from consciousness. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XIX:205) | |
A reaction: An essential Schopenauer idea. Iris Murdoch said something similar. |
6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586! |
21483 | Man is essentially a dreadful wild animal [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Man is at bottom a dreadful wild animal. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:114) | |
A reaction: As an example he cites the slave owners in the United States. |
21466 | Pleasure is weaker, and pain stronger, than we expect [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: As a rule we find pleasure much less pleasurable, pain much more painful than we expected. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:149) | |
A reaction: Never go on holiday with Schopenhauer. This is more accurate about pain, I think. |
21484 | A man's character can be learned from a single characteristic action [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: As a botanist can recognise the whole plant from one leaf, …so an accurate knowledge of a man's character can be arrived at from a single characteristic action. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:118) | |
A reaction: Very true. Great novelists specialise in such observations. One word can reveal a character, as well as one action. |
21482 | The five Chinese virtues: pity, justice, politeness, wisdom, honesty [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The Chinese name five cardinal virtues: pity, justice, politeness, wisdom and honesty. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:110) | |
A reaction: I like politeness being on the list, though it seems rather superficial to be a virtue of character. Respect would be better. |
21481 | Buddhists wisely start with the cardinal vices [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Because of their profounder ethical and metaphysical insight, the Buddhists start not with the cardinal virtues but with cardinal vices, …which are lust, sloth, wrath and avarice (and maybe hatred). | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], VIII:110) | |
A reaction: This may be right. Our lives are affected much more by the vices of others than by their virtues, and most virtuous behaviour aims at rectifying the bad effects of other people's vices. |
21480 | Boredom is only felt by those clever enough to need activity [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Only in the cleverest animals such as dogs and apes does the need for activity, and with that boredom, make itself felt. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:50) | |
A reaction: But it is much more frequently young creatures, of almost any kind, that seek constant activity, and get continually restless. The most active adults need not be the cleverest. |
21469 | Human life is a mistake, shown by boredom, which is direct awareness of the fact [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Human life must be some kind of mistake. ...Boredom is a direct proof that existence is in itself valueless, for boredom is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XI:146) | |
A reaction: I think it is a good advertisement for existentialism that it makes something more out of boredom than Schopenhauer does. |
21485 | The state only exists to defend citizens, from exterior threats, and from one another [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The state is essentially no more than an institution for the protection of the whole against attacks from without, and the protection of its individual members from attacks by one another. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:123) | |
A reaction: He then has a swipe at Hegel for his inflated idea of the importance of the state. Schopenhauer is close to Hobbes on this one. |
21486 | Poverty and slavery are virtually two words for the same thing [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Poverty and slavery are only two forms - on might almost say two words for - the same thing, the essence of which is that a man's energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:125) | |
A reaction: The modern world is full of people who righteously despise slavery, but think only of the poor that it serves them right. |
21487 | The freedom of the press to sell poison outweighs its usefulness [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Freedom of the press must be regarded as a permit to sell poison. …I very much fear, therefore, that the dangers of press freedom outweigh its usefulness. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], IX:127) | |
A reaction: On the whole the modern world disagrees with this view, but watching the popular press in Britain in the last twenty years has made me sympathise with Schopenhauer. |
11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. | |
From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) | |
A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance. |
3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead." | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11 |
21471 | If suicide was quick and easy, most people would have done it by now [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Perhaps there is no one alive who would not already have put an end to his life if this end were something purely negative, a sudden cessation of existence. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XIII:158) | |
A reaction: Nonsense, on the whole, but it is a nice question how many people would do it if it only took a painless instant. |
21467 | Would humanity still exist if sex wasn't both desired and pleasurable? [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: If the act of procreation were neither the outcome of a desire nor accompanied by feelings of pleasure, but a matter to be decided on the basis of purely rational considerations, is it likely the human race would still exist? | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:156) | |
A reaction: This is almost certainly correct in the modern world. In tougher economic circumstances people seem desperate to have children who will help them survive. |
8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20 | |
A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul). |
21472 | Only religion introduces serious issues to uneducated people [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: Religion is the only means of introducing some notion of the high significance of life into the uncultivated heads of the masses. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XV:174) | |
A reaction: Cf Philip Larkin's poem 'Church Going'. On the whole Schopenhauer didn't actually believe that our lives had any 'high significance'. |
21468 | The Creator created the possibilities for worlds, so should have made a better one than this possible [Schopenhauer] |
Full Idea: The Creator created not only the world, but also created possibility itself; therefore he should have created the possibility of a better world than this one. | |
From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], XII:156) | |
A reaction: This is explicitly a response to Leibniz's claim that the Creator selected the best of all possible worlds from the available options. The Euthyphro Question hovers here: must the Creator accept what is possible (the platonic view), or create possibility? |