69 ideas
| 13310 | Wisdom does not lie in books, and unread people can also become wise [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: What grounds could I possibly have for supposing that a person who has no acquaintance with books will never be a wise man? For wisdom does not lie in books. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
| A reaction: A useful warning to the likes of me, who may have retreated from the hurly-burly of the agora (see Callicles in Plato's 'Gorgias'), under the illusion that detachment is needed for wisdom. Maybe involvement is needed for wisdom. |
| 13295 | Wise people escape necessity by willing it [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing a wise man does reluctantly; he escapes necessity because he wills what necessity is going to force on him. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 054) | |
| A reaction: He is discussing death in this letter. The difficulty here is sliding into fatalism. For instance, if you are informed that you have cancer, it is tempting to become 'wise' and will your own death, but lots of people fight it, and win. |
| 13317 | Philosophy aims at happiness [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy takes as her aim the state of happiness. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 090) | |
| A reaction: A startlingly forthright view. It seems to neglect what I take to be the main aim of philosophy, which is to achieve understanding. I presume true happiness would follow from that. Seneca must now explain why soporific pleasure is wrong. |
| 13293 | What philosophy offers humanity is guidance [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Shall I tell you what philosophy holds out for humanity? Counsel. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 048) | |
| A reaction: See Quine for a flat modern denial of this claim (Idea 9764). There is a modern tendency to see ethics and political thought operating at a meta- or metameta- level. I take the main ethical theories to be very illuminating of real life. |
| 12274 | Begin examination with basics, and subdivide till you can go no further [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The examination must be carried on and begin from the primary classes and then go on step by step until further division is impossible. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 109b17) | |
| A reaction: This is a good slogan for the analytic approach to thought. I take Aristotle (or possibly Socrates) to be the father of analysis, not Frege (though see Idea 9840). (He may be thinking of the tableau method of proof). |
| 13309 | That something is a necessary condition of something else doesn't mean it caused it [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: There's no reason for you to assume that, X being something without which Y could never have come about, Y came about as a result of the assistance of X. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
| A reaction: This thought originates with Carneades, reported by Cicero. This is a clear message to the likes of Mackie, who are in danger of thinking that giving the preconditions of something is sufficient to give its causes. |
| 13313 | Even philosophers have got bogged down in analysing tiny bits of language [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Even the philosophers have descended to the level of drawing distinctions between the uses of different syllables and discussing the proper meanings of prepositions and conjunctions. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
| A reaction: How wonderfully prescient! The vast industry of modern philosophy of language exactly fits Seneca's description. I don't quite share his contempt, of course, and I think Seneca would have a bit of sympathy with modern analysis (just a bit!). |
| 12260 | Dialectic starts from generally accepted opinions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning is dialectical which reasons from generally accepted opinions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 100a30) | |
| A reaction: This is right at the heart of Aristotle's philosophical method, and Greek thinking generally. There are nice modern debates about 'folk' understanding, derived from science (e.g. quantum theory) which suggest that starting from normal views is a bad idea. |
| 12291 | There can't be one definition of two things, or two definitions of the same thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There cannot possibly be one definition of two things, or two definitions of the same thing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 154a11) | |
| A reaction: The second half of this is much bolder and more controversial, and plenty of modern thinkers would flatly reject it. Are definitions contextual, that is, designed for some specific human purpose. Must definitions be of causes? |
| 12292 | Definitions are easily destroyed, since they can contain very many assertions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A definition is the easiest of all things to destroy; for, since it contains many assertions, the opportunities which it offers are very numerous, and the more abundant the material, the more quickly the reasoning can set to work. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 155a03) | |
| A reaction: I quote this to show that Aristotle expected many definitions to be very long affairs (maybe even of book length?) |
| 12272 | We describe the essence of a particular thing by means of its differentiae [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We usually isolate the appropriate description of the essence of a particular thing by means of the differentiae which are peculiar to it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 108b05) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be important for showing the definition is more than mere categorisation. A good definition homes in the particular, by gradually narrowing down the differentiae. |
| 12279 | The differentia indicate the qualities, but not the essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: No differentia indicates the essence [ti estin], but rather some quality, such as 'pedestrian' or 'biped'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 122b17) | |
| A reaction: We must disentangle this, since essence is what is definable, and definition seems to give us the essence, and yet it appears that definition only requires genus and differentia. Differentiae seem to be both generic and fine-grained. See Idea 12280! |
| 12283 | In definitions the first term to be assigned ought to be the genus [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In definitions the first term to be assigned ought to be the genus. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 132a12) | |
| A reaction: We mustn't be deluded into thinking that nothing else is required. I take the increasing refinement of differentiae to be where the real action is. The genus gives you 70% of the explanation. |
| 12289 | The genera and the differentiae are part of the essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The genera and the differentiae are predicated in the category of essence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 153a19) | |
| A reaction: The definition is words, and the essence is real, so our best definition might not fully attain to the essence. Aristotle has us reaching out to the world through our definitions. |
| 12261 | Differentia are generic, and belong with genus [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The differentia, being generic in character, should be ranged with the genus. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 101b18) | |
| A reaction: This does not mean that naming the differentia amounts to mere classification. I presume we can only state individual differences by using a language which is crammed full of universals. |
| 12263 | 'Genus' is part of the essence shared among several things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A 'genus' is that which is predicated in the category of essence of several things which differ in kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102a32) | |
| A reaction: Hence a genus is likely to be expressed by a universal, a one-over-many. A particular will be a highly individual collection of various genera, but what ensures the uniqueness of each thing, if they are indiscernible? |
| 12285 | The definition is peculiar to one thing, not common to many [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The definition ought to be peculiar to one thing, not common to many. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 149b24) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be very important, against those who think that definition is no more than mere categorisation. To explain, you must get down to the level of the individual. We must explain that uniquely docile tiger. |
| 11261 | Puzzles arise when reasoning seems equal on both sides [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The equality of opposite reasonings is the cause of aporia; for it is when we reason on both [sides of a question] and it appears to us that everything can come about either way, that we are in a state of aporia about which of the two ways to take up. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 145b17), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.1 | |
| A reaction: Other philosophers give up on the subject in this situation, but I love Aristotle because he takes this to be the place where philosophy begins. |
| 12273 | Unit is the starting point of number [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: They say that the unit [monada] is the starting point of number (and the point the starting-point of a line). | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 108b30) | |
| A reaction: Yes, despite Frege's objections in the early part of the 'Grundlagen' (1884). I take arithmetic to be rooted in counting, despite all abstract definitions of number by Frege and Dedekind. Identity gives the unit, which is countable. See also Topics 141b9 |
| 12267 | There are ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The four main types of predicates fall into ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103b20) | |
| A reaction: These are the standard ten categories of Aristotle. He is notable for the divisions not being sharp, and ten being a rough total. He is well aware of the limits of precision in such matters. |
| 12282 | An individual property has to exist (in past, present or future) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If it does not at present exist, or, if it has not existed in the past, or if it is not going to exist in the future, it will not be a property [idion] at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 129a27) | |
| A reaction: This seems to cramp our style in counterfactual discussion. Can't we even mention an individual property if we believe that it will never exist. Utopian political discussion will have to cease! |
| 12264 | An 'accident' is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to a thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: An 'accident' [sumbebekos] is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to any one and the self-same thing, such as 'sitting posture' or 'whiteness'. This is the best definition, because it tells us the essential meaning of the term itself. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102b07) | |
| A reaction: Thus a car could be red, or not red. Accidents are contingent. It does not follow that necessary properties are essential (see Idea 12262). There are accidents [sumbebekos], propria [idion] and essences [to ti en einai]. |
| 12280 | Genus gives the essence better than the differentiae do [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In assigning the essence [ti estin], it is more appropriate to state the genus than the differentiae; for he who describes 'man' as an 'animal' indicates his essence better than he who describes him as 'pedestrian'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 128a24) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12279. This idea is only part of the story. My reading of this is simply that assigning a genus gives more information. We learn more about him when we say he is a man than when we say he is Socrates. |
| 13269 | In the case of a house the parts can exist without the whole, so parts are not the whole [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a house, where the process of compounding the parts is obvious, though the parts exist, there is no reason why the whole should not be non-existent, and so the parts are not the same as the whole. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 150a19) | |
| A reaction: Compare buying a piece of furniture, and being surprised to discover, when it is delivered, that it is self-assembly. This idea is a simple refutation of the claims of classical mereology, that wholes are just some parts. Aristotle uses modal claims. |
| 12284 | Everything that is has one single essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Everything that is has one single essence [en esti to einai]. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 141a36) | |
| A reaction: Does this include vague objects, and abstract 'objects'? Sceptics might ask what grounds this claim. Does Dr Jeckyll have two essences? |
| 12262 | An 'idion' belongs uniquely to a thing, but is not part of its essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A property [idion] is something which does not show the essence of a thing but belongs to it alone. ...No one calls anything a property which can possibly belong to something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102a18) | |
| A reaction: [See Charlotte Witt 106 on this] 'Property' is clearly a bad translation for such an individual item. Witt uses 'proprium', which is a necessary but nonessential property of something. Necessity is NOT the hallmark of essence. See Idea 12266. |
| 12290 | Destruction is dissolution of essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Destruction is a dissolution of essence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 153b30) | |
| A reaction: [plucked from context!] I can't think of a better way to define destruction, in order to distinguish it from damage. A vase is destroyed when its essential function cannot be recovered. |
| 12286 | If two things are the same, they must have the same source and origin [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When things are absolutely the same, their coming-into-being and destruction are also the same and so are the agents of their production and destruction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152a02) | |
| A reaction: Thus Queen Elizabeth II has to be the result of that particular birth, and from those particular parents, as Kripke says? The inverse may not be true. Do twins have a single origin? Things that fission and then re-fuse differently? etc |
| 12266 | 'Same' is mainly for names or definitions, but also for propria, and for accidents [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'The same' is employed in several senses: its principal sense is for same name or same definition; a second sense occurs when sameness is applied to a property [idiu]; a third sense is applied to an accident. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103a24-33) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] 'Property' is better translated as 'proprium' - a property unique to a particular thing, but not essential - see Idea 12262. Things are made up of essence, propria and accidents, and three ways of being 'the same' are the result. |
| 12287 | Two identical things have the same accidents, they are the same; if the accidents differ, they're different [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If two things are the same then any accident of one must also be an accident of the other, and, if one of them is an accident of something else, so must the other be also. For, if there is any discrepancy on these points, obviously they are not the same. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152a36) | |
| A reaction: So what is always called 'Leibniz's Law' should actually be 'Aristotle's Law'! I can't see anything missing from the Aristotle version, but then, since most people think it is pretty obvious, you would expect the great stater of the obvious to get it. |
| 12288 | Numerical sameness and generic sameness are not the same [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things which are the same specifically or generically are not necessarily the same or cannot possibly be the same numerically. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152b32) | |
| A reaction: See also Idea 12266. This looks to me to be a pretty precise anticipation of Peirce's type/token distinction, but without the terminology. It is reassuring that Aristotle spotted it, as that makes it more likely to be a genuine distinction. |
| 12259 | Reasoning is when some results follow necessarily from certain claims [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning [sullogismos] is a discussion in which, certain things having been laid down, something other than these things necessarily results through them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 100a25) | |
| A reaction: This is cited as the standard statement of the nature of logical necessity. One might challenge either the very word 'necessary', or the exact sense of the word employed here. Is it, in fact, metaphysical, or merely analytic? |
| 14361 | Lewis says indicative conditionals are truth-functional [Lewis, by Jackson] |
| Full Idea: Unlike Stalnaker, Lewis holds that indicative conditionals have the truth conditions of material conditionals. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Counterfactuals [1973]) by Frank Jackson - Conditionals 'Further' | |
| A reaction: Thus Lewis only uses the possible worlds account for subjunctive conditionals, where Stalnaker uses it for both. Lewis is defending the truth-functional account for the indicative conditionals. |
| 8434 | In good counterfactuals the consequent holds in world like ours except that the antecedent is true [Lewis, by Horwich] |
| Full Idea: According to Lewis, a counterfactual holds when the consequent is true in possible worlds very like our own except for the fact that the antecedent is true. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Counterfactuals [1973]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.213 | |
| A reaction: Presumably the world being very like our own would make it unlikely that there would be anything else to cause the consequent, apart from the counterfactual antecedent. |
| 12271 | Induction is the progress from particulars to universals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Induction is the progress from particulars to universals; if the skilled pilot is the best pilot and the skilled charioteer the best charioteer, then, in general, the skilled man is the best man in any particular sphere. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 105a15) | |
| A reaction: It is a bit unclear whether we are deriving universal concepts, or merely general truths. Need general truths be absolute or necessary truths? Presumably occasionally the best person is not the most skilled, as in playing a musical instrument. |
| 12293 | We say 'so in cases of this kind', but how do you decide what is 'of this kind'? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When it is necessary to establish the universal, people use the expression 'So in all cases of this kind'; but it is one of the most difficult tasks to define which of the terms proposed are 'of this kind' and which are not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 157a25) | |
| A reaction: It is particularly hard if induction is expressed as the search for universals, since the kind presumably is the universal, so the universal must be known before the induction can apply, which really is the most frightful nuisance for truth-seekers. |
| 13297 | To the four causes Plato adds a fifth, the idea which guided the event [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: To the four Aristotelian causes Plato adds a fifth in the model - what he himself calls the 'idea' - this being what the sculptor had constantly before his eyes as he executed the intended work. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 065) | |
| A reaction: A very interesting interpretation. I take the four 'causes' to be primarily the four 'explanations', and it exactly fits how we should understand Plato, as offer a crucial underlying explanation. The statue is Aristotle's example. |
| 13307 | If everything can be measured, try measuring the size of a man's soul [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
| A reaction: This is Descartes's non-spatial argument, which I take to be one of the four main props to his mind-body dualism. As always, it is expressed with beautiful concision by Seneca. |
| 21399 | Referring to a person, and speaking about him, are very different [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: It makes a very great difference whether you refer to the person directly, or speak about him. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 117.13), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.3.2 | |
| A reaction: We seem to think that the distinctiveness of reference was first spotted by Frege. Not so. |
| 13325 | Trouble in life comes from copying other people, which is following convention instead of reason [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we're seduced by convention. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 123) | |
| A reaction: An interesting practical spin and critique of the standard metaethical idea that morality is just convention. If you think morality is convention, presumably your moral duty is to imitate your neighbours. Nice deconstruction. |
| 22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
| Full Idea: Seneca held that human beings owe the original acquisition of the concept of virtue to an analogy with bodily health and strength | |
| From: report of Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 120.5) by James Allen - Soul's Virtue and the Health of the Body p.76 | |
| A reaction: This is an unusual view, even for a stoic, but shows how close the concepts of health and virtue were. Notice that it is strength as well as health. Plato just emphasises mental and physical harmony. |
| 13294 | We know death, which is like before birth; ceasing to be and never beginning are the same [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: I already know what death is like - it will be the same after me as it was before me. ..Only an utter idiot would think a lamp was worse off when it was put out than before it was lit. ..What does it matter whether you cease to be or never begin? | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 054) | |
| A reaction: These sentiments are, interestingly, derived from the epicureans, rather than from the stoic tradition, but to us they probably look close together, where they looked like opponents at the time. |
| 13299 | Living is nothing wonderful; what matters is to die well [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: There's nothing so very great about living - all your slaves and all the animals do it. What is, however, a great thing is to die in a manner which is honourable, enlightened and courageous. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
| A reaction: You get the feeling that Seneca actually thought suicide was better than a natural death. Did he actually seek his own death? It is an odd interpretation of his own stoic injunction to 'live according to nature'. |
| 13300 | It is as silly to lament ceasing to be as to lament not having lived in the remote past [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Wouldn't you think a man a prize fool if he burst into tears because he didn't live a thousand years ago? A man is such a fool for shedding tears because he isn't going to be alive a thousand years from now. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
| A reaction: These thoughts are traditional, dating back to Epicurus, but Seneca is exceptionally going at finding new variations and examples to reinforce the basic thought. |
| 13321 | Is anything sweeter than valuing yourself more when you find you are loved? [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Can anything be sweeter than to find that you are so dear to your wife that this makes you dearer to yourself? | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 104) | |
| A reaction: Another lovely penetrating remark from Seneca. I suppose a symptom of low self-esteem might be 'why does she love someone as worthless as me?', but that would be unusual. |
| 13292 | Selfishness does not produce happiness; to live for yourself, live for others [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: No one can lead a happy life if he thinks only of himself and turns everything to his own purposes. You should live for the other person if you wish to live for yourself. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 048) | |
| A reaction: It is important to see this as a key aspect of the ancient aspiration to virtue. The end result is not far from Christianity. It is simplistic to see the quest for virtue as a crass self-obsessed quest for self-improvement. We are social. |
| 13303 | A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 078) | |
| A reaction: Seneca is a very penetrating thinker about ordinary life - an aspect of philosophy which is nowadays totally neglected by the most eminent philosophers. |
| 13302 | Life is like a play - it is the quality that matters, not the length [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: As it is with a play, so it is with life - what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
| A reaction: A very nice epigram, culminating the wonderful Letter 77 on the subject of death. A play needs to be a decent length if it is to exhibit its qualities. It would be heartbreaking if all of Shakespeare's plays were just 20-minute sketches. |
| 13301 | We are scared of death - except when we are immersed in pleasure! [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: You are scared of death - but how heedless of it you are while you are dealing with a dish of choice mushrooms! | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
| A reaction: A beautifully simple observation, from the greatest philosopher of death. Maybe hospices should concentrate on sex, drugs and rock and roll. |
| 13323 | The whole point of pleasure-seeking is novelty, and abandoning established ways [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: The whole object of luxurious living is the delight it takes in irregular ways and in not merely departing from the correct course but going to the farthest point away from it, and in eventually even taking a stand diametrically opposed to it. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 122) | |
| A reaction: A rather conservative and puritanical remark, but worthy of contemplation even for committed hedonists. It is just a sad facts that most pleasures diminish with familiarity. Small children make delightful remarks. Imagine if they repeated them. |
| 13318 | Nature doesn't give us virtue; we must unremittingly pursue it, as a training and an art [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Nature does not give a man virtue; the process of becoming a good man is an art. ...Virtue only comes to a character which has been thoroughly schooled and trained and brought to a pitch of perfection by unremitting practice. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 090) | |
| A reaction: This is an important gloss from a leading stoic on the slogan of 'live according to nature'. One might say that the natural life must be 'tracked' (as Philip Larkin says we track happiness). The natural life is, above all, the rational life, for stoics. |
| 13324 | Living contrary to nature is like rowing against the stream [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: For those who follow nature everything is easy and straightforward, whereas for those who fight against her life is just like rowing against the stream. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 102) | |
| A reaction: A classic statement of the well-known stoic slogan, but expressed with Seneca's characteristic elegance. There is always a slight hidden of dubious fatalism in the slogan. 'Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!' - Dylan Thomas. |
| 13305 | Character is ruined by not looking back over our pasts, since the future rests on the past [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: What really ruins our characters is the fact that none of us looks back over his life. We think a little about what we are going to do, and fail to think about what we have done, yet plans for the future depend on the past. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 083) | |
| A reaction: One always assumes that writings about the wisdom of daily life will be one mass of clichés, but Seneca proves otherwise. With a pang I realise that I may be too guilty of not thinking about the past. I've even been proud of it. |
| 12276 | Justice and self-control are better than courage, because they are always useful [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Justice [dikaiosune] and self-control [sophrosune] are preferable to courage, for the first two are always useful, but courage only sometimes. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 117a36) | |
| A reaction: One could challenge his criterion. What of something which is absolutely vital on occasions, against something which is very mildly useful all the time? You may survive without justice, but not without courage. Compare Idea 12277. |
| 12277 | Friendship is preferable to money, since its excess is preferable [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Friendship is preferable to money; for excess of friendship is preferable to excess of money. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 118b07) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 12276, which gives a different criterion for choosing between virtues. This idea is an interesting qualification of the doctrine of the mean. |
| 13308 | It's no good winning lots of fights, if you are then conquered by your own temper [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: What's the use of overcoming opponent after opponent in the wrestling or boxing rings if you can be overcome by your temper? | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
| A reaction: He has such a nice way of presenting what might be traditional and commonplace ideas. If you see life as a battle, then you should think very carefully about who the opponents are - because they may be hiding within. |
| 13312 | Excessive curiosity is a form of intemperance [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: To want to know more than is sufficient is a form of intemperance. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
| A reaction: This comes as a bit of a surprise, given the high value that philosophers place on knowledge. I'm reminded of Auberon Waugh's criticism of the Scots as a 'wildly over-educated people'. I think the problem is what you could have been doing instead. |
| 12275 | We value friendship just for its own sake [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We value friendship for its own sake, even if we are not likely to get anything else from it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 117a03) | |
| A reaction: In 'Ethics' he distinguishes some friendships which don't meet this requirement. Presumably true friendships survive all vicissitudes (except betrayal), but that makes such things fairly rare. |
| 12281 | Man is intrinsically a civilized animal [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is an essential [kath' auto] property of man to be 'by nature a civilized animal'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 128b17) | |
| A reaction: I take this, along with man being intrinsically rational, to be the foundation of Aristotelian ethics. Given that we are civilized, self-evident criteria emerge for how to be good at it. A good person is, above all, a good citizen. |
| 13315 | To govern used to mean to serve, not to rule; rulers did not test their powers over those who bestowed it [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: In the Golden Age, to govern was to serve, not to rule. No one used to try out the extent of his power over those to whom he owed that power in the first place. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 090) | |
| A reaction: I spent my professional career trying to persuade people that management should be a subjection to the managed. Wake up! The second half of this idea is the interesting bit - the temptation to just 'try out' your powers gets to them all. |
| 13290 | One joy of learning is making teaching possible [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Part of my joy in learning is that it puts me in a position to teach. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 006) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't quite distinguish between bad learning and good learning, but I take a commitment to wanting to teach what you know as an essential part of wanting to know. |
| 13322 | Both teachers and pupils should aim at one thing - the improvement of the pupil [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: A person teaching and a person learning should have the same end in view: the improvement of the latter. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 108) | |
| A reaction: [He cites a philospher called Attalus for this remark] This is worthy to be up in the hall of every educational institution in the world, and especially in the staff rooms. |
| 13298 | Suicide may be appropriate even when it is not urgent, if there are few reasons against it [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: There are many occasions on which a man should leave life not only bravely but for reasons which are not as pressing as they might be - the reasons which restrain us being not so pressing either. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 077) | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting and startling claim from the great champion of suicide, who nobly and memorably committed suicide himself. But we all dread a loved one miscalculating Seneca's dialectic, and dying when living would have been better. |
| 13319 | If we control our own death, no one has power over us [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: No one has power over us when death is in our own power. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 091) | |
| A reaction: A classic slogan for the stoic view of suicide, an idea that crops up in Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar'. He doesn't seem to have understood that they can take away your shoelaces. |
| 13320 | Sometimes we have a duty not to commit suicide, for those we love [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: There are times when, however pressing one's reasons to the contrary, one's dying breath must be held back as it is passing one's lips, even if this is torture, simply out of consideration for one's dear ones. | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 104) | |
| A reaction: This is, of course, a highly significant counterbalance to his normal acceptance of suicide. I wish anyone who is planning suicide would heed it. They have no idea how much suffering will usually result from their action. |
| 12265 | All water is the same, because of a certain similarity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Any water is said to be specifically the same as any other water because it has a certain similarity to it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103a20) | |
| A reaction: (Cf. Idea 8153) It take this to be the hallmark of a natural kind, and we should not lose sight of it in the midst of discussions about rigid designation and essential identity. Tigers are only a natural kind insofar as they are indistinguishable. |
| 9419 | A law of nature is a general axiom of the deductive system that is best for simplicity and strength [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: A contingent generalization is a law of nature if and only if it appears as a theorem (or axiom) in each of the true deductive systems that achieves a best combination of simplicity and strength. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterfactuals [1973], 3.3) |
| 13311 | Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos? [Seneca] |
| Full Idea: Look how many questions there are on time. Does it have an existence of its own? Does anything exist prior to time, independently of it? Did it begin with the universe, or did it exist even before then? | |
| From: Seneca the Younger (Letters from a Stoic [c.60], 088) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that the questions have shifted or become any clearer after two thousand years, despite Einstein and co. Note that discussions of time were not initiated by Augustine. |
| 12278 | 'Being' and 'oneness' are predicated of everything which exists [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'Being' and 'oneness' are predicated of everything which exists. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 121a18) | |
| A reaction: Is 'oneness' predicated of water? So existence always was a predicate, it seems, until Kant told us it wasn't. That existence is a quantifier, not a predicate, seems to be up for question again these days. |