58 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. |
| 21761 | If we start with indeterminate being, we arrive at being and nothing as a united pair [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: Presuppositionless thinking which begins by thinking pure, indeterminate being must therefore come to think being and nothing in terms of one another. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate' | |
| A reaction: In Houlgate's account this seems to be the key Hegelian thought. Simply by confronting nothingness he gets the idea that one concept can lead to an alternative, and that the two can then be grasped together, which is his dialectic. |
| 21764 | Thought about being leads to a string of other concepts, like becoming, quantity, specificity, causality... [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: In the course of (Hegel's) logic, we come to understand that to think being is to think becoming, quality, quantity, specificity, essence and existence, substance and causality, and, ultimately, self-determining reason itself. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method' | |
| A reaction: Extraordinary! Houlgate spells out nicely what some commentators seem to gloss over, the huge a priori ambitions of Hegel's thought. I find his entire programme utterly implausible. |
| 21769 | We must start with absolute abstraction, with no presuppositions, so we start with pure being [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The beginning must be an absolute - an abstract beginning; and so it may not presuppose anything, must not be mediated by anything or have a ground; rather it is itself to be the ground of the entire science. ...The beginning therefore is pure being. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.70), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'Logic' | |
| A reaction: This is the 'presuppositionless' beginning of Hegel's metaphysics, which Houlgate emphasises. Hegel's logic is very obviously a direct descendent of Descartes' Cogito. But it is pure thought, with no mention of a Self. |
| 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 |
| 22037 | Objectivity is not by correspondence, but by the historical determined necessity of Geist [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: What gives objectivity to a judgment about an object is not correspondence, but the way in which a judgement is located within a pattern of reasonng that is determined by the way in which Geist is historically determined as necessarily taking the object. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], Intro) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 | |
| A reaction: I quote this, but I'm blowed if I can make sense of how objectivity could be achieved in such a way. How can a historical process create a necessary judgement? Sorry, I'm fairly new to Hegel. Pinker says it is the practice of giving reasons. |
| 21983 | Being and nothing are the same and not the same, which is the identity of identity and non-identity [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Pure being and pure nothing are the same, ...but on the contrary they are not the same ...they are absolutely distinct. ...This is the identity of identity and non-identity. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.i.1C p.82,74), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
| A reaction: Even Moore, who is very patient with Hegel, gets cross at this point, describing such talk as 'shocking'. He's not wrong. Moore later says that the reason in reality tolerates contradictions, but human understanding can't. |
| 21985 | The so-called world is filled with contradiction [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The so-called world is never and nowhere without contradiction. (...but it is unable to endure it) | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.ii.2C(b)), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
| A reaction: [Second bit in Ency I §11] To clarify this one would need to understand 'so-called'. Note that his claim is not that the world contains occasional contradictions, but that the whole of reality is contradictory. I think this idea is nonsense. |
| 21766 | Dialectic is the instability of thoughts generating their opposite, and then new more complex thoughts [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: The dialectical principle, for Hegel, is the principle whereby apparently stable thoughts reveal their inherent instability by turning into their opposites and then into new, more complex thoughts (as being turns to nothing, and then becoming). | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method' | |
| A reaction: Houlgate says this is unique to Hegel, and is NOT the familiar thesis-antithesis-synthesis idea of dialectic, found in Kant and Engels. Hegelian idea shares the Greek idea of insights arising from oppositions. |
| 21978 | Hegel's dialectic is not thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but usually negation of negation of the negation [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: The dialectic is often described in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis - though this is not a Hegelian way of speaking. Hegel himself sometimes describes it in terms of negation and negation of the negation. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.i.C(c) p.150) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4 | |
| A reaction: A footnote says the first form of description only occurs once in Hegel's work. I am guessing that Marx is responsible for the standard misrepresentation. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 21762 | To grasp an existence, we must consider its non-existence [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: It is only to the extent that we can say that something is not, that we can say what it actually is. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate' | |
| A reaction: A key idea for Hegel, but it leaves me flat. Thinking about the non-being of something throws no light at all for me on the inexpressible actuality of its existence. |
| 21977 | Nothing exists, as thinkable and expressible [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can be thought of, imagined, spoken of, and therefore it is. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.i.C.1 Rem 3 p.101), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like Meinong on circular squares. Does this mean that the negation of every truth also somehow exists? I struggle with this idea. Lewis Carroll nailed it. |
| 21760 | Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking. Thought that suspends all its presuppositions and so ends up thinking of nothing determinate still remains thought, albeit utterly indeterminate and inchoate thought. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate' | |
| A reaction: This is the very starting point of Hegel's dialectical inferences in his 'Logic'. It is hard to entirely disagree, though I wonder whether the exercise is actually possible. What are you aware of if you have a thought with no content? |
| 21765 | The ground of a thing is not another thing, but the first thing's substance or rational concept [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: Hegel's logic reveals that the true ground of something is not something other than it is, but the substance of that thing itself, or the rational concept that makes the thing what it is. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method' | |
| A reaction: This seems to be classic Aristotelian essentialism, though Aristotle was also interested in dependence relations. |
| 22059 | Kant's thing-in-itself is just an abstraction from our knowledge; things only exist for us [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: For Hegel there is no thing-in-itself, because the thing only becomes a something by being for us. Kant's thing-in-itself is the result of abstracting from the thing everything we know about it. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to pinpoint why Hegel is an idealist philosopher. Frege objected to abstraction for similar reasons. I don't understand how the tree outside my window can only exist 'for me'. I have a much better theory about the tree. |
| 22083 | Hegel believe that the genuine categories reveal things in themselves [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: Hegel believed, unlike Kant, that the categories of the understanding, when properly understood, disclose the nature of things in themselves and not just the character of things as they appear to us. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.101 | |
| A reaction: 'Properly understood' sounds like 'no true Scotsman'. This is thoroughgoing idealism, because reality is determined by the activity of the mind, and not from outside. The Hegel story makes more sense if you see the categories as evolutionary. |
| 16129 | Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Evans tries to derive a contradiction from the supposition that a given identity statement is of indeterminate truth-value. (As it happens, I consider that this argument is flawed) | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: A priori, I wouldn't expect to be able to settle the question of whether there are any vague objects simply by following some logical derivation. Empirical examination, and conceptual analysis (or stipulation) have to be involved. |
| 16459 | Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the world is vague, and vagueness is a necessary feature of any true description of it. Also identities may lack a determinate truth value because of their vagueness. Hence it is a fact that some objects have fuzzy boundaries. But is this coherent? | |
| From: Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Lewis quotes this introduction to the famous short paper, to show that Evans wasn't proposing a poor argument, but offering a reductio of the view that vagueness is 'ontic', or a feature of the world. |
| 16460 | Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The correct interpretation is that Evans trusts his reader (unwisely) to take for granted that there are vague identity statements, that a proof of the contrary cannot be right, and that the vagueness-in-describing view affords a diagnosis of the fallacy. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319 | |
| A reaction: [Lowe 199:11 is a culprit!] Lewis put this interpretation to Evans, who replied 'Yes, yes, yes!'. |
| 16457 | There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: One problem with Evans's argument that there are no such thing as vague identity statements is that its conclusion is plainly false. Example: 'Princeton = Princeton Borough', where it is unsettled what region 'Princeton' denotes. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319 | |
| A reaction: Lewis endorses the view that vagueness is semantic. I certainly don't endorse Evans's argument, which hinges on a weird example of a property, as applied to Leibniz's Law. |
| 22080 | The nature of each category relates itself to another [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: In the categories, something through its own nature relates itself to the other. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.125), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.99 | |
| A reaction: This is the doctrine of internal relations rejected by Moore and Russell, and also the key idea in Hegel's logic - that ideas give rise to other ideas, without contribution by the thinker. |
| 14484 | If a=b is indeterminate, then a=/=b, and so there cannot be indeterminate identity [Evans, by Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: We cannot accept the existence of vague objects, according to Evans's argument that there cannot be indeterminacy of identity. ...From the assumption that it is indeterminate whether a = b, we conclude, determinately, that it's not the case that a = b. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 05.6 | |
| A reaction: I think we should keep intrinsic identity separate from identity between entities. A cloud can be clearly identified, while being a bit fuzzy. It is only when you ask whether we saw the same cloud that Evans's argument seems relevant. |
| 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. |
| 16224 | There can't be vague identity; a and b must differ, since a, unlike b, is only vaguely the same as b [Evans, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Two things can't be vaguely identical, because then a would have an indeterminacy which b lacks (namely, being perfectly identical to b), so by Leibniz's Law they can't be identical. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978], 4.7) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of Katherine Hawley's summary (2001:118) of Evans] Hawley considers the argument to be valid. I have grave doubts about whether b's identity with b is the sort of property needed for an application of Liebniz's Law. |
| 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. |
| 21772 | In absolute knowing, the gap between object and oneself closes, producing certainty [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: In absolute knowing ...the separation of the object from the certainty of oneself is completely eliminated: truth is now equated with certainty and this certainty with truth. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.49), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'Absolute' | |
| A reaction: I don't understand this, but I note it because Hegel is evidently not a fallibilist about knowledge. I take this idea to be Descartes' 'clear and distinct ideas', wearing a grand rhetorical uniform. |
| 20954 | The 'absolute idea' is when all the contradictions are exhausted [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The point in philosophy at which the contradictions are exhausted is what Hegel means by the 'absolute idea'. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 4 'Questions' | |
| A reaction: {Can't think of a response to this one) |
| 21972 | Hegel, unlike Kant, said how things appear is the same as how things are [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Hegel rejected the fundamental Kantian distinction between how things knowably appear and how they unknowably are in themselves. This was anathema to him. For Hegel how things knowably appear is how they manifestly are. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.2 | |
| A reaction: We shouldn't assume that Hegel was therefore a realist, because Berkeley would agree with this idea. Hegel rejected transcendental idealism for this reason. Hegel wanted to get rid of the immanent/transcendent distinction |
| 22038 | Hegel's non-subjective idealism is the unity of subjective and objective viewpoints [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: The unity of the two points of view (subjective and objective) constitutes Hegel's idealism. ...He kept emphasising that it was not 'subjective' idealism. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 10 | |
| A reaction: Subjective idealism denies the objective point of view. [**20th June 2019, 10:49 am. This is the 20,000th idea in the database. The project was begun in 1997, as organised notes to help with teaching. For the last ten years today has been my target**]. |
| 22044 | Hegel claimed his system was about the world, but it only mapped conceptual interdependence [Pinkard on Hegel] |
| Full Idea: In the view of the later Schelling, although Hegel's system only really laid out the ways in which the senses of various concepts depended on each other, it claimed to be a system about the world itself. | |
| From: comment on Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 | |
| A reaction: I'm no expert, but I'm inclined to agree with Schelling. Since I am suspicious of the idea that each concept generates its own negation, I also doubt the accuracy of Hegel's map. I'm a hopeless case. |
| 21464 | The Absolute is the primitive system of concepts which are actualised [Hegel, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: In Hegel the Absolute is the exhaustive, unconditioned and self-grounding system of concepts made concrete in actuality, the world of experience. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Sebastian Gardner - Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason 10 'Absolute' | |
| A reaction: If I collect multiple attempts to explain what the Absolute is, I may one day drift toward a hazy understanding of it. Right now this idea means nothing to me, but I pass it on. His notion of 'concept' seems a long way from the normal modern one. |
| 22084 | Authentic thinking and reality have the same content [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Thinking in its immanent determination and the true nature of things form one and the same content. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.45), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.101 | |
| A reaction: This is not much use unless we have a crystal clear idea of 'immanent determination', because we need to eliminate errors. |
| 21975 | The absolute idea is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and all truth [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The absolute idea alone is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is all truth. ....All else is error, confusion, opinion, endeavour, caprice, and transitoriness. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], II.iii.3 p.824), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4 | |
| A reaction: Hegel sounding a bit too much like an over-excited preacher here. The absolute idea seems to be the unified totality of all truths about reality. For Hegel human self-awareness is a big part of that. The idea is being because there is only one substance. |
| 21976 | The absolute idea is the great unity of the infinite system of concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: We can think of the absolute idea roughly as the entire infinite system of interrelated concepts, in their indissoluble unity, as exercised in the self-consciousness towards which the process [of thought] leads. It is the 'telos' of the process. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], II.iii.3 p.825) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4 | |
| A reaction: This expounds the quotation in Idea 21975. Moore emphasises concepts, where Hegel emphasises the truth. The connection is in Idea 5644. |
| 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. |
| 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). |
| 22058 | Hegel's 'absolute idea' is the interdependence of all truths to justify any of them [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Hegel's system culminates in the 'absolute idea', the explanation of why all particular truths depend on the relationship to other truths for their justification. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 3 | |
| A reaction: The 'hyper-coherence' theory of justification. The normal claim is that there must be considerable local coherence to provide decent support. Hegel's picture sounds like part of the Enlightenment Dream. Is the idea of 'all truths' coherent? |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 20953 | Every concept depends on the counter-concepts of what it is not [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: Hegel relies on the claim that every concept depends for its determinacy upon its relation to other concepts which it is not (so that even the concept of being depends, for example, upon the concept of nothing). | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 4 'Questions' | |
| A reaction: How does he know this? A question I keep asking about continental philosophers. The negation concepts must be entirely non-conscious. Which negation concepts are relevant to the concept 'tree'? |
| 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. |
| 21763 | When we explicate the category of being, we watch a new category emerge [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: For Hegel, by explicating the indeterminate category of being, we do not merely restate in different words what is obviously 'contained' in it; we watch a new category emerge. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method' | |
| A reaction: This is obviously a response to Kant's view of analyticity, as merely explicating the contents of the subject of the sentence, without advancing knowledge or conceptual resources. A key idea of Hegel's, which I find unconvincing. |
| 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! |
| 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 |
| 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). |