37 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. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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). |
| 5303 | For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Law, morality, religion are to the proletarian so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This Marxist idea has been the main driving force in spreading relativist views through modern culture. There is a lot of truth here, but philosophy is plausibly the search for truths which both the bourgeois and the proletarian will accept. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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! |
| 21998 | Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Morality, law and religion are bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], p.230), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is whether this creation of values is conscious or unconscious. Personally I believe in conspiracies. Some cynical conversations go on behind the scenes, of which historians will never hear. |
| 20883 | Modern utilitarians value knowledge, friendship, autonomy, and achievement, as well as pleasure [Hooker,B] |
| Full Idea: Most utilitarians now think that pleasure, even if construed widely, is not the only thing desirable in itself. ...Goods also include important knowledge, friendship, autonomy, achievement and so on. | |
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 2) | |
| A reaction: That pleasure is desired is empirically verifiable, which certainly motivated Bentham. A string of other desirables each needs to be justified - but how? What would be the value of a 'friendship' if neither party got pleasure from it? |
| 20884 | Rule-utilitarians prevent things like torture, even on rare occasions when it seems best [Hooker,B] |
| Full Idea: For rule-utilitarians acts of murder, torture and so on, can be impermissible even in rare cases where they really would produce better consequences than any alternative act. | |
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 4) | |
| A reaction: It is basic to rule-utilitarianism that it trumps act-ulitilarianism, even when a particular act wins the utilitarian calculation. But that is hard to understand. Only long-term benefit could justify the rule - but that should win the calculation. |
| 5302 | Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: In Britain the Labour Party and the Trade Unions have appeared since 1848, but bourgeoisie control of the media has pushed us a long way back towards Marx's time. Government will always be someone's management committee. |
| 5304 | Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is a sinister remark which has led to huge numbers of murders in the Soviet Union and China. People resent having their property 'abolished', especially if they have worked hard for it. But most of our wealth is owned by about 2% of our people. |
| 5307 | Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §3.II) | |
| A reaction: …so don't try being nice to us. No TRUE bourgeois would actually want to help the proletariate… Nevertheless, he is probably largely right. Do we want the poor to suffer? No. Do we want them to be as rich as us? No! |
| 5306 | The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: In a communist society we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: This ringing slogan is remarkably close to John Stuart Mill's defence of liberalism, where liberty is an absolute, as long as it avoids the liberty of others. Personally I think freedom is marginal in political philosophy, like food and shelter. |
| 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 |
| 5305 | Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: Communists seek to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §2) | |
| A reaction: Someone has to control education, and I would personally prefer it if the controllers were well educated themselves. Neutral education is an idle dream. We must educate for democracy, if we really want democracy. |
| 5301 | The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels] |
| Full Idea: The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles. | |
| From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to make, say, the English Peasants' Revolt of 1481 crucial, and the building of Lincoln Cathedral fairly minor. Where does the advent of the telephone figure? Etc. Still, we must concede his point. Most medieval history is about power. |
| 20885 | Euthanasia is active or passive, and voluntary, non-voluntary or involuntary [Hooker,B] |
| Full Idea: Six types of euthanasia: 1) Active voluntary (knowing my wishes), 2) Active non-voluntary (not knowing my wishes), 3) Active involuntary (against my wishes), 4) Passive voluntary, 5) Passive non-voluntary, 6) Passive involuntary. | |
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 5) | |
| A reaction: 'Active' is intervening, and 'passive' is not intervening. A helpful framework. |
| 20882 | Euthanasia may not involve killing, so it is 'killing or not saving, out of concern for that person' [Hooker,B] |
| Full Idea: Passive euthanasia is arguably not killing, and the death involved is often painful, so let us take the term 'euthanasia' to mean 'either killing or passing up opportunities to save someone, out of concern for that person'. | |
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds good, and easily settled, until you think concern for that person could have two different outcomes, depending on whether the criteria are those of the decider or of the patient. Think of religious decider and atheist patient, or vice versa. |
| 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). |