68 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. |
3942 | I do not believe in the existence of anything, if I see no reason to believe it [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: It is to me a sufficient reason not to believe the existence of anything, if I see no reason for believing it. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.205) | |
A reaction: This may just be a reasonable application of Ockham's Razor, but I fear that Berkeley painted himself into corner by demanding too many 'reasons' for everything. |
3952 | I know that nothing inconsistent can exist [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: I know that nothing inconsistent can exist. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.224) | |
A reaction: Fine, but the problem is to assess with confidence what is inconsistent. Human imagination seems to be the test for existence. But what else can we do? |
3959 | There is no other substance, in a strict sense, than spirit [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: There is no other substance, in a strict sense, than spirit. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.257) | |
A reaction: A nice clear statement of idealism. Why is he so confident of making this assertion. Note the addition, though, of 'in a strict' sense. He is presenting an epistemological claim as if it was an ontological one. |
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. |
3946 | A thing is shown to be impossible if a contradiction is demonstrated within its definition [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: A thing is shown to be impossible when a repugnancy is demonstrated between the ideas comprehended in its definition. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.214) | |
A reaction: The problem is always that imagination is needed to see the 'repugnancy', and that is relative and limited. |
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. |
3958 | Since our ideas vary when the real things are said to be unchanged, they cannot be true copies [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: As our ideas are perpetually varied, without any change in the supposed real things, it necessarily follows that they cannot all be true copies of them. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.239) | |
A reaction: This seems a good objection to any direct or naïve realist view. Colours get darker as the sun goes down, and objects become blurred as they recede into the distance. |
3943 | If existence is perceived directly, by which sense; if indirectly, how is it inferred from direct perception? [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Either you perceive the being of matter immediately, or mediately; if immediately, pray inform me by which of the senses you perceive it; if mediately, let me know by what reasonings it is inferred from those things which you perceive immediately. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.208) | |
A reaction: A problem for strong empiricists, and he is right that existence can't be directly perceived, but it seems a good explanation (for which some reason can be shown), and supports a more rationalist view. |
3931 | Sensible objects are just sets of sensible qualities [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Sensible things are nothing else but so many sensible qualities. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.154) | |
A reaction: As it stands this is phenomenalism, but Berkeley eventually votes for idealism. He should acknowledge possible sensations which aren't actually experienced. |
5192 | Berkeley did not deny material things; he merely said they must be defined through sensations [Berkeley, by Ayer] |
Full Idea: Berkeley did not (as we are commonly told) deny the reality of material things. ..What Berkeley discovered was that material things must be defined in terms of sense-contents. | |
From: report of George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be a rather debatable attempt to claim that Berkeley was a phenomenalist (like Ayer), rather than an idealist. Try ideas 3942, 3944, 3945, 3957, 3959 in this database. |
5174 | Berkeley needed a phenomenalist account of the self, as well as of material things [Ayer on Berkeley] |
Full Idea: The considerations which make it necessary, as Berkeley saw, to give a phenomenalist account of material things, make it necessary also, as Berkeley did not see, to give a phenomenalist account of the self. | |
From: comment on George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.7 | |
A reaction: Phenomenalism involves 'possible' experiences as well as actual ones. That could add up to quite a rich and stable account of the self, as opposed to Hume's notorious introspection, which only saw an actual shifting 'bundle' of experience. |
1103 | 'To be is to be perceived' is a simple confusion of experience with its objects [Russell on Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Berkeley thinks 'to be is to be perceived', and only God provides continuity. He has simply confused the experience of perception with the thing being perceived. Ideas have content. | |
From: comment on George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713]) by Bertrand Russell - Problems of Philosophy |
6403 | For Berkelely, reality is ideas and a community of minds, including God's [Berkeley, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: Berkeley's thesis is that reality ultimately consists of a community of minds and their ideas; one of the minds (God) is infinite, and causes most of the ideas. | |
From: report of George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
A reaction: I think Russell nicely pinpoints what is wrong with Berekely, which is that he confuses ideas with their contents. If I think about my garden, the garden is real (probably), which is the content, and they idea is just a way of thinking. |
3936 | Time is measured by the succession of ideas in our minds [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Time is measured by the succession of ideas in our minds. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.172) | |
A reaction: But we distinguish between subjective time (which flies when you are having fun), and objective time, judged from observation of clocks and nature. |
3930 | There is no such thing as 'material substance' [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: That there is no such thing as what philosophers call 'material substance', I am seriously persuaded. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.150) | |
A reaction: I'm sorry, but I can't do with this. It confuses epistemology with ontology. Ontology is a matter of judgement; epistemology is the evidence on which we base it. We know sensations; personally I judge that there are material substances. What about you? |
3939 | I conceive a tree in my mind, but I cannot prove that its existence can be conceived outside a mind [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: I may conceive in my own thoughts the idea of a tree, but that is all. And this is far from proving that I can conceive it existing out of the minds of all spirits. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.184) | |
A reaction: If Berkeley has based a world view on this point, then his mistake is to require a 'proof'. Aristotle explained why you can't prove everything (not to mention Gödel). |
3945 | There is nothing in nature which needs the concept of matter to explain it [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: I challenge you to show me that thing in nature which needs matter to explain or account for it. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.212) | |
A reaction: I disagree. Physics is a good theory for explaining why we have perceptions. Failing that there is not even a glimmer of an explanation of our experiences. |
3947 | Perceptions are ideas, and ideas exist in the mind, so objects only exist in the mind [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Wood, fire, water, flesh, iron, are things that I know, and only known because I perceive them by my senses; these are immediately perceived, and so are ideas; ideas cannot exist without the mind; their existence consists therefore in being perceived. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.220) | |
A reaction: This makes no distinction between an idea and its content. Berkeley fails to grasp the weird concept of intentionality. Trees aren't in my head, just because I think about them! |
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. |
3933 | Primary qualities (such as shape, solidity, mass) are held to really exist, unlike secondary qualities [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Sensible qualities are by philosophers divided into primary and secondary; the former are extension, figure, solidity, gravity, motion and rest, which exist really in bodies. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.169) | |
A reaction: A crucial distinction, which anti-realists such as Berkeley end up denying. I think it is a good distinction, and philosophers should fight to preserve it. |
3934 | A mite would see its own foot as large, though we would see it as tiny [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: A mite must be supposed to see his own foot as a body of some considerable dimension, though they appear to you scarcely discernible. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.170) | |
A reaction: Berkeley is confused. Hot is secondary, but temperature is primary. Bigness is secondary, size primay. Midgets and tall people don't disagree over the size of a table. |
3935 | The apparent size of an object varies with its distance away, so that can't be a property of the object [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: As we approach to or recede from an object, the visible extension varies, being at one distance ten or a hundred times greater than at another; doth it not follow that it is not really inherent in the object? | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.171) | |
A reaction: Berkeley is confused, because he is too literally empirical. Qualities are not self-evidently primary or secondary, but are judged so after comparisons (e.g. with testimony, or with the other senses). |
3937 | 'Solidity' is either not a sensible quality at all, or it is clearly relative to our senses [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: By 'solidity' either you do not mean any sensible quality, and so it is beside our enquiry; or if you do, it must be hardness or resistance, which are plainly relative to our senses. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.173) | |
A reaction: Berkeley fails to recognise that a quality can have primary and secondary aspects (hot/high temperature). He is right that primary qualities are not directly perceived. They are judgements. |
3940 | Distance is not directly perceived by sight [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Distance is not properly and immediately perceived by sight. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.186) | |
A reaction: Interestingly, if secondary qualities are not strictly perceptions of the object, and primary qualities are not directly perceived, then we don't seem to perceive anything at all. Perhaps we should drop the concept of 'perception'? |
3957 | Immediate objects of perception, which some treat as appearances, I treat as the real things themselves [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Those immediate objects of perception, which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I take to be the real things themselves. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.237) | |
A reaction: If that is a judgement, which it seems to be, it is a strange one. Realists offer a much better explanation of perceptions. |
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. |
3953 | Real things and imaginary or dreamed things differ because the latter are much fainter [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: The difference between real things, and chimeras formed by the imagination, or the visions of a dream, is that the latter are faint and indistinct. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.225) | |
A reaction: In Hume this becomes 'impressions' and 'ideas'. It does raise the question of WHY some ideas are not as faint as others. |
3938 | Geometry is originally perceived by senses, and so is not purely intellectual [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Figures and extension, being originally perceived by sense, do not belong to pure intellect. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.176) | |
A reaction: Is the square root of 169 less 'pure' in my mind if I learn it from laying out bricks instead of by thinking about numbers? Confusion of how you learn with what you learn? |
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). |
3944 | It is possible that we could perceive everything as we do now, but nothing actually existed. [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: We might perceive all things just as we do now, though there was no matter in the world. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.209) | |
A reaction: An old Greek argument. Now we have an explanation of experience, but we wouldn't if nothing existed. Which doesn't prove that anything exists. Is some explanation always preferable to none? Cf. religion. |
3932 | A hot hand and a cold hand will have different experiences in the same tepid water [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an intermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to the other? | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.158) | |
A reaction: A nice clear example of how some relativism must be acknowledged. It feels hot, but what is its temperature in degrees C? |
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. |
3948 | Experience tells me that other minds exist independently from my own [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: It is plain that other minds have an existence exterior to my mind, since I find them by experience to be independent of it. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.220) | |
A reaction: This is a surprising claim from Berkeley. If trees only exist through their experience in my mind, why don't other minds exist in the same way? |
3941 | How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.203) | |
A reaction: Presumably, though, he thinks that thought can cause 'that which is unthinking' to move'. He likes one half of the interaction problem (which supports dualism), but avoids the other half. |
19451 | When absorbed in deep reflection, is your reason in control, or is it you? [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: When, submerged in deep reflection, you forget both yourself and your surroundings, is it you who controls reason, or is it rather reason that controls and absorbs you? | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
A reaction: A delightful question, even if it looks like a false dichotomy. I'm not sure what to make of 'me', if my reason can be subtracted from it. Aquinas was one the same wavelength here. |
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. |
5374 | Berkeley probably used 'idea' to mean both the act of apprehension and the thing apprehended [Russell on Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Berkeley seems to have confused the colour of the thing apprehended with the act of apprehension; probably either of these would have been called an 'idea' be Berkeley. | |
From: comment on George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713]) by Bertrand Russell - Problems of Philosophy | |
A reaction: If we are saying that Berkeley's error was entirely verbal, there is a chicken-and-egg problem. He was an idealist, so he wouldn't have thought that there were two separate concepts behind the word 'idea'. Russell merely asserts that there are. |
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. |
3954 | Immorality is not in the action, but in the deviation of the will from moral law [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Sin or moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and religion. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.227) | |
A reaction: A Kantian view (that the only good thing is a good will). It is a very empiricist (and anti-Greek) view to deny that actions have any intrinsic value. |
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! |
19450 | Reason, love and will are the highest perfections and essence of man - the purpose of his life [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Reason, love and power of will are perfections of man; they are his highest powers, his absolute essence in so far as he is man, the purpose of his existence. Man exists in order to think, love and will. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
A reaction: Feuerbach was a notable atheist, but adopts a religious style of language which modern atheists would find rather alien. Personally I love talk of ideals and perfections. Ideals have been discredited in modern times, but need a revival. |
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. |
19448 | Consciousness is said to distinguish man from animals - consciousness of his own species [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: What constitutes the essential difference between man and animal? The most simple, general, and most widely held answer to this question is consciousness. Consciousness is given only in the case of a being to whom his species ...is an object of thought. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) | |
A reaction: Rather speculative. Since other species cohabit and breed only with their fellow species members, one might have thought they were aware of them. |
19454 | A God needs justice, kindness and wisdom, but those concepts don't depend on the concept of God [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: The concept of God depends on the concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom - a God who is not kind, not just, and not wise is no God. But these concepts do not depend on the concept of God. That a quality is possessed by God does not make it divine. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: This is part of Feuerbach's argument for atheism, but if you ask for the source of our human concepts of justice, kindness and wisdom, no one, I would have thought, could cite God for the role. |
3950 | There must be a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: I immediately and necessarily conclude the being of a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.198) | |
A reaction: Daft. This contradicts Berkeley's whole empiricist position, that existence depends on known experience. Who knows whether God is thinking about trees? |
3951 | There must be a God, because I and my ideas are not independent [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: From the dependency I find in myself and my ideas, I do by an act of reason necessarily infer the existence of a God. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.222) | |
A reaction: No. Hume answered this, by showing how big abstract ideas are built up from experience. This is a future bishop's wish-fulfilment. |
3949 | It has been proved that creation is the workmanship of God, from its beauty and usefulness [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Divines and philosophers have proved beyond all controversy, from the beauty and usefulness of the several parts of creation, that it was the workmanship of God. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], II p.198) | |
A reaction: Not convincing. Beauty is probably a sublimation of sexual desire (or an echo of the human mind in the external world, in music), and utility is relative to homo sapiens, I presume. |
19452 | The nature of God is an expression of human nature [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: God is the manifestation of man's inner nature, his expressed self. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: Even if you are a deeply committed theist, you have to concede some of this point. The perfections attributed to God are usually of human qualities. Leibniz, though, says that God has an infinity of perfection, mostly unknown to us. |
19453 | If love, goodness and personality are human, the God who is their source is anthropomorphic [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: If love, goodness, and personality are human determinations, the being which constitutes their source and ...their presupposition is also an anthropomorphism; so is the existence of God. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: It is certainly a struggle for the imagination to grasp a being which is characterised by idealised versions of human virtues, and yet has an intrinsic nature which is utterly different from humanity. |
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). |
19449 | Religion is the consciousness of the infinite [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Religion is the consciousness of the infinite. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], I) |
19455 | Today's atheism will tomorrow become a religion [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: What is regarded as atheism today will be religion tomorrow. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Introduction of 'Essence of Christianity' [1841], II) | |
A reaction: Modern critics of atheism frequently accuse it of being a new religion. I doubt whether Feuerbach is right, but it is a nice provocative idea. |
3956 | People are responsible because they have limited power, though this ultimately derives from God [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: Thinking rational beings, in the production of motions, have the use of limited powers, ultimately derived from God, but immediately under the direction of their own wills, which is sufficient to entitle them to all the guilt of their own actions. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.228) | |
A reaction: An episcopal evasion. A classic attempt to have cake and eat it. Either God is in charge or he isn't. |
3955 | If sin is not just physical, we don't consider God the origin of sin because he causes physical events [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: If sin doth not consist of purely physical actions, the making God a cause of all such actions, is not making him the author of sin. | |
From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.227) | |
A reaction: An equivocation. If responsibility resides in consciousness, God is presumably conscious, and we can judge the events he causes. |