62 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). |
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. |
23805 | Some explanations offer to explain a mystery by a greater mystery [Schulte] |
Full Idea: An 'obscurum per obscurius' explanation is explaining something mysterious by something even more mysterious, | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 6) | |
A reaction: Schulte's example is trying to explain mental content in terms of phenomenal experience. That is, roughly, explaining content by qualia, when the latter is the 'hard problem'. |
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. |
23792 | Phenomenal and representational character may have links, or even be united [Schulte] |
Full Idea: Some theorists maintain that all states with representational content or intentionality must have phenomenal character …and we can also ask whether all states with phenomenal character also have representional content. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 2.4) | |
A reaction: He mentions that beliefs could involve inner speech. And pains and moods may be phenomenal but lack content. He also asks which determines which. |
23795 | Naturalistic accounts of content cannot rely on primitive mental or normative notions [Schulte] |
Full Idea: A 'naturalistic' explanation of content excludes primitive mental or normative notions, but allows causation, counterfactual dependence, probabilistic dependence or structural similarity. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4) | |
A reaction: Apart from causation, what is permissible to naturalists (like me) all sounds rather superficial (and thus not very explanatory). I'm sure we can do better than this. How about using non-primitive mental notions? |
23804 | Maybe we can explain mental content in terms of phenomenal properties [Schulte] |
Full Idea: The phenomenal intentionality approach says that the content properties of mental states can be explained in terms of the phenomenal properties of mental states. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 6) | |
A reaction: [Searle and Loar are cited] Tends to be 'non-naturalistic'. We might decide that content derives from the phenomenal, but still without saying anything interesting about content. Mathematical content? Universally generalised content? |
23806 | Naturalist accounts of representation must match the views of cognitive science [Schulte] |
Full Idea: Recent naturalisation of content now also has to offer a matching account of representational explanations in cognitive science. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 08.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Cummins, Neander and Shea] This is in addition to the 'status' and 'content' questions of Idea 23796. This seems to be an interesting shift to philosophers working backwards from the theories of empirical science. Few are qualified for this job! |
23793 | On the whole, referential content is seen as broad, and sense content as narrow [Schulte] |
Full Idea: We can say that non-Fregean content [reference] is (virtually) always contrued as broad, while Fregean content [sense] is usually contrued as narrow. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 3.2) | |
A reaction: I can't make sense of mental content actually being outside the mind, so I see all content as narrow - but that doesn't mean that externals are irrelevant to it. If I think that is an oak, and it's an elm, the content is oak. |
23796 | Naturalists must explain both representation, and what is represented [Schulte] |
Full Idea: Naturalistic accounts of content ask 1) what makes a state qualify as a representational state?, and 2) what makes a representational state have one specific content rather than another? | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4) | |
A reaction: [As often in this collection, the author uses algebraic letters, but I prefer plain English] I would say that the first question looks more amenable to an answer than the second. Do we know the neuronal difference between seeing red and blue? |
23802 | Conceptual role semantics says content is determined by cognitive role [Schulte] |
Full Idea: Conceptual role semantics says the content of a representation is determined by the cognitive role it plays with a system. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.5) | |
A reaction: Obvious problem: if 'swordfish' is the password, its role is quite different from its content. I've never thought that the role of something tells you anything about what it is. Hearts pump blood, but how do they fulfil that role? |
23797 | Cause won't explain content, because one cause can produce several contents [Schulte] |
Full Idea: A simple causal theory of content has the 'content indeterminacy' problem - that the presence of a cow causes 'a cow is present', but also 'an animal is present' and 'a biological organism is present'. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.1) | |
A reaction: That only rules out the 'simple' version. We just need to add that the cause (cow experience) is shaped by current knowledge and interests. Someone buying cows and someone terrified of them thereby produce different concepts. |
23799 | Teleosemantics explains content in terms of successful and unsuccessful functioning [Schulte] |
Full Idea: The core idea of teleosemantics is that we need to explain how content can be accurate or inaccurate, true or false, realised or unrealised …which must appeal to the distinction between proper functioning and malfunctioning. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.4) | |
A reaction: My immediate reaction to this is that you don't learn about content by assessing its success. Surely (as with eyesight) you first need to understand what it does, and only then judge its success. …Though success and failure are implicit in function. |
23800 | Teleosemantic explanations say content is the causal result of naturally selected functions [Schulte] |
Full Idea: Teleosemantic theories usually give a causal account of mental functions …where some trait has a particular function if it was selected for that function by a process of natural selection. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.4) | |
A reaction: This is an idea I like - that something has a specific function if without that function it wouldn't have come into existence (eyes, for example). But presumably the function of a mind is to collect content - which does nothing to explain content! |
23798 | Information theories say content is information, such as smoke making fire probable [Schulte] |
Full Idea: Information theories of content [usually assume that] a column of smoke over there carries the information that fire is over there because it raises the probability of fire being over there. | |
From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.2) | |
A reaction: Theorists usually add further conditions to this basic one. Fred Dretske is the source of this approach. Not promising, in my opinion. Surely the content is just smoke, and fire is one of dozens of possible inferences from it? |
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. |
23590 | Criminal responsibility can be fully assigned to each member of a group [Walzer] |
Full Idea: It is a feature of criminal responsibility that it can be distributed without being divided. We can, that is, blame more than one person for a particular act without splitting up the blame we assign. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 19) | |
A reaction: How far can this extend? To a large violent mob? To an entire nation? In court the responsibility is usually adjusted in the sentencing, rather than in the initial verdict. |
23578 | Double Effect needs a double intention - to achieve the good, and minimise the evil [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Double effect is defensible, I want to argue, only when the two outcomes are the product of a double intention - that 'good' be achieved, and that the foreseeable evil be reduced as far as possible. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 09) | |
A reaction: A good proposal, I think. We have to accept evil side effects sometimes, but it is immoral to pursue some good 'whatever the cost'. |
23564 | Deep ethical theory is very controversial, but we have to live with higher ethical practice [Walzer] |
Full Idea: The substructure of the ethical world is a matter of deep and unending controversy, Meanwhile, however, we are living in the superstructure. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Pref) | |
A reaction: This may be the best approach to ethics. Nearly all applied ethics takes the common sense consensus on values for granted. Personally I think that is because the substructure is the obvious success and failure of human functioning. |
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! |
23568 | If whole states possess rights, there can be social relations between states [Walzer] |
Full Idea: If states possess rights more or less as individuals do, then it is possible to imagine a society among them more or less like the individuals. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
A reaction: The state's rights must derive from the people. Plots of land don't have rights. In some states the people are in conflict. It can't just be the government which represents the rights of the state. |
23571 | States can rightly pre-empt real and serious threats [Walzer] |
Full Idea: States can use force in the face of threats of war, if there is a serious risk to territory or independence. They are then forced to fight, and are the victims of aggression. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 05) | |
A reaction: [compressed] He uses this to justify Israeli pre-emptive strikes against Palestinians. I don't think his confident assertion of this principle is justified. It is open to massive abuse. There are, though, clearly situations where he is right. |
23572 | Just wars are self-defence, or a rightful intercession in another's troubles [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Just wars may not be self-defence, if they are to help an independence struggle, or it is to save another country being invaded, or to prevent enslavement or massacre. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 06) | |
A reaction: [summary] Modern wars support some examples of these, but also suggest that without a long-term plan, or an understanding of the country they are entering, such intercessions may worsen the situation. |
23581 | The aim of reprisals is to enforce the rules of war [Walzer] |
Full Idea: The purpose of reprisals is not to win the war or prevent defeat, but simply to enforce the rules [of war]. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
A reaction: That may be wishful thinking, since reprisals are often vastly more ruthless than the original offence, and there is often injustice in the nature of the reprisals, since they cannot be precise. |
23582 | Reprisal is defensible, as an alternative to war [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Reprisal is the first resort of force. It is an alternative to war, and that description is an important argument in its favour. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
A reaction: Enduring wrongs with dignity might be another alternative. Successful reprisals may be acceptable, but how do you assess their prospects? |
23588 | With nuclear weapons we have a permanent supreme emergency (which is unstable) [Walzer] |
Full Idea: With nuclear weapons, supreme emergency has become a permanent condition. …[283] But supreme emergency is never a stable position. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
A reaction: The obvious instability of balanced mutual threat is a nuclear state which finds itself losing a war. |
23580 | States need not endure attacks passively, and successful reprisals are legitimate [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Whenever there is some substantial chance of success, reprisals are the legitimate resort of a victim state; for no state can be required passively to endure attacks upon its citizens. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 13) | |
A reaction: My concern is whether the reprisals have any direct connection to the attacks. They killed some of ours, so we will kill some of theirs is immoral. E.g. bombing Tripoli as reprisal for crashing the Lockerbie plane. |
23587 | Nuclear bombs are not for normal war; they undermine the 'just war', with a new morality [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Nuclear weapons are not designed for war at all. …They explode the idea of a just war. They are the first technological innovations that are simply not encompassable within the familiar moral world. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
A reaction: A nuclear war can hardly lead to normal victory, if it destroys the thing you are trying to conquer. It is like bringing a machine gun to a boxing match. |
23567 | Even non-violent intrusive acts between states count as aggression, if they justify resistance [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Every violation of an independent state is called aggression, which fails to differentiate between a seizure or imposition, and an actual conquest. …But what they have in common is that all aggressive acts justify forceful resistance. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Walzer concedes that this makes 'aggression' rather imprecise, and small acts can be used as an excuse for desired violent resistance. Each entrant in August 1914 seems to have had a slightly different motive. |
23570 | The only good reason for fighting is in defence of rights [Walzer] |
Full Idea: The defence of rights is a reason for fighting. I want now to stress again, and finally, that it is the only reason. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 04) | |
A reaction: Walzer states at the beginning, without discussion, that his moral assumptions are based on the notion of rights. This is tricky because rights are assigned by some people to other people, and claims of rights can be challenged. |
23573 | For moral reasons, a just war must be a limited war [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Just wars are limited wars; there are moral reasons for the statesmen and soldiers who fight them to be prudent and realistic. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 07) | |
A reaction: This is rather profound, I think. Watch closely the behaviour of the good guys when they are winning the war. In general, to know someone's moral principles, the best indicator is how they behave when they have power. |
23577 | Napoleon said 'I don't care about the deaths of a million men' [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Napoleon said 'Soldiers are made to be killed. …I do not care a fig for the lives of a million men'. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
A reaction: [Two separate remarks attributed to Napoleon] He apparently often said things like this this later in his career. It strikes me as despicable, and anyone who still tries to present Napoleon as admirable should be ashamed. |
23593 | Jus ad bellum and Jus in bello are independent; unjust wars can be fought in a just way [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Justice of war [ad bellum] and justice in war [in bello] are logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought unjustly, and for an unjust war to be fought in strict accordance with the rules. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 02) | |
A reaction: The perfect decorum of an unjust firing squad might even make the crime worse. There is something chilling about an evil army conducting itself perfectly within the ethics of warfare. Better than the other thing, though. McMahan disagrees. |
23574 | The duties and moral status of loyal and obedient soldiers is the same in defence and aggression [Walzer] |
Full Idea: The duties of individual soldiers …are precisely the same in wars of aggression and wars of defence. …The moral status of soldiers on both sides is very much the same; they are led to fight by their loyalty and their lawful obedience. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
A reaction: He excludes war crimes. This is the thesis which Jeff McMahan objects to. It would be very odd to think that mafiosi and the legitimate police were morally equal, because the former are loyal. We should all try hard to avoid supporting unjust causes. |
23575 | We can't blame soldiers for anything they do which clearly promotes victory [Walzer] |
Full Idea: It would be difficult to condemn soldiers for anything they did in the course of a battle or a war that they honestly believed, and had good reason to believe, was necessary, or important, or simply useful in determining the outcome. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
A reaction: We can't blame unjust aggressors if their own lives are at stake, but what about in a surprise attack on the first day of the war (such as Pearl Harbour)? Or if they massacre the enemy with safe and overwhelming superiority? |
23584 | Rejecting Combatant Equality allows just soldiers to be harsher, even to the extreme [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Objections to combatant equality appeal to a sliding scale of 'the more justice, the more right'. …It allows the justice of one's cause to make a difference in the way one fights. …The extreme says soldiers fightly justly can do anything that is useful. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 14) | |
A reaction: This slippery slope fear seems to be Walzer's main argument in favour of the moral equality of combatants. See Jeff McMahan for the opposing view. |
23589 | Kidnapped sailors and volunteers have different obligations to the passengers [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Soldiers may stand to civilians like the crew of a liner to its passengers, for whom they must risk their lives. …But would they be so bound if the sailors had been kidnapped? | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 19) | |
A reaction: The point, I assume, is that a conscripted army does not have the same obligations as volunteers. I can't imagine that principle being accepted in an army which is a mixture of the two. |
23614 | Even aggressor soldiers are not criminals, so they have equal rights with their opponents [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Soldiers fighting for an aggressor state are not themselves criminals: hence their war rights are the same as those of their opponents. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 08) | |
A reaction: Walzer's main support for this is that opposing armies never regard one another as intrinsically criminal. It seems inevitable, though, that even the invaders themselves see that they are a bit more criminal than the defenders. |
23579 | Soldiers will only protect civilians if they feel safe from them [Walzer] |
Full Idea: Soldiers must feel safe among civilians if civilians are ever to be safe from soldiers. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 11) | |
A reaction: This is the great dilemma of any resistance movement. It is very easy for the soldiers to abuse their power, even if they do feel safe. Then what? |
23586 | What matters in war is unacceptable targets, not unacceptable weapons [Walzer] |
Full Idea: The crucial distinction in the theory and practice of war is not between prohibited and acceptable weapons but between prohibited and acceptable targets. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], 17) | |
A reaction: Walzer presents this idea as arising out of discussions about nuclear deterrence. Gas attacks were accepted in WW1 trenches, but modern gas attacks on civilians are a crime. Are nuclear attacks on strictly military targets OK? E.g a fleet. |
23591 | If the oppressor is cruel, nonviolence is either surrender, or a mere gesture [Walzer] |
Full Idea: When one cannot count on the moral code of the oppressor, nonviolence is either a disguised form of surrender or a minimalist way of upholding communal values after a military defeat. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Afterword) | |
A reaction: The point is that ruthless conquerors may just kill the nonviolent, so it would achieve nothing. Nonviolence is only a plausible strategy in a fairly civilised world. Hard to disagree. |
23592 | We can only lead war towards peace if we firmly enforce the rules of war [Walzer] |
Full Idea: We must begin by insisting upon the rules of war and by holding soldiers rigidly to the norms they set. The restraint of war is the beginning of peace. | |
From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Afterword) | |
A reaction: Last sentence of his book. Some cultures have a much greater tradition of ruthless cruelty than others, it seems. Most war ethics seems to concern how the good guys should respond to the bad guys (since the latter hardly care). |
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). |