36 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. |
15045 | The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault] |
Full Idea: I think the central issue of philosophy and critical thought since the eighteenth century has always been, still is, and will, I hope, remain the question: What is this Reason that we use? What are its historical effects? What are its limits and dangers? | |
From: Michel Foucault (Space, Knowledge and Power (interview) [1982], p.358) | |
A reaction: One can hardly deny the fairness of the question, but I hope that won't prevent us from trying to be rational. Maybe logicians do a better job of clarifying reason than the political and historical speculations of Foucault? |
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? |
5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
Full Idea: Quine charges quantified modal systems of logic with giving rise to unintended sense or nonsense, committing us to an incomprehensible ontology, and entailing an implausible or unsustainable Aristotelian essentialism. | |
From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Joseph Melia - Modality Ch.3 | |
A reaction: A nice summary. Personally I like essentialism in accounts of science (see Nature|Laws of Nature|Essentialism), so would like to save it in metaphysics. Possible worlds ontology may be very surprising, rather than 'incomprehensible'. |
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. |
8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
Full Idea: Quine said higher-order logic is 'set theory in sheep's clothing', and there is concern about the ontology that is involved. One approach is to deny quantificational ontological commitments, or say that the entities involved are first-order objects. | |
From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by B Hale / C Wright - Logicism in the 21st Century 8 | |
A reaction: [compressed] The second strategy is from Boolos. This question seems to be right at the heart of the strategy of exploring our ontology through the study of our logic. |
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. |
16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
Full Idea: It has been fairly common in philosophy early and late to distinguish between being, as the broadest concept, and existence, as narrower. This is no distinction of mine; I mean 'exist' to cover all there is. | |
From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.100) | |
A reaction: I sort of agree with Quine, but 'being' has a role in philosophy that is not required in science and daily life, as the name of the central problem of ontology, which probably has to be broken down before any progress can happen. |
16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |
Full Idea: Existence is what existential quantification expresses. …It is unreasonable to ask for an explication of (general) existence in simpler terms. …We may still ask what counts as evidence for existential quantifications. | |
From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.97) | |
A reaction: This has been orthodoxy for the last 60 years, with philosophers talking of 'quantifying over' instead of 'exists'. But are we allowed second-order logic, and plural quantification, and vague domains? |
16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
Full Idea: In the quantification '(∃)(x=a)', it is the existential quantifier, not the 'a' itself, which carries the existential import. | |
From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.94) | |
A reaction: The Fregean idea seems to be that the criterion of existence is participation in an equality, but here the equality seems not more than assigning a name. Why can't I quantify over 'sakes', in 'for the sake of the children'? |
16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
Full Idea: Another way of saying what objects a theory requires is to say that they are the objects that some of the predicates of the theory have to be true of, in order for the theory to be true. | |
From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.95) | |
A reaction: The other was for the objects to be needed by the bound variables of the theory. This is the first-order approach, that predication is a commitment to an object. So what of predicates which have no application? |
4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
Full Idea: According to Quine, we find the ontological commitments of a theory by expressing it in first-order predicate logic, then determining what kind of entities must be admitted as bound variables if the theory is true. | |
From: report of Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.216 | |
A reaction: To me this is horribly wrong. The ontological commitments of our language is not the same as ontology. What are the ontological commitments of a pocket calculator? |
18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
Full Idea: I hold that the question of the ontological commitment of a theory does not properly arise except as that theory is expressed in classical quantificational form. | |
From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.106) | |
A reaction: He is attacking substitutional quantification for its failure to commit. I smell circularity. If it must be quantified in the first-order classical manner, that restricts your ontology to objects before you've even started. Chicken/egg. |
14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
Full Idea: Quine's test for ontological commitment ignores the fact that there are often implicit commitments to certain kinds of entities even where we are not yet quantifying over them. | |
From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 09.4 | |
A reaction: Put this with the obvious problem (of which Quine is aware) that we don't quantify over 'sakes' in 'for the sake of the children', and quantification and commitment have been rather clearly pulled apart. |
16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
Full Idea: In terms of formalized quantification theory, each category comprises the range of some distinctive style of variable. | |
From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.92) | |
A reaction: I add this for those who dream of formalising everything, but be warned that even Quine thought it of little help in deciding on the categories. Presumably there would be some variable that ranged across tigers. |
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. |
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! |
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). |