56 ideas
| 12274 | Begin examination with basics, and subdivide till you can go no further [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The examination must be carried on and begin from the primary classes and then go on step by step until further division is impossible. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 109b17) | |
| A reaction: This is a good slogan for the analytic approach to thought. I take Aristotle (or possibly Socrates) to be the father of analysis, not Frege (though see Idea 9840). (He may be thinking of the tableau method of proof). |
| 12260 | Dialectic starts from generally accepted opinions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning is dialectical which reasons from generally accepted opinions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 100a30) | |
| A reaction: This is right at the heart of Aristotle's philosophical method, and Greek thinking generally. There are nice modern debates about 'folk' understanding, derived from science (e.g. quantum theory) which suggest that starting from normal views is a bad idea. |
| 12291 | There can't be one definition of two things, or two definitions of the same thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There cannot possibly be one definition of two things, or two definitions of the same thing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 154a11) | |
| A reaction: The second half of this is much bolder and more controversial, and plenty of modern thinkers would flatly reject it. Are definitions contextual, that is, designed for some specific human purpose. Must definitions be of causes? |
| 12292 | Definitions are easily destroyed, since they can contain very many assertions [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A definition is the easiest of all things to destroy; for, since it contains many assertions, the opportunities which it offers are very numerous, and the more abundant the material, the more quickly the reasoning can set to work. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 155a03) | |
| A reaction: I quote this to show that Aristotle expected many definitions to be very long affairs (maybe even of book length?) |
| 12261 | Differentia are generic, and belong with genus [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The differentia, being generic in character, should be ranged with the genus. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 101b18) | |
| A reaction: This does not mean that naming the differentia amounts to mere classification. I presume we can only state individual differences by using a language which is crammed full of universals. |
| 12263 | 'Genus' is part of the essence shared among several things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A 'genus' is that which is predicated in the category of essence of several things which differ in kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102a32) | |
| A reaction: Hence a genus is likely to be expressed by a universal, a one-over-many. A particular will be a highly individual collection of various genera, but what ensures the uniqueness of each thing, if they are indiscernible? |
| 12272 | We describe the essence of a particular thing by means of its differentiae [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We usually isolate the appropriate description of the essence of a particular thing by means of the differentiae which are peculiar to it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 108b05) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be important for showing the definition is more than mere categorisation. A good definition homes in the particular, by gradually narrowing down the differentiae. |
| 12279 | The differentia indicate the qualities, but not the essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: No differentia indicates the essence [ti estin], but rather some quality, such as 'pedestrian' or 'biped'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 122b17) | |
| A reaction: We must disentangle this, since essence is what is definable, and definition seems to give us the essence, and yet it appears that definition only requires genus and differentia. Differentiae seem to be both generic and fine-grained. See Idea 12280! |
| 12283 | In definitions the first term to be assigned ought to be the genus [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In definitions the first term to be assigned ought to be the genus. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 132a12) | |
| A reaction: We mustn't be deluded into thinking that nothing else is required. I take the increasing refinement of differentiae to be where the real action is. The genus gives you 70% of the explanation. |
| 12289 | The genera and the differentiae are part of the essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The genera and the differentiae are predicated in the category of essence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 153a19) | |
| A reaction: The definition is words, and the essence is real, so our best definition might not fully attain to the essence. Aristotle has us reaching out to the world through our definitions. |
| 12285 | The definition is peculiar to one thing, not common to many [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The definition ought to be peculiar to one thing, not common to many. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 149b24) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be very important, against those who think that definition is no more than mere categorisation. To explain, you must get down to the level of the individual. We must explain that uniquely docile tiger. |
| 11261 | Puzzles arise when reasoning seems equal on both sides [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The equality of opposite reasonings is the cause of aporia; for it is when we reason on both [sides of a question] and it appears to us that everything can come about either way, that we are in a state of aporia about which of the two ways to take up. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 145b17), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.1 | |
| A reaction: Other philosophers give up on the subject in this situation, but I love Aristotle because he takes this to be the place where philosophy begins. |
| 12273 | Unit is the starting point of number [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: They say that the unit [monada] is the starting point of number (and the point the starting-point of a line). | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 108b30) | |
| A reaction: Yes, despite Frege's objections in the early part of the 'Grundlagen' (1884). I take arithmetic to be rooted in counting, despite all abstract definitions of number by Frege and Dedekind. Identity gives the unit, which is countable. See also Topics 141b9 |
| 12267 | There are ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The four main types of predicates fall into ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103b20) | |
| A reaction: These are the standard ten categories of Aristotle. He is notable for the divisions not being sharp, and ten being a rough total. He is well aware of the limits of precision in such matters. |
| 12282 | An individual property has to exist (in past, present or future) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If it does not at present exist, or, if it has not existed in the past, or if it is not going to exist in the future, it will not be a property [idion] at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 129a27) | |
| A reaction: This seems to cramp our style in counterfactual discussion. Can't we even mention an individual property if we believe that it will never exist. Utopian political discussion will have to cease! |
| 12264 | An 'accident' is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to a thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: An 'accident' [sumbebekos] is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to any one and the self-same thing, such as 'sitting posture' or 'whiteness'. This is the best definition, because it tells us the essential meaning of the term itself. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102b07) | |
| A reaction: Thus a car could be red, or not red. Accidents are contingent. It does not follow that necessary properties are essential (see Idea 12262). There are accidents [sumbebekos], propria [idion] and essences [to ti en einai]. |
| 12280 | Genus gives the essence better than the differentiae do [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In assigning the essence [ti estin], it is more appropriate to state the genus than the differentiae; for he who describes 'man' as an 'animal' indicates his essence better than he who describes him as 'pedestrian'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 128a24) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12279. This idea is only part of the story. My reading of this is simply that assigning a genus gives more information. We learn more about him when we say he is a man than when we say he is Socrates. |
| 13269 | In the case of a house the parts can exist without the whole, so parts are not the whole [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a house, where the process of compounding the parts is obvious, though the parts exist, there is no reason why the whole should not be non-existent, and so the parts are not the same as the whole. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 150a19) | |
| A reaction: Compare buying a piece of furniture, and being surprised to discover, when it is delivered, that it is self-assembly. This idea is a simple refutation of the claims of classical mereology, that wholes are just some parts. Aristotle uses modal claims. |
| 12284 | Everything that is has one single essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Everything that is has one single essence [en esti to einai]. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 141a36) | |
| A reaction: Does this include vague objects, and abstract 'objects'? Sceptics might ask what grounds this claim. Does Dr Jeckyll have two essences? |
| 12262 | An 'idion' belongs uniquely to a thing, but is not part of its essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A property [idion] is something which does not show the essence of a thing but belongs to it alone. ...No one calls anything a property which can possibly belong to something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102a18) | |
| A reaction: [See Charlotte Witt 106 on this] 'Property' is clearly a bad translation for such an individual item. Witt uses 'proprium', which is a necessary but nonessential property of something. Necessity is NOT the hallmark of essence. See Idea 12266. |
| 12290 | Destruction is dissolution of essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Destruction is a dissolution of essence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 153b30) | |
| A reaction: [plucked from context!] I can't think of a better way to define destruction, in order to distinguish it from damage. A vase is destroyed when its essential function cannot be recovered. |
| 12286 | If two things are the same, they must have the same source and origin [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When things are absolutely the same, their coming-into-being and destruction are also the same and so are the agents of their production and destruction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152a02) | |
| A reaction: Thus Queen Elizabeth II has to be the result of that particular birth, and from those particular parents, as Kripke says? The inverse may not be true. Do twins have a single origin? Things that fission and then re-fuse differently? etc |
| 12266 | 'Same' is mainly for names or definitions, but also for propria, and for accidents [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'The same' is employed in several senses: its principal sense is for same name or same definition; a second sense occurs when sameness is applied to a property [idiu]; a third sense is applied to an accident. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103a24-33) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] 'Property' is better translated as 'proprium' - a property unique to a particular thing, but not essential - see Idea 12262. Things are made up of essence, propria and accidents, and three ways of being 'the same' are the result. |
| 12287 | Two identical things have the same accidents, they are the same; if the accidents differ, they're different [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If two things are the same then any accident of one must also be an accident of the other, and, if one of them is an accident of something else, so must the other be also. For, if there is any discrepancy on these points, obviously they are not the same. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152a36) | |
| A reaction: So what is always called 'Leibniz's Law' should actually be 'Aristotle's Law'! I can't see anything missing from the Aristotle version, but then, since most people think it is pretty obvious, you would expect the great stater of the obvious to get it. |
| 12288 | Numerical sameness and generic sameness are not the same [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things which are the same specifically or generically are not necessarily the same or cannot possibly be the same numerically. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152b32) | |
| A reaction: See also Idea 12266. This looks to me to be a pretty precise anticipation of Peirce's type/token distinction, but without the terminology. It is reassuring that Aristotle spotted it, as that makes it more likely to be a genuine distinction. |
| 12259 | Reasoning is when some results follow necessarily from certain claims [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning [sullogismos] is a discussion in which, certain things having been laid down, something other than these things necessarily results through them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 100a25) | |
| A reaction: This is cited as the standard statement of the nature of logical necessity. One might challenge either the very word 'necessary', or the exact sense of the word employed here. Is it, in fact, metaphysical, or merely analytic? |
| 12271 | Induction is the progress from particulars to universals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Induction is the progress from particulars to universals; if the skilled pilot is the best pilot and the skilled charioteer the best charioteer, then, in general, the skilled man is the best man in any particular sphere. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 105a15) | |
| A reaction: It is a bit unclear whether we are deriving universal concepts, or merely general truths. Need general truths be absolute or necessary truths? Presumably occasionally the best person is not the most skilled, as in playing a musical instrument. |
| 12293 | We say 'so in cases of this kind', but how do you decide what is 'of this kind'? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When it is necessary to establish the universal, people use the expression 'So in all cases of this kind'; but it is one of the most difficult tasks to define which of the terms proposed are 'of this kind' and which are not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 157a25) | |
| A reaction: It is particularly hard if induction is expressed as the search for universals, since the kind presumably is the universal, so the universal must be known before the induction can apply, which really is the most frightful nuisance for truth-seekers. |
| 21833 | Research suggest that we overrate conscious experience [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The emerging consensus is that we probably overrate the power of conscious experience in our lives. Freud, of course, said the same thing for different reasons. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Ontology') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Pockett, Banks and Gallagher 2006]. Freud was concerned with big deep secrets, but the modern view concerns ordinary decisions and perceptions. An important idea, which should incline us all to become Nietzscheans. |
| 21834 | Sensations may be identical to brain events, but complex mental events don't seem to be [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: There is still some hope for something like identity theory for sensations. But almost no one believes that strict identity theory will work for more complex mental states. Strict identity is stronger than type neurophysicalism. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Ontology') | |
| A reaction: It is so hard to express the problem. What needs to be explained? How can one bunch of neurons represent many different things? It's not like computing. That just transfers the data to brains, where the puzzling stuff happens. |
| 12157 | Kant gave form and status to aesthetics, and Hegel gave it content [Kant, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Kant gave form and status to aesthetics, and Hegel endowed it with content. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Recent Aesthetics in England and America p.3 |
| 20346 | The aesthetic attitude is a matter of disinterestedness [Kant, by Wollheim] |
| Full Idea: The aesthetic attitude is defined by Kant in terms of disinterestedness. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Richard Wollheim - Art and Its Objects 54 | |
| A reaction: This is presumably, mainly, to explain our enjoyment of the miseries of tragedy. We just give ourselves up to a merry jig by Haydn. |
| 18547 | Only rational beings can experience beauty [Kant, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Kant is surely right that the experience of beauty, like the judgements in which it issues, is the prerogative of rational beings. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Beauty: a very short introduction 1 | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how Scruton can say that Kant is 'surely right'. It is an interesting speculation. Are we to dogmatically affirm that bees get no aesthetic thrill when they spot a promising flower? Something in their little brains attracts them. |
| 24172 | It is hard to see why we would have developed Kant's 'disinterested' aesthetic attitude [Cochrane on Kant] |
| Full Idea: The Kantian notion of disinterest isolated aesthetic value from the rest of our lives. It is hard to understand why we should have developed a tendency that is detached from our everyday practical purposes. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], §2) by Tom Cochrane - The Aesthetic Value of the World 1.4 | |
| A reaction: Cochrane always seeks an evolutionary framework for accounts of aesthetics, and I agree with him. That doesn't devalue them. The best things in life, like piano music, are obviously offshoots of things which evolved for other reasons. |
| 20408 | With respect to the senses, taste is an entirely personal matter [Kant] |
| Full Idea: With regard to the agreeable, the principle Everyone has his own taste (of the senses) is valid. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 7 5:212), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 1 | |
| A reaction: This is a preliminary concession, and he goes on to defend more objective views of taste. |
| 20409 | When we judge beauty, it isn't just personal; we judge on behalf of everybody [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is ridiculous if someone justifies his tast by saying 'this object is beautiful for me'. . .If he pronounces that something is beautiful, then he expects the very same satisfaction of others: he judges not merely for himself, but for everyone. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 7 5:213), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 1 | |
| A reaction: For Kant this would also be the hallmark of rationality - that we expect, or hope for, a consensus when we express a rational judgement. But this expectation is far less in cases of beauty. We do not expect total agreement from very tasteful people. |
| 20411 | Saying everyone has their own taste destroys the very idea of taste [Kant] |
| Full Idea: To say thast 'Everyone has his special taste' would be to dismiss the very possibility of aesthetic taste, and to deny that there could be aesthetic judgement 'that could make a rightful claim to the assent of everyone'. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 7 5:213), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.2 | |
| A reaction: I am a great believer in the objectivity of taste (within sensible reason). But the great evidence against it is the shifting standards of taste over the centuries. Nineteenth century collectors wasted fortunes on inferior works, it seems to us. |
| 24170 | Kant thinks beauty ignores its objects, because it is only 'form' engaging with mind [Cochrane on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Kant thinks that the ideal of beauty requires no concept of what the object is. Universality demands that appreciation be purely a matter of the way the form of the object fits one's cognitive machinery. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Tom Cochrane - The Aesthetic Value of the World 1.3 | |
| A reaction: This confirms further my increasingly negative view of Kant. Everything in him points to idealism (despite denials by his fans), and via Hegel we arrive at the idea that our values are all 'cultural constructs', rather than responses to reality. |
| 22711 | The beautiful is not conceptualised as moral, but it symbolises or resembles goodness [Kant, by Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Kant insists that the beautiful must not be tainted with the good (that is, not conceptualised in any way which would bring it into the sphere of moral judgement) yet he says that the beautiful symbolises the good, it is an analogy of the good. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Iris Murdoch - The Sublime and the Good p.209 | |
| A reaction: Kant evidently wanted a very pure view of the aesthetic experience, drained of any overlapping feelings or beliefs. I'm not sure I understand how the beautiful can symbolise or be analogous to the good, while being devoid of it. |
| 4025 | Kant saw beauty as a sort of disinterested pleasure, which has become separate from the good [Kant, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: Kant, in his third critique, defined beauty in terms of a certain kind of disinterested pleasure;….this is the basis for a declaration of independence of the beautiful relative to the good. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §23.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a rebellion against the Greeks, especially Plato, and prepares the ground for the idea of 'art for art's sake'. Personally, I'm with Plato. |
| 20412 | Beauty is only judged in pure contemplation, and not with something else at stake [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If the question is whether something is beautiful, one does not want to know whether there is something that is or that could be at stake, for us or for someone else, in the existence of the thing, but rather how we judge it in mere contemplation. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 2 5:204), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.3 | |
| A reaction: This evidently denies that function has anything to do with beauty, and seems to be a prelude to 'art for art's sake'. But a running cheetah cannot be separated from the sheer efficiencey and focus of the performance. |
| 22046 | The mathematical sublime is immeasurable greatness; the dynamical sublime is overpowering [Kant, by Pinkard] |
| Full Idea: Kant distinguished the 'mathematical' and 'dynamical' sublime. The former involves immeasurable greatness (or smallness) such that we cannot even present them to ourselves. The latter is of something large and overpowering, which we can morally resist. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 13 | |
| A reaction: Presumably Cantor revealed the full extent of the mathematical sublime ('heaven', according to Hilbert). We await the comet that destroys the Earth to fully experience the other one. |
| 21458 | The sublime is a moral experience [Kant, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: The sublime is understood by Kant as a moral experience. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], 28-9) by Sebastian Gardner - Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason 09 'Judgment' | |
| A reaction: Gardner give the source in Kant. I can't accept that the initial experience of the sublime is moral in character. It could easily acquire a moral character after contemplation by someone who had such inclinations. |
| 5643 | Aesthetic values are not objectively valid, but we must treat them as if they are [Kant, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The 'Critique of Judgement' argues, then, not for the objective validity of aesthetic values, but for the fact that we must think of them as objectively valid. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy §11.7 | |
| A reaction: The trouble with these transcendental arguments of Kant is that they render you powerless to discuss the question of whether values are actually objective. We are all trapped in presuppositions, instead of testing suppositions. |
| 20410 | The judgement of beauty is not cognitive, but relates, via imagination, to pleasurable feelings [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In order to understand whether or not something is beautiful, we do not relate the representation by means of understanding to the object for cognition, but relate it by means of the imagination ..to the subject and its feeling of pleasure or displeasure. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic [1790], CUP 1 5:203), quoted by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 2.1 | |
| A reaction: This is to distinguish the particular type of judgement which counts as 'aesthetic' - the point being that it is not cognitive - it is not a matter of knowledge and facts, but a cool judgement made about a warm feeling of pleasure. I think. |
| 21837 | Morality is normative because it identifies best practices among the normal practices [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Morality is 'normative' in the sense that it consists of the extraction of 'good' or 'excellent' practices from common practices. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 4 'Naturalism') | |
| A reaction: I take normativity not be the mere labelling of certain things as 'good', but as a way of responding to that fact, with some sort of motivation. |
| 21830 | For Darwinians, altruism is either contracts or genetics [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Two explanations came forward in the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Altruism is either 1) person-based reciprocal altruism, or 2) gene-based kin altruism. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Darwin') | |
| A reaction: Flanagan obviously thinks there is also 'genuine psychological atruism'. Presumably we don't explain mathematics or music or the desire to travel as either contracts or genetics, so we have other explanations available. |
| 21835 | We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It would be nice if I could advance the case for Eudaimonics - empirical enquiry into the nature, causes, and constituents of flourishing, …and the case for some ways of living and being as better than others. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 4 'Normative') | |
| A reaction: Things seem to be moving in that direction. Lots of statistics about happiness have been appearing. |
| 12276 | Justice and self-control are better than courage, because they are always useful [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Justice [dikaiosune] and self-control [sophrosune] are preferable to courage, for the first two are always useful, but courage only sometimes. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 117a36) | |
| A reaction: One could challenge his criterion. What of something which is absolutely vital on occasions, against something which is very mildly useful all the time? You may survive without justice, but not without courage. Compare Idea 12277. |
| 12277 | Friendship is preferable to money, since its excess is preferable [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Friendship is preferable to money; for excess of friendship is preferable to excess of money. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 118b07) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 12276, which gives a different criterion for choosing between virtues. This idea is an interesting qualification of the doctrine of the mean. |
| 12275 | We value friendship just for its own sake [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We value friendship for its own sake, even if we are not likely to get anything else from it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 117a03) | |
| A reaction: In 'Ethics' he distinguishes some friendships which don't meet this requirement. Presumably true friendships survive all vicissitudes (except betrayal), but that makes such things fairly rare. |
| 12281 | Man is intrinsically a civilized animal [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is an essential [kath' auto] property of man to be 'by nature a civilized animal'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 128b17) | |
| A reaction: I take this, along with man being intrinsically rational, to be the foundation of Aristotelian ethics. Given that we are civilized, self-evident criteria emerge for how to be good at it. A good person is, above all, a good citizen. |
| 21831 | Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: What Marx called 'alienation' is the widespread condition of not being able to discover what one wants, or not being remotely positioned to achieve. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Expanding') | |
| A reaction: I took alienation to concern people's relationship to the means of production in their trade. On Flanagan's definition I would expect almost everyone aged under 20 to count as alienated. |
| 12265 | All water is the same, because of a certain similarity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Any water is said to be specifically the same as any other water because it has a certain similarity to it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103a20) | |
| A reaction: (Cf. Idea 8153) It take this to be the hallmark of a natural kind, and we should not lose sight of it in the midst of discussions about rigid designation and essential identity. Tigers are only a natural kind insofar as they are indistinguishable. |
| 12278 | 'Being' and 'oneness' are predicated of everything which exists [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'Being' and 'oneness' are predicated of everything which exists. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 121a18) | |
| A reaction: Is 'oneness' predicated of water? So existence always was a predicate, it seems, until Kant told us it wasn't. That existence is a quantifier, not a predicate, seems to be up for question again these days. |
| 21832 | Buddhists reject God and the self, and accept suffering as key, and liberation through wisdom [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Buddhism rejected the idea of a creator God, and the unchanging self [atman]. They accept the appearance-reality distinction, reward for virtue [karma], suffering defining our predicament, and that liberation [nirvana] is possible through wisdom. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Buddhism') | |
| A reaction: [Compressed] Flanagan is an analytic philosopher and a practising Buddhist. Looking at a happiness map today which shows Europeans largely happy, and Africans largely miserable, I can see why they thought suffering was basic. |