65 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. |
17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
Full Idea: Maybe strict identity only applies to the particulars (the molecules) in a case of vague identity. …It seems, however, utopian to suppose that we will ever reach a level of ultimate, basic particulars for which identity relations are never vague. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 18) | |
A reaction: I agree with this. Ladyman and Ross laugh at the unscientific picture found in dreams of 'simples'. |
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. |
11868 | A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke] |
Full Idea: Could the artificer not, when he made the table, have taken other pieces? Surely he could. [n37: I venture to think that Kripke's argument in note 56 for the necessity of constitution depends on treating constitution as if it were identity]. | |
From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 56) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.11 | |
A reaction: Suppose the craftsman completed the table, then changed a piece of wood in it for some reason. Has he now made a second table and destroyed the first one? Wiggins seems to be right. |
17044 | A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation [Kripke] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that a relation, being essentially two-termed, cannot hold between a thing and itself. This position is plainly absurd ('he is his own worst enemy'). Identity is nothing but the smallest reflexive relation. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 50) | |
A reaction: I have no idea what 'smallest' means here. I can't be 'to the left of myself', so not all of my relations can be reflexive. I just don't understand what it means to say something is 'identical with itself'. You've got the thing - what have you added? |
16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
Full Idea: When the identity relation is vague, it may seem intransitive; a claim of apparent identity may yield an apparent non-identity. Some sort of 'counterpart' notion may have some utility here. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 18) | |
A reaction: He firmly rejects the full Lewis apparatus of counterparts. The idea would be that a river at different times had counterpart relations, not strict identity. I like the word 'same' for this situation. Most worldly 'identity' is intransitive. |
17058 | What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary [Kripke] |
Full Idea: My third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary tout court. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (g)) | |
A reaction: He avoids the term 'metaphysically necessary', which most people would not use for this point. |
4970 | What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity [Kripke] |
Full Idea: My third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary 'tout court'. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (g)) | |
A reaction: This huge claim rides in on the back of Kripke's very useful clarifications. It is the 'new essentialism', and seems to me untenable in this form. There is no answer to Hume's request for evidence of necessity. Why can't essences (and laws) change? |
2730 | Because 'gold is malleable' is necessary does not mean that it is analytic [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Taking the proposition that gold is malleable to be necessary does not commit one to considering it analytic. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.116) |
17059 | Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If the unicorn myth is supposed to be a particular species, with insufficient internal structure to determine it uniquely, then there is no actual or possible species of which we can say that it would have been the species of unicorns. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (a)) | |
A reaction: Dummett and Rumfitt discuss this proposal elsewhere. |
4950 | Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere [Kripke] |
Full Idea: The apparatus of possible worlds has (I hope) been very useful as far as the set-theoretic model-theory of quantified modal logic is concerned, but has encouraged philosophical pseudo-problems and misleading pictures. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 15) | |
A reaction: This is presumably a swipe at David Lewis, who claims possible worlds are real. The fact that the originator of possible worlds sees them as unproblematic doesn't mean they are. Fine if they are a game, but if they assert truth, they need a metaphysics. |
17003 | Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke] |
Full Idea: It is useful to have an operator which transforms each description into a term which rigidly designates the object actually satisfying the description. David Kaplan has proposed such an operator and calls it 'Dthat'. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 22) |
9221 | The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider] |
Full Idea: The most famous objection to counterparts is Kripke's objection that Hubert Humphrey wouldn't care if he thought that his counterpart might have won the 1972 election. He wishes that he had won it. | |
From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 12) by Theodore Sider - Reductive Theories of Modality 3.10 | |
A reaction: Like Sider, I find this unconvincing. If there is a world in which I don't exist, but my very close counterpart does (say exactly me, but with a finger missing), I am likely to care more about such a person than about complete strangers. |
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. |
2715 | Beliefs are based on perception, memory, introspection or reason [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: The four basic kinds of belief are rooted in perception, memory, introspective consciousness, and reason. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], Intr.p.7) |
2735 | Could you have a single belief on its own? [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Could one have just a single belief? | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.198) |
2736 | We can make certain of what we know, so knowing does not entail certainty [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: The possibility of making certain of what we already know suggests that knowing a proposition does not entail its being certain. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.220) |
2721 | If you gradually remove a book's sensory properties, what is left at the end? [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: If you imagine subtracting a book's sensory properties one by one, what is left of it? | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.42) |
2722 | Sense-data theory is indirect realism, but phenomenalism is direct irrealism [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Where the sense-datum theory is an indirect realism, phenomenalism is a direct irrealism. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.43) |
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. |
17052 | The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If statements whose a priori truth is known via the fixing of a reference are counted as analytic, then some analytic truths are contingent. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 63) |
2727 | Red and green being exclusive colours seems to be rationally graspable but not analytic [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: The proposition that nothing is red and green all over at once is not analytic, but it is rationally graspable, so it seems to be an a priori synthetic proposition. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.100) |
2728 | The concepts needed for a priori thought may come from experience [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: I may well need experience to acquire the concepts needed for knowledge of the a priori, such as the concept of a colour. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.103) |
2717 | How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it? [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it? | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.20) |
2716 | To see something as a field, I obviously need the concept of a field [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: The propositional belief which portrays what I see in front of me AS a field requires my having a concept of one. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.17) | |
A reaction: To me this immediately invites the question of what a cow or horse experiences when they look at a familiar field. They know how to leave and enter it, and register its boundaries and qualities. Concepts? |
2719 | Sense data imply representative realism, possibly only representing primary qualities [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: A sense-datum theory might be called a representative realism because it conceives perception as a relation in which sense-data represent perceived external (hence real) objects to us. For Locke they were resemblances only of primary qualities. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.33) |
2720 | Sense-data (and the rival 'adverbial' theory) are to explain illusions and hallucinations [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: The sense-datum theory is mainly to explain hallucinations and illusions, though there might be other theories, such as the 'adverbial' theory. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.36) |
2718 | Perception is first simple, then objectual (with concepts) and then propositional [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Simple perceiving gives rise to objectual perceiving (attaching concepts to the object), which gives rise to propositional perceiving. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.23) |
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. |
2741 | The principles of justification have to be a priori [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: The crucial principles of justification are a priori. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], X p.311) |
2729 | Virtually all rationalists assert that we can have knowledge of synthetic a priori truths [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Rationalists virtually always assert or imply that, in addition to knowledge of analytic truths, there is knowledge of synthetic a priori truths. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.105) |
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). |
2725 | To remember something is to know it [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Remembering something is so entails knowing that it is so. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], II p.68) | |
A reaction: Clearly I can say I "remember" x, but be wrong. Presumably we then say that I didn't really remember, which requires success, like "I know". It is true (as with "know") that as soon as I say that the something is false, I can't claim to remember it. |
2724 | I might remember someone I can't recall or image, by recognising them on meeting [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: If I can neither recall nor image Jane I can still remember her, for on seeing her I might recognise her, and might remember, and even recall, our last meeting. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], II p.66) | |
A reaction: Hm. I can hardly claim to remember her if I have no concept of her, and don't recall our last meeting. If seeing her triggers recognition, I would say that I NOW remember her, but I didn't before. Memory is more conscious than Audi claims. |
2731 | Justification is either unanchored (infinite or circular), or anchored (in knowledge or non-knowledge) [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: There are four possible kinds of epistemic chain: infinite and unanchored, circular and unanchored, anchored in a belief which is not knowledge, and anchored in a belief which is bedrock knowledge. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.183) | |
A reaction: About right, though I don't think 'chain' is the right word for what is proposed if justification is to be coherent. The justifications float like lilies in the pond of reason, and a Self (Monet?) seems needed to assess the picture |
2739 | Internalism about justification implies that there is a right to believe something [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Internalists about justification tend to conceive of it as a matter of having a right to believe something. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.234) | |
A reaction: I'm an internalist, but I don't understand this, unless it refers to the social aspect of justification. Can I grant myself internal rights? I can justify my belief to other people. |
2732 | Maths may be consistent with observations, but not coherent [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: That 7+5=12 and that carrots are nourishing are mutually consistent, but do not exhibit coherence. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.192) | |
A reaction: This shows how difficult it would be to define 'coherent'. Is 'carrots are nourishing' coherent with 'fish are nourishing'? Is the battle of Hastings coherent with the battle of Waterloo? |
2733 | It is very hard to show how much coherence is needed for justification [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: It is very difficult to specify when an explanatory relation generates enough coherence to create justification. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.193) | |
A reaction: I take coherence to be the key concept in epistemology, and quite impossible to define. This is why the 'space of reasons' is a useful concept. It is a courtroom, in which each case is different. |
2734 | A consistent madman could have a very coherent belief system [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: A schizophrenic who thinks he is Napoleon, if he has a completely consistent story with enough interlocking details, may have a belief system that is superbly coherent. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.194) | |
A reaction: This is an exaggeration, but the fact is that one isolated lie is totally coherent, so coherence can only emerge when a system is large. Sense experience must be central to coherence. |
2738 | Consistent accurate prediction looks like knowledge without justified belief [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: If someone consistently prophesied the winners of horse races, it appears that this man knows who will win the races, but surely he does not have justified beliefs as to who will win? | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.229) | |
A reaction: This is where internalists and externalists (notably reliabilists) sharply part company. IF a reliable clairvoyant appeared, we would eventually accept them as a knower. But they DON'T appear, because knowledge needs justification! |
2740 | A reliability theory of knowledge seems to involve truth as correspondence [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: If one favours a reliability theory of knowledge (which is externalist) the correspondence theory of truth seems the most appropriate. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.243) | |
A reaction: Sounds right. Coherence implies some sort of internal assessment, whereas correspondence just needs to plugged into the facts. I like coherence justification and correspondence truth. |
2737 | 'Reliable' is a very imprecise term, and may even mean 'justified' [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: Reliabilism cannot specify how reliable a process must be before it grounds knowledge, and it cannot specify what is reliable in the first place. 'Reliable' may become circular, and may mean 'justified'. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.225) | |
A reaction: The first time you ever read an instrument, or talk to a stranger, you have no indication of reliability. Circularity looks like a big problem. Knowledge must precede reliability? |
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. |
4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |
Full Idea: I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 77) | |
A reaction: Kripke opposes reductive physicalism, but is NOT committed to dualism. He seems to be drawn to Davidson or Nagel (see his note 73). I think his discussion of contingent mind-brain identity is confused. |
2726 | We can be ignorant about ourselves, for example, our desires and motives [Audi,R] |
Full Idea: We can have false beliefs, or some degree of ignorance, about our own mental lives. For example, about our own dispositions, such as not believing that we have a certain ignoble desire. | |
From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], III p.83) | |
A reaction: This idea, that we don't know ourselves, has become a commonplace of recent philosophy, but I am unconvinced. Mostly we know only too well that we harbour a base desire, and we feel a creeping sense of shame. Total ignorance is very rare. |
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. |
4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |
Full Idea: In some cases an object may be identified, and the reference of a name fixed, using a description which may turn out to be false of its object. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 34) | |
A reaction: This is clearly possible. Someone could be identified as 'the criminal' when they were actually innocent. Nevertheless, how do you remember which person was baptised 'Aristotle' if you don't hang on to a description, even a false one? |
17032 | Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel' [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If a Gödelian fraud were exposed, Gödel would no longer be called 'the author of the incompleteness theorem', but he would still be called 'Gödel'. The description, therefore, does not abbreviate the name. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 37) | |
A reaction: Clearly we can't make the description a necessary fact about Gödel, but that doesn't invalidate the idea that successful reference needs some description. E.g. Gödel is a person. |
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 Michčle 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). |