55 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?) |
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. |
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? |
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. |
12619 | We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor] |
Full Idea: There are practically no defensible examples of definitions; for all the examples we've got, practically all the words (/concepts) are undefinable. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I don't think a definition has to be defined all the way down. Aristotle is perfectly happy if you can get a concept you don't understand down to concepts you do. Understanding is the test, not further definitions. |
18928 | If maximalism is necessary, then that nothing exists has a truthmaker, which it can't have [Cameron] |
Full Idea: I think truthmaker theory is contingently true. [n24] If there could have been nothing, what makes that true? But if truthmaker maximalism is a necessary truth, there's necessarily something. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4 n24) | |
A reaction: Truthmaking is beginning to feel like Gödel's Theorems. You can 'make' lots and lots of truths ('prove' in Gödel), but there will be truths that elude the making. Truthmaker theory itself will be one example. So is Maximalism another one? |
18931 | Determinate truths don't need extra truthmakers, just truthmakers that are themselves determinate [Cameron] |
Full Idea: I reject saying there must be an additional truthmaker for 'Determinately, p': rather, I say that the truthmaker for p must simply be a determinate existent rather than a mere existent. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 6) | |
A reaction: As he puts it (quite persuasively), God doesn't need to add an extra truthmaker for a determinate truth. Cameron rejects Necessitarianism. He uses 'determinate' fairly uncritically. What makes the truth of the truthmaker's determinacy? |
18932 | The facts about the existence of truthmakers can't have a further explanation [Cameron] |
Full Idea: The orthodox truthmaker theorist thinks the facts concerning the existence of the truthmakers do not admit of further explanation. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 6) | |
A reaction: It is fairly obvious, I suppose, that not every truth can have a truthmaker, just as the verification principle could not be verified, and you can't perceive your perception in order to check it. Could God withdraw the power of truthmaking? |
18923 | The present property 'having been F' says nothing about a thing's intrinsic nature [Cameron] |
Full Idea: The property 'being such as to have been a child' is suspicious because it points beyond its instances in the sense that a thing's presently having that property tells us nothing about the present intrinsic nature of the thing. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 2) | |
A reaction: This is his objection to what he calls the 'Lucretian' strategy, which tries to make history into a property of present reality. That is implausible, I think, because there is no test for the property, apart from knowledge of the past. Reality is tensed? |
18926 | One temporal distibution property grounds our present and past truths [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Temporal distributional properties are fundamental - it is exactly the same property that is grounding the truth about how the bearer now is that is grounding truths about how the bearer was. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4) | |
A reaction: Some kind of slight of hand is going on here, though he does a nice job of confronting all possible objections. This is the sort of metaphysics you come up with when you stake everything on the dubious notion of a 'property'. |
18929 | We don't want present truthmakers for the past, if they are about to cease to exist! [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Whilst not logically inconsistent, it would be bad if it could now be true that ten years ago there was a sea battle, but that five years ago it wasn't true that five years before that there was a sea battle. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4) | |
A reaction: Nicely makes the point that you can't let the past rely on truthmakers in the present, if those truthmakers are about to go out of existence. So you need a sustained truthmaker, without giving up presentism. Enter 'temporally distributed properties'? |
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 |
12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
Full Idea: People say 'exist' is ambiguous, because of the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers is strikingly like the difference between chairs and numbers. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: To say 'numbers are objects which exist' is, to me, either a funny use of 'exist' or a funny use of 'object'. I think I will now vote for the latter. Just as 'real number' was a funny use of 'number', but we seem to have got used to it. |
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]. |
18924 | Being polka-dotted is a 'spatial distribution' property [Cameron] |
Full Idea: Spatial distribution properties say how things are across a region of space, such as being polka-dotted. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 3) | |
A reaction: I think the routine fallacy of inferring properties from predicates is buried here. We truthfully describe it as 'polka-dotted', but that doesn't mean we must reify polka-dottedness, and see it as a feature of the world. What is a 'jumbled' space? |
12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Using dispositional analyses in aid of ontological reductions is what empiricism taught us. If you are down on cats, reduce them to permanent possibilities of sensation; if you are down on electrons, reduce them to possibilities of experimental outcome. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: The cats line is phenomenalism; the electrons line is instrumentalism. I like this as a serious warning about dispositions, even where they seem most plausible, as in the disposition of glass to break when struck. Why is it thus disposed? |
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. |
18930 | Change is instantiation of a non-uniform distributional property, like 'being red-then-orange' [Cameron] |
Full Idea: What change is on the account being offered is to instantiate a non-uniform distributional property. Being red at one time and orange at a later time is to be analysed as instantiating the distributional property 'being red-then-orange'. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4) | |
A reaction: One of those moments when you begin to doubt whether 'being analysed' successfully actually adds much to our wisdom. His property sounds suspiciously 'gruesome' - i.e. subject to the vagaries of how we chose to describe the thing. |
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? |
12617 | Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The essential problem is to explain how thinking manages reliably to preserve truth; and Associationism, as Kant rightly pointed out to Hume, hasn't the resources to do so. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: One might be able to give an associationist account of truth-preservation if one became a bit more externalist about it, so that the normal association patterns track their connections with the external world. |
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. |
12615 | Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The idea that there are mental representations is the idea that there are Ideas minus the idea that Ideas are images. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Good for you, Fodor. I've always thought that the vociferous contempt with which modern philosphers refer to the old notion of 'Ideas' was grossly exaggerated. At last someone puts a clear finger on what seems to be the difficulty. |
6650 | Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe] |
Full Idea: Fodor has recently changed his mind about the innateness of concepts, which he formerly championed. | |
From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.7 n25 | |
A reaction: There is some sensible middle road to be charted here. We presumably do not have an innate idea of a screwdriver, but there are plenty of basic concepts in logic and perception that are plausibly thought of as innate. |
12618 | It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Nothing in any mental life could be the concept CAT unless it is satisfied by cats. If you haven't got a concept that applies to cats, that entails that you haven't got the CAT concept. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Of course, having a concept that applies to cats doesn't entail that you have the CAT concept. Quine's 'gavagai', for example. I think Fodor is right in this idea. |
12614 | I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor] |
Full Idea: I argue for a very strong version of psychological atomism; one according to which what concepts you have is conceptually and metaphysically independent of what epistemic capacities you have. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This is a frontal assault on the tradition of Frege, Dummett and Peacocke. I immediately find Fodor's approach more congenial, because he wants to say what a concept IS, rather than just place it within some larger scheme of things. |
12621 | Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The definition theory says that concepts are complex structures which entail their constituents. By saying this, it guarantees both the connection between content and necessity, and the connection between concept individuation and concept possession. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: He cites Pinker as a spokesman for the definitional view. This is the view Fodor attacks, in favour of his atomistic account. He adds in a note that his view also offered to reduce conceptual truth to logical truth. |
12622 | Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Many concepts have no prototypes; and there are many complex concepts whose prototypes aren't related to the prototypes of their constituents in the way compositional explanation of productivity and systematicity requires. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: His favourite example of the latter is 'pet fish', where the prototype of 'pet' is hardly ever a fish, and the prototype of 'fish' is usually much bigger than goldfish. Fodor is arguing that concepts are atomic. |
12623 | The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If the theory theory has a distinctive and coherent answer to the 'What's a concept?' question on offer, it's a well-kept secret. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Not an argument, but worth recording as an attitude. I certainly agree that accounts which offer some sort of answer to 'What is a concept?' have an immediate head's start on those which don't. |
12616 | English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor] |
Full Idea: English has no semantics. Learning English isn't learning a theory about what its sentences mean, it's learning how to associate its sentences with the corresponding thoughts. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This sounds remarkably close to John Locke's account of language (which I always thought was seriously underrated). Presumably we can then say that the 'thought' (or Locke's 'idea') is the meaning, which is old-fashioned real meanings. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
18927 | Surely if things extend over time, then time itself must be extended? [Cameron] |
Full Idea: If there are temporally extended entities - and there are - then there must be extended regions of time for those entities to extend in. Hence presentism is false. | |
From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4) | |
A reaction: [Cameron is playing devil's advocate] Something has to be weird here, and I take it to be the fact that the past no longer exists, and yet it is fixed and supports truths. Get over it. My childhood has gone. Totally. Irrevocably. |
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. |