56 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. |
6848 | Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Humour, for me, is practically enacted philosophy. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
A reaction: This may be overstating it, as the funniest jokes may be the least philosophical, and remarks may be faintly amusing but very profound. Lear and his Fool make up a single worldview together. |
6847 | Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Humour provides an oblique phenomenology of ordinary life; it is a way of describing the situation of our existence, and, at its best, it indicates how we might change that situation. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
A reaction: The trouble is that this leads us to relentlessly political standup comedians who aren't very funny. Critichley may have a problem with remarks which are very funny precisely because they are so politically incorrect. I sympathise, though. |
6844 | Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Scientism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained through the methodology of the natural sciences, and the belief that, therefore, all phenomena are capable of a causal explanation. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.196) | |
A reaction: He links two ideas together, but I tend to subscribe fully to the second idea, but less fully to the first. Scientific method, if there is such a thing (Idea 6804), may not be the best way to lay bare the causal network of reality. |
6835 | German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley] |
Full Idea: In his Third Critique Kant established a series of dualisms (pure/practical reason, nature/freedom, epistemology/ethics) but failed to provide a unifying principle; German idealism can be seen as an attempt to provide this principle. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.187) | |
A reaction: He cites 'subject', 'spirit', 'art', 'will to power', 'praxis' and 'being' as candidates. This is a helpful overview for someone struggling to get to grips with that tradition. |
6836 | Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley] |
Full Idea: If reason must criticise itself (in Kant) how does one avoid total scepticism? In my view, the problem that has animated the continental tradition since Jacobi (early 19th cent) is the threat of nihilism. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
A reaction: As an outsider to 'continental' philosophy, this is the most illuminating remark I have read about it. It is not only a plausible account of the movement, but also a very worth aim, which should be taken seriously by analytical philosophers. |
6837 | Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley] |
Full Idea: In continental philosophy from Hegel onwards, systematic philosophical questions have to be linked to socio-historical enquiry, and the distinctions between philosophy, history and society begin to fall apart. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.188) | |
A reaction: I have a strong sales resistance to this view of philosophy, just as I would if it was said about mathematics. It seems to imply a bogus view that history exhibits direction and purpose (the 'Whig' view). There are pure reasons among the prejudices. |
6838 | Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley] |
Full Idea: The basic map of the continental tradition can be summarised in three terms: critique, praxis and emancipation. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.189) | |
A reaction: I wince at 'emancipation', which seems to take freedom as of unquestionably high value, instead of being one of the principles up for question in social philosophy. There are more presuppositions in Marxist than in analytical philosophy. |
6845 | Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley] |
Full Idea: In continental philosophy there is a pernicious tendency to explain everything in terms of 'one big thing', such as the 'death drive' (Freud), 'being' (Heidegger), 'the real' (Lacan), 'power' (Foucault), 'the other' (Levinas), or 'différance' (Derrida). | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.197) | |
A reaction: From a fan of this type of philosophy, this is a refreshing remark, because if pinpoints a very off-putting feature. Each of these 'big things' should be up for question, not offered as axiomatic assumptions that explain everything else. |
6846 | Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley] |
Full Idea: Phenomenology (as in the later Husserl) is for me a way of assembling reminders which clarify the social world in which we exist; it is a technique of redescription. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.198) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure if I can identify with this as a target for philosophy, but it is interesting and sound worthy of effort. Critchley offers this as the best strand in 'continental' philosophy, rather than the big explanatory ideas. |
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? |
10455 | Free logic at least allows empty names, but struggles to express non-existence [Bach] |
Full Idea: Unlike standard first-order logic, free logic can allow empty names, but still has to deny existence by either representing it as a predicate, or invoke some dubious distinction such as between existence and being. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
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. |
10454 | In first-order we can't just assert existence, and it is very hard to deny something's existence [Bach] |
Full Idea: In standard logic we can't straightforwardly say that n exists. We have to resort to using a formula like '∃x(x=n)', but we can't deny n's existence by negating that formula, because standard first-order logic disallows empty names. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
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. |
10453 | In logic constants play the role of proper names [Bach] |
Full Idea: In standard first-order logic the role of proper names is played by individual constants. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
10452 | Proper names can be non-referential - even predicate as well as attributive uses [Bach] |
Full Idea: Like it or not, proper names have non-referential uses, including not only attributive but even predicate uses. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) | |
A reaction: 'He's a right little Hitler'. 'You're doing a George Bush again'. 'Try to live up to the name of Churchill'. |
10456 | Millian names struggle with existence, empty names, identities and attitude ascription [Bach] |
Full Idea: The familiar problems with the Millian view of names are the problem of positive and negative existential statements, empty names, identity sentences, and propositional attitude ascription. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) | |
A reaction: I take this combination of problems to make an overwhelming case against the daft idea that the semantics of a name amounts to the actual object it picks out. It is a category mistake to attempt to insert a person into a sentence. |
10440 | An object can be described without being referred to [Bach] |
Full Idea: An object can be described without being referred to. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear how this is possible for a well-known object, though it is clearly possible for a speculative object, such as a gadget I would like to buy. In the former case reference seems to occur even if the speaker is trying to avoid it. |
10444 | Definite descriptions can be used to refer, but are not semantically referential [Bach] |
Full Idea: If Russell is, as I believe, basically right, then definite descriptions are the paradigm of singular terms that can be used to refer but are not linguistically (semantically) referential. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s5) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure that we can decide what is 'semantically referential'. Most of the things we refer to don't have names. We don't then 'use' definite descriptions (I'm thinking) - they actually DO the job. If we use them, we can 'use' names too? |
13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle | |
A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap. |
11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
10447 | We can refer to fictional entities if they are abstract objects [Bach] |
Full Idea: If fictional entities, such as characters in a play, are real, albeit abstract entities, then we can genuinely refer to them. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Nathan Salmon 1998] Personally I would prefer to say that abstract entities are fictions. Fictional characters have uncertain identity conditions. Do they all have a pancreas, if this is never mentioned? |
10443 | You 'allude to', not 'refer to', an individual if you keep their identity vague [Bach] |
Full Idea: If you say 'a special person is coming to visit', you are not referring to but merely 'alluding to' that individual. This does not count as referring because you are not expressing a singular proposition about it. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s2) | |
A reaction: If you add 'I hope he doesn't wear his red suit, but I hope he plays his tuba', you seem to be expressing singular propositions about the person. Bach seems to want a very strict notion of reference, as really attaching listeners to individuals. |
10446 | Fictional reference is different inside and outside the fiction [Bach] |
Full Idea: We must distinguish 'reference' in a fiction from reference outside the fiction to fictional entities. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
A reaction: This may be more semantically than ontologically significant. It is perhaps best explicated by Coleridge's distinction over whether or not I am 'suspending my disbelief' when I am discussing a character. |
10439 | What refers: indefinite or definite or demonstrative descriptions, names, indexicals, demonstratives? [Bach] |
Full Idea: Philosophers agree that some expressions refer, but disagree over which ones. Few include indefinite descriptions, but some include definite descriptions, or only demonstrative descriptions. Some like proper names, some only indexicals and demonstratives. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], Intro) | |
A reaction: My initial prejudice is rather Strawsonian - that people refer, not language, and it can be done in all sorts of ways. But Bach argues well that only language intrinsically does it. Even pointing fails without linguistic support. |
10441 | If we can refer to things which change, we can't be obliged to single out their properties [Bach] |
Full Idea: We can refer to things which change over time, which suggests that in thinking of and in referring to an individual we are not constrained to represent it as that which has certain properties. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
A reaction: This seems a good argument against the descriptive theory of reference which is not (I think) in Kripke. Problems like vagueness and the Ship of Theseus rear their heads. |
10442 | We can think of an individual without have a uniquely characterizing description [Bach] |
Full Idea: Being able to think of an individual does not require being able to identify that individual by means of a uniquely characterizing description. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s1) | |
A reaction: There is a bit of an equivocation over 'recognise' here. His example is 'the first child born in the 4th century'. We can't visually recognise such people, but the description does fix them, and a records office might give us 'recognition'. |
10445 | It can't be real reference if it could refer to some other thing that satisfies the description [Bach] |
Full Idea: If one is referring to whatever happens to satisfy a description, and one would be referring to something else were it to have satisfied the description instead, this is known as 'weak' reference,...but surely this is not reference at all. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s7) | |
A reaction: Bach wants a precise notion of reference, as success in getting the audience to focus on the correct object. He talks of this case as 'singling out' some unfixed thing, and he also has 'alluding to' an unstated thing. Plausible view. |
10457 | Since most expressions can be used non-referentially, none of them are inherently referential [Bach] |
Full Idea: An embarrassingly simple argument is that most expressions can be used literally but not referentially, no variation in meaning explains this fact, so its meaning is compatible with being non-referential, so no expression is inherently referential. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L2) | |
A reaction: I think I have decided that no expression is 'inherently referential', and that it is all pragmatics. |
10463 | Just alluding to or describing an object is not the same as referring to it [Bach] |
Full Idea: Much of what speakers do that passes for referring is merely alluding or describing. ...It is one thing for a speaker to express a thought about a certain object using an expression, and quite another for the expression to stand for that object. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.3) | |
A reaction: Bach builds up a persuasive case for this view. If the question, though, is 'what are you talking about?', then saying what is being alluded to or singled out or described seems fine. Bach is being rather stipulative. |
10459 | Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit [Bach] |
Full Idea: Context does not determine or constitute reference; rather, it is something for the speaker to exploit to enable the listener to determine the intended reference. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
A reaction: Bach thinks linguistic reference is a matter of speaker's intentions, and I think he is right. And this idea is right too. The domain of quantification constantly shifts in a conversation, and good speakers and listeners are sensitive to this. |
10460 | 'That duck' may not refer to the most obvious one in the group [Bach] |
Full Idea: If one ducks starts quacking furiously, and you say 'that duck is excited', it isn't context that makes me take it that you are referring to the quacking duck. You could be referring to a quiet duck you recognise by its distinctive colour. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
A reaction: A persuasive example to make his point against the significance of context in conversational reference. Speaker's intended reference must always trump any apparent reference suggested by context. |
10461 | What a pronoun like 'he' refers back to is usually a matter of speaker's intentions [Bach] |
Full Idea: To illustrate speakers' intentions, consider the anaphoric reference using pronouns in these: "A cop arrested a robber; he was wearing a badge", and "A cop arrested a robber; he was wearing a mask". The natural supposition is not the inevitable one. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L4) | |
A reaction: I am a convert to speakers' intentions as the source of all reference, and this example seems to illustrate it very well. 'He said..' 'Who said?' |
10462 | Information comes from knowing who is speaking, not just from interpretation of the utterance [Bach] |
Full Idea: It is a fallacy that all the information in an utterance must come from its interpretation, which ignores the essentially pragmatic fact that the speaker is making the utterance. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L4) | |
A reaction: [He cites Barwise and Perry 1983:34] This is blatantly obvious in indexical remarks like 'I am tired', where the words don't tell you who is tired. But also 'the car has broken down, dear'. |
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. |
10458 | People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination [Bach] |
Full Idea: People slide from contextual variability to context relativity to context sensitivity to context dependence to contextual determination. | |
From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
A reaction: This is reminiscent of the epistemological slide from cultural or individual relativity of some observed things, to a huge metaphysical denial of truth. Bach's warning applies to me, as I have been drifting down his slope lately. Nice. |
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! |
6843 | Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley] |
Full Idea: If nihilism is the threat of the collapse of meaning, then my position is that one has to accept meaninglessness as an achievement, as an accomplishment that permits a transformed relation to everyday life. | |
From: Simon Critchley (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.193) | |
A reaction: This sounds cheerfully upbeat and life-enhancing, but I don't quite see how it works. One could easily end up laughing at the most appalling tragedies, and that seems to me to be an inappropriate (Aristotelian word) way to respond to tragedy. |
11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. | |
From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) | |
A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance. |
3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead." | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11 |
8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20 | |
A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul). |