53 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. |
12330 | In ontology, logic dominated language, until logic was mathematized [Badiou] |
Full Idea: From Aristotle to Hegel, logic was the philosophical category of ontology's dominion over language. The mathematization of logic has authorized language to become that which seizes philosophy for itself. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 8) |
12318 | The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself [Badiou] |
Full Idea: The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998]) | |
A reaction: Too good to pass over, too crazy to file sensibly, too creepy to have been filed under humour, my candidate for the weirdest remark I have ever read in a serious philosopher, but no doubt if you read Lacan etc for long enough it looks deeply wise. |
12325 | Philosophy has been relieved of physics, cosmology, politics, and now must give up ontology [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Philosophy has been released from, even relieved of, physics, cosmology, and politics, as well as many other things. It is important for it to be released from ontology per se. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 3) | |
A reaction: A startling proposal, for anyone who thought that ontology was First Philosophy. Badiou wants to hand ontology over to mathematicians, but I am unclear what remains for the philosophers to do. |
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 |
12324 | Consensus is the enemy of thought [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Consensus is the enemy of thought. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
A reaction: A nice slogan for bringing Enlightenment optimists to a halt. I am struck. Do I allow my own thinking to always be diverted towards something which might result in a consensus? Do I actually (horror!) prefer consensus to truth? |
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? |
12337 | There is 'transivity' iff membership ∈ also means inclusion ⊆ [Badiou] |
Full Idea: 'Transitivity' signifies that all of the elements of the set are also parts of the set. If you have α∈Β, you also have α⊆Β. This correlation of membership and inclusion gives a stability which is the sets' natural being. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
12321 | The axiom of choice must accept an indeterminate, indefinable, unconstructible set [Badiou] |
Full Idea: The axiom of choice actually amounts to admitting an absolutely indeterminate infinite set whose existence is asserted albeit remaining linguistically indefinable. On the other hand, as a process, it is unconstructible. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
A reaction: If only constructible sets are admitted (see 'V = L') then there is a contradiction. |
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. |
12342 | Topos theory explains the plurality of possible logics [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Topos theory explains the plurality of possible logics. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 14) | |
A reaction: This will because logic will have a distinct theory within each 'topos'. |
12341 | Logic is a mathematical account of a universe of relations [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Logic should first and foremost be a mathematical thought of what a universe of relations is. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 14) |
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. |
12334 | There is no single unified definition of number [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Apparently - and this is quite unlike old Greek times - there is no single unified definition of number. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
12335 | Numbers are for measuring and for calculating (and the two must be consistent) [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Number is an instance of measuring (distinguishing the more from the less, and calibrating data), ..and a figure for calculating (one counts with numbers), ..and it ought to be a figure of consistency (the compatibility of order and calculation). | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
12333 | Each type of number has its own characteristic procedure of introduction [Badiou] |
Full Idea: There is a heterogeneity of introductory procedures of different classical number types: axiomatic for natural numbers, structural for ordinals, algebraic for negative and rational numbers, topological for reals, mainly geometric for complex numbers. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
12322 | Must we accept numbers as existing when they no longer consist of units? [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Do we have to confer existence on numbers whose principle is to no longer consist of units? | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
A reaction: This very nicely expresses what seems to me perhaps the most important question in the philosophy of mathematics. I am reluctant to accept such 'unitless' numbers, but I then feel hopelessly old-fashioned and naïve. What to do? |
12327 | The undecidability of the Continuum Hypothesis may have ruined or fragmented set theory [Badiou] |
Full Idea: As we have known since Paul Cohen's theorem, the Continuum Hypothesis is intrinsically undecidable. Many believe Cohen's discovery has driven the set-theoretic project into ruin, or 'pluralized' what was once presented as a unified construct. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 6) | |
A reaction: Badiou thinks the theorem completes set theory, by (roughly) finalising its map. |
12329 | If mathematics is a logic of the possible, then questions of existence are not intrinsic to it [Badiou] |
Full Idea: If mathematics is a logic of the possible, then questions of existence are not intrinsic to it (as they are for the Platonist). | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 7) | |
A reaction: See also Idea 12328. I file this to connect it with Hellman's modal (and nominalist) version of structuralism. Could it be that mathematics and modal logic are identical? |
12328 | Platonists like axioms and decisions, Aristotelians like definitions, possibilities and logic [Badiou] |
Full Idea: A Platonist's interest focuses on axioms in which the decision of thought is played out, where an Aristotelian or Leibnizian interest focuses on definitions laying out the representation of possibilities (...and the essence of mathematics is logic). | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 7) | |
A reaction: See Idea 12323 for the significance of the Platonist approach. So logicism is an Aristotelian project? Frege is not a true platonist? I like the notion of 'the representation of possibilities', so will vote for the Aristotelians, against Badiou. |
12331 | Logic is definitional, but real mathematics is axiomatic [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Logic is definitional, whereas real mathematics is axiomatic. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 10) |
12340 | There is no Being as a whole, because there is no set of all sets [Badiou] |
Full Idea: The fundamental theorem that 'there does not exist a set of all sets' designates the inexistence of Being as a whole. ...A crucial consequence of this property is that any ontological investigation is irremediably local. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 14) | |
A reaction: The second thought pushes Badiou into Topos Theory, where the real numbers (for example) have a separate theory in each 'topos'. |
12323 | Existence is Being itself, but only as our thought decides it [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Existence is precisely Being itself in as much as thought decides it. And that decision orients thought essentially. ...It is when you decide upon what exists that you bind your thought to Being. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
A reaction: [2nd half p.57] Helpful for us non-Heideggerians to see what is going on. Does this mean that Being is Kant's noumenon? |
12326 | The primitive name of Being is the empty set; in a sense, only the empty set 'is' [Badiou] |
Full Idea: In Set Theory, the primitive name of Being is the void, the empty set. The whole hierarchy takes root in it. In a certain sense, it alone 'is'. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 6) | |
A reaction: This is the key to Badiou's view that ontology is mathematics. David Lewis pursued interesting enquiries in this area. |
12332 | The modern view of Being comes when we reject numbers as merely successions of One [Badiou] |
Full Idea: The saturation and collapse of the Euclidean idea of the being of number as One's procession signs the entry of the thought of Being into modern times. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) | |
A reaction: That is, by allowing that not all numbers are built of units, numbers expand widely enough to embrace everything we think of as Being. The landmark event is the acceptance of the infinite as a number. |
12320 | Ontology is (and always has been) Cantorian mathematics [Badiou] |
Full Idea: Enlightened by the Cantorian grounding of mathematics, we can assert ontology to be nothing other than mathematics itself. This has been the case ever since its Greek origin. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 1) | |
A reaction: There seems to be quite a strong feeling among mathematicians that new 'realms of being' are emerging from their researches. Only a Platonist, of course, is likely to find this idea sympathetic. |
16641 | Whiteness does not exist, but by it something can exist-as-white [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: Whiteness is said to exist not because it subsists in itself, but because by it something has existence-as-white. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], IX.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.2 | |
A reaction: It seems unavoidable to refer to the whiteness as 'it'. It might be called the 'adverbial' theory of properties, as ways of doing something. |
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. |
22170 | Senses grasp external properties, but the understanding grasps the essential natures of things [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: Our imagination and senses grasp only the outer properties of things, not their natures. ...Understanding, however, grasps the very substance and nature of things, so that what is represented in understanding is a likeness of thing's very essence. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2) | |
A reaction: This is exactly the picture I endorse for modern science. Explanation is the path to understanding, and that must venture beyond immediate experience. |
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. |
22169 | Initial universal truths are present within us as potential, to be drawn out by reason [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: For present in us by nature are certain initial truths everyone knows, in which lie potentially known conclusions our reasons can draw out and make actually known. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2) | |
A reaction: Note that these are truths rather than concepts, but that they have to be 'drawn out' by reason. This is Descartes' view of the matter, where the 'natural light' of reason is needed to articulate what is innate, such as geometry. |
22168 | Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: What the mind takes in is not some material element of the agent, but a likeness of the agent actualising some potential the patient already has. This, for example, is the way our seeing takes in the colour of a coloured body. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.1) | |
A reaction: This is exactly right. Descartes agreed. It works for colour, but not (obviously) for cheese graters. |
23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
12338 | We must either assert or deny any single predicate of any single subject [Badiou] |
Full Idea: There can be nothing intermediate to an assertion and a denial. We must either assert or deny any single predicate of any single subject. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 1011b24) | |
A reaction: The first sentence seems to be bivalence, and the second sentence excluded middle. |
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! |
12316 | For Enlightenment philosophers, God was no longer involved in politics [Badiou] |
Full Idea: For the philosophers of the Enlightenment politics is strictly the affair of humankind, an immanent practice from which recourse to the All Mighty's providential organization had to be discarded. | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], Prol) |
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). |
12317 | The God of religion results from an encounter, not from a proof [Badiou] |
Full Idea: The God of metaphysics makes sense of existing according to a proof, while the God of religion makes sense of living according to an encounter | |
From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], Prol) |