Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science', 'Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion' and 'Gdel's Proof'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 2. Ancient Philosophy / b. Pre-Socratic philosophy

21355	The Pre-Socratics are not simple naturalists, because they do not always 'leave the gods out' [Leroi]
	Full Idea: The problem with making naturalism the hallmark of Pre-Socratic thought ...is that they do not always 'leave the gods out'; the Divine can usually be found lurking somewhere is their cosmologies.
	From: Armand Marie LeRoi (The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science [2014], 007)
	A reaction: An important observation. I've been guilty of this simplistic view. We tend to ignore the religious fragments, or we possess so little that we have no idea where religion figured in their accounts.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / b. Human rationality

9591	The human intellect has not been, and cannot be, fully formalized [Nagel/Newman]
	Full Idea: The resources of the human intellect have not been, and cannot be, fully formalized.
	From: E Nagel / JR Newman (Gödel's Proof [1958], VIII)
	A reaction: This conclusion derives from Gödel's Theorem. Some people (e.g. Penrose) get over-excited by this discovery, and conclude that the human mind is supernatural. Imagination is the key - it is a feature of rationality that escapes mechanization.

29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity

21798	To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel]
	Full Idea: If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith'
	A reaction: Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality

21797	Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel]
	Full Idea: The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'
	A reaction: An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it?