|
13190
|
I don't admit infinite numbers, and consider infinitesimals to be useful fictions [Leibniz]
|
|
Full Idea:
Notwithstanding my infinitesimal calculus, I do not admit any real infinite numbers, even though I confess that the multitude of things surpasses any finite number, or rather any number. ..I consider infinitesimal quantities to be useful fictions.
|
|
From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Masson [1716], 1716)
|
|
A reaction:
With the phrase 'useful fictions' we seem to have jumped straight into Harty Field. I'm with Leibniz on this one. The history of mathematics is a series of ingenious inventions, whenever they seem to make further exciting proofs possible.
|
|
22200
|
If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
|
|
Full Idea:
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
|
|
From:
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6)
|
|
A reaction:
A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible.
|
|
2171
|
The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B]
|
|
Full Idea:
Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy.
|
|
From:
report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37
|
|
A reaction:
This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing.
|
|
21819
|
Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
In Plato the order of generation is from the Good, the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul.
|
|
From:
report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 509b) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
|
|
A reaction:
The doctrine of Plotinus merely echoes Plato, in that case, except that the One replaces the Form of the Good. Does this mean that what is first in Plotinus is less morally significant, and more concerned with reason and being?
|