6 ideas
| 7910 | Pursue truth with the urgency of someone whose clothes are on fire [Ashvaghosha] |
| Full Idea: As though your turban or your clothes were on fire, so with a sense of urgency should you apply your intellect to the comprehension of the truths. | |
| From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI) | |
| A reaction: The best philosophers need no such urging. I retain a romantic view that we should be 'natural' in these things. See Plato's views in Idea 2153 and 1638. However, maybe I should be confronted with this quotation every morning when I awake. |
| 7529 | All philosophy should begin with an analysis of propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: That all sound philosophy should begin with an analysis of propositions is a truth too evident, perhaps, to demand a proof. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Leibniz [1900], p.8), quoted by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 483. The obvious response to Russell is that it must actually begin with a decision about which propositions are worth analysing - and that ain't easy. I like analysis, but philosophy is also a vision of truth. |
| 12695 | Epicurean atomists say body is sensible, to distinguish it from space. [Garber] |
| Full Idea: The Epicurean atomists also defined body in terms of the property of being sensible, in order to distinguish it from empty space, which is not sensible. | |
| From: Daniel Garber (Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad [2009], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is a very illuminating bit of background, for those of us who have the knee-jerk reaction that monadology is barking mad. |
| 12705 | Epicurean atoms are distinguished by their extreme hardness [Garber] |
| Full Idea: In Epicurean atomism (of Cordemoy, for example) there is a world of basic things distinguished by virtue of their extreme hardness. | |
| From: Daniel Garber (Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad [2009], 2) | |
| A reaction: Garber says that Leibniz espouses 'substantial atomism', which is different from this. Leibniz's atoms have active power, where these atoms just embody total resistance. |
| 7909 | The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha] |
| Full Idea: The Eightfold Path has three steps concerning morality - right speech, right bodily action, and right livelihood; three of wisdom - right views, right intentions, and right effort; and two of tranquillity - right mindfulness and right concentration. | |
| From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI) | |
| A reaction: Most of this translates quite comfortably into the aspirations of western philosophy. For example, 'right effort' sounds like Kant's claim that only a good will is truly good (Idea 3710). The Buddhist division is interesting for action theory. |
| 7908 | At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha] |
| Full Idea: When an accomplished saint comes to the end, he does not go anywhere down in the earth or up in the sky, nor into any of the directions of space, but because his defilements have become extinct he simply ceases to be disturbed. | |
| From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI) | |
| A reaction: To 'cease to be disturbed' is the most attractive account of heaven I have encountered. It all sounds a bit dull though. I wonder, as usual, how they know all this stuff. |