5880
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Xenocrates held that the soul had no form or substance, but was number [Xenocrates, by Cicero]
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Full Idea:
Xenocrates denied that the soul had form or any substance, but said that it was number, and the power of number, as had been held by Pythagoras long before, was the highest in nature.
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From:
report of Xenocrates (fragments/reports [c.327 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.x.20
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A reaction:
This shows how strong the Pythagorean influence was in the Academy. This is not totally stupid. Dawkins holds that the essence of DNA is information, which can be expressed mathematically. Xenocrates was a functionalist.
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21798
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To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel]
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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.
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From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith'
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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.
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21797
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Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel]
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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.
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From:
Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'
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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?
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