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18247
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Brouwer saw reals as potential, not actual, and produced by a rule, or a choice [Brouwer, by Shapiro]
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Full Idea:
In his early writing, Brouwer took a real number to be a Cauchy sequence determined by a rule. Later he augmented rule-governed sequences with free-choice sequences, but even then the attitude is that Cauchy sequences are potential, not actual infinities.
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From:
report of Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (works [1930]) by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 6.6
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A reaction:
This is the 'constructivist' view of numbers, as espoused by intuitionists like Brouwer.
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5952
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Rather than being the whole soul, maybe I am its chief part? [Plutarch]
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Full Idea:
Is each of us not the soul, but the chief part of the soul, by which we think and reason and act, all the other parts of soul as well as of body being mere instruments of its power?
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From:
Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1119)
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A reaction:
Socrates is associated with the idea that I am my whole soul (Idea 1650). Plutarch represents an interesting development, which may lead both to the Christian 'soul' and to the Cartesian 'ego'. I think Plutarch is right, but what is the 'soul'?
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5951
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If atoms have no qualities, they cannot possibly produce a mind [Plutarch]
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Full Idea:
Perception, mind, intelligence and thought cannot so much as be conceived, even with the best will, as arising among void and atoms, things which taken separately have no quality.
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From:
Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1112)
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A reaction:
A nice articulation of the intuition of all anti-physicalists. Plutarch would have to rethink his position carefully if he learned of the sheer number of connections in the brain, and of the theory of natural selection. His challenge remains, though.
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4366
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We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Williams,B, by Hursthouse]
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Full Idea:
Williams has expressed pessimism about the project of Aristotelian naturalism on the grounds that his conception of nature, and thereby of human nature, was normative, and that, in a scientific age, this is not a conception that we can take on board.
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From:
report of Bernard Williams (works [1971]) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.11
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A reaction:
I think there is a compromise here. The existentialist denial of intrinsic human nature seems daft, but Aristotelians must grasp the enormous flexibility that is possible to human behaviour because of the open nature of rationality.
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5948
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The good life involves social participation, loyalty, temperance and honesty [Plutarch]
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Full Idea:
To live the good life is to live a life of participation in society, of loyalty to friends, of temperance and honest dealing.
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From:
Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1108)
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A reaction:
'Participation in society' is the interesting one. This might translate as 'doing your duty', or as 'leading a well-rounded life'. Solitude is wrong if you are indebted to others, and it is unhealthy if you are not. Is solitude really immoral, though?
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5955
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No one will ever find a city that lacks religious practices [Plutarch]
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Full Idea:
A city without holy places and gods, without any observance of prayers, oaths, oracles, sacrifices for blessings received or rites to avert evils, no traveller has ever seen or will ever see.
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From:
Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1125)
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A reaction:
The nearest you might get would be Soviet Moscow, but in 1973 I saw a man there jeering at a woman who was kneeling in the street outside a closed church. Plutarch would be stunned at the decline in religious practices in modern Europe.
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