5 ideas
16640 | Form is the principle that connects a thing's constitution (rather than being operative) [Hill,N] |
Full Idea: Form is the state and condition of a thing, a result of the connection among its material principles; it is a constituting principle, not an operative one. | |
From: Nicholas Hill (Philosophia Epicurea [1610], n 35) | |
A reaction: Pasnau presents this as a denial of form, but it looks to me like someone fishing for what form could be in a more scientific context. Aristotle would have approved of 'principles'. Hill seems to defend the categorical against the dispositional. |
3102 | Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee] |
Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?' | |
From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I) | |
A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose. |
13550 | To be always happy is to lack knowledge of one half of nature [Seneca] |
Full Idea: To be always happy and to pass through life without any mental distress is to lack knowledge of one half of nature. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §4) | |
A reaction: These kind of paradoxes plague virtue theory, and any theory which aims at an ideal. Heaven, for example, seems to have no problems to solve, which spells boredom. The fascination of corrupt people is their superior knowledge of the world. |
13549 | Nothing bad can happen to a good man [Seneca] |
Full Idea: Nothing bad can happen to a good man. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §2) | |
A reaction: This is a pithy summary of a well know ancient attitude - one that is rejected by Aristotle, but defended by Socrates. It depends what you mean by 'bad' - but that is a rather modern response. |
13548 | The ocean changes in volume in proportion to the attraction of the moon [Seneca] |
Full Idea: The waves increase by degrees, approaching to the hour and day proportionately larger or smaller in volume as they are attracted by the star we call the moon, whose power controls the ocean's surge. | |
From: Seneca the Younger (On Providence [c.60], §1) | |
A reaction: ....just in case anyone thought that Isaac Newton had invented gravity. |