45 ideas
6259 | Why can't a wise man doubt everything? [Montaigne] |
Full Idea: Why cannot a wise man dare to doubt anything and everything? | |
From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0562) | |
A reaction: This question seems to be the start of the Enlightenment Project, of attempting to prove everything. MacIntyre warns of the dangers of this in ethical theory. The story of modern philosophy is the discovery of its impossibility. E.g. Davidson on truth. |
6263 | No wisdom could make us comfortably walk a wide beam if it was high in the air [Montaigne] |
Full Idea: Take a beam wide enough to walk along: suspend it between two towers: there is no philosophical wisdom, however firm, which could make us walk along it just as we would if we were on the ground. | |
From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0672) | |
A reaction: This proposes great scepticism about the practical application of philosophical wisdom, but if we talk in terms of the wise assessment of risk in any undertaking, our caution on the raised beam makes perfectly good sense. |
162 | Can we understand an individual soul without knowing the soul in general? [Plato] |
Full Idea: Do you think it possible to form an adequate conception of the nature of an individual soul without considering the nature of soul in general? | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 270c) | |
A reaction: Do animals understand anything (as opposed to simply being aware of things)? |
160 | The highest ability in man is the ability to discuss unity and plurality in the nature of things [Plato] |
Full Idea: When I believe that I have found in anyone the ability to discuss unity and plurality as they exist in the nature of things, I follow his footsteps as if he was a god. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 266b) | |
A reaction: This sounds like the problem of identity, which is at the heart of modern metaphysics. |
6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15) | |
A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs. |
166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
Full Idea: A speaker must be able to define a subject generically, and then to divide it into its various specific kinds until he reaches the limits of divisibility. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 277b) |
6937 | Reason aims to discover the unknown by thinking about the known [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 7) | |
A reaction: I defy anyone to come up with a better definition of reasoning than that. The emphasis is on knowledge rather than truth, which you would expect from a pragmatist. …Actually the definition doesn't cover conditional reasoning terribly well. |
6258 | Virtue is the distinctive mark of truth, and its greatest product [Montaigne] |
Full Idea: The distinctive mark of the Truth we hold ought to be virtue, which is the most exacting mark of Truth, the closest one to heaven and the most worthy thing that Truth produces. | |
From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0493) | |
A reaction: A long way from Tarski and minimalist theories of truth! But not so far from pragmatism. Personally I think Montaigne is making an important claim, which virtue theorists should be attempting to incorporate into their theory. Aristotle would sympathise. |
7953 | Reasoning needs to cut nature accurately at the joints [Plato] |
Full Idea: In our reasoning we need a clear view of the ability to divide a genus into species, observing the natural joints, not mangling any of the parts, like an unskilful butcher. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 265d) | |
A reaction: In modern times this Platonic idea has become the standard metaphor for realism. I endorse it. I think nature has joints, and we should hunt for them. There are natural sets. The joints may exist in abstract concepts, as well as in objects. |
21492 | Realism is basic to the scientific method [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The fundamental hypothesis of the method of science is this: There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinion of them. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877]), quoted by Albert Atkin - Peirce 3 'method' | |
A reaction: He admits later that this is only a commitment and not a fact. It seems to me that when you combine this idea with the huge success of science, the denial of realism is crazy. Philosophy has a lot to answer for. |
6262 | We lack some sense or other, and hence objects may have hidden features [Montaigne] |
Full Idea: We may all lack some sense or other; because of that defect, most of the features of objects may be concealed from us. | |
From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0666) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as simple, straightforward common sense, and right. I cannot make sense of the claim that reality really is just the way it appears. We do not have a built-in neutrino detector, for example. |
6949 | If someone doubted reality, they would not actually feel dissatisfaction [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Nobody can really doubt that there are Reals, for, if he did, doubt would not be a source of dissatisfaction. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.19) | |
A reaction: This rests on Peirce's view that all that really matters is a sense of genuine dissatisfaction, rather than a theoretical idea. So even at the end of Meditation One, Descartes isn't actually worried about whether his furniture exists. |
16121 | I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato] |
Full Idea: If I believe that someone is capable of discerning a single thing that is also by nature capable of encompassing many, I follow 'straight behind, in his footsteps, as if he were a god'. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 266b) | |
A reaction: [Plato quote Odyssey 2.406] This is the sort of simple but profound general observation which only the early philosophers bothered to make, and no one comments on now. Encompassing many under one is the very essence of thinking. |
153 | It takes a person to understand, by using universals, and by using reason to create a unity out of sense-impressions [Plato] |
Full Idea: It takes a man to understand by the use of universals, and to collect out of the multiplicity of sense-impressions a unity arrived at by a process of reason. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 249b) |
154 | We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato] |
Full Idea: What overpowering love knowledge would inspire if it could bring a clear image of itself before our sight, and the same may be said of the other forms. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 250d) | |
A reaction: the motivation in Plato's theory |
6943 | A mere question does not stimulate a struggle for belief; there must be a real doubt [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief; there must be a real and living doubt. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
A reaction: This the attractive aspect of Peirce's pragmatism, that he is always focusing on real life rather than abstract theory or pure logic. |
6941 | We are entirely satisfied with a firm belief, even if it is false [Peirce] |
Full Idea: As soon as a firm belief is reached we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or false. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
A reaction: This does not deny that the truth or falsehood of a belief is independent of whether we are satisfied with it. It is making a fair point, though, about why we believe things, and it can't be because of truth, because we don't know how to ensure that. |
6940 | The feeling of belief shows a habit which will determine our actions [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The feeling of believing is a more or less sure indication of there being established in our nature some habit which will determine our actions. Doubt never has such an effect. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
A reaction: It is one thing to assert this fairly accurate observation, and another to assert that this is the essence or definition of a belief. Perhaps it is the purpose of belief, without being the phenomenological essence of it. We act in states of uncertainty. |
6942 | We want true beliefs, but obviously we think our beliefs are true [Peirce] |
Full Idea: We seek for a belief that we shall think to be true; but we think each one of our beliefs to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
A reaction: If, as I do, you like to define belief as 'commitment to truth', Peirce makes a rather startling observation. You are rendered unable to ask whether your beliefs are true, because you have defined them as true. Nice point… |
151 | True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato] |
Full Idea: True knowledge is concerned with the abode of true reality, without colour or shape, intangible but utterly real, apprehensible only to the intellect. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 247c) |
6598 | We need our beliefs to be determined by some external inhuman permanency [Peirce] |
Full Idea: It is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency - by something upon which our thinking has no effect. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5 | |
A reaction: This very sensible and interesting remark hovers somewhere between empiricism and pragmatism. Fogelin very persuasively builds his account of knowledge on it. The key point is that we hardly ever choose what to believe. See Idea 2454. |
6944 | Demonstration does not rest on first principles of reason or sensation, but on freedom from actual doubt [Peirce] |
Full Idea: It is a common idea that demonstration must rest on indubitable propositions, either first principles of a general nature, or first sensations; but actual demonstration is completely satisfactory if it starts from propositions free from all actual doubt. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
A reaction: Another nice example of Peirce focusing on the practical business of thinking, rather than abstract theory. I agree with this approach, that explanation and proof do not aim at perfection and indubitability, but at what satisfies a critical mind. |
6948 | Doubts should be satisfied by some external permanency upon which thinking has no effect [Peirce] |
Full Idea: To satisfy our doubts it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency - by something upon which our thinking has no effect. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.18) | |
A reaction: This may be the single most important idea in pragmatism and in the philosophy of science. See Fodor on experiments (Idea 2455). Put the question to nature. The essential aim is to be passive in our beliefs - just let reality form them. |
6260 | Sceptics say there is truth, but no means of making or testing lasting judgements [Montaigne] |
Full Idea: Pyrrhonians say that truth and falsehood exist; within us we have means of looking for them, but not of making any lasting judgements: we have no touchstone. | |
From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0564) | |
A reaction: This states the key difference between sceptics and relativists. The latter are more extreme as they say there is no such thing as truth. The former concede truth, and their scepticism is about the abilities of human beings. I am an anti-relativist. |
6945 | Once doubt ceases, there is no point in continuing to argue [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Some people seem to love to argue a point after all the world is fully convinced of it. But no further advance can be made. When doubt ceases, mental action on the subject comes to an end; and, if it did go on, it would be without purpose. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
A reaction: This is the way Peirce's pragmatism, which deals with how real thinking actually works (rather than abstract logic), deals with scepticism. However, there is a borderline where almost everyone is satisfied, but the very wise person remains sceptical. |
165 | If the apparent facts strongly conflict with probability, it is in everyone's interests to suppress the facts [Plato] |
Full Idea: There are some occasions when both prosecution and defence should positively suppress the facts in favour of probability, if the facts are improbable. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 272e) |
6261 | The soul is in the brain, as shown by head injuries [Montaigne] |
Full Idea: The seat of the powers of the soul is in the brain, as is clearly shown by the fact that wounds and accidents affecting the head immediately harm the faculties of the soul. | |
From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0614) | |
A reaction: At last someone has finally got the facts clear. It seems surprising that the Greeks never clearly grasped this piece of irrefutable evidence - even those Greeks who speculated that the brain was the key. Here we have a fixed fact of philosophy of mind. |
9296 | The soul is self-motion [Plato] |
Full Idea: Self-motion is of the very nature of the soul. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245e) | |
A reaction: This culminates a length discussion of the soul. He gives an implausible argument that the soul is immortal, because it could never cease its self-motion. Why are we so unimpressed by motion, when the Greeks were amazed by it? |
23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
Full Idea: Plato had a conception of the emotions and our bodily appetites as being like wild horses, to be harnassed and controlled by reason. | |
From: report of Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE]) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Education' | |
A reaction: This seems to make Plato the patriarch of puritanism. See Symposium, as well as Phaedrus. But bringing up children can often seem like taming wild beasts. |
159 | Only a good philosopher can be a good speaker [Plato] |
Full Idea: Unless a man becomes an adequate philosopher he will never be an adequate speaker on any subject. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 261a) | |
A reaction: Depends. Hitler showed little sign of clear philosophical thinking, but the addition of lights and uniforms seemed to sweep reasonably intelligent people along with him. |
5946 | 'Phaedrus' pioneers the notion of philosophical rhetoric [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
Full Idea: The purpose of the 'Phaedrus' is to pioneer the notion of philosophical rhetoric. | |
From: comment on Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], Ch.10) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment | |
A reaction: This is a wonderfully challenging view of what Plato was up to. One might connect it with Rorty's claim that philosophy should move away from epistemology and analysis, towards hermeneutics, which sounds to me like rhetoric. 'Phaedrus' is beautiful. |
158 | An excellent speech seems to imply a knowledge of the truth in the mind of the speaker [Plato] |
Full Idea: If a speech is to be classed as excellent, does that not presuppose knowledge of the truth about the subject of the speech in the mind of the speaker. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 259e) | |
A reaction: I like the thought that Plato's main interest was rhetoric, but with the view that the only good rhetoric is truth-speaking. It would be hard to admire a speech if you disagreed with it. |
155 | Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato] |
Full Idea: Only beauty has the privilege of being the most clearly discerned and the most lovely of the forms. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 250e) | |
A reaction: the motivation in Plato's theory |
143 | The two ruling human principles are the natural desire for pleasure, and an acquired love of virtue [Plato] |
Full Idea: In each one of us there are two ruling and impelling principles: a desire for pleasure, which is innate, and an acquired conviction which causes us to aim at excellence. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 237d) | |
A reaction: This division is too neat and simple. An obsession with pleasure I would take to be acquired. If you set out to do something, I think there is an innate desire to do it well. |
157 | Most pleasure is release from pain, and is therefore not worthwhile [Plato] |
Full Idea: Life is not worth living for pleasures whose enjoyment entirely depends on previous sensation of pain, like almost all physical pleasures. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 258e) | |
A reaction: Eating exotic food which is hard to obtain? (Pay someone to obtain it). Rock climbing. Training for sport. |
144 | Reason impels us towards excellence, which teaches us self-control [Plato] |
Full Idea: The conviction which impels us towards excellence is rational, and the power by which it masters us we call self-control. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 237e) |
156 | Bad people are never really friends with one another [Plato] |
Full Idea: It is not ordained that bad men should be friends with one another. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 255b) |
6939 | What is true of one piece of copper is true of another (unlike brass) [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The guiding principle is that what is true of one piece of copper is true of another; such a guiding principle with regard to copper would be much safer than with regard to many other substances - brass, for example. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8) | |
A reaction: Peirce is so beautifully simple and sensible. This gives the essential notion of a natural kind, and is a key notion in our whole understanding of physical reality. |
148 | If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato] |
Full Idea: If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245d) | |
A reaction: This is the essence of Aquinas's Third Way of proving God's existence. |
6938 | Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce] |
Full Idea: It is probably of more advantage to an animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p. 8) | |
A reaction: Note that this is a pragmatist saying that a set of beliefs might work fine but be untrue. So Peirce does not have the highly relativistic notion of truth of some later pragmatists. Good for him. Note the early date to be thinking about Darwin. |
152 | The mind of God is fully satisfied and happy with a vision of reality and truth [Plato] |
Full Idea: The mind of a god, sustained by pure intelligence and knowledge, is satisfied with the vision of reality, and nourished and made happy by the vision of truth. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 247d) |
6946 | If death is annihilation, belief in heaven is a cheap pleasure with no disappointment [Peirce] |
Full Idea: If death is annihilation, then the man who believes that he will certainly go straight to heaven when he dies, provided he have fulfilled certain simple observances in this life, has a cheap pleasure which will not be followed by the least disappointment. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.12) | |
A reaction: This is a nicely wicked summary of one side of Pascal's options. All the problems of the argument are built into Peirce's word "cheap". Peirce goes on to talk about ostriches burying their heads. |
150 | We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato] |
Full Idea: Because we have never seen or formed an adequate idea of a god, we picture him to ourselves as a being of the same kind as ourselves but immortal. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 246d) |
149 | There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato] |
Full Idea: There is not a single sound reason for positing the existence of such a being who is immortal | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 246d) |
146 | Soul is always in motion, so it must be self-moving and immortal [Plato] |
Full Idea: All soul is immortal, for what is always in motion is immortal. Only that which moves itself never ceases to be in motion. | |
From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245c) |