100 ideas
| 9199 | Wisdom for one instant is as good as wisdom for eternity [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: If a person has wisdom for one instant, he is no less happy than he who possesses it for eternity. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Pierre Hadot - Philosophy as a way of life 8 | |
| A reaction: [Hadot quotes Plutarch 'On Common Conceptions' 8,1062a] This makes it sound awfully like some sort of Buddhist 'enlightenment', which strikes like lightning. He does wisdom recognise itself - by a warm glow, or by the cautious thought that got you there? |
| 20853 | Wise men should try to participate in politics, since they are a good influence [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The wise man will participate in politics unless something prevents him, for he will restrain vice and promote virtue. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.121 | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Ways of Life Bk 1] We have made modern politics so hostile for its participants, thanks to cruel media pressure, that the best people now run a mile from it. Disastrous. |
| 20772 | Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: There are three kinds of philosophical theorems, logical, ethical, and physical; of these the logic should be placed first, ethics second, and physics third (and theology is the final topic in physics). | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035a | |
| A reaction: [in his lost 'On Lives' Bk 4] 'Theology is the final topic in physics'! That should create a stir in theology departments. Is this an order of study, or of importance? You come to theology right at the end of your studies. |
| 11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: We can achieve a lot by elucidations that put a concept to use without attempting to reduce it but, in using the concept, exhibit its connexions with other concepts that are established. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the best line of defence for analytic philosophy, given the much-cited observation that no one has successful reduced any concept by pure analysis. |
| 1403 | A rational donkey would starve to death between two totally identical piles of hay [Buridan, by PG] |
| Full Idea: A rational donkey faced with two totally identical piles of hay would be unable to decide which one to eat first, and would therefore starve to death | |
| From: report of Jean Buridan (talk [1338]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: also De Caelo 295b32 (Idea 19740). |
| 5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
| A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'. |
| 21388 | The causes of future true events must exist now, so they will happen because of destiny [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: True future events cannot be such as do not possess causes on account of which they will happen; therefore that which is true must possess causes: and so, when the [true future events] happen they will have happened as a result of destiny. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 9.23-8 | |
| A reaction: [exact ref unclear] Presumably the current causes are the truthmakers for the future events, and so the past is the truthmaker of the future, if you are a determinist. |
| 20780 | Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Of presentations, some are graspable, some non-graspable. The graspable presentation, which they say is the criterion of facts [pragmata], is that which comes from an existing object and is stamped and molded in accordance wth the existing object itself. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.46 | |
| A reaction: [in lost Physics Bk 2] The big modern anguish over truth-as-correspondence is how you are supposed to verify the 'accordance'. This idea seems to blur the ideas of truth and justification (the 'criterion'), and you can't have both as accordance. |
| 20793 | How could you ever know that the presentation is similar to the object? [Sext.Empiricus on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: One cannot say that the soul grasps the externally existing objects by means of the states of the senses on the basis of the similarity of these states to the externally existing objects. For on what basis will it know the similarity? | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism 2.74 | |
| A reaction: This exactly the main modern reason for rejecting the correspondence theory of truth. You are welcome to affirm a robust view of truth, but supporting it by claiming a correspondence or resemblance is dubious. |
| 8077 | Stoic propositional logic is like chemistry - how atoms make molecules, not the innards of atoms [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
| Full Idea: In Stoic logic propositions are treated the way atoms are treated in present-day chemistry, where the focus is on the way atoms fit together to form molecules, rather than on the internal structure of the atoms. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: A nice analogy to explain the nature of Propositional Logic, which was invented by the Stoics (N.B. after Aristotle had invented predicate logic). |
| 20791 | Chrysippus has five obvious 'indemonstrables' of reasoning [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus has five indemonstrables that do not need demonstration:1) If 1st the 2nd, but 1st, so 2nd; 2) If 1st the 2nd, but not 2nd, so not 1st; 3) Not 1st and 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 4) 1st or 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 5) 1st or 2nd, not 2nd, so 1st. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.80-81 | |
| A reaction: [from his lost text 'Dialectics'; squashed to fit into one quote] 1) is Modus Ponens, 2) is Modus Tollens. 4) and 5) are Disjunctive Syllogisms. 3) seems a bit complex to be an indemonstrable. |
| 8078 | Modus ponens is one of five inference rules identified by the Stoics [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
| Full Idea: Modus ponens is just one of the five different inference rules identified by the Stoics. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Modus ponens strikes me as being more like a definition of implication than a 'rule'. Implication is what gets you from one truth to another. All the implications of a truth must also be true. |
| 6023 | Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: We hold fast to the position, defended by Chrysippus, that every proposition is either true or false. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 38 | |
| A reaction: I am intrigued to know exactly how you defend this claim. It may depend what you mean by a proposition. A badly expressed proposition may have indeterminate truth, quite apart from the vague, the undecidable etc. |
| 11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The Lambda Abstraction Operator: We can write (λx)[Man x], which may be read as 'the property that any x has just if x is a man'. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This technical device seems to be a commonplace in modern metaphysical discussions. I'm assuming it can be used to discuss properties without venturing into second-order logic. Presumably we could call the property here 'humanity'. |
| 5992 | Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus regarded power to act and be acted upon as the criterion for existence or being - a test satisfied by bodies alone. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Teun L. Tieleman - Chrysippus | |
| A reaction: This defines existence in terms of causation. Is he ruling out a priori a particle (say) which exists, but never interacts with anything? If so, he is inclining towards anti-realism. |
| 14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: It would be incredible if what there is, rather than what we select for attention, depends on human activity and our conceptual scheme. One might expand to possible sortal concepts, rather than our language, but that amounts to four-dimensionalism. | |
| From: comment on David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
| A reaction: [compression of a nice anti-Wiggins paragraph] He suggests that Wiggins is seeking an intermediate course (between narrow chauvinism about concepts, and excessive liberalism) in a discussion of natural kinds versus artifacts. |
| 21673 | There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says there are two classes of facts, simple and complex. An instance of a simple fact is 'Socrates will die at a given date', ...but 'Milo will wrestle at Olympia' is a complex statement, because there can be no wrestling without an opponent. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 13.30 | |
| A reaction: We might say that there are atomic and complex facts, but our atomic facts tend to be much simpler, usually just saying some object has some property. |
| 16652 | Stoics categories are Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation [Chrysippus, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The Stoics proposed a rather modest categorisation of Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.1 |
| 11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: We might agree with Wiggins's theory of individuation, but reject his thesis that a thing's principle of individuation (of distinctness and persistence) must be preserved in all counterfactual situations. | |
| From: comment on David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 8.7 | |
| A reaction: I'm not even convinced that initial individuation consists of falling under a sortal, and I prefer to discuss the powers of the thing, rather than counterfactual facts about behaviour. |
| 11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: What a principle of activity does completely for a natural thing, and the function does imperfectly for an ordinary artefact, the artist's conception of his own making of the work must do for the painting. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.12) | |
| A reaction: This nicely sums up Wiggins on individuation, and he seems to effectively elide individuation with essence. I certainly feel uneasy that a work of art needs a quite separate account from other artefacts. Surely it is just that we are fussier about them? |
| 11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to think of anything true and significant that could not be said using the idea of thisness not better said while respectiving the distinctions designation/predication and particular/universal. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.7) | |
| A reaction: Politis calls 'thisness' the 'ultimate subject of predication', so it is covered in logic by the name for an object. But we need to understand objects, and not just refer to them, and I'm not sure that 'universals' advance our understanding. |
| 11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Wiggins bases sortal essentialism on the notion that a thing's principle of individuation is essential to it. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 7.1 | |
| A reaction: This idea has failed to make much impression on me. I seem to be the only person who doesn't understand the concept of 'individuation'. Please let me know exactly what it means. Type individuation is not individual individuation, I presume. |
| 15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Wiggins bases sortal essentialism on the notion that a thing's principle of individuation is essential to it. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 7.1 | |
| A reaction: My problem with this is that individuation is a human activity, not an intrinsic feature of the entities in the external world. Entities presumably have a 'unity', but I'm not sure about a 'principle' that does that job, though Aristotle is sympathetic. |
| 11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star. For Venus is not a star. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice objection to the idea that identity is entirely a matter of falling under the same sortal category. |
| 10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
| Full Idea: 'Sortalism' endorses the view that some things have parts, but denies that every collection of things composes something. Whenever there is a particular, there must be a sort or kind to which it belongs. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Keith Hossack - Plurals and Complexes 7 | |
| A reaction: What is the status of 'the first of its kind'? This seems to say that a token only has identity if it has type-identity. This sounds wildly wrong to me. I've made a 'thing' for you, but I haven't decided what it is yet. |
| 14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: Wiggins says an identity a=b stands no chance of being true unless there is some concept f under which a falls and under which b falls, which 'determines identity, persistence and existence conditions for members of its extension'. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.604 | |
| A reaction: This is the first clear statement I have met of Wiggins's central idea, upon which his sortal essentialism is built. Strawson's exposition adds that each thing necessarily falls under the 'highest' appropriate sortal ('dog', rather than 'terrier'). |
| 14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: In Wiggins's theory, necessity carries over from the kind to constitution. If Toby is necessarily a dog and 'dog' is a natural kind term, then Toby necessarily has the constitution of a dog, the features of which make up the real essence of being a dog. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.605 | |
| A reaction: The essence will then presumably consist of all and only the characteristics which are shared by all dogs whatsoever. So how do you decide the borderline between wolf and dog? Why isn't a wolf a dog? |
| 11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: There are countless predicates in English that have the appearance of sortal predicates but are purely generic (animal, machine, artefact), or are pure determinables for sortal determination (space-occupier, entity, substance). | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.6) | |
| A reaction: This is preparing the ground for a specification of a sortal which defines something essential as being the hallmark of identity. It is never quite clear to me whether Wiggins's case rests on a nominal or a real essence. |
| 11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: A thing could have a property only if its having the property could be conceived, and that requires some sortal concept which adequately answers the Aristotelian question what the thing is. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [Algebra omitted!] The core idea of Wiggins's theory. It seems at first glance to be a revival of Aristotelian essentialism, but his view of that seems to merely involve falling into a category. He treats sortal concepts as Aristotle's 'primary being'. |
| 16058 | Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria] |
| Full Idea: If two individuals occupied one substance …let one individual (Dion) be thought of as whole-limbed, the other (Theon) as minus one foot. Then let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Theon is the stronger candidate to have perished. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48 | |
| A reaction: [SVF 2.397 - from Chrysippus's lost 'On the Growing Argument'] This is the original of Tibbles the Cat. Dion must persist to change, and then ousts Theon (it seems). Philo protests at Theon ceasing to exist when nothing has happened to him. |
| 14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Wiggins says that coincidence is possible only between objects of different kinds. Trees and cats coincide with aggregates of matter, but never trees with trees or cats with cats. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
| A reaction: At first glance this sounds quite plausible, but I think this commitment to the priority of kinds produces huge confusion, given that we only derive our notions of kinds from inductions derived from individuals. Language perpetuates old inductions. |
| 11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The Pope's crown is made of crowns. There is no definite answer, when the Pope is wearing his crown, to the question 'how many crowns does he have on his head?' | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: A very nice example, in which the identity of the item seems clear enough, until you try to apply a sortal to it. I can't get excited about it, though, because calling it one 'crown' creates uncertainty, but calling it the 'Pope's crown' doesn't. |
| 11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: It can be perfectly determinate which mountain x is without x's extent's being determinate. A mountain is not, after all, something essentially demarcated by its extent or boundary. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: This endorses something I have always wanted to assert ('a vague boundary is still a boundary'), but with the interesting addition that one might think about vagueness in terms of what is essential to a thing. Hm.... |
| 14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Wiggins points out that identity is an atemporal relation whereas composition, like parthood, holds only relative to times. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
| A reaction: If David Cameron is identical to the Prime Minister, that doesn't seem to be atemporal. If x=7 in this problem, I can change x to something else in the next problem. x had better not be equal to 7 and to 9. |
| 11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: If I repair or destroy an item, I do not repair or destroy each part of it (and since each part of a part is a part this would be difficult). | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.6) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a nice refutation of any attempt to claim that a thing is no more than the sum of its parts, but one could analyse the notion of 'destroy', and find it just meant introducing gaps between parts. |
| 11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Let us be realistic, and forget about individual or particularized essences. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the rather weird position you reach if you follow Wiggins's 'modest' essentialism, deriving from a thing merely falling under a sortal, or into a category. What is a natural kind, if its members don't each have a shared essence? |
| 11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Essences of natural things are not fancified vacuities parading themselves ...as the ultimate explanation of everything that happens in the world. They are natures whose possession is a precondition of their owners being divided from the rest of reality. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: Thus Wiggins rejects the explanation account of essence, with an assertion of his own (highly implausible) view that essence is about individuation rather than about behaviour. Individuation strikes me as an entirely human activity, and not 'real'. |
| 11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Wiggins's proposal of a predicate-modifier account is the best formal representation of essential statements. ...This simple version is perfectly adequate to represent the claim that a is essentially-F: □(a exists → a is F). | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Ch.4) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.2 | |
| A reaction: I suppose that is right. Having an essence is a feature of an entity, but it has to boil done to characteristics that define the entity, and which it must presumably always have. Could an entity ever lack its essence? |
| 11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Things being ranked under Names into sorts only as they agree with certain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed the Names, the essence of each sort comes to nothing but that abstract idea which the sortal name stands for. This is the nominal Essence. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], III.iii.15) | |
| A reaction: He contrasts 'nominal essence' with 'real essence'. A key passage for David Wiggins. One shouldn't put too much emphasis on nominal essence, since it means that someone referred to as 'that idiot over there' (you, perhaps) is necessarily an idiot. |
| 16059 | Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley] |
| Full Idea: The Growing Argument said any change of matter is a change of identity. Chrysippus presents it with a case (Dion and Theon) where material diminution is the necessary condition of enduring identity, since the diminished footless Dion survives. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary 28:175 | |
| A reaction: [The example, in Idea 16058, is the original of Tibbles the Cat] This is a lovely bold idea which I haven't met in the modern discussions - that identity actually requires change. The concept of identity is meaningless without change? |
| 11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: If horse-stages made sense at all, it would be easier to go from horses to horse-stages than to go from horse-stages to horses. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 6.9) | |
| A reaction: A nice remark, analogous to 'it is easier to break a vase than to mend it'. Going from horse-stages to horses is the classic difficulty for 'bundle theories' (of objects, or persons): what is it that unites the bundle? |
| 11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Let us remember that the title in question is not the title to the sobriquet 'Theseus' Ship'; it is the title to identity with Theseus' ship, a particular ship originating from the eighth century B.C. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: There is an assumption here that identity is defined by origin. What is the origin of the identity of those huge football clubs that began under the name of some village team in 1875? What is the origin of 'England' as a single entity? |
| 11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: People often speak of identity over time and distinguish it from identity at a time. But identity is just identity. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: I myself am guilty of such usage, but it doesn't imply a commitment to a multivocal concept. The epistemological issues (of explaining what it is now, and simply reidentifying it later) seem profoundly different. Hume only admits identity over time. |
| 11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The simple proof (from Ruth Barcan Marcus) is: Hesperus is necessarily Hesperus, so if Phosphorus is Hesperus, then Phosphorus is necessarily Hesperus. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the famous idea which she noticed well before Kripke. The point is that the simple logic of the case bestows a necessity on the identity. We shouldn't be confused by the a posteriori and contingent nature of the discovery. |
| 11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The formal properties of identity are the reflexivity of identity, and Leibniz's Law (if x is the same as y, then whatever is true of one is true of the other). | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably transitivity will also apply, and, indeed, symmetry. He seems to mean something like the 'axiomatic formal properties'. |
| 14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| Full Idea: Wiggins argues that Geach's Relative Identity is incompatible with the formal properties of identity, which include, besides transitivity, symmetry and reflexivity, the complete community of properties defined by the Indiscernibility of Identicals. | |
| From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.603 | |
| A reaction: The tricky part is that Wiggins then goes on to say that identity depends on sortals, which sounds very close to the Geach view. I find disentangling them tricky. See Idea 14363 for a helpful comment from Strawson. |
| 11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The thesis of Relativity of Identity (which I steadfastly oppose) ..suggests that it makes all the difference to keeping track of continuants through space and time which concept one subsumes something under. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [Geach I take to be the villain of this idea] The point is that identity is entirely relative to the sortal concept, where Wiggins wants to make identity a combination of the object itself and our concept of it (I think). |
| 11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: As a necessary condition of the truth of an identity claim, some common sort f will have to be found to which they each belong. That is the point at which the primary question of identity can come into focus. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the plainest English expression I can find of Wiggins's main thesis. He maintains this thesis, while adamantly denying the idea that identity consists entirely of falling under a concept. |
| 11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Is Leibniz's Law as true for 'is the same as' as it is for '='? | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: [By Leibniz's Law he means if they are the same, they support the same truths] |
| 11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz's Law underwrites the substitutivity of identity and this is a principle not long dispensable in any form of reasoning. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: Thus the modern fashion of deriving our metaphysics from our logic. Presumably we can derive it from our epistemology too, or even from our intuitions, if we thought they were good enough as evidence. |
| 11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Worlds are the shadows of our suppositions and they take on their identity from these. Suppositions take on their identity from (inter alia) the objects they relate to. If they sever themselves from these objects, then they collapse. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.11) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. My picture is of possibilities which are suggested by objecfs in the actual world, with extreme possibilities being at fifth-remove from actuality. Any worlds that go beyond natural possibility are just there for fun. |
| 11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: It is perfectly notorious that not every story corresponds to a possible world. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: Thus a fantasy castle might be decorated with 'beautiful circular squares', or be threatened by a lump of enriched uranium twenty feet in diameter. Wiggins is replying to the claim that a possible world represents a 'story'. |
| 11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The special effectiveness of the 'what is it?' question is that, in the case of continuants, it refers us back to our constantly exercised idea of the persistence and life-span of an entity. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Compare 'this is a human' with 'this is a member of a family noted for its longevity'. We can't simply answer 'what is it?' by tossing it into the nearest category. I say we need an individual essence for explanation, not just a sortal. |
| 1875 | Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: A dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, arriving at a spot where three ways meet, after smelling at two roads by which the quarry did not pass, he rushes off at once by the third without pausing to smell. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.69 | |
| A reaction: As we might say: either A or B or C; not A; not B; therefore C. I wouldn't want to trust this observation without a lot of analysis of slow-motion photography of dogs as crossroads. Even so, it is a nice challenge to Descartes' view of animals. |
| 20834 | Chrysippus allows evil to say it is fated, or even that it is rational and natural [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus gives vice blatant freedom to say not only that it is necessary and according to fate, but even that it occurs according to god's reason and the best nature. | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1050c | |
| A reaction: This is Plutarch's criticism of stoic determinism or fatalism. Zeno replied that the punishment for vice may also be fated. It seems that Chysippus did believe that punishments were too harsh, given that vices are fated [p.109]. |
| 20833 | A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus argues against the 'swerve' of the Epicureans, on the grounds that they are doing violence to nature by positing something which is uncaused, and cites dice or scales, which can't settle differently without some cause or difference. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
| A reaction: That is, the principle of sufficient reason (or of everything having a cause) is derived from observation, not a priori understanding. Pace Leibniz. As in modern discussion, free will or the swerve only occur in our minds, and not elsewhere. |
| 20835 | Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus's accounts of possibility and fate are in conflict. If he is right that 'everything that permits of occurring even if it is not going to occur is possible', then many things are possible which are not according to fate. | |
| From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1055e | |
| A reaction: A palpable hit, I think. Plutarch refers to Chrysippus's rejection of Diodorus Cronus's Master Argument. Fatalism seems to entail that the only future possibilities are the ones that actually occur. |
| 20808 | Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his 'On Fate') that everything happens by fate. Fate is a continuous string of causes of things which exist or a rational principle according to which the cosmos is managed. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.148 |
| 20836 | The Lazy Argument responds to fate with 'why bother?', but the bothering is also fated [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus responded to the Lazy Argument (that the outcome of an illness is fated, so there is no point in calling the doctor) by saying 'calling the doctor is fated just as much as recovering', which he calls 'co-fated'. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 28-30 | |
| A reaction: From a pragmatic point of view, this idea also nullifies fatalism, since you can plausibly fight against your fate to your last breath. No evidence could ever be offered in support of fatalism, not even the most unlikely events. |
| 21679 | When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes? [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Some causes are perfect and principal, others auxiliary and proximate. Hence when we say that everything takes place by fate owing to antecedent causes, what we wish to be understood is not perfect and principal causes but auxiliary and proximate causes. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 18.41 | |
| A reaction: This move is described by Cicero as enabling Chrysippus to 'escape necessity and to retain fate'. |
| 20837 | Fate is an eternal and fixed chain of causal events [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Fate is a sempiternal and unchangeable series and chain of things, rolling and unravelling itself through eternal sequences of cause and effect, of which it is composed and compounded. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.01 | |
| A reaction: It seems that Chrysippus (called by Aulus Gellius 'the chief Stoic philosopher') had a rather grandly rhetorical prose style. |
| 5971 | Destiny is only a predisposing cause, not a sufficient cause [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus considered destiny to be not a cause sufficient of itself but only a predisposing cause. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 997) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1056b | |
| A reaction: This appears to be a rejection of determinism, and is the equivalent of Epicurus' introduction of the 'swerve' in atoms. They had suddenly become bothered about the free will problem in about 305 BCE. There must be other non-destiny causes? |
| 11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: I like this piece of simple common sense. I personally don't think you can reach first base in a sensible discussion if you don't face up to both sides of this idea (especially the second half, which many philosophers, especially of language, neglect). |
| 11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: We can use the Fregean 'concept' on the level of reference and naming, and prefer the word 'conception' for the Kantian idea of the sense, or the information needed to understand the concept. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice suggestion, and at first blush I think it should be adopted. Sometimes philosophers regret adopting a terminology several hundred years after it has been agreed. |
| 20787 | A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65 | |
| A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition. |
| 20850 | Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his On Passions) that the passions are judgements; for greed is a supposition that money is honorable, and similarly for drunkennes and wantonness and others. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.111 | |
| A reaction: This is an endorsement of Socrates's intellectualist reading of weakness of will, as against Aristotle's assigning it to overpowering passions. |
| 20869 | The highest degree of morality performs all that is appropriate, omitting nothing [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: He who makes moral progress to the highest degree performs all the appropriate actions in all circumstances, and omits none. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Sophocles - Sophocles' Electra 4.39.22 | |
| A reaction: Hence concerns about omission as well as commission in the practice of ethics can be seen in the light of character and virtue. The world is fully of nice people who act well, but don't do so well on omissions. Car drivers, for example. |
| 3044 | Stoics say that beauty and goodness are equivalent and linked [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say the beautiful is the only good. Good is an equivalent term to the beautiful; since a thing is good, it is beautiful; and it is beautiful, therefore it is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.59 |
| 20838 | Fate initiates general causes, but individual wills and characters dictate what we do [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The order and reason of fate set in motion the general types and starting points of the causes, but each person's own will [or decisions] and the character of his mind govern the impulses of our thoughts and minds and our very actions. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.11 | |
| A reaction: So if you try and fail it was fate, but if you try and succeed it was you? |
| 20813 | Human purpose is to contemplate and imitate the cosmos [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The human being was born for the sake of contemplating and imitating the cosmos. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37 | |
| A reaction: [This seems to be an idea of Chrysippus] Remind me how to imitate the cosmos. Presumably this is living according to nature, but that becomes more obscure when express like this. |
| 3045 | Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say that justice exists by nature, and not because of any definition or principle. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.66 | |
| A reaction: cf Idea 3024. Stoics thought that nature is intrinsically rational, and therein lies its justice. 'King Lear' enacts this drama about whether nature is just. |
| 20774 | Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: What am I to take as the principle of appropriate action and raw material for virtue if I give up nature and what is according to nature? | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1069e | |
| A reaction: 'Nature' is awfully vague as a guideline, even when we are told nature is rational. I can only make sense of it as 'human nature', which is more Aristotelian than stoic. 'Go with the flow' and 'lay the cards you are dealt' might capture it. |
| 20864 | Live in agreement, according to experience of natural events [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The goal of life is to live in agreement, which is according to experience of the things which happen by nature. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.06a | |
| A reaction: Cleanthes added 'with nature' to Zeno's slogan, and Chyrisppus added this variation. At least it gives you some idea of what the consistent rational principle should be. You still have to assess which aspects of nature should influence us. |
| 5972 | Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: According to Chrysippus, living happily consists solely in living virtuously. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr139) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1060d | |
| A reaction: This, along with 'live according to nature', is the essential doctrine of stoicism. This is 'eudaimonia', not the modern idea of feeling nice. Is it possible to admire another person for anything other than virtue? (Yes! Looks, brains, strength, wealth). |
| 1777 | Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures, and nothing disgraceful is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.60 | |
| A reaction: I certainly approve of the idea that not all pleasure is intrinsically good. Indeed, I think good has probably got nothing to do with pleasure. 'Disgraceful' is hardly objective though. |
| 5973 | Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus thinks that, while justice could not be preserved if one should set up pleasure as the goal, it could be if one should take pleasure to be not a goal but simply a good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 23) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1070d | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting and original contribution to the ancient debate about pleasure. It shows Aristotle's moderate criticism of pleasure (e.g. Idea 84), but attempts to pinpoint where the danger is. Aristotle says it thwarts achievement of the mean. |
| 20845 | There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus (in his On Pleasure) denies even of pleasure that it is a good; for there are also shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.103 | |
| A reaction: Socrates seems to have started this line of the thought, to argue that pleasure is not The Good. Stoics are more puritanical. Nothing counts as good if it is capable of being bad. Thus good pleasures are not good, which sounds odd. |
| 5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus praises ad nauseam the lines "For what need mortals save two things alone,/ Demeter's grain and draughts of water clear". | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1043e | |
| A reaction: "Oh, reason not the need!" says King Lear. The remark shows the close affinity of stoicism and cynicism, as the famous story of Diogenes is that he threw away his drinking cup when he realised you could drink with your hands. |
| 5966 | All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Although deeds done in accordance with virtue are congenial, not all are cited as examples, such as courageously extending one's finger, or continently abstaining from a half-dead old woman, or not immediately agreeing that three is four. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 211), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1038f | |
| A reaction: Presumably the point (so elegantly expressed - what a shame we have lost most of Chrysippus) is that virtue comes in degrees, even though its value is an absolute. The same has been said (by Russell and Bonjour) about self-evidence. |
| 20855 | Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says that virtue can be lost, owing to drunkenness and excess of black bile, whereas Cleanthes says it cannot, because it consists in secure intellectual grasps, and it is worth choosing for its own sake. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.127 | |
| A reaction: Succumbing to drunkenness looks like evidence that you were not truly virtuous. Mental illness is something else. On the whole I agree the Cleanthes. |
| 5970 | Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus has often written on the theme that there is nothing reprehensible or blameworthy in the universe since all things are accomplished in conformity with the best nature. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1051b | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds", but deriving the idea from the rightness of nature rather than the perfection of God. Chrysippus has a more plausible ground than Leibniz, as for him nasty things follow from conscious choice. |
| 20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The rational animal is corrupted, sometimes because of the persuasiveness of external activities and sometimes because of the influence of companions. For the starting points provided by nature are uncorrupted. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.89 | |
| A reaction: If companions corrupt us, what corrupted the companions? Aren't we all in this together? And where do the 'external activities' originate? |
| 20856 | Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in On the Honourable) that justice is natural and not conventional, as are the law and right reason. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.128 | |
| A reaction: How does he explain variations in the law between different states? Presumably some of them have got it wrong. What is the criterion for deciding which laws are natural? |
| 1779 | We don't have obligations to animals as they aren't like us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: We have no obligations of justice to other animals, because they are dissimilar to us. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.66 | |
| A reaction: "Dissimilar" begs questions. Some human beings don't seem much like me. How are we going to treat visiting aliens? |
| 20857 | Justice is irrelevant to animals, because they are too unlike us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: There is no justice between us and other animals because of the dissimilarity between us and them. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.129 | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Justice Bk 1] What would he make of modern revelations about bonobos and chimpanzees? If there is great dissimilarity between some peoples, does that invalidate justice between them? He also said animals exist for our use. |
| 20812 | Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Just as the cover was made for the sake of the shield, and the sheath for the sword, in the same way everything else except the cosmos was made for the sake of other things. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37 | |
| A reaction: Chrysippus was wise to stop at the cosmos. Similarly, religious teleology had better not ask about the purpose of God. What does he think pebbles are for? Nature is the source of stoic value, so it needs to be purposeful. |
| 21403 | The later Stoics identified the logos with an air-fire compound, called 'pneuma' [Chrysippus, by Long] |
| Full Idea: From Chrysippus onwards, the Stoics identified the logos throughout each world-cycle not with pure fire, but with a compound of fire and air, 'pneuma'. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.2 | |
| A reaction: I suspect this was because breath is so vital to the human body. |
| 20828 | Fire is a separate element, not formed with others (as was previously believed) [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: In his theory fire is said independently to be an element, since it is not formed together with another one, whereas according to the earlier theory fire is formed with other elements. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.10.16c | |
| A reaction: The point is that fire precedes the other elements, and is superior to them. |
| 5975 | Stoics say earth, air, fire and water are the primary elements [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The Stoics call the four bodies - earth and water and air and fire - primary elements. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 444) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1085c | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere (fr 413) Chrysippus denies that they are all 'primary'. Essentially, though, he seems to be adopting the doctrine of Empedocles and Aristotle, in specific opposition to Epicurus' atomism. |
| 11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: For all the purposes of identity and individuation of things that belong to natural kinds..., it is enough to have regard for the lawlike propensities of members of the kind. | |
| From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This may have got things in reverse, since it is hard to see how you could pick out any laws if you didn't assume the existence of natural kinds which were causing the regularities in the behaviour. |
| 20819 | The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: When he wished to be subtle, Chrysippus wrote that the past part of time and the future part do not exist but subsist, and only the present exists. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081f | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Void] I think I prefer the ontology of Idea 20818. Idea 20819 does not offer an epistemology. Is the present substantial enough to be known? The word 'subsist' is an ontological evasion (even though Russell briefly relied on it). |
| 20818 | The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Stoics do not allow a minimal time to exist, and do not want to have a partless 'now'; so what one thinks one has grasped as present is in part future and in part past. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081c | |
| A reaction: [from lost On Parts Bk3-5] I agree with the ontology here, but I take our grasp of the present to be very short-term memory of the past. I ignore special relativity. Chrysippus expressed two views about this; in the other one he was a Presentist. |
| 20821 | Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus says most clearly that no time is wholly present; for since the divisibility of continuous things is infinite, time as a whole is also subject to infinite divisibility by this method of division. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: But what is his reason for thinking that time is a continuous thing? There is a minimum time in quantum mechanics (the Planck Time), but do these quantum intervals overlap? Compare Idea 20819. |
| 3048 | Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world; however, he is not the figure of a man, and is the creator of the universe. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.72 |
| 20773 | The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: One can find no other starting point or origin for justice except the one derived from Zeus and that derived from the common nature; for everything like this must have that starting point, if we are going to say anything at all about good and bad things. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c | |
| A reaction: [in lost 'On Gods' bk 3] This appears to offer two starting points, in the mind of Zeus, and in nature, though since nature is presumed to be rational the two may run together. Is Zeus the embodiment, or the unconscious source, or the maker of decrees? |
| 5965 | The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible to discover any other beginning of justice or any source for it other than that from Zeus and from the universal nature. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 326), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c | |
| A reaction: If the source is 'universal nature', that could agree with Plato, but if the source is Zeus, then stoicism is a religion rather than a philosophy. |
| 3042 | Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics teach that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Zeus, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.53 |
| 1782 | Stoics teach that God is a unity, variously known as Mind, or Fate, or Jupiter [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stoics teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many names besides. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.68 |
| 20830 | Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: Death is a separation of soul from body. But nothing incorporeal can be separated from a body. For neither does anything incorporeal touch a body, and the soul touches and is separated from the body. Therefore the soul is not incorporeal. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Tertullian - The Soul as an 'Astral Body' 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This is the classic interaction difficulty for substance dualist theories of mind. |
| 21404 | There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus] |
| Full Idea: The evil which occurs in terrible disasters has a rationale [logos] peculiar to itself: for in a sense it occurs in accordance with universal reason, and is not without usefulness in relation to the whole. For without it there could be no good. | |
| From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.5 | |
| A reaction: [a quotation from Chrysippus. Plutarch, Comm Not 1065b] A nice question about any terrible disaster is whether it is in some way 'useful', if we take a broader view of things. Almost everything has a good aspect, from that perspective. |