106 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? |
7623 | For ancient Greeks being wise was an ethical value [Putnam] |
Full Idea: An ancient Greek would have said that being wise is an ethical value. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: This is instantly appealing, but since the Enlightenment we are under an obligation to attempt to justify absolutely everything, including the value of wisdom. I'm thinking that it only has value if it leads to eudaimonia. |
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. |
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'. |
4714 | Putnam's epistemic notion of truth replaces the realism of correspondence with ontological relativism [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Putnam replaces a correspondence theory of truth with an epistemic notion of truth - truth is idealized rational acceptability. The correspondence theory is committed to realism, but his allows ontological relativism. | |
From: report of Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.3 | |
A reaction: This seems to be part of a slide by Putnam away from realism towards pragmatism. As a robust and defiant realist, this always strikes me as the road to hell. |
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. |
7617 | Before Kant, all philosophers had a correspondence theory of truth [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Before Kant it is impossible to find any philosopher who did not have a correspondence theory of truth. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I don't believe this is true of Descartes. See ideas 2266 and 4298. Truth is 'clear and distinct' conceptions, but if you enlarge (and maybe socialise) 'clear' you get coherent. Descartes firmly avoids correspondence, because he can't trust 'facts'. |
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. |
4716 | The correspondence theory is wrong, because there is no one correspondence between reality and fact [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Putnam argues that theory does not correspond to reality, because there are myriad correspondences possible, and we cannot single out "the" relation of correspondence. | |
From: report of Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.3 | |
A reaction: This obviously depends on views about reference and meaning. I don't see the problem in simple cases, which is all the correspondence theory needs. Complex cases, like chemistry, may well have ambiguities, but so what? |
7616 | Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability; we speak as if there were such things as epistemically ideal conditions, and we call a statement 'true' if it would be justified under such conditions. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: The second part makes human beings sound stupid (which they are not), but the first part is right, and incredibly important. Peirce is behind Putnam's thought. Truth is the target of belief. It isn't a nonsense just because we can't be infallible. |
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. |
14203 | Intension is not meaning, as 'cube' and 'square-faced polyhedron' are intensionally the same [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Intension cannot be identified with meaning. ..'Cube' and 'regular polyhedron with six square faces' are logically equivalent predicates. The intension is the same (the function giving the cubes in any possible world) but there is a difference of meaning. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) |
14207 | If cats equal cherries, model theory allows reinterpretation of the whole language preserving truth [Putnam] |
Full Idea: If the number of cats happens to equal the cherries, then it follows from the theory of models that there is a reinterpretation of the entire language that leaves all sentences unchanged in truth value while permuting the extensions of 'cat' and 'cherry'. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This horrifying result seems to come simply from the fact that there is an isomorphism between two models, which in turn seems to rest largely on the cardinality of the models. There seems to be something wrong with model theory here (?). |
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. |
14214 | If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory' [Putnam, by Lewis] |
Full Idea: If we try to base determinate reference on natural causal connection, Putnam says this is just more theory, as subject as any theory to overabundant, conflicting intended interpretations. | |
From: report of Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) by David Lewis - Putnam's Paradox 'Why Are' | |
A reaction: This is the 1981 Putnam, moving away from the realism that was implicit in the original causal theory of reference developed by himself and Kripke. His 'just more theory' is the slogan of Putnam's later anti-realism. |
14205 | The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree [Putnam] |
Full Idea: The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' can be reinterpreted so that in the actual world 'cat' refers to cherries and 'mat' refers to trees, without affecting the truth-value of the sentence in any possible world. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This simple suggestion is the basis of a notorious argument in favour of anti-realism. See D.Lewis's 'Putnam's Paradox'. It tracks back to Skolem's doubts about whether infinitary mathematics is possible. Putnam's conclusion sounds daft. |
7610 | A fact is simply what it is rational to accept [Putnam] |
Full Idea: I propose that the only criterion for what is a fact is what it is rational to accept. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Pref) | |
A reaction: An epistemological-ontological confusion here. The concept of a fact is of something which is the case quite independently of our criteria for believing it. There are facts which are unknowable for humans. It is, of course, rational to accept facts. |
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 |
7618 | Very nominalistic philosophers deny properties, though scientists accept them [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers are so nominalistic that they would deny the existence of such entities as 'properties' altogether; but science itself does not hesitate to talk freely of properties. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Maybe scientists aren't very good at ontology? They talk about forces and energy, but don't seem to know what they are. I am inclined to think that we must include properties in the working ontology of humans, but not into strict physics. |
14308 | We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford] |
Full Idea: We can bring a real disposition into existence, as in Dennett's case of a piece of cardboard torn in half, so that two strangers can infallibly identify one another. | |
From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], p.376) by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 03.7 n37 | |
A reaction: Presumably human artefacts in general qualify as sets of dispositions which we have created. |
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. |
7384 | Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett] |
Full Idea: We don't need 'essences' or 'criteria' to keep the meaning of our word from sliding all over the place; our words will stay put, quite firmly attached as if by gravity to the nearest similarity cluster. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.2) | |
A reaction: Plausible, but essentialism (which may have been rejuventated by a modern theory of reference in language) is not about language. It is offering an explanation of why there are 'similarity clusters. Organisms are too complex to have pure essences. |
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? |
4718 | If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Putnam endorses the view that necessity is relative to a description, so there is only necessity 'de dicto': relative to language, not to reality. | |
From: report of Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.3 | |
A reaction: Even a realist must take this proposal seriously. The facts may contain de re necessities, but we could be very sceptical about our capacity to know them. Personally I enjoy speculating about de re necessities. They can't stop you. |
7374 | Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett] |
Full Idea: The wavelengths of the light entering the eye are only indirectly related to the colours we see objects to be. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.2) | |
A reaction: This is obviously bad news for naïve realism, but I also take it as good support for the primary/secondary distinction. I just can't make sense of anyone claiming that colour exists anywhere else except in the brain. |
7620 | Some kind of objective 'rightness' is a presupposition of thought itself [Putnam] |
Full Idea: What the relativist fails to see is that it is a presupposition of thought itself that some kind of objective 'rightness' exists. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This may be the key objection to relativism. If you have a frame of reference, is it a good one? If you have a new perspective, is it better than your old one? Is the culture you live in confused or clear-thinking? Jokes and metaphors rely on truth. |
14204 | Naïve operationalism would have meanings change every time the tests change [Putnam] |
Full Idea: On a naïve operationalist account every time a new way of testing whether a substance is really gold is discovered, the meaning and reference of 'gold' undergoes a change. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) |
7369 | Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett] |
Full Idea: All brains are, in essence, anticipation machines. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 7.2) | |
A reaction: This would necessarily, I take it, make them induction machines. So brains will only evolve in a world where induction is possible, which is one where there a lot of immediately apprehensible regularities. |
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. |
7393 | We can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Even in our own case, we cannot draw the line separating our conscious mental states from our unconscious mental states. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.2) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as being a simple and self-evident truth, which anyone working on the brain takes for granted, but an awful lot of philosophers (stuck somewhere in the seventeenth century) can't seem to grasp. |
7367 | Perhaps the brain doesn't 'fill in' gaps in consciousness if no one is looking. [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Perhaps the brain doesn't actually have to go to the trouble of "filling in" anything with "construction" - for no one is looking. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 5.4) | |
A reaction: This a very nice point, because claims that the mind fills in in various psychological visual tests always has the presupposition of a person (or homunculus?) which is overseeing the visual experiences. |
7394 | Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.4) | |
A reaction: This sounds undeniable, so it seems to force a choice between reductive physicalism and mysterianism. Personally I think there must be an explanation in terms of non-conscious events, even if humans are too thick to understand it. |
7391 | We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett] |
Full Idea: There is at least a lot that we can know about what it is like to be a bat, and Nagel has not given us a reason to believe there is anything interesting or theoretically important that is inaccessible to us. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.2) | |
A reaction: I agree. If you really wanted to identify with the phenomenology of bathood, you could spend a lot of time in underground caves whistling with your torch turned off. I can't, of course, be a bat, but then I can't be my self of yesterday. |
7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
Full Idea: "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional states of the brain. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.1) | |
A reaction: 'Dispositional' reveals Dennett's behaviourist roots (he was a pupil of Ryle). Fodor is right that physicalism cannot just hide behind the word "complexity". That said, the combination of complexity and speed might add up to physical 'qualia'. |
7376 | We can't assume that dispositions will remain normal when qualia have been inverted [Dennett] |
Full Idea: The goal of the experiment was to describe a case in which it was obvious that the qualia would be inverted while the reactive dispositions would be normalized. But the assumption that one could just tell is question-begging. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.4) | |
A reaction: It certainly seems simple and plausible that if we inverted our experience of traffic light colours, no difference in driver behaviour would be seen. However, my example, of a conversation in a gallery of abstract art, seems more problematic. |
7372 | In peripheral vision we see objects without their details, so blindsight is not that special [Dennett] |
Full Idea: If a playing card is held in peripheral vision, we can see the card without being able to identify its colours or its shapes. That's normal sight, not blindsight, so we should be reluctant on those grounds to deny visual experience to blindsight subjects. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 11.4) | |
A reaction: This is an important point in Dennett's war against the traditional all-or-nothing view of mental events. Nevertheless, blindsight subjects deny all mental experience, while picking up information, and peripheral vision never seems like that. |
7373 | Blindsight subjects glean very paltry information [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Discussions of blindsight have tended to ignore just how paltry the information is that blindsight subjects glean from their blind fields. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 11.4) | |
A reaction: This is a bit unfair, because blindsight has mainly pointed to interesting speculations (e.g. Idea 2953). Nevertheless, if blindsight with very high information content is actually totally impossible, the speculations ought to be curtailed. |
7385 | People accept blurred boundaries in many things, but insist self is All or Nothing [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Many people are comfortable taking the pragmatic approach to night/day, living/nonliving and mammal/premammal, but get anxious about the same attitude to having a self and not having a self. It must be All or Nothing, and One to a Customer. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.2) | |
A reaction: Personally I think I believe in the existence of the self, but I also agree with Dennett. I greatly admire his campaign against All or Nothing thinking, which is a relic from an earlier age. A partial self could result from infancy or brain damage. |
7383 | The psychological self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Like the biological self, the psychological or narrative self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.1) | |
A reaction: Does Dennett have empirical evidence for this claim? It seems to me perfectly possible that there is a real thing called the 'self', and it is the central controller of the brain (involving propriotreptic awareness, understanding, and will). |
7386 | Selves are not soul-pearls, but artefacts of social processes [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Selves are not independently existing soul-pearls, but artefacts of the social processes that create us, and, like other such artefacts, subject to sudden shifts in status. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.2) | |
A reaction: "Soul-pearls" is a nice phrase for the Cartesian view, but there can something between soul-pearls and social constructs. Personally I think the self is a development of the propriotreptic (body) awareness that even the smallest animals must possess. |
7381 | We tell stories about ourselves, to protect, control and define who we are [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control and self-definition is telling stories, and more particularly concocting and controlling the story we tell others - and ourselves - about who we are. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.1) | |
A reaction: This seems to suggest that there is someone who wants to protect themselves, and who wants to tell the stories, and does tell the stories. No one can deny the existence of this autobiographical element in our own identity. |
7382 | We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them [Dennett] |
Full Idea: The effect of our string of personal narratives is to encourage the audience to (try to) posit a unified agent whose words they are, about whom they are: in short, to posit a centre of narrative gravity. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.1) | |
A reaction: What would be the evolutionary advantage of getting the audience to posit a non-existent self, instead of a complex brain? It might be simpler than that, since we say of a bird "it wants to do x". What is "it"? Some simple thing, like a will. |
7370 | The brain is controlled by shifting coalitions, guided by good purposeful habits [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Who's in charge of the brain? First one coalition and then another, shifting in ways that are not chaotic thanks to good meta-habits that tend to entrain coherent, purposeful sequences rather than an interminable helter-skelter power grab. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 8.1) | |
A reaction: This is probably the best anti-ego account available. Dennett offers our sense of self as a fictional autobiography, but the sense of a single real controller is very powerful. If I jump at a noise, I feel that 'I' have lost control of myself. |
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. |
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 |
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. |
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? |
7379 | If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Psychologists mean a by-product by an 'epiphenomenon', ...but the philosophical meaning is too strong: it yields a concept of no utility whatsoever. Since x has no physical effects (according to the definition), no instrument can detect it. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.5) | |
A reaction: Well said! This has always been my half-formulated intuition about the claim that the mind (or anything) might be totally epiphenomenal. All a thing such as the reflection on a lake can be is irrelevant to the functioning of that specified system. |
7365 | Dualism wallows in mystery, and to accept it is to give up [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Given the way dualism wallows in mystery, accepting dualism is giving up. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 2.4) | |
A reaction: Some things, of course, might be inherently mysterious to us, and we might as well give up. The big dualist mystery is the explanation of how such different substances can interact. How do two physical substances manage to interact? |
7371 | All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett] |
Full Idea: All varieties of functionalism can be viewed as 'homuncular' functionalism of one grain size or another. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 9.2) | |
A reaction: This seems right, as any huge and complex mechanism (like a moon rocket) will be made up of some main systems, then sub-systems, then sub-sub-sub.... This assumes that there are one or two overarching purposes, which there are in people. |
7366 | It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett] |
Full Idea: If one wants to settle on some moment of processing in the brain as the moment of consciousness, this has to be arbitrary. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Seems eliminativist, as it implies that all that is really going on is 'processing'. But there are two senses of 'arbitrary' - that calling it consciousness is arbitrary (wrong), or thinking that mind doesn't move abruptly into consciousness (right). |
7380 | Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett] |
Full Idea: All visual experience is composed of activities of neural circuits whose very activity is innately pleasing to us. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.6) | |
A reaction: This is the nearest I can find to Dennett saying something eliminativist. It seems to beg the question of who 'us' refers to, and what is being pleased, and how it is 'pleased' by these neural circuits. The Hard Question? |
7611 | Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Our notion of rationality is, at bottom, just one part of our conception of human flourishing, our idea of the good. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Pref) | |
A reaction: This looks like the beginnings of virtue epistemology, since rationality will have criteria, which would seem to be virtues. I find this idea appealing, both as a view of rationality, and as a view of the human good. |
14200 | 'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this [Putnam] |
Full Idea: The word 'water' used on Twin Earth refers not to water but to this other liquid (XYZ). Yet there is no relevant difference in the mental state of Twin Earth speakers and speakers on Earth (in 1750) to account for this difference of reference. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: In this world, if you and I separately meet twins, and I think about this twin while you think about that one, our mental states are different even if they are indistinguishable. I know I'm thinking about my twin, not yours. Indexicals. |
7612 | Reference is social not individual, because we defer to experts when referring to elm trees [Putnam] |
Full Idea: My concept of an elm tree is exactly the same as my concept of a beech tree (I blush to confess), which shows that the determination of reference is social and not individual - both you and I defer to experts who can tell elms from beeches. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: If I said 'that tree looks nice' I wouldn't be deferring to experts. Nor if I said 'that tree, which I take to be an elm, looks nice'. If I am an expert I don't defer to experts. |
7613 | Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This seems to be building on the idea that meaning is use, and also arises from a background of pragmatism. Perhaps a concept is an acquaintance with a node in platonic space? Lots of abilities aren't concepts, so what distinguishes the concepts? |
14202 | Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Mental state (in either the individualistic or the collective sense) does not fix reference. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: The idea that communities fix reference seems to me plausible. See Tyler Burge on this. |
14201 | Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term [Putnam] |
Full Idea: One might concede that the reference of a person's term isn't fixed by his individual mental state, but insist that the total mental state of all the members of the language community fixes the reference of the term. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I like this reading of the problem, though Putnam himself prefers to say that things fix the reference. I take reference to be a human action, not a natural causal relation. Animals connecting thought to object may not count as reference at all. |
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. |
14206 | There are infinitely many interpretations of a sentence which can all seem to be 'correct' [Putnam] |
Full Idea: There are always infinitely many different interpretations of the predicates of a language which assign 'correct' truth-values to the sentences in all possible worlds, no matter how those 'correct' truth-values are singled out. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Putnam says that he is using this argument from model theory to endorse the scepticism about 'gavagai' that Quine expressed in 1960. It is based on the ideas of Skolem, who was a renegade philosopher of mathematics. See Tim Button. |
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. |
7624 | The word 'inconsiderate' nicely shows the blurring of facts and values [Putnam] |
Full Idea: The use of the word 'inconsiderate' seems to me a very fine example of the way in which the fact/value distinction is hopelessly fuzzy in the real world and in the real language. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) | |
A reaction: Interesting, but not much of an argument. What would Nietzsche say? Was Agamemnon morally deficient because we might think him 'inconsiderate'? |
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. |
7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
Full Idea: In the beginning there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing had so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all. The explanation is simple: there was nothing that had interests. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 7.2) | |
A reaction: It seems reasonable to talk of functions even if the fledgling 'interests' are unconscious, as in a leaf. Is a process leading to an end an 'interest'? What are the 'interests' of a person who is about to commit suicide? |
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. |
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? |
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 |
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. |
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. |