38 ideas
| 162 | Can we understand an individual soul without knowing the soul in general? [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Do you think it possible to form an adequate conception of the nature of an individual soul without considering the nature of soul in general? | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 270c) | |
| A reaction: Do animals understand anything (as opposed to simply being aware of things)? |
| 160 | The highest ability in man is the ability to discuss unity and plurality in the nature of things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: When I believe that I have found in anyone the ability to discuss unity and plurality as they exist in the nature of things, I follow his footsteps as if he was a god. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 266b) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the problem of identity, which is at the heart of modern metaphysics. |
| 166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
| Full Idea: A speaker must be able to define a subject generically, and then to divide it into its various specific kinds until he reaches the limits of divisibility. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 277b) |
| 7953 | Reasoning needs to cut nature accurately at the joints [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In our reasoning we need a clear view of the ability to divide a genus into species, observing the natural joints, not mangling any of the parts, like an unskilful butcher. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 265d) | |
| A reaction: In modern times this Platonic idea has become the standard metaphor for realism. I endorse it. I think nature has joints, and we should hunt for them. There are natural sets. The joints may exist in abstract concepts, as well as in objects. |
| 16121 | I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If I believe that someone is capable of discerning a single thing that is also by nature capable of encompassing many, I follow 'straight behind, in his footsteps, as if he were a god'. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 266b) | |
| A reaction: [Plato quote Odyssey 2.406] This is the sort of simple but profound general observation which only the early philosophers bothered to make, and no one comments on now. Encompassing many under one is the very essence of thinking. |
| 13076 | Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1) | |
| A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata? |
| 153 | It takes a person to understand, by using universals, and by using reason to create a unity out of sense-impressions [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It takes a man to understand by the use of universals, and to collect out of the multiplicity of sense-impressions a unity arrived at by a process of reason. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 249b) |
| 154 | We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato] |
| Full Idea: What overpowering love knowledge would inspire if it could bring a clear image of itself before our sight, and the same may be said of the other forms. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 250d) | |
| A reaction: the motivation in Plato's theory |
| 13102 | If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?' | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
| A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place. |
| 13103 | Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job. |
| 13104 | Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4) | |
| A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity? |
| 13100 | Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously. |
| 13068 | We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance? | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1) | |
| A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence. |
| 13069 | The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open. |
| 13072 | Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties. |
| 17080 | Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates. |
| 13101 | Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
| A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant). |
| 13081 | Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46) | |
| A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is! |
| 21912 | Fichte, Schelling and Hegel rejected transcendental idealism [Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel were united in their opposition to Kant's Transcendental Idealism. | |
| From: Peter B. Lewis (Schopenhauer [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: That is, they preferred genuine idealism, to the mere idealist attitude Kant felt that we are forced to adopt. |
| 21911 | Fichte, Hegel and Schelling developed versions of Absolute Idealism [Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: At the University of Jena, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling critically developed aspects of Kant's philosophy, each in his own way, thereby giving rise to the movement known as Absolute Idealism, see reality as universal God-like self-consciousness. | |
| From: Peter B. Lewis (Schopenhauer [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: Is asking how anyone can possibly have believed such a bizarre and ridiculous idea a) uneducated, b) stupid, c) unimaginative, or d) very sensible? It sounds awfully like Spinoza's concept of God. Also Anaxagoras. |
| 151 | True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato] |
| Full Idea: True knowledge is concerned with the abode of true reality, without colour or shape, intangible but utterly real, apprehensible only to the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 247c) |
| 165 | If the apparent facts strongly conflict with probability, it is in everyone's interests to suppress the facts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There are some occasions when both prosecution and defence should positively suppress the facts in favour of probability, if the facts are improbable. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 272e) |
| 13071 | We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships. | |
| From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view. |
| 9296 | The soul is self-motion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Self-motion is of the very nature of the soul. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245e) | |
| A reaction: This culminates a length discussion of the soul. He gives an implausible argument that the soul is immortal, because it could never cease its self-motion. Why are we so unimpressed by motion, when the Greeks were amazed by it? |
| 23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Plato had a conception of the emotions and our bodily appetites as being like wild horses, to be harnassed and controlled by reason. | |
| From: report of Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE]) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Education' | |
| A reaction: This seems to make Plato the patriarch of puritanism. See Symposium, as well as Phaedrus. But bringing up children can often seem like taming wild beasts. |
| 158 | An excellent speech seems to imply a knowledge of the truth in the mind of the speaker [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a speech is to be classed as excellent, does that not presuppose knowledge of the truth about the subject of the speech in the mind of the speaker. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 259e) | |
| A reaction: I like the thought that Plato's main interest was rhetoric, but with the view that the only good rhetoric is truth-speaking. It would be hard to admire a speech if you disagreed with it. |
| 5946 | 'Phaedrus' pioneers the notion of philosophical rhetoric [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The purpose of the 'Phaedrus' is to pioneer the notion of philosophical rhetoric. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], Ch.10) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Plato's Republic and Greek Enlightenment | |
| A reaction: This is a wonderfully challenging view of what Plato was up to. One might connect it with Rorty's claim that philosophy should move away from epistemology and analysis, towards hermeneutics, which sounds to me like rhetoric. 'Phaedrus' is beautiful. |
| 159 | Only a good philosopher can be a good speaker [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless a man becomes an adequate philosopher he will never be an adequate speaker on any subject. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 261a) | |
| A reaction: Depends. Hitler showed little sign of clear philosophical thinking, but the addition of lights and uniforms seemed to sweep reasonably intelligent people along with him. |
| 155 | Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only beauty has the privilege of being the most clearly discerned and the most lovely of the forms. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 250e) | |
| A reaction: the motivation in Plato's theory |
| 143 | The two ruling human principles are the natural desire for pleasure, and an acquired love of virtue [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In each one of us there are two ruling and impelling principles: a desire for pleasure, which is innate, and an acquired conviction which causes us to aim at excellence. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 237d) | |
| A reaction: This division is too neat and simple. An obsession with pleasure I would take to be acquired. If you set out to do something, I think there is an innate desire to do it well. |
| 157 | Most pleasure is release from pain, and is therefore not worthwhile [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Life is not worth living for pleasures whose enjoyment entirely depends on previous sensation of pain, like almost all physical pleasures. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 258e) | |
| A reaction: Eating exotic food which is hard to obtain? (Pay someone to obtain it). Rock climbing. Training for sport. |
| 144 | Reason impels us towards excellence, which teaches us self-control [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The conviction which impels us towards excellence is rational, and the power by which it masters us we call self-control. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 237e) |
| 156 | Bad people are never really friends with one another [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is not ordained that bad men should be friends with one another. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 255b) |
| 148 | If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245d) | |
| A reaction: This is the essence of Aquinas's Third Way of proving God's existence. |
| 152 | The mind of God is fully satisfied and happy with a vision of reality and truth [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The mind of a god, sustained by pure intelligence and knowledge, is satisfied with the vision of reality, and nourished and made happy by the vision of truth. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 247d) |
| 150 | We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Because we have never seen or formed an adequate idea of a god, we picture him to ourselves as a being of the same kind as ourselves but immortal. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 246d) |
| 149 | There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There is not a single sound reason for positing the existence of such a being who is immortal | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 246d) |
| 146 | Soul is always in motion, so it must be self-moving and immortal [Plato] |
| Full Idea: All soul is immortal, for what is always in motion is immortal. Only that which moves itself never ceases to be in motion. | |
| From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245c) |