Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Algebra of Logic' and 'fragments/reports'

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4 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
14303 Truth-functional conditionals have a simple falsification, when A is true and B is false [Peirce]
     Full Idea: The utility of [truth-functional conditionals] is that it puts us in possession of a rule...[namely] The hypothetical proposition may be ...falsified by a single state of things, but only by one in which A [antecedent] is true and B [consequent] is false.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (On the Algebra of Logic [1895], p.218), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions
     A reaction: Personally I am rather more interested in verifying conditionals than in falsifying them. I certainly don't accept them until they are falsified, unless they have massive support from surrounding facts.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character
541 Virtue comes more from habit than character [Critias]
     Full Idea: More men are good through habit than through character.
     From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B09), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.29.41
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
6004 The cardinal virtues are theoretical (based on knowledge), and others are 'non-theoretical' [Hecato, by Dorandi]
     Full Idea: Hecato defined the cardinal virtues as 'theoretical', that is, based on knowledge, and to these he opposed those that are 'non-theoretical', for example, health, beauty, strength of spirit, and courage.
     From: report of Hecato (fragments/reports [c.70 BCE]) by Tiziano Dorandi - Hecato of Rhodes
     A reaction: Mostly these are Aristotle's external and non-external virtues, except that courage is here included among the former, implying, presumably, that it is more of a natural gift than an intellectual achievement.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
542 Fear of the gods was invented to discourage secret sin [Critias]
     Full Idea: When the laws forbade men to commit open crimes of violence, and they began to do them in secret, a wise and clever man invented fear of the gods for mortals, to frighten the wicked, even if they sin in secret.
     From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B25), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 9.54