4 ideas
3449 | If parallelism is true, how does the mind know about the body? [Crease] |
Full Idea: In parallelism, the idea that we have a body is like an astronaut hearing shouting on the moon, and reasoning that as this is impossible he must be simultaneously imagining shouting AND there is real shouting taking place! | |
From: Jason Crease (works [2001]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: This seems to capture the absurdity of Leibniz's proposal. I experience what my brain is doing, but not because my brain is doing it. I would never know if God had made a slight error in setting His two 'clocks'; their accuracy is just a pious hope. |
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 |
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 |
16714 | The state should kill blasphemous heretics [Erasmus] |
Full Idea: It is necessary for the preservation of the state to kill heretics that are blasphemous and seditious. | |
From: Desiderius Erasmus (works [1506]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.2 | |
A reaction: He was much more tolerant of heretics who kept quiet. |