5 ideas
291 | Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age [Plato] |
Full Idea: Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age. | |
From: Plato (Laches [c.381 BCE], 188b) | |
A reaction: I have taught teenagers who seemed to me wiser than nearly all the adults I have ever met. |
18431 | Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards] |
Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes. | |
From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5 | |
A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials? |
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 |
293 | Being unafraid (perhaps through ignorance) and being brave are two different things [Plato] |
Full Idea: To be unafraid (like a small child who doesn't understand the danger) and to be brave are two quite different things. | |
From: Plato (Laches [c.381 BCE], 197b) |
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 |